ESCAPE FROM
REASON: A PENETRATING ANALYSIS OF TRENDS IN MODERN THOUGHT
FRANCIS A.
SCHAEFFER
PAGES: 96
ISBN: 0830834052
Francis Schaeffer has been widely
recognized as one of the twentieth century’s greatest Christian apologists. Francis
August Schaeffer (1912-1984) was an American Christian theologian, philosopher,
apologist, and Presbyterian pastor, as well as the founder of the L'Abri
community in Switzerland.
In this book Schaeffer has two
noble aims; first to analyze the evolution of philosophy from the Christian
Middle-Ages up to the Atheist existentialism of Sartre and second to show that
Atheism and Mysticism are inadequate before Christianity.
Schaeffer starts off with the
rise of modernity (ch.1). Then he moves on with the reformation view (ch.2)
before he finally arrives with the birth and characteristics of post-modernity
(ch.3) and its impacts in science, art, morality and theology (ch.4-7).
According to Schaeffer it was
Aquinas that opened the way for autonomous rationality (in fact the villain of
this play is Aquinas). According to Schaeffer, Aquinas claimed that the human
will but not human intellect is fallen. This assumption, once popularized,
provided the fertile soil for the belief that humans could become independent,
autonomous. The outcome was, as Schaeffer puts it, that "nature eats up
grace" (p.10), that leads to a modern presupposition of a universe
operating under a closed-system excluding any supernatural effects and agents.
But Schaeffer aptly describes the problem that "if you begin with an
autonomous rationality, what you come to is mathematics (that which can be
measured), and mathematics only deals with particulars, not universals.
Therefore, you never get beyond mechanics" (p.13).
In first chapter Schaeffer he
examines the relationship between ‘grace’ and ‘nature’. He argues that nature
has slowly been ‘eating up’ grace. Yet a ‘line’ or ‘gap’ exists between the
supposed upper realm of grace and the lower realm of nature. Western society
has gone below this line and it has led to despair. This despair is revealed
first in philosophy; subsequently, it spreads to art, then music and general
culture, before reaching theology.When nature is made autonomous it soon ends
up by devouring God, grace, freedom and ultimately man.
In chapter two and three,
Schaeffer proposes a history of human philosophy and theology and gives an
explanation of contemporary thought, and how to approach it. He traces a line
through the renaissance, the reformation, the development of science, Kant,
Hegel, Kierkegaard, contemporary existentialism, into contemporary culture. In
his analysis of culture he considers the different domains of science,
philosophy, and, primarily, the arts.
Furthermore in third chapter,
Schaeffer shows how the work of the existentialist philosophers such as Sartre
and Heidegger have influenced our society, and indeed the Christian church,
more than what most people realize. One of the conclusions that the reader will
inevitably draw, after reading this book, is that, in order to be able to
successfully present the gospel, we need to truly understand our culture.He
repeats his starting point on numerous occasions; namely, that Aquinas's
distinction between nature and grace is the source of a dichotomy that has been
influencing and destroying culture ever since. On the other hand, his critiques
of Kierkegaard and Heidegger are a little bit more interesting, as he shows how
these contemporary philosophers have had an enormous influence on our current
society.
In fifth chapter Schaeffer
contends that since man has failed to unify experience in nature and since also
modern man has long since abandoned "grace" or "heaven" or
"Scriptures" as the principle of experiential (i.e. existential and
ontological and epistemological) unification, he has nothing left but despair.
So now, man is trying mysticism, pornography, drugs, death and other forms of
ways to 'leap' into something else that can provide meaning. Modern man has
given up on dualism. The universe is not rational, it is an impersonal machine
and man a part of that. But man is a personality and personhood according to
Schaffer cannot be found in a mechanistic universe.
As per my opinion Aquinas taught
that there are things that can be known from the light of reason. This is of
course, self-evident and it is even biblical (see Romans 1:20 where St. Paul
even asserts that the existence of God can be known from the knowledge of
created things, so that all have knowledge of God, even those without Divine Revelation
in the Scriptures). So Schaffer is a bit mistaken here from a biblical point of
view.
Overall despite of this flaw,
it’s a wonderful read. Single most pivotal aim is,perhaps he says it best at
the conclusion of the book, “Every generation of Christians has this problem and
responsibility of learning how to speak meaningfully to its own age"
(p.5). "What is said in this book is not a matter of intellectual debate.
It is not of interest only to academics. It is utterly crucial of those of us
who are serious about communicating the Christian gospel in the twentieth
century" (p.67).
