Livro The Christian View of God and the World as Centring in the Incarnation; Being the First Series of Kerr Lectures

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THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE WOULD IN GENERAL. I Might briefly define the object of the present Lectures by The term saying that they aim at the exhibition, and. as far as possible Welia- ....

sthatuing.' within the limits assigned me, at the rational vindication, of what I have called in the title, The Christian view of the world. This expression, however, is itself one which calls for definition and explanation, and 1 proceed, in the first place, to give the explanation that is needed.

A reader of the higher class of works in German theology ? especially those which deal with the philosophy of religion?cannot fail to be struck with the constant recurrence of a word for which he finds it difficult to get a precise equivalent in English.

It is the word Weltanschauung, sometimes interchanged with another compound of the same signification, Weltansicht. Both words mean literally view of the world, but whereas the phrase in English is limited by associations which connect it predominatingly with physical nature, in German the word is not thus limited, but has almost the force of a technical term, denoting the widest view which the mind can take of things in the effort to grasp them together as a whole from the standpoint of some particular philosophy or theology.

To speak, therefore, of a Christian view of the world implies that Christianity also has its highest point of view, and its view of life connected therewith, and that this, when developed, constitutes an ordered whole.1 1 See Note A.?Illustrations of the word Weltanschauung Need of com- ianily in the Lectures.

To some the subject which I have thus chosen may seem unduly wide and vague. I can only reply that I have deliberately chosen it for this very reason that it...