He Is There and He Is Not Silent

by Francis A. Schaeffer

Book by Schaeffer, Francis A

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Christian, Christianity, Nonfiction, Religion, Faith

100 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Francis August Schaeffer was an American Evangelical Christian theologian, philosopher, and Presbyterian pastor. He is most famous for his writings and his establishment of the L'Abri community in Switzerland. Opposed to theological modernism, Schaeffer promoted a more historic Protestant faith and a presuppositional approach to Christian apologetics which he believed would answer the questions of the age.

Wife: Edith Schaeffer
children: Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Reviews

[BookHunter M ُH َM َD · Rating 2 out of 5]

الفلسفة و الدين يناقشان نفس المشاكل الأساسية. فالفلسفة و الدين يبحثان نفس الموضوعات. لكن لكل منهما إجاباته المختلفة و أساليبه المختلفة. فالفلسفة و الدين يبحثان في الوجود. و الإنسان و ما فيه من خير و شر. و في الطريقة التي يصل بها الإنسان إلى المعرفة.

دلل الكاتب على الحاجه إلى إله و برهن على مواصفات هذا الإله كالتالي
إله شخصي ذو قدرة مطلقة.
و لا مجال هنا لتفصيل برهانه فكل الأديان السماوية و أغلب الأديان الوضعية بل و الفلسفية لا جدال لديهم في ذلك.
إله واحد متعدد
أما واحد فهي محل إجماع أو شبه إجماع و أما متعدد ففيها اختلاف في العدد. فهو واحد أحد في الإسلام و ثنائي في المانوية و ثلاثي الأقانيم في المسيحية و متعدد في الديانات الوثنية. و لكن لأن الكاتب في الأساس قس و كتابه موجه للمسيحيين حصريا فهو يدلل على وجهة النظر المسيحية في لزوم التثليث فقط و ينفي الباقي.
أن يعلن عن نفسه
و ذلك بكلامه المرسل إلى رسله و ليس فقط بالطبيعة و المخلوقات. و بالطبع هو هنا يتحدث عن الإنجيل من حيث هو كلمة الله التي لا يأتيها الباطل من بين يديها و لا من خلفها.

يخلص الكاتب إلى حقيقة لا تقبل الجدل عنده و هي أنه لابد من وجود إله ذو قدرات مطلقة و هو إله واحد له ثلاثة أقانيم هي الآب و الإبن و الروح القدس و قد تحدث إلينا هذا الرب بعد أن خلق الكون و خلقنا لنسكن هذا الكون و من ثم كان حديثه إلينا و كلمته مصانين من كل تحريف أو تشويه على مر السنين. و كل تلك الاستدلالات و إن استندت إلى الفلسفة إلا أنها كانت استدلالات غير منطقية و بها فجوات معرفية و افتراضات من الهواء بدون سند مادي بدعوى أنها نظرية تمثل الحقيقة و ما يقابلها هو هواء و خواء و لا سبيل للمعرفة إلا بتلك النظرية.

الكلام يشبه كثيرا نظيره الإسلامي السلفي المتشدد بل و يغالي أكثر منه بإدعاء أن الإنسان لم يصل إلى العللم الحديث و نظرياته إلا بعد تخليه عن طريق الفلسفة و تبنيه لطريق الدين و الدين المسيحي بالذات بعد التخبط الطويل في دروب الفلسفة و نتج عن ذلك كل النظريات العلمية الحديثة في عصر النهضة. و هذا بالطبع هو تماما عكس ما حدث. فمن المعلوم تاريخيا أن الكنيسة الغربية لطالما كانت حجر عثرة أمام التقدم و لم يتسن للبشرية اللحاق بركب الحضارة الحديثة إلا بالتحايل على قوانين الكنيسة و تحكماتها و فلسفتها و ليس في هذا انتقاص من الديانة المسيحية في شيء و لكن هذا هو الواقع و هذا هو المنتظر من أي دين و هو أن يمثل تيارا محافظا يميل إلى معاداة كل ما عداه و كل ما لم يكن من انتاجه المباشر فما بالك إن تعارض مع بعض أحكامه و مفاهيمه.
استنادا إلى كل ما سبق ينظر الكاتب في عدة محاور منها الخير و الشر و نظرية المعرفة و شمول معرفة الله و وجود كل ما يريده الإنسان و يبحث عنه في الكتاب المقدس. و ينتهي إلى أن الإيمان بالله على تلك الصورة التي شرحها هو الحل لكل معاناة الإنسان و فيه إجابة على كل أسئلته في الحياة و يتنبأ بانهيار العلم و الفلسفة و بقاء الدين في النهاية ليكون محور كل شيء.

رغم كل ما في الكتاب من قصور و نظرة متحيزة و تشابه كبير مع رؤية التيار الإسلامي السلفي في النظرة إلى العلم و الدين إلا أنه كتاب شيق رغم صعوبته و يناقش مواضيع مهمة تشغل بال الإنسان من حيث كونه إنسان بغض النظر عن دينه. و رغم عدم اقتناعي بالأجوبة المطروحة إلا أن أسلوب الطرح ومنهج الكاتب في كتابة هذا الموضوع بهذا الأسلوب فيما يقل عن مئة صفحة كان شيئا جيدا يحسب له.
و أخيرا إن كنت مهتما بتلك المواضيع و قرأت عنها في دينك أولا ثم في الكتب العلمية فأنت مدعو لقراءة هذا الكتاب و إلا فلا.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4ish stars?

"I would still be an agnostic if there was no Trinity, because there would be no answers."

Rounding up for that quote alone because it captured my attention and still has me pondering. Otherwise, though, this was a hard one to know what to do with. The length almost works against it. I finally got into the rhythm of Schaeffer's writing style only for the book to have ended. But I'm not sure how much more I could have handled via audio. This feels much longer than the 88 pages or whatever it is. I assumed I found it confusing because I listened on audio, but other reviews lead me to think maybe the problem is more with the source material.

Still, it was interesting, and has left me with a desire to pick up more Schaeffer.

[Becky Pliego · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020: We should have read Shaeffer much more in the past 20 years -and believed more what he saw was coming. BUT it is never late to pick his books up and kill any traces of relativism that you might have adopted without paying attention.

Really good book. I'm glad our pastor recommended us to read it again.

2012: Excellent!

[Marsha Stokes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another in a series of religious books that I was recommended, I chose to read this next because the main body of the book is less than 100 pages! I thought, "Great! I can read this in just a couple days!" However, I greatly underestimated how intellectual this author is. With practically every other page containing one or more words that I would have to look up, I think this book has stretched my vocabulary more than anything else I have read since college! Here is a quick sample of some of the words I had to look up (I write them down on the pages of the book so I won't have to look them up again):

Relativism- the concept that "points of view" have no absolute truth or validity
Existentialsim- the individual has the responsibility for giving one's own life meaning.
Exegetically- (Exegesis) a critical explanation or interpretation.
Epistemology- the study of knowledge
Ecclesiology- the study of the Christian church
Mileu- environment
Dichotomy- division
Hermeneutics- the study of the interpretation of Holy texts.
Didactic- instruction and information in a fascinating and intriguing manner.
Pantheism- God and the universe are identical, or God is a process of relating to the universe and is impersonal.

It just makes me smile at how many of these words the spell check is not recognizing! I can sympathize! But don't you feel smarter just having read that?!

It was also ridiculous to me that such a short book had a Foreword, Introduction, Preface and two Appendixes!!! Seriously!

So, while this book did have a few statements that I enjoyed and found insightful, it was very "high brow" and overly intellectual. I also felt like the author would repeat himself three or four times in a row by saying things like, "So, as you can see, this is a bad way of thinking. Thinking this way leads to unhappiness and depression. So, it leads us to conclude that we will be unhappy and depressed if we think along these lines." (That is just a simple example made up in my own words, but I felt like I encountered sections similar to this over and over again.)

So, the "high brow"-ness and the, what I felt was, poor writing style in places made me give this particular book a much lower rating from my other self-help books thus far. Thank goodness it was short then, I guess.

But here are a couple quotes or ideas that I really did like, just to give you an idea of what it was about, since there is no blurb on Amazon.com:

1. Speaking on the modern concepts of men versus the Biblical concepts of man: "Modern men say there is no love, there is only sex, but they fall in love. Men say there are no moral motions, everything is behavioristic, but they all have moral motions. Even in the more profound area of epistemology (see above), no matter what a man says he believes, actually- every moment of his life- he is acting as though Christianity were true and it is only the Christian system that tells him why he can, must, and does act the way he does. There is no other way."

2. The author also talks about how we can't exhaustively know anything because words are only words and everyone gives their own personal words personal meaning. He goes on to clarify that when he thinks of tea, he thinks of regular green tea. When his wife thinks of tea, she stayed in China for a long time, and tea is not only a drink, but part of a social culture, not to mention different than regular green tea. Therefore, "tea" means something different to both of them given their life experiences, and yet at the same time they both know what tea is and can talk about it. I liked this idea because he goes on to talk about how it is impossible to know anyone (your friends, your spouse, etc.) EXHAUSTIVELY (meaning absolutely and completely) because we are finite beings with finite understanding. The same is true of knowing God. We can not know God exhaustively.

3. The last example that I really liked in the book was a story he told in the appendix about men climbing on a cliff that was getting fogged in and iced over. Some of the men knew that if they could drop down another ten feet, they would miss the icing over of the mountain and be able to survive until the fog lifted. If they stayed, they would surely die. So, taking a "leap of faith", one man drops off the cliff, hoping that there is indeed a ledge ten feet below, but not knowing for sure. The second man waits. He hears a voice in the fog that says, "I know you can't see me, but I am here. I know these mountains like the back of my hand, and if you will trust in me, I can show you how to drop off the cliff ten feet and survive the ice." The second man begins to ask questions of this voice, even though time was short, to make sure he could trust the voice; questions to reassure the man that this voice was indeed everything that he claimed to be.

He concludes this story by saying that the Christian idea of "faith" is much more closely related to the experience of the second man instead of the first. It is reasonable and expected that we ask questions before we leap off a cliff. God wants us to ask questions and seek answers. He does not expect us to blindly jump off the cliff and hope there is a ledge below.

[Peter Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a long time I have felt that presuppositional apologetics and classic apologetics, when done and held rightly, can be mutually supporting. Presuppositions feed facts. But facts, the way the world is, feed our presuppositions as well. While Schaeffer does not use this exact terminology that is part of the lesson I learned from this book.

I found this book more difficult than Escape from Reason and for some reason I skipped The God Who is There, which I will have to pick up. Schaeffer outlines how the failure to have an infinite personal God who speaks leads inevitably to meaninglessness. But more than that he shows how an infinite personal God who created this world and who speaks is the only option that matches the facts of how the world actually is. The key fits the lock and only this key fits the lock.

A couple of other thoughts. Schaeffer writes with a high level of empathy for the modern man in the book. Modern man is alienated, living in a meaningless world with no way of knowing what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil, what is real and what is imaginary. Schaeffer had an answer for this lostness. But he does not just have an answer he truly loves those he speaks to.

Second, Schaeffer (along with Os Guinness) has made me less afraid of questions. Schaeffer noted that at L'Abri no question was off limits. Anything could be asked and there was answer for it from the Bible and the Christian worldview. A lot of times men steeped in presuppositional apologetics, like myself, simply say to objections, "Well you just need to believe." Yes they do, but they also need answers. And Christianity has those answers.

[Tim Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read all of Schaeffer's works back in 1996-98. At the time, I was trying to understand postmodernism. Schaeffer's words from the late '60s and '70s seemed incredibly prophetic as I read them in the late '90s. This summer, I encouraged my daughter to read these books--after all she has grown up seeing Schaeffer's brightly colored books on my shelves her entire life. She is more versed in classical Western texts on philosophy and government than I am. I decided to read these books again. Wow!

In the late 1960s, Schaeffer said things like:
"[I] think science as we have known it is going to die. I think it is going to be reduced to two things: mere technology, and another form of sociological manipulation. I do not believe for a moment the science is going to be able to continue with its objectivity once the base that brought forth science has been totally destroyed... But one thing I am sure of, and that is the science would never have begun if men had had the uncertainty that modern man has in the area of epistemology. There would have been no way to take with certainty the first steps which the early modern scientist were able to take."

"Modern man is left either downstairs as a machine with words that do not lead either to values or facts but only to words, or he is left upstairs in a world without categories in regard to human values, moral values, or the difference between reality and fantasy. Weep for our generation! Man, made in the image of God and intended to be in vertical communication with the One who is there and who is not silent, and meant to have horizontal communication with his own kind, has, because of his proud rationalism, making himself autonomous, come to this place." We know live in a world where personal autonomy has become so defining that even the basics of horizontal communication has become a barrier, e.g. there are specific pronouns that I want you to address me by that are not bound to any convention outside my autonomy.

Think about social media when you hear him cite Marchall McLuhan who suggest that "democracy is finished. What will we have in place of democracy or morals? He says there is coming a time in the global village (not far ahead, in the area of electronics) when we will be able to wire everybody up to a giant computer, and what the computer strikes as the average at any given moment will be what is right and wrong. You may say that is far-fetched and there may never be such a worldwide computer system. But the concept of morals only being the average of what people are thinking of doing at a given time is a present reality."

[Giovanni Generoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

"No finite reference point has meaning without an infinite reference point." ~ Sean-Paul Sarte

In his classic work, "He Is There and He Is Not Silent," Francis Schaeffer addresses the three foundational facets of philosophy: metaphysics, morality, and epistemology. Schaeffer's approach is to begin with the problems that these three branches of philosophy present to any thinking person. Why would something like morality be a "problem"? Well, according to Schaeffer, all persons have the duty to construct a worldview, a framework that succeeds in making sense of these three avenues. Hence, the problem. If we have the duty of creating (more like, perceiving) a worldview that makes sense of these realities, then any supposed worldview that fails in this task must be rejected. The "problem," so to speak, is to make sense of that which is self-evident to all men.

So, for example, the atheistic worldview asserts that all of reality can be reduced down to the impersonal. Ultimately, all objects that exist are material, and thus are made up by, in their totality, the period table of elements. All that exists is matter + time + chance. In this framework, there are no objective moral values and duties. There is no "infinite reference point" by which one can perceive a moral framework. On this philosophy, all is amoral. The problem is that there truly is an objective standard of morality that really is there! And no matter how much a person will deny it, we all perceive this realm of moral ideas. I have meant many atheists who will give lip-service to moral relativism, but when I punch him or her in the face, they seem to object in defiance. Hence, their inconsistency. In a type of "reductio ad absurdum," Schaeffer denounces as absurd any worldviews that makes that which is self-evident a non-reality. In other words, if something goes against that which we know inherently, then it cannot be true. Therefore, atheism fails to make sense of reality because of its failure to make sense of the undeniable fact that there really is a realm of objective moral values and duties.

It is within this system of thought that Schaeffer exploits, broadly, all possible answers to these basic questions. All of them, except one, fail to make sense of reality. There is only one worldview that succeeds in making sense of reality as all men perceive it: the Judeo-Christian worldview.

This is obviously a very big assertion. But I promise you that Schaeffer lives up to the task. I cannot recommend this book more.

[Jacob Tilmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t read this book first. Read “The God Who is There” first and be confused but learn some things. Then read “Escape From Reason” to get Schaeffer’s timeline of evolution of modern thought. Finally read this book to tie Schaeffer’s arguments up in a tidy bow.

This series is the best critique I have read on relativistic theology that is growing in Christian circles. It is a solid argument for universal truths in philosophy and life.

Schaeffer has big brain. I have small brain.

[David Sarkies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Responding to a materialist society
18 August 2013

This is the third book in the so called Francis Schaeffer trilogy and I must admit that it does not seem to go anywhere. I guess the thing that put me off this book is that in the introduction he tried to convince us that this book, and in fact the whole trilogy, is like scripture in that all three books go together. Seriously, anybody who tries to convince me that their books are like scripture is going to put me off because scripture is scripture and no writer can write a book like scripture because scripture is unique.
What Schaeffer is trying to do with this book is to bring what he has discussed in the first two books and outline how we, as Christians, can speak the gospel to a post modern world. His theory works on the idea that we have pretty much closed off our world to any outside forces and thus have created what he calls a 'closed system', that is, a system that works inside of itself and is unified inside of itself and no outside force has any influence in it.
Personally I do not think that this is the case forty years from when he wrote this book. This may have been the case back then, and okay, we here in Melbourne may be an rather atheistic lot, but much has changed since the world of the early seventies. Okay, the atheists are running around claiming that there is no god, but you wonder around other parts of the world and you will discover that a lot of people do not live in a closed system. For instance, Islam, back then, was not a major influence on the world as it is today. Back then you did not have the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, but today, if you wonder around Western Europe, or even Melbourne, you will see the spires of the mosques rising above the surrounding houses.
However, let us move away from Islam and also consider the rise of Paganism. Some may think that paganism (that is, in the modern sense of the word, the worship of nature as god) acts within a closed system, but it also can act in an open system. The world has changed a lot since Schaeffer's day, which does not necessarily mean that what Schaeffer wrote back then was wrong, just that in the world that we live in now it is not as effective as it was back then.
Basically the idea is that back then, and to some extent even now among certain elements of our society, we have pushed God so far back to the outer limits that he no longer has an effect within our world. It is the deist idea of the blind watchmaker. God created the world, wound it up, and then stepped back to let it work itself out. However, post-modern Christianity has been forced to come back to reality with the rise of Islam and the intrusion of Eastern mysticism. Take for instance yoga, which is really popular today. The spiritual world is not dead, but it has been reawakened, and Christians have been forced to reawaken with it.
It is interesting how he wrote about how the world would become interconnected with one central supercomputer. This has not happened either. There is no single super computer, but rather a network of computers. Morality is not decided by a central computer but rather what people see is right in their own eyes. Schaeffer wrote before the rise of homosexuality, but this has changed and has become accepted. Even now we are beginning to see paedophiles pushing for rights as well and one wonders whether society will begin to accept that (though I hope not because that has a lot to do with consent, and our society says that somebody under the age of 18, at least in Australia, cannot consent to sexual acts). We are also beginning to see the acceptance of drugs beyond alcohol, with the legalisation of marijuana in two American states, as well as in the Netherlands and in Spain. They attempted to clamp down on it in the Netherlands, but the law that would have prevented foreign nationals from buying weed met a rather horrific end.
In conclusion, while this book does offer some insights in how we as Christians should approach people who live within a closed world, the problem is that this book is written for people who lived forty years ago and things have changed a lot. It is difficult to try to apply Schaeffer's principles to the world of today because the world of today is simply not the world that Schaeffer lived in.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

On page 1 Schaeffer defines metaphysics as “the existence of Being.” That’s an ambiguous statement at best. Does he mean that there is an entity called Being which itself exists? That’s not necessarily wrong, and a good Platonist would have no problem with it, but I don’t think that’s what he means. In normal usage metaphysics means something like “the nature of reality” or the study of being.”

“An impersonal beginning leads to some sort of reductionism” (8). Schaeffer suggests that if all is bare particularity and there is no universal (or universals) to bind the particulars together, then they can’t have any significance. I like the idea, but I think it is under-developed. He explains the idea better with pantheism. If all is essence, or one, or whatever, then there is nothing to distinguish the particulars. They don’t have any meaning. You don’t have any meaning.

Schaeffer’s argument is quite simple: you have to begin with the infinite-personal Trinity in order to have meaning. He means something like only the Trinity, and the propositional revelation of God-in-Christ, can allow for predication between universals and particulars. I agree. I just think he needs more than 100 pages to make the case.

He has two long chapters on epistemology. They were surprisingly good and the astute reader can sense the Van Til. He begins, as all must, with pointing out the failures of the Greeks. Their gods were personal, but finite. As a result sometimes the gods controlled fate; sometimes fate controlled the gods. Knowledge and morality were iffy.

Plato rightly championed universals, but where was the universal that held everything to be located? The gods were finite and fate was impersonal.

He makes a fascinating suggestion that the Reformation’s insistence, not merely on sola scriptura, but on propositional revelation, solved the problem of nature and grace. Verbal, propositional revelation had both an infinitely personal God (universals; upper storey) that speaks to the space-time world (62). It’s a brilliant suggestion worthy of a doctoral dissertation.

This book is much better than The God Who is There. Schaeffer’s argument is “tighter” and he doesn’t get sidetracked on philosophical issues that are beyond his capacity.

[Jess Arthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a brilliant little book! Francis Schaeffer gives a clear apologetic for why it is logical, reasonable, and necessary for the universe to have its beginning in a personal, infinite God. I found this book really insightful when it came to thinking about the origins of some of the basic thought patterns that trouble the college students I work with. It is solidly set in the latter half of the 20th century so some of the problems it addresses are not immediately relevant today, though their development into the modern day is.

If you or someone you know is someone who is logically minded and gets tripped up on the rationality of Christian belief, this book is a great read!

[Oceana GottaReadEmAll · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want deep, philosophical words on how God is real and personal and good, and how we are created to have relationship with Him, read this book.

[Ryan Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Previously this was by and large my favorite of the trilogy. But this time, I certainly didn’t feel this way. It’s still a great book, and helpful in the trilogy, but it by no means should be read alone.

The reason I didn’t enjoy it as much was not because Schaeffer wasn’t clear nor persuasive nor interesting—he was (though, for some reason, I do think his writing was a little harder to read here than the others). It was rather because in this book he doesn’t give as much time to the Christian answer as he does in TGWIT and in chapter 7 of *Escape from Reason*. Rather, most of the space in the chapters is devoted to proving why naturalism’s or the leap’s metaphysical, moral, or epistomological answers don’t work. This is great, especially since he’s more directly addressing these three topics in this book. But he only gives a short Christian answer to the questions at the end of each chapter, and then on top of this, he only gives a few paragraphs to why God’s speaking specifically is the answer.

This is not to say he doesn’t clearly explain the Christian answer or why God’s speaking is necessary, but he doesn’t elaborate on it as much as you’d think. He elaborates more on the Christian answer in TGWIT, and, since the title of this work is *He Is There and He Is Not Silent*, I wish he spent more time talking about the importance of God’s *speaking*. Of course he does. But he definitely couldn’t spilt more ink on it’s amazing implications.

Nevertheless, totally recommended. You can’t read the trilogy without it, and easily still a 5 star book.

[William Dicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book I ever read by Schaeffer, back in the late 80s. It altered forever how I thought about life, God and Christianity. I came from a Christian tradition where thinking was not required. You were a Christian because you had "faith," no matter if that faith was a contentless faith. Schaeffer taught me that to become a thinking Christian was a good and necessary thing!

[Maxime N. Georgel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Plutôt décevant. Le raisonnement n'est pas rigoureux (et c'est particulièrement frustrant lorsque, comme moi, on vient de lire du Lewis qui sait être simple et rigoureux). Schaeffer utilise les mots dans un sens non-technique et nouveau puis critique ensuite cet usage (cf. son usage de panthéisme en début du livre). Il se contente d'affirmer beaucoup de choses sans prouver son point. Il cherche à montrer que ne pas supposer un Dieu personnel c'est rendre incompréhensible le langage et divers éléments de la vie humaine sans expliquer en quoi leur incompréhensibilité est un problème logique. Son traitement du langage propositionnel sur Dieu est très superficiel (lorsqu'on le compare par exemple à la théorie raffinée de l'analogie chez les thomistes). Certaines affirmations sont aussi étonnamment réductrice comme dire que "pour le chrétien, il n'y a pas de problème épistémologique". Certes, le christianisme offre des éléments probants en épistémologie mais tous les chrétiens sont loin de les étudier et cela n'ôte pas le problème, cela contribue uniquement à la réponse. Par ailleurs, sa méthode le fait constamment confondre présupposé épistémologique et principe ontologique. Et c'est ici le coeur du problème du pressupositionnalisme. Dieu est bien le principe ontologique de tout, l'être le plus intelligible et le plus immédiat pour la connaissance divine. Mais pour notre connaissance, il n'est pas le premier dans l'ordre de la connaissance, bien qu'était le premier dans l'ordre ontologique et intelligible.

Points positifs : le style est simple, les illustrations sont pertinentes, l'interaction avec la culture et l'art modernes est omniprésente, les exemples concrets de dialogues avec des personnes de l'Abri sont parlants.

Au total, je ne recommande pas. Vous ne manquerez rien d'important en ne lisant pas ce livre.

[Sarah Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s fascinating how accurate Schaffer is in his prediction of the current cultural direction. Obviously, scripture does not change & he is writing through that lens, but it never ceases to amaze me how he describes our current world. Excellent read.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have liked this to be just a touch more life changing, but that is undeniably more my fault than Schaeffer's.

[Ryan Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time reading this, but it has been a little while. Schaeffer's ability to argue apologetically is second to none. His ideas are so simple, and yet so profound. That is probably the best way to put it. In short, his thesis is that "the infinite-personal God is there, but also he is not silent; that changes the whole world" (x). He then draws the profound implications of this in the realm of being, morals, and how we know what we know.

He shows that those who live in a closed system, where there cannot be a God outside of natural causes, must eventually see themselves as machines. Moreover, finite machines. As such, all basis for morality and meaning are lost. They cannot connect enough small dots--what Schaeffer calls "particulars"--in order to find universal meaning. There not only needs to be a personal God and beginning to everything, but there needs to be communication from the personal God who started it all. From him, then, we can understand ourselves, morals, and how we know what we know.

He also shows how this isn't just the only (and he stresses 'only') rational answer to morals and how we know anything, but it is the only answer that everyone consistently lives according to. Even those who say they basically are machines have 'moral motions' (see pg. 23) and have profound feelings like love. And on the other hand, those who don't believe in a personal beginning and communicator but don't want to accept that we are machines are being inconsistent. The only logical and experiential option is Christianity. It is this that Schaeffer so wonderfully shows.

It is a book worth reading again and again--especially at only 100 pages. At times, it is more difficult to read just because at times he talks about history, philosophers, and modern movies most people haven't heard of, but his basic ideas are profound and solid apologetic arguments for the truthfulness of the Christian position.

[Kofi Opoku · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful read. I love Shaeffer’s ability to combine philosophical text with theology and beauty. One key point he made was that Christianity is not just right because it is more compelling but right because it is the ONLY answer after carefully examining other worldviews. He mentions how many other philosophical inquiries into the existence of God or a higher power are, in reality, an inquiry into the problem of communication. If there is such a higher power, what can we know about such a one, and what has he said? Christianity says God is personal and has communicated to mankind in nature and the Bible. Shaeffer briefly critiques Michaelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow Up” as evidence of the utter chaos and meaninglessness that is perhaps more consistent with the existentialist view that we desire a purpose but have no way of knowing what is true.

[Rob the Obscure · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want to see a classic example of the logical fallacy named "begging the question", this book will serve as an excellent illustration

[Nico Zarate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome. Not just awesome in fact, awesome-awesome.

[William Schrecengost · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent end to an excellent "trilogy"

[Josh Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fire.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third book on Francis Schaeffer’s Trilogy. It is a classic read in Christian defense of the faith. I actually like this one more than the second book and I go back and forth with whether I enjoyed this more than the first book or not. Although it is shorter in size than the first, I felt it was more focused and packs more punch in fewer pages. Overall Schaffer consider the question of epistemology and method of how we know and how a Christian worldview is needed.
Schaeffer’s book consists of four chapters and two appendixes. The first chapter is on metaphysics and why it is necessary. The second chapter is titled “Moral necessity” and the next two chapter discusses epistemological necessity with chapter three on epistemological problems and chapter four is on the answer. The appendix tackles on the question of whether propositional revelation is necessary and the second appendix tackles on two different kinds of understanding of faith.
Schaeffer’s book is based upon lectures delivered by the author in various occasion. Schaeffer felt that this book should have been the second volume in the trilogy since it is foundational to book three with his tackling of the question of how do we know what we know. I was struck with how the things Schaeffer dealt with are issues that would be problems that become intensified in the twentieth first century such as the issue of relativism, existentialism and nihilism.
I thought Schaeffer argued rather well with the issue of the problem of a worldview that is impersonal. He notes also how even those who believe in impersonal pantheism is rather holding on to a walking contradiction as the person who hold to impersonal pantheism is sneaking in the personal (theism) even when they profess to deny it. This same dilemma is also true with those who try to say everything came from nothing but then they really don’t believe in totally nothing. There’s many golden nuggest in this book and even if one does not agree with everything with Schaeffer’s views of apologetics yet there are things one can gain from reading this book. A great book for our time.

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 2 out of 5]

Back in the late '70s and early '80s, when Francis Schaeffer was still alive and I still hadn't heard of him and math classes were a significant part of my life, I always preferred geometry to algebra. Give me nice, concrete math with pictures any day over the purely abstract. Well, this book was algebra. I could have comprehended it (as I did 7th and 9th grade algebra) if I'd put a greater portion attention and effort into the task, but there were meals to be prepped and pages to be formatted, and so I half-listed and maybe tenth-understood. But the real failure to comprehend, I must confess, had more to do with my just. not. caring. I have ingested tiny crumbs of philosophy throughout my years, and it's simply never interested me. I'm probably a weaker person and a shallower thinker as a result, but I'm pretty sure I can live comfortably with that reality.

The narrator...🙄. First, why was a woman reading this book? Second, why was such a self-serious person of either sex reading this book? The overpronunciation of foreign words was ridiculous. For instance, the word is L'Abris. Luh-BREE. Not gargle-gag-b'-rolled-r-ee. Stop it. Just stop it. 😂

[Millie Picker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading Schaeffer’s books and his practical and logical walk through faith. His books, though small are packed with nuggets, that sometimes I have to think about and digest for days before moving on.
If you are entrenched in modern philosophy, but wonder if there is a God, this book is a good starting place. In this small tome you will explore modern thought and where it leads along with exploring Gods existence and Who He is.
Whether you are an atheist, doubter, agnostic, or a genuine believer, your thinking will be enriched by Schaeffers thinking.

[Mary J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lesson learned. Don’t listen to Schaeffer in audiobook format. This is a book that needs to be worked through slowly and with a dictionary. lol.

However, I do love Schaeffer and his unwillingness to compromise in his stance that questions in faith are good and they should be explored.

Questions are good because God is not silent.

Additionally, this book is worth reading just for the descriptions and anecdotes of Schaeffer in the beginning. He is such an interesting and inspiring person of faith.

[Julie Mabus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schaefer is a modern prophet. He can see things that most cannot. I appreciate his ability to see the changes in culture for what it really is. I may not agree with everything he says but he has a lot of insight and wisdom. Much to think about in this book.

[Késia Souza Alves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eu poderia ter aproveitado mais o livro se tivesse lido os 2 primeiros que o antecedem. Vou ler o O Deus que intervém e Escape da razão e depois reler este para aproveitar melhor.

No entanto, o livro fala sobre a existência de um Deus pessoal e que se manifesta através de nós e da criação. É um livro bastante intelectual e filosófico. Recomendo especialmente para descrentes e ateus.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schaeffer is brilliant. His wisdom and compassion are a gift, and especially so for the person wrestling with significant philosophical questions.