" “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! " (Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV))
Jesus Christ used a simple yet profound metaphor: our eyes as the lamp of the entire body. These words point to something greater than physical vision. They speak of how we see the world around us—of our inner "glasses" through which we perceive reality.
Imagine that each of us has special invisible glasses and headphones that we never take off. These "glasses" tint everything we see in certain colors. The "headphones" filter what we hear. We've become so accustomed to them that we forget about their existence. This is exactly how our worldview works.
A worldview is a set of fundamental beliefs and ideas about reality through which we interpret everything happening around us. These are our invisible "lenses" that shape how we understand ourselves, other people, the purpose of life, and the very nature of existence.
Worldviews are as diverse as fingerprints. Some people see the world primarily through materialistic lenses—for them, reality is limited to what can be measured and touched. Others look through religious glasses, seeing a divine dimension in everything. There are those who perceive life through the lens of existentialism, believing that we ourselves create the meaning of our existence. In this series of articles, we're particularly interested in personal worldviews—those unique ways of seeing the world that are formed in each specific person throughout their life.
But where do these invisible "glasses" come from? Our worldview "lenses" don't appear out of nowhere. They are formed gradually, under the influence of many factors. Family becomes the first "workshop for making glasses." Parents pass on to their children not only genes but also ways of seeing the world. Their values, fears, hopes, and disappointments become the first layers of our future "lenses."
Environment—friends, school, cultural setting—adds new tints to our "glasses." We often unconsciously adopt the beliefs of those we admire or reject the views of those we don't accept. Life circumstances—successes and failures, joys and pain, meetings and losses—all this polishes and corrects our worldview "lenses." Tragedy can darken them, while unexpected kindness can add light.
But why talk about this at all? The difference is enormous. Our worldviews don't just influence how we think—they determine how we live. Your worldview shapes your decisions: what you consider right and wrong, what you strive for, what you fear, how you relate to other people, how you spend your time, what you spend money on. Ultimately, worldview determines the direction of your entire life and, consequently, your destiny.
Over the years of reflecting on worldviews, I've come to two important personal revelations. The first is that I realized I have them. This may seem obvious, but many people live without realizing they're looking at the world through certain "glasses." We think we see reality "as it is," not noticing our own filters. The second revelation proved much harder to accept: I realized they can be wrong. We've become so accustomed to our "glasses" that they seem to us to be part of reality itself.
As physicist David Bohm aptly noted: "Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
That is why I invite you to join me on a special journey. We will examine not just any worldview, but specifically the Christian worldview. We will honestly examine its core claims about reality, examine their logical consistency, and see if they make sense in the context of our experience and observation of the world.
This won't be a superficial overview or an attempt to impose ready-made answers. We will ask difficult questions and seek honest answers. We will explore whether the biblical vision of the world can offer such "glasses" that truly help us see reality more clearly—as it really is.
Perhaps in the process of this journey, we'll discover that some of our familiar "lenses" need correction. Or maybe we'll understand that the biblical worldview offers precisely those "clear glasses" that Jesus spoke of—those that fill the whole body with light.
In the next article, we'll examine a key question: how can we determine whether a particular worldview is true? What criteria exist for evaluating different ways of seeing the world? And can we even speak of "true" and "false" worldviews in our postmodern world?
Are you ready for this exciting journey?