Epistemological Development Essay -- Religion, Bible, Truth

Everything in education is impacted by the perspective of a biblical worldview because educating a child is teaching them to know and find truth. According to Knight, â€Å"Much truth exists outside of the Bible, but no truth exists outside the metaphysical framework of the Bible.† (2006, p. 226). The concepts of the Bible are used to give a unifying foundation for all subjects taught. The Bible also becomes the integration point. All content knowledge is contextually interpreted with the Bible because God is the source of all truth and the one who unifies all truth in Himself. The Bible can be compared to leaven that permeates all subjects. This gives all subjects significance and all subjects then give significance to a child’s life. Therefore, teaching from a biblical worldview provides an epistemological, interpretive framework that adds meaning to otherwise insignificant details. It becomes the focal point that unifies our curriculum. As Augustine states, we must seek to integrate our faith with learning because â€Å"Faith is understanding’s step and understanding is faith’s reward.† (Holmes, 2008, p. 27). Several quantitative studies have examined the worldview of students using worldview surveys such as Nehemiah Institute’s PEERS (2003). Fyock (2008) in his dissertation on the effect of an instructor’s biblical worldview gave high school seniors the PEERS survey before and after instruction from a teacher with a biblical worldview. While this was an excellent measurement tool for worldview assessment, it is not oriented toward epistemology, so would not be adequate for this research. Postmodernism It is important to understand the postmodern worldview because its conception of truth is contrary to that found in a bib... ...reasoning will be used to understand and evaluate their internal motivations and bring greater consistency to their underlining suppositions. The individual may develop to the point of self-authoring their worldview, by using self reflection and meta cognition to examine their worldview, and each of its components, in the light of their philosophical or theological beliefs. In this context, self-authoring does not imply the individual authors their own salvation or their own truth regarding salvation. Rather, they discover truth for themselves through a process of critically examining their worldview and comparing it to the worldview discovered in the Bible, the source of ultimate Truth. As an individual develops through worldview formation stages different methods of acquiring and confirming their concept of truth will be important (Mansfield & Clinchy, 2002).