CC#25--What's Your Worldview? The Most Important Questions to Ask Yourself

What is our worldview and how does it shape how we live? Let's talk about it.

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to this Theory to Action podcast and to this Catholic Corner. Now, the Catholic Corner is our attempt, which we started roughly about a year ago, and it's to remind us to live our biblical worldview and practice our faith despite any ever increasing secular culture and certainly the end and the romance of Christendom which we talked about on our last Catholic Corner. Now, as for the corner aspect, many of us Christians and Catholic Christians have been putting our faith for too long, our faith and our values for too long in the corner, so to speak, not speaking out about the things that matter to us and to our faith, essentially putting our faith in the corner as if it's a decorative piece only to be shared with people when they come over to our house or such. Essentially, we have not been walking the walk and sometimes have not been talking the talk. Therefore, we started these Catholic Corner episodes to remind us, to get our faith out of the corner. We have to live that faith, we have to talk about that faith and we have to walk with our Lord, jesus Christ and people of goodwill to make a better society here and, ultimately, to be a people on mission, and that mission is to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone with ears to hear and eyes to see. So with that, many commercial out of the way, let's get on to our topic and our book of the day, because we often talk about worldviews here at the Mojo Academy, and especially in these Catholic corners, and how important it is to have a good worldview. Now let's define what it means to have a good worldview. In fact, what is a worldview in general? Well, dictionarycom tells us worldview is a comprehensive conception or philosophy of the universe and of humanities relation to it. By examining certain foundational elements, we can unpack the concepts that dictate each individual's worldview. Ah, all right, that's a good start. Now let's see what dictionarycom tells us about our next question what is a biblical worldview? Well, after a lot of typing, it does not offer anything on that question and I kind of assumed that. But let's just say a biblical worldview is. We tackle the biggest and the most important questions about life from the teachings of the Bible. Now, our author in today's Catholic Corner says that if Catholic Christians don't get this biblical worldview definition right, then the Christian faith is often experienced as a mere set of roles and disciplines and, furthermore, simply going to church isn't likely to lead you or any person on the great adventure that is following our Lord, jesus Christ, and to continue his mission, and his mission is rescuing people of this world. Now, let's face it most Christians no longer attend church with any formal regularity. So we have our work cut out for us Now. Our author today is Father John Ricardo. Now, father John Ricardo is a missionary and the Acts 23 Executive Director, and he was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1996. So he's roughly about my age. In 2019, after 23 years in parish ministry, he founded Acts 23 to proclaim the gospel in an attractive and compelling way and to equip clergy and lay leaders for the age in which God has chosen us to live Now. Unfortunately, father John is a graduate of the University of Michigan and, as a Ohio State Buckeye fan and a marginal Notre Dame fan, I have to say I'm sorry, father John. He's also a graduate of the Gregorian University in Rome and the Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on the Marriage and Family In today's book that we're going to be reviewing is called Rescue the Unexpected and Extraordinary News of the Gospel. It was written in 2020. It's short, at 177 pages. It's practical. And if we don't need a further endorsement for Father John's resume, we have the great biblical scholar and author of literally over 20 books, scott Hahn, who wrote the forward to this book. And actually I just heard Scott Hahn this past weekend share his. He gave a talk all about the Eucharist and the Holy Mass, which was very, very compelling. As always, scott Hahn always brings it Now. Scott Hahn wrote the forward to this book. So let's grab a quick poll quote from Dr Hahn to set the stage for our review. Once upon a time we all believed our lives to be part of a larger story. It's a natural thing. When I tell the story of how my life, I see a narrative arc with clear high points and low points. I see cumulative development, emotional, intellectual and physical growth. I assumed that I came from somewhere specifically than I am going somewhere, that I have a goal, though I glimpse it only dimly. Civilizations also have stories. They need stories. Caesar Augustus knew this, so he hired the greatest poet of his time to write a backstory, a grand narrative. If Rome were to replace Greece as the world's dominant power, it needed an epic poem that could stain alongside the Iliad and the Odyssey. So Virgil produced the Aeneid. Educated Greeks and Romans knew that these backstories were largely fictional. The myths made no corresponding demands on people's everyday lives. They proposed virtues such as patriotism and fortitude, but they enshrined no morals. Biblical religion was essentially different from this. It described its story not merely to human poets, but to a God who is a creator, redeemer, lawmaker, judge, king and guide. For Jews and Christians, the great story encompassed both the civilizational and the personal. It narrated the history of the people and the person, and they believed it to be history, indeed history that could be confirmed by the documents and monuments of the world. If they saw allegory in the biblical story, they saw it not merely in the words, but in the vents. The words describe God writes the way human authors write words, and he composes creation and history to be a revelation of his life. Yes, storytelling just by itself is super important. Just as Scott tells us, civilizations need stories and nations need stories, and God's story is still unfolding. God's history is in fact his story, the big story. Now, later on, scott recognizes that Father John Ricardo has hit the nail on the head with his book by saying and let's go back to the book to grab this. Father John Ricardo understands this deep human need and he recognizes that we live in a moment when every proposed alternative narrative is falling apart. Democracy and science can be good and great things as far as they go, but they cannot save us. Their horizons are limited, they cannot supply us with a moral code. They are more over dependent on metaphysical assumptions that they cannot account for. And then he ends with this this book provides the simple account that's needed right now. The new evangelization heralded by Pope since St Paul the sixth can go forward only by grace, but only in so far as we can tell our story in a compelling way. Father Ricardo does this. He distills the biblical narrative in a way that is simple but not simplistic. He implies the richness of Catholic tradition, which includes all the relevant sciences, and he sets up a conversation that can lead to a robust engagement of modern culture. We live at a moment when all other monuments are falling. We live in a time when so many other ancient documents, alas, are going unread or actually being banned for their civilizational associations and some senses. This is a disaster to be mourned. At the same time, we must see it as an opportunity to be embraced. We have been created for this moment and called for this moment, so we will be empowered for this moment. Our story is the story of Jesus Christ. It is a story that encompasses all others and surpasses all others. It is a monument that will stand when all others have fallen. It is a narrative that will hold together when all others have unraveled. It is the story told in the pages of this book and I pray it will be retold by the readers of this book. That is so good Scott Hahn is always so good but he says ancient documents are going unread, monuments are falling all over the place and we know, in the end of all of this, god's story, god's monument, it's going to unfold the way he wants it to. He is sovereign and he is Lord, and God's monument will be there, at the end standing and in the end, god's narrative will always hold together, whether we want it to or not. After all, he's the creator and we are the creatures. So, with that great forward by Scott Hahn, it sets the stage and it brings us to the beginning of this book, and Father Ricardo starts out by asking three simple but direct and, most importantly, the essential questions. The essential questions that we think are vital at the Mojo Academy, that we need to answer why am I here, where am I going and how do I get there? Now, these are among the most fundamental questions we can ask ourselves about life. In addition to these, we think there should be one more question that Father John may have missed, but we can certainly include it here. We should ask ourselves who am I Now? We won't answer that question today. We eventually will. We're in a table that question for today, but we're going to start answering those other questions today in the beginning, to reawaken for some of us and actually for some of us, to learn for the first time, know what does it mean to have a biblical worldview? You know, our church, the Christian church, for the last 50 to 75 years hasn't done a good job of explaining this. We're, for that matter, teaching this. So and this is both the the the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church it's most especially true I know of, as as the Catholic Christian, and we see this in our American culture all over the place. So for the last 50 to 75 years, we just have not been teaching what a biblical worldview is, and we see this in our American culture now Some, like I said, 50 to 75 years later, we can see the lack of that teaching downstream and what we're seeing, with our civilization completely breaking down and Nobody having a reference point of anything. So, with that all being said, let's go to our first polka, because Father Ricardo starts us off. Well, now, it's a long series of paragraphs, so hang in there with me, but I think it's super important we build this foundation. When I was at the University of Michigan, I took a class in mythology. I love that class, but I didn't love hearing the professor assert that all ancient cultures have creation stories that are essentially the same. I Assure you that assertion is absolute rubbish. No other myth has anything like the creation stories that are found in the first two chapters of Genesis. They are. There are many strikingly different stories of creation in the near Eastern ancient myths, but in general, their attempt to address the question of why is there something rather than nothing Looks roughly something like this there are many gods. These gods aren't even in control. They are subject to something greater, often called some version of the quote, the fates. These gods are violent, lustful, greedy and capricious. The gods create men to be slaves so that they can rest. Women have no dignity and were created solely for childbearing and man's sexual pleasure. Now these creation myths present gods who act well, just like us. They're greedy, lustful, spiteful, angry and constantly at war with each other. They're awful and obvious projections of human beings. A Certain point in these creation stories the gods created man to be a slave. Since the gods were always looking on the lookout for a leisure, they wanted somebody to take on their labor, leaving them free to loaf, act on their lust or just hang out. Women regarded as utterly Mentally and physically inferior. They existed only for reproduction and male pleasure, with no evidence of their dignity as human beings. The dominating worldview, as well as the conclusion of such myths, is that human, we human beings, have no inherent dignity. How could we? When the creator is eclipse, the creature loses all intrinsic dignity. If we were, incidentally, created by the gods to be play things, those gods will pay attention only to us when they feel the urge to be entertained, as a child might view ants on a sidewalk through a magnifying glass. Imagine that world. You came from nowhere, you're going nowhere and your daily is scuttling about doing the work you've been programmed to do. There's no ultimate purpose to marriage or family or sexuality. There's not even a purpose in the work You're doing. You're just like that ant, fulfilling your duties in the colony and only occasionally being noticed by the gods, who find your endless labor amusing. What reigns in the world like that? Despair, meaninglessness, hopelessness. Does our current world look like that? Despair, meaninglessness, hopelessness you bet it does. Does our current world give off the vibe that everybody is without hope, that they're suffering on the verge of despair? Their lives are lacking any sort of meeting? In the United States, we're seeing civilization breakdown before our very eyes. In our major cities, you Even in our rural towns and villages, epidemics are hammering the countryside the opioid epidemic, the financial inequality epidemic. Towns are hollowing out, no matter what measure you look at, no matter what polling you look at. Our churches, our cathedrals have dramatic decreases in attendance. And all this was happening before the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that pandemic is just hammering all these disasters even more. When the answers to the questions why am I here, where am I going? Are no reason and nowhere, creatures stop asking the next meaningful question how do I get there? That's not a relevant question when you're on the train to nowhere, in a world that lacks all meaning. So what do you do? How do you live? What you minimize pain and maximize pleasure. If you're going to live by the rules of reality, you've been handed that, nothing really matters. You exploit other people and they exploit you. As everyone pursues the most pleasurable existence possible, it's every man for himself. Why waste your time with kindness, integrity and being good If you're not going anywhere? There's no consequences beyond this finite world, so the goal becomes enjoy yourself. Sound familiar? That's the ancient world that I've been describing and I would argue it's the worldview that dominates our culture today. When the Creator is eclipsed, the creature is made in his image and likeness. I'm sorry. When the Creator is eclipsed, the creature that is made in his image and likeness loses all intrinsic dignity. In other words, if society decides God doesn't exist, human life has no meaning. In contrast to that bleakness, consider the worldview presented in the book of Genesis. There is only one God. He is good, he is complete. He needs nothing outside of himself. God created everything out of nothing, freely, effortlessly and generously. Everything he created was made out of love. Everything that God created is good, and he tells us that repeatedly. The highlight of everything God created is the human person made in his image and likeness. Man and women are created absolutely equal in dignity. Only together do they fully reflect God's image. The end, the purpose and the reason every human being, every human person, was created, is to be divinized. I'm sorry, divinized, I'm sorry, divinized, whoa. God is good. Everything he made is good. Man and woman are made in his image and they are good. Everything was made out of love. Wow, is that a totally different way of looking at the world? Let's keep going and highlight four different points that Father John Ricardo emphasizes. What a stark contrast to the near ancient Eastern worldviews, in which the gods created man to be a slave. In the biblical worldview, humans are created in God's own image and likeness. What in the world does that mean? Let's unpack that. First, it means that all creatures, all creatures, rather man is somehow able to, meant to represent God on earth. This doesn't refer to a bodily representation, that we look like God or that he looks like us. It means that the person is somehow supposed to make God present on earth. That is the vocation of the human being. Second, god commissioned man to exercise dominion over the earth. This is sometimes misinterpreted to mean domination over or exploitation of the earth. But that's wrong. Dominion means we are stewards of all of creation and trusted with the responsibility of caring for the earth. Third, to be made in the image and likeness of God, who is the inventor of reason, means that we too have the capacity for reason. This is a vital point. Jesus, through his church, wants us to grow not only in faith but in reason. Our culture often divides people into two categories. On the one hand are people who are intelligent, logical and reasonable, and on the other hand are the silly, uneducated, unreasonable people of faith. But to have faith is not to be naive or illogical. After all, the church was at the forefront of the establishment of the universities and higher education. The church has always believed that the more we employ intellect and reason, the more we can learn about God, who is revealed in countless ways in his creation. The reasonable way, however, to approach the crucial issues is to learn and examine the various sides of arguments, take time for discernment and then allow the truth, not feelings, to lead us forward. Fourth, being made in the image and likeness of God means that we have a capacity for freedom. Human beings are free in the way that no other creature on earth is. Animals don't have freedom. They operate from instinct. A dog can't be disobedient. You can take him to obedient school, but the lessons don't endow the dog with free will. They simply retrain an instinct in him. We have instincts too, but we don't have to act on them. We have both the intellectual and the free will to make an informed choice. We can feel extraordinarily annoyed by something or someone, but we have the power to put on a polite face and interact in civilized ways. We might get enraged and in the midst of that anger, think I'd like to kill that guy, but we don't act on it, or we don't have to act on those feelings and our most base instincts. Human beings have the freedom to determine what is right and then act on it. Humans and angels are the only creatures who have that capacity to choose obedience or disobedience to God. Wow, are you getting a sense that this different viewpoint is not what our world is supposed to be? God's love for truth and beauty, which is written into our bodies and into our souls and which many people can feel that is an echo in their heart of hearts, is missing in this world. Now one last point on this goodness. Let's go back to the book. Male and female. He created them. Genesis 127 reads, quote so God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him Male and female. He created them. If I were standing in front of you delivering a talk right now, this is one of those moments when I'd say Listen up. This is huge. I could write a whole chapter on this particular truth revealed in Genesis, but for now, let's focus on this. Neither males nor females exhaust what it means to be human. None of us on our own can fully encompass what it means to be, what it means to image God. It is only together that man and woman image God. Man and woman, though different and distinct, are equal in dignity and worth, like everything else God created. That's good. The ultimate foundation for this is the Trinity, another topic worthy of its own book, because God is three persons Father, son and Holy Spirit. They are equal and yet distinct persons In the same way. We're all made in God's image and likeness. Therefore, we are equal, male and female. He created them, but distinct. Either one is better than the other. We are simply different. But there's a problem with that. Since the fall of humanity in the garden, our world has often been governed and normed by not just men, to the exclusion of women, but by bad men, deformed men who don't understand what it means to be human. Seeing the success of these men, women have sometimes imitated men behaving badly and, as a result, things are more than a bit messed up. The point of life is not to amass money, power and pleasure, all while exploiting everyone in our path. The purpose of life is to be loved and to love. Nothing else will ultimately satisfy us. We desperately need healed men and women to bring their unique perspectives into our messed up situation. And boy, a messed up situation it is. But getting the biblical worldview right in the beginning helps us to see the world in a much different light. And seeing that different light allows us to see God's wholesome, authentic and genuine love for us, each one of us. And all this comes to us from just Part 1 of this book by Father John Ricardo Rescue, the Unexpected in Extraordinary Good News of the Gospel. So, in summary, god is more powerful than anything we can comprehend. Real happiness means to be loved and to love. There is one God he freely chose to create. Everything he made is good. He created you and me. He loves us beyond our wildest dreams. Understanding God's nature will lead us to wonder and to trust, and this is super powerful because our world desperately needs it Now. In addition to this book, father John Ricardo also runs something called the Rescue Project. It's an eight week, nine episode course. It's free of charge and it breaks down some of these elements in his book, and I'll put a link in the show notes for this. It's well worth your time to check out. Each episode is roughly 45 minutes. I would urge you to check out the first episode because it will capture your attention. It's super compelling. And finally, I would urge you to at least pick up this book Again. The title is Rescue the Unexpected in Extraordinary Good News of the Gospel by Father John Ricardo. We have to learn and develop our worldview. As Catholic Christians, we have to understand who is our leader, jesus Christ. We have to share this good news with our fallen and ever darkening world, because the bad news is very bad news. In fact, it's extremely horrific news. So we have to be a people on a mission. One of the very last lines of this book is this quote Jesus Christ is the answer to every human ill and the solution to every human problem. We should pray about that, we should think about that, we should meditate on that statement alone. That is a mission statement all by itself. Jesus Christ is the answer to every human ill and the solution to every human problem. Our world is in need of rescuing you and I, we, we have to begin that mission today, and developing and learning our biblical worldview is vitally important to that mission, because it's our story. In fact, it's his story that we are part of, and our Lord is waiting on us. His love is waiting on us, so let's roll.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.