Well, that day came a few months ago.  I promised myself I would start and finish The God Who Is There, no matter how long it took.  And I am glad I did.

In my mind, there are two parts of the book.  In the first part, Schaeffer deals with the history of philosophy from Kierkeggaard down to the existentialists like Camus and Sartre (although Camus didn’t consider himself an existentialist).  He introduces us to the concept of the “line of despair”, which is basically the dividing line between those who embraced the idea of antithesis, and those who rejected it.  Our age is “under” the line, while the age before Kierkeggaard, Hegel, etc. was “above” the line, since people generally believed in antithesis and absolute truth (even if they did so for romantic reasons).  Schaeffer then explains how philosophy is manifested in art, music, literature, and theology.  It’s almost like a trickle-down effect: the philosophers lead the way, and their ideas affect these other areas over the course of time.  When you see an art exhibit or listen to modern music, you are hearing an artistic manifestation of what is going on philosophically at the time.

I wouldn’t describe this section as academic but it is at times a little technical for someone without experience with philosophy.  But Schaeffer is an excellent communicator and for the most part he makes these complex ideas very simple, pointing out where these ideas conflict with historic Christianity and also giving a human element to those who believe in them.

The “second half” of the book focuses more on application: the Christian’s response to the philosophical milieu of the modern culture.  Here, Schaeffer is masterful.  He doesn’t present answers to common questions the unbeliever might ask, but lays out more of a mindset that we need to adopt when evangelizing.  I could sum his approach up as this: we are all, believers and unbelievers, God’s children, created in His image.  We should therefore approach the evangelistic task not mechanically, as if relaying some secret formula will cause the unbeliever’s eyes to be open, but in love.  Love is the overarching theme of the “second half”: love for the unbeliever as one created in the image of God, and love for each other, because as Jesus said, they will know we are His disciples when we love one another.

The other, more intellectual points Schaeffer makes regard approach.  Again, instead of a formula, there is a broad principle to be followed:

Every man, therefore, irrespective of his system, is caught.  As he tries intellectually to extend his position in a logical way and then live within it, he is caught by the two things which, as it were, slap him across the face.  Without indicating that his psychology or philosophy is correct, Carl Gustav Jung has correctly observed that two things cut across every man’s will – the external world with it’s structure, and those things which well up from inside himself.  Non-Christian presuppositions simply do not fit into what God has made, including what man is.  This being so, every man is in a place of tension.  Man cannot make his own universe and then live in it.

We find the “point of tension”, that area in a man’s thinking where his ideas and life don’t match up, and we show the inconsistency in his worldview.

I would heartily recommend this book.  In my opinion, any thinking Christian, serious about engaging modern man where he is philosophically, should read this book.  Though it was written over 40 years ago, the ideas and approach are as relevant as ever.

“I now repeat,” replied Don Quixote, “what I have said many times before, that the majority of people in this world believe that knights-errant have never existed, and I hold that unless Heaven miraculously convinces them of the truth—that there were and that there are—any labor that I may undertake for that purpose must be in vain, as experience has so often shown me. So, I shall not stop now to deliver you from the error that you hold in common with the multitude. What I intend to do is pray to Heaven to deliver you from it and to make you see how beneficial and necessary knights-errant were to the world in past ages and how useful they would be today if they were in fashion. But now the sins of mankind—sloth, idleness, gluttony, and luxury—are triumphant.”

-Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote II.18

It comes as no surprise to anyone to hear that Cervantes’ masterful Don Quixote is a multi-layered work. At once a parody of chivalrous romances and a critique of the emerging bourgeois world, Don Quixote is so stratified as to provoke wonder. However, to my own very limited knowledge, no-one has so far pointed out the parallels between the Manchegan knight’s delusions and the doctrines of the Calvinistic churches—which, by 1615, were well known, even in Spain.

Consider the passage above, with its obvious similarities to Calvin’s observations on total depravity and irresistible grace. For Calvin, there could be no reception of the Gospel without a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. This doctrine was propounded in marked contrast to the Thomistic model of naturally available knowledge of God. Interestingly, in context the above statement of Don Quixote serves as evidence of his insanity. As Don Lorenzo observes after having heard this comment, “[H]e is a gallant madman.” Could it be that one aspect of Don Quixote is an assessment of early Calvinism? I should like to think so, and I suspect that no-one will bother to stop me.

Obviously Cervantes’ greatest novel is a fascinating work; how much more intricate does it become, though, if a satire of Calvinism is thrown in gratis? Consider, for example, that the Calvinists posited presbyterianism as the original Christianity, a hypothesis which many would consider akin to Don Quixote’s insistent belief in the literal existence of the knights-errant. Additionally, there is the devotion of Don Quixote to his books of chivalry: books which he accepts at face value, books which he considers imbued with an absolute authority which trumps all others.

And then there is the episode of the windmills. Ah, how tantalizing it is to imagine a seventeenth-century Roman Catholic author lampooning Calvinism with this scene! But the most touching aspect of the whole portrayal is the wistfulness with which Cervantes regards his knight’s illusions.

When Saint Peter says to us, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light,” are we stupid enough to see that this is not a string of quaint metaphors? Or do we smile sophisticatedly, then return to the “real world” where grownups live? After all, it is a bit awkward behaving like royalty in the “real world”; people start to regard you as odd, and who can long endure that? Who wants to be thought of as putting on airs; or worse, to be thought of as doing so because one lives in delusions of an unseen world?

But is it not precisely this to which the gospel summons us? Is it not to worship the unseen God, and to live as His offspring in the world? Is it not to entrust ourselves entirely to an unseen Messiah and, not having seen Him, to love Him and long for His appearing? Is it not to enact in the present world the life that belongs properly to the world to come? This is, undeniably, the stuff of madness; yet it is the madness without which Christianity ceases to be itself.