Flight from Humanity: A Study of the Effect of Neoplatonism on Christianity
Overview
In this text Rushdoony argues that one of the most neglected but pervasive threats to the Christian worldview is that of Neoplatonism. He suggests that basing Christianity on this false Neoplatonic idea will always shift the faith away from the biblical perspective, leading Christians to believe they can escape sin if they can escape the material world. But Scripture says all of man fell into sin, not just his flesh. The text looks at the nature and effect of Neoplatonism on contemporary Christian thought.
For the entire set, see R.J. Rushdoony Culture and Ethics Collection (7 vols.).
Key Features
- Argues that Neoplatonism is a pervasive and neglected threat to Christianity
- Shows how Neoplatonic presuppositions shift one’s faith away from biblical Christianity
- Warns Christians that escaping the material world is not the cure for sin
Top Highlights
“Payne tells us that Marx’s body was for twenty years of his life covered with ulcerous boils and carbuncles, ‘exuding a stench which drove people away.’” (Page 63)
“In the biblical perspective, man’s mind and body are simply two aspects of his created being, no more at war with each other than his two hands are at war with one another. It is as absurd to say that man’s right hand and left hand are at war with one another, by nature in contradiction, as it is to say that his mind and body are in natural contradiction. Man’s war is with God, and its name is sin, his desire to be his own god and to determine good and evil in terms of his own fiat will (Gen. 3:5). Man suppresses the fact of this war against God, because it means his moral guiltiness and his liability to punishment as a capital offender. Instead, he seeks to convert his moral failure into a metaphysical fact: ‘I was made that way.’” (Pages 32–33)
“Man’s problem is moral or ethical, not metaphysical” (Page 14)
- Title: The Flight from Humanity: A Study of the Effect of Neoplatonism on Christianity
- Author: Rousas John Rushdoony
- Publisher: Ross House Books
- Print Publication Date: 2008
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Pages: 84
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Neoplatonism; Philosophy and religion; Wigglesworth, Michael, 1631-1705
- ISBNs: 9781879998513, 1879998513
- Resource ID: LLS:FLGHTHMNTY2NDED
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T23:59:38Z
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) was was a well-known American scholar, writer, and author of over thirty books. He earned degrees from the University of California, received theological training at the Pacific School of Religion, and received an honorary Doctorate from Valley Christian University for his book The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum.
Rushdoony was an ordained minister and served as pastor at two California churches. He served for almost nine years as a missionary to the Shoshone and Paiute Indians in a remote area of Nevada. It was during this time as a missionary that Rushdoony began writing. The Institutes of Biblical Law and Commentary on the Pentateuch are just a few of the titles that Rushdoony has penned.
The Chalcedon Foundation, an educational organization devoted to research, publishing, and cogent communication of a distinctively Christian scholarship to the world at large, was founded by Rushdoony in 1965. He served as the editor of The Chalcedon Report, the monthly magazine of the Chalcedon Foundation.
Rushdoony also published the Journal of Christian Reconstruction and was an early board member of the Rutherford Institute which was founded by John W. Whitehead.