Review of Nancy Pearcey's "Saving Leonardo", Part 2 of Part 2

     In an effort to wrap up this review, I have skipped over large sections of Part 2 of Pearcey's book and have included only some highlights. I'm half way through J.P. Moreland's book Kingdom Triangle, which deals with some of the same worldview issues, but from a more philosophical perspective. Still, Saving Leonardo remains my best read of the year.

    The relativism of idealistic humanism (in part, as taught by Kant), states that all we see are disconnected events with only self imposed order; what a person thinks is true of something is really only in their mind. Thus, art was no longer to be seen as a reflection of the beauty of God’s creation, but a “beauty-making power” of one’s imagination.

     This idealism, as a blending of Eastern and Western thought (later identified as neo-Platonism), attempted to re-create God into an impersonal essence or substance from which life simply flowed.

Science, which had been looked to in developing so many alternative philosophies, became a killing machine after the industrial revolution. German expressionism emerged with its violent images of dark humanity. Yet, as the author points out, relativism cannot stand against political or social evil. The postmodernist, although motivated to solve these world problems, has his hands tied. “Without a moral absolute, we cannot say, ‘That is wrong’ or ‘That is unjust.’ Lived out consistently, postmodernism leads to complicity with evil and injustice.” (p.238)

     Pearcey applies the worldview test of whether a philosophy fits reality in a summary paragraph criticizing reductionist thinking, on p.244, “What then? Anything that sticks outside of the box is simply dismissed or denied. For example, materialism insists that anything beyond matter is not real. Empiricism says that anything beyond the senses is not real. Naturalism says that anything beyond the natural is not real. Pantheism says that anything beyond the all-encompassing One is not real. These are forms of reductionism because they reduce the complex, many-leveled reality that God created down to one level. Reductionism is like a kid who argues that whatever does not fit into his toy box is not a toy. Or, to borrow a metaphor from G.K. Chesterton, reductionism is like a mental prison, ‘the prison of one thought’. Whatever does not fit into that prison is denied and suppressed.”

Christianity is not limited by the parts of creation, to make something out of then in which to believe, because it focuses on the transcendent Creator. From this comes a worldview that is holistic, respectful, and inclusive.

     Pearcey quotes from both Seerveld and Schaeffer in regard to a calling to Christians to learn the language of the artistic sub-culture in order to connect with and reach out to them.

The author spends a chapter analyzing the moral and cultural implications of the film industry. Following this, she discusses aspects of Christianity with regard to the arts and worldview development. Related to modern sentimentalism, a sacred/secular dualism is identified as the reason for substandard appreciation for the arts on the part of Christians. Even the expectation that Christian artists should volunteer and donate their work suggests a demoting of art and the individual.