You’re walking through a museum, and you see a painting that looks like someone sneezed neon paint onto a canvas. Or maybe you're scrolling through the news and feel that weird, prickly sense that the world is tilting on its axis, but you can’t quite name why. Francis Schaeffer would have told you exactly why. He’d probably do it while wearing knickers and a goatee, standing in the Swiss Alps, looking intensely into a camera lens.
In 1976, this "odd man" (as his own daughter called him) released a book and a film series that basically tried to explain everything. And I mean everything—from the fall of Rome to why modern art looks so "fragmented." He called it How Should We Then Live Francis Schaeffer, taking a title from a cryptic warning in the book of Ezekiel.
Honestly, the book is a bit of a trip. It’s part history lesson, part art critique, and part prophetic warning. If you’ve ever felt like modern life is just a series of disconnected events with no "glue" holding them together, Schaeffer was way ahead of you. He argued that the way we think about God (or the lack thereof) isn't just a private Sunday morning thing. It's the engine that drives how we build bridges, how we write laws, and even how we paint pictures.
The Big Idea: Presuppositions Run Your Life
Schaeffer’s main point is simple but heavy: Everyone has a "worldview." You might not know yours. You might never have thought about it. But it’s there. He calls these "presuppositions." They’re the goggles you wear to see the world. If your goggles are blue, everything looks blue.
He traces the history of the West like a slow-motion car crash. It starts with Rome. Rome was great, sure, but their gods were basically just "amplified humanity." They were just like us, only bigger and meaner. Because their foundation was finite, the whole empire eventually buckled under the weight of its own lack of meaning.
Then he skips through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He’s actually pretty fair to the Middle Ages, which is rare for a guy who was a hardcore Protestant. He liked that they at least tried to have a unified view of the world. But then came the "shift."
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The Thomas Aquinas Problem
If you want to understand How Should We Then Live Francis Schaeffer, you have to understand his beef with Thomas Aquinas. It sounds nerdy, but stick with me. Schaeffer argued that Aquinas accidentally opened a door that couldn't be shut. He said Aquinas gave "reason" too much independence from "revelation."
Basically, man started thinking he could figure everything out starting only from himself.
This leads straight to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Suddenly, man is the "measure of all things." It sounds empowering, right? But Schaeffer says this leads to a dark place. If man is the only starting point, and there’s no infinite-personal God to provide a fixed point, then everything becomes relative.
When Art Goes Weird
This is where the book gets really interesting. Schaeffer doesn't just talk about theology; he talks about music and movies. He looks at guys like Leonardo da Vinci and says they were desperately trying to find a "universal" (a big meaning) to hold all the "particulars" (the small details of life) together.
But they couldn't do it.
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By the time you get to modern art, the "unity" is gone. That’s why you get Picasso’s fractured faces or the dissonant music of Schoenberg. It’s not just "modern style." To Schaeffer, it’s a confession. These artists are saying, "The world is broken, and there’s no meaning to put it back together."
He calls this the "Line of Despair." Once a culture crosses that line, they give up on finding a rational answer for life. They start looking for meaning in "non-reason"—drugs, mysticism, or just pure emotion. It’s why you see people today saying "speak your truth" instead of "the truth."
The Prediction: Personal Peace and Affluence
This is the part that usually freaks people out because it sounds like he was reading a newspaper from 2026. Schaeffer warned that when a society loses its moral and philosophical foundation, it won't just turn into a chaotic wasteland. Instead, people will become obsessed with two things:
- Personal Peace: Just let me be happy in my own little bubble. I don't care if the world is burning as long as it doesn't affect my weekend plans.
- Affluence: Give me more stuff. A better house, a faster phone, more "growth."
He warned that people would be so desperate to keep their peace and affluence that they’d eventually hand over their freedoms to an "elite" or an authoritarian government. He didn't think it would look like 1940s fascism with tanks in the streets. He thought it would be subtle—manipulation through media, psychology, and "sociological law."
Basically, we’d trade our souls for a comfortable life.
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Is He Right?
Look, Schaeffer has plenty of critics. Historians often complain that he paints with a brush that’s way too wide. He simplifies complex centuries into short chapters. Some Catholic scholars think he was way too hard on Aquinas. And let’s be real, his take on the Reformation is definitely biased toward his own team.
But even if you disagree with his theology, it’s hard to ignore how accurately he pinpointed the "vibe shift" in Western culture. We live in a world of "fragmentation." We have more information than any humans in history, but we seem to have less of a clue about what it all means.
Actionable Steps for Today
If you're looking at the world and wondering how we got here, How Should We Then Live Francis Schaeffer offers more than just a history lesson. It’s a call to look at the "presuppositions" underneath your own life.
- Audit Your Information: Schaeffer was terrified of how media (television, in his day) could manipulate people without them knowing. Take a hard look at where you get your "truth." Are you being told what to think, or are you starting from a foundation?
- Look for the "Upper Story": He described a "two-story" view of the world where reason is on the bottom and "meaning/values" are on top. Most people today live with those two floors completely disconnected. Try to find a way to integrate what you believe with how you actually live.
- Fight the Apathy: The "Personal Peace and Affluence" trap is real. It’s easy to just tune out. Schaeffer’s antidote was "True Truth"—the idea that there is an objective reality that demands a response from us.
- Read the Book, but Watch the Series Too: The 10-part film series is basically a time capsule of the 70s, but seeing him stand in the actual locations he's talking about (like the Roman Forum or the Swiss Alps) makes the ideas stick in a way the text alone doesn't.
The world hasn't stopped tilting since 1976. If anything, it’s spinning faster. Whether you agree with Schaeffer's "third option" of a return to Biblical Christianity or not, his question remains the most important one on the table: If there is no fixed point, how are we supposed to live?