goes on to explain how the Reformed
theology has succeeded in its ordeal of
providing unifying (albeit incomplete)
knowledge, as it presents a personal
and infinite God as autonomous ins-
tead of a finite man, and binds grace
and nature in the reality of man – a
creature made in the image of God
yet corrupted by the original sin of the
Fall – with Christ being sovereign over
all man, and therefore, over both grace
and nature themselves.
From then on Schaeffer proceeds
to examine the downward spiral of
natural theology apart from divine
revelation: the Enlightenment philo-
sophy of Kant, Rousseau and others
exhausted rationalism, claims the
author, and Hegelianism was the dying
breath of natural theology’s search for
unifying knowledge. Kierkegaard’s
existentialism, drowning in the despair
brought about by the loss of hope in
a solely rational knowledge that can
unify the verifiable with the unverifia-
ble, gives up on rationality altogether,
according to Schaeffer, and relegates
truth and purpose to the individual’s
subjectivity.
This eventually boils down to the
modern man in Schaeffer’s view: a
man who no longer aspires to have
unifying knowledge – even if incom-
plete – and whose dilemma is no
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