Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Sun, 30 Aug 1992 17:58:09 EDT
From:         MKLINE%VDH.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU
Subject:      Chaos & The Authoritarian Government
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              bstudy-l%utarlvm1.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU,
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Subject: Chaos & The Authoritarian Government

    Dr. Francis Schaeffer, Part 3, Chaos & the Authoritarian Government.
                                                              (Feb 1982)
    Pat: We've been talking about this matter of a humanistic world view
and a humanistic society. You mentioned a couple of days ago that if we
impose humanism on our form of government, we'd have chaos. Have the
humanists ever established a successful society anywhere?

    FS: Well, it always runs like this, it's an absolute rule. And that
is, first of all, their views, because they're relativistic, and they
have no base always leads to chaos, just what we're seeing now. Now,
society cannot stand chaos. I think that's because we're made in the
image of God, and that whether we're a Christian or not. And therefore
society can never stand chaos.

    So then there's always the next step, and we see it coming in this
country, and the next step is always some form of authoritarian
government, to contain the chaos. So it always goes through the steps:
chaos, leading to some form of authoritarian government. You look back
into the Roman Empire, see the rise of Caesar, Caesar Agustus, the
worship of Caesar. You can look at the communist countries and the
terrible oppression like the most recent thing in Poland, where my
Solidarity pin sent to me by a lovely Christian girl just 2 days before
the crack down in Poland. I hope to wear it till she can wear it again.
That's my hope.

    But, you see it in the communist countries in their form, but where
ever you turn, humanism, because it's relativistic, will always lead
toward chaos, and the chaos will always lead towards some form of
totalitarian or authoritarian government.

    Pat: In other words, you'll see the same thing here, I guess, if we
continue. What you're saying is that humanism cannot contain a society
and to have a self governing people, they have to be motivated by an
inner moral force that deals with a God given natural law, or God law
that will control them from within.

    FS: What you need is the realization that there is a law giver. And
that's what our Founding Fathers built everything on, that there was a
Creator who was a law giver. So we write certain inalienable rights. This
is meaningless if the state gives them, or man gives them, because then
he could take them away, then they are not inalienable.

    So therefore, the whole concept was that because there was a law
giver, we can have law, and a governmental law, or as we spoke a couple of
days ago, it can really be "Law is King", simply because there is a law
giver who gives the law.

    Pat: Well you have to have some sort of belief that either there is a
future punishment for evil, or a future reward for good. Doesn't that
sort of tie in, because otherwise, it's lex taliotus(?) or "Eat drink and
be merry.", the philosophy of the Epicurean or who ever who says
"Tomorrow we die, so who cares. Let's live it up for today."

    FS: This is right. We must see that on the materialistic side, that
it's absolutely neutral about cruelty or non-cruelty, the final reality
would be this. In this case, therefore, there is no absolute to judge
anything by, whether it's personal relationships, personal actions,
personal lifestyle, or government.

    In consequence therefore, the would guilt becomes stupid and
meaningless and nonsense, if you do not have an absolute, to set these
things. Now, of course, after that, there comes the other side of it. And
that is, if there is such a God who is there, and He has a character, and
not all things are the same to Him, which is the Judaeo-Christian God,
not the eastern gods, but if there is such a one, then when the law is
broken, there is real moral guilt, and there will be punishment.

    So then, of course, the coming of Christ, and His dying on the cross
to take the punishment. On the other hand, we must realize this God is
going to judge. So first of all, before God there is real guilt. But
secondly, there is guilt also before law. But all you have to do is look
at our own country, and realize the concept of guilt is all going, but
everybody's just sick. Nobody's guilty for anything, and nobody feels
responsibility.

    Pat: And when we're taught "When it feels good, do it." which is a
hedonistic type of creed, and that is taught by humanism, "If it satisfies
you, then do it."

    FS: Right. That's true in sexual things, but it's not only in sexual
things, which is the most visible, it's in the totality of life.

    Pat: Let's go back in history, and also fairly recent history, the
French Revolution had apparently the crowning of a goddess of reason, in
one of the Christian churches, and then following this expression, this
explosion of revolutionary zeal, they had a dictator. dictatorship, first
a terror, then finally Napoleon. Is that absolutely so?

    FS: Occasionally, people try to parallel the French Revolution and
the American Revolution. Their either dishonest, or they haven't read
their history. The American Revolution was based upon the concept that
there was a law giver who could give the law. The French Revolution was
based on the enlightenment, and man is the center of all things. It led
quickly to the rule of terror, in which even the leaders of the
revolution were guillotined. Society fell apart so quickly that the
French people took their form of authoritarianism with great joy and that
was Napoleon and his rule.

    Pat: Was Nazi Germany a continuation? Would you call that humanistic?
What would you identify Adolf Hitler as?

    FS: Well, absolutely. You had a materialistic view, and therefore
society, and this brings us to abortion, which is so crucial in all this,
therefore human life had no intrinsic value, and the elite, in that case
Hitler and his little group would be able to kill whoever they wish to
kill, for the good of society.

    And we've opened the door, humanism has opened the door to that same
thing in our country, in abortion, infanticide, and all that it leads to.

Maks
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