Nice! Would there be any connection with F. Schaeffer and this lower/upper story stuff? DId he not sketch something out in The God Who Is There? Or was he just using similar analogy for his purposes?
It has been thirty-plus years since I’ve read Schaeffer, but I do seem to recall him talking about the upper/lower story model, possibly even along these lines. I’ll have to pick him up again!
Thanks! Yes - esp. since Schaeffer is a big godfather for many Evan. thinkers and orgs. since the 70s. As with CSL, many read Schaeffer and stop reading deeply in theology....
I was a big fan of Schaeffer in HS and college, as well as CSL, but fortunately kept reading... great milk, but not the best cuts of meat!
I pulled my "The God Who Is There" off the shelf and from the opening pages, it seems that the line of despair that he sketches out there refers to the time where the world went from "truth is absolute" to "truth is relative".
At p 31 of my edition (the IVP Signature Edition), Schaeffer does talk about an upstairs (faith) / downstairs (reason) for the first time, but it seems to be in critique of modern thought's first step in divorcing the upstairs from the downstairs. To me, he seems to be criticising this dichotomising and not agreeing with it.
Elsewhere he states that presuppositional apologetics would've stopped the world from sliding past the line of despair, which would seem a little odd if he agreed with the faith/reason dualism. After all, the faith/reason dualism guys have been the one pillorying the presupp ones.
At p 205 of my edition (this is in Appendix A), he says: "As Christians, we do have the answers to the questions posed by reality. But we have not thought up these answers, we did not generate the answers, we are not the origin of the answers - we know them from God's revelation. This is the very opposite of rationalism." Admittedly this is a short quote, but it does sound very much like the revelational epistemology of Bavinck.
I dug a little more and learnt that his upstairs/downstairs scheme is dealt in more detail in his "Escape from Reason". I don't have that book, but I found a handy summary (not complete) that seems to show that Schaeffer lays the blame of the dichotomising of nature and grace at the feet of...Thomas! Link here: https://www.booksataglance.com/book-summaries/escape-reason-francis-schaeffer/
All in all, in my own reading, I think Schaeffer would've agreed heartily with this article! But I'm open to discussion and correction, especially if I have badly misread him. Cheers!
That sounds right. I didn't mean to suggest Schaeffer was positive to the upper/lower divide. My foggy memory was that he was critical of it. Keep in mind, he was a Westminster student for a time and was certainly influenced by the Kuyperian/Van Til tradition.
Thanks very much for the input! Yep - could be! Though in that quote, I wonder if FS meant General and Specific Revelation in his noting of God's revelation. Also the binary structuring is traditionally the most common, along with the Threes structuring, for key concepts...
FS good for quick, broad stroke overview sketches and not deep analysis - he was not an academic bookreader, but someone who "caught" his knowledge fund through convos, etc.
Did he lean more toward Kierkegaard frame over Aquinas, even as he rejected his bete noir, Existentialism?
Forgot to comment on this: but this was a really helpful diagnostic tool to see where the lines of thought have led.
Nice! Would there be any connection with F. Schaeffer and this lower/upper story stuff? DId he not sketch something out in The God Who Is There? Or was he just using similar analogy for his purposes?
It has been thirty-plus years since I’ve read Schaeffer, but I do seem to recall him talking about the upper/lower story model, possibly even along these lines. I’ll have to pick him up again!
Thanks! Yes - esp. since Schaeffer is a big godfather for many Evan. thinkers and orgs. since the 70s. As with CSL, many read Schaeffer and stop reading deeply in theology....
I was a big fan of Schaeffer in HS and college, as well as CSL, but fortunately kept reading... great milk, but not the best cuts of meat!
They both had incredible strengths. But, in the case of both, theology was their weakest point.
I pulled my "The God Who Is There" off the shelf and from the opening pages, it seems that the line of despair that he sketches out there refers to the time where the world went from "truth is absolute" to "truth is relative".
At p 31 of my edition (the IVP Signature Edition), Schaeffer does talk about an upstairs (faith) / downstairs (reason) for the first time, but it seems to be in critique of modern thought's first step in divorcing the upstairs from the downstairs. To me, he seems to be criticising this dichotomising and not agreeing with it.
Elsewhere he states that presuppositional apologetics would've stopped the world from sliding past the line of despair, which would seem a little odd if he agreed with the faith/reason dualism. After all, the faith/reason dualism guys have been the one pillorying the presupp ones.
At p 205 of my edition (this is in Appendix A), he says: "As Christians, we do have the answers to the questions posed by reality. But we have not thought up these answers, we did not generate the answers, we are not the origin of the answers - we know them from God's revelation. This is the very opposite of rationalism." Admittedly this is a short quote, but it does sound very much like the revelational epistemology of Bavinck.
I dug a little more and learnt that his upstairs/downstairs scheme is dealt in more detail in his "Escape from Reason". I don't have that book, but I found a handy summary (not complete) that seems to show that Schaeffer lays the blame of the dichotomising of nature and grace at the feet of...Thomas! Link here: https://www.booksataglance.com/book-summaries/escape-reason-francis-schaeffer/
All in all, in my own reading, I think Schaeffer would've agreed heartily with this article! But I'm open to discussion and correction, especially if I have badly misread him. Cheers!
That sounds right. I didn't mean to suggest Schaeffer was positive to the upper/lower divide. My foggy memory was that he was critical of it. Keep in mind, he was a Westminster student for a time and was certainly influenced by the Kuyperian/Van Til tradition.
Thanks very much for the input! Yep - could be! Though in that quote, I wonder if FS meant General and Specific Revelation in his noting of God's revelation. Also the binary structuring is traditionally the most common, along with the Threes structuring, for key concepts...
FS good for quick, broad stroke overview sketches and not deep analysis - he was not an academic bookreader, but someone who "caught" his knowledge fund through convos, etc.
Did he lean more toward Kierkegaard frame over Aquinas, even as he rejected his bete noir, Existentialism?
Not too sure which revelation he was referring to. But with regards to your last question, that definitely is over my head!