In one of his comments on this little series, Justin Swanton says he thinks that humanists are “a bit schizophrenic” because they seek to enjoy the fruits of religion while disbelieving in religion. Verily. Much like searching for eggs after you’ve killed the chicken, there is a certain mental dysfunctionality there. Humanists say they don’t need religion to live morally, but history contradicts that questionable assertion. Religion has always been the sole source of societal morality throughout history. Law has only been the enforcing arm of that morality—not its source. (Just a by-the-way example: After the [humanistic] French Revolution had wiped out an entire village for its intransigent refusal to place the authority of the state above the authority of the Pope, Napoleon kidnapped the Pope and held him hostage. Eventually, however, he found that he had to reinstate the authority of religion precisely because, as he admitted, people sank to ungovernable levels of decadence without it.) Humanism has no moral authority of its own.
It’s that business of source that’s the real issue here. A disregard, often an outright contempt, for the source of things has been the cause of most of the pain and suffering in history—not just now or here. St. Paul cited it as causal when he accused men of worshipping the creature instead of the creator. There’s nothing new in “humanism.” Take, for example, the modern tendency to indulge in the emotional/physical gratification of “love” and deny the source of love—just one of the more popular poisonous fruits of humanism. It’s worth noticing how often that indulgence is committed with righteous-sounding words like “rights.” The righteousness bespeaks a devotion to humanism as a religion. Yet that same righteousness resulted in the depravity Napoleon had the sense to notice and attempt to forestall. Today, it has already destroyed the family, and unchecked, it will destroy all moral order in society.
A raised fist is a more glorious posture than a bowed head. And how we do love glory! We’re repeatedly admonished in Scripture to give glory to God, not to ourselves, for the sake of our own happiness. Humility is the mode of creaturehood, not pride. (Sometimes, in reading psalms older than any history, I am overwhelmed to astonishment by a contemplation of the depth of God’s knowledge of us—though why I should be astonished, I don’t know. He made us; how would he not know us better than we know ourselves?)
At the root of it all is inversion, an upside-down perspective that causes all the suffering of humanity, and it began by inverting the two commandments we were all given. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, “and the second is like unto it,” You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Number One: no gods before him, neither yourself nor your kind. Humanism (including much that is now oxymoronically called “Christian” humanism) inverts that commandment. It’s that inversion that has been the cause of all historical and contemporary violations of religious freedom. In the UK, in France, in modern Europe, and now in the US.
Western society will continue its decline into moral anarchy as long as that inversion continues. The re-conversion of Europe which the Holy Father prays for, the re-claiming of Catholic Culture that St. Austin Review and others work for, the multiple legal struggles now underway to protect the very existence of faith—all of this is an attempt to restore right order for the sake of all human life—not just for the sake of religious people, but for everybody, for atheists, agnostics, secularists, and humanists as well. The great evil of our time is the same great evil that has caused human suffering throughout history: the inversion of the first and second commandments. Humanism is the modern articulation of that inversion. (And a very seductive one it is, too.)
Although there is another element of humanism that should be mentioned, namely, the widespread perverted expression of humanism in the post-Vatican II Church, I’ll leave that meditation to those more knowledgeable than I, and conclude my own thoughts here.
‘Although there is another element of humanism that should be mentioned, namely, the widespread perverted expression of humanism in the post-Vatican II Church, I’ll leave that meditation to those more knowledgeable than I, and conclude my own thoughts here.’
That is a topic to handle with kid’s gloves. Come over to CAF (Catholic Answers Forums) to discuss it, but make sure you’re wearing plenty of body armour!
Justin, thanks for the invitation, but–don’t want to go there or get into that. I think it’s kind of interesting that this sort of heated discussion occurs so long after Vatican II–kind of like Roe v. Wade, actually a long time ago, but the debate goes on. One has to wonder why.