Beyond worldview analysis: Insights from Hans-Georg Gadamer on Christian scholarship

Abstract

Christian scholars have frequently employed the concept of a worldview. A common ap- proach has been to conceptualize our work as Christian scholars as beginning with the Chris- tian worldview, analyzing the worldviews of others, refining the gold that one can find in these other worldviews, and synthesizing this gold into the Christian worldview. Roger P. Ebertz criticizes this “worldview analysis model” and argues that the method it suggests is in fact impossible and an unhelpful way to think about Christian scholarship. He outlines several insights from Hans-Georg Gadamer and sketches a more adequate “hermeneutical model” of Christian scholarship. Mr. Ebertz is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dubuque, Dubuque, IA. As Christian scholars, we are called to think “Christianly” about our disciplines. But what does this mean? In my career as a student and scholar, inspired by the writings of a number of pioneers of Christian scholarship, I came to understand the task of thinking Christianly in terms of worldview analysis.1 Conceptualizing scholarship in terms of worldviews has been quite widespread in the literature of Christian higher education. In recent years, however, I have come to believe that what I will call the “worldview analysis model” is inadequate. In this paper I pro- vide a critique and point toward an alternative, drawing insight from Hans-Georg Gadamer