Truth and Total Reality: Why Christianity Is Not Just for Sundays
A Christian Manifesto
A Study of Francis Schaeffer’s Book and a Search for Application
Class 2
Davis L. Moore
8/23/2026
“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” – John 17:17 “All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.” – Psalms 119:160 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – John 8:32 “Who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” – 1 Timothy 2:4 “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” – Ephesians 4:15 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” – Philippians 4:8 I am the type of person who frequently loses things. I have very particular places throughout the house where I usually leave my keys, wallet, etc., so when they aren’t there, clearly, someone has messed with my stuff! I’ll barge around the house angrily looking for the things I clearly remember leaving on my desk. But eventually they show up again... usually in plain sight right where I left them. The entire situation is frustrating and annoying, and it happens entirely more often than I feel like it should.
But, notice what doesn’t happen every time I lose my keys: my certainty of where I left them doesn’t bend the world into agreement. The world stays the world. The only thing that changes is my understanding of reality once I look in the right place.
That’s a useful starting point for objective truth: truth isn’t what feels right, or what we can best narrate. Truth is what is the case – independent of mood, confidence, or preference. And that’s exactly where different worldviews matter. When we ask, “What is the real source of truth?” we’re really asking whether truth is grounded primarily in God and the moral-spiritual order or grounded primarily in matter and the physical processes of the world. As we’ll see later in this class, not only are these two views looking at reality from a different starting point, but they also have entirely different effects on our entire worldview.
Last week, we talked about how all things are within Christian Doctrine. Christian Spirituality covers all of life. Christian Truth – the truth – covers all of reality. This week, we’re going to pick up on this and go even deeper by looking at two major players or philosophical views that have shaped our understanding of truth and reality. In the first chapter of his book, Schaeffer is arguing that the West in the past was starting from a Christian worldview but that this changed over time; there was a shift happening. “This shift has been away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people’s memory (even if they were not individually Christian) toward something completely different – toward a world view based on the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance” (p. 17-18). Already you can see these two ideas are on two separate sides. These two ideas cannot both be true. My keys cannot at the same time be on the counter and on my desk.
If truth is objective, if it is “what is the case” regardless of mood or preference, then law must be grounded in something more stable than human opinion. This is where Schaeffer presses the point: law is never neutral. Law always grows out of a worldview. It is downstream from someone’s belief about reality. This is why Schaeffer insists that the shift from a Christian consensus to a humanistic one is not merely academic. It changes the very foundation of law. When the West still retained a memory of Christian truth, even imperfectly, law was understood as something grounded in God’s character. Rights were “unalienable” because they were given by a Creator. Human dignity was objective because it was rooted in the image of God.
But once the foundation shifts, everything built on it shifts too. If reality is impersonal matter and chance, then law becomes nothing more than the will of the majority or the preference of those in power. What is legal slowly replaces what is right. Human opinion replaces transcendent moral order. And eventually, the state becomes the final authority — not because it is wise, but because nothing higher is acknowledged.
This is why Schaeffer argues that worldview is not optional. It is the soil out of which law grows. Change the soil, and you change the fruit. As Schaeffer added, “These two world views stand as totals in complete antithesis to each other in content and also their natural results...” (p. 18). As I mentioned earlier, these two ideas do not only begin with different philosophical foundations; they also produce entirely different results. One question Schaeffer asks stands out as we consider this: “Why have the Christians been so slow to understand this” (p. 18)?
Schaeffer points to Pietism as one reason. Pietism, especially in its extreme form, can separate Christianity from the physical and public aspects of life. It began as something good – to bring Christians back to a spiritual view of Christianity and away from empty formalism – but it can, and did, make Christianity primarily about personal spirituality, private devotion, and what happens within the church. In doing so, it can neglect the way Christianity should shape our understanding of government, morality, education, work, art, and culture. It is important to clarify that Schaeffer is not arguing for this extreme form of Pietism. Instead, he is showing how dangerous it can be when Christians separate the spiritual from the physical.
In this sense, Platonic thought is important to understand. Plato made a significant distinction between the spiritual and the physical, often treating the spiritual world as higher than the physical world. Many Christian theologians have tried to make use of certain parts of Plato’s philosophy. While there is nothing inherently wrong with recognizing truth in the work of secular philosophers, poets, musicians, or other artists, we must not assume that everything they teach is true. Paul does this in Acts when he says, “For in him we live and move and have our being,” and, “For we are indeed his offspring,” as he quotes from a secular poet. However, the fact that we can recognize something true in a non-Christian thinker does not mean that we should accept everything that thinker teaches.
Plato was not building his philosophy from the Word of God. He was building from his own God-given mind, and because of that, his conclusions were not always correct. One of the major problems with Platonic thought is its tendency to separate the spiritual from the physical. In a different book, Escape from Reason, Schaeffer writes, “The Reformation’s biblical view was, and is, very different. It is not a Platonic view. The soul is not more important than the body. God made the whole man, and the whole man is important. The doctrine of the bodily resurrection of the dead is not an old-fashioned thing. It tells us that God made the whole man, God loves the whole man, and the whole man is important. The biblical teaching, therefore, opposes the Platonic…” (p. 223). This Platonic “dualism” is not a biblical idea. Nevertheless, Christians have often felt the urge to force Scripture into its parameters instead of allowing Scripture to shape their ideas.
We will see this problem throughout the book: the spiritual and the material may be distinguished, but should not, and cannot coherently, be separated. Schaeffer therefore argues that extreme Pietism is closely related to Platonic philosophy in the sense that both can diminish the importance of the material world. As he writes, Pietism was guilty of “giving little, or no, importance to the ‘material’ world. The totality of human existence was not afforded a proper place. In particular it neglected the intellectual dimension of Christianity” (p. 19).
Interestingly, this also involves dividing human existence into separate spheres. In this case, the division is between faith and intellectual life. Schaeffer traces the modern form of this dichotomy to Kierkegaard. In Escape from Reason, he writes, “[at this point] you simply have mathematics, particulars, mechanics. Man has no meaning, no purpose, no significance. There is only pessimism concerning man as man. But up above, on the basis of nonrational, nonreasonable leap, there is a nonreasonable faith which gives optimism. This is modern man’s total dichotomy” (p. 238).
Whenever such divisions enter our theology of humanity – or anthropology – they can lead Christians to regard spiritual matters as important while treating physical, social, intellectual, and cultural matters as secondary. A biblical anthropology, however, must account for the whole person and the whole of human life. “It is not only that true spirituality covers all of life, but it covers all parts of the spectrum of life equally. In this sense there is nothing concerning reality that is not spiritual” (p. 19).
In the book, Schaeffer from here goes on a short tangent about truth itself. He warns against being a type of Christian that only believes in the truth of Creation, the truth of Christ’s miracles, and His coming again. All this is good, but they stop there with these individual truths. And this is a long quote, but it’s really good. “When I say Christianity is true,” he continues, “I mean it is true to total reality – the total of what is, beginning with the central reality, the objective existence of the personal-infinite God. Christianity is not just a series of truths but Truth – Truth about all of reality. And the holding to that Truth intellectually – and then in some poor way living upon that Truth, the Truth of what is – brings forth not only certain personal results, but also governmental and legal results” (p. 19-20).
Christianity’s error, in this case, is fragmentation: it treats the spiritual and physical as separate. The opposite error is reduction: it treats the physical as the whole of reality. But there’s actually still another view which splits these up that has a complete opposite view that Schaeffer brings up: Materialism. Materialism makes the opposite error. Instead of separating the spiritual from the physical, materialism reduces reality to the physical and denies the importance—or even the existence—of spiritual reality. Schaeffer is warning us against both errors. Christianity does not teach us to escape the physical world, nor does it teach us that the physical world is all that exists. God created the physical world, human beings are both spiritual and physical, and Christ entered history in a real human body.
Before we even begin to breakdown what materialism is, it’s important that we know what it is not. It is not a Christian worldview. “What we must understand,” Schaeffer adds, “is that the two world views really do bring forth with inevitable certainty not only personal differences, but also total differences in regard to society, government, and law” (p. 20-21). Materialism is therefore not merely an abstract theory about the nature of reality. It produces consequences for how people understand human beings, morality, society, government, law, and the purpose of life.
In two weeks, we’ll be taking a closer look at Materialism through the lens of humanism. They are very similar, but not the same. Materialism begins with a claim about reality: matter and energy are all that ultimately exist. There is no personal God, no spiritual realm, and no transcendent source of meaning outside the physical universe. Schaeffer connects this materialist view with modern humanism because once reality is reduced to impersonal matter and chance, human beings must either accept that life has no inherent meaning or attempt to create meaning for themselves. Materialism describes the universe; humanism eventually places humanity in the role of meaning-maker, moral authority, and measure of truth.
Although Schaeffer often discusses materialism and humanism together, they are not identical. Materialism is primarily a metaphysical claim about what exists. Humanism is a broader account of human significance, morality, knowledge, and purpose. In this class, we will examine materialism first and return to humanism later, after tracing how the materialist view affects the way people understand human beings. Schaeffer is not merely discussing materialism as a scientific theory about physical matter. He is discussing it as part of a total worldview. Once matter and chance are treated as the final explanation of reality, the Christian foundation for human dignity, moral obligation, purpose, and truth is removed. Humanism then emerges as an attempt to make humanity the center and source of what materialism can no longer provide.
So, what is materialism? Joel Beeke says, “[Materialism is] the belief that physical matter and energy are all that exist. Materialism is a form of atheism and destroys the objective basis for ethics” (EoRST, p. 948). This is where Schaeffer’s idea of a “total worldview” becomes especially important. Materialism does not stop at the question of what the universe is made of. If matter and energy are all that exist, then human beings are ultimately the products of physical processes and impersonal chance. We may have thoughts, emotions, desires, and moral convictions, but each of these must eventually be explained in terms of biology, chemistry, environment, or survival. The question then becomes whether human beings are discovering genuine truth or merely experiencing physical events that happen to feel like thoughts and convictions.
This creates a serious problem for materialism. If the human mind is only the product of impersonal physical causes, why should we trust it to tell us what is true? Our thoughts might help us survive without necessarily corresponding to reality. Materialism can explain how people think in terms of brain activity, but it has difficulty explaining why human reasoning should be considered reliable or why truth should matter. Christianity, by contrast, begins with a personal and rational God who created human beings in His image. Because the world is created by God and the human mind is also God’s creation, Christians have a basis for believing that the world is intelligible and that human beings can genuinely know truth.
Materialism also creates a problem for human value. If human beings are only highly developed arrangements of matter, then there is no obvious reason why every human person possesses equal and inherent dignity. Materialism can describe what human beings are made of, but it cannot by itself explain why human beings ought to be protected, why the weak should not be discarded, or why one person’s suffering is objectively wrong. It may describe moral feelings as useful social instincts, but that is different from establishing moral obligation. I like to watch a lot of true crime shows. They often refer to the degeneracy of a crime. I always ask, “Based on what? Why is it wrong?” They are actually being hypocritical of their own beliefs.
This does not mean that materialists cannot be kind, courageous, or morally serious. They certainly can be. The question is not whether materialists can behave morally; it is whether materialism can provide a sufficient foundation for the moral claims people commonly make. Schaeffer’s concern is that people may continue to speak about dignity, justice, freedom, and human rights while rejecting the Christian worldview that gives those concepts their ultimate grounding.
The same issue appears in government and law. If there is no God above the state and no moral order that exists independently of human opinion, then the law can increasingly become an expression of whoever has the power to define reality. What is legal may replace what is right, and what is socially useful may replace what is morally true. This is why Schaeffer insists that worldviews eventually produce consequences in society, government, and law. A worldview begins with abstract ideas about reality, but it does not remain abstract. It shapes the way people treat one another and the kinds of laws they believe are justified.
If Schaeffer is right (and I believe he is), then the Christian today stands at a crossroads. We are living in a culture that has already undergone a massive worldview shift. The foundation has moved. The Christian consensus that once shaped law, morality, and public life has eroded. And yet many Christians continue living as though nothing has changed. They assume that private devotion is enough, that personal spirituality is the whole of Christian obedience, and that involvement in the public world is optional or even suspicious.
Schaeffer argues the exact opposite. If Christianity is Truth and not merely a set of doctrines but Truth about all of reality, then Christians must live publicly in light of that Truth. We cannot retreat into the private sphere and hope the world will sort itself out. We cannot treat faith as a weekend hobby while the culture around us is shaped by a worldview that denies God, denies truth, and denies the dignity of the human person.
So, what must Christians do now? (The Application)
First, we must understand the worldview shift. We cannot fight what we do not recognize. Schaeffer’s entire point is that Christians have been slow to see the change. We must be people who understand the times, like the men of Issachar in Genesis 30, and know what God’s people should do.
Second, we must recover the unity of Christian truth. Christianity is not a spiritual slice of life. It is not a private devotional practice. It is Truth about the whole of reality: the mind, the body, the family, the church, the workplace, the culture, and the government. We must reject both Pietism’s fragmentation and materialism’s reduction. We must embrace the full scope of Christian truth.
Third, we must refuse to separate faith from public obedience. If Christ is Lord over all of life, then His authority extends into every sphere. Christians must think biblically about law, justice, education, culture, and human dignity. We must not be embarrassed by the idea that God’s truth applies to public life. It always has.
Fourth, we must be prepared to resist when necessary. This is the part Christians often avoid, but Schaeffer is clear (and we’ll get to this in later classes): when the state commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands, obedience to God requires resistance. This resistance must be principled, humble, and rooted in Scripture and not in anger or political tribalism. But it must be real; faithfulness is not passive.
Fifth, we must support lesser magistrates who uphold God’s moral order. Schaeffer reminds us that resistance is not always individual. Often it is the responsibility of lower authorities to restrain higher authorities when they become tyrannical. Christians should encourage, pray for, and stand with leaders who refuse to bow to humanistic law.
Sixth, we must live consistently with the truth we confess. This means cultivating Christian families, Christian churches, Christian communities, and Christian institutions that reflect God’s reality. It means refusing to adopt the world’s categories. It means living as people who believe that God is real, that truth is objective, and that Christ is Lord.
Finally, we must reject the temptation to despair. Schaeffer is not calling for panic. He is calling for faithfulness. The Christian does not act because victory is guaranteed in the short term. The Christian acts because obedience is required. Our hope is not in cultural dominance but in Christ’s reign. And because Christ reigns, our obedience is never wasted.
In short, Christians must be people who understand the truth, live the truth, and stand for the truth — publicly, courageously, and consistently. Christianity is not merely a private comfort. It is a total worldview. And if it is true, then it must shape everything.
This brings us back to the central point of the class: Christianity is not merely a collection of private spiritual beliefs. It is Truth about all of reality. It explains the existence of the universe, the nature of human beings, the reality of morality, the possibility of knowledge, and the purpose of life. Pietism can shrink Christianity by separating faith from the physical and intellectual world. Materialism can shrink reality by reducing everything to matter and chance.
The Christian therefore does not have to choose between spiritual faith and intellectual seriousness, or between devotion to God and involvement in the world. Because Christ is Lord over the whole person and the whole of reality, Christian truth applies to the mind, the body, the church, the family, the workplace, the culture, the government, and the law. This is what Schaeffer means when he says that true spirituality covers all of life. To believe the truth is not merely to affirm certain doctrines; it is to understand reality according to God’s revelation and then live consistently with that reality.
Therefore, we should not simply choose Pietism over materialism. We should recognize that both become dangerous when taken to an extreme. Schaeffer’s point is that Christianity gives us a complete worldview – one that takes spiritual reality seriously while also applying biblical truth to the physical and public world. The Christian is called to personal faith and holiness, but also to understand how Christianity affects every part of life.