Talk:How Should We Then Live?

Previous Attempt
I see where a previous attempt was made to put information about this work in Wikipedia. Then it was all replaced with a Redirect. There is also no previous history on this Discussion page as to why that happened. I would appreciate it very much if there was some discussion before this happens again. Thank you :-) --Awinger48 21:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Who wrote the films?
Who wrote the films? The films themselves give writing credit to the elder Schaeffer, however credits are sometimes not the whole truth. This page gives credit to the younger Schaeffer. Is there a reason to think the films have the wrong credits? 24.57.239.43 (talk) 08:35, 18 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I have only seen a few excerpts from the films, but the book which was written alongside was written by Francis Shaeffer (senior) himself (Hans Rookmaaker was a consultant on the History of Art chapters in the book). I have looked up Colin Duriez's Biography of Francis Schaeffer: He states that Fran (the father) was initially hesitant about Franky's suggestion that he should incorporate his material into a film, but - "the more I thought and prayed about it, the more I realised that, rather than being a discontinuity, a film is very much a continuity with writing books." (quote from an interview that Schaeffer gave to Duriez in 1980)


 * Duriez says that "not long into production, twenty-three-year-old Franky was made producer of the movie series by Billy Zeoli, president of Gospel Films, who financed and promoted the movies. Zeoli took Franky under his wing"


 * The book does credit Franky with the original concept, book design and co-ordination of research, but I think the content of it is largely a more nuanced re-working of material from Francis Schaeffer's earlier writings. I assume although I haven't as yet been able to find credits directly relating to the film, that the younger Schaeffer was familiar with his father's writings and wrote a script based on those. The two must have worked quite closely. Special:Contributions/62.254.133.139|62.254.133.139]] (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't see any reason to suppose the film would give the wrong credits. Having now looked at a couple of episodes on Google Video I see they credit Francis A. Schaeffer with writing and narration, and Franky Schaeffer V with creation and production. I think the article should probably reflect that.62.254.133.139 (talk) 02:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

POV in criticism section
Even though this sentence is in a criticism section is this not rather POV, esp. the words "standard protestant claims": Roman Catholic scholars (besides taking issue with Schaeffer repeating the standard Protestant claims that their Church became corrupt over time)...

? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.254.133.139 (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

In the series he repeats serveral standard Protestant claims made against Roman Catholicism. Such as that Catholics teach salvation by works, Catholics say that their Church has never taught this. He also repeats the Protestant claim that the selling of indulgences was officially endorsed by the Catholic Church and that this was just one of many corrupt practices proving that the Holy Spirit was not protecting the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church from error, the Catholics say that some of its members were corrupt but that this was not the official policy of the Church which was guarded from promoting such error. Schaffer repeats these claims when presenting his take on the Protestant Reformation in the series, but they are not original to him. What is original to him is the condemning of Aquanis. As the Catholic response to such Protestant claims are discussed elsewhere I didnt make several lengthy paragraphs about them here but focused on their response to the Aquanis claim, original to him. But as he repeats claims that Catholics have always taken issue with I noted that, in the sentence you mention, to avoid giving the impression that Catholics had no problem with him saying they had become corrupt, but ony had a problem with him questioning Aquanis. You will not find anyone called a Protestant reformer who does not claim the Catholic Church "became corrupt over time" otherwise there would be no need for protest or reform, when 100% make the claim, it does not seem biased to call it a standard claim.Wowaconia (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Found a link to the page which goes in depth, so reworded the segment to point to that and avoid any appearance of pov.Wowaconia (talk) 03:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That's my comment about POV btw (hadn't been signed in). I am familiar with several of Schaeffer's writings, and it seems to me that his strongest critique is primarily of Modern Existentialist Theology (The New Theology) based upon the dialectical methodology (esp. Barth, Neibur, Tillich, Bultmann etc. who all were within protestantism!), both within Catholicism and Protestantism. He saw the modern theologians as further away the from the Bible and the Reformers than the Roman Catholic theologians of that time had been. He certainly stood squarely within Reformation Christianity and this series strongly affirms the Reformation as being a return to Biblical Christianity. He recognised that classical Roman Catholisism held to a concept of absolute truth. Elsewhere he wrote for instance "the progressive" Roman Catholic theologians are further away from historic Reformation Christianity than classical Roman Catholicism, because they are also dialectical thinkers. The orthodox Roman Catholic would have told me that I was bound for hell because I rejected the true Church. He was dealing with a concept of absolute truth. But the new Roman Catholic who sits at my fireside says, "You are all right, Dr. Schaeffer, because you are so sincere". In the new Roman Catholicism such a statement often means that the dialectical method has taken over. (quoted from The God Who Is There, p 109)


 * He does not "condemn" Aquinas either, in fact he refers to him an "outstanding theologian" in your quote. But he does criticise aspects of his theology. However one of the criticisms of the Medieval Church he cites is from John of Salisbury so there was criticism before the reformation too. (talk) 22:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Btw I found the part of criticism section were Aquinas view (building on Bede) is explained most helpful. I have often (not being so familiar with Aquinas) wondered if Schaeffer was entirely correct about him. DMSBel (talk) 22:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I will have another look at the video for this. Did Aquinas perhaps change his view on the extent of the Fall in his later writings?


 * I think this section however needs to cite some actual responses to How Shall We Then Live from Roman Catholics. It also leaves one with the impression that How Should We Then Live was far more about the Roman Catholic Church than it in fact was. Criticism can be mainly positive, mainly negative or a mixture. This section would IMO benefit from being re-titled Critical Reception, and being expanded to cover both positive, negative and mixed responses. DMSBel (talk) 23:05, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no evidence that Aquinas changed his view, even the most charitable Catholic responders to How Should We Then Live? are utterly baffled at Schaffer's presentation of him as basically a proponent of what he in fact wrote against. Schaffer never quotes Aquinas, either in the series or in the book from my searching of it; if he believed certain statements of Aquinas supported his view that he was a proto-relativist it would be nice if Schaffer presented them. If he does quote Aquinas in some other work, that could be quoted and the whole thing segment could be moved to his bio article. When Catholic scholars take issue with him its this particular point, originating from this particular book/film series that stands out the most to them because for them Aquinas is considered a Doctor of the Church.Wowaconia (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

A response segment would be preferrable to just the Catholic reaction, I agree. The two prongs that keep Schaffer and this work notable is first the massive impact he had on Protestants, and second his originating the claim that Aquanis was a key to modern relativism. I made the segment on Aquanis cause it is the lesser known, sources showing the impact of this work on Protestantism should be easily availible.Wowaconia (talk) 23:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thankyou for replying. What is bothering me here though is lack of references to those catholics scholars who took issue with him on this. I am not saying there was no critical response but you just keep saying catholic scholars - which catholic scholars? It would do no harm to have one ref in the article, but we just can't keep saying catholic scholars, catholic scholars and not cite one of them! How Shall we then live is very much based on the earlier book Escape from Reason, and it was there first of all that Schaeffer mentions Aquinas. I agree he did not quote Aquinas and that did not help make his analysis or argument convincing. I don't think Schaeffer quite viewed Aquinas as a Proto-relativist, even though he does say that Aquinas "opened the floodgates" - he is refering to rationalistic knowledge and an area of autonomy (the intellect). He could have been clearer here though. In Colin Duriez's Biography he writes:


 * "Not surprisingly, his little book (Escape from Reason), which read like an intellectual slide show, has provoked criticisms that also apply to some of his other publications. Some have disputed his thumbnail sketches of great historical figures. This is particularly true of his portrayals of St. Thomas Aquinas and Kierkegaard. It should be borne in mind that there is room for honest differences of interpretation of such figures. It is plausible to see, as Schaeffer does, Kierkegaard as the father of both religious and secular existentialism even if it is unfair to blame, as he did (though with some later qualification), the godly Dane for modern fragmentation of knowledge. Numerous other thinkers, eg. Nietzsche and Freud, contributed in a deeply significant way to modernist and postmodernist worldviews. Schaeffer's interpretation of Aquinas is also plausible, especially as the nature-grace framework so basic to Thomas's thought arguably did transform into a dualistic paradigm of nature-freedom (CS Lewis for instance, as a medieval scholar, had misgivings about Aquinas's contribution to a later dualism in thought, leading to qualities being stripped out of the natural world (see CS Lewis: The Allegory of Love). Even if it were granted that Aquinas did open the door to rationalistic knowledge, and eventually the enlightenment, we need not conclude that much or even most of his work is not valuable nor distinctly christian."


 * I think perhaps a section with regard to issues with Schaeffer's interpretation of Aquinas might be helpful either here or on the page for Escape from Reason. But it needs to be cited!! It's not our job to prove Schaeffer was wrong or right. We just need to say that other scholars have taken issue with Schaeffer about this, and give an instance.


 * For what it's worth I think Schaeffer always sought to be repectful and also give credit to the positive developments from Aquinas thought. And your quote from Aquinas does seems to indicate that he acknowledged the intellect was to some degree affected by the Fall. This would all be helpful in a section of its own perhaps? Along with Critical Reception section.


 * We could perhaps say that although highly regarded particularly within Protestant and Evangelical circles, some areas of Schaeffer's writings have not been immune to criticism. I think Colin Duriez's quote above could be used as a source. I'll post any other stuff I think useful as I find it. DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 05:26, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Wowaconia (talk) 22:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not quite sure what your looking for, refs were provided even at the time of the segment's creation. The little blue-numbers following the quotations are links to the footnotes with the citations. I also took a name from one of the refs and posted it in the segment, in response to a "who-tag" request that was posted later.
 * Certainly the film series/book that this article is about makes it look like Aquanis is a key lynch pin connecting what Schaeffer sees as the realitivism of the past to Modern Realitivism. If all one knows of Aquanis is what Schaeffer claims about him in this film series/book than it would certainly be logical to conclude, that if Aquanis hadn't printed his thought, Modern Realitivism would've never developed as it did, or even might never have existed at all. Schaeffer says about Aquanis "In his view the human will was fallen or corrupted, but the intellect was not. As a result of this emphasis, gradually philosophy began to act..." According to the film series/book Aquanis takes the first mis-step and others follow the bad path he broke. In response Catholics say Aquanis did in fact say the intellect was corrupted and the film series/book is spreading falsehoods. The inclusion here is similar to the segment of another wiki-article about the film The King's Speech: Historial Accuracy.

Biography quotes Here are some quotes from Francis Schaeffer and the shaping of Evangelical America By Barry Hankins that may further address your concerns. Perhaps if some of these were included they might address your concerns. I mark any footnotes with {} and the notes follow the quote:

pg. 83 [Here the quote Hankins makes is from Schaeefer's Escape from reason] "...Aquinas had nevertheless 'opened the way to an autonomous humanism, and autonomous philosophy [seperated from revelation]; and once the movement gained momentum, there was soon a flood.'"

pg. 83 "Schaeffer's treatment of Aquinas consisted of roughly two pages and was superficial, to say the least, as even some who were influenced by him in a positive way would point out later.{28} Ironically, the received view of Aquinas that reigned in Catholic theologians into the 1960s was the opposite of Schaeffer's: Catholic theologians and philosophers, and most Protestant scholars as well, viewed Aquinas as having integrated faith and reason remarkably well."


 * 28) Ronald H. Nash, "The Life of the Mind and the Way of Life," in Lane Dennis, ed., Francis A. Schaeffer: Portraits of the Man and His Work (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1986), 59-60.

pg. 97 "In light of historical scholarship already avilable in the 1960s, Schaeffer's analysis would be much more palatable in its detail if he had downplayed the secularizing role fo the Renaissance, acknowledged the degree to which much Renaissance thinking remained Christian, paid more attention to the relationship between the Renaissance and Reformation and how the former paved the way for the latter, and focused more intenltly on John Locke (d. 1704), as opposed to Aquinas, as the beginning of a real move toward modern autonomy.{68} Starting the story of secularization with Aquinas's distinction between faith and reason is a move with which few scholars agree. Most see Aquinas as having achieved a "fine blending of faith and reason," which was just about the opposite of what Schaeffer saw.{69} Had Schaeffer emphasized Locke in the seventeenth century as the beginning of modern individual autonomy, rather than Aquinas in the thirteenth, and acknowledged that even Locke remained Christian in much of his thinking, he could have more properly ascertained the important role fo Kant as building on Locke and moving the idea of auonomy toward its logical conclusion."


 * 68) For a fairly standard interpretaion see Crane Brinton, Ideas and Men: The Story of Western Thought (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice-Hall, 1963), especially chapters 7 & 8.


 * 69) On Aquinas, for example, see Donald J. Wilcox, In search of God and Self: Renaissance and Reformation Thought (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975: Prospect Heights, Ill,: Waveland Press, 1975), 265. For a sympathetic critique of Schaffer in particular, see Nash, The Life of the Mind and the Way of Life, 59-60.

Hope that is helpful.Wowaconia (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, yes it is helpful. I appreciate you taking the time to type out those quotes. I am not going to argue about the assessment any of these writers has made of Schaeffer. My main concern is that material is incorporated into the article in neutral language, and the criticism section is still problematic in that regard. Yes, Schaeffer has received negative criticism for some of his analysis - that is not in any doubt. The problem with the article is that it gives the impression that he received only negative criticism. That is why IMO it would be better to change the section to Critical Reception as it allows all views whether positive or negative to be cited. I have looked up Taylor Marshall online - could you maybe source what he has said specifically about How Should We Then Live?


 * If you are interested, with regard to Aquinas, Nancy Pearcey fills out a lot of detail with regard to his understanding of Nature and Grace in her book Total Truth, she follows Schaeffer's thesis but makes up for the deficit in detail that Schaeffer was criticised for. Schaeffer was concerned with finding a unity of Grace and Nature. This could only be found he said by holding the Protestant Reformation position of Scripture alone and Faith alone. Scripture gives true knowledge about both God and His creation that one could not reach rationalistically (beginning from oneself). Aquinas adopted Aristotle's definition of nature (not nature in the modern scientific sense, but refering to "the nature of a thing", meaning its ideal or perfect form, its full potential, the goal toward which it strives, it telos. In Aristotle's philosophy, all natural processes are teleological, tending toward a purpose or goal. (Pearcey - Total Truth p.78). But latent within Aristotle's definition was the autonomous aspect. Aquinas understood grace differently from the Reformers also. Schaeffer was pointing out that while Aquinas's held Aristotle's definition of nature, a unity of nature and grace was not possible (in the long term) - eventually nature being autonomous "eats up grace" (Schaeffer's phrase) in this framework. Aquinas seemed to be able avoid a complete discontinuity between grace and nature. Nevertheless for Schaeffer it was not until the reformation that a unity for grace and nature was found on the basis of scripture alone.


 * For the reformation there was nothing automonous in the area of final authority, final and sufficient knowledge rested in the Bible - that is Scripture Alone, in contrast to scripture plus anything else parallel to the scriptures, whether it be the church or a natural theology. (Escape from Reason p.27)


 * Some of the critique from Barry Haskins would be best on the Escape from Reason article. I'll try and do that as I have time. Thanks again for your work here, please don't think I am just here to pull it apart, I am just trying to keep the tone neutral.DMSBel (talk) 06:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Added an Influence on Evangelical's segment, feel free to add more if you have other references.Wowaconia (talk) 00:38, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, that really has helped balance it out nicely. Thankyou for your work on this, really nice job. I added a little bit about the speaking tour, and figures for initial sales of the book. DMSBel (talk) 02:28, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

"Reginald de Piperno" Blog
I have had a quick glance at the Blog linked to (under Catholic Response), I guess it could be said to be a tertiary source of sorts, and I am not against Blogs per se. But I think it has reliability issues. I'll try and explain why. The writer of the blog references another online article by David Hopkins, but a sentence-length summary of Schaeffer's thought on Aquinas cited in the Blog is questionable. If Schaeffer's work was open to criticism for not going into enough depth with regard to Aquinas then David Hopkins sentence-length summary of Schaeffer's thought in this area is not a sufficient ground for addressing Schaeffer on Aquinas which is what the Blog is attempting to do. David Hopkins article, while it has a lot of value, does not serve well for writing a critique of Schaeffer. A reliable secondary source to my mind would have addressed what Schaeffer himself wrote, rather than a sentence summary of Schaeffer in an online article. It may be verififiable, and I realise that Wikipedia says it's not a requirement to go beyond that. But it does seem to be based on a partial misunderstanding of Schaeffer. For instance Schaeffer writes {in Escape from Reason p. 15 (IVP Classics edition)} that:

"Aquinas's view of nature and grace did not involve a complete discontinuity between the two, for he did have a concept of unity between them. From Aquinas's day on, for many years, there was a constant struggle for a unity of nature and grace and a hope that rationality would say something about both."

I cite that to indicate that Francis Schaeffer wrote in a more nuanced manner, that is not often sufficiently acknowledged. I am going to place a quote from Schaeffer in a footnote when I have time to balance this out.User:DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 19:54, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If you can find a notable scholar that refutes the Catholic response than that could be added and if, once upon adding this, the segment becomes very large it may warrant its own article. If you wish to say that the citation made in the Catholic Response segment is not representative of the Catholic response than it should be dropped. If your saying you personally think an author has partially misunderstood Schaeffer than that would be original research and should be avoided as per No original research.Wowaconia (talk) 23:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes I know that my own opinions would be original research. I am not suggesting that anything I have said here be included in the article. I think though that a better (ie. published) source would be more reliable. I have had to comment on the changes without completely examining the sources, or checking out claims. I think there has been a lot of improvement since you added about the influence on evangelicals. I am sorry to be a pain, and in light of the improvement I hate to say it, but there are still a few issues with this. A published source would be better than a Blog. But what the section needs IMO is specific quotes (from reviews perhaps) from catholics in response to How Should We Then Live itself. The Blog is interesting I'll grant, including the comments following it. Perhaps it should stay, I don't know.


 * I think what we should be looking for here is specific responses to the work in question though. I have been looking myself but have not found any catholic reviews as yet. I cannot imagine there are none, so I'll keep looking. Until I find some I'll not make any major changes. I think perhaps that more interest from catholics came with the release of Whatever Happened to the Human Race?User:DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 02:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Schaeffer's view on Aquinas "original to him"?
A little more research on this, and once again not meant to disparage your work here. I think that Schaeffer's view may not be quite original to him, except that of course he would not have expressed it in precisely the same way as other theologian/philosophers. But the notion of an "autonomous reason" was, according to the following quote (if I understand it correctly), also present in Abraham Kuyper, and Cornelius Van Til. This particular writer (quoted below) is not in agreeance with Schaeffer. I am not sure where Dooyerweerd stands on this, but he was also an influence on Schaeffer from what I can gather.


 * On page 2 Van Der Laan remarks. "'During the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era, western society, under the influence of the Word of God, did not accept this Greek idea of reason (i.e. scientific and practical reason as source of truth and a faculty of knowledge, or as the origin of the order of laws and norms). But this society could never overcome the deification of reason because it maintained a certain autonomy for that reason in a synthetic framework, which since Thomas Aquinas received a well-balanced form in the idea of nature and the supernatural." This statement, which is a little complex, is one of the principal assertions that the modern Kuyperian school makes. It is repeated by Francis Schaeffer and Van Til. By 'synthetic framework' he means a combination of Greek philosophy with Christian theology. Expressed more simply, his point is that in ascribing a legitimate function to reason, both independent of revelation and in relation to revelation, it (reason) is made autonomous (i.e. a law unto itself) and God-like. [Van Der Laan] suggests that Thomas Aquinas provided a stable exposition of this principle in the doctrine of nature and the supernatural. I would state right now, that to ascribe a legitimate function to reason, is not to deify it, despite the assertions of the Dutch theologians. We would distinguish the abuse of reason from its lawful use. (D.R.Trethewie)[]

Again I am not stating this in an attempt to prove any particular position. It all gets rather complicated the more views I find on this. However I would like to take out the words "original to him".User:DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 06:55, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Are Kuyper or Van Til explicitly saying Aquinas declared that the man's reason was unaffected by the fall? If you can find such a quote it would make sense to change "original to him" to "influenced by" or perhaps "working upon the foundations of Van Till's view of Aquinas, Schaeffer advanced that". It would be nice to see direct quotes of Van Till or Kuyper on this. If there is enough material to show that this is a school of thought championed by Schaeffer rather than originating with him, it might make sense to move the whole thing to the Aquinas page and provide a link from this article to that segment.Wowaconia (talk) 23:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply again and your interest in working to improve the article. As I understand the above quote the writer (D.R.Trethewie) places Schaeffer within a school of thought regarding Aquinas that includes Abraham Kuyper and Van Til. It is known that Schaeffer was influenced by Van Til, and studied under him at Westminster Seminary. I have however found a better source which confirms this. Duriez's biography of Schaeffer states:
 * "We have a good idea of the content of the course in 1936, thanks to the Westminster archive. Van Til had a habit of binding [course] notes together...From his study of these early course notes, David R. Leigh believes that Schaeffer's analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas, central to his later historical analysis of the rise of modern thought, echoes Van Til's teaching from this period." (An authentic life, p.40)
 * That's as close as I can get at the moment but I think it is pretty conclusive. Also in the link, Taylor Marshall is responding to the comment that "Francis Schaeffer,among others, have said that Aquinas taught that the will fell, but that reason did not. This is a not infrequent theme on Protestant blogs, but I notice that few Catholic blogs, even Thomistic ones address it. How about you?" He [Taylor Marshall] doesn't say anything about the view being original to Schaeffer (unless I missed something). I am rather exhausted trying work this out! I am going to take it out and re-work this section a bit, you'll have to get a reliable source which says it was original to him, if you want to include it. Sorry - I have other stuff I want to do and add to this article. If it is moved to the Aquinas page it would need to be largely rewritten - it just would not transfer as it is. User:DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 07:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)