Deep Thoughts

"When Manifesto II says that it can find no design or purpose or providence for the human species, it devaluates man to a level below that on which God places Him and His highest creation. The humanists pretend to esteem the human being above all else. In reality, as Manifesto II shows, the humanist takes away all worth from mankind. Unless our worth is rooted and grounded in something objective and outside ourselves, we are of value only to ourselves, and can never rise above the impermanence of our own short lives. The God of Christianity is outside our finite and transitory universe and His love for us gives us a value which transcends not only ourselves but our finite universe as well."

-Handbook for Today's Religions,

Josh McDowell and Don Stewart

"I am convinced that one of the great weaknesses in evangelical preaching inthe last few years is that we have lost sight of the biblical fact that man is wonderful. We have seen the unbiblical humanism which surounds us, and, to resist this in our emphasis on man's lostness, we have tended to reduce man to a zero. Man is indeed lost, but that does not mean he is nothing. We must resist humanism, but to make man a zero is neither the right way nor the best way to resist it. . . . In short, therefore, man is not a cog in a machine; he is not a piece of theater; he really can influence history. From the biblical viewpoint, man is lost, but great."

-Francis Schaeffer

qtd. in Today's Religions