Book Review: How Should We Then Live?

What C.S. Lewis was to apologetics from the 1940's to the 1960's, Francis Schaeffer  (1912-1984) was from the 1960's to the 1980's.  Lewis, a professor of literature and author, wrote to a generation that was not quite post-Christian but culturally Christian; Schaeffer wrote to two generations:  one that had become post-Christian and one that was trying to understand the great upheaval that had taken place and the impacts that it would have for years to come.

How Should We Then Live? is Schaeffer's review of the history of Western Thought and Civilization as seen in its theology, its art, and its philosophy and science.  I know what you are thinking:  that sounds like a lot of ground to cover and is probably pretty boring.  Quite to the contrary:  Schaeffer is a lively writer and able to discuss such weighty topics with an ease that makes it rather easy to understand (One of his earlier works, Escape From Reason, discusses the same material at an even easier level.  Descent of Western Civilization in less than 100 pages.  And quite comprehensible.). 

Schaeffer's primary break point is Thomas Aquinas, who separated Grace from Nature and thus cut loose the concept of universals from particulars.  Like most things, the change was infinitesimally small at the time, but caused a wider and wider divergence within Western Christianity between God and Man.  From the breakdown in God and Nature, the came the division between Universals and Particulars, which then led to the division between Autonomous Freedom and Autonomous Nature, which then lead to the division between the Noumenal World (Concepts of meaning and value) and the Phenomenal World (The world which can be weighed and measured), which led to the division between Non-Reason (Faith and Optimism) and Reason (Pessimism). This final breakdown is the post Christian modern world, which tries to find faith and optimism in Reason but has no absolutes to base them in - as Schaeffer says, "If there are not absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute".

Schaeffer, in his final chapters reviewing the modern world, notes two things:  The first is that the Western Church (and especially the American church) failed to speak on issues where it should have, especially on Race and how wealth is used, which has created lasting issues to this day (It is a fair point to wonder what the world would be like if the Western Christian Church actively fought against slavery much earlier than it did and worked much harder on issues of the Industrial Revolution).  But Schaeffer then goes on to wonder (in 1976) what in years hence the Church of the future will look back on our time and wish that they had addressed more fully. 

 For Schaeffer at that time, it was the growth of authoritarian government as demonstrated by the Soviet Union.  Quoting Eric Hoffer, he states "When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom.  At that point the words left or right will make no difference.  They are only roads to the same end.  There is no difference between an authoritarian government from the right or the left; the results are the same." (emphasis Schaeffer's).  

Schaeffer distills down what was effectively become a post Christian society to two items, the only two items by which most everyone, Christians and non-Christians, have come to manage their lives: personal peace and prosperity.  As long as these two are not impacted, says Schaeffer, people are not likely to get involved.  Threaten either of these, and people will rise up (thus implied, the way to impact people is to not change either of these until it is too late).

There is a lot in this book to make one think.  The volume referenced above clocks in at 257 pages - but it is an engaging and thought provoking read to anyone who wants to understand, on a broad thought level, how we got to where we are today.

A post script:  Schaeffer effectively predicted the modern world. The fact that he did it so well leaves me in a concerned state about what will continue to come - concerned, but not surprised.