The Fragility of Humanism

Modern humanism and science seem to have ganged up against Christianity. Humanism claims science as its ally and indeed as its foundation, while for good measure it offers itself as the dynamic behind the rise of modern science. And both try to discount Christianity.

Our world is dominated by science. Although it frequently improves our lot, in other ways science presents us with problems terrifying in their scope and possible consequences. We have only to think of nuclear and biological warfare, overpopulation and famine, the destruction of nature, or the totalitarian use of psychological techniques to be convinced of the precipice to which science may have brought us. Science, therefore, is a two-sided coin. To the dismay of some ardent advocates, it is no panacea; it can scarcely solve the problems caused by its own success. To make sense of the world as a whole, therefore, many advocates of science turn to humanism for their ultimate view of reality, taking from science the words to express their humanism.

Other humanists have embellished traditional humanist ideas, such as concern for man’s happiness and welfare, with a gloss of science. It is said that humanists now look to scientific investigation to provide the means of increasing knowledge and so of relieving human distress.

Another cornerstone of modern humanism is evolution. Here a scientific concept is widened to give humanism a means of approaching the whole of reality, with the bonus of providing it with a fashionable weapon against Christianity. The “small-scale one-world cosmology of traditional Christianity” is compared unfavorably with “the wonderful new cosmology, and man’s evolutionary adventures and responsibilities within it.” There can be little doubt that the cosmology of the twentieth century is more exciting than that of the Middle Ages. But since Christians, among others, have helped to formulate it, and since they as much as any others appreciate it, this argument loses much of its force.

Once the links between science and humanism have been forged, only a few simple assumptions are needed to elevate humanism to the high status science enjoys. Science depends on man’s ingenuity, which in turn points to humanism; science is successful, and therefore humanism is seen as the only intellectually respectable path for mankind.

Despite the confident assertions and optimistic bravado of many humanists, all is not well in their secular world. The growth of biological knowledge is presenting civilized man with appalling ethical dilemmas. In the face of these dilemmas, confident humanist generalizations about man’s being “the agent of the world process of evolution, the sole agent capable of leading it to new heights and enabling it to realize new possibilities,” seem naïve. What are the opportunities and perils of the transplantation of organs and tissues, of genetic engineering, of fertilization outside the body? When it comes down to details, most humanists are as reticent to discuss ethics as anyone else.

Humanism, in other words, is still left with the task of providing ordinary men and women with a stimulus to higher achievements. The impetus must come from man alone, and when we are faced with this necessity the steely isolation of man in the absence of God becomes discouragingly apparent. Ronald Fletcher, a professor of sociology, tells us:

Man now faces the task of working through and realizing the promise of the Enlightenment, or losing, in a disaster of inhumanity, the great gains that have been made. For the recognition and even the assumption of responsibility, of course, guarantee nothing. Success or failure, and degrees of either, depend upon our own efforts. There is now no God to promise a satisfactory end to our destiny [“Religion, Morals, and Society,” in History of the Twentieth Century (1970), VIII, 572].

This is the humanist’s road to the future, and it is a perilously uncertain one. Man may or may not make it; he is all alone, and a precipice is near. The great new cosmology may excite his curiosity and stir his admiration, but how will he cope with his neighbor or even himself? We can see the task that lies ahead, but will we ever be in a position to tackle it? This gap between the optimistic side of humanism and the down-to-earth application of exciting principles is a fundamental weakness in humanism—a weakness that plagues mankind.

Christanity speaks to man at precisely this point. It acknowledges man’s inability to rise to the heights he sets himself. Autonomous man is doomed by his own limitations, and therefore humanist man is heading into a cul-de-sac of frustration and failure. But Christianity says there is a way out.

Paul as much as anyone else struggled with this problem. He knew what he should do but in practice failed miserably. “For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,” he wrote, “but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:22–24). Here Paul stood in the classic position of the good humanist, grasping eagerly for the highest but achieving the mediocre. He longed to serve God and humanity, but found himself failing to control his own emotions and attitudes.

Unlike the humanist, however, Paul had found the answer: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin and death” (Rom. 7:25–8:2). The good life for which the humanist longs is a reality in God’s universe, but in the humanist’s own godless domain it is a meaningless abstraction.

Humanism begins and ends with man and his world, thereby excluding any consideration of an absolute or of anything beyond man. It also begins and ends with the acceptance of things as they are. This means that everything is equally “given” as it is; final causes are never considered. Why is there a universe? What is its purpose? For the humanist these questions are meaningless, because their answers require something above and beyond man’s own experience.

Although humanism dispenses with absolute values and with God, the supreme absolute, we still must ask: What is man’s reason for being? Is there any value in the survival of the human race? The humanist finds his answer in an arbitrary moral principle. Goodness, he says, means that which is good for man, and so if man were to disappear there would no longer be any goodness. This of course in no way answers the problem. It does serve to highlight the tenuous nature of a man-centered system that attempts to retain a set of moral principles.

Because humanists believe that humanity is worth caring for, they value qualities like courage, endurance, honesty, loyalty, justice and impartiality of mind, toleration, and the disinterested pursuit of truth. Fulfillment and the enrichment of life are generally viewed as overriding aims of existence. The humanist is against hunger, poverty, ignorance, cruelty, and bloodshed, and the Christian, of course, has no quarrel with these aims.

But what has basic humanism (as distinguished from evolutionary humanism, or some mystical form of humanism) to offer? What hope does it hold out when man feels imprisoned in his present existence, with nothing but death to look forward to? In an essay entitled “The Pointlessness of It All,” H. J. Blackham, secretary of the British Humanist Association, faces this penetrating question. His answer is that on humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing; every pretense that it does not is a deceit. The humanist therefore has to accept time and destruction as essential human resources of life and living.

Of even greater poignancy is this quotation from another humanist:

Dwelling Place

Dreaming in Greek, we

visioned for your abode

a temple—seeing

in that rare and rational Attic atmosphere

ideal man, ordered, balanced,

all corners predictably square.

Why is it then

you are so often found in residence

(rather, at home, daheim, chez toi)

in these unfinished oddities,

these curious polygonals,

impractical, improbable,

crowned with foolish fretwork?

What charms you up a fluted spiral stair,

unsafe and unsupported?

What do you look to see from tilted cupolas?

And furthermore

do you not care

that in the best celestial circles

they speak of Yahweh’s Folly?

MARY LOUISE TIETJEN

Humanism … has to recognize an inescapable undertone of tragedy in the world. Ultimately, the situation of mankind in the world is a tragic one.… All that we are, all that we love, all those things, people, and values to which and to whom we are attached by love, perish. Nothing of an individual nature seems permanent. Nothing is certain. Humanism can offer no consolation [Ronald Fletcher, Question 1 (London: Pemberton, 1968), p. 151.

There is an alternative, although the humanist refuses it. Man can escape the tragedy of his situation, but the way of escape is drastic, revolutionary. It requires questioning man’s place in the universe and the freedom he assumes he has as an autonomous being.

It is not a fact of nature that man is the pivot of the universe. This is a presupposition based upon belief in man’s powers to dominate nature and himself. What is more, such an interpretation of man is no guarantee that the world will take on meaning and purpose. An autonomous man in an autonomous world can achieve greatness only if he is correctly programmed, and how can we be sure of that?

Underlying the views of humanists is a thoroughgoing materialism impossible to justify on scientific, rational, or logical grounds. Man is thought to exist solely as a result of undetermined physical events over which neither he nor any supernatural being had any control. He exists; that is all that can be said.

Humanism claims to limit its knowledge of the world to those ideas that stem from man and his rationality. In effect, this approach tells little even about man himself because it has dehumanized man. After all, if man is the chance result of a mindless process, what confidence can be placed in his thinking and beliefs? Why should man be any greater than the processes that gave rise to him? If there was no value or purpose in his origin, can value be derived from his existence? Surely it is presumption for man to inject value into his own existence and ignore the claims of other spheres of the material world.

When the humanist claims to hold men, both individuals and groups, in high regard, he is imposing a value system on his basic view of mankind. We should be grateful that many humanists do place a high value on individuals, but this is not an integral part of their view of man. As a superimposed value it is vulnerable: what can be added can equally well be removed, a fact evident in all fascist and communist regimes.

The Christian, by contrast, values man because he believes that man is made in the image of a personal God. In the words of Michael Green, “Man’s freedom, his self-consciousness, his sense of values, his creativity, his heroism, his conscience, his love all make sense; they derive from the personal God who is the source of our being” (Runaway World, [Inter-Varsity Press, 1968], p. 51). Behind each individual is the personal God; characteristics of this divine Person shine through everyone. God cares for everyone, however wretched, unpromising, or hopeless he may appear in human terms. Therefore it is our duty to care also. The servant is not above his Master, and our criteria for judging individuals must be the same as His—as broad, as deep, as all-encompassing.

Christian values are therefore enshrined in what man is. In practice, humanist values may well resemble the Christian’s, because, whatever their beliefs, humanists too are God’s creation and they too share in the basic demands of humanity. But their theory is inadequate and contradictory. It is tragically stunted by its denial of the sinfulness of mankind and the redemptive work of Christ.

To the Christian, therefore, many of the problems confronting humanism are problems of its own making. If man is elevated to the status of sole controller of the world, he must also be solely responsible for the consequences. As even many humanists now admit, man is not completely rational. But how can irrational actions and consequences be fitted into the humanist conception of the good life? It would appear either that the good life is unobtainable or that achieving it depends upon compulsion. But compulsion by force is condemned by humanists, to whom the individual and his freedom are important principles. Therefore their dilemma is grave.

Such dilemmas are inevitable in humanist terms, because if man is autonomous, any irrationality in his make-up is disastrous. Man is free to live as he determines, and yet is not always competent to direct his freedom wisely. He is therefore faced with incompetence, stupidity, and possibly calamity, unless his freedom is forcibly restrained. Either way, humanist ideals are thwarted, as anarchy or dictatorship looms large on the horizon. Humanism as a civilized institution is saved by the pluralistic, and in many aspects Christian, society in which it finds itself.

Humanism, then, offers man no hope outside benefits obtainable in this life. The Christian would agree that the humanist’s goals of human satisfaction and fulfillment are extremely important. They are goals after which Christians themselves should strive, and which they should desire and work for in the lives of other people. There is no inherent contradiction between fulfillment in this life and fulfillment in eternity. The difference between Christians and humanists on this point comes down to a question of the meaning of “fulfillment.” The humanist rejects what the Bible sets forth as the highest fulfillment, the living of life in the knowledge and love of God.

The offer of salvation in Christ is an offer not only of an eternity with God but also of fullness of life now, with a new view of life, a new approach to life, a new power to live the good life, a mind equipped to face the intellectual problems and challenges of life. The renewal man experiences in Christ is thorough and all-embracing. Emotional, physical, mental, and intellectual spheres are affected, so that each becomes capable of fulfillment and satisfaction. The whole man is renewed in Christ. Anything less is only an imitation of biblical Christianity.

Christianity challenges the humanist to “try it and see.” If humanism is as empirical and scientific as it claims to be, it could do worse than to take the claims of Christianity and assess them in the practical realm.

D. Gareth Jones is senior lecturer in anatomy at the University of Western Australia, Nedlands. He has the B.Sc. from University College, London, and a medical degree from University College Hospital Medical School.

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