July 24, 2004
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Notes from the Garden Journal
The weekend alas is here. And what many plans we all must have for the things we hope to accomplish by the time it is all over and we again board the train of another busy week, can sometimes crowd our time away from “work”. Yet, as busy as our weekends often may be, they also present us with few similar opportunities to dig deep and consider the basic foundations of our very being or what their implications are to each of us as well as those around us.
I thought it good therefore to reflect on the past 30 years of American society and see in which direction the common flow of human ideals has been heading, but also with the world in general. Some years ago some people expressed worry that our culture was being conditioned similar to a frog in a water pot where the heat was slowly being turned up bit by bit so that the frog would not jump out when it became too hot for him to go on without any danger. The frog, once vigilant, would grow more and more comfortable, more and more complacent with each augmentation of the burner, not realizing the changes that were taking effect both inside and outside of him. Eventually and much to the frog’s difficult-to-quantify dismay, and even before he realized it, the pot would begin to boil and he would be quite dead. Now to be someone’s dinner.
I decided that there were with few exceptions none better to discuss briefly the matter by way of his own poignant quotes, than a man who had actually passed away long ago in the early 80’s, but was able to predict without error exactly where we would be as a society at this very hour. Though he is Christian, I think his perspective is reflected also in Judaism and perhaps other non-humanistic doctrines. And his observations about society’s march are incontrovertible now that we see them in the light of history. Regardless of whether you fit the monotheistic mold or if you are Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, or worship light bulbs, the analyses below are worth further exploration.
For now, I’ll allow these quotes to speak for themselves. You may feel free to comment candidly here, if you wish, or walk away and dismiss them or just simply explore the matter further on your own. The noted philosopher is Dr. Francis Schaeffer, 1912-1984. The quotes are taken from his book, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (rev. 1983), Ch. 1. These references below are courtesy of RationalPi
Enjoy.
The thinkables of the eighties and nineties will certainly include things which most people today find unthinkable and immoral, even unimaginable and too extreme to suggest. Yet — since they do not have some overriding principle that takes them beyond relativistic thinking — when these become thinkable and acceptable in the eighties and nineties, most people will not even remember that they were unthinkable in the seventies. They will slide into each new thinkable without a jolt.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
In our time, humanism has replaced Christianity as the consensus of the west. This has had many results, not the least of which is to change people’s view of themselves and their attitudes toward other human beings. Here is how the change came about. Having rejected God, humanistic scientists, philosophers and professors began to teach that only what can be mathematically measured is real and that all reality is like a machine. Man is only one part of the larger cosmic machine. Man is more complicated than the machines people make, but is still a machine, nevertheless.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
For a while, Western culture — from sheer inertia — continued to live by the old Christian ethics while increasingly embracing the mechanistic, time-plus-chance view of people. People came more and more to hold that the universe is intrinsically and originally impersonal — as a stone is impersonal. Thus, by chance, life began on the earth and then, through long, long periods of time, by chance, life became more complex, until man with his special brain came into existence. By “chance” is meant that there was no reason for these things to occur; they just happened that way. No matter how loftily it is phrased, this view drastically reduces our view of self-worth as well as our estimation of the worth of others, for we are viewing ourselves as mere accidents of the universe.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of God and therefore is unique. Remove that teaching, as humanism has done on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and there is no adequate basis for treating people well.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
…because the Christian consensus has been put aside, we are faced today with a flood of personal cruelty. As we have noted, the Christian consensus gave great freedoms without leading to chaos — because society in general functioned within the values given in the Bible, especially the unique value of human life. Now that humanism has taken over, the former freedoms run riot, and individuals, acting on what they are taught, increasingly practice their cruelties without restraint. And why shouldn’t they? If the modern humanistic view of man is correct and man is only a product of chance in a universe that has no ultimate values, why should an individual refrain from being cruel to another person, if that person seems to be standing in his or her way?
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
Modern humanism has an inherent need to manipulate and tinker with the natural processes, including human nature [through genetics], because humanism:
1. Rejects the doctrine of Creation.
2. Therefore rejects the idea that there is anything stable or “given” about human nature.
3. Sees human nature as part of a long, unfolding process of development in which everything is changing.
4. Casts around for some solution to the problem of despair that this determinist-evolutionist vision induces.
5. Can only find a solution in the activity of the human will, which — in opposition to its own system — it hopes can transcend the inexorable flow of nature and act upon nature.
6. Therefore encourages manipulation of nature, including tinkering with people, as the only way of escaping from nature’s bondage. But this manipulation cannot have any certain criteria to guide it because, with God abolished, the only remaining criterion is nature (which is precisely what humanist man wants to escape from) and nature is both noncruel and cruel.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
With nothing higher than human opinion upon which to base judgments and with ethics equaling no ethics, the justification for seeing crime and cruelty as disturbing is destroyed. The very word crime and even the word cruelty lose meaning. There is no final reason on which to forbid anything — “If nothing is forbidden, then anything is possible.”
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today: abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, the increase of child abuse and violence of all kinds, pornography (and its particular kinds of violence as evidenced in sadomasochism), the routine torture of political prisoners in many parts of the world, the crime explosion, and the random violence which surrounds us.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
Notes from the Garden Journal
