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:
