My native mac apps are not connecting to the internet, but Google Chrome does and works correctly. Why is this?
For me, the issue was a missing library file:  "libgcc_s.1.dylib" which should have been located in "/usr/local/lib".  Specifically, when trying to run mDNSResponder from the terminal, it was throwing a file not found error and reported this file as missing.  

For others who are facing this issue, I would suggest trying to start mDNSResponder from the terminal by typing "mDNSResponder" into the terminal.  It may report a missing library file.  

I was not aware of how I could re-build this library, so I resorted to re-installing OSX from the recovery drive.  This took about 5 hours, but all my files remained in place, along with my applications and the majority of my OSX settings. 

Everything appears to be working correctly now =)