As A Man Thinketh So is He.

“The inner thought world determines the outward action (Schaeffer, 20)

Human action always starts from our inner thoughts. “As a man thinks so is he” is taken in part from Proverbs 23:7, is very true our actions good or bad always start from what we are thinking. A Christ centered individual should always act by first asking if this is what Christ would have me do. Being Christ centered means to also be scriptural and biblically motivated. If we are to be a Christian people who are in possession of a great deal of discernment, then we must be a scriptural and biblically oriented people. Everyone starts with some basic presuppositions and moves from these to actions.

Thoughts become our basic presuppositions and we catch these from our families. We do this much like we catch the common cold. “…people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what world view is true (Schaeffer, 20).” When it gets all gets gathered together there really only a handful of basic world views (Schaeffer, 20). For about the last 25 years or so Christians have been abandoning a Christian world view in favor of a secular world view. Many scientists if not all of them claim that they have no presuppositions, but when it comes right down to the fine points it is impossible to not have a basic supposition. If your presupposition says that there is no God, then all of your thoughts, acts and decisions are based on atheism. This creates a very biased way to look at the world. “–that is, although world views have many variations, there are not many basic world views or basic presuppositions (Schaeffer, 20).

Basically if we are to understand what is happening in our world we must examine the past. Today’s world is best understood by looking at these three areas in history, philosophy, science and religion. Philosophy seeks to provide an answer by approaching it from the view point of an intellectual answer to the basic questions. Science as we see it today seeks to find answers in “physical universe” and then “practical application” of these answers in the area of technology. To the scientist how he or she sees the direction of where they go with their research, is based on their philosophic world view. A religious view also determines what direction a person will take in their lives and for society as well (Schaeffer, 20).

We thus need to see an understanding as to what the main dilemmas are and then look at the past to determine where this came from historically. We could go all the way back, or just as far as the Greeks to give us the needed lessons from history. We could just go back to the Romans, “..because Roman civilization is the direct ancestor of the modern Western world (Schaeffer, 20). Rome was one of the worlds great world empires of history and we gained many great things from the Roman empire, “But it had no real answers to the basic problems that all humanity faces (Schaeffer, 21).

The Greek and Roman empires attempted to build their whole society on their concept of god, however they ran into a problem in this respect, because “..these gods were not big enough because they were finite, limited (Schaeffer 21). In fact their gods were just larger then life human beings and for that reason were unable to be any kind of sufficient answer, their gods were just “amplified humanity” and not “divinity” (Schaeffer, 21). Their gods were not big enough to provide a “reference point” or even permanent enough that could relate to real lives.  Their gods lacked the kind of strength that would stand up under strains either political or individual. Once their society collapsed their gods did too (Schaeffer, 21).

The net result is that anytime you trust in a god made by human hands and in a humans image you have the recipe for failure. The Romans failed, because their gods ultimately failed. Many in our day are trusting in man made religion to cope with the hard things of life. When self centered man seeks to have peace and affluence instead of a personal relationship to Jesus Christ the result will be exactly what we see today. The largest religion in America today is not Roman Catholic, Baptist, Protestant, Muslim or for that mater it is not even considered to be a religious organization, but it is–Humanism is the predominant religion in America today. Humanism has both a secular form and a religious form. Many religious organizations have now adopted religious humanism and have virtually replaced Christ in many of our nation’s churches with this idol for that mater so has the whole world.

Rome as a Basis for Living?

Ancient Rome is a parent of our current world ethos. We have drawn not only our government from Rome and Greece, but Rome was also the ancient parent of modern humanism. We must first examine what history and culture tells us to see where it is leading us (Schaeffer, 19).

“This flow is rooted and has its wellspring in the thoughts of people. People are unique in the inner life of the mind–what they are in their thought world determines how the act (Schaeffer, 19)”

If we are too make any sense out of the chaos that surrounds us today, we first have too see what the flow of history tells us. There is an old saying that says “Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat its errors”. We can follow every thing from the past down to present day counter parts, nothing is really new, but just repackaged for our modern age. Modern secular humanism as well as religious humanism had its start in ancient Rome and Greece (Schaeffer, 19). Our modern American culture is sinking into an abyss that was dug by humanistic evolutionists and sociologists.

What is true of people in their thoughts is determining how they live is also true in “value systems”.  It is also true in the actions of our large corporations and it is true in our political decisions. It is also true in modern mans personal and private life (Schaeffer, 19). What we think determines how we live. A case in point over the last few years has been the great number of industry, entertainment and political figures who have found themselves on the wrong end of the law. It was their thought lives that ultimately led them to make decisions based on nothing more then it felt right. People today are not likely to choose the Bible as their basis for the decisions of life. If they did their would be fewer murders and robberies as well as white collar crime.

“People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves realize. By presuppositions we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic world view (Schaeffer, 19).

If my presupposition says that I can do anything I want to, because this is what I like, then people would be starting with the presupposition that man has all the right answers. If man starts with man he will end with man. If people are what we view the world through and if what we think in our minds determines that view then the natural outcome is a man centered world. Everything that we have brought forth during the last two hundred years, as well as the last 6,000 or so years is based on what we as individuals think. “‘As a man thinketh, so is he.’ is really profound”(Schaeffer, 19). We are more then just so many molecules, but we are also an “inner world”. People can influence the world based on what they think in their inner world (Schaeffer, 19)

The thoughts in peoples inner world has a profound effect upon the external world. In fact all the actions that are occurring right now have their basis in some ones inner thoughts. People are angry today, not because they have an external reason to do so, but because they are angry in their thought world.  What is wrong with man kind is spiritual and can only be adequately explained by the Christian world view. This means that Christ must be at the center of how we act and live. This also means that the scriptures are really the only basis for what we believe and how we act. We refuse today to put the ten commandments into our schools and courts, because of the mistaken view that this would violate separation of church and state. Instead we rely on the word of man, which changes daily if not moment by moment. We have even gone so far as to put Christ on the back burner in our churches and have opted instead for man made programs, such as The Purpose Driven life.

How Should We Then Live? By Francis A. Schaeffer

There are a handful of philosopher-theologians who have contributed immensely to the development of a Christian world view. Some of these are much earlier then we are living at this time. They produced a basis of how Christians view the world around them. During the last 50 years or so none has had such a major impact on how we should live our faith then Francis A. Schaeffer. He openly professed loyalty to the scriptures above all else. It is my intention to use his book as a series of studies. These will be found at Why Baptist Blog and also at Listen to God this is meant as a review and is in no way meant as an extensive analysis. The word of God is above else to be taken as the only authority in all maters of faith and practice (Sola Scriptura). “Few Christians have had greater impact during the last half of the twentieth century then Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer (Schaeffer, Francis A., 9). I am drawing as a theme statement that we are seeing a “growing disintegration and decline of truth and morality throughout our world (Schaeffer, 9). This includes both a historical perspective as well as a theological basis.

Every facet of our lives as Christians has been impacted by a growing, but extremely “devastating impact” of both the post immerging church movement and the “post Christian consensus” (Schaeffer, 9). Christians as a whole in our times are living without any kind of world view let alone a Christian world view. In fact one of our current (Christian) church leaders is now suggesting that we have a new reformation. It is suggested that we still follow the original reformation statements of truth, but have added a practical reformation. This implies as well as means that the Reformation was not sufficient or even might have been wrong. A practical reformation is actually a denial of the scriptures that gave us the protestant reformation. So what will it be the Word of God or the Word of Man, the choice can only be one of these. Which will you choose to follow.

Not only has the Christian message been impacted by the modern form of humanism, but so has “art, music, drama, theology and the mass media”.  This has left “people with no basis for meaning, or truth, or hope in life…two impoverished values of ‘personal peace and affluence'”(Schaeffer, 10). This is indeed a personal question to each of us “How should we then live” (Schaeffer, 11)? Should it be by the changing whims of situation ethics? What about atheistic communism, does it have a sufficient basis for living? Should it be by atheistic evolution? As for me I choose to live by the Word of the living God and this only “Sola Scriptura”.