A worldview is simply someone's relatively organized understanding of what the world is actually like. Greg Koukl More Quotes by Greg Koukl More Quotes From Greg Koukl Something good made something bad possible (though not inevitable). Humans, however, didn't use their freedom well. Instead of using it to honor God in friendship, they used it to rebel. Greg Koukl rebel use honor Every religion, every philosophy, every individual outlook on life tells a story of reality. Greg Koukl outlook-on-life philosophy reality Worldviews have four elements that help us understand how a person's story fits together: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. "Creation" tells us how things began, where everything came from (including us), the reason for our origins, and what ultimate reality is like. "Fall" describes the problem (since we all know something has gone wrong with the world). "Redemption" gives us the solution, the way to fix what went wrong. "Restoration" describes what the world would look like once the repair begins to take place. Greg Koukl four-elements reality fall God existed before He made anything else, and He Himself was never made. God is eternal. Greg Koukl god-exists eternal made In the Christian Story, mind and matter - invisible things and visible things - are both real. The Christian view is not the only way of viewing the world, of course. It has competition. Greg Koukl real christian views Almost everyone agrees the world is not the way it ought to be. It's called the problem of evil. Greg Koukl evil way world Human beings are special. We're creatures (we're not little gods), but we're also more than creatures. In fact, we're the most wonderful creatures in the world next to God. Greg Koukl next special littles Our souls - our invisible selves - bear the mark of God Himself. We're like God in that we bear His image. Greg Koukl soul self bears If man is not special, if he's not deeply different from any other thing, then there's no good reason not to treat him just like any other thing when it's convenient for us to do so. Greg Koukl different special men People are tempted to think (understandably) that if God were really good He'd never allow any evil in the world at all. But I don't think a perfectly good God would never permit any evil, and neither would others, I wager, if they thought about it. Rather, I think that a good God always prevents suffering and evil unless He has a good reason to allow it. That's the crux. Greg Koukl perfectly-good evil thinking Man had freedom to choose the good, but this same freedom also allowed him to choose the bad. This is called moral freedom. Greg Koukl moral-freedom moral men Though it's hard to be completely certain about things like this, I have a suspicion that only someone with deep freedom (one who makes decisions for reasons that are his own) and who's also a moral being (can experience goodness) can have a meaningful friendship with God. If friendship with God and sharing in His happiness are good things (and it seems they are), then making a creature who could enjoy these things is also a good thing, even if it comes with a liability. There's a risk. Greg Koukl risk decision meaningful
