What does it mean to think Christianly? — part 02

In yesterday’s post, I began to talk about the idea of thinking Christianly. There is, of course, a philosophical component to that, but that is not all that I was talking about. Nevertheless, do let me make a comment on philosophy and thinking Christianly. Not that long ago, a comment was made that I needed to quit reacting against Francis Schaeffer, the evangelist/philosopher (30 January 1912 – 15 May 1984). Actually, I am not reacting against Francis Schaeffer, it was Francis Schaeffer who helped lead me to Orthodoxy. WARNING: heavy philosophical content ahead!

Who was Francis Schaeffer?

. . . Opposed to theological modernism, Schaeffer promoted a more traditional Protestant faith and a presuppositional approach to Christian apologetics, which he believed would answer the questions of the age. A number of scholars credit Schaeffer’s ideas with helping spark the rise of the Christian Right in the United States. . . . In Crazy for God Schaeffer’s son Frank presents a portrait of his father that is far more nuanced and multi-dimensional than was suggested by his public persona. He states, for example, that Schaeffer’s primary passions in life were not the Bible and theology but rather art and culture. “And what moved him was not theology but beauty”(p. 140).

Schaeffer’s approach to Christian apologetics was primarily influenced by Herman Dooyeweerd, Edward John Carnell, and Cornelius Van Til, but he was not known to be a strict presuppositionalist in the Van Tillian tradition. In a 1948 article in The Bible Today, Schaeffer explained his own apologetics and how he walked a middle path between evidentialism and presuppositionalism, noting that “If the unsaved man was consistent he would be an atheist in religion, an irrationalist in philosophy (including a complete uncertainty concerning ‘natural laws’), and completely a-moral in the widest sense.” J. Budziszewski summarizes the article about this middle path approach by writing:

Presuppositionalists, he held, are right to assert that the ultimate premises of Christian and anti–Christian systems of thought are utterly at odds. On the other hand, evidentialists are right to assert that between Christian and anti–Christian systems of thought there is always a point of contact. The reason for this point of contact, he argued, is that nonbelievers cannot bring themselves to be completely consistent with their own presuppositions, and this inconsistency is a result of common grace. “Thus, illogically,” he wrote, “men have in their accepted worldviews various amounts of that which is ours. But, illogical though it may be, it is there and we can appeal to it.”

Schaeffer came to use this middle path as the basis for his method of evangelism which he called Taking the roof off. An example of Taking the roof off in written form can be found in Schaeffer’s work entitled Death in the City. Nancy Pearcey also describes two books by Schaeffer, Escape From Reason and The God Who Is There in this way:

In these books, Schaeffer explains the history of the two-story division of knowledge, often referred to as the fact/value split. He also describes his apologetics method, which combined elements of both evidentialism and presuppositionalism. . . .

Hopefully you understood all that. But, if you did not here is what you need to know. In his many books, Francis Schaeffer did a fantastic job in showing how “irrational” many modern worldviews are. He showed how a culture that had strong Christian underpinnings slowly devolved into a culture with contradictory beliefs. On the one hand it believes in the sanctity of post-birth human life, but on the other hand it believes that life evolved and has no intrinsic meaning, and so on. As Francis pointed out–and against his own Calvinist background–there is common grace which helps people to behave in an illogical and much more “humanistic” fashion than what they believe. And, then, he made a terrible mistake. In another talk he said:

In a sermon also titled “A Christian Manifesto”, Schaeffer defines secular humanism as the worldview where “man is the measure of all things,”. . .

And, he is completely correct. In all his books he insisted that man could not be the measure of anything. He conclusively showed the decay that the secular, and even the Church, suffered by letting man be the measure of Truth. But, having done his analysis, he was unable to take the next step, a step which his son Frank went ahead and took. You see, Francis Schaeffer stuck with a particular brand of Protestant Calvinism. The thing about presuppositionalism is that one has to presuppose something. The question is what does one presuppose? In the case of Calvinists, such as Cornelius Van Til, Herman Dooyeweerd, and Francis Schaeffer, they ended up presupposing their own scholarly studies, and the studies of the “classic” Reformers. In the end, he chose to believe that the Protestant scholars fifteen centuries after the beginning of the Church, and their “modern” techniques were the most accurate measure of Truth. And, that is where Francis Schaeffer did not go far enough in his thinking.

Having shown that man cannot be the measure of Truth, he did not go the final step. What was the final step, but was the step that his son Francis took? He did not return to the Church. He continued the Protestant assumption that the Church had gone wrong and that in the wisdom of the presuppositionalists they knew better than the Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. They felt that they could discern, based simply on their scholarly studies, where the Church was correct and where the Church had gone wrong. But, that again makes man’s interpretation the measure of the Truth. Holy Tradition plays no part in the interpretations of the presuppositionalists which makes the scholar the measure of Truth.

So, you see, I am quite indebted to Francis Schaeffer. I actually agree with the cultural analyses of the presuppositionalists. They were correct in much of their trenchant analyses. If it had not been for his analyses and with his embuing me with a love of philosophical thinking and a love of sound logic, I might never have come to the Orthodox Church. He convinced me, and his son Frank, that we cannot be the final measure of Truth. And, so, we agreed with Francis. He was right. His analyses were correct. And, so, we left Protestantism because it makes man the measure of Truth. I am not reacting against Francis Schaeffer at all. I am thankful for his teachings.

So, the first step in thinking Christianly is to think like the Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. No one who thinks differently can truly think Christianly although they may think Christian-like (or maybe even Christian-lite). Roman Catholics can make a very similar argument, since we share a common history of 1,000 years. Want to think Christianly? Steep yourself in the Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.

There is a final irony. Those philosophers are called presuppositionalists because they presuppose their starting point. They have an a priori which they claim to be Biblical Revelation (of course as they interpret it). They never tried presupposing the Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. What they presupposed was a Protestant interpretation of Scriptures. Had they presupposed that Church, I suspect that several of their conclusions would have been vastly different.

===MORE TO COME===