Customer Reviews

The Consequences of Ideas (Paperback Edition): Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book covers roughly 2,500 years of Western philosophy from Plato to Jean-Paul Sartre. Sproul's sections on Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and the section on the influence of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud (even though they cannot properly be called philosophers) were the most insightful sections in the book. The conclusion was excellent as well.

Sproul opens the book with an introduction to what philosophy is and why he is interested in it. I think his definition that philosophy is foundational thinking is simple and very accurate. His attention to epistemology (The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity) throughout the book was a good to choice. Sproul's explanation of the various philosophers was accessible; the use of diagrams (e.g. his illustration of Kierkegaard and Hegel's synthesis) will help those who are totally unfamiliar with philosophy.

Many readers will probably say that the book is far too short (at 203 pages), but I think Sproul's objective was to provide a concise introduction. I think the book could be twice the length and still be concise (then he could have included Pragmatism and perhaps even an Eastern philosopher or two). I think that the book failed to do accomplish its title. What do I mean? I think except for a few places (e.g. Marx), he failed to show the consequences of these ideas. Examples of how these ideas have impacted society would make philosophy more relevant. At the same time, I recognize that perhaps Sproul wanted to reader to reflect on these ideas and then realize when these ideas have influenced the arts, politics etc but I think he failed to show how these ideas have worked themselves out (again, there are a few exceptions) in our world. Also, he rarely mentioned the Christian response to these philosophers; I think perhaps an annotated bibliography of Christian books responding to each philosophical movement (i.e. rationalism, empiricism, Marxism or existentialism) would have been helpful. One book I can recommend that evaluates some of these philosophers (e.g. Kant, Hume, Plato and others) is Norman Geisler's, "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics."

I would recommend this book for Christians who want to learn about philosophy but don't know where to begin.

_Consequences_ covers great philosophers from Thales of Miletus, to the philosophers of modernism. The penultimate chapter before the conclusion covers Darwin and Freud. Sproul discussed how these 19th century thinkers have had great influence on the current secular worldview. As others have noted, the book ends rather abruptly after 200 pages.

Throughout this book R. C. Sproul does not hide his biases. He clearly states he is a Christian and a dedicated supporter of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. He agrees with Roman Catholic philosopher Etienne Gilson, and concludes, "our choice is not between Immanuel Kant and René Descartes or between G. W. F. Hegel and Søren Kierkegaard. We must choose instead between Kant and Thomas Aquinas. Gilson insists that all other positions are mere halfway houses on the road to either absolute religious agnosticism or the natural theology of Christian metaphysics."

R. C. Sproul is a very good writer. He is both easy to read, and communicates many ideas in a few words. I gave _Consequences_ four stars because it is a very good introduction to ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy. Some of the discussions of how philosophies interacted with each other were very nice. Sproul also has an excellent skill in explaining such concepts as epistemology (knowledge), ontology (being), and teleology (purpose).

This book includes the best short introduction to the medieval scholastics I have ever read. The inclusion of proofs for the existence of God was very nicely done. Kierkegaard is also very good, although Sproul does not seem to go as far as he might to meet him on his own terms. As a fideist Kierkegaard has a different philosophical emphasis than Sproul. To judge Kierkegaard in purely rational way seems unfair; he was more concerned about matters of faith and heart and saw philosophy as a means to expression, rather than a way to find absolute truth. I respectfully disagree with Sproul who feels that fideism is one of the "mere byproducts born of the decomposition of the Christian living God." R. C. Sproul certainly is not as friendly to his philosophy as Calvin College's C. Stephen Evans is in _Faith Beyond Reason_.

The book claims to help the reader understand "the concepts that shaped our world." I felt that the book fell short of its purpose because it seems to ignore the influences to our culture in the last fifty years. There was little, if any, mention of postmodernism and eastern philosophy. I found myself checking the copyright date to make sure it wasn't written in the nineteen-fifties. In recent years, the influence of postmodernism has had a profound affect on our culture, and I see the omission as a flaw. In the introduction, Sproul states, "Philosophy forces us to think foundationally." The current voices of postmodern philosophers reject the foundationalism, and much of the rationalism of the modern era. Some people today go as far as saying "What is true for you, is true for you. What is true for me is true for me." That being said, this book and another such as Stanley J. Grentz's _A Primer on Postmodernism_ make a great pair.

The fact that R. C. Sproul is a Reformed Christian, and seems to be quite partial to Thomas Aquinas, does not detract from the fact that he is also a very competent historian of philosophy. I appreciate his ministry to promote thinking among evangelical Christians. After reading _Consequences_, I would highly recommend the highly acclaimed nine-volume series _A History of Philosophy_ by Thomist philosopher Frederick C. Copleston.

As I have suggested in the title, this book appears to me to be a "brief introduction to an introduction." The book is not to be confused with Richard Weaver's classic, "Ideas Have Consequences", in which he (Weaver) provides the reader with a pellucid introduction and overview of Western philosophy and how the Age of Reason gave birth to the decline of true philosophy (the study of wisdom, i.e., sophia/logos), and the birth of rationalism (the exaltation of man's reason over revelation) and the granddaughter, postmodernism, which teaches subjective irrationalism ("What I believe is true, IS True"). Unfortunately, for my money, R.C. Sproul, who is a fine theologian and writer, indeed (I have most of his works) misses the mark in what he propounds to be a basic introduction for the non-philosopher. My reasons are twofold: First, the book barely introduces key concepts and then quickly moves on to the next topic or philosopher; and second, what is explained is not clear enough because of my first point. For example, Sproul points out that Plato was an idealist and that Aristotle was a realist, doing this in one single paragraph, and then moves on. His definition of idealism and realism is incomplete. As I have taught my philosophy students, the two schools are indeed simple enough to understand, but more detail is required. Plato's reality was absorbed in the mind; the reality of truth, justice and aesthetics is found in the reality of the mind, for behind all corporeal things, behind the physical appearances we see each day, exists in a metaphysical sphere the reality of such appearances. The black stallion we see running in the field is an inferior black stallion, a "shadow" of its true reality, for somewhere in the heavens exists the perfect black stallion, and sadly, we must content ourselves with its imperfect image. Plato said that reality is a dream, that what is before us is an illusion (similar to Eastern mysticism), that all physical objects, including humans, are sinful. Thus, when John says in his Gospel that the "Word (divine logos to the Greeks) became flesh," this notion would have been utterly contemptible to many Greeks in the first century. Plato, therefore, was an idealist is that he formulated truth in the mind, and from his most famous work, "The Republic", we see his idealism played out in what he envisioned as a perfect society, a society that "should be," not the realistic society of "what is" taught by his student Aristotle, in his book, "The Politics." Aristotle was a realist in that he believed that inductive and scientific investigation of the real world, as opposed to Plato's unreal cosmology, would lead one to both understand the Prime Mover (God) and how the world worked and could be harnessed. Thanks to Aristotle, who became the prevailing philosopher, the West would launch into detailed investigations that would lead to inventions and the notion of human rights, freedom and autonomy. In my view, Sproul gives scant notice to the fundamental differences between idealism and realism, and does not make applications or logical connections, or in his words, he does not demonstrate the consequences of those ideas. I find it remarkable that he gives no space to Cicero, one who constantly quotes or alludes to Plato in his works. Cicero was a loan voice who hearkened decadent Rome back to the wisdom of the Greeks, and laid a foundation for future understanding of ethics, morals, political responsibility and freedom. Sproul should have shown the clear influences between the philosophers. For example, how Plato deeply influenced St. Augustine who credited Plato with being his teacher; how Augustine influenced Luther and Calvin; how Plato influenced Locke and then Freud; how Aristotle influenced, well, everyone, especially St. Thomas, Calvin, then down to philosophers in our own time. In short, all philosophers since Plato and Aristotle have merely stood on the shoulders of those two giants, and one philosopher even penned that all philosophers since Plato are merely a footnote to Plato himself. Both Plato and Aristotle are quite literally the Fathers of Western Civilization, but that idea has little consequence in the book.

To be brief is fine, but to be vastly incomplete could mean that the reader is not getting a necessary foundation in order to understand other philosophers. For example, Sproul takes barely two pages to explain Hegel's theory of thesis/antithesis. He explains that for Hegel, one begins with a thesis from which one derives an antithesis, from which one formulates a synthesis; then the synthesis becomes a new thesis. For the layperson in philosophy, I would (I can only) imagine that this construct would be confusing. Sproul never posits a thesis and antithesis for clarification, but merely provides a graduating graph. The reader is left clueless. On this point, Francis Schaeffer in his book, "Escape from Reason", is a little more helpful.

Why Sproul left John Dewey as a footnote in the last chapter is a mystery to me, as it was John Dewey who nearly single handedly presided over the death of American public education, slowly from the 1920's and 30's to this death in 1965. The Pragmatism philosophy invented by John Dewey is clearly connected to the Existentialism of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre, and has profoundly influenced American society, particularly the free fall of ethics and morals beginning in the 1960s to the present day. It was Dewey in his 1941 book, "Theory of the Moral Life", maintained that there are two enemies of his beloved "Progressive" Education movement in America, i.e., first, religion in general, and the church in particular with its outmoded creeds, and secondly, parents. He envisioned a society where, in order for students to progress intellectually, that social engineering (public education) will free young people from both religious negative influences and the negative influences of parents. For a brilliant discussion of John Dewey, George Counts and others Doctors of Intellectual Death, read Diane Ravitch's book, "Left Back: A Century of Failed Education Reform." Every parent should own Ravitch's book.

Unfortunately, because Sproul opted for brevity in his introduction to an introduction, the reader is given a fragmented portrait of the history of ideas, their consequences, and their logical outcomes.

I give the book three stars because R.C. Sproul is the author, and a fine one indeed, but I must subtract two stars because the several ideas within are incomplete, and not applied. Stephen Gruber, Ph.D. Prof. Philosophy and History.

R. C. Sproul presents a readable, accessible history of Western philosophy, from the pre-Socratics to the present. In just over 200 pages he presents the major ideas and world-views that have affected the minds of humans and the course of history. Writing as a committed Christian, he challenges Christians to not merely BELIEVE, but also to THINK. In the end, Sproul affirms (with Gilson) that our fundamental choice is between the world-view of Thomas Aquinas (rational Christian theism) or the world-view of Immanuel Kant (irrational agnosticism).

Noted theologian and philosopher R.C. Sproul has written a concise and clear text on the history of philosophy, its major contributers, and the ideas which sprang from these great minds.The strength of this book is its easy to read style that can attract non-philosophers who are interested in the subject and would like to understand the modern ideas and from which they come.

The book begins with a brief chapter on the "Fisrt Philosophers" and then sweeps through history with chapter after chapter, reviewing and processing the greatest philosophers up to the present time: Plato, Aristotle, Agustine, Aquinas, Kierkegaard, Marx, Sarte and many more are discussed.

The reviewer who gave this book only one star has made some unfounded attacks. The first attack, is that Dr. Sproul is not a fundamentalist Christian, but a Reformed Christian,and the differences, though similar in some respects are also in others, quite different. Sproul's review of Nietzsche is on target and the one sentence quoted by the previous reviewer, needs to be read in its entire context on "The will to Power." Old Friedrich's philosophies do allow for such uses against our fellow man, even if Nietzsche himself wouldn't have done so.

Further, this is a book about ideals and their consequences and Sproul does take a Cristian worldview position. This is no reason to disregard a book because it may afront one's personal world-view. There is much to be learned from this text.

The chapters on Aquinas and Kiekergaard are outsanding. The conclusion is the weakess point in the book and should have been better developed. It is as Sproul was tired of writing and decided to stop; This is a problem in some of his other books Like "The Last Days According to Jesus."

A highly recommemded the text. After reading this book, I would suggest one purchase the more detialed work called "Life's Ultimate Questions" by Nash.

224 pages and every concept and idea made clear for beginners and experts. R.C. has written a masterpiece. He explains the main contours of the history of philosophy. He goes further by making philosophical thought come alive. Finally, I understand many ideas I heard before many times. Each main philosophical player is made crystal clear. Transitions are included so that R.C. can acknowledge pivotal contributions that he can't cover extensively. I recommend this book for a great general introduction to the history of philosophy. R.C. is know for being a teacher of reformed theology yet many of his students will appreciate his expertise in philosophy. He concludes with the challenge to choose between Aquinas or Kant. This is a very balanced view of Christian thought for a reformed theologian to acknowledge a Catholic thinker as Aquinas. I enjoyed every page of Sprouls' treatise. If you want to really grasp ideas for the first time, I recommend this for you. If you are a homeschooler and into the classical approach to education you will be delighted by the conclusion of the book. I hope R.C. writes another book, maybe on classical education?

If you are interested in a good introduction to Western Philosophy and how the ideas of the past effects your life today, this book is it. I found the book easy to read. The case R.C. makes is both compelling and a learning experience. Read this book if you are interested in getting an overview of why we think the way we do in the western world.

A powerful book that is sure to please the thoughtful reader. The author does a splendid job of keeping philosophy in its proper ministerial place while allowing Scripture its rightful magisterial position in shaping truth. True ideas have truthful consequences; false ideas also have truthful consequences, which sometimes are like ideological gravity: painful landings without a biblically informed parachute! Napoleon was right: 'the pen is mightier than the sword',or as Solomon said: 'as a man thinketh, so is he'. This volume is a great help for saint, seeker, skeptic, sage to 'love the Lord your God with all your mind'. Highly recommended!

I was a little disappointed with this book. I was told that Sproul was famous for taking hard concepts and putting them into easy-to-read/easy-to-understand words. So, after reading the description and especially after reading through the table of contents, I was expecting this to be a pretty decent work on the history of philosophy.

Instead, I got more of an introduction to 'some' of the 'names' in the history of philosophy, but barely an adequate concept of what they contributed to western knowledge and how their ideas have "shaped our world." There was very little education on what these guys actually articulated and how that changed the course of western thought. Moreover, with the exception of his chapter on Marx, there was little interaction with these "ideas" and their "consequences," especially as they pertain to a Biblical worldview.

I enjoy Sproul's style, and I anticipate keeping this book as a quick reference to remember simple things, like: Descartes=cognito ergo sum and Locke=tabula rasa. But to get even a little bit deeper understanding of what all this means, I'll have to turn to a different source. (In this book he frequently references, "Thales to Dewey" by Gordon Clark. I'm thinking I'd get a lot more use out of that.)

My expectations were not as high as other reviewers. Sproul's Consequences is only 224 pages long and any reader of Sproul's work will know that he publishes in readable type too. Sproul is in no way representing comprehensiveness. He states up front that he is offering a "familiarization" in Amazon's "Product Description".

Sproul is an unabashed Christian theologian. If you bought the book without knowing of him, that might have been unfortunate. It should come as no surprise that his philosophical survey would be targeted to his Christian thinking audience. I give Sproul high marks for stepping out of theology to describe and correlate 14 secular philosophical schools in some manner of theological context. Very few trying to walk in Christ's path will have even heard of most of these philosophers. I have yet to meet a layman or pastor with an adequate depth of knowledge to discuss the philosophy of even the Christian Kierkegaard. Christians have faith and belief but quite frankly, as a body in Christ, we are largely ignorant of these critical thinkers and their postulations and if we are familiar, we need a reminder years after our first visit with these philosophical concepts.

For me, the chronologic tour of philosophers was an excellent revisit of forgotten memories. I'm writing this review at least 3 years after I read Consequences. I find myself referring to Consequences as a reference within basic philosophical thought and from there to explore my specific interest directly. I got my money's worth.