Back to Freedom and Dignity is Francis Schaeffer’s fourth book in the first volume “A Christian View of Philosophy and Culture.” In this book, Schaeffer considers the natural outcome of a culture run by a physicalist world-view (i.e., matter is all there is, immaterial realities do not exist). The end result is that man is just a machine, without an enduring “I” at the mercy of the “mighty” “elite” “those in the know” (i.e., scientists).
The “freedom and dignity” afforded to man ends up being no less than a lab rat to discover what can be “improved upon.” Skinner, Crick, and Company must be taken seriously, because their ideas are so lethal to man’s “mannish-ness” (i.e., the inescapable characteristics of humanity that evidence being created in God’s image rather than being a purposeless accident).
