For some years now, Christian philosophers, social commentators, and pundits have been documenting and decrying the ‘disenchantment’ of the world that has followed modern man’s adoption of an ‘immanent frame’. They contend that such things as the advent of naturalistic philosophies and the rise of industrial societies have led us to think of ourselves as cogs in a machine living in a mundane universe made up of raw material, rather than as eternally valuable subjects inhabiting a sacramental world created by God and enchanted by the supernatural.
Carl Trueman’s new book The Desecration of Man: How the Rejection of God Degrades Our Humanity contributes to this conversation by arguing that our real problem is ‘not merely some nebulous disenchantment of the world’, but rather an intentional and systematic desecration of all things – a desecration that begins with a denial of the image of God in man. Throughout the book, Trueman traces the sexual revolution, the view that abortion is a human right, the rise of Holocaust denial, and other similarly horrific beliefs and practices to a worldview in which man ‘defines himself by a program of desecration: the transgression of those limits, obligations, and ends that were traditionally grounded in the idea that he was a divine image bearer’.
The book’s organising principle is Nietzsche’s parable of the madman, a story from The Gay Science in which Nietzsche points out that belief in objective morality or in the inherent value of human life is incompatible with disbelief in God. According to Trueman, the history of the last century is the story of modern man successively denying, then accepting, and at last rejoicing in that incompatibility – the result being the celebration of a host of dehumanizing beliefs and practices.
Whether or not you agree with Trueman’s argument, this book is worth reading – if only because it is likely to prove influential. It is a natural successor to The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, but there is no need to have read that volume to enjoy this one. Indeed, The Desecration of Man is much the more accessible of the two.
Written by Sean Jenkins from our Koorong Warners Bay store.
