Modern secular thought has its own dualism: It treats only the physical world as knowable and testable, while locking everything else - mind, spirit, morality, meaning - into the realm of private, subjective feelings. The so-called fact/value split.

Beginning under the Roman Empire, intellectual leadership in the West had been provided by Christianity. In the middle ages, who invented the first universities - in Paris, Oxford, Cambridge? The church.

Developing a Christian worldview means submitting our entire self to God, in an act of devotion and service to Him.

When we encounter the world of ideas for the first time, we easily get overwhelmed. Scripture is telling us, 'Don't be distracted by the details. Cut to the core by asking, What is its idol?' Whatever functions as its God substitute will shape everything else.

The most consistent versions of materialism deny the reality of anything beyond matter - no soul, no spirit, no will, no mind. This is called reductionism: Humans are reduced to biochemical machines.

The sense of all stylistic change is that the underlying view of the world changes.

To adapt a phrase, idols have consequences.