“Worldview” has become a commonplace word, especially as Christians think about navigating culture and scholarship. A comprehensive guide would be a welcomed addition to anyone’s shelf. This second edition of Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview fits the bill for a work to read cover to cover or to read sections as needed.
In the world of Evangelical philosophy, J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig are among the most trusted and accomplished authors. Their writing is clear, accessible, and their scholarship incredibly well-informed. The first edition of this book was published in 2003 and this second edition was published in 2017. There are many updates, including two completely new chapters and a great deal of updating and revising in other chapters.
The book is divided into six parts. Part 1 introduces philosophy, argues that it is helpful for Christians, and surveys types of argumentation and logic. Part 2 surveys issues in epistemology (theory of knowledge); Part 3 metaphysics (theory of being); Part 4 philosophy of science; Part 5 ethics; and Part 6 philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. The final Part may be of interest to theologians since the authors cover the Trinity, incarnation, atonement, and Christian particularism.
The chapters are friendly to philosophy newcomers. New terms are bolded and explained clearly. The authors display a solid grasp of the range of options available on each issue, such as how to define knowledge, how to resolve the mind-body problem, etc. The end of each chapter contains a chapter summary and a checklist of basic terms and concepts (which would have been more helpful if they each had a short definition). The back contains a name index, subject index, and a list of further reading for each chapter. With the clear and accessible chapters as well as the list for further reading, a reader could use this book as a self-study guide to become acquainted with and then dive deeper into any issue covered in the book.
There are a number of ways that I have, and could continue praising this book. Not everyone will agree with the authors’ positions on all of the issues, and so working through them would not be very helpful. There are two issues that I am interested in looking more closely at.
First, I am a bit surprised at the ordering of the Parts. Epistemology is placed before metaphysics, and I am not entirely sure to what extent the authors find this ordering logical or simply heuristic. Metaphysics is “first philosophy,” meaning that everything else is constricted by one’s metaphysic. The authors say that “along with logic and epistemology, metaphysics is the most basic part of philosophy” (159). Post-Decartes, epistemology has become more fashionable to discuss first, since it seems that one must know how one knows before one can know what exists. But how one knows depends largely on what reality is like.
The authors discuss theories such as Plantinga’s proper functionalist view of knowledge, which relies on a person functioning properly according to a design plan in order to truly have knowledge. A design plan implies a certain metaphysic, or at least limits the metaphysical options available. Perhaps the authors are following modern conventions of giving epistemology pride of place, but I would have preferred a more classical ordering of the Parts, starting with metaphysics as first philosophy.
I was also surprised to find philosophy of science preceding ethics. Typically, one would proceed in the order of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. The authors acknowledge that philosophy of science is a second-order question (p. 16), but I prefer the layout of Garrett DeWeese’s helpful Doing Philosophy as a Christian , in which he divides the book into first- and then second-order philosophical questions, placing philosophy of science and mind in the second-order category. This ordering gives the reader a better understanding of the relation between the disciplines, whereas I cannot find a clear explanation from Craig and Moreland about these relations (but at about 640 pages, I grant that I may have missed it).
Secondly, there is the whole issue of what the authors mean by “worldview.” The authors define it as “an ordered set of propositions that one believes, especially propositions about life’s most important questions” (15). This definition fits with the Western philosophical tradition, and the Parts of the book reflect concerns of Western philosophy. But “worldview” can also be thought of as the interpretive lenses through which we process reality. In more tribal regions of the world, one of the fundamental aspects of worldview would be how one views the spirit world. Anthropologists have considered how different societies affect the way we process reality, and this has just as much to do with worldview (if not more) than does one’s implicit or explicit view of metaphysics. It would have been interesting to see how the authors would integrate such concerns into the topics they do discuss, but that may be a project for another author with an interest in anthropology.
In sum, while there are a few interesting choices in the ordering of the book and a limitation in its approach to “worldview,” this book is an indispensable wealth of knowledge by two trusted Evangelical philosophers. Anyone wanting to become acquainted with the main branches of philosophy in order to better equip themselves to live according to a Christian worldview would do well to consult this book, either cover to cover or as needed.
