Summary
Francis
Schaeffer and, former Surgeon General, C. Everette Koop deal directly with
the devaluing of human life and its results in our society. It did not take
place in a vacuum. It is a direct result of a worldview that has rejected
the doctrine of man being created in the image of God. Man as a product
of the impersonal, plus time and chance has no sufficient basis for worth.
Commercial Availability of Work
Whatever
Happened to the Human Race? (paper 178 pages)
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Happened to the Human Race? (cassette)
Whatever
Happened to the Human Race? Study Guide (paper)
Whatever
Happened to the Human Race? (VHS video)
The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer (paper)
The Complete Works of
Francis Schaeffer (Windows CDROM)
Quotes
From The Book
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?, Ch. 1)
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?, Ch. 1)
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?, Ch. 1)
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?, Ch. 1)
...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?,
Ch. 1)
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?, Ch. 1)
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?, Ch. 1)
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?, Ch. 1)
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Rational Pi, all rights reserved
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