The mind of Francis Schaeffer

Just finished reading a trilogy of books by Francis Schaeffer - whom J. I. Packer calls in his preface to the volume, 'one of the truly great Christians of my time'. Schaffer's brilliance lay in his ability to analyse 20th century philosophy in broad sweeps and yet penetrating detail, and trace the development of thought patterns and ideas as they filtered down from philosophy through art and music and finally fully saturated the modern mindset.

His conclusion? The 20th century marked the descent of humankind below what he called the 'Line of Despair'. Previously everyone had essentially agreed that philosophy (and art and science) was the search for a system to understand the world. Models were proposed and rejected based on their ability to explain everything. Now, for various reasons, philosophy has given up the search. We are left with views that stem from essentially existentialist roots - i.e. the ultimate reality is that we are here. There's no meaning other than what we create (if, indeed, we can create meaning at all). Hence we see the rise of post-modernism and relativism.

Which is where despair comes in. When absolutes are ditched, meaning goes with it. So modern man is left in the morass of data - yet with no hope of communication with other beings (for without absolutes, there's no basis for common ground in the meaning of words/language), with no hope of comprehending whether there is, in fact, any external universe outside of their own conciousness, or indeed of any certainty that their conciousness is in fact there itself. So modern man, pushed to the extreme conclusion of his line of thought, must despair. He can do no other.

And so, says Schaffer, Christianity offers the most wonderful contrast, in metaphysical solid ground. The foundation of existence is The God Who is There - who created a real, external world, and real, personal creatures. There can be real communication because there are real absolutes, real meaning because He is.

It's more personal than that too. Modern man doesn't believe in communication between two people. So the modern lovers look into each other's eyes and have to despair, because they don't believe in love. And yet no one really lives consistently with relativism. The best example: Picasso spends his life painting in a way that encapsulated the despair of the day - 'the viewer has no clue what he is looking at...he made his own world on the canvas, and in this sense [he had] become god...we [modern men] have come to the point where we cannot communicate' (The God who is There p30). Yet Picasso fell in love. And Picasso began to scrawl over his finished paintings 'J'aime Eva'. The myth of non-communication was destroyed by the reality of love.

I've definately falied to capture the power of his arguments - got a lot more mulling to do over what he said!