# Philosophical worldviews and research methods



## monoergon (Jan 19, 2016)

I began studying a book on social science research methods. According to the book, one of the components that helps a researcher to decide whether to do a quantitative or qualitative research is his or her philosophical worldview; I agree with that.

Moreover, the book introduces some worldviews such as postpositivism, social constructivism, reflexivism, pragmatism, etc. 

Well, I never studied philosophy, and now there is this need for me to choose a worldview in order to do research.

For example, the book doesn't exhaustively introduce the worldviews, but does mention that postpositivism does not believe in absolute truth. As a Christian, I believe that it is not a good school of thought because it would deny absolute truths that we, Christians, believe in, such as the existence of God or the resurrection of Christ.

I believe Bible believing Christians should honor God through the teachings of Scriptures. 

From a philosophical and biblical perspective, how should I go about choosing a philosophical worldview? It doesn't have to be one the the worldview I mentioned above.

Any advice will be helpful.


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## Toasty (Jan 19, 2016)

brjesusfreak said:


> I began studying a book on social science research methods. According to the book, one of the components that helps a researcher to decide whether to do a quantitative or qualitative research is his or her philosophical worldview; I agree with that.
> 
> Moreover, the book introduces some worldviews such as postpositivism, social constructivism, reflexivism, pragmatism, etc.
> 
> ...



You choose the one that is consistent with the Bible. If something contradicts the Bible, then it should be rejected.


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 19, 2016)

Biblical Christianity. 'Leaves no room for doubt.

Positivism, historically, if I remember right, has been strongly associated with and promoted by atheist philosophers who think all things attributed to the supernatural will eventually be explained and can be explained through empiricism. There are elements we share, but that's because atheism, ironically, is a result of Christianity. Christianity paved the ground for objective research and study of the natural world. It dethroned nature from the position of being worshipped, thus allowing it to be studied, and it gave justification both for the success of human reason (as being made in God's image: thus the universe ought to be understandable to us) and the limitations thereof (introducing standards in the process of discovery (the scientific method) so that truth is not put forth merely as one man's opinions, like the ancient Greek philosophers did). Atheists raised in an environment where everything was questioned and all claims had to be justifiable by reference to a standard induction process, who forgot that these were predicated on the Christian God, eventually took for granted the methods we gave them and began to question God's existence. At this point, they retained the ability to perform experiments, but lost the ability to make sense of the world. Atheistic scientists and scientists without a Biblical Christian worldview are adrift without a foundation.

I would recommend against associating yourself fully and completely with a philosophical system, since most of them are not specific to Christian belief, and often hostile to it. Maintain the ability to identify a worldview's strengths and weaknesses and tell people so, who ask you what yours is.


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 19, 2016)

A philosophical system that is the closest to what a believer might hold today might be termed _neo-platonism._ This book gives an excellent overview of the different philosophical worldviews at play in the development of modern science, from the medieval period to quantum theory. Makes excellent sense of the views propounded by different people in history, by showing the theological and philosophical development of the worldviews over time.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 19, 2016)

Vox Oculi said:


> A philosophical system that is the closest to what a believer might hold today might be termed neo-platonism.



You think the average believer today holds to neo-Platonism? Interesting. I highly doubt any nominalist/tenured prof in the Academy today is a neo-Platonist.

As to the OP:

Worldview analysis is helpful but you should expand it to include other, more meta-critiques that focus on pre-cognitive levels. I recommend the following:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Be-Se...3237590&sr=8-1&keywords=how+not+to+be+secular

http://www.amazon.com/Desiring-King...n-Liturgies/dp/0801035775/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.com/Terms-Philosophy-Their-Importance-Theology/dp/0664225241/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-R...ar-Theology/dp/0801027357/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 19, 2016)

I could be remembering wrong; I read that last year in the spring. The other competing views included one based on Aristotle and a third which I forgot completely. If I misattributed something, that's my mistake, but the book was excellent and _while I read it,_ I was able to follow and understand perfectly. 

ed: RR, the book may have used certain terms for the sake of simplicity, and would have indicated so in the footnotes. I was aware that the average person wouldn't use the terms discussed to refer to themselves, but that the highly educated or philosophers might be aware of the application of those terms. I can't remember a specific example. 

2ed: found a reference: the book characterized 3 distinct views in natural philosophy, that of the aristotelians, neo-platonists, and mechanists. The book develops this in a very interesting and compelling way.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 19, 2016)

Vox Oculi said:


> I could be remembering wrong; I read that last year in the spring. The other competing views included one based on Aristotle and a third which I forgot completely. If I misattributed something, that's my mistake, but the book was excellent and _while I read it,_ I was able to follow and understand perfectly.
> 
> ed: RR, the book may have used certain terms for the sake of simplicity, and would have indicated so in the footnotes. I was aware that the average person wouldn't use the terms discussed to refer to themselves, but that the highly educated or philosophers might be aware of the application of those terms. I can't remember a specific example.
> 
> 2ed: found a reference: the book characterized 3 distinct views in natural philosophy, that of the aristotelians, neo-platonists, and mechanists. The book develops this in a very interesting and compelling way.



Aristotle would have been the closest to anything we would call "Science," though that, too, is a stretch. Neo-Platonism posited an ineffable One from which emanated the Nous and from those two the World Soul. Key to all of this is the Transcendent, something modern science denies.


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 19, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> Vox Oculi said:
> 
> 
> > I could be remembering wrong; I read that last year in the spring. The other competing views included one based on Aristotle and a third which I forgot completely. If I misattributed something, that's my mistake, but the book was excellent and _while I read it,_ I was able to follow and understand perfectly.
> ...



The authors made an effort to show the trend of influence that various beliefs exerted, and did not make the case that the original details of every belief by the same name were necessarily held in the exact same understanding in the modern day. One example of this was the discussion of vitalism, which posits an 'active principle' that gives life to matter. One person may hold this to be the soul. Someone else might mean something a bit more philosophical or even pantheistic, and so people with diverse theological beliefs may be influenced, and influence, a field of science along a particular track.

Another point they made was that the early mechanists, who saw the world as a machine, were Christians, influenced by a strong confidence in God's sovereignty and intelligence. They did not believe in materialism as an all-encompassing belief system, like atheists do today. They saw God and Creation as clearly distinct, and thus there was no contradiction between their strong mechanistic scientific beliefs and their theology. The book is excellent as an explanatory history book.

ed: Regarding Aristotle, he, if I recall correctly, believes that all things have an innate tendency to strive for some goal. That's very un-naturalistic. He did not develop the idea that neoplatonists did, of conscience being important to the movement of beings, but he was no materialist. Hence why the authors chose to place those three beliefs--aristotelianism, neoplatonism, and mechanism, as separate views that shaped the history of science. The reality turns out that mechanistic philosophy was not as atheistic as we're lead to believe, and aristotle's philosophy was not as mechanistic as we've been led to believe.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 19, 2016)

I am aware of that. Mechanistic philosophy, without other considerations, has its own problems (a container notion of space is problematic for the Incarnation)


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 19, 2016)

Which all goes to buttress my original point to Nathan, that it's best to avoid using any of these preexisting terms as a description for you, and seek to be "Biblically Christian." Holding any other philosophy for its own sake is to get lost in the weeds and risk making oneself less effective as a witness. (Same goes for politics as well).


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 19, 2016)

I'm not completely sure how whether one views space as a 'thing' or not has any direct effect on an essential theological doctrine--but I surmise that's off topic enough to be worth its own thread.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 19, 2016)

Vox Oculi said:


> I'm not completely sure how whether one views space as a 'thing' or not has any direct effect on an essential theological doctrine--but I surmise that's off topic enough to be worth its own thread.



Some of Newton's students reasoned that God must be identical with his spatial container, even if that container is "infinite" in a sense. This tended to blur the Creator-creature distinction, which isn't surprising given Newton's quasi Arian views.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 19, 2016)

Vox Oculi said:


> Which all goes to buttress my original point to Nathan, that it's best to avoid using any of these preexisting terms as a description for you, and seek to be "Biblically Christian." Holding any other philosophy for its own sake is to get lost in the weeds and risk making oneself less effective as a witness. (Same goes for politics as well).



But "Biblically Christian" doesn't say all that much. The Arminian, Roman Catholic, and TR Southern Presbyterian all say they are "biblically Christian." So we have to immediately define the term.


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## monoergon (Jan 19, 2016)

Thank you for the resources. I will see forth to examining these worldviews, while not particularly fully adopting them.


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## monoergon (Jan 19, 2016)

By the way, which undergraduate philosophical works do you recommend that explains epistemology and ontology for Christians?


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## RamistThomist (Jan 20, 2016)

brjesusfreak said:


> By the way, which undergraduate philosophical works do you recommend that explains epistemology and ontology for Christians?



W Jay Wood, _Epistemology_

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. _Reason within the Bounds of Religion_

_Loving God with Your Mind: Essays in Honor of JP Moreland_ (great stuff on ontology).


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## Philip (Jan 20, 2016)

brjesusfreak said:


> By the way, which undergraduate philosophical works do you recommend that explains epistemology and ontology for Christians?



_Warranted Christian Belief_ by Alvin Plantinga
_Proper Confidence_ by Lesslie Newbigin (note some minor theological disagreements here)


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## RamistThomist (Jan 20, 2016)

Plantinga, Alvin. _God, Freedom, and Evil._

Strongly recommend Vernon Bourke's _The Essential Augustine_. Heavy doses of ontology there. I also recommend reading the classic texts. Phaedo, Phaedrus, the Hackett edition _The Essential Plotinus_


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## yeutter (Jan 20, 2016)

Allow me to offer some suggestions of books that might be helpful.
A non technical historical book by Nicholas Wolterstorff is Thomas Reid ad the Story of Epistemology
Bishop Joseph Butler's Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed
Richard Swinburne's The Coherence of Theisim
Also take a look at www.apologetics315.com


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## Peairtach (Jan 20, 2016)

brjesusfreak said:


> I began studying a book on social science research methods. According to the book, one of the components that helps a researcher to decide whether to do a quantitative or qualitative research is his or her philosophical worldview; I agree with that.
> 
> Moreover, the book introduces some worldviews such as postpositivism, social constructivism, reflexivism, pragmatism, etc.
> 
> ...



When you compare the theological worldviews philosophically it will give you a better idea about philosophy and why the God of the Bible provides the only true ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethic, etc.

Theological worldviews:
Atheism
Agnosticism
Deism
Polytheism
Finite-godism
Pantheism
Panentheism
Monotheism.

This very simple book on apologetics provides the very basics.

http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/products/holman-quicksource-guide-to-christian-apologetics

Others can suggest something deeper, but works on apologetics by e.g. Cornelius van Til, John Frame and Michael Robinson, seek to show theologically and philosophically that the God of Scripture, the I Am, is the foundation for all reality.

To the extent that you "do philosophy" you want to do it in the light of God's Word and who God is, and what the Bible says Man is, and the world is.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 20, 2016)

Out of curiosity, what is the Bible's epistemology? Will it define knowledge as justified, true belief? Or will it define knowledge as warranted, basic belief

Is truth correspondence or coherence? 

As to ontology, does the Bible affirm universals as having an extra-mental existence?

Mind you, I think a biblically-informed Christian can give answers to these questions.


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## Philip (Jan 20, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> Out of curiosity, what is the Bible's epistemology? Will it define knowledge as justified, true belief? Or will it define knowledge as warranted, basic belief



Common-sense realism obviously. Also, warrant is meant to replace justification, not truth.



ReformedReidian said:


> Is truth correspondence or coherence?



Yes.



ReformedReidian said:


> As to ontology, does the Bible affirm universals as having an extra-mental existence?



Depends on which universals and what you mean by extra-mental, and what relation universals have to particulars.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 21, 2016)

Philip said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > Out of curiosity, what is the Bible's epistemology? Will it define knowledge as justified, true belief? Or will it define knowledge as warranted, basic belief
> ...



I would agree with you. My point was you can't really find a chapter and verse affirming the above.


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## Toasty (Jan 21, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> Philip said:
> 
> 
> > ReformedReidian said:
> ...



Can a certain theory of truth be inferred from the verses below?

Ruth 3:12 says, "Now it is true I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I." 

Daniel 3:14 says, "Nebuchadnezzar responded and said to them, 'Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up?'"

John 5:32 says, "There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true."


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## RamistThomist (Jan 21, 2016)

Toasty said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > Philip said:
> ...



Maybe. I would like to see it fleshed out.


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## monoergon (Jan 21, 2016)

Thanks for the resources


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