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The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World
If you think philosophy is irrelevant to your daily life, think again. You need only observe the world around you to discover how substantially the ideas of history's thinkers affect us still. You can hear it in the beliefs of your non-Christian friends. In the media, your music, your children's classrooms. You can see it in our public policies, on every bookstore shelf, in the way we understand our very existence--even in the church. We like to believe that we create our little worlds from scratch and then live in them. But the reality is, we step into an environment that already exists, and we learn to interact with it . The game has been conceived long before us; the rules and boundaries already decided. We may be amused when René Descartes labors so long in order to conclude that he exists, or puzzled by Immanuel Kant spending his life analyzing how we know anything. Yet these men were not simply contemplating minutiae. The foundational thinking of philosophy tries to lay bare all of our assumptions, revealing our false and sometimes dangerous beliefs so that we may arrive at a coherent worldview. The greater our familiarity with the ideas that have shaped our culture over the centuries, the greater our ability to understand--and influence--that culture for Christ. From ancient Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle to Christian philosophers like Augustine and Aquinas to the molders of modern thought such as Kant and Nietszche, R. C. Sproul traces the contours of Western philosophy throughout history and demonstrates the massive consequences these ideas have had on world events, theology, the arts, and culture--as well as in our everyday lives.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published June 20, 1988
214 people are currently reading
2415 people want to read
About the author
R.C. Sproul
656 books1,915 followersDr. R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian discipleship organization located near Orlando, Fla. He was founding pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Ligonier Ministries began in 1971 as the Ligonier Valley Study Center in Ligonier, Pa. In an effort to respond more effectively to the growing demand for Dr. Sproul’s teachings and the ministry’s other educational resources, the general offices were moved to Orlando in 1984, and the ministry was renamed.
Dr. Sproul’s radio program, Renewing Your Mind, is still broadcast daily on hundreds of radio stations around the world and can also be heard online. Dr. Sproul produced hundreds of lecture series and recorded numerous video series on subjects such as the history of philosophy, theology, Bible study, apologetics, and Christian living.
He contributed dozens of articles to national evangelical publications, spoke at conferences, churches, and academic institutions around the world, and wrote more than one hundred books, including The Holiness of God, Chosen by God, and Everyone’s a Theologian. He signed the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and wrote a commentary on that document. He also served as general editor of the Reformation Study Bible, previously known as the New Geneva Study Bible.
Dr. Sproul had a distinguished academic teaching career at various colleges and seminaries, including Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando and Jackson, Miss. He was ordained as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 242 reviews
October 16, 2021
This was an excellent look at some of the philosophical ideas that have influenced the world. R.C. Sproul has a clear, easy-to-understand writing style that effectively communicates deep truth and profound observations.
I found the chapters on Nietzche and Sartre especially fascinating since I knew very little about them, and it was also very interesting to learn about Darwin’s beliefs and how they inextricably entwined with his approach to biology. I also enjoyed the looks at Aquinas, Kierkegaard, and Aristotle.
While each chapter contained an excellent overview of certain philosophers, I do wish that the book had also contained more examples of how those ideas influenced the world. However, because of Sproul’s clear writing, it’s not too difficult for readers to make those connections on their own.
Highly recommended for those who enjoy philosophy or who want a general overview of some of earth’s most influential thinkers.
I found the chapters on Nietzche and Sartre especially fascinating since I knew very little about them, and it was also very interesting to learn about Darwin’s beliefs and how they inextricably entwined with his approach to biology. I also enjoyed the looks at Aquinas, Kierkegaard, and Aristotle.
While each chapter contained an excellent overview of certain philosophers, I do wish that the book had also contained more examples of how those ideas influenced the world. However, because of Sproul’s clear writing, it’s not too difficult for readers to make those connections on their own.
Highly recommended for those who enjoy philosophy or who want a general overview of some of earth’s most influential thinkers.
January 23, 2017
This book falls in a weird spot. It is too complicated for beginners but too simplistic for those with some philosophical background. He assumes knowledge that the layman might not have, but doesn't elevate his discussion to a level that will interest the learned reader. Some of his assumptions make the book jumpy--he'll switch gears or topics with little warning or explanation, let alone logical connection. I really wanted to like this book more, considering its author, but I can't see who it would help, or how. His discussions center mostly on epistemology and theology, with very little ethics, political thought, or anything else.
What is REALLY missing, ironically, is found in the title of the work: the consequences of all these philosophers (primarily Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sarte, Darwin, and Freud) and their thought. Sproul rarely gets to this level. He clearly knows his stuff, but I wish he had done a better job of communicating it to the type of reader who looks to get philosophical understanding from a publisher like Crossway.
What is REALLY missing, ironically, is found in the title of the work: the consequences of all these philosophers (primarily Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sarte, Darwin, and Freud) and their thought. Sproul rarely gets to this level. He clearly knows his stuff, but I wish he had done a better job of communicating it to the type of reader who looks to get philosophical understanding from a publisher like Crossway.
January 4, 2015
Read:
August 2012
May 2013
Dr. Sproul does an excellent job of laying out the philosophies, and in many cases the epistemologies of some of the most influential thinkers of modern civilization. From Socrates to Plato, Descartes to Freud, Dr. Sproul uses enough layman's terms to be understandable, but enough of the philosophical terms so that one can learn what they mean and how to use them. Though Sproul does not come from a Presuppositional mindset, I appreciate the newfound appreciation of philosophy (the need for Christians to understand it, take it captive to Christ, and use it) I have gained. This is a great read if you have ever wondered why men like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are still talked about today.
August 2012
May 2013
Dr. Sproul does an excellent job of laying out the philosophies, and in many cases the epistemologies of some of the most influential thinkers of modern civilization. From Socrates to Plato, Descartes to Freud, Dr. Sproul uses enough layman's terms to be understandable, but enough of the philosophical terms so that one can learn what they mean and how to use them. Though Sproul does not come from a Presuppositional mindset, I appreciate the newfound appreciation of philosophy (the need for Christians to understand it, take it captive to Christ, and use it) I have gained. This is a great read if you have ever wondered why men like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are still talked about today.
January 2, 2017
I wanted this book to be Philosophy 101 but I failed to realize that it was written by a Christian creationist clergyman. I like the idea of discussing how philosophers' ideas through time have shaped our understanding of the world and our values, but I feel that reducing the conversation to Western philosophers and Christian ideas and values is limiting and biased. Sproul does a pretty good job of describing the philosophical concepts in lay terms, but he does assume you have some prior knowledge. I feel like the title of the book was a misnomer since he failed to discuss explicitly how these concepts have influenced our world. What consequence does the idea of 'just war' have? How has Marx's views on capitalism shaped our economy? How has Augustine's discussion of original sin influenced misogynistic viewpoints? How would our behavior change if we believed in Kant's views that God cannot be perceived but we must live as if He exists for ethics and society to be possible as opposed to Heidegger's view that we have a choice to live an authentic or inauthentic existence? These types of questions are not discussed. The conclusion is only five pages long in which Sproul finishes by agreeing with the philosopher Etienne Gilson that our only option is to choose between Aquinas and Kant.
For my own edification, I have listed the main ideas of each philosopher as I go through the book.
Pre-Socrates:
Thales of Miletus - Water is the essence of all matter.
Pythagoras - Mystical significance of numbers and music. Pythagorean theorem.
Heraclitus - All things are in flux. You cannot step in the same river twice. Fire is the basic element. Unity of opposites (the path up and down are one and the same).
Parmenides - Whatever is, is. Change is an illusion.
Zeno of Elea - Our senses do not prove reality. Zeno's Paradoxes. The runner can never reach the end of the race since first he would have to go halfway, then another halfway, to infinity.
Empedocles - Objects are composed of particles. The particles do not change, but the objects can change. Four basic elements: fire, water, earth, and air. Two opposing and equal forces: love and hate.
Anaxagoras - Reality is composed of matter and mind.
Sophism - Taught the art of rhetoric. Man is the measure of all thing. Objective truth is not possible.
Socrates - Socratic method of discerning truth by asking questions.
Plato - Analogy of the cave. Knowledge comes through reason, not experience. Ideas are real entities. Knowledge of the material world is mere opinion.
Aristotle - Defined logic, categories. Believed everything is composed of form and matter. Four causes that produce change. The unmoved mover. Was Alexander the Great's mentor.
Stoics - Man cannot control his own fate but can control his reactions and inner response. By being imperturbable, one can attain a peace of mind.
Epicureans - Pursuit of happiness through refined hedonism. Believed religion engenders a superstitious, debilitating fear.
The Skeptics - Truth cannot be known with certainty.
Neoplatonists - Heavily influenced by Plato. All of reality comes from The One in layers of materiality. The One is ineffable.
Augustine - Believed in divine revelation. The goals of philosophy are knowledge of God and knowledge of self. Faith: "I believe in order to understand". God created all things out of nothing. God created man with free will. Original sin.
Thomas Aquinas - Some truths can only be known through Scripture, but some truths can be discovered in nature. Proofs of God's existence: 1) motion-the first mover must be God. 2) efficient cause-every effect must have an antecedent cause. 3) necessary being-God's existence is not merely possible, but necessary since He did not receive His existence from something else. 4) degrees of perfection-the perfection and good in all beings must be derived from something. 5) evidence of order in the universe-the design of the universe demands a designer.
Copernicus - The planets move in circular orbits and the Earth is not the center of God's universe.
Martin Luther - Just a passing sentence on how his challenging views fragmented the church.
Rene Descartes - Mathematician. Deductive reasoning. Rules for the Direction of the Mind. Process of systematic doubt. "I think, therefore I am". God is the perfect cause of the idea of perfection.
Baruch Spinoza - God is the only substance.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Monads. The universe is composed of individual monads, each of which acts independently. Since we live in an universe, not a multiverse, there must be a God to unite all of the monads.
John Locke - Tabula rasa: all knowledge is gained through experience. The existence of God is inferred through demonstration. All law is grounded in natural law and natural law is rooted in divine law.
George Berkeley - To be is to be perceived. God is the great perceiver.
David Hume - Since we cannot directly perceive the cause of anything, we can never know with certainty what is causing it.
Immanuel Kant - God can never be perceived but for practical purposes we must live as if He exists for ethics and society to be possible.
G.W.F. Hegel - What is rational is real, and what is real is rational.
Karl Marx - Labor is the primary catalyst for human self-realization. Predicted that the rich would get richer and the poor poorer until there was a revolt. Society's economic platform shapes its reason or theology. Religion is the opiate of the masses.
Soren Kierkegaard - Three stages of life: 1) aesthetic, pursuing a life of sensuousness 2) ethical, moral responsibilities and guilt 3) religious, belief in God through a leap of faith. The believer finds truth only when he experiences the tension between himself and God. The father of religious existentialism.
Friedrich Nietzsche - God is dead. Nietzsche was delusional and ended up in an asylum for a brain infection. The father of atheistic existentialism. The will to power. Ubermensch.
Edmund Husserl - The father of modern phenomenology. The world derives meaning from the self's experience of phenomena.
Martin Heidegger - Man is thrown in his particular existence and he is responsible for discovering the meaning of his existence. He can choose to live an authentic or inauthentic existence.
Jean-Paul Sartre - Existence precedes essence. Man simply is. There is no God to design a purpose for man. Man is what he makes of himself. There is no human nature. Human existence is freedom. Lifelong partner to Simone de Beauvoir.
Charles Darwin - The theory of evolution. 1) Each individual member of a given species is different. 2) All creatures produce more offspring than the environment can support. 3) Differences among individuals combined with environmental pressures affect the probability that a given individual will survive along enough to pass onto its genetic traits.
Sigmund Freud - Founder of psychoanalysis. Freud explains that every culture is religious because the only way that a civilization can defend against natural disasters is to humanize them, thereby submitting to their authority, befriending them with praise, begging for mercy, and offering bribes and sacrifices. Religion has a threefold task: 1) to exorcise the terrors of nature; 2) to reconcile us to the cruelty of fate; 3) to compensate us for the sufferings civilization has imposed. Freud predicted a sexual revolution.
Ontology - the study of being
Epistemology - the study of knowledge
Eschatology - the study of the ultimate destiny of humanity
For my own edification, I have listed the main ideas of each philosopher as I go through the book.
Pre-Socrates:
Thales of Miletus - Water is the essence of all matter.
Pythagoras - Mystical significance of numbers and music. Pythagorean theorem.
Heraclitus - All things are in flux. You cannot step in the same river twice. Fire is the basic element. Unity of opposites (the path up and down are one and the same).
Parmenides - Whatever is, is. Change is an illusion.
Zeno of Elea - Our senses do not prove reality. Zeno's Paradoxes. The runner can never reach the end of the race since first he would have to go halfway, then another halfway, to infinity.
Empedocles - Objects are composed of particles. The particles do not change, but the objects can change. Four basic elements: fire, water, earth, and air. Two opposing and equal forces: love and hate.
Anaxagoras - Reality is composed of matter and mind.
Sophism - Taught the art of rhetoric. Man is the measure of all thing. Objective truth is not possible.
Socrates - Socratic method of discerning truth by asking questions.
Plato - Analogy of the cave. Knowledge comes through reason, not experience. Ideas are real entities. Knowledge of the material world is mere opinion.
Aristotle - Defined logic, categories. Believed everything is composed of form and matter. Four causes that produce change. The unmoved mover. Was Alexander the Great's mentor.
Stoics - Man cannot control his own fate but can control his reactions and inner response. By being imperturbable, one can attain a peace of mind.
Epicureans - Pursuit of happiness through refined hedonism. Believed religion engenders a superstitious, debilitating fear.
The Skeptics - Truth cannot be known with certainty.
Neoplatonists - Heavily influenced by Plato. All of reality comes from The One in layers of materiality. The One is ineffable.
Augustine - Believed in divine revelation. The goals of philosophy are knowledge of God and knowledge of self. Faith: "I believe in order to understand". God created all things out of nothing. God created man with free will. Original sin.
Thomas Aquinas - Some truths can only be known through Scripture, but some truths can be discovered in nature. Proofs of God's existence: 1) motion-the first mover must be God. 2) efficient cause-every effect must have an antecedent cause. 3) necessary being-God's existence is not merely possible, but necessary since He did not receive His existence from something else. 4) degrees of perfection-the perfection and good in all beings must be derived from something. 5) evidence of order in the universe-the design of the universe demands a designer.
Copernicus - The planets move in circular orbits and the Earth is not the center of God's universe.
Martin Luther - Just a passing sentence on how his challenging views fragmented the church.
Rene Descartes - Mathematician. Deductive reasoning. Rules for the Direction of the Mind. Process of systematic doubt. "I think, therefore I am". God is the perfect cause of the idea of perfection.
Baruch Spinoza - God is the only substance.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Monads. The universe is composed of individual monads, each of which acts independently. Since we live in an universe, not a multiverse, there must be a God to unite all of the monads.
John Locke - Tabula rasa: all knowledge is gained through experience. The existence of God is inferred through demonstration. All law is grounded in natural law and natural law is rooted in divine law.
George Berkeley - To be is to be perceived. God is the great perceiver.
David Hume - Since we cannot directly perceive the cause of anything, we can never know with certainty what is causing it.
Immanuel Kant - God can never be perceived but for practical purposes we must live as if He exists for ethics and society to be possible.
G.W.F. Hegel - What is rational is real, and what is real is rational.
Karl Marx - Labor is the primary catalyst for human self-realization. Predicted that the rich would get richer and the poor poorer until there was a revolt. Society's economic platform shapes its reason or theology. Religion is the opiate of the masses.
Soren Kierkegaard - Three stages of life: 1) aesthetic, pursuing a life of sensuousness 2) ethical, moral responsibilities and guilt 3) religious, belief in God through a leap of faith. The believer finds truth only when he experiences the tension between himself and God. The father of religious existentialism.
Friedrich Nietzsche - God is dead. Nietzsche was delusional and ended up in an asylum for a brain infection. The father of atheistic existentialism. The will to power. Ubermensch.
Edmund Husserl - The father of modern phenomenology. The world derives meaning from the self's experience of phenomena.
Martin Heidegger - Man is thrown in his particular existence and he is responsible for discovering the meaning of his existence. He can choose to live an authentic or inauthentic existence.
Jean-Paul Sartre - Existence precedes essence. Man simply is. There is no God to design a purpose for man. Man is what he makes of himself. There is no human nature. Human existence is freedom. Lifelong partner to Simone de Beauvoir.
Charles Darwin - The theory of evolution. 1) Each individual member of a given species is different. 2) All creatures produce more offspring than the environment can support. 3) Differences among individuals combined with environmental pressures affect the probability that a given individual will survive along enough to pass onto its genetic traits.
Sigmund Freud - Founder of psychoanalysis. Freud explains that every culture is religious because the only way that a civilization can defend against natural disasters is to humanize them, thereby submitting to their authority, befriending them with praise, begging for mercy, and offering bribes and sacrifices. Religion has a threefold task: 1) to exorcise the terrors of nature; 2) to reconcile us to the cruelty of fate; 3) to compensate us for the sufferings civilization has imposed. Freud predicted a sexual revolution.
Ontology - the study of being
Epistemology - the study of knowledge
Eschatology - the study of the ultimate destiny of humanity
November 24, 2016
I read this for school. It is excellent if you want to learn more about philosophy.
April 23, 2020
Super interesting. It taught me to think in different ways I guess but philosophy as a whole is pretty dumb to me. It's just a fancy word for how we view the world and that kinda stuff comes naturally to me I guess. These old geezers think too much about it in my opinion.
August 18, 2019
Good for a junior high / high school student studying a basic history of philosophy. There’s a couple spots where it’s easy to get tangled up in his explanations of logic, but it’s a good overall introduction. Still, I wish Sproul would have included a few more explicitly Christian philosophers, and therefore used his time for more direct comparisons between atheist thinking and Christian theology.
May 16, 2021
Nothing better than R. C. explaining and critiquing modern thought!
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March 3, 2022I’ve read three philosophy books recently(ish); four if you count The Universe Next Door, in which James W. Sire compared world views. Besides this one, the other two were Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder and A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton. Of the three, this one was for sure the driest but also the most well done. I appreciated that it covered a smaller number of philosophers (A Little History covered nearly 40!) and that it was told from a Christian perspective, but was never preachy. The conclusion would make an amazing stand-alone essay on the topic. But the whole book is just foundational.
This is an Ambleside Online Year 12 book, and whether or not your children get there, I highly recommend this book for all students.
I will refrain from reviewing the other books mentioned in this post, but if you have a question, please ask!
This is an Ambleside Online Year 12 book, and whether or not your children get there, I highly recommend this book for all students.
I will refrain from reviewing the other books mentioned in this post, but if you have a question, please ask!
March 29, 2020
An easy to read and concise history of philosophy from the Greeks to Freud written by a reformed thomist. As the length is limited, it deals only with the main figures including all the Greeks, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Darwin, Freud.
May 9, 2025
An OK introduction to the basics of Western philosophy for those who are completely and utterly brand-new to it, but it has little relevance beyond that, as it's too basic and oversimplified even for an undergraduate text.
May 10, 2021
An AO Year 12 preread...
Well. This book is intense. The vocabulary alone will slow you down if you’re not a philosophy scholar. Taking a logic class as a prerequisite to this book would be helpful. We’ve been {slowly} working out way through Socratic Logic this year, and I was surprised with how that has tied in to much of what Sproul is pointing out.
In the same way Post-Modern Times and How We Should Then Live follow threads from ancient to modern times, Sproul does the same thing with the popular philosophies from then to now; how their philosophies influenced their theology and shaped societies. Like those books, too, he warns the readers that the future is a choice between two philosophies—one which rescues metaphysics or the agnostic philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and he will end discussing how pragmatism (from John Dewey’s ideas) changed public education.
It’s another one of those books that leave you seeing way more than you did before.
It’s a necessary read.
Well. This book is intense. The vocabulary alone will slow you down if you’re not a philosophy scholar. Taking a logic class as a prerequisite to this book would be helpful. We’ve been {slowly} working out way through Socratic Logic this year, and I was surprised with how that has tied in to much of what Sproul is pointing out.
In the same way Post-Modern Times and How We Should Then Live follow threads from ancient to modern times, Sproul does the same thing with the popular philosophies from then to now; how their philosophies influenced their theology and shaped societies. Like those books, too, he warns the readers that the future is a choice between two philosophies—one which rescues metaphysics or the agnostic philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and he will end discussing how pragmatism (from John Dewey’s ideas) changed public education.
It’s another one of those books that leave you seeing way more than you did before.
It’s a necessary read.
December 17, 2023
Ambleside Online year 12 book. This is read in conjunction with Sophie’s World and Echoes of Greece and I think that match up is really helpful. This is a brief overview of the history of philosophy and Sproul does present some counterpoints for some of the views put forth but that isn’t the primary focus of this book. Its main thrust is to show how the ideas of men in the past have led to things the way they are today. Interesting and helpful, not an overly difficult read but also not an “easy” read.
April 21, 2023
Fine stuff. Not easy, but worth it!
September 3, 2019
Good brief history of philosophy
August 14, 2021
Lots of overlap with his apologetics stuff. Mostly pretty good. I did quibble a bit when he called Locke's view "common sensical," as that would be more true of Locke's critic, Thomas Reid.
April 14, 2022
I'll certainly need to go back and read this again. I'm sure there are things I missed, or didn't quite understand that might click better with me, running through it again.
There are alot of concepts and philosophies considered and analyzed in this book! I drew quite a few of the tables in my journal, and tbh I'm a little angry with myself that I didn't take more notes as I read.
The chapters are separated by philosopher, although it briefly covers philosophers that influenced the highlighted one of the chapter. The concepts are broken down in a way that is interesting and fairly easy to grasp. Of course, it is philosophy, and that's definitely a subject that takes time and concentration to study, and it's one of those things that you get a little more of each read.
There are alot of concepts and philosophies considered and analyzed in this book! I drew quite a few of the tables in my journal, and tbh I'm a little angry with myself that I didn't take more notes as I read.
The chapters are separated by philosopher, although it briefly covers philosophers that influenced the highlighted one of the chapter. The concepts are broken down in a way that is interesting and fairly easy to grasp. Of course, it is philosophy, and that's definitely a subject that takes time and concentration to study, and it's one of those things that you get a little more of each read.
February 18, 2018
A nice introduction to Western philosophy from Aristotle and Plato to Freud.
November 29, 2019
A good general overview of the major philosophical ideas in the West from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century. Sproul explains philosophical concepts simply and succinctly, so that I think I have a fairly good grasp on most of these concepts - at least, good enough to build upon with other books.
My main complaint with this book is that it's not enough. I wish Sproul had gone into more of the consequences of these ideas, not only in philosophy but also in society as a whole. I also wanted more from him about how a Christian should approach these ideas. He does do a little of both, but I wanted more (though I suppose the book would have been a lot longer and more intimidating if he had).
Overall, a good introductory book - I suppose I will have to look elsewhere if I want more, though.
My main complaint with this book is that it's not enough. I wish Sproul had gone into more of the consequences of these ideas, not only in philosophy but also in society as a whole. I also wanted more from him about how a Christian should approach these ideas. He does do a little of both, but I wanted more (though I suppose the book would have been a lot longer and more intimidating if he had).
Overall, a good introductory book - I suppose I will have to look elsewhere if I want more, though.
January 5, 2025
#1 takeaway: pretty much every major philosopher in history dealt with God in some fashion. Some building mental frameworks to discredit him (which ultimately are disproven in Gods existence) and some seeing there is no reality without God.
Great introduction to philosophy, specifically the major figures throughout history. My only critique is that it seems Sproul was battling on whether this was a book simply overviewing the major themes of the figures, or if he wanted this to be his own personal commentary of the figures
Great introduction to philosophy, specifically the major figures throughout history. My only critique is that it seems Sproul was battling on whether this was a book simply overviewing the major themes of the figures, or if he wanted this to be his own personal commentary of the figures
March 31, 2024
Extremely readable overview of selected philosophers who shaped Western thought
June 24, 2025
A really great overview of philosophers and their philosophies, theologians and their theologies, and how you and I fit into this history. It is important to know these ideas and principles because they bleed into every part of our lives, whether we recognize it or not. Both recognizing those ideas early, or being able to refute them firmly, are great tools that we all will need both today and in the days to come.
July 26, 2024
Disclaimer: I only listened to this one on Hoopla.
I’d give the book a higher rating, but I don’t think I’m sharp enough to follow all the philosophical systems explored. I love RC, but this one went over my metaphysical self!
I’d give the book a higher rating, but I don’t think I’m sharp enough to follow all the philosophical systems explored. I love RC, but this one went over my metaphysical self!
August 26, 2019
Anyone who is serious about philosophy should stay away from this book.
It is lazily written, heavily biased, unscientific and badly written. Most of the philosophers are misrepresented to a degree and the author doesn’t discriminate between his personal point of view and the point of view of the philosophers discussed, so unless you have prior knowledge about the philosophers in question, you cannot know the difference. For the philosophers he disagrees with, his writing is the embodiment of the straw-man fallacy. Some of the statements are ludicrous and reveal that Sproul’s research was really REALLY insufficient to write about these authors. For some, I wonder why he even bothered including them at all if he was going to butcher their thought to this level (especially Nietzsche). Seriously, save yourself a whole lot of misinformation and give this book a hard pass.
As for how the book progresses, I have several points of contention. The essentialist and reductionist perspective is very clearly embodied by the need for the author to assign a short epithet to each philosopher (special mention to Hume being reduced to “Skeptic” and Sartre being a “litterateur and philosopher”, as if that tells us anything about the complexity and breadth of his thought (and Sproul doesn’t even bother touching upon Sartre’s conception of literature and its role in society, which is very odd considering his choice of title)) and name each chapter, save for the first and the last ones, after a single philosopher, even when other philosophers make up the bulk of the chapter. While the bias isn’t that immediately palpable in the first few chapters, it becomes very evident from chapter 4 (about Thomas Aquinas) and on, because the author feels the need to undermine the argument of every philosopher who doesn’t believe in the Christian God as he represents it. Before that, there is slight bias in his presentation of the concept of God in Ancient Greek thought (he does not make much effort to underline how the Greek concept of God is more of a “force” than an anthropomorphic entity, except when it is question of Heraclitus’ Logos; this nuance is very important in Aristotle’s philosophy and I feel like the author doesn’t make enough effort to separate Christian retelling of his thought from what he actually wrote) and bias also in how much he feels the need to jump to the defence of Aquinas before he even actually takes the time to present his belief system. There is a lack of coherence in the chapters and no real sense of structure (there is no conclusion to speak of to most chapters). Also, there are multiple tables throughout the book, but they serve no real purpose, I feel like they were just put there for the sake of putting tables and not for any legitimate reason. I read all of this book because a book club I am a part of decided to read it, but honestly, I wouldn’t have made it past the first 3 chapters (out of 14) if it was only up to me. Some passages yielded downright “what the fuck” reactions from me, so gross was the caricatural representation of a philosopher’s thought (for example, he bases most of his chapter on Nietzsche on the idea that Nietzsche is a nihilist, but that is absolutely not true, and he also explicitly places philosophies on a spectrum from theism to nihilism, as though nihilism is equivalent to atheism, but it is simply not). I think the worst offenders for this are the chapters on Hume, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche (by a huge margin, I really wonder why he even bother including him if he thinks, and I quote (Chapter 9, last section “The ‘Logic’ of Nietzsche”, paragraph 1): “The most consistent act of irrational philosophers [such as Nietzsche] would be simply to shut up. If they can say nothing meaningful (since there is nothing meaningful to say), why continue babbling?”).
This is honestly bullshit. I wish I had bought a physical copy of it so I could burn it.
It is lazily written, heavily biased, unscientific and badly written. Most of the philosophers are misrepresented to a degree and the author doesn’t discriminate between his personal point of view and the point of view of the philosophers discussed, so unless you have prior knowledge about the philosophers in question, you cannot know the difference. For the philosophers he disagrees with, his writing is the embodiment of the straw-man fallacy. Some of the statements are ludicrous and reveal that Sproul’s research was really REALLY insufficient to write about these authors. For some, I wonder why he even bothered including them at all if he was going to butcher their thought to this level (especially Nietzsche). Seriously, save yourself a whole lot of misinformation and give this book a hard pass.
As for how the book progresses, I have several points of contention. The essentialist and reductionist perspective is very clearly embodied by the need for the author to assign a short epithet to each philosopher (special mention to Hume being reduced to “Skeptic” and Sartre being a “litterateur and philosopher”, as if that tells us anything about the complexity and breadth of his thought (and Sproul doesn’t even bother touching upon Sartre’s conception of literature and its role in society, which is very odd considering his choice of title)) and name each chapter, save for the first and the last ones, after a single philosopher, even when other philosophers make up the bulk of the chapter. While the bias isn’t that immediately palpable in the first few chapters, it becomes very evident from chapter 4 (about Thomas Aquinas) and on, because the author feels the need to undermine the argument of every philosopher who doesn’t believe in the Christian God as he represents it. Before that, there is slight bias in his presentation of the concept of God in Ancient Greek thought (he does not make much effort to underline how the Greek concept of God is more of a “force” than an anthropomorphic entity, except when it is question of Heraclitus’ Logos; this nuance is very important in Aristotle’s philosophy and I feel like the author doesn’t make enough effort to separate Christian retelling of his thought from what he actually wrote) and bias also in how much he feels the need to jump to the defence of Aquinas before he even actually takes the time to present his belief system. There is a lack of coherence in the chapters and no real sense of structure (there is no conclusion to speak of to most chapters). Also, there are multiple tables throughout the book, but they serve no real purpose, I feel like they were just put there for the sake of putting tables and not for any legitimate reason. I read all of this book because a book club I am a part of decided to read it, but honestly, I wouldn’t have made it past the first 3 chapters (out of 14) if it was only up to me. Some passages yielded downright “what the fuck” reactions from me, so gross was the caricatural representation of a philosopher’s thought (for example, he bases most of his chapter on Nietzsche on the idea that Nietzsche is a nihilist, but that is absolutely not true, and he also explicitly places philosophies on a spectrum from theism to nihilism, as though nihilism is equivalent to atheism, but it is simply not). I think the worst offenders for this are the chapters on Hume, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche (by a huge margin, I really wonder why he even bother including him if he thinks, and I quote (Chapter 9, last section “The ‘Logic’ of Nietzsche”, paragraph 1): “The most consistent act of irrational philosophers [such as Nietzsche] would be simply to shut up. If they can say nothing meaningful (since there is nothing meaningful to say), why continue babbling?”).
This is honestly bullshit. I wish I had bought a physical copy of it so I could burn it.
January 6, 2019
A word of clarification: although Sproul’s title is an overt reference to Richard Weaver’s 1948 Ideas Have Consequences, the two books are doing markedly different things. Weaver offers cultural criticism, a specific diagnosis of the ills of the modern world—namely, the triumph of philosophical nominalism over metaphysical realism in the 14th century and the subsequent loss of value in the West evident in contemporary fragmentation.
Sproul, by way of contrast, is not pursuing a central thesis, nor is his work primarily critical. What he has to offer is a basic overview of philosophy from Thales to Bertrand Russell, with very limited commentary on the validity of individual philosophers’ thought. He summarizes ideas but limits discussion of those ideas’ “consequences” to their historical relation to each other—e.g. the tension between Parmenides and Heraclitus is developed and resolved in the Socratic synthesis, and the tension between Plato and Aristotle is developed and resolved in the synthesis of medieval Christianity. Apart from occasional comparisons of a philosophical idea to the teaching of Scripture, Sproul generally declines to offer his own judgments of the concepts he summarizes. In this sense, Sproul’s work is neither critical nor original.
As a summary, however, it’s great; Sproul reduces and explains complex ideas like the basis of Hume’s skepticism, Kant’s objections to knowledge of God, and Nietzsche’s nihilism. For me, weak on modern philosophy, this overview helpfully outlined the thought of Leibniz, Berkeley, Kierkegaard, and Sartre, making clear the historical progression from 17th-century rationalism to 18th-century empiricism to the post-Kantian cocktail of analytic philosophy, subjectivism, and nihilism.
Christians should be philosophers, Sproul argues, and they should be especially interested in responding to the criticism of theism leveled by Kant. Christians cannot afford to bury their heads in the sand and pretend to ignore the immense wall that Kant erected between the human person and knowledge of the divine; rather, those of us who believe should actively study these issues and be able to defend our faith. In this effort, Sproul himself is an impressive example of scholarship, fairness, humility, humor, and fidelity to the word of God.
Sproul, by way of contrast, is not pursuing a central thesis, nor is his work primarily critical. What he has to offer is a basic overview of philosophy from Thales to Bertrand Russell, with very limited commentary on the validity of individual philosophers’ thought. He summarizes ideas but limits discussion of those ideas’ “consequences” to their historical relation to each other—e.g. the tension between Parmenides and Heraclitus is developed and resolved in the Socratic synthesis, and the tension between Plato and Aristotle is developed and resolved in the synthesis of medieval Christianity. Apart from occasional comparisons of a philosophical idea to the teaching of Scripture, Sproul generally declines to offer his own judgments of the concepts he summarizes. In this sense, Sproul’s work is neither critical nor original.
As a summary, however, it’s great; Sproul reduces and explains complex ideas like the basis of Hume’s skepticism, Kant’s objections to knowledge of God, and Nietzsche’s nihilism. For me, weak on modern philosophy, this overview helpfully outlined the thought of Leibniz, Berkeley, Kierkegaard, and Sartre, making clear the historical progression from 17th-century rationalism to 18th-century empiricism to the post-Kantian cocktail of analytic philosophy, subjectivism, and nihilism.
Christians should be philosophers, Sproul argues, and they should be especially interested in responding to the criticism of theism leveled by Kant. Christians cannot afford to bury their heads in the sand and pretend to ignore the immense wall that Kant erected between the human person and knowledge of the divine; rather, those of us who believe should actively study these issues and be able to defend our faith. In this effort, Sproul himself is an impressive example of scholarship, fairness, humility, humor, and fidelity to the word of God.
May 15, 2008
We watched this video series with another homeschool family and it has provided a startlingly clear foundation for understanding our culture. The set includes 36 lectures by R.C. Sproul tracing the history of philosophy from Thales to the modern thinkers. Sproul delivers his messages without notes and without clutter outlining the lives of the philosophers and the ideas that have shaped Western civilization. History reveals the gradual shift in thinking from the assumption that God exists to Kant's assertion that God is dead. The presuppositions that go along with this cultural belief are deadly -- and they affect our own thinking more than we know. Even as Christians,we breathe the air infected with Kant's ideas, and often we are fooled into accepting presuppositions that are not based on reality. (Christians are as prone as anyone to being man-centered, materialistic, interested in "our best life now.") Being aware of this goes a long way in building discernment. I pray that the Lord uses this series to make my children discerning and wise enough to engage the world on these issues, to be true warriors extending God's Kingdom, not just criticizing or hiding from the culture.
March 28, 2017
This books provides an accessible and selective overview of the history of philosophical thought (specifically Western thought). Of course, as a Christian pastor, Sproul is particularly interested in how these ideologies line up with the Scriptures, so there is a definite theological focus throughout the book.
On this second read-through, I noticed some definite departures from a presuppositional approach to apologetics. This led to the discovery that Sproul is indeed aligned with classical apologetics.
Very good, and again, very accessible.
On this second read-through, I noticed some definite departures from a presuppositional approach to apologetics. This led to the discovery that Sproul is indeed aligned with classical apologetics.
Very good, and again, very accessible.
October 2, 2014
Listened to 35 lectures on CD. Wonderful overview of philosophical movements from the pre-Socratics forward. Sproul is a such a good teacher—one of my favorites. So I benefited from his rhetorical skill, as well as his intellectual mine. Finished again Oct. 24, 2012.
December 10, 2016
Good (brief) overview of the history of philosophy and philosophical thought.
April 3, 2019
R. C. Sproul was a rare thinker and writer. Reading through his books, The Consequences of Ideas included, the reader realizes that Sproul had all the knowledge and ability to write dense treatises and extended histories of thought, but chose instead to write for the layman. I think the amount of humility, and even love for his fellow man, that this desire to make the complex understandable requires is underestimated, and in short supply.
The chapters in this book are mostly named after a single thinker, though that is a bit misleading. Sproul does a tremendous job at the beginning of each chapter introducing the reader to the context for a particular philosopher, and to the influences on his thought. Even so, as Sproul admits, the length of the book and its role as an introduction of ideas, rather than an extended analysis of them, precludes including many important philosophers between the ancient Greeks and the modern age.
Therefore, this book is best understood on its own terms. For the reader not widely read in philosophy, it serves as a useful introduction to key figures, ideas, and terms (though a chapter on terms themselves, or at least a lexicon would have been helpful, since philosophical terms often have obscure meanings that are different from their everyday usage). For the more serious student of philosophy, this book will likely take too high-level a view to add anything new to their bank of knowledge. Even so, Sproul drops in enough of his own commentary and critiques as to make it a worthwhile book for most anyone.
The chapters in this book are mostly named after a single thinker, though that is a bit misleading. Sproul does a tremendous job at the beginning of each chapter introducing the reader to the context for a particular philosopher, and to the influences on his thought. Even so, as Sproul admits, the length of the book and its role as an introduction of ideas, rather than an extended analysis of them, precludes including many important philosophers between the ancient Greeks and the modern age.
Therefore, this book is best understood on its own terms. For the reader not widely read in philosophy, it serves as a useful introduction to key figures, ideas, and terms (though a chapter on terms themselves, or at least a lexicon would have been helpful, since philosophical terms often have obscure meanings that are different from their everyday usage). For the more serious student of philosophy, this book will likely take too high-level a view to add anything new to their bank of knowledge. Even so, Sproul drops in enough of his own commentary and critiques as to make it a worthwhile book for most anyone.
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