Existential?

By Author: Terry Dashner
Total Articles: 105
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Existential?

Terry Dashner.Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

Are you an existentialist? Yes, it's possible to be one and not even know it. But more than likely if you are one, you know the philosophy well. Here's what you know.

Existentialism is a philosophical movement stressing individual existence and holding that human beings are totally free and responsible for their acts—according to Webster's New World Dictionary (Wiley Publishing, Inc. 2003). But for those who are unfamiliar with the movement, have I given you sufficient information? If not, listen up.

I picked up again an old text book that was assigned to me in graduate school many years ago. I blew the dust off the covers and read parts of it again. Why? I did so because, in my opinion, there is too much bad philosophy attaching itself to modern day Christianity. For example, my son came home recently from Oklahoma State University where he is a freshman, studying business. He is finishing the year with final exams and shows me his philosophy papers. He is studying Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. ...
... You may recall that Nietzsche told us in the late 1800's that God is dead and that we killed Him. This is bad philosophy. I ache that a school like OSU focuses a major part of a philosophy course on Nietzsche's failed teachings. History proved him wrong—Communism, Nazism, and the Jewish Holocaust—are all products of Nietzsche's philosophy.

Because I ached, I went back to my old philosophy books to reread some of the terrible philosophies. Believe it or not, some of these bad philosophies are still circulating today and being touted as good Christian doctrine. I want to advise you regarding some of the subtle teachings of Existentialism and let you decide whether or not it is good doctrine for the Church. Here goes.

The book I'm borrowing from is entitled, Existentialism and Christian Belief—A Frank Appraisal of a Modern-Day Philosophy, by Milton D. Hunnex (Moody Press 1969). I want to quote from his first chapter entitled, A New Reformation or a New Religion? In this chapter he critiques Bishop John A. T. Robinson's book, Honest to God, a 1963 book that led a revolt against traditional Christianity. Robinson compares the movement of Existentialism to the powerful forces triggered by Martin Luther during the Reformation. This is hogwash. And I think you will agree.

Robinson advocates that the new movement will replace traditional Christianity in a matter of time. Hunnex responds, What is developing before our eyes today could be finally more significant than the revolt in the sixteenth century. That revolt sought to restore New Testament Christianity on its own terms. The revolt today seeks instead to restate Christianity in nonsupernatural, secular terms. It is a revolt against the God of authority and the Bible, against the God of traditional Christianity. ‘That God must die,' Robinson writes, ‘If man is to live.' He is ‘intellectually superfluous, emotionally dispensable, and morally intolerable.' The new Christian looks to a post-Christian faith for the future based on existentialism and universalism as the basic philosophical moods. Christian belief has no part of it. Christian belief is an anachronism. It must be abandoned together with the rest of the past, Robinson contends.

Hunnex continues, Historically theologians have almost always borrowed the methods and models of philosophy to help them in their work. While this is to a certain extent necessary, it has also subjected Christian faith to the influence and fate of the philosophy. When the philosophy in question is abandoned, the theology that leaned on it is threatened if not abandoned too. Platonism in its many forms was the first philosophy of the Christian theologians, but its dualism and otherworldliness gave way to the more monistic and naturalistic philosophy of Aristotle in the thirteenth century. It was partly the distortions of biblical Christianity introduced by Aristotelian philosophy that prompted the Reformers to revolt in the sixteenth century.

Unable to assimilate either the naturalism or Aristotle or that of the scientific revolution, Protestant theology eventually turned to idealism as the modern philosophy best adapted to Christian belief. Modern liberalism made its home among the idealists during the nineteenth century. After World War I it became apparent that idealism was ill suited to the twentieth century, and theologians as well as philosophers abandoned it. They turned instead to existentialism as the kind of philosophy that did appear to fit the mood and needs of the twentieth century. Existentialism seemed to be the best philosophy for getting at the problems of men caught up in swift-moving change.

I could continue but I'll suffice in saying this: Harry Emerson Fosdick once noted that it was not a question of a new or an old theology but a question of a new theology or none at all. On the contrary I shall contend, says Hunnex, that it is not a question of a new or an old theology but a question of the same gospel or no gospel at all. I concur. How about you?

Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming again because He said He was.

Pastor T.Dash



About the Author Pastors a small church in Oklahoma.