Worldview

"Current events are surface effects, like waves gliding on top of the ocean. The underlying worldviews are like tectonic plates whose movements cause the surface waves." (Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning, 48)

"What liberals fail to understand is that every social practice rests on certain assumptions of what the world is like—on a worldview. When a society accepts the practice, it absorbs the worldview that justifies it. That’s why abortion is not merely a matter of private individuals making private choices. It is about deciding which worldview will shape our communal life together." (Pearcey, 57)

"In dealing with such contentious moral issues, it is most effective to address the worldview level. Every social practice is the expression of fundamental assumptions about what it means to be human. When a society accepts, endorses, and approves the practice, it implicitly commits itself to the accompanying worldview—and all the more so if those practices are enshrined in law. The law functions as a teacher, educating people on what society considers to be morally acceptable. If America accepts practices such as abortion, euthanasia, homosexual “marriage,” and so on, in the process it will absorb the worldview that justifies those practices—the two-story fragmentation of the human being. And the negative consequences will reach into every aspect of our communal life." (Pearcey, 67-68)

Teleological view of nature

Nature was designed with identifiable purpose:

"We can read signs in nature that indicate God’s original purpose—traces of God’s image that remain even in a fallen world. For example, the biological correspondence between male and female is part of the original creation that God pronounced 'very good'—morally good. Thus it provides a reference point for morality. Moral rules are not arbitrary; they are rooted in the way God created human nature." (Pearcey, 50)