Freedom to Tell the Truth

Mr. Jefferson and I

A historian is to tell the truth, as unbiased as he can.  I was asked to give a statement of my philosophy of history, to do so I must first explain my worldview.  Simply put, a worldview is a framework by which one sees the world.  The way I understand a worldview is that is a group of answers to questions everyone asks.  The first is “where do we (mankind) come from?”  The second is, “why are we in existence?” [1]

I follow what is called the Biblical worldview.  I answer the first question, “God created us.”  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[2]  This answer assumes two points, first God is real and second the Bible is true.  With the first question answered I can surmise that if God created me he did so with a purpose.  This realization allows me another assumption; He is powerful enough to make His will happen past creation. 

This being said a Biblical worldview makes me a more unbiased historian by doing two things.  First, it allows me to keep God in His place as the mover of history.  I don’t have to make flawed men such as Andrew Jackson, or Abraham Lincoln, gods in an American pantheon.  Second, because the Bible offers an Absolute moral code I can study men and let their own actions speak for themselves.   In the case of Adolph Hitler, my job is to study his actions, as the leader of Germany and of the Nazi party.  In terms of good and evil, his actions are compared to God’s law not my own opinions of right and wrong.  

Presidents Jackson and Lincoln

The Biblical Worldview frees me from creating heroes and villains from history.  It allows me to do what historians are meant to do, tell the truth.

1. Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcy, How Now Shall We Live (Tyndale House Publishers INC., 2004), 14.

2. Genesis 1:1