What is secular humanism?

1883 290 At the present day, at least in this country, all who reject Revelation seem to be uniting under the name of Secularist. Under that name are found those who assail the Being, the Attributes, the Personality and the Providence of God, and who endeavour by philosophy — falsely so called — to overthrow the christian's faith in the genuineness, authenticity, inspiration, and exclusive authority of the Word of God. Could they succeed, all belief of a future judgment, and consequently the immortality of the soul, would be derided as an idle dream, and the grossest materialism would become the universal creed. And what do these Secularists propose as a substitute for the Bible? They pretend that sufficient guarantee for morality is found in nature and in human intelligence. What their idea of morality may be is difficult to say; but according to their highest definition, can it fill the craving void felt by every soul at one time or the other? A craving after the unseen and the unknown? A craving which compels the idolater to worship the image his hands have made, and leads the infidel to idolize the god of his imagination, i.e. his reason, himself?

Positivism is another name for the latest phase of infidelity, differing but little if at all from Secularism. It is a combination of all shades. It is materialistic; for the man whose name is identified with this system denied all that is supernatural — by which he meant theological. He put aside all that is metaphysical; i.e. he allowed nothing but mere matter, the relation, the succession, the likeness which one thing bears to another. This system teaches that human perfection is to discard all reference to a Divine cause, and to resolve everything to nature and to mechanical laws. This will be the "universal religion" which will supersede all other creeds and notions; the one doctrine sufficiently comprehensive to answer all questions, and sufficiently positive to convince all men. This "Religion" has no starting-point save what it calls the active, affectionate and intelligent tendencies of human nature. In a word "Collective Humanity" is God! Are there in human nature no other tendencies but those of love and intelligence? Are not the opposite rather the tendencies which so prevail that love and intelligence as characterising mankind are only names, truly of things conceivable, but little beyond? Hatred and therefore war, ignorance and therefore superstition, mark the annals of the world. Some few by great perseverance and incessant labour may emerge from the mass of ignorance; but who, at any period, of men stood forth as the exponent of universal affection and goodwill? Possibly a man might die for his friend; but the exceptionality of such a case proves the general rule. Let the history of mankind bear witness. And if this witness be received, when where and how is this affectionate and intelligent "Collective Humanity," the god of the Positivist, to be manifested? It certainly will be a god that had a beginning. But in fact this system denies the Being of God and is Atheistic. It denies the personality of God — for man in the aggregate is God — and therefore Pantheistic. Deism it denies as providential superstition; like Secularism it affirms the law of nature to be the sole agency at work in the world. It is infidelity in its widest meaning, in its most illogical form; and its most absurd theories shock every rational mind. Nor does it come behind any previous school of scepticism in daring impiety. At a comparatively recent meeting of Positivists in a neighbouring country it was proposed and carried nem. con. that the idea of God should be banished from the country.

In 2 Thessalonians 2, we read of the coming lawless one, "whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." Here John sees him deceiving the nations, and particularly "them that dwell on the earth." These earth-dwellers will doubtless feel that their dreams are to be realized in these "super-men;" that here at last has been organized the ideal condition of things, wherein great MAN may display himself in all his glory. It will be the apotheosis of Humanism; that is, of religion which finds its centre in man and not in God. Hence the suggestion to set up some great image of the super-man will be a very natural one.

Scherer reduces man to the lowest estimate of judgment of God and good. "Le vrai n'est plus vrai en soi" (the true is no more true in itself): a ridiculous sentence, because "le vrai" then cannot be. "Le vrai, le beau, le juste meme se font perpetueilement … ils ne sont autre chose que l'esprit humain." (The true, the beautiful, the just reproduce themselves perpetually: they are nothing but the mind of man). - (Revue des deux M., Feb. 15, 1861.) Now this is a statement that no nature can be, in apprehension or being, above man; or else "le vrai, le beau, le juste," may be "vrai, beau, juste en soi." Nor is this all. As to man they are relative, because he is so; yet, if there be a superior relation to One who is absolute, there is a fixed "vrai, beau, juste" morally in relation to Him, because He is the Absolute. It is simply a total denial of God or anything beyond the changing states or apprehensions of man; and makes man the end and beginning of himself; for if there be another thing or being to which he is in relation as end or beginning, there is as regards man a fixed measure of true, beautiful, just. So that this is merely the declaration that there is no relation beyond self; for if man is the measure and changes, it is simply self. This is philosophy.

For "Agnostics" (whose high priest was Herbert Spencer: see his "First Principles," chapters 3, 5), not denying the existence of God, but saying that He is unknowable (cf. Exposition, p. 429), DUTY takes the place of God, and so Ethical Societies have sprung up with their "Ethical Religion" (Mill's "Religion of Humanity"), a protagonist of which is Dr. Stanton Coit.* As to the relation of morality to religion, see Wentscher, pp. 146 f., and Achelis, "Ethics," p. 42 ff.

B. MORALITY, from being largely concerned with men's relations to one another ("Righteousness"), is by those who disclaim adherence to any form of supernatural Religion regarded as covering and meeting the whole of their higher needs. For writers such as Leslie Stephen its very genesis is "simply from the felt need of human beings living in society" ("Science of Ethics," p. 107). Nevertheless, as far back as History goes, Morality (Conscience) is, in fact, found connected with Religion (God consciousness) as its parent (cf. Anderson, "The Bible or the Church," p. 16); and amongst the old Greeks, Morality was first detached from religion by Aristotle, in the fourth century B.C.. whose "Nichomachean Ethics" remain unsurpassed as a system of purely mundane DUTY, the performance of which is now being substituted for recognition of GOD. Such it was with Emerson, the American sage ("superman"). Cf. the "Ethical Hymn Book," No. 327, which makes use of the canticle in the second part of Ps. 19, but substituting "Duty" for "Jehovah."

I was reading at breakfast an account of a new sect, "The Positivists." The theory is, "Humanity is God," and besides that there is no God. What a fool man is when left to himself. But for the incarnation of the Son of God I should be ashamed to be a man.

In the French revolution at the end of the last century, the revolt against the existing governments linked itself with an uprise against Christianity; and the socialistic and anarchical movements which have followed, with however little present success, are uniformly allied with infidel and atheistic avowals as extreme as any of that time. Russian "nihilism" fulfills its name in demanding "No law, no religion — nihil!" and as the first thing, "Tear out of your hearts the belief in the existence of God." Here is forestalled the one "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped;" nor is it a contradiction to this that one with such nihilism on his standard should exalt himself into the place of God the atheist Comte devised for his followers a new worship, with forms borrowed from Rome, and a peremptory spirit, which have gained for it from a noted infidel of the day the title of "Catholicism minus Christianity." This was his proposition, as stated by himself: "The re-organization of human society, without God or king, through the systematic worship of humanity."

Renan says: "The historical sciences are based on the supposition that no supernatural agent comes forth to trouble the progress of humanity; that there is no free existence superior to man, to whom an appreciable share may be assigned in the moral conduct any more than in the material conduct of the universe. For myself, I believe there is not in the universe an intelligence superior to that of man; the absolute of justice and reason manifests itself only in humanity; regarded apart from humanity that absolute is but an abstraction. The infinite exists only when it clothes itself in form."

We have seen that it rests entirely on two utterly insecure foundations; viz.: that poor, fallen, sinful, dying man can be his own judge and ruler, and second, that man can do without his Maker and Creator.

Christianity, Judaism, natural religion, all are rejected. Man takes a place there on earth, exalting himself above it all, in opposition to God; and, in particular, arrogating to himself (for man needs a God, needs something to worship) the place and the honours of God, and of the God of Israel.