Blogotional

Maybe it is because I have studied science, but I am always amazed at how people think they can "understand" God. The biggest lesson I have ever learned in any science study I have ever done is how much I do not know. For example, I understand quantum mechanics better than most people -- I have actually performed quantum mechanical calculations, which I am fairly certain most of you have not. Nonetheless, compared to say Dirac or Schroedinger, I am an idiot. Then there is the fact that quantum mechanics, while useful, far from explains everything, so even masters of that science must confess they do not understand all of reality.

If our understanding of the world around us is so limited, how much more so then must be our understanding of its Creator.

Given this premise, I find the subject of this week's Vox Apologia IX most fascinating.

Glory to Man in the Highest: Humanism’s Dangerous Claim

I am no expert of various schools of thought so I did a little looking around into precisely what constitutes "humanism." This site was the best summary I found. Towards the end it lists 11 basic ideas of humanism, whether it is secular or religious. I am going to pick just a few of those basic ideas and discuss them.

Humanism is a philosophy of reason and science in the pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, when it comes to the question of the most valid means for acquiring knowledge of the world, Humanists reject arbitrary faith, authority, revelation, and altered states of consciousness.

Based on this I must ask how there can even be a "religious" humanism. Religion implies deity and deity implies supernatural which, by definition, cannot be experienced save through revelation and faith. Now while I admit the supernatural may be outside the realm of science, I do not see how it is outside the realm of reason. This statement implies that faith, revelation, and altered states of consciousness somehow lack reality. Let humanists prove the non-reality of those things.

Humanism is a philosophy of compassion. Humanist ethics is solely concerned with meeting human needs and answering human problems--for both the individual and society--and devotes no attention to the satisfaction of the desires of supposed theological entities.

Here again, I fail to see how there can even be a "religious" humanism. Religion implies deity, this statement denies it. Religion absent deity is philosophy, and yes, I include Buddhism in this analysis. This statement also makes an assumption about any "supposed theological entities" that I find amusing -- it assumes that the desires of this entity would be for other than concern with human needs and problems. Last Sunday I posted a sermon by John Piper that I think addresses this fallacy very well. Let's look at just one more basic idea of humanism.

Humanism is in tune with today's enlightened social thought. Humanists are committed to civil liberties, human rights, church-state separation, the extension of participatory democracy not only in government but in the workplace and education, an expansion of global consciousness and exchange of products and ideas internationally, and an open-ended approach to solving social problems, an approach that allows for the testing of new alternatives.

Herein, I think, lies the reality behind the idea of humanism. It is an attempt to develop a school of thought that will lend to some social action moral authority similar to that lent to other social action by the church. Here's the thing, morality needs some sort of underpinning, something that grants it authority. Until very recently, that has always been some deific authority

However, in modern times, as the very concept of deity has been attacked, moral chaos has been witnessed. Attempts to use the state to supply moral authority have been highly contentious, and generally resulted in failure -- see communism. Even those that hold moral relativism feel the need to somehow add some "authority" to it. So, it appears to me that they came up with a school of philosophy that attempts to do that.

From a purely Christian theological perspective this amounts to nothing but idolatry. Humanism makes God subject to our understanding -- it places us before God. Humanism worships not God, but our understanding of God, in other words, us. That is idolatry, pure and simple. It is also scary. I see this infesting the church, in the so-called "Emerging Church" movement where "relevancy matters more than theology. I see it in the "self-help" church movement where it matters more what God can do for me than what I can do for God.

I doubt humanism in the rather crude and blatant form I have argued against here is ever going to be proclaimed in the church. These ideas will take different forms, and hide in more Christian sounding proclamations. It is important to listen for them, and guard against them. The original sin was in fact to place ourselves before God. Listen tot eh words the serpent uses to tempt the woman:

Gen 3:1-5
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'" 4 And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die! 5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (emphasis mine)

Mostly I am amazed at the blatantly God defying nature of this school of thought. The tempter is usually more subtle than this.