Back to Freedom and Dignity: A Response to Skinner

Over the course of a lifetime, Dr. Francis Schaeffer wrote many volumes of literature in defense of orthodox Christianity, while critiquing the winds of theological and scientific modernism sweeping across the globe during the first three-quarters of this century. As an apologist for the Christian faith, it was Dr. Schaeffer's chief concern that man was being reduced to machine by the new worldviews and theologies which were rapidly being promulgated by the highest echelons of academia, and were subsequently integrated into the culture at large. His was often a lone voice of dissent as the overwhelming tide of Christianity embraced everything "new" as good, especially if it had the stamp of "science" imprinted upon it.

The human "sciences" which took root during the late 1800s — sociology, anthropology, psychology, e.g. — all strove to acquire the aura of scientific respectability over the course of many decades. In particular, the behaviorists commanded respect for their "scientific, research-based" examination and experimentation of human behavior. For the first time in history, a "science" emerged which could manage, transform and manipulate human behavior. It was demonstrated that man's behavior could systematically be broken down into the tiniest fraction of responses, based upon variables which could be manipulated in time and space.

In his booklet, Back to Freedom & Dignity, Schaeffer paid particular attention to Watson and Crick and the future of DNA experimentation. He also examined the rise of potential chemical manipulations of the human brain. Schaeffer critiqued Skinner's psychology of behaviorism in the same context as genetic and chemical manipulations of man because he recognized that these reduce man to mere animal — not only in theory, but also in practice. Schaeffer effectively explained that the undergirding philosophy of B.F. Skinner's psychology is diametrically opposed to the Judeo-Christian worldview of man.

During his lifetime, B.F. Skinner was relentless in his insistence that his "scientific" theories would create a new utopia (Walden II) when implemented. In his later years, Skinner devoted considerable energy to education, binding his research in psychology to the emerging "science" of education. Modern education and psychology have many common roots but one of the most significant links is the family tree that sprung off of Skinner's "programmed instruction", which utilized the computer as a tool for immediate reinforcement in learning. Skinner's direct influence on mastery learning and direct instruction is irrefutably documented in The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Iserbyt.

Key questions must be asked: Is it possible to build safeguards to protect a man's (or child's dignity) into the system of managing human behavior? How can an individual have free agency or responsibility when he/she does not have knowledge of, understanding of, or control over the variables that are being exercised over his/her "instruction"? Where is the fine line between "instruction" and "manipulation" and who decides? What variables are "okay" and in what situations? Who determines the variables? Who decides the outcomes? The parent? The child? The teacher? The State?

We are entering a "Brave New World" where the federal bills and state initiatives are all coalescing on common denominators such as data banking, curriculum, instructional methods, and assessment. Nowhere to be found in these mandates is built-in protection for children — rather they are "human capital" — a fine term if one believes them to be a cash crop. "Learning" has been redefined to mean bits and bytes of "behavior." Behavioral instruction was designed to replace traditional (orthodox) instruction. It fits neatly into the entire reform plan, with methods that tweak human behavior to a a State-determined "outcome", working in perfect harmony with computerized instruction and assessment methods.

Is it RIGHT to manage or manipulate a child's behavior with psychological methods? Is it RIGHT to reward or punish a child based on whether the child attains the pre-determined outcomes ("learns"), especially psychological and attitudinal State-prescribed outcomes? These are key questions — they have to do with the ethics of implementing such a method of instruction on children. At its root, the most controversial questions become: Can we integrate behavioral psychology with orthodox Christian theology? Can we separate the behavioral practice (the method) from the behavioral theory (e.g., Skinner's worldview of man)? The answers seriously divide us.

Dr. Schaeffer's resounding "no" to these questions echoes across the two decades since he wrote Back to Freedom and Dignity:

We are on the verge off the largest revolution the world has ever seen—the control and shaping of men through the abuse of genetic knowledge and chemical and psychological conditioning. Will people accept it? I don't think they would accept it if (1) they had not already been taught to accept the presuppositions that lead to it, and (2) they were not in such hopelessness. Many of our secular schools have consistently taught these presuppositions, and unhappily, many of our Christian lower schools and colleges have taught the crucial subjects no differently than the secular schools....

Schaeffer continues:

To accept Skinner's utopia is to launch out completely on faith. It leaves us with four unanswerable questions: (1) Who is going to control the controllers? (2) Where is the second boundary condition that puts a limit of "right" or "wrong" to the first boundary condition of what man can do to man technologically? (3) Why does the biological continuity of the human race have any value at all? (4) ...how can we trust man's observation of anything?...

Schaeffer concludes:

What do we and our children face? The biological bomb, the abuse of genetic knowledge, chemical engineering, the behavioristic manipulation of man. All these have come to popular attention only a few years ago. But they are not twenty years away. They are not five years away. They are here now in technological breakthroughs. This is where we live, and as true Christians we must be ready. This is no time for weakness in the Church of Christ.

What has happened to man? We must see him as one who has torn himself away both from the infinite-personal God who created him as finite but in His image and from God's revelation to him. Made in God's image man was made to be great, he was made to be beautiful, and he was made to be creative in life and art. But his rebellion has led him into making himself into nothing but a machine.

Sarah Leslie

© February 2000

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