The God Who Is There

by Schaeffer, Francis A.

• ISBN13: 9780830819478
• ISBN10: 0830819479
• Edition: Anniv.
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-09-01
• Publisher: Ivp Books

Summary

In 2006,Christianity Todayvoted this title to be one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals!For over thirty yearsThe God Who Is Therehas been the landmark book that changed the way the church sees the world. In Francis Schaeffer's remarkable analysis, we learn where the clashing ideas about God, science, history and art came from and where they are going.Now this completely retypeset edition includes a new introduction by James W. Sire that places Schaeffer's seminal work in the context of the intellectual turbulence of the early twenty-first century. More than ever,The God Who Is Theredemonstrates how historic Christianity can fearlessly confront the competing philosophies of the world.The God who has always been there continues to provide the anchor of truth and the power of love to meet the world's deepest problems.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	11	(2)
Foreword	13	(12)
James W. Sire
Section I: The Intellectual & Cultural Climate of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century	25	(46)
1 The Gulf Is Fixed	25	(8)
Before the Chasm
Presuppositional Apologetics Would Have Stopped the Decay
The Line of Despair
Unity and Disunity in Rationalism
Tendency Towards a Uniform Culture
2 The First Step in the Line of Despair: Philosophy	33	(13)
Hegel, the Doorway
Kierkegaard, the First Man Below
The Existentialism of Jaspers, Sartre and Heidegger
The Antiphilosophy of the Anglo-Saxon World
The Use of Drugs
What Does and Does Not Happen in These Experiences
3 The Second Step: Art	46	(9)
Van Gogh and Gauguin
Cezanne and Picasso
Mondrian
Dada, Marcel Duchamp, the Happenings and the Environments
4 The Third & Fourth Steps: Music & the General Culture	55	(8)
Musique Concrete
Henry Miller
Philosophic Homosexuality
John Osborne
Dylan Thomas
Modern Cinema, the Mass Media and the Beatles
5 The Unifying Factor in the Steps of Despair Romanticism Is Dead: Christianity's Opportunity If Antithesis Is Maintained	63	(8)
Section II: The Relationship of the New Theology to the Intellectual Climate	71	(42)
1 The Fifth Step: Theology Departure from Biblical Christianity	71	(5)
2 Modern Mysticism: Despair Beyond Despair	76	(10)
Theology and Semantic Mysticism
The Use of Words and Symbols
The Origins of Semantic Mysticism-Leonardo da Vinci
Nature and Grace
3 Modern Mysticism in Action: Art & Language	86	(8)
The Tension of Being Man
Mysticism in Art: Paul Klee and Salvador Dali
Mysticism in Language: Martin Heidegger
4 Modern Mysticism in Action: Music & Literature	94	(9)
Mysticism in Music--Leonard Bernstein and John Cage
Mysticism in Literature--Henry Miller
5 The Next Phase of Modern Theology	103	(10)
God Is Dead--Or Almost So!
A Quest by the Upper-Story Men
Today's Opportunity for the New Theology
Section III: How Historic Christianity Differs from the New Theology	113	(34)
1 Personality or a Devilish Din The Logical End of Denying Personality	113	(5)
2 Verifiable Facts & Knowing	118	(9)
Personality as Such Cannot Imply Limitedness
Divine and Human Communication
Love Is More Than a Word
3 The Dilemma of Man	127	(6)
The Scandal of the Cross
Historic Christianity and Man's Dilemma
4 God's Answer to Man's Dilemma There Need Be No Either-Or in La Peste	133	(4)
5 How Do We Know It Is True?	137	(10)
The Nature of Proof
True Rationality but Not Only Rationality
Section IV: Speaking Historic Christianity into the Twentieth-Century Climate	147	(24)
1 Finding the Point of Tension	147	(8)
Communicating to One of My Kind
Logical Conclusions
Torn by Two Consistencies
The Tensions Are Felt in Differing Strengths
2 From the Point of Tension to the Gospel	155	(6)
Why There Is a Place for Conversation
Giving and Taking Blows
Taking the Roof Off
3 Applying the Gospel	161	(10)
How Dare We Do It?
Faith in the Biblical Sense
Section V: Pre-evangelism Is No Soft Option	171	(12)
1 Commending the Christian Faith to Our Generation	171	(4)
Defense of the Faith
Communication of the Faith
2 The Importance of Truth	175	(8)
Truth Stands Before Conversion
Truth and Spirituality
The God Behind Truth
Section VI: Personal & Corporate Living into the Twentieth-Century Climate	183	(13)
1 Demonstrating the Character of God	183	(8)
Salvation Does Not End with the Individual
The Visible Quality
Realism in Exhibition
Personality Is Central
2 The Legal, but Not Only the Legal Human People in Our Culture	191	(5)
Appendix A. The Question of Apologetics	196	(12)
Appendix B. The Problem of the Middle-Class Church in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century	208	(5)
Appendix C. The Practice of Truth	213	(2)
Glossary	215	(4)
Notes	219	(6)
Index	225