Francis Schaeffer and The Line of Despair

Reflections on Francis Schaeffer and The God Who Is There

Writer’s Note
All I know about Francis Schaeffer is what I remember from The God Who Is There, and a comment from a friend who gave me the book as a Christmas gift. Beyond that, I’ve never really looked into his overall doctrinal views or denominational background. When I opened the book for the first time, I found this inscription below Schaeffer’s dedicatory to his wife:

"Brother, as you continue your exploration of Christian thought and philosophy, you will eventually want to do business with Francis Schaeffer. Dr. Schaeffer was one of the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century. This book is a pretty good introduction to his thought…"

Regardless of where you might place him doctrinally or denominationally, Schaeffer did not dismiss the importance of sound doctrine or subscribe to a faith emptied of biblical content:

“…people in our culture in general are already in process of being accustomed to accept nondefined, contentless religious words and symbols, without any rational or historical control. Such words and symbols can be filled with the content of the moment. The words, Jesus and Christ are the most ready for the manipulator. The phrase Jesus Christ has become a contentless banner which can be carried in any direction for sociological purposes. In other words, because the phrase Jesus Christ has been separated from true history and the content of Scripture, it can be used to trigger religiously motivated sociological actions directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.”
— Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, p. 110

Below is a brief essay I wrote in 2012, inspired by Schaeffer’s work. At the time, I had intended to write a critical analysis, but I didn’t feel up to the task. Honestly, I still don’t. Yet, Schaeffer wrote a few things that pierced my heart—particularly his call to communicate the gospel in a way that connects with people in our time and culture, a skill I’ve never really developed.

December 7, 2012

Skepticism may have been addressed in the 17th century with the establishment of at least one fundamental truth: no rational person can deny his own existence. Yet self-awareness alone is unlikely to satisfy the modern skeptic. Press him on the question of certitude and he may admit he is a thinking, rational being who necessarily exists. Still, that admission won’t be enough to convince him that truth can be known with any reasonable certainty. When he says “there is no truth,” what he really means is that he doesn’t believe in a unified, coherent system of truth.

In the first chapter of Francis A. Schaeffer’s The God Who Is There, he offers a summary of major thinkers in philosophy, art, music, and theology—and places them under what he calls the line of despair. He doesn’t mean these men were gloomy or walked around in constant sorrow:

“…let us note that when we speak of being under the line of despair, we do not mean that these people necessarily sit and weep, but that they have given up all hope of achieving a rational, unified answer to knowledge and life.” (p. 43)

These thinkers failed to discover a system of knowledge or a set of universals that would satisfy life’s ultimate questions. Schaeffer warns that if you seek meaning in some grand, mystical experience devoid of content—or depend on man alone to figure out life’s problems—you’re doomed. You are, in Schaeffer’s words, “the destroyed ones.”

What I appreciate about Schaeffer is that he took the implications of these ideas seriously—both for the intellectual elite and for ordinary people who had unknowingly absorbed their influence. He didn’t simply write them off as false and beat them down with a figurative baseball bat. He had compassion. He sought to communicate the life-giving message of the gospel in terms people could relate to—without ever compromising the truth of the biblical Jesus and His work on the cross.

If Christians are to speak meaningfully about The God Who Is There, Schaeffer argues, they must understand their culture. You have to meet people where they are.

That, in part, is what I took from the first chapter. And really, is it so different from what the apostle Paul said? “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).

On a personal note: I often beat myself over the head. I have failed—sometimes miserably—in the area of communication. It’s ironic. I’ve been trained over the years to read and study using the very rules of communication that I now struggle to apply when speaking. Somehow, I’ve managed to study well but say very little. Maybe I don’t have the gift of witnessing.

And yet, communicating the right path shouldn’t be difficult. Most of the work is already done. Man knows intuitively that he has fallen short of perfection. It is up to those who are gifted to help the skeptic see where—and how far—he has fallen. Only then will it be possible for him to rise above the line of despair and know The Truth.