THE DECLINE AND DEMISE OF WESTERN CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION

The survival of any society depends on its maintenance of common language, traditions, values, interests, goals, and assumptions about human existence. Twenty civilizations have lived and died; Western Christian Civilization is the twenty-first to rise and decline. Our culture is crumbling before our very eyes. We are living in an age of crises.[1]

History has left us with the example of the Roman Empire. Its decadence was marked by the cruelty of the arena: rampant sexuality leading to the flourishing of the phallus cult; apathy reflected in non-creative art and bombastic music; and finally, oppressive authoritarian government control.[2]

No one would deny that our culture is experiencing some of these same warning signals of a sickness unto death. (See Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics.)

The classical idealism of the Graeco-Roman world could not possibly stand firm and meet with confidence the opposing ideologies and crises of the times. Their gods were not strong enough to face reality; they were no better than humans in conduct and offered no hope for man.[3]

The Greeks were pantheistic, naturalistic and viewed history as cyclical. The power of the Gospel shattered this weak base and the organizing assumptions behind it were replaced with those of the Christian world view.[4]

Christian theism reigned supreme in the Western world until the paradigm shift in the 17th century from reality based in the Creator-God (who had revealed His will to men) to naturalistic science. This shift is irrational and suspect since science got its real strength and impetus from the Christian viewpoint.[5]

As our culture is in its death throes today, men do not have a grounding and . absolute authority by which to understand reality and bring purpose, meaning and hope to everyday existence. This is the result of the rejection of the Biblical Judaeo-Christian World View. It has been supplanted by a pantheistic naturalism with science as its dubious hero. It is the purpose of this paper to show that God (who has revealed Himself through the Bible) is the constant and only hope for man's regeneration and stewardship of the universe. If this present culture is to survive it must join Christianity, which has never died with any culture. The Christian World View alone has absolute truth and the ultimate sustaining power for a rational approach to the universe and all of reality.

CHRISTIAN WORLD VIEW

God, Creation and Redemption

A world view is a set of presuppositions (or assumptions) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously) about the basic makeup of our world.[6] According to William Dilthey, every Weltanschauung has three constituents: factual beliefs, value judgments, and a set of ultimate goals.[7] All Christians have a world view; it is only when we realize fully the implications of diverse and antithetical world views as evidenced by the decision-makers of our day that we will be able to understand the real challenge before us: Who can effectively handle all of reality? The Christian world view is man's only correct answer, his only hope.

As with any world view the decisive and determinative factor in the Christian world view is the concept of God. Jesus asked the ultimate question, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"[8] it is possible to know God only because He has revealed Himself to man. The Hebrew-Christian view, in fact, traced its very premises regarding deity to revelation, and disclaimed that this belief was an insight of philosophy.[9] Adam talked with God in the garden. God confronted Moses through the burning bush. God told Sarah she would have a son. God spoke audibly from heaven and testified concerning Christ and His authority. God speaks through the scriptures. His power and glory are obvious through the wonder and beauty of His creation. Because God has revealed Himself to man, man can know much about God and His will for man.[10]Christians have a responsibility to know God’s Word.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Nothing necessitated the creation. God freely chose to create the universe. Therefore the creature belongs to the Creator and derives life and meaning from Him. But the crowning glory of creation, man, was created in the image of God. Thus God distinguished man from the animals and made him capable of being a son of God. The creative act of God hints at His omnipotence. In Jeremiah 32:27 God says, "Behold, I am Jehovah, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for me?" According to Christianity, the absolute is known only by creation. Without creation God would not be known.[11]God's omnipotence is evidenced by the miracles in the Bible. He has power over nature, sickness, and death. The resurrection of Christ was the ultimate testimony to God's power.

The Christian God is the God revealed in the Bible. He is transcendent, immanent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. He is prior to, creator, and sustainer of all existence. He has given man a rational capacity to perceive both order in the universe and the intention of his own creation. "The heavens declare the glory of. God … and night to night reveals knowledge."[12]

God is eternally loving, just and righteous; He has placed His will in a position of possible rejection by man. Nowhere else (except in the Christian world view) had deity been clothed with the attributes of both stern justice and holiness and tender mercy and love; nowhere else had appeared an absolute God who enters into covenant relation with His creatures and provides redemption for them, and with whom the soul can commune.[13] God valued man in an inconceivable and unfathomable way.

The Christian God works in history. The whole account of Israel, His chosen people, reveals this attribute. Prophecy after prophecy is made in the Old Testament and fulfilled either within its framework and/or in the New Testament times. The greatest prophecy ever announced was the coming of Messiah.[14] The prophecy Christians are expecting today is the return of Christ.

There is nothing which gives meaning, value, and dignity to man like the Christian schema of sin and salvation. God created man perfectly without sin, but He gave man the freedom of will to obey or disobey His commands. Man disobeyed and was thrown out of the garden. The whole creation was marred by the Fall.[15] But God would not let man die. He loved, us and sent His Son to deliver us (See my Sin and Salvation).

This is the crux of the Christian world view: the cross. The incarnation of the Son of God was the turning point in the drama of history: Jesus Christ, the sinless Lamb of God, entered man's world to die for his sins. Rivers of blood had been poured out from bulls and goats but could not effect the cure which was answered at Calvary.[16] The cross can only be fully understood in the context of the wrath of God. This is the consequence of sin: men are guilty before God and incur His wrath. God's righteousness demands justice, i.e. payment of sin. Christ's death was a propitiation for sin.[17] Just as the Israelites had laid their hands upon the head of the scapegoat, so our sins were laid upon Christ and He assumed the guilt for the sins of man. The justice and love of God require Him both to punish sin and to save the sinner.[18] The accomplishment of peace between God and man is another aspect of the atoning work of Christ. It takes into consideration the fact that as sinners, we were God's enemies.[19]

The result of Christ's reconciliation of man to God is the Church. It is made up of the body of believers. The Church is a divine institution with Christ at her head and supreme authority.[20] This points to the supernatural destiny of man.[21] The eschatological hope is the hallmark of the Church. The Christian world view derives its hope from the divine promise that Christ will return for His own. The parousia gives life and meaning to being a Christian. It is one of the major differences between belonging to a church and a club.[22] Christianity offers fellowship and persecution for all believers.[23]

The Nature of the Universe

On the basis of the Christian world view the universal, i.e. nature, can not be autonomous because God created it.[24] He also judged it to be good. The place of time, i.e., history, is very important in relation to the nature of the universe. Christian time measures a creation irreversibly directed towards a unique and definitive end.[25]

No dogma more completely undermined the relevance of the Hebrew-Christian tradition for the modern mind than that of the absolute uniformity of nature, or law of universal causation, presupposed by experimental science.[26] If this were the case, then there would be no room for miracles and the Bible could be discarded or relegated to the nursery bin. The Christian world view accepts miracles as valid.[27] The supreme blow to nature and the ultimate confusion of naturalistic scientists was the flood; for it changed and rearranged nature, her laws, and her sediments, so that a uniform view makes it ultimately impossible to account for the data and witness of such a world-wide destruction. God is transcendent over His creature, nature.[28]

The Nature and Destiny of Man

God created man as the crowning glory of the universe. He created him into a relationship of close fellowship.[29] He gave him the responsibility of cultivating the garden, and limited freedom.[30] Because man disobeyed God, he came under the state of judgment.[31] It is the Christian analysis that man is sinful, though he was created perfect and good. Therefore he is in need of regeneration through Jesus Christ to escape the penalty of sin. But even though man is fallen, he still resembles the Creator.[32]

Man no longer makes moral decisions in relation to the authority of God, since the relationship of Creator to creature has been broken. Man will not make the right ethical decisions from humanistic assumption.[33] It is from the revelation of God and the regenerative power of the Gospel that man can truly make rational moral decisions.[34]

The true value of man is discernible in Paul's explanation, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”[35] Because God set such a high value on man He extended salvation to him.[36] The Christian view of man cannot possibly lead to nihilism or to skepticism. Man's worth is freely proclaimed through the Gospel.

Hope is the possession of man only in the light of the Christian world view. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can give man an optimistic Outlook. Man, if he chooses to follow Christ, is destined to eternal life. Jesus Christ is the supreme precept, example and savior to direct man in his destiny.[37] The atonement of Christ restored man to a place of dignity before God, but the resurrection is the basic for man's hope.[38] Man is not left to animal meaningless, nor to homocentric hopelessness. Man is destined to transformation and immortality.[39]

THE DEMISE OF THE CHRISTIAN PARADIGM:

FAITH IN GOD IS REPLACED BY FAITH IN MAN

Platonic-Aristotelian Influences

As the Church spread from the Jewish community to the Gentiles, Christianity was faced with the Greek World View. This philosophy held that nature was eternal, therefore uncreated; that man was unique to be free from nature's determinism, due to the imminence of Logos; and that god and the superworld of ideas gave rationality to the universe.[40] Christianity stood in opposition to such ideas since God had revealed Himself and His creation of matter and men.

The Christians knew God to be personal, rational, and eternal. Nature as created is not autonomous and not self-explanatory. Yet the Christians adopted the philosophical language and style of the Greeks in order to communicate the Gospel to all men.[41] This resulted in Platonic ideas and traditions cropping up in Christian writings.[42] It must be remembered that the Christian writers were basically concerned with theology and used philosophy in an attempt to express the truths of God's Word.

The World Machine

Naturalism was one of the first serious enemies of the Church, as it continues to be today. This was apparent in Augustine's proof of the existence of God. "[Augustine] depicts the human soul questioning the things of sense and hearing them confess that the beauty of the visible world, of mutable things, is the creation and reflection of unmutable Beauty, after which the soul proceeds inwards, discovers itself and realizes the superiority of soul to body."[43] He based the order and unity of Nature and the goodness of creation in God. The only meaningful view of nature is the Christian world view. Any other view leads to skepticism and nihilism.[44] But Aquinas strongly believed that the only way men can understand the supernatural is by first understanding the natural.[45] The results of his argument are still shaking the life out of the Church today.

The influences of naturalism led to a mechanistic view of the universe.[46] God as portrayed by Deism is the logical conclusion of this system, if it can claim any God at all. The machine may have had a creator, but the creator does not interfere with its function.[47] As a conclusion of naturalism, not only is the world and the universe reduced to machine, but so is man. Astronomy was historically the first science to threaten the theology of the Church. Astronomy made the claim that God was not needed to keep the planets in their orbits, or to uphold the laws of nature.[48] Nature was presented as autonomous.

Misuse of Authority

The Church might not have been hurt so much by the claims of the scientists if the hierarchy had only attacked the theological conclusions of such views. But, in an effort to protect a Greek view of God, the Roman Catholic Church reprimanded Galileo for his correct usage of mathematics and experimentation to explain the movements of the planets.[49] Galileo did not consider his scientific investigations out of line with his Catholic theology.[50] Denial of scientific claims was not the only flaw of the Roman Catholic Church. The teachings of early Christianity were shoved aside for lesser pursuits. The crisis was building which ultimately led to the humanistic elements of the Renaissance and the Bible-based teaching of the Reformation.[51](See my Authority Crisis)

Philosophy and Theology of the Renaissance and Reformation

The Renaissance and Reformation were noble attempts to inject life and meaning back into living. The literature of Greece and Rome did not have the answers to establish a solid foundation for these seekers any more than they could have preserved ancient civilizations.[52] Reason was the subject of the Renaissance philosophers. Rene Descartes asked the question, "What am I, on the basis of my experience, forced to believe?"[53] Nature was once again viewed as non-intelligent machine and logically, man was seen as a machine.[54]

The Reformation returned to the source of authority, purpose and meaning: the scriptures; John Wycliffe produced an English translation. "John Huss returned to the teachings of the Bible and of the early church and stressed that the Bible is the only source of final authority and that salvation comes only through Christ and his work."[55] The fifteenth century Reformation was the last big religious power in Europe until the Wesleyan Revival. Luther proclaimed that reason could not be trusted without being grounded in revelation. And he advocated religious tolerance in murderous times.[56]

The Church of the Reformation remained silent on many issues which needed a "Word of the Lord". But political, educational and economic reforms were instituted as the result of the regeneration of the George Whitefield—John Wesley revivals.[57]

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was in total antithesis to the Reformation. The theme of this period was the perfectibility of man and society.[58] The French Revolution was a judgment upon such an idea. This new strain of humanism developed in theology. "The rationalism of Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza; the empiricism of Locke, Berkeley and Hume; the criticism of Kant; the idealism of Hegel—all found in their day exponents who felt that the systems combined advantageously with Christianity.[59]

Following the destruction of the faith and authority of Biblical Christianity, the humanists were left with the hollowness and futility of their own human reasoning. Life was reduced to nonsense, and man needs meaning and a reason to exist.[60] An example of the results of such chaos is a teaching of Karl Marx in his 1848 Manifesto of the Communist Party. Marx considered the family capitalistic. Later, the state rejected God, the Bible, and the Church, Western Civilization turned to science for the fulfillment of its religious hope.[61]