He Is There and He Is Not Silent (Paperback)

by Francis Schaeffer (Author) "This book will deal with the philosophic necessity of God's being there and not being silent, in the areas of metaphysics, morals, and epistemology..." (more)
Key Phrases: impersonal beginning, moral motions, modern liberal theology, Jean-Paul Sartre, Leonardo da Vinci, Karl Popper (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Schaeffer deals with the fundamental spiritual questions What do we know? and How do we know what we know? He points to an infinite, personal God whom we can come to know intimately.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (July 1, 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 084231413X
• ISBN-13: 978-0842314138
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,277 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time to Think, May 4, 2006

By	Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

To my mind there are a lot of alienated, thinking Protestants (not that they would use the "P" word)-- far outside of or on the fringes of the institutional church (whatever that is) who nevertheless have active minds, open hearts and hungry souls. Once there was a retreat area in the Swiss alps called L'Abri or "The Shelter" run by Francis and Edith Schaeffer that these seekers would be drawn to. Outside of that hands-on culture Schaeffer's books seem somewhat out of context. InterVarsity Press, which published most of them, once displayed them in its own rotating in-store rack, but now they are lost on the shelves (if they're in stores at all) amid much more viscerally-aimed, issues-oriented books about the crisis of the week or the conspiracy of the month. Not much for the thoughtful reader.

(Re)enter Francis Schaeffer, probably the author that seeking readers would like to seek out. Should they do so, however, one immediately finds two dozen or so books, with no idea where to start or how they're supposed to go together. Reading the many negative reviews, it seems that this book is especially misunderstood. But to my mind it remains one of his best.

This is the third book of a trilogy which begins in a non-obvious way with a tiny but densely written book called Escape From Reason. That book briefly traces the history of the split between nature and grace, lamenting it and, as many have pointed out, wrongly attributing it to St. Thomas Aquinas, who also lamented it. The second volume is a larger book called The God Who is There, which can be read on its own and which many readers have found quite engrossing.

This third book, which also stands on its own, is a very brief examination of epistemology (how we know and how we know we know). I took a philosophy class once which studied the exact same questions and I used to bring up Schaeffer's points in class. The instructor thought those were valid and interesting arguments, and I would suggest that the reviewers who don't like this book either have no taste for philosophy or don't like Schaeffer's style, or both.

Either impersonal forces created us as personal beings, or a personal creator did so. The other choice, that we are somehow impersonal beings resulting from one of the above options makes no sense but has nevertheless been argued by behaviorist B.F. Skinner in Beyond Freedom and Dignity and elsewhere. Schaeffer helps us see that there are really very few answers to this dilemma, and like Pascal, we must wager on one or the other. This book could be titled "Think Along with Schaeffer". For those who'd rather read the results of his thinking, they are laid out more simply in one of his best books, True Sprituality.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A well-intentioned but often inscrutable treatise, January 7, 2002

By	J. SHARP (Alabama - United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Schaeffer was a sincere, devout, extremely intelligent, and supremely compassionate man. Having a heart that was broken over the nihilism of the 1960s-70s, he tried valiantly to appeal to the reason of the cynics who were privately hopeless. But in this volume his reach sometimes exceeded his grasp. Many of his conclusions are more than valid, but his means of arriving at them are hampered by oversimplification couched in (ironically) complicated technical language and repetition. The last chapter of "He Is There" (which is the true crux of the book and to which all the others serve as laborious prologue) is brilliant. Released by itself as a booklet, it would have been successful. The rest could have been distilled to a preface.

For all that, Schaeffer is still a fascinating man who left a lasting imression on the intellectual seekers of the hippie and anti-establishment culture. He accepted them without judgment but also remained true to his own beliefs. It is important to at least familiarize oneself with this significant Christian mind and heart.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Christian Classic!, June 15, 1999

By A Customer

Schaeffer contrasts the silence and despair of modern life with the Christian answer that God can indeed be known because He is there and He is not silent. I believe that this book will profoundly change your life. Schaeffer urges you to know what you believe and why. You will be forced to think things through, which is a good thing.