Schaeffer, Francis A. Escape from Reason
Schaeffer, Francis A. Escape
from Reason, England: Inter Varsity Fellowship, 1968. Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-8308-3405-1
Pages-123
Francis A. Schaeffer was a great author wrote 22 books in his lifetime.
Until his death in 1984, he was also a noted speaker with a worldwide ministry.
His ministry continues through his books, with over two million copies in
print. J. P. Moreland (PhD, University of Southern California; ThM, Dallas
Theological Seminary) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School
of Theology, Biola University, in La Mirada, California. He also serves as
director of Eidos Christian Center. It
is a testimony to the worth of his thinking and writing that almost every one
of these books is still individually available in print. Escape from Reason,
is one of the book of many books written by Schaeffer.
The book, Escape from Reason is very short, and
at 123 pages can be read fairly easily without any struggling and spending much
time to it. It
consists seven chapters. Each chapter of the book has its own
body with several sub points. Chapter one devoted respectively to nature and grace,
Aquinas and the autonomous, painters and writers, nature versus grace and
Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Chapters two devoted respectively to a unity of
nature and grace, the reformation and man. Chapters three devoted respectively
to early modern science and such philosophers, like, Kant, Hegel, and
Kierkegaard etc. Chapter four devoted respectively to both, secular existentialism
and religious existentialism along with new theology and linguistic analysis
and the leap. And finally chapters five, six, and seven devoted respectively to
art, poetry, pornography, madness, television, mysticism, rationality and faith
etc.
The goal of the book is to present a short overview
and contents of the past 800 years of theological/philosophical development
especially in the climates of modern theological development and the idea, that
learn the language in which you can communicate your own generation in order to
evangelize them. “Its (Christian Church) responsibility is not only to hold to
the basic, scriptural principles of the Christian faith, but to communicate
these unchanging truth ‘into’ the generation in which it is living.”
Schaeffer begins to expend his thoughts with Aquinas
and attributes the first creation of the duality (between man and truth,
between the rational and irrational) to him; he then progresses up through
Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard and Barth
Schaeffer writes that man's desire for autonomous freedom
began with Aquinas's theology which argued that though man fell in Eden, his
intellect did not. This created a system in philosophy that argued that man's
reason was autonomous--meaning free and independent of any constraint. This
opened the door to later philosophers to build philosophic arguments
independent of God. But the problem is that man's desire for autonomy cannot be
reconciled to the constraining forces in this world. The important part of this
book is near the end when he ties it all together. The point that he makes is that we must understand
our current culture so that we can communicate the gospel most clearly. This is
our responsibility as Christians. He also addresses some of the mistakes
Christians have made in the process in the past such that we can learn from
them.
He shows the inconsistency of great thinkers throughout history who have come to the realization that without God, our lives are meaningless, and yet they hold on tightly to the notion that they still have value.
Schaeffer basically indicates that the problem of modern man goes back to Thomas Aquinas when he created a division between nature and grace that is that the things of God exist on a higher level while the things of the Earth exist on a lower level. This, however, is nothing new because it goes back to the Platonic teaching of the theory of forms. The platonic idea is that the things of the Earth are a shadow of the reality and that elsewhere there exists a perfect form of everything. This is very much the case as I understand it because the world in which we live is pretty much a shadow of the ultimate reality of God.
Schaeffer had a way of communicating Christianity to modern culture; we need more like him today. He awoke his generation to the presence of secular humanism and showed that it was possible to think and be a Christian at the same time. This book provides an excellent introduction to his ideas, though it shows its origin in the lecture format. Escape from Reason is a burning lamp in the darkness of various existed contemporary philosophies and obvious explanation of how bad philosophy prevailing every aspects and thoughts of life. It is a thought-provoking challenge to become intelligent, independent thinkers, not driven by popular opinion, but by what is true, selfless, and meant to benefit humankind rather than what is false. In my opinion Schaeffer’s work in this book must be read and accept his challenge at the end of the book for Christians to work to understand our current culture so that we may frame the Gospel in terms that the modern man can understand. Philosophical gleams in the book, are well consisted to summarize the huge contents of philosophies of great philosophers. It is a very useful book to have a complete surface understanding of philosophy and of theology.
He shows the inconsistency of great thinkers throughout history who have come to the realization that without God, our lives are meaningless, and yet they hold on tightly to the notion that they still have value.
Schaeffer basically indicates that the problem of modern man goes back to Thomas Aquinas when he created a division between nature and grace that is that the things of God exist on a higher level while the things of the Earth exist on a lower level. This, however, is nothing new because it goes back to the Platonic teaching of the theory of forms. The platonic idea is that the things of the Earth are a shadow of the reality and that elsewhere there exists a perfect form of everything. This is very much the case as I understand it because the world in which we live is pretty much a shadow of the ultimate reality of God.
Schaeffer had a way of communicating Christianity to modern culture; we need more like him today. He awoke his generation to the presence of secular humanism and showed that it was possible to think and be a Christian at the same time. This book provides an excellent introduction to his ideas, though it shows its origin in the lecture format. Escape from Reason is a burning lamp in the darkness of various existed contemporary philosophies and obvious explanation of how bad philosophy prevailing every aspects and thoughts of life. It is a thought-provoking challenge to become intelligent, independent thinkers, not driven by popular opinion, but by what is true, selfless, and meant to benefit humankind rather than what is false. In my opinion Schaeffer’s work in this book must be read and accept his challenge at the end of the book for Christians to work to understand our current culture so that we may frame the Gospel in terms that the modern man can understand. Philosophical gleams in the book, are well consisted to summarize the huge contents of philosophies of great philosophers. It is a very useful book to have a complete surface understanding of philosophy and of theology.
For the lovers of the wisdom, I
recommend this book to read at list once in the life.
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