October 1, 2022

Gleanings

Christianity or Humanism?

Gerald R. Chester, Ph.D.

Since the early seventeenth century when Francis Bacon postulated that knowledge was neutral, that is, knowledge was valueless (disconnected from God), the world has increasingly disconnected from God.

In the eighteenth century, the French Enlightenment was the first experiment by a society seeking to define reality without a God hypothesis. Though it failed, the afterglow emerged in the nineteenth century as secularization that disconnected education from God. Then in the first half of the twentieth century, economics and public policy were disconnected. And since the middle of the twentieth century, social norms have progressively disconnected.

Disconnected from God means denying God’s biblical revelation to mankind. This idea is the essence of humanism. Humanism is the basis for all worldviews except Christianity.

There are two forms of humanism—theistic and atheistic. The atheistic form denies the existence of the Christian God and presumes that each person is a god to himself or herself.

Humanism as practiced by Adam and Eve was not atheistic—they didn’t deny the existence of God. But rather they denied his sovereign rule over his creation and assumed his role. Historically this has been the model of humanism widely embraced. People innately know God exists and rightly has authority over his creation but they challenge God’s rule.

The theistic form of humanism dominated the world until the eighteenth century when the atheistic form began to emerge. Theists who wished to accommodate the emerging atheists proposed a new view called deism. Deists made a God hypothesis. They asserted that God created the universe and all the laws of the universe and then disconnected from his universe. In other words, the deist view affirmed God as the originator of the universe but denied his sovereign providential rule. Consequently, though deism and atheism were theoretically different, in practice they were essentially identical.

During the past two hundred years, the world has been increasingly dominated by cultures that embrace deistic and atheistic forms of humanism. Though approximately 30 percent of the global population still claims to be Christian, the number of adherents to the atheistic and deistic forms of humanism is dramatically increasing. This means there is a growing number of people who deny God his rightful place as sovereign Lord over his universe. But in a universe sovereignly controlled by God, the rebellion against his rule will not stand. All attempts to deny God his rightful rule over his universe are doomed to failure.

Christianity maintains that there is only one God and, accordingly, only one correct worldview. Therefore, all other worldviews are false—they are man-made and consequently humanistic.

Notwithstanding the unequivocal testimony of Scripture, in current times the influence of humanism, particularly atheistic humanism, is growing rapidly while the influence of Christianity is declining. This is not new. During the past two hundred years humanism has grown—and continues to grow—rapidly.(1)

The twentieth century was, arguably, the most humanistic century since the fall of man. The marks of humanism are disruption, destruction, debt, and death. The two global wars were highly destructive to many nations, particularly Japan, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Great Britain. Since the 1930s, the countries of the world have embraced Keynesian debt-based economics. No longer do sovereign governments concern themselves with living within their means. Consequently, sovereign debt is dramatically increasing. And death tolls have been horrific. For example, consider this quote:

The 20th century was the most murderous in recorded history. The total number of deaths caused by or associated with its wars has been estimated at 187 million, the equivalent of more than 10% of the world's population in 1913.(2)

As stunning as these statistics might be, humanism has been around since the fall of man and many brothers and sisters in Christ have been challenged with the task of responding to it.

For example, in the first century, the apostle Paul lived and worked in a humanistic environment. During his three-year visit to Ephesus during his third apostolic journey, he experienced much fruit. The word of the Lord was heard throughout Asia.(3) And God was performing works of extraordinary power through Paul.(4) Attempts to counterfeit the supernatural works of God backfired, which benefited Christianity because the Lord Jesus was increasingly esteemed.(5) Consequently, many Christians repented from evil practices, including the magic arts.(6) The work of the Lord was powerfully displayed and many became believers in Jesus. The Scriptures said of these events:

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. (Acts 19:20 ESV)

Nevertheless, humanism continued to invade the culture. Some businessmen who made and sold personal idols experienced an economic recession because many Christians stopped supporting idolatry. The businessmen correctly perceived that Christianity was the cause of the recession and sought to incite civil unrest. The next major event was a riot.(7) 

The main idol of current times is entertainment that manifests the humanistic values of narcissism and hedonism. Even Christians are ensnared. But if enough Christians repented of these humanistic practices, the money paid to big-name sports figures and entertainers would dramatically drop. And Christians would reallocate their resources to support God’s purpose in people and organizations.

A study of Acts 19 provides some clues for how Christians could respond to humanistic societies and what they could expect. Consider, for example, these three markers.

  • Discipleship: The Paul's two-year intensive discipleship initiative produced such profound fruit that “all of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”(8) This suggests that evangelism through discipleship might produce more fruit than the current popular paradigms of evangelism.
  • Repentance from lies. The Lord validated Paul and his message by miracles, as he did with Jesus. When others tried to counterfeit the miracles, they failed, and their failure further validated the truth of Christianity. This clarified who was real and who was false. When the real is clearly identified, there will be repentance from lies and deception.
  • Economic transformation. When Christians stop supporting—reading, listening, or viewing—sinful material, the impact will be the economic disruption of industries supporting idolatry—entertainment, alcohol, tobacco, pornography, and so forth. Consequently, there will be an economic shift and the true needs of those seeking to serve God’s purpose will be met.(9)

If Christians lived with integrity according to the will and ways of God, the humanistic and hedonistic cultures of today’s world would be transformed as Ephesus was in the first century. This would be good and glorifying to God.

In the final analysis, there is only one seminal choice that drives all issues in life, that is, who is Lord? And there are only two options: Jesus or man. Christianity is based on Jesus as Lord. Humanism is based on man as Lord. When humanism is embraced by a culture, the fruit will be disruption, destruction, debt, and death. When Christianity is embraced, the fruit will be peace, order, prosperity, and life. What is your choice?

______________________________


(1) https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/september/christian-decline-inexorable-nones-rise-pew-study.html

(2) https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/feb/23/artsandhumanities.highereducation.(3) Acts 19:9–10.

(4) Acts 19:11–12.

(5) Acts 19:17.

(6) Acts 19:18–19.

(7) Acts 19:24ff.

(8) Acts 19:10.

(9) Acts 4:32–37.

 

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