Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas [Paperback]

Ronald H. Nash (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 1992

This world is a battlefield in the arena of ideas. The prize is the heart and mind of humankind. In this book, Ronald Nash outlines the Christian way of looking at God, self, and the world. He holds that worldview up against the tests of reason, logic, and experience, particularly discussing the problems of evil and the alleged 'nonsense' of the historic Christian doctrines and of Jesus' incarnation and resurrection. He finds the Christian worldview sound and urges Christians to equip themselves intellectually to defend the faith on that battlefield. He particularly hits the attractions to our generation of naturalism and the New Age movement, pointing out their weaknesses and pitfalls as well as those of older worldviews. 'Christian theism,' he writes, 'is a system that commends itself to the whole person'; but he stresses that a great difference exists between 'belief that' and 'belief in.'

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Ronald H. Nash is professor of philosophy and theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He is the author or editor of many books, including Faith and Reason and Is Jesus the Only Savior

From the Back Cover

This world is a battlefield in the arena of ideas. The prize is the heart and mind of humankind. In this book, Ronald Nash outlines the Christian way of looking at God, self, and the world. He holds that worldview up against the tests of reason, logic, and experience, particularly discussing the problems of evil and the alleged "nonsense" of the historic Christian doctrines and of Jesus' incarnation and resurrection. He finds the Christian worldview sound and urges Christians to equip themselves intellectually to defend the faith on that battlefield. He particularly hits the attractions to our generation of naturalism and the New Age movement, pointing out their weaknesses and pitfalls as well as those of older worldviews. "Christian theism," he writes, "is a system that commends itself to the whole person"; but he stresses that a great difference exists between "belief that" and "belief in."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (August 10, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310577713
• ISBN-13: 978-0310577713
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #78,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Treatment of a Difficult Topic, July 5, 2001

By 

J. F Foster - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas (Paperback)

This is an excellent book. Ron Nash does a very good job of building up a philosophical apologetic for how to evaluate worldviews/religions/belief systems, and then make comparisons in a meaningful way. There are several things worth noting about this book that are in its favor.

Nash starts out by building up a series of 'tests' upon which all worldviews can be evaluated. This is the most important part of the book. Without a standard set of tests that can be applied to any worldview, comparisons between worldviews are probably pointless. There has to be a universal basis upon which to conduct such comparisons, and it's this basis that Nash attempts to erect in the early part of the book. Just as importantly, the tests themselves have to be reasonable, intelligent, and complete. Folks who read the later part of the book in which worldview comparisons are made and don't like what they see when worldviews are compared with each other are likely to try to discredit the standards or tests themselves that are the basis for these comparisons. If the tests don't make sense, or are biased, or are not exhaustive, the worldview comparisons conducted by applying such tests will not carry a great deal of weight with those who don't like the grade their particular worldview gets by applying these tests. So needless to say, the issue of building a comprehensive and objective set of standards by which viable worldview comparisons can be made is the most critical part of the book. And I found that Nash's tests make a great deal of sense and are a legitimate basis upon which to evaluate competing worldviews and draw meaningful conclusions that are relevant to real people.

I found that Nash then did a good job of applying these tests. For the purposes of this book, Nash applies his tests to Christianity, naturalism, and the New Age movement. Nash's conclusion is that Christianity passes each test, while both naturalism and the New Age movement have serious problems on almost all fronts. His analyses are not terribly lengthy (more on this later), but they are concise and attempt to highlight a few specific areas of each worldview that tend to be the most controversial or difficult to accept.

Nash's analysis accomplishes a couple of things. First, in my view, he demonstrates pretty clearly that the Christian worldview, far from being anti-intellectual and anti-reason, is actually the worldview that best stands up to the processes of logic and reason in comparison with other worldviews. But even if someone doesn't accept this, this book is still a success. In my view, it is virtually impossible to read this book and conclude that these various worldviews are pretty much the same. If nothing else, Nash clearly shows that not only are these worldviews very different from each other, they actually conflict with each other on many fundamental questions. This, in and of itself, is an important thing to demonstrate. An increasing number of people today believe that all worldviews or belief systems are equally true. Nash clearly demonstrates that this idea cannot be true. As thinking human beings who have been granted the gifts of logic, reason, and independent thinking, if nothing else, these intellectual gifts compel us to make choices when we encounter competing worldviews.

Lastly, this book is not very long, only 170 pages or so. As a result, I entered into reading this book a bit skeptical that the book would be able to thoroughly cover this topic, particularly since the whole issue of worldview comparisons and erecting tests for such comparisons can lead folks into a myriad of technical discussions that can lead in all kinds of different directions. To his credit, Nash repeatedly acknowledges this throughout his book. I felt that Nash was being very honest with the reader in footnoting and highlighting areas throughout the book where there was plenty of room for additional discussion or analysis but would have gotten the book off message, so he chose not to explore them. To his credit, in practically each instance where Nash volunteers that additional research is a good idea, he refers the reader to resources that address the kinds of questions or issues that the reader might reasonably have, but that Nash does not explore in this book. This impressed me, and made me feel that Nash was not purposefully glossing over difficult topics, but was in fact purposefully deferring those topics to other resources and then referring the reader to those resources.

So in summary, Nash achieves what he set out to achieve in this book. He presents a very reasonable and defendable set of tests upon which any worldview can be analyzed, and that by applying these tests, Christianity emerges as the worldview with the greatest intellectual integrity in comparison to other worldviews. A scholarly examination, and very well done.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars useful but too derivative, February 24, 2002

By 

NotATameLion (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas (Paperback)

Ronald Nash’s "World-Views in Conflict" is a very useful introduction to Christian worldview thought. That said, I have had a rather difficult time deciding how many stars it really deserves.

The author does a very nice job presenting what exactly worldviews are. He comes at his material from a very logic-based western mind-frame. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In its way it is very useful. Chapter nine, in which Nash presents some good arguments for a solid belief in Jesus' physical Incarnation and Resurrection, is so well done that I heartily recommend it to anyone.

My quibble with this book is that it is very, very derivative. I don’t mind people quoting from lots of sources in their work—heck, Brennan Manning does it all the time and he is my favorite author. The specific problem here is Nash’s constant reference to a few authors (the most prominent being C.S. Lewis).

Bearing all this in mind, I am giving "World-Views in Conflict" a solid recommendation, but only three stars. The content deserves a four, but the constant over-referencing to certain authors knocks off a point. Nevertheless, if apologetics or worldview thinking is your thing, you could do a lot worse than this useful book from Professor Nash.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Reasonable Introduction But Do Not Stop Here, March 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas (Paperback)

For a person just becoming acquainted with the concept of a worldview this book is probably a reasonable place to start. For example, the definition that Nash gives at the beginning of Chapter 1 is quite a good brief definition. His discussion of the major elements of a worldview and his descriptions of the three worldviews that he considers in any detail, Christian theism, naturalism, and the new age movement, are all reasonable introductions.

I have concerns with Nash's attempts to logically 'prove' points in favor of Christian theism or against the other two worldviews, however. I am a believing Christian but reading a number of the 'proofs' left me shaking my head in wonderment. And, as other reviewers have pointed out, Nash tends to turn to quotes from C. S. Lewis and others in his proofs a bit too much for me.

Try this book as an introduction, but don't stop here. James Sire's book, "The Universe Next Door" has a very similar approach, but it covers more worldviews, presents an excellent exposition of how the worldviews covered evolved in response to previous worldviews, and it covers these topics in a bit more depth. Even so, some of Sire's arguments left me shaking my head also.

It is also informative to search deeper and read presentations of worldviews, such as naturalism, written by proponents of these worldviews. For example I recommend Sigmund Freud's 'The Question of a Weltanschauung' in his "New Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis."