Ellul on God’s Unified Means and End

Continuing my read-through of Ellul’s Presence, we are still in Chapter 3. As we have seen, Ellul believes that Christians are engaged in a spiritual struggle against the supremacy of “means,” which have eliminated any common “ends” except for imaginary ones created only to justify each new set of means. But Ellul refuses to recommend … Read more

Ellul on the Illusion of Inner Freedom

Continuing in chapter 3 of Presence in the Modern World, Ellul dwells a bit more on the meaning of means, which is “that they are totalitarian. Our civilization is entirely one of means, and means affect every domain. They respect nothing.” There are two angles from which to consider the totalitarianism of means. First, means … Read more