The firestorm Santorum is receiving from the media for believing real evil exists exposes their nihilistic worldview. I thought this to be a relevant excerpt regarding our clashing worldviews and the Church's response.
"The real crisis lies in the meaning of the reality of God to this shattered world. Does the Gospel have meaning and worth for our time? Does the church have the courage and the right to preach the living God in the midst of this senseless world, this world of the twentieth century which seems to have room for only one realistic world and life view: nihilism? Is not the present situation in the world a clear proof that at least on this side of life there is no perspective beyond the burden and the darkness? And is not all this irrefutable evidence that there is no God? Does not atheism seem now to be the only logical and permissible conclusion to draw from the reality of our century?
Indeed, to many, this has been the only conclusion. The turn from optimism to pessimism has brought no change in this. Modern realism is at bottom just as atheistic in its acceptance of reality as was optimism in its avoidance of reality. It was, in fact, empirical reality which seemed to force men to atheism. With an eye to the facts, man could not—in honest resignation or honest revolt—flee anew to the supersensible world or to a hereafter in which all the raw distress of this actual world would be soothed away. If what Berdyaev writes is true,1 that catastrophe often forms a goad to speculation, then one must admit that it can also lead to a rejection of the “speculation” of the Christian faith. In the speculation of which Berdyaev speaks, man will not flee. He chooses consciously for the existential reality of today and tomorrow, even though the last word in this reality must be meaninglessness and absurdity. It is a choice against the traditional confession of the Church, the confession of God’s Providence over all things. This total and universal aspect of the Church’s confession renders it unacceptable to many as too simple an answer to the urgency of our times. Can all this, all this that fills men’s hearts, fall within the circle of a Divine Providence? Can man with honesty and clear conscience still believe it?
It seems as though this confession—God’s rule over all things, more than other confessions—were thrown into the crucible of the times. This does not mean that in fairer days the Providence of God was never doubted or denied. Even in eras of peace and quiet, when man still had confidence in the inevitable gradual improvement of life, there were burning questions to disturb the honest mind. The lot of man in sickness, suffering, and death has always raised questions about God’s Providence. But the question forces itself far more directly and disturbingly upon us in times of all-embracing crisis, in times when nihilism has become a fad.
These are times in which the Church of Christ must ask herself whether she still has the courage, in profound and unshakable faith, in boundless confidence, to proclaim the Providence of God. Or is she possessed of secret doubts fed by daily events? Can she still speak of God’s rule over all things, of His holy presence in this world? Can she yet proclaim confidently His unlimited control over the world and life—war and peace, East and West, pagans … and Jews? Dare she still, with eyes open to the facts of life—no less than those who from the facts conclude an imperative atheism—still confess her old confession?
G. C. Berkouwer, The Providence of God (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1952), 8–10.
"The real crisis lies in the meaning of the reality of God to this shattered world. Does the Gospel have meaning and worth for our time? Does the church have the courage and the right to preach the living God in the midst of this senseless world, this world of the twentieth century which seems to have room for only one realistic world and life view: nihilism? Is not the present situation in the world a clear proof that at least on this side of life there is no perspective beyond the burden and the darkness? And is not all this irrefutable evidence that there is no God? Does not atheism seem now to be the only logical and permissible conclusion to draw from the reality of our century?
Indeed, to many, this has been the only conclusion. The turn from optimism to pessimism has brought no change in this. Modern realism is at bottom just as atheistic in its acceptance of reality as was optimism in its avoidance of reality. It was, in fact, empirical reality which seemed to force men to atheism. With an eye to the facts, man could not—in honest resignation or honest revolt—flee anew to the supersensible world or to a hereafter in which all the raw distress of this actual world would be soothed away. If what Berdyaev writes is true,1 that catastrophe often forms a goad to speculation, then one must admit that it can also lead to a rejection of the “speculation” of the Christian faith. In the speculation of which Berdyaev speaks, man will not flee. He chooses consciously for the existential reality of today and tomorrow, even though the last word in this reality must be meaninglessness and absurdity. It is a choice against the traditional confession of the Church, the confession of God’s Providence over all things. This total and universal aspect of the Church’s confession renders it unacceptable to many as too simple an answer to the urgency of our times. Can all this, all this that fills men’s hearts, fall within the circle of a Divine Providence? Can man with honesty and clear conscience still believe it?
It seems as though this confession—God’s rule over all things, more than other confessions—were thrown into the crucible of the times. This does not mean that in fairer days the Providence of God was never doubted or denied. Even in eras of peace and quiet, when man still had confidence in the inevitable gradual improvement of life, there were burning questions to disturb the honest mind. The lot of man in sickness, suffering, and death has always raised questions about God’s Providence. But the question forces itself far more directly and disturbingly upon us in times of all-embracing crisis, in times when nihilism has become a fad.
These are times in which the Church of Christ must ask herself whether she still has the courage, in profound and unshakable faith, in boundless confidence, to proclaim the Providence of God. Or is she possessed of secret doubts fed by daily events? Can she still speak of God’s rule over all things, of His holy presence in this world? Can she yet proclaim confidently His unlimited control over the world and life—war and peace, East and West, pagans … and Jews? Dare she still, with eyes open to the facts of life—no less than those who from the facts conclude an imperative atheism—still confess her old confession?
G. C. Berkouwer, The Providence of God (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1952), 8–10.
