The ideal of secular humanism is mankind itself as a part of uncreated,
eternal nature; its goal is man’s self-remediation without reference to
or help from God. Secular humanism grew out of the 18th century
Enlightenment and 19th century freethinking. Some Christians might be
surprised to learn that they actually share some commitments with
secular humanists. Many Christians and proponents of secular humanism
share a commitment to reason, free inquiry, the separation of church and
state, the ideal of freedom, and moral education; however, they differ
in many areas. Secular humanists base their morality and ideas about
justice on critical intelligence unaided by Scripture, which Christians
rely on for knowledge concerning right and wrong, good and evil. And
although secular humanists and Christians develop and use science and
technology, for Christians these tools are to be used in the service of
man to the glory of God, whereas secular humanists view these things as
instruments meant to serve human ends without reference to God. In their
inquiries concerning the origins of life, secular humanists do not
admit that God created man from the dust of the earth, having first
created the earth and all living creatures on it from nothing. For
secular humanists, nature is an eternal, self-perpetuating force.
Secular humanists may be surprised to learn that many Christians share
with them an attitude of religious skepticism and are committed to the
use of critical reason in education. Following the pattern of the noble
Bereans, Christian humanists read and listen to instruction, but we
examine all things in the light of the Scriptures (
Acts 17:11).
We do not simply accept every declaration or mental perception that
enters our minds, but test all ideas and “knowledge” against the
absolute standard of the word of God in order to obey Christ our Lord
(see
2 Corinthians 10:5;
1 Timothy 6:20). Christian humanists understand that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ (
Col. 2:3) and seek to grow in full knowledge of every good thing for Christ’s service (
Phil. 1:9;
4:6; cf.
Col. 1:9).
Unlike secular humanists who reject the notion of revealed truth, we
adhere to the word of God, which is the standard against which we
measure or test the quality of all things. These brief comments do not
fully elucidate Christian humanism, but they add life and relevance to
the clinical definition given in lexicons (e.g., Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary, which defines Christian Humanism as "a
philosophy advocating the self-fulfillment of man within the framework
of Christian principles").
Before we consider a Christian response to secular humanism, we must study the term
humanism itself. Humanism generally calls to mind the rebirth or revival of ancient learning and culture that took place during the
Renaissance.
During this time, “humanists” developed rigorous modes of scholarship
based on Greek and Roman models and attempted to build a new Latin style
(in literary and plastic arts) and political institutions based on
them. However, long before the Renaissance “Christian humanism” thrived
in the works and thought of Augustine, Aquinas, Erasmus, and others.
Some even see in
Plato,
a pagan philosopher, a type of thinking that is compatible with
Christian teaching. While Plato offers much that is profitable, his
assumptions and conclusions were certainly not biblical. Plato, like
Nietzsche, believed in “eternal recurrence” (reincarnation); he (and the
Greeks generally) paid lip service to their gods, but for them man was
the measure of all things. Contemporary expressions of secular humanism
reject both the nominal Christian elements of its precursors and
essential biblical truths, such as the fact that human beings bear the
image of their Creator, the God revealed in the Bible and in the earthly
life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, the Christ.
During the scientific revolution, the investigations and discoveries of
broadly trained scientists who can be considered humanists (men like
Copernicus and Galileo) challenged Roman Catholic dogma. Rome rejected
the findings of the new empirical sciences and issued contradictory
pronouncements on matters lying outside the domain of faith. The Vatican
held that since God created the heavenly bodies, these must reflect the
“perfection” of their Creator; therefore, it rejected the astronomers’
discoveries that the orbits of the planets are elliptical and not
spherical, as previously held, and that the sun has “spots” or colder,
darker areas. These empirically verifiable facts and the men and women
who discovered them did not contradict biblical teachings; the real turn
away from biblically revealed truth and toward naturalistic
humanism—characterized by rejection of authority and biblical truth, and
leading toward an avowedly secular form of humanism—occurred during the
Enlightenment, which spanned the 18th and 19th centuries and took root
throughout Europe, blossoming especially in Germany.
Numerous pantheists, atheists, agnostics, rationalists, and skeptics
pursued various intellectual projects not beholden to revealed truth. In
their separate and distinct ways, men like Rousseau and Hobbes sought
amoral and rational solutions to the human dilemma; moreover, works like
Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Spirit, Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason, and Fichte’s
The Science of Knowledge
laid the theoretical foundation for later secular humanists. Whether
consciously or unconsciously, contemporary academics and secular
humanists build on the ground laid before when they promote exclusively
“rational” approaches to social and ethical issues and
antinomian
forms of self-determination in such areas as individual autonomy and
freedom of choice in sexual relationships, reproduction, and voluntary
euthanasia. In the cultural domain, secular humanists rely on critical
methods when interpreting the Bible and reject the possibility of divine
intervention in human history; at best, they view the Bible as “holy
history.”
Going by the name of “higher criticism,” secular humanism spread like
gangrene in schools of theology and promoted its rationalized or
anthropocentric approach to biblical studies. Starting in Germany, the
late 19th century “higher criticism” sought to “go behind the documents”
and de-emphasized the authoritative message of the biblical text. As
Darrell L. Bock has noted, the speculative nature of higher criticism
treated the Bible “as a foggy mirror back to the past” and not as the
inerrant historical record of the life and teachings of Christ and His
apostles (“Introduction” in Roy B. Zuck and D. L. Bock,
A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, 1994, p. 16). For example, in his Theology of the New Testament,
Rudolf Bultmann,
a leading exponent of higher criticism, relies heavily on critical
assumptions. As Bock points out, the author is “so skeptical about the
New Testament portrait of Jesus that he barely discusses a theology of
Jesus" (ibid).
While higher criticism undermined the faith of some, others, like B. B.
Warfield at Princeton Seminary, William Erdman, and others, persuasively
defended the Bible as the Word of God. For example, in responding to
skeptics who questioned the early date and Johannine authorship of the
fourth gospel, Erdman and other faithful servants of the Lord have
defended these essentials on critical grounds and with equal
scholarship.
Likewise, in philosophy, politics, and social theory, Christian
academics, jurists, writers, policy-makers, and artists have wielded
similar weapons when defending the faith and persuading hearts and minds
for the Gospel. However, in many areas of intellectual life the battle
is far from over. For example, in American English departments and
literary circles beyond the academic world, the siren call of Ralph
Waldo Emerson continues to hold sway. Emerson’s pantheism amounts to a
denial of Christ; it is subtle and can beguile the unwary to turn away
from the Gospel. Emerson held that the “Over Soul” within individuals
makes each person the source of his or her own salvation and truth. In
reading writers like Emerson and Hegel, Christians (especially those who
would defend the faith once and for all delivered to the saints [
Jude 3]) must exercise caution and keep the Word of God central in their thoughts, and humbly remain obedient to it in their lives.
Christian and secular humanists have sometimes engaged in honest
dialogue about the basis or source of order in the universe. Whether
they call this reason or Aristotle’s prime mover, some secular
rationalists correctly deduce that moral Truth is a prerequisite for
moral order. Although many secular humanists are atheists, they
generally have a high view of reason; therefore, Christian apologists
may dialogue with them rationally about the Gospel, as Paul did in
Acts 17:15-34 when addressing the Athenians.
How should a Christian respond to secular humanism? For followers of the Way (
Acts 9:2;
19:19,
23),
any legitimate form of humanism must view the full realization of human
potential in the submission of the human mind and will to the mind and
will of God. God’s desire is that none should perish, but that all
should repent and inherit eternal life as His children (
John 3:16;
1:12).
Secular humanism aims to do both much less and much more. It aims to
heal this world and glorify man as the author of his own, progressive
salvation. In this respect, “secular” humanism is quite at ease with
certain religious substitutes for God’s true Gospel—for example, the
teachings of Yogananda, the founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship.
By contrast, Christian humanists follow the Lord Jesus in understanding
that our kingdom is not of this world and cannot be fully realized here (
John 18:36;
8:23).
We set our minds on God’s eternal kingdom, not on earthly things, for
we have died and our lives are hidden with Christ in God. When
Christ—who is our life—returns, we will appear with him in glory (
Colossians 3:1-4).
This is truly a high view of our destiny as human beings, for we are
His offspring, as even secular poets have said (see Aratus’s poem
“Phainomena”; cf.
Acts 17:28).
One does not have to be a Christian to appreciate that humanism powered by pure reason alone cannot succeed. Even
Immanuel Kant, writing his
Critique of Pure Reason
during the height of the German Enlightenment, understood this. Neither
should followers of Christ fall prey to the deceitfulness of philosophy
and human tradition, or be taken captive by forms humanism based on
romantic faith in the possibility of human self-realization (
Colossians 2:8).
Hegel based human progress on the ideal of reason as spirit
“instantiating” itself through progressive dialectical stages in
history; but had Hegel lived to see the world wars of the 20th century,
it is doubtful that he would have persisted in detecting human progress
in this debacle of history. Christians understand that any form of
humanism set apart from divinely authored redemption is doomed to
failure and false to the faith. We ground a high view of man in a high
view of God, since mankind is made in the image of God, and we agree
with Scripture concerning man’s desperate situation and God’s plan of
salvation.
As Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, humanism offers no solution at all
to mankind’s desperate condition. He puts it this way: "If humanism were
right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born
to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently
must be of a more spiritual nature.” Indeed. Mankind’s task is to seek
and find God (
Acts 17:26-27; cf.
15:17), our true redeemer who offers us a better than earthly inheritance (
Hebrews 6:9;
7:17). Anyone who opens the door to Christ (
Revelation 3:20) will inherit that better country, which God has prepared for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (
Ephesians 1:11;
Romans 8:28; Hebrew 11:16; cf.
Matthew 25:34;
John 14:2). How much more excellent is this than all the proud and lofty goals contained in secular humanist manifestos?
