Escape from Reason: A Penetrating Analysis of Trends in Modern Thoughts (Ivp Classics)

Truth used to be based on reason. No more. What we feel is now the truest source of reality. Despite our obsession with the emotive and the experiential, we still face anxiety, despair, and purposelessness. How did we get here? And where do we find a remedy? In this modern classic, Francis A. Schaeffer traces trends in twentieth-century thought and unpacks how key ideas have shaped our society. Wide-ranging in his analysis, Schaeffer examines philosophy, science, art and popular culture to identify dualism, fragmentation and the decline of reason. Schaeffer's work takes on a newfound relevance today in his prescient anticipation of the contemporary postmodern ethos. His critique demonstrates Christianity's promise for a new century, one in as much need as ever of purpose and hope. Foreword / J.P. Moreland Chapter 1. Nature and grace Aquinas and the autonomous Painters and writers Nature versus grace Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael Chapter 2. A unity of nature and grace The Reformation and man More about man Reformation, Renaissance and morals The whole man Chapter 3. Early modern science Kant and Rousseau Modern modern science Modern modern morality Hegel Kierkegaard and the line of despair Chapter 4. The leap Secular existentialism Religious existentialism The new theology Upper story experiences Linguistic analysis and the leap Chapter 5. Art as the upper story leap Poetry : the later Heidegger Art : Andre Malraux Picasso Bernstein Pornography The theater of the absurd Chapter 6. Madness The "upstairs" in film and television Upper story mysticism Jesus the undefined banner Chapter 7. Rationality and faith The Bible can stand on its own Beginning from myself and yet The source of the knowledge we need The "leap in the dark" mentality The unchanging in a changing world Truth used to be based on reason. No more. What we feel is now the truest source of reality. Despite our obsession with the emotive and the experiential, we still face anxiety, despair, and purposelessness. How did we get here? And where do we find a remedy? In this modern classic, Francis A. Schaeffer traces trends in twentieth-century thought and unpacks how key ideas have shaped our society. Wide-ranging in his analysis, Schaeffer examines philosophy, science, art and popular culture to identify dualism, fragmentation and the decline of reason. Schaeffer's work takes on a newfound relevance today in his prescient anticipation of the contemporary postmodern ethos. His critique demonstrates Christianity's promise for a new century, one in as much need as ever of purpose and hope. - Publisher. Man is dead. God is dead. Life has become meaningless existence, man a cog in a machine. The only way of escape lies in a non-rational fantasy world of experience, drugs, absurdity, pornography, an elusive 'final experience', madness ... If this is the twentieth-century mentality, how did it come about? And how can the Christian faith be made meaningful today? In this highly original book Dr. Schaeffer traces the way in which art and philosophy have reflected the dualism in Western thinking introduced at the time of the Renaissance. Today this dualism is expressed in a despair of rationality and an escape into a non-rational world which alone offers hope. It is shown in literature, art and music, theatre and cinema, television and popular culture The origin of modern man could be traced back to several periods.