How should we then live The rise and decline of western thought and culture. Wheaton, Ill Crossway Books.
Francis Shaeffers frequently re-printed book was first published in 1976. He argues that history is not a series of un-connected accidents without meaning or purpose. History flows from human thought, values and actions. Humans have a unique capacity to translate their inner life into action, thus the results of their thought world flows into the external world. He sets out his argument that humanity needs to affirm Biblical revelation and Gods values in 13 chapters. The first five cover pre-modern history. Seven discuss modern history, identifying choices that confront humanity. Two chapters discuss the Reformation, suggesting that developments then were especially significant. Shaeffers interests were wide-ranging, covering political and religious thought and how art, music and architecture reflect each epochs dominant values.
The Romans fell because they made God in their own, finite images. Rome and ancient Greece lacked an inner basis for permanent success. Their values were limited, parochial. The elite abandoned philosophy for social life. Hedonism, intellectual apathy and authoritarianism led to Rome imploding. Rome fell in on itself. It was not destroyed by external invasion. The middle ages preserved the Bible, while Christianity dominated the European space. However, a type of humanism intruded, substituting the Bibles authority with the Churchs. Art became stylized, too. Formalism replaced realism. Toward the end of the middle ages, the growth of cities began to lay foundations for economic developments that later resulted in new technologies, science and cultural expression. The Renaissance re-discovered the classical worlds humanism, reclaiming the concept of human autonomy. People could shape the world and acquire knowledge through reason unaided by revelation. On the positive side, the Renaissance also revived love of the natural world, which the medieval era had feared. The Reformation saw a return to the Biblical worldview that challenges the churchs authority, restoring revelation to the center. The Reformation, he says, was not a perfect time but it pointed to democracy as a political ideal and to freedom of conscience as an absolute right. The Enlightenment put human reason back at the center, questioning whether life or the universe has any inherent purpose other than what people assert. Nature became an autonomous system, containing all the answers without need for God.
Shaeffers thesis is that human life flourishes when people embrace absolute values and accept Gods revelation, the Bible. This prevents arbitrary, man-made values from distorting justice, authoritarians from usurping power and people from living over-indulgent, hedonistic, selfish lives. The Reformation took humanity close to the correct view because, unlike the Renaissance, which was confident in human ability to create meaning, it recognized that people are sinful as well as beings with the potential to know God. The Reformation put the infinite personal God who spoke in the Bible at the center, not autonomous man. God speaks through scripture, not nature. God tells us about nature, though, so nature and revelation coalesce. People can know that God exists and has a plan for their lives because God spoke through the Bible. Through the Bible, God speaks about ultimate values, meaning and morals. Morality is not an arbitrary human construct subject to change. It is absolute. Humans do not invent true morality. Values, such as that racial discrimination is wrong and social justice right, are eternal, unchangeable and God-given. Turning to the modern world of politics, science, philosophy and art, Shaeffers speaks about their breakdown because absolute values and Gods centrality have been marginalized.
The 20th century did resemble Shaeffers description. People accepted the notion of religious freedom, which Shaeffer saw as a Reformation value but they did not want religion dominating the public square. One persons religion is anothers poison. Politics, as he argued, was polarized between the capitalist West and the communist world. Economies did slide through periods of inflation, growth and intervention with a tendency toward chaos. Lacking absolutes, no consistent economic policy prevailed, as he argued. Instead, there was a tendency to synthesize ideas. There were no fixed standards. Alternative governments in the West indeed lurched from left to right to center to maximize support, as he said. Lack of absolutes did propel humanity toward anarchy or authoritarianism. Too many Christians did abandon the idea of making the world a better place for personal peace and affluence. Shaeffer was not interested in spiritual health at the cost of societys health. He wanted a world run by Gods rules, in which all people are treated equally and possess dignity.
His remarks on modern art, philosophy and modern theology as assuming that meaning is found in each moment, in the fact that I exist now but may not tomorrow, sound convincing. His assertion that utilitarianism not idealism dictated how nations and leaders act rings true. Too often, nations intervened when oil or strategic interests were involved but not, as in Rwanda when none of these applied. Nowhere did he question his certainties or consider whether God might have revealed other scriptures, such as the Quran. His assertion that without reference to God, humans cannot arrive at absolutes however could be challenged by emerging world consensus on human rights, on the need to combat poverty, end war or protect the environment. A believers book, his audience was other believers not skeptics, agnostics or atheists.
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