Worldviews of the Heart

“Basic beliefs function as the grid or matrix by which we comprehend reality and attempt to live consistently within that framework.

All humans are committed to their basic beliefs; otherwise, these beliefs would not be basic. Our commitments to our basic beliefs are core commitments — we cling to them; they are nonnegotiable; we express them in every facet of our lives. Basic beliefs and core commitments are the fundamental aspects of a worldview, since, by definition, they determine how we understand the world and what aspects of that understanding are nonnegotiable. Thus, having and living out a worldview are inescapable aspects of being human. To be human is to have a worldview. . . .

Basic beliefs are religious in nature because they are basic beliefs; core commitments are religious in nature because they are core commitments. Religion is fundamentally a matter of basic beliefs and core commitments — a worldview. Thus all worldviews are religious, and all people are religious. All thinking and doing arise from or are motivated by our core commitments, our basic beliefs — what the Bible terms ‘the heart’ and describes as the center of our being.”

~ W. Andrew Hoffecker, Revolutions in Worldview, ed. W. Andrew Hoffecker (Phillipsburg, NJ; P & R Publishing, 2007), xi-xii.