He Is There and He Is Not Silent
Again I find myself writing about Francis Schaeffer and I realize that it is because his writing has so profoundly shaped my own thinking. Before I read Schaeffer I was content to have a minimal to nonexistent understanding of philosophy and religion. I simply did not see their relevance and although I must admit that I still am not a formal philosopher or theologian, I can now honestly say that my ignorance has been greatly diminished. Still yet, lest I succumb to intellectual pretentiousness I quote Socrates. "As for, me all I know is that I know nothing."
Francis Schaeffer spoke of this book as one of his three axiomatic works(the other two are The God Who Is There and Escape From Reason). He even went so far as to say that nothing else he has written is well grounded unless you consider them in the light of these three pivotal works.
In this tome he approachs several first and second order inquiries in philosophy. "This book deals with the philosophic necessity of God's being there and not being silent - in the area of metaphysics, morals, and epistemology."
Regarding metaphysics he finds himself in agreement with Sartre in that "the basic philosophic question is that something is there rather than nothing being there." The implications of this statement are so far reaching that I am staggered by the daunting task of attempting to clarify the point. Nevertheless I will move forward with this undertaking. Various philosophers have explained to me that Sartre is a metaphysical realist. But what exactly is a metaphysical realist? In a nutshell it is someone who believes that there are real objects and that they exist independently of our experience or knowledge of them. When we deal with metaphysics we are in fact discussing Being. "This is the area of what is - the problem of existence." Schaeffer feels strongly that any philosophy that attempts to sidestep this issue is invalid. So he tips his hat to the metaphysical realists and thumbs his nose at the anti-realists in one broad stroke.
Before Shaeffer addresses epistemology - the problem of knowing, he makes some general observations. One is that philosophy and religion really deal with the same basic questions. In his view this includes "the questions of Being (that is, what exists), of man and his dilemma (that is, morals), and of epistomology (that is, how man knows). Philosophy deals with these points, but so does religion, including evangelical, orthodox Christianity." The other is that the term philosophy is often used in two different senses. The one being the discipline of formal philosophy as studied in the academy and the other being a person's world-view. From the world-view perspective "all people are philosophers, for all people have a world-view. This is as true of the man digging a ditch as it is of the philosopher in the university."
In the very next paragraph he begins to lament the typical Christian attitudes that exist about philosophy. "Christians have tended to despise the concept of philosophy. This has been one of the weaknesses of evangelical, orthodox Christianity - we have been proud in despising philosophy, and we have been exceedingly proud in despising the intellect." Schaeffer feels that the failure of seminaries to relate theology to philosophy has resulted in graduates who know the answers but do not know the questions. "Thus, students go out from the theological seminaries not knowing how to relate Christianity to the surrounding world-view."
When we consider the basic areas of philosophic thought we are left with relatively few possible answers although the details surrounding each of them vary. We must choose. Either there are no answers or there is an answer that can be rationally and logically considered. If we consider the position that there are answers in the area of metaphysics then we are again left with a limited number of them. In one theory we could say that everything that exists has come from absolutely nothing. That is to say it has an origin independent of energy, mass, motion or personality. This is an argument that Schaeffer at the time of this writing had never heard sustained seriously. In the next answer we could also claim that "all that now is had an impersonal beginning. This impersonality may be mass, energy, or motion, but they are all impersonal, and all equally impersonal. So it makes no basic philosophic difference which of them you begin with. Many modern men have implied that because they are beginning with energy particles rather than old-fashioned mass, they have a better answer." Two paragraphs later he moves to this line of reasoning. "Beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance." This is a classic pantheistic view and it was Schaeffer's work that first caused me to realize that the answer of the naturalist is really not significantly different to that of many ancient Hindu ideas. The next basic answer is to say that everything that is has a personal beginning. "With this we have exhausted the possible basic answers in regard to existence. It may sound simplistic, but it is true. That is not to say there are no details that one can discuss, no variations, subheadings or subschools - but these are the only basic schools of thought which are possible." Therefore if a personal being began everything else then we being personal beings have meaning.
The infinite-personal God is there, but also he is not silent; that changes the whole world. Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus, can find only silence in the area of values and meaning. Bergman made the same point in his film The Silence. This book challenges their pessimism. He is there. He is not silent.
Again, it would be impossible for me to recommend this book too highly.
This book is also contained within the FAS trilogy.
