Yearly Archives: 2011

According to Woody Allen Life is meaningless (Woody Wednesday Part 2)

August 10, 2011 – 12:37 am

Woody Allen, the film writer, director, and actor, has consistently populated his scripts with characters who exchange dialogue concerning meaning and purpose. In Hannah and Her Sisters a character named Mickey says, “Do you realize what a thread were all hanging by? Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Everything. I gotta get some answers.”{7}

Is there an answer to the question “Is there meaning in life?” Woody Allen does not believe so, but I would like to offer one below.

Good review of “Midnight in Paris” below and the writer also refers to Woody Allen’s view that life is meaningless:

Roger Arpajou /Sony Picture ClassicsOwen Wilson plays Gil, a Hollywood screenwriter on vacation in Paris who wishes he could escape back to the 1920s. David Edelstein says his performance is one of the finest by a lead in a Woody Allen film — and rivals many of Allen’s performances, too.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a Hollywood screenwriter on vacation in Paris who wishes he could escape back to the 1920s. David Edelstein says his performance is one of the finest by a lead in a Woody Allen film — and rivals many of Allen's performances, too.
Roger Arpajou /Sony Picture ClassicsOwen Wilson plays Gil, a Hollywood screenwriter on vacation in Paris who wishes he could escape back to the 1920s. David Edelstein says his performance is one of the finest by a lead in a Woody Allen film — and rivals many of Allen’s performances, too.

Midnight in Paris

  • Director: Woody Allen
  • Genre: Comedy, Romance
  • Running Time: 88 minutes

Rated PG-13 for some sexual references and smoking

With: Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Owen Wilson, Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody

text size A A A

May 20, 2011

Woody Allen isn’t religious, but he has a rabbinical side, and over the past decade his films have become more and more like Talmudic parables for atheists. On the surface, these movies are streamlined, even breezy, and they often have voice-over narration to get the pesky exposition out of the way fast. Philosophically, Allen has settled on resignation, a cosmic shrug: There’s no God, no justice, people are inconstant, life is meaningless — so where do you wanna eat?

I have a problem, though, buying into the worldview of someone whose world is a closed ecosystem. There’s no evidence that Allen lets any contemporary culture penetrate his hard, defensive shell. Music stopped in the ’40s, if not earlier, ditto literature, ditto film — with a pass for select European directors. He seems locked in a daydream of the past.

The good news is that Allen has made the lure of nostalgia the theme of his supernatural comedy Midnight in Paris, which might be why this is his best, most emotionally pure film in over a decade. It’s a romantic fantasy that’s also a sly act of self-criticism.

The time-traveling hero, Gil, played by Owen Wilson, is a successful Hollywood screenwriter on holiday in Paris with his brisk, upwardly mobile fiancee, Inez, played by Rachel McAdams. Gil considers himself a hack and, to Inez’s horror, wants to write novels instead of movies. How he wishes he could be a writer in Paris — better yet, Paris in the ’20s, alongside Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and all those other giants living high yet creating enduring works of art.

You can almost hear the familiar Woody Allen cadences in the film, yet Owen Wilson isn’t the usual East Coast intellectual Allen hero, and he makes the lines his own. Apart from Mia Farrow in The Purple Rose of Cairo, this is the finest lead performance in an Allen film that wasn’t by Allen — and finer than many of Allen’s, too. You sense the vein of wistfulness under his stoner cool, the longing for definition behind his spaciness. It’s a thrilling moment when he sits forlornly on some steps in the rain at midnight, a vintage automobile rumbles by, the champagne-swilling occupants invite him in, and he’s suddenly back in the ’20s.

EnlargeRoger Arpajou/Sony Picture ClassicsOwen Wilson, playing the time-traveling hero Gil, wants to write novels instead of movies, much to the horror of his fiancee Inez, played by Rachel McAdams.
Owen Wilson, playing the time-traveling hero Gil, wants to write novels instead of movies, much to the horror of his fiancee Inez, played by Rachel McAdams.
Roger Arpajou/Sony Picture ClassicsOwen Wilson, playing the time-traveling hero Gil, wants to write novels instead of movies, much to the horror of his fiancee Inez, played by Rachel McAdams.

How? No explanation. Allen just breezes past all that, the way he did in Purple Rose and, before that, in his great 1970s short story, “The Kugelmass Episode,” happily eliminating the sci-fi wheels and pulleys that tend to suck up so much screen time. Gil is just there — counseling Scott about Zelda, drinking with Hemingway, showing parts of his novel to Gertrude Stein, and falling in love with a woman named Adriana, played by a stunningly beautiful Marion Cotillard. Adriana bonds with Gil over his love of the past — except the past she loves is the 1890s and not her vulgar present. His ’20s ideal woman hates the ’20s — a bitter irony.

Allen doesn’t do anything interesting with Scott and Zelda — my guess is he’s too in awe of them. But his Hemingway, played with forthright manly-manliness by Corey Stoll, is a riot; and as Gertrude Stein, Kathy Bates proves that in an absurd context, playing it straight can make you funnier than a thousand clowns.

Midnight in Paris is a doodle, but it’s easy and graceful, and its ambivalent view of nostalgia has all kinds of resonance. As I watched, I felt a different sort of nostalgia: not for the Parisian ’20s but for the days in which Allen regularly turned out freewheeling, pitch-perfect tall tales in print and onscreen. The movie is so good it takes you back to those days, which were the days, my friend.

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Below is an excellent article on the meaning of life and it includes a reference to Woody Allen:

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What’s the Meaning of Life? Print E-mail

Written by Jerry Solomon

Meaning in Everyday Life

Cathy has been married to her husband Dan for twenty years and is the mother of two teenagers. She is very involved in family, church, and community activities. Many consider her to be the model of one that “has it together,” so to speak. Unknown to her family and her many friends, lately she has been thinking a lot about her lifestyle. As a result, she has even questioned whether there is any ultimate meaning or purpose underlying her busyness. At lunch one day she finds herself in an intimate conversation with a good friend named Sarah. Even though they have never talked about such things, Cathy decides to see how Sarah will respond to her questioning. Lets eavesdrop on their conversation.

Cathy: Sarah, Ive been doing some serious thinking lately.

Sarah: Is something wrong?

Cathy: I dont know that I would say something is wrong. I just dont know what to make of these thoughts Ive been having.

Sarah: What thoughts?

Cathy: This may sound like Im going off the deep end or something, but I promise you Im not. Ive just started asking some really heavy questions. And I havent told another soul about it.

Sarah: Well, tell me! You know you can trust me.

Cathy: Okay. But you promise not to laugh or blow it off?

Sarah: Stop being so defensive. Just say it!

Cathy: Sarah, why are you here? I mean, what is your purpose in life?

Sarah: (She pauses before responding flippantly.) Youre right, you have gone off the deep end.

Cathy: Sarah, I need you to be serious with me here!

Sarah: Okay! Im sorry! Im just drawing a blank. Actually, I try not to think about that question.

Cathy: Yeah, well, denying it doesnt work anymore. It just keeps rolling around in my head.

Sarah: Cant you talk to Dan about it?

Cathy: Ive thought about it, but I dont want him to think theres something wrong between us.

Sarah: Well, what about talking to your pastor? I bet hed have some answers.

Cathy: Yeah, Ive thought about that too. Maybe I will.

Is Cathy really “weird,” or is she an example of people that rub shoulders with us each day? And what about Sarah? Was her nervous response typical of how most of us would respond if we were asked questions about meaning and purpose?

James Dobson relates an intriguing story about a remarkable seventeen year old girl who achieved a perfect score on both sections of the “…Scholastic Achievement Test, and a perfect on the tough University of California acceptance index. Never in history has anyone accomplished this intellectual feat, which is almost staggering to contemplate.”{1} Interestingly, though, when a reporter “…asked her, What is the meaning of life? she replied, I have no idea. I would like to know myself.”{2}

This intellectually brilliant young lady has something in common with Cathy and Sarah, doesnt she? She is able to understand complicated subject matter, but she has no idea if life has any meaning.

Our goal in this essay is to see if there is an answer for them, as well as all of us.

The Questions Around Us

As I was driving to my office one day I heard a dramatic radio advertisement for a book. It began something like this: “Would you like to find meaning in life?” As I listened to the remainder of the ad I realized that the books author was focusing on New Age concepts of purpose and meaning. But the striking thing about what was said was that the advertisers obviously believed that they could get the attention of the radio audience by asking about meaning in life. Some may think it is advertising suicide to open an ad with such a question. Or perhaps the author and her publicists are on to something that “strikes a chord” with many people in our culture.

Questions of meaning and purpose are a part of the mental landscape as we enter a new millenium. Some contend this has not always been the case, but that such questions are an unprecedented legacy of the upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.{3} Others assert that such questions are a result of mans rejection of God.{4}

Even though most of us dont make such issues a part of our normal conversations, the questions tend to lurk around us. They can be heard in songs, movies, books, magazines, and many other media that permeate our lives. For example, Jackson Browne, an exceptionally reflective songwriter of the 60s and 70s, wrote these haunting lyrics in a song entitled For a Dancer:

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go ahead and throw
Some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive….{5}

Russell Banks, the author of Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, both of which became Oscar-nominated films, has this to say about his work: “Im not a morbid man. In my writing, Im just trying to describe the world as straightforwardly as I can. I think most lives are desperate and painful, despite surface appearances. If you consider anyones life for long, you find its without meaning.”{6}

Woody Allen, the film writer, director, and actor, has consistently populated his scripts with characters who exchange dialogue concerning meaning and purpose. In Hannah and Her Sisters a character named Mickey says, “Do you realize what a thread were all hanging by? Can you understand how meaningless everything is? Everything. I gotta get some answers.”{7}

Even television ads have focused on meaning, although in a flippant manner. A few years ago you could watch Michael Jordan running across hills and valleys in order to find a guru. When Jordan finds him he asks, “What is the meaning of life?” The guru answers with a maxim that leads to the product that is the real focus of Jordans quest.

Even though such illustrations can be ridiculous, maybe they serve to lead us beyond the surface of our subject. We often get nervous when we are encouraged to delve into subject matter that might stretch us. When we get involved in conversations that go beyond the more mundane things of everyday life we may tend to get tense and defensive. Actually, this can be a good thing. The Christian shouldnt fear such conversations. Indeed, Im confident that if we go beyond the surface, we can find peace and hope.

Beyond the Surface

Listen to the sober words of a famous writer of the twentieth century:

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy…. I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.{8}

These phrases indicate that Albert Camus, author of The Plague, The Stranger, and The Myth of Sisyphus, was not afraid to go beyond the surface. Camus was bold in exposing the thoughts many were having during his lifetime. In fact, his world view made it obligatory. He was struggling with questions of meaning in light of what some called the “death of God.” That is, if there is no God, can we find meaning? Many have concluded that the answer is a resounding “No!” If true, this means that one who believes there is no God is not living consistently with that belief.

William Lane Craig, one of the great Christian thinkers of our time, states that:

Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were ultimately without meaning, value or purpose. If we try to live consistently within the atheistic worldview, we shall find ourselves profoundly unhappy. If instead we manage to live happily, it is only by giving the lie to our worldview.{9}

Francis Schaeffer agrees with Craigs analysis, but makes even bolder assertions. He also maintains that the Christian can close the hopeless gap that is created in a persons godless worldview. Listen to what he wrote:

It is impossible for any non-Christian individual or group to be consistent to their system in logic or in practice. Thus, when you face twentieth-century man, whether he is brilliant or an ordinary man of the street, a man of the university or the docks, you are facing a man in tension; and it is this tension which works on your behalf as you speak to him.{10}

What happens when we go “beyond the surface” in order to find meaning? Can a Christian worldview stand up to the challenge? I believe it can, but we must stop and think of whether we are willing to accept the challenge. David Henderson, a pastor and writer, gives us reason to pause and consider our response. He writes:

Our lives, like our Daytimers, are busy, busy, busy, full of things to do and places to go and people to see. Many of us, convinced that the opposite of an empty life is a full schedule, remain content to press on and ignore the deeper questions. Perhaps it is out of fear that we stuff our lives to the wallsfear that, were we to stop and ask the big questions, we would discover there are no satisfying answers after all.{11}

Lets jettison any fear and continue our investigation. There are satisfying answers. It is not necessary to “stuff our lives to the walls” in order to escape questions of meaning and purpose. God has spoken to us. Let us begin to pursue His answers.

Eternity in Our Hearts

The book of Ecclesiastes contains numerous phrases that have entered our discourse. One of those phrases states that God “has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart. . .” (3:11). What a fascinating statement! Actually, the first part of the verse can be just as accurately translated “beautiful in its time.” Thus “a harmony of purpose and a beneficial supremacy of control pervade all issues of life to such an extent that they rightly challenge our admiration.”{12} The second part of the verse indicates that “man has a deep-seated sense of eternity, of purposes and destinies.”{13}But man cant fathom the vastness of eternal things, even when he believes in the God of eternity. As a result, all people live with what some call a “God-shaped hole.” Stephen Evans believes this hole can be understood through “the desire for eternal life, the desire for eternal meaning, and the desire for eternal love:”{14}

The desire for eternal life is the most evident manifestation of the need for God. Deep in our hearts we feel death should not be, was not meant to be. The second dimension of our craving for eternity is the desire for eternal meaning. We want lives that are eternally meaningful. We crave eternity, and earthly loves resemble eternity enough to kindle our deepest love. Yet earthly loves are not eternal. Our sense that love is the clue to what its all about is right on target, but earthly love itself merely points us in the right direction. What we want is an eternal love, a love that loves us unconditionally, accepts us as we are, while helping us to become all we can become. In short, we want God, the God of Christian faith.{15}

We must trust God for what we cannot see and understand. Or, to put it another way, we continue to live knowing there is meaning, but we struggle to know exactly what it is at all times. We are striving for what the Bible refers to as our future glorification (Rom. 8:30). “There is something self-defeating about human desire, in that what is desired, when achieved, seems to leave the desire unsatisfied.”{16} For example, we attempt to find meaning while searching for what is beautiful. C.S. Lewis referred to this in a sermon entitled The Weight of Glory:

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things–the beauty, the memory of our own past–are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not visited.{17}

Lewis remarkable prose reminds us that meaning must be given to us. “Meaning is never intrinsic; it is always derivative. If my life itself is to have meaning (or a meaning), it thus must derive its meaning from some sort of purposive, intentional activity. It must be endowed with meaning.”{18} Thus we return to God, the giver of meaning.

Meaning: Gods Gift

Think of all the wonderful gifts that God has given you. No doubt you can come up with a lengthy record of Gods goodness. Does your list include meaning or purpose in life? Most people wouldnt think of meaning as part of Gods goodness to us. But perhaps we should. This is because “only a being like God–a creator of all who could eventually, in the words of the New Testament, work all things together for good–only this sort of being could guarantee a completeness and permanency of meaning for human lives.”{19}So how did God accomplish this? The answer rests in His amazing love for us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Consider the profound words of Carl F.H. Henry: “the eternal and self-revealed Logos, incarnate in Jesus Christ, is the foundation of all meaning.”{20} Bruce Lockerbie puts it like this: “The divine nature manifesting itself in the physical form of Jesus of Nazareth is, in fact, the integrating principle to which all life adheres, the focal point from which all being takes its meaning, the source of all coherence in the universe. Around him and him alone all else may be said to radiate. He is the Cosmic Center.”{21}

Picture a bicycle. When you ride one you are putting your weight on a multitude of spokes that radiate from a hub. All the spokes meet at the center and rotate around it. The bicycle moves based upon the center. Thus it is with Christ. He is the center around whom we move and find meaning. Our focus is on Him.

When the apostle Paul reflected on meaning and purpose in his life in Phillipians 3, he came to this conclusion (emphases added):

7…whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Did you notice how Christ was central to what Paul had to say about both his past and present? And did you notice that he used phrases such as “knowing Christ,” or “that I may gain Christ?” Such statements appear to be crucial to Pauls sense of meaning and purpose. Paul wants “to know” Christ intimately, which means he wants to know by experience. “Paul wants to come to know the Lord Jesus in that fulness of experimental knowledge which is only wrought by being like Him.”{22}

Personally, Pauls thoughts are important words of encouragement in my life. God through Christ gives meaning and purpose to me. And until I am glorified, I will strive to know Him and be like Him. Praise God for Jesus Christ, His gift of meaning!

Notes

1. James Dobson, Focus on the Family Newsletter (May 1996).
2. Ibid.
3. Gerhard Sauter, The Question of Meaning, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982).
4. Charles R. Swindoll, Living on the Ragged Edge (Waco, TX: Word, 1985).
5. Jackson Browne, “For a Dancer,” in James F. Harris, Philosophy at 33 1/3 rpm: Themes of Classic Rock Music (Chicago: Open Court, 1993), 68.
6. Russell Banks, in Jerome Weeks, “Continental Divide,” The Dallas Morning News (2 March 1999), 2C.
7. Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters, in Thomas V. Morris, Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 54.
8. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. Justin OBrien (New York: Vintage, 1960), 3-4.
9. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), 71.
10. Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1968), 122.
11. David W. Henderson, Culture Shift: Communicating Gods Truth to Our Changing World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 186.
12. H.C. Leupold, Exposition of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1952), 90.
13. Ibid., 91.
14. C. Stephen Evans, Why Believe? Reason and Mystery as Pointers to God, revised ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 58-60.
15. Ibid.
16. Alistair McGrath, A Cloud of Witnesses (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990), 127.
17. C.S. Lewis, in “The Weight of Glory,” quoted in Alistair McGrath, A Cloud of Witnesses, 127.
18. Morris, 57.
19. Ibid., 62.
20. Carl F.H. Henry, God Revelation and Authority, Vol. III (Waco, TX: Word, 1979), 195.
21. D. Bruce Lockerbie, The Cosmic Center: The Supremacy of Christ in a Secular Wasteland (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1986),127-128.
22. Kenneth S. Wuest, Wuests Word Studies From the Greek New Testament, Volume Two (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1973), 93.

©1999 Probe Ministries.

About the AuthorJerry Solomon, former Director of Field Ministries and Mind Games Coordinator for Probe Ministries, served as Associate Pastor at Dallas Bible Church after leaving Probe. He received the B.A. (summa cum laude) in Bible and the M.A. (cum laude) in history and theology from Criswell College. He also attended the University of North Texas, Canal Zone College, and Lebanon Valley College. Just before Christmas 2000, Jerry went home to be with the Lord he loved and served.

What is Probe?

Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive Web site at www.probe.org.

Further information about Probe’s materials and ministry may be obtained by contacting us at:

Probe Ministries
2001 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 2000
Plano TX 75075
(972) 941-4565
info@probe.org
www.probe.org
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By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Francis Schaeffer | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 6 “The Scientific Age” (John Lennox on evolution)

August 10, 2011 – 12:11 am

E P I S O D E 6

Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VI – The Scientific Age

Uploaded on Oct 3, 2011

How Should We Then Live?

I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in Modern Science. A. Change in conviction from earlier modern scientists.B. From an open to a closed natural system: elimination of belief in a Creator.1. Closed system derives not from the findings of science but from philosophy.2. Now there is no place for the significance of Man, for morals, or for love.C. Darwin taught that all life evolved through the survival of the fittest.1. Serious problems inherent in Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism.

This is probably one of the most important episodes in the series.

T h e

SCIENTIFIC AGE

I. Church Attacks on Copernican Science Were Philosophical

Galileo’s and Copernicus’ works did not contradict the Bible but the elements of Aristotle’s teaching which had entered the Church.

II. Examples of Biblical Influence

A. Pascal’s work.

1. First successful barometer; great writing of French prose.

2. Understood Man’s uniqueness: Man could contemplate, and Man had value to God.

B. Newton

1. Speed of sound and gravity.

2. For Newton and the other early scientists, no problem concerning the why, because they began with the existence of a personal God who had created the universe.

C. Francis Bacon

1. Stressed careful observation and systematic collection of information.

2. Bacon and the other early scientists took the Bible seriously, including its teaching concerning history and the cosmos.

D. Faraday

1. Crowning discovery was the induction of the electric current.

2. As a Christian, believed God’s Creation is for all men to understand and enjoy, not just for a scientific elite.

 

III. Scientific Aspects of Biblical Influence

A. Oppenheimer and Whitehead: biblical foundations of scientific revolution.

B. Not all early scientists individually Christian, but all lived within Christian thought forms. This gave a base for science to continue and develop.

C. The contrast between Christian-based science and Chinese and Arab science.

D. Christian emphasis on an ordered Creation reflects nature of reality and is therefore acted upon in all cultures, regardless of what they say their world view is.

1. Einstein’s theory of relativity does not imply relative universe.

2. Man acts on assumption of order, whether he likes it or not.

3. Master idea of biblical science.

a) Uniformity of natural causes in an open system: cause and effect works, but God and Man not trapped in a process.

b) All that exists is not a total cosmic machine.

c) Human choices therefore have meaning and effect.

d) The cosmic machine and the machines people make therefore not a threat.

 

IV. Shift in Modern Science

A. Change in conviction from earlier modern scientists.

B. From an open to a closed natural system: elimination of belief in a Creator.

1. Closed system derives not from the findings of science but from philosophy.

2. Now there is no place for the significance of Man, for morals, or for love.

C. Darwin taught that all life evolved through the survival of the fittest.

1. Serious problems inherent in Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism.

2. Extension of natural selection to society, politics and ethnics.

(John Lennox discusses the fact that evolution requires faith)

D. Natural selection and Nazi ideology.

E. The new authoritarianism: not the crudely dictatorial regimes of Hitler and Stalin. New regimes will be subtly manipulative, based on sophisticated arsenal of new techniques now available.

1. To obtain organs for transplants forces acceptance of new definition of death. Possible abuses.

2. Without the absolute line which Christianity gives of the total uniqueness of Man, people have no boundary line between what they can do and what they should do.

3. Moral and legal implications of Artificial Insemination by Donor (A.I.D.)

4. Skinner’s social psychology and the abolition of Man.

5. Tell people they are machines and they will tend to act accordingly.

(John Lennox discusses Richard Dawkins and reductionism)

6. Each theory of conditioning leads to social application.

a) Koestler: tranquilizer to cure human aggression.

b) Clark and Lee: controlling aggressions of politicians.

c) Kranty: control reproduction through the water supply.

7. Who controls the controllers? —The unasked question.

a) The basic question begged: the psycho-civilizer as King?

b) If people are machines, why should biological continuation have value?

V. Need to Reaffirm That  Which Was the Original Base for Modern Science

(John Lennox noted that Richard Dawkins admits that you can not have values based on absolutes and they can not have purpose in life.)

Questions

1. Explain the important contributions to science made by biblical principles.

2. How should our knowledge of the biblical view of work and nature affect our own attitudes to research, study of the Bible, and the use of our minds?

3. Does this segment help you to understand how and why men of great intellectual refinement in Nazi Germany could accept what was going on?

4. “Without the absolute line which Christianity gives of the total uniqueness of Man, people have no boundary line between what they can do and what they should do.” Discuss.

Key Events and Persons

Copernicus: 1475-1543

Francis Bacon: 1561-1626

Novum Organum Scientiarum: 1620

Galileo: 1564-1642

Pascal: 1623-1662

Isaac Newton: 1642-1727

Principia Mathematica: 1687

Michael Faraday: 1791-1867

Charles Darwin: 1809-1882

Origin of Species: 1859

Herbert Spencer: 1820-1903

Albert Einstein: 1879-1955

Russel Lee: 1895-

Heinrich Himmler: 1900-1945

B.F. Skinner: 1904-1990

Arthur Koestler: 1905-

Kenneth B. Clark: 1914-

Murray Eden: 1920-

Kermit Kranty: 1923-

Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity: 1971

Further Study

Robin Briggs, ed., The Scientific Revolution of the Seventeenth Century (1969).

E.A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (1932).

Arthur Koestler, The Watershed. A Biography of Johannes Kepler (1960).

Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine (1967).

C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (1945).

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1972).

D.M. Mackay, The Clockwork Image (1974).

Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution. Wistar Symposium

Monograph, no. 5 (1967).

B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971).

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Comments (1)

Should Tea Party get blamed for downgrade? Palin says no

August 9, 2011 – 8:43 pm

Palin (Getty Images)

 

Sarah Palin on downgrade: I knew this would happen

by Chris Moody | The Ticket – 10 hrs ago

 

 

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who plans to announce whether she will run for president sometime next month, said Monday night that she predicted the credit rating downgrade long ago. 

Palin delivered her message in a post on her Facebook page that reads at first like a economics explainer and ends like campaign stump speech. The former Republican vice presidential candidate blamed Democrats for resisting  efforts fueled by the tea party to reduce spending on entitlement programs and a Congress that failed to pass a debt reduction deal big enough to avoid the downgrade.

“I’m surprised that so many people seem surprised by S&P’s decision,” Palin wrote in response to Standard & Poor’s announcement that it was downgrading the United States debt for the first time. “Weren’t people paying attention over the last year or so when we were getting warning after warning from various credit rating agencies that this was coming? I’ve been writing and speaking about it myself for quite some time.”

S&P explained late Friday why it chose to downgrade U.S. debt, pointing to the debt reduction plan passed last week, which the company said “falls short.” While there was originally a plan to reduce the debt by $4 trillion over 10 years, Republicans rejected it over proposed tax increases, and Democrats refused to cut Medicare and Social Security spending, leaving the final product about $2 trillion short.

Palin referenced her past speeches and statements where she warned that inaction in Washington could adversely affect the credit agencies’ rating.

“One doesn’t need a Harvard Law degree to figure this out!” she wrote, an obvious dig at the president, who attended law school at Harvard. “By what magical thinking did we figure we could run up perpetual trillion dollar deficits and still somehow avoid the unforgiving mathematics of a downgrade? Nothing is ever ‘too big to fail.’ And there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Didn’t we all learn that in our micro and macro econ classes? I did at the University of Idaho. How could Obama skip through Columbia and Harvard without learning that?”

From the moment that ABC News first reported about rumors of a possible downgrade, both sides jumped into attack mode. Appearing on CBS’s’ “Face the Nation,” Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod called it the “tea party downgrade,” while the Republican National Committee knocked Obama as “The Not So AAA President.” Palin, unsurprisingly, defended the tea party. In her post, she called those who blamed the tea party for the downgrade “shamelessly cynical” and “dishonest.”

“Blaming the Tea Party for our credit downgrade is akin to Nero blaming the Christians for burning Rome,” she said. “Tea Party Americans weren’t the ones ‘fiddling’ while our country’s fiscal house was going up in smoke.”

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Comments (0)

Tea Party Terrorists? Do Biden and Brummett agree on that?

August 9, 2011 – 2:58 pm

Vice President Biden, I’m not a terrorist. Terrorists target and kill innocent people. I’m a freshman Congressman who was sent to Washington in January to stop President Obama from bankrupting future generations and destroying job creation.

_______________________________

Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

 
 
By Michael Ramirez – August 03, 2011
Michael Ramirez was born in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine, in 1984 with a bachelors degree. He has worked for The Commercial Appeal of Memphis for seven years and then for the Los Angeles Times. In 1994, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. He again won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 2008. He is a three-time winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism in 1995, 1997 and 2007. He has also been awarded the 1996 Mencken Award for Best Editorial Cartoon. He is a regular contributor to USA Today and The Weekly Standard, and his work has a subscription/distribution of over five hundred and fifty newspapers and magazines through Creators Syndicate. He is also the co-editor of the Investor’s Business Daily editorial page.
_________________________________________
 
Is the Tea Party made up of a bunch of terrorists? No! However, the liberals and the members of the Tea Party do have a different vision f0r the future.
 

John Brummett in his article “Why is this culprit smiling?,” Arkansas News Bureau, August 9, 2011, referred to  ” the  tea party-inclined insurgents.” That came after Biden made the headlines by calling them terrorists.

Here is an excellent article on that:

Liberal Rage Won’t Stop the Tea Party’s Rise

by John Samples

John Samples is director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute and the author of The Struggle to Limit Government.

Added to cato.org on August 9, 2011

This article appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer on August 9, 2011

 

The tea-party contingent in Congress drove the Republican leadership to bargain harder than it otherwise would have on last week’s debt-ceiling deal. Liberals have rightly concluded that the tea party is changing political outcomes. Their response has been to equate tea-party members with terrorists.

Vice President Biden recently told House Democrats that tea-party Republicans had “acted like terrorists.” And a New York Times columnist claimed that “Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people.” Many people on the left no doubt take their cues from the vice president and the Times, so we should expect more such venomous rhetoric castigating the movement as an enemy of America.

Ironically, the movement being portrayed this way takes its name from an iconic event in American history. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 helped establish the principle of “no taxation without representation.” And the members of the current tea-party movement clearly believe in the American system of representative government. They worked to change Congress through the election of 2010, and now they expect their efforts to bear fruit in the form of new policies.

Even if their anger is understandable, liberals should be ashamed of their over-the-top anti-tea party rhetoric.

“Tea Party Patriots” — the name of one tea-party organization — is closer to the truth. Far from being enemies of America, these people believe deeply in the nation’s history, promise, and Constitution.

Differing visions
The liberal anger toward the tea party is justified in one sense. The tea-party movement’s vision of America is distinct from the reality of the welfare state the country has built since 1936. So a powerful tea party is understandably disturbing to liberals — even if their recent campaign of vilification against it is reprehensible.

But is the tea-party movement really all that powerful? The budget deal, after all, hardly restrained the growth of spending over the next year, when the government will still run a deficit in excess of $1 trillion. Even with the restraint prescribed by last week’s deal over the long term, the federal government will still be spending $4.25 trillion a year. The deal may lower federal spending, but it clearly will not bring about a substantially smaller government.

The evident rage among liberals, however, may have more to do with the battles to come than it does with the battle they’ve just lost (or won). We stand at the beginning of a long struggle. For the next few years — and maybe many more — our politics will be occupied by the same kind of fights over spending, deficits, and taxes.

These battles will be about more than just money. They reflect two different ideas of what the U.S. government should be. On one side is the tea party’s vision. On the other is the welfare state of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and President Obama, which taxes and spends more and more in pursuit of security and fairness for its citizens.

As recently as 2008, the big-government vision seemed poised to win the day. Then came the tea-party mobilization of 2009, which led to the election outcome of 2010.

Here to stay
That victory was remarkable but, in a way, unconvincing. After all, protest movements have emerged, affected elections, and then disappeared before. The Reform Party of Ross Perot comes to mind. Last year, it was far from certain that the tea party would be more than a memory by the summer of 2011.

John Samples is director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute and the author of The Struggle to Limit Government.

 

More by John Samples

Even before the election of 2010, tea-party leaders were concerned that electing fiscally responsible members of Congress would not be enough to save the nation from financial ruin. They knew they had to follow up their victory with oversight to ensure that new members would remember who had elected them and why. The recent pressure on House Speaker John Boehner from tea-party representatives reflected that strategic choice.

Political scientists tell us that to bring fundamental change to the nation, political movements must become permanent organizations. The civil rights movement accomplished such a transformation. Will the tea party also become a permanent part of our politics?

It’s too soon to say, of course, but the debt-ceiling deal suggests the answer may be yes. In fact, the Republican Party might be the permanent organization the tea party becomes.

Even if their anger is understandable, liberals should be ashamed of their over-the-top anti-tea party rhetoric. The tea party could become a lasting force in American politics — one that slowly ends the long era that began with the New Deal. Though it’s often criticized as rooted in the past, the tea party may be a harbinger of the future.

 
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, spending out of control | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Katherine Schwarzenegger thought about changing last name

August 9, 2011 – 2:37 pm

Photo credit: Nikolai Von Bismarck

posted by Lizbeth Scordo – Tue Aug 9 2011, 7:35 AM PDT

After managing to stay out of the spotlight for most of their lives, the Schwarzenegger kids were suddenly swarmed with media attention during the demise of their parents’ marriage earlier this year, when it was revealed that their dad, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, had fathered a child out of wedlock. A mega scandal ensued.

Read the Full Interview with Katherine

For eldest daughter Katherine, 21, the change was overwhelming. “It was like everything came out of nowhere overnight,” she says in the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar. “I would go out to lunch, and literally 20 people would come and scream at me. And I’m like, ‘This is so inappropriate; you’re trying to provoke me to have an attack and say something crazy.'”

Which Celebs Have an Open Marriage?

In fact, “crazy” was what Katherine had been trying so hard to avoid since her father became governor when she was just 13. Though she admits to doing some partying in high school, she also knew that one slip-up could ruin everything. “It could have ruined my father’s career if I was caught drunk driving or something like that,” Katherine says. “Being the oldest and going from being an actor’s kid to being the governor’s daughter, it’s a totally different amount of pressure put on you to be perfect.”

“It’s something I deal with every day,” Katherine says of having the Schwarzenegger name. Nikolai Von Bismarck/Harper

Lady Gaga Interviews Her Idol

Eventually, when Katherine began attending college a few years ago, she found that having Schwarzenegger for a last name made certain aspects of her life, well, less than perfect. “I thought of changing it because, especially for dating, it’s impossible,” she tells the magazine. “It’s something I deal with every day, and I am hyperconscious about it. When I got to college, people — much more guys than girls because girls don’t give a crap about bodybuilding — were coming up to me, and it would automatically jump to a conversation about my dad and weight lifting or how to do a proper bicep curl. It’s like, ‘Do you want to date my father, or do you want to date me?'”

Smurfette Models Hot Fall Accessories

Despite having the same last name as her dad, it’s her mother, Maria Shriver, with whom she feels more connected. The two talk around six times a day and email constantly. “I’ve always been way closer to my mom,” Katherine admits. “Even when I was little, I was glued to her all the time. I’m close to my dad, but they’re totally different kinds of relationships.”

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Tea Party representatives claim debt deal responsible for downgrade because it did not cut enough (Part 1)

August 9, 2011 – 8:51 am
 
The Tea Party members in the Republican Party voted against the debt deal and have even claimed that the debt deal did not cut enough out of the budget and that is why the USA got a downgrade in the  credit rating.

 

 
 
Washington, D.C., Aug 5-Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) released the following statement after Standard and Poor’s announced they have lowered the United States credit rating to AA+:“For the first time in history, the credit rating of the United States has been downgraded.  This confirms my belief that the debt ceiling increase signed into law this week does not go far enough to change the nation’s fiscal trajectory.  Congress should immediately reconvene to take up the fundamental reforms necessary to right the ship and lay the groundwork for a more stable and secure future for our children and grandchildren.“I have put forth legislation which can be brought up today to cut spending immediately and bring the budget to balance in five years.  With it and with a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution, we can answer the call for leadership necessary to face our fiscal challenges.”NOTE: Earlier this year, Kingston introduced legislationto limit total federal spending as a percentage of the economy.  Americans for Prosperity, National Taxpayers Union, Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens United, and Americans for Limited Government have all endorsed the plan.

______________________________________

S&P Downgrade Stark Reminder We Must Get Our Fiscal House in Order

Aug 6, 2011 Issues: Spending Cuts and Debt 
 

Today Rep. Todd Rokita responded to news that Standard & Poor’s lowered the United States’ long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+:

“Last night’s announcement by Standard and Poor’s is the starkest reminder yet that we must get our fiscal house in order and put our nation back on a fiscally sustainable trajectory.  The debt ceiling increase passed by Congress and signed by President Obama failed to do that.”      

The choices may be hard, but the way forward is clear.  We cannot continue to spend money we don’t have.  The time has come for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

Sending a balanced budget amendment to the states will give the American people a vote on their future and the opportunity to force politicians to stop borrowing from China and stealing from our children and grandchildren.”    

Rokita is the co-author of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. 

_______________________

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 6)

August 9, 2011 – 6:31 am

Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 6)

This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal.

Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the  debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.”

“This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted on August 1, 2011.

August 1, 2011 | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Rachel Semmel | 202-226-2298

Washington, D.C. – Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) made the following statement after he voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011:

“While this deal was well-intended and skillfully negotiated, I cannot in good faith vote for a bill I know does not do enough to bend the curve of our rapidly escalating debt.

“When looking solely at the numbers, the amount of cuts in the 2012 and 2013 budget cycles are not nearly enough, and these are the only two cycles under the control of this Congress. I remain concerned about holding future Congresses accountable to cap spending at our requested levels.

“Though I feel this measure is inadequate, I am proud of House Republicans for shifting the conversation from spending and borrowing to reducing the size and cost of government.  It is a positive sign, and slowly but surely Washington is waking up to how massive our debt really is.

“I was sent here to grow the economy, stand up to the president’s tax-and-borrow bailouts, and stop the avalanche of debt. However, we simply must do more.”

 

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Advice to Gene Simmons Part 5, (“Tip Tuesday” Part A) jh15a

August 9, 2011 – 5:50 am

Gene-Simmons-tvae-24.jpg

Gene Simmons Family Jewels

Adrian Rogers – [2/3] How to Cultivate a Marriage

The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family.

On July 19th on Gene Simmons Jewels, in a meeting with his marriage counselor, Gene stated, “There is never enough money. Money is the implantation of love.  It begins there and it is only money that provides the walls of your fortress.” Dr. Ann Wexler responds, “Only money? In the pursuit of all this money, in the pursuit of all this fame, aren’t there things that you have missed?”

Gene responded that he missed his daughter’s graduation, but that is life. 

___________________________________________

My advice to Gene Simmons is very simple. Ann Wexler mentioned to him that there is a point where you have enough money and should turn your attention to other important things in his life like relationships. She implies that Gene is being selfish. 

_____________________________-

Many times when a marriage is falling apart there is lots of selfishness that comes out in the open. It may be that a love of money is exposed or it may be a desire to satisfy carnal desires. 

Here are some important points.  First, we are to be married and faithful to one lady. Gene has been having occasional affairs and deep down thinks he deserves the right to do this. However, that is not the plan that God has for us. 

Second, we are to love our wife as Christ loves the church and that means we love her more than anything even money. 

Brandon Barnard in his message “The Battle for Purity” at Fellowship Bible Church on July 24 said there were two paths. The path of impurity and the path of purity. Last time we looked at the path of impurity and today we want to look at the path of purity.

THOSE ON THE PATHWAY TO PURITY WILL PURSUE ALL PLEASURE IN CHRIST AND TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN THEIR SPOUSE ALONE AND DRINK WATER FROM YOUR OWN CISTERN AND REJOICE IN THE WIFE OF YOUR YOUTH.

Proverbs 5:15-20 states:

15Drink water from your own cistern,
   flowing water from your own well.
16Should your springs be scattered abroad,
   streams of water in the streets?
17 Let them be for yourself alone,
   and not for strangers with you.
18Let your fountain be blessed,
   and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

 19a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
   be intoxicated[a] always in her love.
20Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
   and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?[b]

Adrian Rogers – [2/3] How to Cultivate a Marriage

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Comments (0)

Kerry and Brummett: Downgrade was Tea Party’s fault

August 9, 2011 – 1:09 am

They denied that there would be a downgrade. Then they denied it meant anything,  and now they are blaming it all on the Tea Party. The truth of the matter is that the Tea Party has been pushing for a balanced budget. So how could they have been responsible for all this overspending which is the true cause of the downgrade?

John Brummett in his article “Why is this culprit smiling?,” Arkansas News Bureau, August 9, 2011, asserted that Republican leaders “caved to the extreme right and sent the issue to the very brink, compelling S&P’s to downgrade the country’s rating, thus adding further uncertainty to the American economy and threatening the beleaguered every-day American with further equity losses and higher borrowing rates.”

Who were these extreme right people responsible for the downgrade? Brummett identifies them as ” the  tea party-inclined insurgents.”

Daniel Doherty in his excellent article, “Congressman Allen West Defends Tea Party Republicans,” 8/8/2011, Townhall, noted:

During an appearance on Fox & Friends this morning, Congressman Allen West (R-FL) slammed Senator John Kerry for his egregious assertion that House Republicans were exclusively to blame for the U.S. credit downgrade. In 2007, as Mr. West explains on the program, the debt ceiling stood at $8.6 trillion when Democrats held both chambers of Congress. Today, after a $787 billion failed stimulus package and a partisan health care law — the federal deficit has risen to $14.5 trillion.

As Katie Pavlich posted earlier, the Cato Institute has proven in unequivocal terms how our ongoing debt problems stem not from a lack of revenue, but from an addiction to spending. Senator Kerry’s argument, then, that Republicans should be blamed for the impasse – especially when Democrats in the senate have yet to propose a budget in over 800 days – is unfounded and an obvious attempt to denigrate his political rivals.

Furthermore, Senator Kerry’s statement conveniently overlooks the intransigence of his own party. As George Will pointed out today on ABC, 95 House Democrats voted against raising the debt ceiling compared to only 66 House Republicans. The notion, therefore, that Republicans were solely responsible for the near calamitous U.S. default is demonstrably false.

____________________________

Democrats’ “tea-party downgrade” spin is self-defeating

 

posted at 8:25 pm on August 8, 2011 by Karl
printer-friendly

Various Dems, including but not limited to Pres. Obama’s presidential campaign adviser David Axelrod, Sen. John Kerry, and fmr. DNC Chairman Howard Dean, were busy Sunday blaming S&P’s downgrade of America’s credit rating on the Tea Party. It is bad spin on at least two levels.

First, the spin creates mixed messages. To quote Jim Treacher: “Yesterday, the downgrade was fake. Today, the Tea Party caused it. ‘This isn’t happening… and it’s all your fault!’” In particular, it muddles the Obama administration’s official position, which is that S&P is mistaken. If the administration is trying to stave off similar downgrades from other ratings agencies (even if the impact is more limited than many think), having the president’s campaign flack suggesting a real phenomenon is at work is counter-productive.

Second, the left’s focus on S&P’s comments about GOP opposition to higher taxes (and avoidance of S&P’s comments on entitlement reform) sends a toxic subliminal message to voters. Consider this from the S&P explanation:

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

Of course, S&P may not be entirely accurate on this point: Obama blew up a grand bargain with Speaker Boehner that included $800 billion in revenue. But taken on its own terms, S&P’s explanation necessarily assumes not only that the GOP will continue to oppose raising tax rates, but also that the GOP will succeed in doing so. S&P’s analysis implies: (a) the House GOP is unlikely to suffer serious losses in 2012 from their position on the debt ceiling; (b) Pres. Obama may not win re-election in 2012; (c) if Pres. Obama is re-elected, he will likely be beaten a third time on taxes, despite being a lame duck with nothing to lose. These are the narratives being advanced by Democratic spin about a “Tea Party downgrade.”

As the WSJ’s James Taranto quipped: “So the argument for re-election is going to be ‘Don’t blame Obama, he was no match for the Tea Party’?”

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, President Obama, spending out of control | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 5 “The Revolutionary Age”

August 9, 2011 – 12:09 am

E P I S O D E 5

How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age

I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970’s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement. A. With Bible the ordinary citizen could say that majority was wrong. B. Tremendous freedom without chaos because Bible gives a base for law.”

Another great point that Schaeffer makes in this series is that Communism  has NEVER EXISTED WITHOUT BRINGING REPRESSION.  A few months ago a young person said to me, “I think that Marx was misunderstood and that true communism has not been  really tried yet.” I responded that there are a hand full of Communist countries today and they all have several similar conditions: NO FREEDOM OF PRESS, NO POLITICAL FREEDOM, NO FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND NO ECONOMIC FREEDOM. I noted that Schaeffer has rightly said that Communism  is basically based on materialism and a result it must fail. It does not have a Reformation base.

T h e

REVOLUTIONARY AGE

I. Bible as Absolute Base for Law

A. Paul Robert’s mural in Lausanne.

B. Rutherford’s Lex Rex  (Law Is King): Freedom without chaos; government by law rather than arbitrary government by men.

C. Impact of biblical political principles in America.

1. Rutherford’s influence on U.S. Constitution: directly through Witherspoon; indirectly through Locke’s secularized version of biblical politics.

2. Locke’s ideas inconsistent when divorced from Christianity.

3. One can be personally non-Christian, yet benefit from Christian foundations: e.g. Jefferson and other founders.

II. The Reformation and Checks and Balances

A. Humanist and Reformation views of politics contrasted.

B. Sin is reason for checks and balances in Reformed view: Calvin’s position at Geneva examined.

C. Checks and balances in Protestant lands prevented bloody resolution of tensions.

D. Elsewhere, without this biblically rooted principle, tensions had to be resolved violently.

III. Contrast Between English and French Political Experience

A. Voltaire’s admiration of English conditions.

B. Peaceful nature of the Bloodless Revolution of 1688 in England related to Reformation base.

C. Attempt to achieve political change in France on English lines, but on Enlightenment base, produced a bloodbath and a dictatorship.

1. Constructive change impossible on finite human base.

2. Declaration of Rights of Man, the rush to extremes, and the Goddess of Reason.

3. Anarchy or repression: massacres, Robespierre, the Terror.

4. Idea of perfectibility of Man maintained even during the Terror.

IV. Anglo-American Experience Versus Franco-Russian

A. Reformation experience of freedom without chaos contrasts with that of Marxist-Leninist Russia.

B. Logic of Marxist-Leninism.

1. Marxism not a source of freedom.

2. 1917 Revolution taken over, not begun, by Bolsheviks.

3. Logic of communism: elite dictatorship, suppression of freedoms, coercion of allies.

V. Reformation Christianity and Humanism: Fruits Compared

A. Reformation gave absolutes to counter injustices; where Christians failed they were untrue to their principles.

B. Humanism has no absolute way of determining values consistently.

C. Differences practical, not just theoretical: Christian absolutes give limited government; denial of absolutes gives arbitrary rule.

VI. Weaknesses Which Developed Later in Reformation Countries

A. Slavery and race prejudice.

1. Failure to live up to biblical belief produces cruelty.

2. Hypocritical exploitation of other races.

3. Church’s failure to speak out sufficiently against this hypocrisy.

B. Noncompassionate use of accumulated wealth.

1. Industrialism not evil in itself, but only through greed and lack of compassion.

2. Labor exploitation and gap in living standards.

3. Church’s failure to testify enough against abuses.

C. Positive face of Reformation Christianity toward social evil.

1. Christianity not the only influence on consensus.

a) Church’s silence betrayed; did not reflect what it said it believed.

b) Non-Christian influences also important at that time; and many so-called Christians were “social” Christians only.

2. Contributions of Christians to social reform.

a) Varied efforts in slave trade, prisons, factories.

(1) Wesley, Newton, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and abolition of slavery.

(2) Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and prison reforms.

(3) Lord Shaftesbury and reform in the factories.

b) Impact of Whitefield-Wesley revivals on society.

VII. Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection

But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement.

A. With Bible the ordinary citizen could say that majority was wrong.

B. Tremendous freedom without chaos because Bible gives a base for law.

Questions

1. What has been the role of biblical principles in the legal and political history of the countries studied?

2. Is it true that lands influenced by the Reformation escaped political violence because biblical concepts were acted upon?

3. What are the core distinctions, in terms of ideology and results, between English and American Revolutions on the one hand, and the French and Russian on the other hand?

4. What were the weaknesses which developed at a later date in countries which had a Reformation history?

5. Dr. Schaeffer believes that basic to action is an idea, and that the history of the West in the last two or three centuries has been marked by a humanism pressed to its tragic conclusions and by a Christianity insufficiently applied to the totality of life. How should Christians then approach participation in social and political affairs?

Key Events and Persons

Calvin: 1509-1564

Samuel Rutherford: 1600-1661

Rutherford’s Lex Rex: 1644

John Locke: 1631-1704

John Wesley: 1703-1791

Voltaire: 1694-1778

Letters on the English Nation: 1733

George Whitefield: 1714-1770

John Witherspoon: 1723-1794

John Newton: 1725-1807

John Howard: 1726-1790

Jefferson: 1743-1826

Robespierre: 1758-1794

Wilberforce: 1759-1833

Clarkson: 1760-1846

Napoleon: 1769-1821

Elizabeth Fry: 1780-1845

Declaration of Rights of Man: 1789

National Constituent Assembly: 1789-1791

Second French Revolution and Revolutionary Calendar: 1792

The Reign of Terror: 1792-1794

Lord Shaftesbury: 1801-1855

English slave trade ended: 1807

Slavery ended in Great Britain and Empire: 1833

Karl Marx: 1818-1883

Lenin: 1870-1924

Trotsky: 1879-1940

Stalin: 1879-1953

February and October Russian Revolutions: 1917

Berlin Wall: 1961

Czechoslovakian repression: 1968

Further Study

Charles Breunig, The Age of Revolution and Reaction: 1789-1850 (1970).

R.N. Carew Hunt, The Theory and Practice of Communism (1963).

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1957).

Peter Gay, ed., Deism: An Anthology (1968).

John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church (1970).

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1957).

Louis L. Snyder, ed., The Age of Reason (1955).

David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1975).

J. Kuczynski, The Rise of the Working Class (1971).

Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma (1958).

John Newton, Out of the Depths. An Autobiography.

John Wesley, Journal (1 vol. abridge).

C. Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, Ireland, 1845-1849 (1964).

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Comments (0)