65 pages • 2 hours read
James SireThe Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “A Universe Charged with the Grandeur of God: Christian Theism”
Christian theism was the commonly accepted worldview of people in the Western world from the establishment of Christianity until about the 17th century, when other rival worldviews began to develop. Although Christian theism is no longer unchallenged, it still has a wide following both in the Western world and beyond.
According to Christian theism, the nature of prime reality consists in the existence of an infinite, personal, all-knowing, all-powerful, and good God who reveals himself both in nature (“general revelation”) and in the Bible (“special revelation”). God created the universe out of nothing, and the universe is orderly (because God as the Word embodies reason and logic in his nature) and open (i.e., not programmed). God takes an active role in communicating with human beings, and thus they have the capacity to know both God and the world around them. Indeed, human beings are made in God’s image and, like him, have freedom of will, enabling them to choose how to act.
Although human beings were created good, they fell into sin (an event known as original sin or the fall, depicted in the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible). The essence of the fall was alienation from God, from others, from nature, and from oneself. The fall compromised humans’ faculties in many ways, without completely impairing them; mankind still has the capacity, with God’s help, to rise above the fall.
Jesus Christ, through his life and sacrificial death, healed and redeemed mankind from the fall. He was able to do this because he was both human and divine and thus was able to provide mankind a way back to God. Jesus is a model for the good life, presenting us an image of “humanity as God would have it be” (30). In all these things, God shows that he alone is “the measure of morality” (30).
Further, in his resurrection (rising from the dead), Jesus showed that death is not the end for human beings. For human beings, death is either “the gate to life with God and his people” (heaven) or “the gate to eternal separation” from those things (hell) (29). God respects human freedom to such a degree that he allows us to choose our final destiny, eternal happiness and fellowship or eternal separation from God.
Where human beings end up after death depends on their moral choices in life. Morality is “transcendent,” meaning that it is not arbitrary but rooted in God’s character as good, holy, and loving. Because God respects our freedom, our actions are significant and consequential, and history as a whole is a “linear, meaningful sequence of events leading to the fulfillment of God’s purposes for humanity” (31).
Theism is a “complete worldview” because it claims that everything stems from God’s transcendent nature. Life is rooted in the transcendent greatness and goodness of God, and thus all of nature and reality are “charged with the grandeur of God” (words Sire borrows from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins) (34). Although our lives right now are imperfect in many ways, we are all playing a part in an “unfolding drama” that will end in joy and fulfillment because God is actively sustaining us and helping us. Therefore, for the Christian theist praising and glorifying God is the first and core commitment.
Chapter 2 Analysis
This chapter clearly illustrates a key theme of the book regarding Christian Theism as the Most Coherent and Viable Worldview. Sire’s personal commitments to Christian theism are evident in this chapter, as the positive account he gives demonstrates clearly that Christian theism is his own personal worldview and the one he believes to be the best and most satisfying one. Moreover, Sire states that Christian theism is the “foundational view” of Western culture, and he proposes that we see other worldviews in terms of it. He grounds this view in the historical fact that Western culture first adopted Christian theism and then abandoned it for a series of other worldviews. This historical narrative serves as the book’s organizing principle.
Because it is a primer rather than an in-depth history of thought, The Universe Next Door assumes Christian theism as a fully formed worldview without dealing with the worldviews (notably Jewish theism and classical Greek philosophy) that helped form it. Further, while Sire might have included classical “worldviews” like Stoicism, it could be argued that such systems are not as relevant to the contemporary world. Modern Jewish theism is also excluded, with biblical Jewish theism assumed as forming the background to the discussion of Christian theism. Sire’s intended audience for the book (Christian college students) could be seen as determining the book’s Christian focus.
Despite his personal commitments, Sire also discusses the questions and confusions that arise from living in a pluralistic society. He acknowledges that one should understand other worldviews rather than simply concerning oneself with Christian theism. Hence, Sire implies that, in order to make sense of the world around us, we must understand both sides—the worldview of Christian theism, which for Sire is the basis for Western thought, and the modern worldviews that evolved over the course of Western history. This marks a concrete application of Sire’s belief in The Need to Live the Examined Life. Furthermore, it indicates that, while Sire takes Christian theism as the standard, he acknowledges that it has been strongly challenged. The Universe Next Door attempts to make sense of these issues and so that readers can take an informed philosophical stance.
