Francis Schaeffer’s apologetic method places great stress on coherence as a test for truth. “The Christian system (what is taught in the whole Bible) is a unity of thought. Christianity is not just a lot of bits and pieces—there is a beginning and an end, a whole system of truth, and this system is the only system that will stand up to all the questions that are presented to us as we face the reality of existence.”

“Taking the Roof Off”

1) I think this is the most helpful and significant area of Francis Schaeffer’s apologetic methodology. “Taking the roof off,” or “finding the point of tension,” is at the center of Schaeffer’s approach to defending the faith.

2) Schaeffer bases this notion upon the principle of “common ground” occupied by both believer and unbeliever. Says Schaeffer,

“If the man before you were logical to his non-Christian presuppositions, you would have no communication with him…But in reality no one can live logically according to his own non-Christian presuppositions, and consequently, because he is faced with the real world and himself, in practice you will find a place were you can talk…In practice then, we do have a point for conversation, but this point is not properly to be spoken of as `neutral’. There are no neutral facts,^[1] for facts are God’s facts. However, there is common ground between the Christian and non-Christian because regardless of a man’s system, he has to live in God’s world.”^[2]

For Schaeffer, then, the Christian doctrine of creation underlies the apologetic task. The world has been created by God in a particular manner, and therefore certain foundational first principles of knowledge which work in our world are necessary to both Christian and non-Christian alike—no communication is possible without them.

3) For Schaeffer, the central principle is that of antithesis (the law of non-contradiction). God has created humans in his own image, therefore people are naturally able (even while fallen they remain human) to use those foundational first principles of knowledge. In fact people cannot even think or communicate without them. But the non-Christian believes in a world of chance (no God, but order), fate, or determinism, or chaos. If this is the world that is, then what use is there in even trying to communicate? A first principle might change or no longer be valid tomorrow. Schaeffer sees this point very clearly. “If he were consistent to his non-Christian presuppositions he would be separated from the real universe and the real man, and conversation and communication would not be possible.”^[3]

4) Schaeffer correctly fancies this to be the presuppositional method—i.e. challenging the foundation of non-Christian thought using a transcendental argument. “In this way, it does seem to me that presuppositional apologetics should be seen as ending the conversation with the people around us…There is no use talking today until the presuppositions are taken into account, and especially the crucial presuppositions concerning the nature of truth and the method of attaining truth.”^[4] But one can argue presuppositionally without adopting the presuppositionalist epistemology–Schaeffer being a good example. We can identify presuppositions of method (i.e., Thomas Reid and the Scottish Common Sense philosophers), without arguing for presuppositions of content (Van Til). What is necessary to know, not what is known innately? Since everyone does have presuppositions, the question should be asked, “whose presuppositions are the right ones?” To answer this, we must then deal with the ways in which we come to know before we examine the facts at hand. This is what Schaeffer is trying to do here.

5) Because genuine communication is possible (because of non-neutral common ground), we can force the non-Christian to deal with some of the consequences of their own belief system. “Let us remember that every person that we speak to, whether shop girl or university student, has a set of presuppositions, whether he or she has analyzed them or not. If a man were logical to his presuppositions he would come out at the line at the right (‘The logical conclusion of his non-Christian presuppositions’).”^[5]

6) Schaeffer correctly sees that this results in a rather significant problem for the non-Christian.

“Non-Christian presuppositions simply do not fit into what God has made, including what man is. This being so, every man is in a place of tension. Man cannot make his own world and then live in it …A man may try to bury the tension and you may have to help him find it, but somewhere there is a point of inconsistency. He stands in a position he cannot pursue to the end; and this is not just an intellectual concept of tension, it is what is wrapped up in what he is as a man…Every person is somewhere along the line between the real world and the logical conclusion of his or her non-Christian presuppositions. Every person has the pull of two consistencies, the pull towards the real world and the pull towards the logic of his system…The more logical a man who holds a non-Christian position is to his own presuppositions, the further he is from the real world; and the nearer he is to the real world, the more illogical he is to his presuppositions.”^[6]

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