The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian View of the West:5-5 by Francis A. Schaeffer

Author:Francis A. Schaeffer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Schaeffer, Classics, Christian
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

How unsatisfactory this evaluation is can be seen in the fact that a decade later every point Edmund Leach made is still in question.

Nonetheless, even though the years pass and men like Leach do not prove their points, the idea of a purely mechanistic universe with people as only complicated machines infiltrates the thinking of many. By constant repetition, the idea that man is nothing more than a machine has captured the popular mind. This idea keeps being presented year after year in the schools and in the media, however unfounded and unproven the hypothesis. Gradually, after being generally unquestioned, it is blindly accepted — just as, after many years of teaching that the earth was flat, the notion was believed because of its sheer pervasiveness. Flawed and erroneous teachings about mankind, however, have far more serious effects. After all, they are talking about us.

For a while, Western culture — from sheer inertia — continued to live by the old Christian ethics while increasingly embracing the mechanistic, time-plus-chance view of people. People came more and more to hold that the universe is intrinsically and originally impersonal — as a stone is impersonal. Thus, by chance, life began on the earth and then, through long, long periods of time, by chance, life became more complex, until man with his special brain came into existence. By “chance” is meant that there was no reason for these things to occur; they just happened that way. No matter how loftily it is phrased, this view drastically reduces our view of self-worth as well as our estimation of the worth of others, for we are viewing ourselves as mere accidents of the universe.

Sociological Law and Personal Cruelty

Recently a generation has arisen that has taken these theories out of the lab and classroom and into the streets. Its members have carried the reduction of the value of human beings into everyday life. Suddenly we find ourselves in a more consistent but uglier world — more consistent because people are taking their low view of man to its natural conclusion, and uglier because humanity is drastically dehumanized.

To illustrate what it means to practice this low view of man, let us consider some present realities that only a few years ago would have been unthinkable — even on the base provided by a memory of the Christian consensus, let alone within the Christian consensus itself. The Christian consensus gave a basis and a framework for our society to have freedoms without those freedoms leading to chaos. There was an emphasis on the value of the individual person — whose moral choices proceed from judgments about man and society on the basis of the existence of the infinite — personal God and His teaching in the Bible.

The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of God and therefore is unique. Remove that teaching, as humanism has done on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and there is no adequate basis for treating people well. Let us now look at some of those related unthinkable realities.

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