Francis Schaeffer – Apologist and Evangelist (Part One)

Introduction

These lecture notes on “Schaeffer’s Apologetics” were prepared for a course taught at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law in Anaheim, CA, in the Fall of 1988, and taught several times subsequently. The notes were revised and updated in 2007 for an Academy series at Christ Reformed Church. They are dated, but hopefully still of value.

Why Study Schaeffer?

1). To gain a basic understanding of the apologetic methodology of Francis Schaeffer.[1]

2). A study of Schaeffer’s life, times, and apologetic methodology will help us to hone and refine our own approach to unbelievers in both evangelistic and apologetic contexts.

3). Such a study can also shed great light on the on-going debate within the Reformed tradition on apologetic method.

a. To answer the broad question, “of what significance is the work of Schaeffer as an evangelist, pastor, and apologist for us today?”

b. To identify those things we can learn from Schaeffer not only in defending our faith, but in communicating, applying, and living out our Christian faith in the twenty-first century.

Cautions When Studying Schaeffer

1). I am not an expert on Schaeffer. I have never been to L'Abri, nor to any of the L'Abri conferences in the States.[2]

2). I never had the privilege of studying under Schaeffer in any personal forum.

3). Schaeffer’s own stated concerns present several areas of difficulty in working through his apologetic material. In his essay “The Question of Apologetics” (which is an appendix to Schaeffer’s book, The God Who Is There), Schaeffer expresses some perplexity over how his readers and students evaluated his work. Therefore, we need to be sensitive to Schaeffer’s clearly-stated desire to have his endeavors understood in the manner in which he intended. Yet, that is easier said than done, as Schaeffer’s work is profound in some areas and perplexing in others.

4). Schaeffer made it clear in a number of places that in some sense he wished to avoid the type of treatment that we will be giving to him in this series of lectures.

a. Schaeffer makes his sentiments clearly known:

“The answer as to whether I am an apologete depends upon how the concept of apologete or apologetics is defined. First. I am not an apologete if that means building a safe house to live in, so that we Christians can sit inside with safety and quiescence. Christians should be out in the midst of the world as both witness and salt, not sitting in a fortress surrounded by a moat. Second . . . as we turn to consider in more detail how we may speak to men of the twentieth century, we must emphasize first of all that we cannot apply mechanical rules. We, of all people, should realize this, for as Christians we believe that personality really does exist and is important. We can lay down some general principle, but there can be no automatic application. If we are truly personal, as created by God, then each individual will differ from everyone else. Therefore each man must be dealt with as an individual, not as a case or static or machine. If we would work with these people; we cannot mechanically apply the things of which we have been speaking in this book. We must look to the Lord in prayer, and to the work of the Holy Spirit, for effective use of these things.”[3]

Not only does Schaeffer bristle at questions about his own apologetic method, his stated desire not to apply mechanical rules or formulas to people likewise means that Schaeffer doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed by labels, as we must do in a course about his apologetic methodology.

b. According to Jerram Barrs (formerly the director of the Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary), Schaeffer self-consciously identified himself as an evangelist and pastor,[4] not as a theologian or apologist.

c. It is safe to say that Schaeffer would deplore any treatment of his apologetic method that failed to equip the student to actually “do apologetics,” by placing too much emphasis upon his methodology and which displays ultimate confidence in the power of God.

d. Schaeffer goes on to say that he is “mystified at times about what has been said concerning `Schaeffer's apologetics.’ I do not believe there is one apologetic which meets the needs of all people. And as I said in the text of The God Who is There, I did not (and do not) mean that what I wrote in that book . . . should ever be applied mechanically as a set formula.”[5]

This forces us to walk the difficult line between being sensitive to Schaeffer’s concerns that we do not employ his system in a manner in of which he would not approve, and yet giving his distinctive apologetic critical attention and study.

I think one of the reasons why Schaeffer was so sensitive to this matter was that he had been repeatedly and harshly criticized by his fellow Reformed apologists Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Clark.[6] There is also much sensitivity on Schaeffer’s part that he not become a popular “guru” of some sort within the church. Hence, Schaeffer worked hard to avoid labels and stereotypes.

e. Therefore, we must strive to find some balance if we are to understand Schaeffer as he wished to be understood. We must be even-handed in our criticism of Schaeffer and not treat him in a manner that he would not wish. Accordingly, we must never allow Schaeffer to become some sort of an unrealistic hero to us. He would not be happy with either approach.

f. On a personal note, I find it a struggle to be objective in studying Schaeffer. There are things I love about his books and approach. There are things that frustrate me greatly.

g. But of all recent Reformed/evangelical apologists, none has been as universally acclaimed as has Francis Schaeffer. I think it safe to say that no modern apologist (since C. S. Lewis) has had such a large and favorably perceived reputation. He and his wife, Edith, lived their lives with everything in them endeavoring to glorify the God they so diligently and faithfully served.

h. Evidentialist and presuppositionalist apologists have both been very restrained in their criticism of Schaeffer.

Cornelius Van Til, who was Schaeffer’s professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, was very critical of Schaeffer's apologetic efforts. Nevertheless, he was quite favorable to Schaeffer personally.

John Frame (now retired from RTS), was Van Til’s successor at Westminster. While critical of Schaeffer’s work at places, Frame likewise speaks highly of Schaeffer, noting that Schaeffer excels all others in the “practice” of apologetics.[7]

William Edgar, who was professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, basically agrees with Van Til’s criticism of Schaeffer, but like Frame, laments that Van Til dismissed Schaeffer too quickly, and did not fully appreciate Schaeffer’s profound insights into the apologetic enterprise.[8]

Dr. John Warwick Montgomery (noted “evidentialist”) also thought quite highly of Schaeffer — enough so that the first endowed faculty chair at Simon Greenleaf School of Law was to be named in his honor.[9]

Schaeffer is an excellent Christian role model for the believer who is burdened for his culture. So much so, that it is often difficult to be critical of his efforts, even in those areas where I find his thought problematic.

i. Because so much of Schaeffer’s later work was seen as oriented toward the recovery of “biblical values” in America (driven largely by the 1973 supreme court decision in Roe V. Wade), many see Schaeffer as primarily preoccupied with social concerns allied with the Christian Right.[10] However, you cannot properly understand Schaeffer’s later works like The Christian Manifesto or The Great Evangelical Disaster, apart from Schaeffer’s larger system of thought which is based upon his apologetic of absolutes and antithesis. Schaeffer’s high regard for human life was not grounded in the political ambitions and agenda of the Christian right, but in his view that all human beings were divine image-bearers and are therefore to be treasured.[11] Unlike American evangelicals for whom social activism is the first head of doctrine, for Schaeffer, his ethics flow directly from his Reformed theology and world and life view.

The Significance of Francis Schaeffer as Apologist

1). One key question which remains to be answered is, “what lasting significance will Francis Schaeffer have for the student of apologetics?”

a. Why do evangelicals continue to think so highly of Schaeffer?

His influence upon a number of evangelical leaders is certainly a factor. Os Guiness and David Wells were converted under Schaeffer’s ministry. Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell, vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp, and many others, all spoke of Schaeffer as an important intellectual and defender of Christian absolutes.

Schaeffer opposed theological liberalism and neo-orthodoxy. He is regarded as a courageous defender of the faith.

Schaeffer’s role as a culture warrior is usually key in this popularity. His role as apologist is highly regarded, although the Calvinism which gave his ethics their context and his apologetic its punch is often ignored by evangelicals.

No question, however, that his influence remains strong even, many years after his death as seen in the sales of his works and books about him. These are matters which are addressed in a number of books on Schaeffer’s life, method, and impact.[12]

b. In his essay, “No Little Person,” J. I. Packer mentions five specific areas of “this one man literary mission to the western world,” which will help us evaluate the impact that Schaeffer made upon so many.[13]

“First, Schaeffer vividly perceived the wholeness of created reality, of human life, of each person's thinking, and of God’s revealed truth. He had a mind for first principles, for systems, and for totalities, and he would never discuss issues in isolation or let a viewpoint go till he had explored and tested its implications as a total account of reality and life . . . . Exposure of presuppositions was thus central to Schaeffer’s method of encounter with all opinions on any subject, and he always presented Christianity in terms of its own presuppositions and in theologically systematic form, as the revealed good news of our rational and holy Creator becoming our gracious and merciful redeemer within the space-time continuum of this world's history and life.”[14]

“Second, Schaeffer perceived the primacy of reason in each individual’s make-up and hence the potency of ideas in the human mind. He saw that, as it has been put, ideas have legs, so how we think determines what we are. So the first task in evangelism . . . is to persuade the other person that he ought to embrace the Christian view of reality; and the first step in doing this would be to convince him of the nonviabilty of all other views, including whatever form of non-Christianity is implicit in his own thinking up to this point . . . . To address his mind in this way is to show respect for him as a human being, made for truth because he is made in God’s image.”[15]

“Third, Schaeffer perceived the Western mind as adrift on a trackless sea of relativism and irrationalism just because the notion of truth as involving exclusion of untruth, and of value as involving exclusion of disvalue, had perished in both sophisticated and popular thinking. Into its place had crept the idea of ongoing synthesis, the idea, that is, that anything may be eventually prove to be an aspect of anything else to which at present it seems to be opposed, so that infinite openness to everything, with negation of nothing and no value judgments, is the only appropriate way for anyone to go.”[16]

“Fourth, Schaeffer perceived the importance of identifying in all apologetic and evangelistic discussion, and all teaching on what being a Christian involves, that which he called the antithesis and the point of tension. The antithesis is between truth and untruth, right and wrong, good and evil, the meaningful and the meaningless, Christian and non-Christian value systems, secular relativism and Christian absolutism; the point of tension is between clashing elements in incoherent world views and between the logical implications of non-Christian ontologies on the one hand and the demands of our inalienable 'mannishness' on the other. He made it his business on every topic he handled to cover the `either-or’ choices that have to be made (and, whether consciously or not, actually are made).”[17]

“Fifth, Schaeffer perceived the need to live truth as well as think it, and to demonstrate to the world through the transformed lifestyle of believing groups that - as he himself put it in the forward to his wife Edith's narrative L'Abri - `the Personal-Infinite God is really there in our generation . . . . Christian credibility, he saw, requires that the truth be not merely defended, but practiced; not just debated, but done.’”[18]

2). Packer's summation helps us to see several things about Schaeffer's contributions in a better perspective.

a. Few of Schaeffer’s apologetic-theological concerns are original to him. They stem largely from the broader Reformed tradition from which Schaeffer hails. These would include the confessional Calvinism which Schaeffer professed as an ordained Presbyterian minister and adherent to the Westminster Confession of Faith. We can certainly detect the emphasis on presuppositions which is the hallmark of Cornelius Van Til, Schaeffer’s professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary. Schaeffer’s concern for the “objectivity” of truth is drawn from the Reformed theologians of the previous generations — Charles Hodge, B. B. Warfield and J. Gresham Machen.[19] Schaeffer’s desire to see truth lived out, is certainly due to his observation of the all-too-frequent battles over minute points of doctrine found in the Presbyterian and fundamentalist circles of the period. Schaeffer has drawn from all of these sources and is therefore extremely eclectic in his thought. Schaeffer is not an innovator, but a synthesizer. His strength is his ability to communicate the great truths of the faith to people at what ever station in life he found them. In some sense, he’s a doctrinal “translator.”

b. Packer’s summary makes plain Schaeffer’s eclectic approach to apologetics. Schaeffer is commended by Packer far more for the manner in which he carried out the apologetic task than for any significant original contributions to the scientific discipline of apologetics. As these lectures unfold, I think that this point will become increasingly clear. Schaeffer’s impact is as an example and practitioner in evangelistic contexts, far more than as a careful and innovative theologian. But as an example, I’m quite sure that no modern apologist offers more helpful material to us than does Francis Schaeffer.

Next up in part two, the life and times of Francis Schaeffer

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[1] Francis Schaeffer was born on January 30, 1912, and died May 15, 1984.

[2] While I am not an expert on Schaeffer, I am reasonably familiar with those schools of thought which have had a great influence upon him: the apologetics of Machen, Van Til, and the separatist fundamentalism of post World War II evangelicalism.

[3] Francis Schaeffer “The Question of Apologetics” in Collected Writings, Vol. 1, 175-76.

[4] Jerram Barrs, “Francis Schaeffer, The Man and His Message,” reformation21, 1.

[5] Schaeffer, “The Question of Apologetics” in CW. Vol. 1, 175-76.

[6] We will discuss this in some detail in the section of these lectures dealing with Schaeffer’s critics.

[7] Class Notes, WSC, 1984. While Frame speaks highly of Schaeffer personally, he generally follows the criticisms that Van Til levels against Schaeffer.

[8] William Edgar, “Two Christian Warriors: Cornelius Van Til and Francis A. Schaeffer Compared,” in The Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 57 (1995), 76-80.

[9] Schaeffer was given the honorary Doctor of Laws by Simon Greenleaf School of Law in May of 1983.

[10] Harold O. J. Brown, “Standing Against the World, “ in Francis A. Schaeffer: Portraits of the Man and His Work, ed., Lane T. Dennis (Westchester: Crossway Books, 1986), 23-25.

[11] Barrs, “Schaeffer: The Man and His Message,” 4.

[12] Ronald W. Ruegsegger, ed., Reflections on Francis Schaeffer (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986); Lane Dennis, Francis A. Schaeffer: Portraits of the Man and His Work (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1986); Scott R. Burson & Jerry Walls, C. S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a New Century from the Most Influential Apologists of Our Time (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998); Bryan A. Follis, Truth and Love: The Apologetics of Francis Schaeffer (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2006).

[13] These points can be found in J. I. Packer’s introduction to Ruegsegger’s Reflections on Francis Schaeffer, entitled “No Little Person,” 11-14.

[14] Packer, “No Little Person,” 11.

[15] Packer contends that Schaeffer’s method was in “direct continuity with the lesson in basic theism that was Paul’s first move in his attempt to evangelize the Athenian Areopagites . . . . For only when a theistic frame of reference has been established can words like sin, guilt, redemption, faith, repentance, creativity, and love bear their authentic Christian meaning.” See Packer, “No Little Person,” 12. Packer’s comments reflect the tension within the Reformed tradition on the question of apologetic method. All Reformed apologists agree that there must be a theistic frame of reference established in which to discuss the themes of the gospel with non-Christians. The question is, “how do we establish this frame of reference?” Do we argue on the basis of presuppositions, as do Packer, Schaeffer, or Van Til? Or do we attempt to establish a theistic framework by constructing a natural theology, as do R. C. Sproul and John Gerstner? Or do we attempt to establish this frame of reference by demonstrating the viability of special revelation as did J. Gresham Machen, B. B. Warfield and the Scottish Presbyterians (Cunningham, Chalmers, etc.)?

[16] Packer, “No Little Person,” 12.

[17] Packer, “No Little Person,”13.

[18] Packer, “No Little Person,” 14.

[19] In my estimation, Packer does not give this point sufficient emphasis.