Humanism Part I: Claims and Methodology

"Humanism is the second oldest religion in the world."
- Ravi Zacharias

Humanism is a philosophy that is alive and well in the twenty-first century, and its slogans and assertions find their glory in many American television shows, films and Broadway productions. All philosophies eventually do, as the arts serve as a medium for various philosophical views. But Humanism, also known as Secular Humanism, claims several things that many theists have thought incompatible, namely:

1) an atheistic philosophy
2) objective morality
3) objective meaning to life

There are other things that Secular Humanism purports to assert or champion, but we'll get to those later. It has been my conclusion that these things, in any objective sense, cannot all be true. Many great scholars have claimed likewise, and yet Secular Humanism still remains, to many, a viable philosophical view on which to base one's life.

"Secular Humanism is a way of thinking and living that aims to bring out the best in people so that all people can have the best in life. Secular humanists reject supernatural and authoritarian beliefs. They affirm that we must take responsibility for our own lives and the communities and world in which we live. Secular humanism emphasizes reason and scientific inquiry, individual freedom and responsibility, human values and compassion, and the need for tolerance and cooperation (taken from the Council for Secular Humanism's homepage: http://www.secularhumanism.org )."

On the surface, this looks like a worldview that promotes morality and goodness, and many of you might think me some kind of philosophical or theological bully for picking on them. Let me repeat that I am not looking for an argument, nor am I looking to insult anyone, or anything like that. But Secular Humanism is an ideology that has implications for our lives if it is true, and thus warrants a critical examination.

I should also note that, given this definition of Humanism (and I will use Humanism as being interchangeable with Secular Humanism; I've never heard of anything called Supernatural Humanism) that Humanism is just as exclusive as any religion. Just as it is not possible to be both a Muslim and a Hindu (without contradicting the tenets of at least one of those religions, if not both) it is not possible to be, say, a Muslim and a Humanist. Or a Jew and a Humanist. Or arguably even a Hindu and a Humanist.


A) Reason
("Secular humanism emphasizes reason...")

Now, we see in this definition of Humanism (as in many other atheistic philosophies) that reason/rationality and belief in the supernatural are seen as mutually incompatible. This view is one we can thank many atheists (and theists, sadly) for presenting to our culture: that belief in the supernatural or in God is totally irrational. Faith is nothing but trust, and before one puts one's trust into anything, one ought to see if a particular person/idea/object is worthy of such trust. And that worthiness often amounts to one questioning whether it is reasonable to put one's trust into the thing in question. After all, most people don't go around blindly trusting everyone they see on the street. I am sure that even a cursory examination into criminal history will reveal that such naive trusting of random people has often led to the unfortunate victimization of the naive person.

Now reason is important, and ought not to be ignored. But reason alone will not take you to morality, or even to meaning. Kant thought that it would, and tried to make the case for just such a view in his Critique of Pure Reason. But, at least in the field of ethics, Kant ran into the following dilemma: suppose that a friend of yours hides in your house while being chased by a serial killer. The killer asks you if your friend is in your house - what do you reply? If you say yes, then you jeopardize the life of your friend. If you say no, you lie. Kant said that your imperative is to say yes to the killer even if it means you put your friend's life on the line. And Kant reached this choice by means of reason alone. But one could just as easily say that it is unreasonable to jeopardize the life of a friend by lying to protect him! This is, I believe, one of the catalysts that led to the separation of reason and the heart in morality; and the reason why many scientists postulate the meaning of life as purely the need to pass on genes to the next generation, and artists postulate the meaning of life as something that does not touch upon biology at all. Kant made a powerful statement in his attempt to use reason to discern ethics, and we are left with the storm he (and others) raised in the wake.

"Ethics has to be arrived at purely from the vantage point of reason, without the introduction of the concept of God and without using happiness as its goal." - Immanuel Kant.

As Ravi Zacharias once said in response to this, "isn't it fascinating today that we have lost all three: the concept of ethics, the concept of God, and the concept of happiness too." This is readily, and sadly, apparent. We now view ethics as purely subjective even though we react to someone's wrong-doing against us as though morality were objective. We have erased God from every area of our lives. And the leading article in the 75th anniversary edition of Forbes Magazine was "Why Are We as a People so Unhappy?" And the answer had nothing to do with economics; it had to do with the the loss of a moral law.

Neither reason, nor intelligence, will bring about the end that Humanism seeks. Indeed, given its naturalistic bias, how could one reason out caring for one's community either? Let the weaker of the community be culled from the herd and leave only the strong behind.

The most damaging thing to say concerning the role of reason in trying for an objective morality comes from leading atheist Kai Neilson who said, ”Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.” He also went on to say that reflection upon this awful truth depressed him.


B) Technological Progress
("Secular humanism emphasizes... scientific inquiry...")

We live in the days of cell-phone cameras, online grocery shopping, and weapons of mass destruction. One does not have to turn to The History Channel's Modern Marvels to see the amazing things we have rendered possible via our research and its application - our technology. Stephen Hawking, who once gave a lecture on whether or not humanity was determined or free-willed, closed with this comment; "Yes man is determined. But since we do not know what has been determined, he may as well not be. My only hope for us as humans is that we can keep from eating each other up for the next hundred years or so, because I am confident that in that time we will have the technology to carry us to other planets and then no one great catastrophe will destroy us all. Thank you ladies and gentlemen."

While Mr. Hawking may admirably hope that humanity will not destroy itself, he is folly-ridden if he thinks that separating us into smaller groups will eliminate our problems. Even then he does not say all our problems will be gone, but only that there will be no catastrophe on such a scale as to destroy all of us. But merely focusing on the betterment of the species, whatever that means apart from an objective framework, will not change the nature of that species.

"We are not living in the glorious dawn of science, but rather the gristly morning after where it has become all too apparent that science has only given us improved means, to achieve unimproved or rather deteriorated ends." - Aldous Huxley

I do think that Huxley's appraisal is rather slanted, but he raises a good point. Science may be able to give us longer lives, but science cannot say why it is good to live a longer life, or even if it is good at all. Science has given us cars, steam engines, bridged vast expanses of land, disparate tribes, clans and nations; and provided us with potentially clean sources of renewable energy. But science has also made possible the massacre of people on scales never seen in all the history of mankind.

I am not saying that science is evil. Science is a tool. But the hammer cannot tell the carpenter where it should be used and for what purpose. The carpenter will decide those questions. Let us hope that there is nothing wrong with the carpenter. There is, however, and the hammer cannot help him with those fundamental problems and dysfunctions. At best the hammer gets put away because it cannot be put to some destructive purpose; at worst the hammer is used as an implement of destruction.

Furthermore, science has also blinded itself. Without wanting to get into the whole Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate, let me just say that the fundamental problem with relying overmuch on science is that eventually one begins to think that only those things which are scientifically observable and thus scientifically knowable are worth knowing. But science cannot even prove that! Indeed, that is not a scientific statement, it is a philosophical statement. The supposed problem that science has (or should I say certain scientists have) with the supernatural, or the existence of God, is that such scientists don't disbelieve because the evidence definitively points in a certain direction, but because of philosophical presuppositions and biases that prevent rational inquiry into all fields of possibility.


C) Morality
("Secular humanism is a way of thinking and living that aims to bring out the best in people so that all people can have the best in life... Secular humanism emphasizes... responsibility, human values and compassion...")

Here Humanism's dilemma is not that morality is not good, but rather that it cannot define morality itself without contradictions. Without God, how can one defend an objective moral standard? In order to have a moral statement be morally meaningful, and not mere opinion or expression of feeling, then good and evil must really exist. But if good and evil exist, there must be a moral law to differentiate between good and evil. But if there is a moral law there must be a moral law-giver, but the atheistic view of Humanism does not allow for the moral law-giver that is necessitated by the moral law. If a moral law just exists, and if there is no God, then morality must be the product of some form of evolution too; but then it is no longer objective. If the moral law is no longer objective, then we are left once more with mere opinions or expressions of feeling. The Humanist view leads into an unintelligible circle.

But there are other problems with the Humanist view of morality also.

For instance, if there is no God, and therefore no objective morality, than what does it mean to want to "bring out the best in people so that all people can have the best in life"? Does it mean what each person finds best for him or her self? What if one person finds it best to rob, kill, or otherwise victimize others? Do we merely make a brute assertion that one's rights end where another's begins? But this sounds very authoritarian to me, which the Council for Secular Humanism says that Humanists ought to reject out-of-hand.

Ultimately there is no viable option for an ethic apart from God. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer so eloquently puts it:

"Who stands his ground? The great masquerade of evil has wrought havoc with all our ethical preconceptions. This appearance of evil in the guise of light, beneficence, and historical necessity is utterly bewildering to anyone nurtured in our traditional ethical systems. But for the Christian it simply confirms the radical evilness of evil. The failure of rationalism is evident. With the best of intentions but with a naive lack of realism, the rationalist believes that a small dose of reason will set the world right. In his short sightedness he wants to do justice to all sides but in the melee of conflicting froces he gets trampled upon without having achieved the slightest effect. Dissapointed by the irrationality of the world, he realizes at last his futiltiy, retires from the fray and weakly surrendurs to the winning side.

Worse still is the collapse of moral fanaticism. The fanatic imagines that his moral purity will prove a match for the power of evil. But like a bull he goes for the red rag rather than the man who carries it. He becomes entangled in nonessentials and falls into the trap set by the superior ingenuity of his adversary.

Then there is a man with a conscience. He stands single-handedly against overwhelming odds in situations that demand a decision. But there are so many conflicts going on all of which demand some vital choice, with no support save that of his own conscience, and he is then torn to pieces. Evil approaches him in so many specious guises that his conscience becomes nervous and vacillating. In the end he contents himself with a salve instead of a clear conscience and starts lying to his conscience to avoid despair. If a man relies only on his conscience, he fails to see how a bad conscience is sometimes more wholesome and strong than a good one.

The path of duty seems to offer a sure way out. They grasp at the imperative as one certainty. The responsibility for the imperative relies solely upon its author, not its executor. But when men are confined to the limits of duty, they never risk a daring deed on their own responsibility which is the only way to score a bull's eye against evil and defeat it. The man of duty will in the end be forced to give the devil his due.

What about then of the man of freedom? He values the necessary deed more highly than a clear conscience or the duty of his calling, who is willing to sacrifice a barren principle for a fruitful compromise, or a barren mediocrity for a fruitful radicalism. When then of him? He must beware, lest his freedom should become his own undoing. For in choosing the lesser of two evils, he may fail to see that the greater evil he seeks to avoid may prove to be the lesser. Here we have the raw material of tragedy

Some seek refuge from the rough and tumble of public life in their own private virtue. Such men however are compelled to seal their lips and shut their eyes to the injustice around them. Only at the cost of self-deception can they keep themselves pure from the defilements incurred by responsible action. For all that they achieve, that which they leave undone will still torment their peace of mind. They will either go to pieces in the face of their own disquiet, or become the most hypocritical of all Pharisees. Who, then, can stand his ground?

Only he to whom the last measure is not his own reason, his principles, his freedom or even his conscience--but rather his readiness to sacrifice all of these: only he who is called to deeds of obedience and responsibility in faith and single-minded communion with God; only he who will let his life become nothing, as answer to God's request or call."


"Anyone who will not deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me is not worthy of me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 10:38)."