Return To Schaeffer

Revelation 17

11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is

the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into

perdition.

12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten

kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but

receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

13 These have one mind, and shall give their

power and strength unto the beast.


Here's a little more about the beast found in the

book of Revelation. It still describes the beast

'...that was, and is not...' and the 'kings' will

serve this beast. The beast is personified as a

'he', but yesterday we saw in verse eight that

the beast ascended out of the bottomless pit.

The beast is a product of hell's invention, and I

have to imagine that it is what I described

yesterday, a mythological ideology that appeals

to a wide range of interests, so that there can

be the formation of a ruling conglomorate, under

an occult influence. The beast is the

personification of demons ascending out of the

pit of hell.


If you think that the kingdom of man is in a mess

right now, just wait until this future chaos and

confusion is initiated by a host from hell.


At this point, it's time to return to have

another look at what Francis Schaeffer had to

write. If you want to read more by Schaeffer,

you should pick up a copy of the Francis

Schaeffer trilogy, 'The G-d Who is There',

'Escape From Reason' and 'He is There and He is

Not Silent', published by Crossway Books. These

are not light reading, but neither are they

highly technical. And they are well worth the

effort.


You see, from yesterday, I've gotten to the point

where it's evident that in order to find the real

Jesus, all of the layers of myth have to be

peeled away, until we get to the core of truth.

We want to know the real Jesus, because once we

meet the real Jesus, then we won't want anything

else. Modern ideas, including modern ideas about

Jesus are wrapped in layers of myth. Mythical

thinking leaks into every area of life once the

mind is conditioned to think that way. Schaeffer

uses the term 'mystical'. I'd imagine, that in

technically correct philosophical terms, there is

a difference between 'mystical' and 'mythical'

and 'magical'. At this point in time, I don't

want to go into a technical discussion of

terminology, but there's no reason that you can't

explore that area on your own, if you are so

inclined. Schaeffer points out that there is a

rational approach to Faith. There is Truth. I

want to identify the real Jesus. Not the

'mystical' or the 'mythical' or the 'magical'

Jesus, that has leaked into the cultural concept

of christianity.


Here's what Schaeffer has to say:

"It is not only the existentialist who has talked

about an experience as a means of validating

oneself. Right up to the time of his death

Aldous Huxley suggested that a way of achieving

what he described as a 'first-order experience'

would be through drugs. This experience would,

like the final experience advocated by the

existentialists, be above the line of rational

validation, in this way:

THE NONRATIONAL | A first-order experience
AND NONLOGICAL | by the use of drugs.
-------------------------------------------------
THE RATIONAL | No purpose or meaning
AND LOGICAL | found.

This overwhelming desire for some nonrational

experience was responsible for most of the

serious use of the drugs LSD and STP in the

1960's. For the sensitive person, drugs were

then not usually used for escape. On the

contrary, he hoped that by taking them he would

experience the reality of something which would

give his life some meaning. Intriguingly enough,

Professor Timothy Leary, formerly of Harvard

University, linked up the LSD experience with

that described in the 'Tibetan Book of the

Dead'. Thus he shows that the desire for, and

the form of, this experience changes very little

from West to East. Whether it is the

existentialist speaking, or Aldous Huxley, or

Eastern mysticism, we find a uniform need for an

irrational experience to make some sense of life.

Their views have brought them to a wall, and by

an unrelated leap of faith they hope to clear the

wall. Each of their views may be distinguished

in detailed description, but they have come to

the same wall and are making the same attempt to

clear it. Each case involves a nonrational leap

of faith...

In conclusion to this section, let us note that

when we speak of being under the line of despair,

we do not mean that these people necessarily sit

down and weep, but that they have given up all

hope of achieving a rational, unified answer to

knowledge and life." pp 22-3.


Schaeffer puts into a philosophical context the

same idea that I have examined here in terms of

the popular mythical conceptual understanding and

explanation of social and personal life. We

don't really know WHO we are. And the effort to

package Jesus in popular myth means that we'll

never be able know WHO he really is, in THAT

context. Schaeffer takes the discussion to the

next level by describing the situation as a

rejection of the rational and the pursuit of

nonrational 'experience'.


My conclusion is, that there is what Schaeffer

calls a 'rational' basis for life and faith, but

it's not ever going to be found in popular myth.

You see, the Island that C.S. Lewis was seeking

isn't that much different than the variety of

nonrational first-order experience sought by the

existentialist. Coming to reason, we seek a

person (Jesus), in whom we find our true

identity. What Schaeffer sees as the 'line of

despair' is what I see as one part of the wall

that separates the kingdom of man from the

kingdom of heaven. Jesus entered the kingdom of

man, so that we could get a 'flesh and bones'

glimpse of the kingdom of heaven, since that's

the nature of our experience (we now live in the

finite physical world). Jesus entered the

physical world in order to provide for us a sort

of 'first-order experience' that the

existentialist seeks. It was an experience of

the reality of a personal G-d. The experience is

that of restoring the broken relationship that

causes separation between G-d and man. Scripture

provides a totally rational basis for faith, as

long as it's kept in proper context.


The problem is that men reject THAT rational

basis for faith, because it doesn't excuse their

own willfull rebellion. And you can't serve both

the kingdom of man AND the kingdom of heaven. At

the deepest level, it's not that faith is

irrational, it's that men wish to behave

irrationally.