He Is There and He Is Not Silent
By Francis A. Schaeffer
Part I: Philosophy’s Metaphysical Problem as Answered in the Existence of the Infinite-Personal, Triune God
From Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 128, April-June 1971, pp. 98-108
Philosophy and religion deal with the same basic questions, and we as Christians, especially evangelical Christians, have tended to forget this. Although philosophy and religion use different terms, they do not deal with different questions. The basic questions are the same. (When I use the term religion here I mean it in the wide sense of religion but including Christianity.) The basic questions of philosophy and religion are the questions of Being, that is, what exists (metaphysics), and man and his dilemma, that is, morals. These are the central questions that are dealt with by both philosophy and religion, including evangelical or orthodox Christianity.
The word philosophy can have two meanings which must be kept absolutely separate or we will get confused. The first meaning of the word philosophy is a discipline in the university or wherever philosophy is studied as an academic subject. That is what we usually think of as philosophy. This is a highly technical study which only a few people pursue, and in this sense, few people are philosophers. But there is a second meaning to the word philosophy that we must not miss if we are really going to understand our dilemma of preaching the gospel into the twentieth century world. That is, philosophy also means a man’s world view. In this sense, all men are philosophers for all men have a world view. This is just as true of the man digging a ditch as it is for the philosopher in the university. Everyone has a world view.
One of the things that has been a dilemma with evangelical, orthodox Christianity is that it has despised philosophy. We have been proud in despising philosophy, and we have tended to be exceedingly proud in despising the intellectual. But we must not despise philosophy, because all men are philosophers in the second sense that all men have a world view. No man can live without a world view. In this sense, philosophy is universal in scope as there is no man who is not a philosopher. So if you think that this has nothing to do with a practical ministry, you are completely wrong.
A first and primary area of philosophic thought is in the area of Being. In the twentieth century, there are certain things you must do if you are going to be modern. One of these is you use a capital "B" when you write Being. Why, I do not know, but it is the way it is. Consequently, first of all in the area of philosophic thought, we are talking about the area of Being, that is, what is, existence, and the problem of existence.
This includes the existence of man. But in saying it includes the existence of man, we must realize that the existence of man is no greater problem than is the fact that anything exists at all. No one has said it better than Jean-Paul Sartre who said that the basic philosophic question is that something is there rather than nothing being there. No philosophic answer has the luxury of not explaining the things that exist and why they exist in their present form and complexity. Nothing that is worth calling a philosophy can sidestep the question of the fact that things do exist and that they exist in their present form and complexity. This may be defined as the problem of metaphysics, or existence, or Being.
While there are not many basic possibilities in answer to the problem of metaphysics, there is a great deal of possible detail surrounding the basic answers. Whether we study philosophy in the university or whether we are ministers of the gospel speaking to people with a world view, it will help us tremendously if we realize that in reality the answers to the problem of Being or existence are exceedingly few.
The Irrational Approach to the Problem
There are two classes of answers given to philosophical questions. The first class is that there is no logical, rational answer. This is largely a phenomenon of our own generation which has come after the line of despair. It is not that nobody in the past had these views, but it was far from being the dominant view as it is today. This is not just true among philosophers, but you will find it equally true of the discussions on the street corner, at the university or at the gas station. You will find this answer is often given¾all is finally chaotic, irrational, and absurd. This is carried out with great finesse in the intellectual world and in the theater of the absurd. It is in the warp and woof of the thinking of our day. Many in the world today take the position that there are no answers, everything is irrational, everything is absurd.
If a man held this consistently, that everything is meaningless, nothing has answers, that there are no cause-and-effect relationships, it would be very, very hard to speak against it. But the difficulty is that no one can hold this view consistently. It can be held theoretically, but it cannot be held in practice.
The first reason the irrational position cannot be held consistently in practice is the fact that the external world is there, it has form and it has order. We do not live in a chaotic world. If it were true that all is chaotic, unrelated and absurd, science would come to an end. And not only would science come to an end, but general life would come to an end. You cannot live unless you live in the understanding that the universe that is there¾the external universe¾has a certain form, a certain order, and you conform to that order and live within it. People who argue for the irrational often try to bring in a little bit of order. But as soon as they bring in a little bit of order, the first class of answer is no longer self-consistent, it is no longer noncontradictory, and it falls to the ground.
Not only do they have to wrestle with the fact that the external world has form and order, but if you listen to them discuss they are inconsistent here as well. They always hold this very selectively. You will find that almost without exception (actually I have never found an exception), they will discuss with you rationally until they see they are losing the discussion and then they try to slip over into the answer of the irrationality. But as soon as they do that, you must stop them. You must point out that as soon as they are selective in their argument of irrationality, they make their whole argument suspect.
This is the first class of answer¾irrationalism¾and really it is no answer. Theoretically it can be held, but no one lives with it in regard to either the external world or the categories of their thought world and discussion. As a matter of fact, if this position were argued quite properly, all discussion would come to an end, communication would end. The theater of the absurd has said this, but they fail as well. If you read and listen carefully to the theater of the absurd, they are always trying to communicate the fact that they cannot communicate. There is always a communication about communication, the fact there is no communication. It is always selective chaos with pockets of order brought in somewhere along the line.
The Rational Approaches to the Problem
The second class of answer is the answer that can be rationally and logically considered, that can be communicated to oneself in one’s thought world, and that can be discussed and communicated with others externally.
Curiously enough, there are only three possible basic answers to the question of Being or existence which would be open to rational consideration. You can have all kinds of variance within the basic answers, but interestingly enough when you get back to the base, you find there is only variance within the answers and that the basic answers are very, very few indeed.
The first basic answer is that everything that exists has come out of absolutely nothing. In other words, you begin with nothing. Existence, everything that is there in the whole universe, has come out of nothing. If someone is going to hold this view, it must be truly, absolutely nothing. It must be what I call "nothing-nothing." It cannot be nothing-something or something-nothing. It must be truly nothing-nothing. There must be no energy, no mass, no motion, and no personality. You have to have this if you are going to have nothing-nothing. I have never heard this successfully argued, for it is unthinkable that all that now is has come out of really nothing-nothing.
The second possible answer is that all that now is had an impersonal beginning. Everything that you ever think about always is related to the beginnings. Modern man has no categories because he has no sufficient beginnings. That is true of every area of thought. As soon as you are talking about beginning, you are talking about everything that will follow. What you will think after this is always related to your beginnings. I do not care what kind of position anyone holds, this is always true. If you begin with mass, energy, or motion, you are beginning with an impersonal beginning. It makes no basic philosophic difference whether you begin with mass, motion, or energy. Many modern men have tried to squirm out of it by moving over into the area of energy out of mass as though beginning with energy particles rather than old-fashioned mass is a better answer. It is not. It is still impersonal. Salvador Dali did this as he moved from his surrealistic period into his new mysticism. But one thing must be kept in mind¾energy is just as impersonal as mass or motion.
As soon as you accept the impersonal beginning of all things, you are faced with some form of reductionism. The present form of evolution is reductionism, and in the intellectual circles of the world reductionism is taking a tremendous battering just as original Darwinian evolution did. Reductionism in science and philosophy means that everything there is from the stars to man can be understood by reducing them to an original, impersonal factor or factors.
Beginning with the impersonal, everything (including man) must be explained by the impersonal plus time plus chance. Do not let anybody divert your mind at this point. If you begin with an impersonal, then everything must be explained by time plus chance. There are no other factors in the formula, no other factors exist. If you begin with an impersonal, you cannot then have some form of teleological concept; you are left only with the impersonal plus time plus chance. No one has shown us how time plus chance can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of man if you begin with an impersonal.
Beginning with the impersonal is often called pantheism. The far-out young people, the new mystical thought, the underground newspapers almost always have some form of pantheism. Modern liberal philosophy is pantheistic as well. This beginning with the impersonal is often called pantheism, but this is a semantic trick. By using the word "theism," you bring in a connotation of the personal, when by definition you have said that you mean the impersonal. I never let anybody talk about pantheism without making this point clear. Pantheism gives you an illusion of personality on the basis of the word "theism," but this is really "paneverythingism." Whether they are from the old Hinduism, the old Buddhism, the modern mysticism, or the new Pantheistic theology, do not let them use the term pantheism. Every time they use pantheism, use paneverythingism. This deflates the argument, and it is fair to do because their pantheism is really a paneverythingism. It is only a semantic solution that is being offered because the word "theism" is a connotation word.
The modern, liberal theological thought of both the Protestant or Roman Catholic progressive side is basically pantheism. The modern scientific paneverythingism does the same thing by reducing everything to the impersonal energy particle. It does not matter which of these you encounter, you always have the same problem. The end is the impersonal.
Paneverythingism gives an answer for the need of unity, but none for the needed diversity. It gives an answer for form, but no meaning for freedom. The great problem with beginning with the impersonal is to find meaning for the particulars. A particular is any individual factor, any individual thing, the individual parts of a whole. A drop of water in this definition is a particular, and a man is a particular. What no one has ever been able to show is that if you begin with the impersonal, how do any of the particulars that now exist have any meaning, any significance, including man. Morals under any form of pantheism can have no meaning for everything is finally equal. You may use the word morals, but it is only a word.
These are the dilemmas of the second great answer, and it is the one that almost everybody holds today. Every naturalistic science holds this today, beginning everything with the energy particles. Almost every university student is some form of paneverythingist. Modern theological books today are almost uniformly pantheist. But beginning with an impersonal, you do not have answers in regard to existence either in regard to the complexity of the universe or the personality (the mannishness) of man.
The third possible answer involves starting with a personal beginning. With this we have exhausted the possible basic answers in regard to existence. It may sound simplistic, but it is true. When you come to a personal beginning, you have exhausted the possible basic answers. It does not say there are not details that can be discussed with variance, subheadings and subschools, but you have discussed the big schools that are possible. There are not many basic answers to the great questions of life.
Now we are beginning to think of what it means when we begin with that which is personal, that is, that which is personal begins everything else. Everything there is began with that which is personal, the very opposite of when you begin with the impersonal. Man as personal does have meaning for the origin of everything is personal and, therefore, the personal now has meaning.
You may say this is abstract, but it is not. (The people who come to L’Abri would not become Christians if we did not discuss in this area. Hundreds of them would have turned away and would have said we did not know the questions.) This is not abstract but has to do with communicating the simple gospel in the midst of the twentieth century. But to preach the simple gospel, you have to preach it so that it is simple to the person you are talking to or it is no longer the simple gospel.
The dilemma of modern man is simple. He does not know how man can have meaning; he is lost; man remains a zero. This is the hell and damnation of our generation. It is the source of all the things men cry about in the generation in which we live. Man cannot find any meaning for himself. But if you begin with a personal beginning and this is the origin of all else, then the personal does have meaning. Man and his aspirations are not meaningless because man’s aspirations of the reality of personality are in line with what was originally there and what intrinsically is.
The Christian has the answer at this point. Why have we not told them? Why do we keep silent? Why have we gone our own way, continuing to say the great truths in all the ways that nobody understands? Why do we keep talking to ourselves, if we say men are lost and we say we love them? Man’s damnation today is that he can find no meaning for man. But if we begin with a personal beginning, we have an absolutely opposite thing. We know the reality of the fact that the personality does have meaning. We have a titanic answer! We have a solution not only to the problem of existence of bare Being and its complexity, but also for man’s personality which distinguishes him from nonman.
Suddenly we have two answers. We have an answer for the existence of what is there¾bare Being and its complexity in the universe¾and we equally have an answer to the fact of that which distinguishes man from nonman, that is, personality, or what I call his "mannishness." This also has meaning.
Once we consider a personal being, we come to another choice. This is the next step in the discussion. Are we going to choose the answer of God or of gods? The difficulty with gods is that limited gods are not big enough. To have an adequate answer of a personal beginning, you need a personal-infinite God, and you need a personal unity in diversity in God.
The Judeo-Christian God Is the Only Answer
Consider the first necessity¾a personal¾infinite God. Only a personal-infinite God is big enough. Plato understood that you have to have absolutes, you have to have ideals, or nothing has meaning. But the difficulty with Plato was the fact that his gods were not big enough to meet the need. He knew the need, but the need fell to the ground because his gods were not big enough. As you read Greek literature, the difficulty is that sometimes the Fates seem to be behind and controlling the gods, and sometimes the gods seem to be controlling the Fates. Everything fails in their thinking at this point because their gods as limited gods are not big enough. What we need is a personal-infinite God.
Secondly, we need a personal unity in diversity in God. We do not need just an abstract concept of unity in diversity, but a personal unity in diversity because we need a personal God. The unity in diversity in God must be a personal unity in diversity because you have to end up with a personal God or you have no answers. It is a philosophic necessity in the area of Being and existence that He is there, the God who is there. This is what it is all about. He is there! There is no other sufficient philosophic answer than this. You can search through all the philosophies, but there is no other sufficient philosophic answer to existence, to Being. There is no other sufficient answer concerning metaphysics than this¾a personal-infinite beginning, a personal unity in diversity at the beginning of Being. (There is only one philosophy, one religion, that fills this need in all the world’s thought¾the East, the West, the ancient, the modern, the new, the old.) There is only one philosophy, one religion that fills the philosophic need of existence and of Being¾it is the Judeo-Christian God, not as an abstract concept, but His really being there. There is no other answer, and as evangelicals we ought to be ashamed that we have been so defensive for so long. There is no other answer!
The word God as such is no answer to the philosophic problem of existence¾none whatsoever. Just because somebody uses the word God proves nothing. You have to put content into it. The Judeo-Christian content to the word God, that which is given in the Old and New Testaments, does meet the need of explaining what exists¾the existence of the universe in its complexity and man as man. The God who is there is the infinite-personal God who is personal unity in diversity on the high order of the Trinity.
I am often asked how I can believe in the Trinity as an educated man. My answer is always the same. I would still be an agnostic if there were no Trinity because there would be no answers. It is not something to be ashamed of; it is not something to begin to turn down on. Without the high order of personal unity in diversity as given in the Trinity, there are no answers. It is not only that you would not be true to the Scripture if you give up the Trinity, but you have also lost the only possible answer to the dilemma of metaphysics.
Einstein reduced all the material world to electromagnetism and gravity. At the end of his life he was seeking a unity above these two, something that would unite electromagnetism and gravity, but he never found it. But what if he would have found it? It would only be unity in diversity in relationship to the material world, and as such it would only be child’s play. Nothing would really have been settled because the unity in diversity in regard to personality would not have been touched. If he had been able to bring electromagnetism and gravity together, he would not have explained the need of personal unity in diversity.
In contrast, let us think of the Nicene Creed¾three Persons, one God. Rejoice that they chose the word person. Whether you know it or not, that catapulted the Nicene Creed right into our century and discussion. Three Persons, loving each other and in communication before all else was. If this were not so, we would have a God who needed to create in order to love and communicate. God would have needed the universe as much as the universe needs God. If you ever discuss this with anyone, they may easily try to trap you with that question, but there is an answer. God did not need to create. God does not need the universe as the universe needs Him. He is a true Trinity, and the Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other, they loved each other before the creation of the world.
This is not only an answer to the acute philosophic need of unity in diversity, but a personal unity in diversity. The unity in diversity cannot be back of God because whatever is farthest back is God. With the teaching of the Trinity, it is not that the unity in diversity is back of God, but the unity in diversity is God himself¾three Persons, yet one God. The Trinity is nothing less than this.
The Trinity, therefore, is not the best answer¾it is the only answer! Nobody else, no other philosophy, has ever given us an answer for unity in diversity. So when people question whether I am embarrassed intellectually by the Trinity, I always switch it over to their own terminology which is unity in diversity. Every philosophy has this problem but has no answer. Christianity has the same problem, but it has an answer in the existence of the Trinity. The only answer to what exists is that He, the Triune God, is there. The only answer to the metaphysical problem of existence is that the infinite-personal God is there; that He, the Trinity, is there¾the Triune God.
By this time, it will have become evident that philosophy and religion are, indeed, dealing with the same questions. And in the basic concept of existence, of Being, it is the Christian answer or nothing.
Most evangelical, orthodox Christians think something like this: Truth is true to the dogmas, or truth is true to what the Bible says. There is no one who stands more for the full inspiration of the Scriptures than I, but it is not the end of the truth of Christianity. The truth of Christianity is that it is true to what is there. You can go to the end of the world and you will never need to be afraid like the ancients that you will fall off and the dragons will eat you up. You can carry out your intellectual discussion to the end of the game because it is not only true to the dogmas, it is not only true to the Bible, but it is true to what is there, and you will never fall off. When evangelical Christianity catches that, we will begin to have our revolution.
Furthermore, there is no use having a silent God. If He were silent, we would not know anything about Him. He has spoken and He has told us what He is and that He originally existed before all else. In this we have the answer to the existence of what is because the infinite-personal God, the full Trinitarian God is there and has not been silent. We need the full biblical content concerning God, and He has told us who He is.
Couch your questions of inspiration in revelation in these terms and you will see how it cuts down into the warp and woof of modern thinking. He is not silent! That is the reason we know. It is because He has spoken. He has told us the true-truth about Himself. Not exhaustive truth, but true-truth about Himself. And because He has told us true-truth about Himself¾that He is the infinite-personal God and the Triune God¾we have the answer to existence.
Beginning with himself, man can define the philosophic problem of existence, but he cannot from himself generate the answer to the problem. The answer to the problem of existence is that the infinite-personal, Triune God is there, and this infinite-personal, Triune God is not silent!