Truth Magazine

By Weldon E. Warnock

The most dangerous of all college disciplines is the field of psychology. Freud and his humanistic disciples have taken over this academic discipline (that is studied by 85 percent of today’s college students), and they use it to propagate the five basic doctrines of humanism:

1. atheism;

2. evolution;

3. amorality;

4. autonomous self-centered man;

5. socialist one world view.

Every phase of psychology . . . . is based on these erroneous assumptions” (Tim LaHaye, Foreword, An Answer to Humanistic Psychology, by Nelson E. Hinman).

Behaviorism and Psychoanalysis

The basic weakness of modem psychology and psychiatry is that they have left out God. Behavioral psychology says that man is totally the product of his cultural environment. It denies that man has a soul or that he can even make a free choice. He is controlled by his environment, trapped and programmed by it. To talk of man being made in the image of God, thereby being responsible for his actions, is nothing more than theological myth to the behaviorists. Man is a machine, they say. We would agree that, to an extent, man is what his environment is, but that does not mean he cannot transcend his surroundings, or rise above his environment. The Corinthians did (1 Cor. 6:9-11) and we can, too.

Freudian psychology or psychoanalysis sees all problems resulting from a bad childhood. There are three areas that receive much attention in psychoanalytic therapy: (1) society, (2) family and (3) sexual drives. Freud maintained that society, especially the church, severely inhibits man’s ego. The family, parents and grandparents, builds barriers in their children’s egos, and sexual drives are suppressed by society, especially the church, and the family. All of these forces inhibit instinctive releases in a person and cause frustrations, neurosis, psychosis, and even schizophrenia.

Both of these schools are antithetic to biblical teachings, making it impossible for reconciliation. Behaviorists, believing that man is nothing more than an animal, studies man in the framework of animal behavior and treats his improper behavior with positive-negative reinforcement, desensitization (an example is overcoming fear of a dog by showing people happily playing with a dog), drugs, or alteration of brain states, either by electric stimulation or surgery. The father of behaviorism was James Watson and the leading proponent is B.F. Skinner.

It is true that man, at times, has needs requiring reinforcement, drug therapy and the other things mentioned above. But viewing man totally as an animal, and environmentally controlled and deterministically guided, behaviorism is unable to explain man’s non-material needs, such as love, justice, peace, truth, loyalty, good conscience, hope, etc. These can only be explained from a biblical perspective that man is also a spiritual being, created in the image of God.

Psychoanalysts, like behaviorists, make somebody else responsible for malfunction in human beings. Those with deviant behavior or maladjustments became that way because of parents, or friends, or church, or teachers, or society in general. Everybody and everything are the problem, but never me. I am not the blame! It is true that others can influence us, disappoint us and frustrate us, but in the final analysis, each person is responsible for his own conduct. Everyone of us can live above the pressures of life, if we so choose, instead of permitting them to control us. As Phillip’s translation puts it, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold” (Rom. 12:2).

Dr. Edward Pinckney said, “There is not one single ‘scientific’ experiment on record to support the doctrine that psychoanalysis . . . . as defined by Freud as a form of treatment for mental illness …. has, or can, cure anybody or any illness! In contrast, there is a wealth of documented information to show that the results of psychoanalysis are not only unsuccessful, but what is even worse, have been harmful.

“Again, I feel the answer lies in the assumption or rejection of responsibility. If you are willing to assume your share, you will conquer every conceivable obstacle to good mental health. If, on the other hand, you spend your efforts trying to dodge moral obligations, you cannot help but bog down in your own mire of self-created doubt . . . . which leads to worry, which leads to anxiety and which finally leads to your seeking help for something you will not do for yourself” (The Fallacy of Freud and Psychoanalysis).

Humanistic Psychology

Many psychologists, seeing man dehumanized, both by behaviorism and psychoanalysis, developed another school of psychology, known as “Humanistic Psychology.” Behaviorism, making man nothing more than a machine and predetermined by blind fate, and Psychoanalysis portraying man as helplessly trapped by inner, subconscious forces beyond his control prompted psychologists to invent something that would give man dignity and worth. Hence, humanistic psychology was born. Prominent men of this school are Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May. The label would aggrandize and dignify man, instead of denigrating him as they viewed behaviorism and psychoanalysis doing.

They reasoned that all that man needed was to look at himself, see his problem and then proceed to solve it, himself. One of the central propositions of the Humanist philosophy is that “Humanism, having its ultimate faith in man, believes that human beings possess the power of potentiality of solving their own problems, through reliance primarily upon reason and scientific method applied with courage and vision” (The Philosophy of Humanism, Corliss Lamont, p. 10).

We can readily see, for the most part, that humanistic psychology is no better than what it sought to replace. Solutions to life’s problems are still approached with human reasoning rather than divine revelation. To the Humanist, man must overcome ignorance and fear in order to become the complete person. Of course, ignorance, among other things, would be the eradication of any concept of a supernatural Being and a Divine revelation. Religion does a disservice to the human species, they tell us, and promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful. These things distract people from present concerns, from self-actualization, and from rectifying social injustices (Humanist Manifesto II).

Humanism says that man is autonomous, independent of God, and he decides under all circumstances what is good or bad for him. Sin is not in the Humanists’ vocabulary, except when used with scorn and ridicule. Fear would be conquered by releasing all instinctive inhibitions, to do your own thing, and to have the courage to reach out for one’s fullest potential without too much ado about moral restraints.

It is becoming obvious what to expect when one visits the office for a counseling session with many of today’s psychologists and psychiatrists. With the exception of a few biblically oriented psychologists, a person with emotional and mental problems who is seeking psychological counseling will be led to look at himself and come up with the solutions to his own problems. That is a lot of money for just a few hours of companionship.

The counselor might also tell you to break out of your established moral restrictions and be more permissive and free. “If you want to get drunk, have an affair, divorce your mate, smoke ‘pot,’ go do it. After all, there is no good or bad, right or wrong in and of itself. So, release your inhibitions and you will be happier as a result of unleashing those pentup emotions.”

Nelson E. Hinman stated that psychology, such as behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanism and transpersonal psychology, has its roots in philosophy, empiricism and evolution (An Answer to Humanistic Psychology). He gave the following diagram on page 49:

Philosophy tries to find reality without God, leaving psychologists and psychiatrists unable to explain man. God created man, and, therefore, knows man perfectly. He who made us, obviously, knows more about us than we know about ourselves. Empiricism or scientism says that man can know nothing except by sensory perception. Nothing can be ascertained unless it be examined by the physical senses. There is no way to know God by this method, and very little can be learned about man. There is a place for empiricism, but it does not provide all the information that is needed to correct man’s problems. Purpose of life, guilt, sin, love, morals, etc., cannot be solved by sensory perception.

Evolution greatly influences psychological evaluation and has tremendous potential influence over future social orders. Henry W. Broslin, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburg, said at the 1959 Centennial Convocation at the University of Chicago, “It is appropriate for psychiatrists and other students of mental disorders to pay homage to the work of Charles Robert Darwin and the theory of evolution, for without this work it is difficult to imagine what the state of our discipline would be like” (copies from The Twilight of Evolution, Henry M. Morris, p. 17). So, most of these modern psychiatrists and psychologists look at man as just a glorified ape in a chain of evolutionary development.

The Moral Bankruptcy of Psychology

As a result of psychology’s godless and non-biblical approach to man, words like “bad,” “wicked,” and “immoral,” have become old fashioned. “Sin” is an absolete word. Criminal acts are now symptoms and immoral conduct is euphemistically softened. There are no liars, but simply extroverts with imaginative talents. The drunkard is a sick alcoholic with an inferiority complex. Adultery is an affair or biological maladjustment. The murderer is the victim of early childhood trauma. As Dr. Karl Menninger wrote, “Whatever became of sin?”

Albert Ellis, Ph.D. and Robert A. Harper, Ph.D. psychologists, authored a book entitled, A New Guide To Rational Living (1975). In chapter 12 under the title, “How To Stop Blaming and Start Living,” they said, “The idea that we can label some people wicked or villainous springs from the ancient theological doctrine of free will. Although we cannot accurately say that humans have no free choice whatever, modern findings have shown that they have relatively little free will in the sense that this term usually gets employed in theological discussion. As Freud thought . . . . humans have genetic or inborn tendencies to behave in certain ways . . . . The idea that people emerge as ‘bad’ or ‘wicked’ as a result of their wrongdoings stems from a second erroneous notion: namely, the concept that we can easily define ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘ethical’ and ‘unethical’ behavior and that reasonable people can readily see when they act ‘right’ or ‘wrong.”‘

What a contrast to Dr. William Glasser, psychiatrist, who said, “But, whether we are loved or not, to be worthwhile we must- maintain a satisfactory standard of behavior” (Reality Therapy, p. 10). Dr. Glasser also said that “the conventional weakness of psychology and psychiatry has been that we have left out morality” (Quoted from Four Trojan Horses of Humanism, p. 34).

Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, psychiatrist wrote, “A major impetus behind this tendency to psychiatrize social problems arises from the vacuum of absolutes in our culture. This vacuum is associated with the decline of religious influence – the death of God, some claim . . . . Psychiatry has been willing to sanctify its values with the holy water of medicine and offer them up as the true faith of ‘Mental Health.’ It is a false Messiah” (The Death of Psychiatry, p. 107).

Humanistic psychology endeavors to make man feel great about himself while he is living in sin, debauchery and profligacy. Hinman’s approach to counseling is the proper way to begin when he wrote, “When people I counsel tell me how worthless they are, I always agree. I even tell them that they would probably feel worse if they knew how bad off they are as compared to what they could be in Christ. I then show them that God has a plan to transform them into the image of His Son. We start building and rebuilding from that point . . . . I try to get them to see themselves as God sees them – both as fallen, sinful creatures and as creatures that can become like Him” (Ibid., p. 93).

The Bible and Psychology

In conclusion, psychology may have some of the answers to some of the problems of man. But it certainly does not have all the answers. In fact, some of the answers it claims to have are wrong answers. Psychology is wrong when it extrapolates data from animal behavior and applies it to human behavior. There are too many variables in man: power of choice, ability to appreciate, to love, evaluate, to be evil or wicked, etc. Animal behavior sheds no light on these things.

The Bible is the only book that has all the answers to man’s real problems. God has granted unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). The Scriptures furnish us unto every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). In the Scriptures we learn how to be triumphant (2 Cor. 2:14), conquerors (Rom. 8:37), content (Phil. 4:11; 1 Tim. 6:6-8; Heb. 13:5). We can have our burdens lifted by the Lord (Matt. 11:28-30; 1 Pet. 5:7) and every physical necessity supplied (Matt. 6:33). In Christ there is hope that satisfies man’s yearning for life eternal (Col. 1:27; Tit. 2:13). All these things man can have by simply exercising his free will in obedience to God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gordon Allport, Harvard University psychology professor, said, “And we could probably prove that throughout history those Christians who have accomplished the most practical benefit in this world are those who believed most fervently in the next” (The Individual and His Religion, p. 22).

What the world needs is Jesus Christ and the Bible, not Sigmund Freud and godless psychology!

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 14, pp. 430-432, 443
July 19, 1984

By Robert E. Waldron

The home is the incubator of society. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world whether it is the hand of a loving, godly mother, or the hand of a state trained employee. Society needs but a generation to change if the minds of that generation can be trained from infancy in the new way.

For centuries it has been recognized that the first few years of a child’s life are the most crucial in forming his basic standards, beliefs, and attitudes. Therefore, the homes of a society have largely determined what that society is. Those who would manipulate society realize that adult minds are not the most pliable clay to work with. The ideal mind for him who would rebuild society is that of a small child. It is not surprising that humanists, acting as social architects, have concentrated on the field of education, and, the younger they can get their subjects, the better. This aim brings the guns of the humanists to bear on the home. We want to look at the ways in which humanism is at tacking the family. First, we will study the various legal, legislative, more direct methods that are being used, then the dangerous and highly successful insidious approaches. The National Education Association (NEA) is working to achieve humanist goals. One of their objectives is described in the NEA journal. An article entitled, “Forecast for the 70’s,” sets forth what amounts to a master plan for education. Notice the first point: “1. Educators will assume responsibility for children when they reach the age of two. Enforced or mandatory foster homes are to be available for children whose homes are felt to have a malignant influence.”(1)

A footnote adds this information which should be carefully noted by all in this election year: “In 1975, corresponding legislation in the form of the Child and Family Services Act was proposed by Senator Walter Mondale (D.-MN.), a Humanist. If passed, this legislation would, according to Representative E.G. Schuster (R.-PA.) permit the government ‘to legally intervene in the American family,’ in that it ‘repeatedly opens the door to increased governmental interference with the parental role.'”(2)

There are humanists scattered all along the spectrum of humanism. Some are complete radicals; others are mild. This variation makes it difficult to know what view truly represents humanistic philosophy. Another thing that makes it difficult to know whether humanists are expressing their true views is that there is nothing in their philosophy to keep them from lying if they think it will advance their cause. Most humanists are married, and one can find statements such as: “The institution of marriage, despite its faults, plays an indispensable role in the good life and the happy life . . . .” But the statement goes on to say that the state should allow for a quick, no-fault divorce. “We must take the lock out of wedlock . . . . “(3) Most humanists would go on record as approving of marriage, but at the same time, they would approve of other lifestyles and would make marriage a thing of convention and convenience, not of divine sanction.

Some of the most shrill and venomous statements made about the family have come from the feminists. In 1970, Roxanne Dunbar wrote: “The present female liberation movement, like the movement for black liberation and national liberation, has begun to identify strongly with Marxist class analysis.”(4) She begins section four with the question: “How will the family unit be destroyed?”(5)

Of course, one of the problems in destroying the family unit is who is going to look after the children? Dunbar says, “Our demand for full-time child care in the public schools will be met to some degree all over, and perhaps fully in places.”(6)

At this point our thread of thought goes back to the NEA “Master Plan,” mentioned above, in which educators would be given responsibility for children from the age of two upward.

Having heard these dire warnings, many begin to envision having to take their children and going out to hide in the rocks and the caves to avoid having their children taken away. At this point, even the humanists do not plan to take our children away. Do you know why? Because we are giving them away voluntarily! The humanists, feminists, and other enemies of the home will simply make it convenient for us to turn our children over to them. With so many mothers working out of the home (which is a strong part of their strategy), it is a constant problem to find some place to leave the kids, and there is the cost of baby-sitters. Would it not be convenient to have state day-care centers where you could dump, I mean leave your children, go to work or play, and come back that afternoon and pick them up?

In the whole subject of humanism, we are too often guilty of conjuring up a specter which frightens us to death, while the invisible enemy does his job with deadly efficiency, unnoticed. Public day-care centers, and especially state or federally sponsored ones, should be anathema to caring parents. These are the places which will be more accessible to the influence of humanist organizations. “Day Care is a powerful institution . . . . A day care program that ministers to a child from six months to six years has over 8,000 hours to teach him values, fears, beliefs, and behaviors.”(7)

Not only do humanists want to gain control of children as early as possible, but there are some who would like to be able to remove children from homes if those homes do too good a job countering the humanist line. One way in which this might be done is on the grounds of child abuse. In a work called Child Abuse.- A Pastoral Perspective, spanking, or any physical chastisement, is called child abuse. If one says, “God won’t like you if you don’t behave,” or “Honor your father and mother and don’t argue,” he is guilty of verbal abuse. This preposterous work also mentions sexual abuse and says that rejection by the parents of sex education for the child is a possible indicator of sexual abuse.(8)

Of course, if child abuse were to be proven (according to these humanistic guidelines), then the child could be taken and placed in a “proper” home. Quotations indicating a plan to be able to take children from the home can be multiplied. As pointed out above, some of the strongest statements on this subject come from the Women’s Liberation Movement. “With the destruction of the nuclear family must come a new way of looking at children. They must be seen as the responsibility of an entire society rather than individual parents.”(9) One of the most explicit quotes concerning the matter of children comes from Dr. Mary Jo Bane, Assistant Professor of Education at Wellesley College: “We really don’t know how to raise children. If we want to talk about equality of opportunity for children, then the fact that children are raised in families means there’s no equality. It’s a dilemma. In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them . . . . It (divorce) makes for better family life . . . . Divorce improves the quality of marriage.”(10)

Whether the humanists and feminists occupy the same position on getting the children out of the home or destroying the home, one thing is certain. They both are very determined to “terminate all religious and moral views except their own.

Let me deal now with the more insidious methods of humanism. The most effective platform and advocate for humanism is television. Television is totally dominated by humanists. Have you noticed that any time religion is portrayed on TV, it is either presented in a ridiculous, selfrighteous light, or it is shown as a faded, almost completely impotent force? Preachers are still listed as number one of those professions most admired and trusted. That kind of esteem for preachers does not set well with humanists. Have you noticed that preachers are presented either as rather comical, ineffective men who are not really important (Mulcahy on Mash who obviously does not measure up to the doctors), or as sadistic hypocrites or psychotics driven mad by their efforts to be strict?

Nearly all programs today center around sex. There is a message being taught. In a study of the people responsible for the television fare being offered today, this paragraph is found: “Moreover, two out of three believe that TV entertainment should be a major force for social reform. This is perhaps the single most striking finding in our study. According to television’s creators, they are not in it just for the money. They also seek to move their audiences toward their own vision of the good society.”(11) 

We should not limit our criticism of TV to its emphasis on sex. Its entire presentation of morality is either completely amoral or pragmatic. The networks also equate the good life with money and having things. Very few main characters are shown living in an average house of an average income family. The character drives a fine car, wears expensive clothes, drinks expensive wines, and lives in an apartment (or mansion) which has been professionally decorated. In other words, an artificial lifestyle is created and held before us as the ideal. Since most of us do not make fifty to a hundred thousand dollars a year, the wife has to go to work to help finance the American dream. And the peer pressure, which we accuse the teenagers of having such problems with, is so powerful that we will throw aside the kids, the Lord, and everything we have been taught, to keep up with the Jones.

Husbands and wives are taught that somewhere there is a better life, a more exciting man, a more alluring woman. Dissatisfaction is bred into our hearts. Women are made to feel unfulfilled if ‘all’ they do is bear and rear the children. They go out and get jobs where they work with men and women who are immoral, who live a fast life. Soon they feel shackled. They are not free to be themselves. Soon books show up on how to be an assertive woman. Many of these works ought to be called how to be a selfish per-son. Soon there is a divorce. The couple is lost, the children are lost, and a little more of society crumbles.

We who are Christians, fighting the good fight of faith, are going to have to find our swords and refurbish our armor (Eph. 6:10-18). We need to reorder our priorities. When we let our children watch TV unsupervised, allow them to go (and go ourselves) to PG movies, in which nudity and strong sexual innuendo are found, and to R-rated movies, where nudity is shown, where the sex act is depicted, and where traumatizing violence is shown, when we pretend that the laws of nature governing male and female relationships are suspended so that boys and girls, men and women can hold each other’s body while dancing, or look upon each other’s almost unclad body with no lascivious effect, we are deceiving ourselves. We are showing that our “fight” against humanism is a pretense, and we are making a mockery of the call to “come ye out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Cor. 6:17).

The churches are badly infected and sick and swollen with worldliness and materialism. There are many churches where a preacher who is known to be strict on moral issues is not welcome. We are the church. Our problem is at home. It is in our hearts. If we are serious about fighting humanism, we must realize that it is not the only enemy, and that the only way we can fight all the enemies of truth is by preparing our hearts to seek God, and by putting on the whole armor of God. “Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).

Endnotes

1. Today’s Education, “Forecast for the 70’s, ” January, 1969. Quoted in The Siecus Circle, Claire Chambers, p. 273.

2. Ibid., pp. 273, 274.

3. Ashley Montagu, quoted in The Child Seducer, John Steinbacher, page 341. Quoted in Gospel Anchor, December, 1982, p. 15.

4. Roxanne Dunbar, “Fernale Liberation as the Basis for Social Revolution,” in Sisterhood is Powerful, ed. by Robin Morgan (New York: Vintage Books A Division of Random House, 1970), p. 486.

5. Ibid., p. 488.

6. Ibid., p. 488.

7. White House Conference on Children, Report to the President, 1970, p. 278.

8. Mary Krider, “Toward Non-Violent Parenting,” Child Abuse, Jefferson County Child Abuse Authority. Quoted in Gospel Anchor, December 1982, pp. 19, 20.

9. The Document. declaration of feminism, cited in bulletin from Citizens Forum, date NA.

10. Dr. Mary Jo Bane, quoted in an AP story in Tulsa Sunday World, August 21, 1977.

11. Hollywood and America.- The Odd Couple, quoted in the NFD (National Federation of Decency) Informer, March, 1983.

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 14, pp. 425-427
July 19, 1984

By Mike Willis

As a philosophy, humanism has several goals. Among some of humanism’s positive goals are: (1) freedom in the realm of civil liberties; (2) world peace; (3) elimination of poverty; (4) world unity; etc. These aspirations may be summarized by saying that humanism hopes to make this world “heaven” on earth. Humanists deny life after death and are concentrating their energies on improving this world.

Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful. They distract humans from present concerns, from self-actualization, and from rectifying social injustices.(1)

Man’s most sacred duty, and at the same time his most glorious opportunity, is to promote the maximum fulfilment of the evolutionary process on this earth; and this includes the fullest realization of his own inherent possibilities.(2)

Humanists may be divided into two classes with references to the goals which they hope to achieve in life: (1) egocentric humanists and (2) cultural humanists. The egocentric humanists understand that the greatest goal in life is personal fulfillment and gratification(3); the cultural humanists understand that the greatest goal in life is to improve the society or culture in which we live (in which case the personal whims should be subordinated to the good of society).(4) Cultural humanists look to make earth a utopia.

When death comes, all is over according to humanist philosophy. Man’s personal enjoyments and satisfactions are all behind and there is nothing before him. “Like the little dog Rover,” the humanists teach, “once man is dead, he is dead all over.” If society has not been improved and the utopian life has not been accomplished, man’s chiefest good has failed and his life is ended. There is nothing but the bleakness and darkness of death before him.

However, humanists believe and hope that a utopia can be brought into existence. How is this to be accomplished? Who is going to bring this utopia into existence? Who is man’s “savior”? According to the humanists, man is his own savior.

Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.(5)

Heaven is, therefore, not a thing of another world, and is to be sought in this life and it is the task of believers to establish this Heaven, the Kingdom of God, here on earth. Just as there is no Heaven in the beyond, there is also no Hell and no damnation. Similarly, there is no devil but man’s evil lusts and greed. Christ was a man as we are, a prophet and a teacher, and his Eucharist is a mere commemoration meal wherein bread and wine are consumed without any mystic garnishing.(6)

If man is going to accomplish his goals, he is going to have to do it himself. He is going to have to “pull himself up by his own bootstraps.” We can have no confidence in a God providentially directing the course of history. He cannot look forward to some ethereal “heaven.” His only life is here and he alone is in control of it.

How is man to accomplish his goals? What instrument must be used to save mankind? The humanist responds, “Science!”

Humanism, having its ultimate faith in man, believes that human beings possess the power or potentiality of solving their own problems, through reliance primarily upon reasons and scientific method applied with courage and vision.(7)

With faith in the scientific method, humanists have elevated “science” above its legitimate sphere. Gordon H. Clark, renowned philosopher, wrote,

Finally, to show the uselessness of science outside of its own restricted sphere, science cannot determine its own value. No doubt, science enables man to dominate nature. By science bombs are made and cancer may soon be cured. Most people think that bombs and medicine are good to have. But there is no experiment that proves their goodness. They are undoubtedly “good for” something; they are effective means to an end. But can experimentation demonstrate that either the destruction of cities or the extension of life is good?(8)

Humanists believe that science has rather unlimited potential as a means of improving life on this earth.

We believe the scientific method, though imperfect, is still the most reliable way of understanding the world. Hence, we look to the natural, biological, social, and behavioral science for knowledge of the universe and man’s place within it . . . . We are thus opposed in principle to any efforts to censor or limit scientific research without an overriding reason to do so.(9)

If scientists want to experiment with genetic engineering to make all white babies, six feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, they should be left free to conduct their experiments. This would be a means of enabling man to reach his highest human potential and to establish the greatest society on earth.

A Christian Response To The Hope of Humanism

Because humanists deny the existence of God and life after death, they have missed the greatest goal of human existence: to please God and to so live as to go to heaven when one dies. Solomon wrote, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Eccl. 12:13-14). Jesus asked, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). The chief goal in life is to please God, to live in such a way that Jesus will receive us unto Himself after life is over saying, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).

The goals of humanism, personal self-fulfillment and the improvement of society, are the by-products of faithful obedience to God. By denying the existence of God and disobeying God’s will, humanists make the attainments of their own goals impossible. They imagine that revelation limits man, inhibiting the full exercise of human liberty.

Much of the emphasis in supernaturalist ethics has been negative calling on men continually to deny many of their most wholesome impulses in order to keep their souls pure and undefiled for that life after death which is so very much more important than life before death.(10)

The humanists attitude toward the commandments of God reminds me of the fable of the fish who felt restricted and bound by the banks of the shore. He would look longingly at the green grass on the bank and lament, “If only I was not inhibited and restricted by those banks, I could really be free. ” Soon, he decided that he was going to break out of the restraints imposed on him. He swam round and round the pond, building up his speed, and then darted full speed toward one of the banks. When he flounced out of the water and into the shore, he exclaimed, “Now I am free! ” Of course, he soon discovered that he was not as free as he thought he would be, that he functioned best in water instead of out of it, and that he was only “free” to die outside the water.

In a similar way, God’s restrictions on man are for man’s own good (cf. Deut. 6:24; 10:13). By making our highest goal to fear God and keep His commandments, one finds personal fulfillment and the improvement of society.

Man is personally fulfilled in obeying the commandments of God. Jesus promised to give us life saying, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). He would provide that which would satisfy the longing of men’s souls. “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water -springing up into everlasting life” (Jn. 4:14). When man tries to live while denying this need, he will constantly be searching for something to fill it. Whatever he puts in its place will only be temporarily gratifying. That which provides permanent happiness will continue to elude him until he turns to the worship and service of God. Humanism promises what it cannot live! Humanists are like the false teachers in Peter’s day who “promise liberty” but are “servants of corruption” (2 Pet. 2:19).

Can Humanists Create A Utopia?

The humanists who promise that the world can be improved through humanism are promising what they have not and cannot deliver. We do not have to wonder whether or not humanists are able to create their idealized utopia; we can look and see.

Communism is one kind of humanism. We can judge the fruits of humanism and judge for ourselves whether or not humanism has delivered what it promises. Humanism promises personal freedom. Has it delivered? The most repressive governments in existence are those under the influence of humanism. Humanism promises tolerance for other view points. Has it delivered? The governments which give least opportunity to express divergent points of view are humanistic.(11) Humanists promise free inquiry. What have they delivered? The humanist governments limit inquiry more than most others. Humanists promise better educational institutions. What have they delivered? Under the leadership of humanists such as John Dewey, the American educational system has degenerated below the standards of other nations. In humanists controlled countries such as Russia, education is provided only for a limited few.

Humanists promise mature moral decisions by those who accept the principles of humanism. What have they Jelivered? As humanist morality has become more widely accepted in America, we have seen these results: (1) the murder of 1.5 million infants a year in abortion chambers across our land; (2) the acceptance of homosexual relationships as morally upright; (3) social acceptance of many’ sins(12)

; (4) easy divorce and remarriage; (5) increased numbers of child abuse; (6) development of AIDS disease; (7) increase of crime to such an extent that one fears to walk the streets; etc. Humanism promises a utopian society which it cannot deliver!

Man Has A Savior

All is not hopeless, however. Man has a Savior – a Savior who can redeem one from the guilt of his personal sins, who can give a person fulfillment, and who can save society from disaster. The Savior of Man, Jesus Christ, died on Calvary’s cross to redeem mankind, including humanists, from sin. Whatever sins one might have committed can be forgiven through the precious blood of Christ. The one who turns to Christ can find the peace which passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7).

Christ makes a better man out of His disciple. The man who lives according to Christ’s word will be a model citizen with reference to his government (Rom. 13:1-7); he will not lead revolutions, burn down buildings, and loot shops. He will be the kind of husband who rules his family with love, showing the same kind of love to his wife as he has for himself (Eph. 5:25). He will raise his children to respect God, His word, civil authorities, his parents, his elders (cf. the book of Proverbs). On the job, the Christian will give an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay (Eph. 6:5-6). The Christian employer will pay a fair and honest wage to his employees (Jas. 5:14). As more and more people are converted to Christ, the society will be purified. As righteousness permeates the people, it will exalt the nation (Prov. 14:34). Christianity can produce what humanism promises but has not and cannot produce!

What is more is that Christianity promises life after death with God in heaven! If humanism could produce everything that it promises, it could only produce something as good as Christianity on earth. It has not and cannot produce what it promises, however. Humanism denies the existence of heaven and has nothing in its system that can compare to life with God after death. Christianity’s superiority is seen in that it promises the life which is life indeed here and now and life with God after this life has ended (1 Tim. 4:8).

Let us not be deceived by humanism and its unfounded optimism which promises a utopian society. Experiments in humanism have produced totalitarian governments, reduced human liberties, oppressed divergent views, limited free speech and free press, and produced other social evils. Man’s only hope is in Christ. Paul wrote that Christ “in you” is “the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). That remains true today. There is no other place to turn. Christ has the words of life (Jn. 6:68). He is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6). We waste our time in looking elsewhere for life and truth!

Endnotes

1. Humanist Manifesto II, p. 16.

2. Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation, p. 194.

3. Ayn Rand expressed this concept by saying that “man – every man – is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose” (quoted by Norman L. Geisler in Is Man The Measure?, p. 70).

4. Marxist humanists fall into this category. Through the years, Communist countries have thought little of eliminating those who retarded social progress or the good of the state.

5. Humanist Manifesto I, p. 10.

6. Friedrich Engels, Marx and Engels On Religion, pp. 111- 112.

7. Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, p. 13.

8. Gordon H. Clark, The Philosophy of Science and Beliefln God, p. 95.

9. A Secular Humanist Declaration, p. 20.

10. Lamont, op. cit., p. 228.

11. American humanists sought to divorce themselves from their Marxist brothers in A Secular Humanist Declaration. They wrote, “This declaration defends only that form of secular humanism which is explicitly committed to democracy” (p. 7). In the document itself, however, the humanists called for an end to religious oaths and prayers in public facilities, a state sponsored education system to teach the system of values of humanism, and the teaching of only evolution as the explanation of the origin of man (pp. 12,16,20). Corliss Lamont’s book, The Philosophy ofHumanism, contained a “Foreword” which was rather intolerant of the Moral Majority and other dissenting voices. Humanism has not shown itself to be tolerant of divergent views.

12. “It is not clear that people today actually behave in a more sinful way than their ancestors did. What is undeniably different, however, is how they think about their sins. A skewed psychology not only recognizes neurotic guilt, which is real and a perversion of genuine moral sense, but equates all sense of sin with such guilt and defines it as sick. There is no longer the possibility of repentance, because the sin itself is rationalized, even proclaimed virtuous. Repentance is ruled out as a product of neurotic guilt which stifles personal growth. Sins of the flesh, traditionally regarded in Christianity as the least serious because mostly the result of weakness rather than pride, have now been turned into sins of pride. The sinner wears his sin as a badge of honor, boasts of his emancipation from all moral authority, and, in effect, dares God to judge him” (James Hitchcock, What Is Secular Humanism, p. 75).

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 14, pp. 418, 432-434
July 19, 1984

By Daniel H. King

Upon first consideration one would think that secular humanism would have very little to do with religion. If both concepts are properly defined they appear to be mortal enemies. In fact, however, they have come to be friends in some cases. How that came to be was not because humanism changed so radically as to befriend religion. Nor has humanism surrendered its atheistic creed. It is the other way around. Religion, in many of its contemporary manifestations, has redefined itself to such an extent as to offer little or no threat to secular humanistic ideals. Humanism on its part has decided to accept this redefinition of itself by a new and secularized “religion” and make peace with this impotent brand of piety.

“Fundamentalism,” “traditionalism,” and “biblical literalism” are now the targets of those onslaughts once aimed at religion per se. It is our goal in the paragraphs below to explain the tie that binds some modern practitioners of religion to secular humanism. The most natural place to begin is with the Unitarian Church.

Unitarian Universalism

Unitarians have been in the forefront of the introduction of secular humanism into modern life. Their apparent connection with religion has given them a cloak of religious piety with which to deceive. It has made of them an ideological bridge over which has traveled, from German and American philosophical “think-tanks” into the mainstream of society, the most avant garde secularism. Where secular humanism is making great strides, whether in the political, social, or religious sphere, you can be sure there are Unitarian figures working either out in the open or behind the scenes to bring about those gains.

Unitarian and universalist tendencies were born long before our present era, but for our purposes it is not necessary to examine the essential roots of either. It will suffice to note that as early as 1553 there was a connection between Unitarian religion and humanism. Michael Servetus, a Neoplatonic Unitarian, i.e. one who denied the Trinity because of the acceptance of the “ineffable One” as the basis of reality, was burned at the stake in 1553. He had fled from the Roman Catholic Inquisition to John Calvin’s Geneva because he had been declared a heretic. His death caused Sebastian Castellio, a liberal humanist, to plead for religious toleration. Unitarianism found a friend in humanism from the outset. They were both based upon human reason rather than biblical revelation. Therefore, they were quite naturally drawn to each other.

In England a scientist and dissenting minister named Joseph Priestley began in the late 1700’s to preach an overt “Unitarian Christianity”: Jesus as man, the primacy of reason and morals, scientific determinism, materialism, and political reform. Out of this new preaching came the British and Foreign Unitarian Association (1825). After a period of division and controversy between warring factions, the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches was formed (1928). They remain an important movement in the British Isles today.

American Unitarianism developed out of the Congregational churches of eastern Massachusetts. Over against the preaching of revivalists of the 18th century, Congregational ministers stressed reason and morals and preached moderation. In 1803 conflict arose between liberals and conservatives over the appointment of a professor of theology at Harvard University, and unwillingly the moderates found themselves labeled Unitarians. Legal battles over church property left the Unitarians in possession of churches founded by their Puritan ancestors in and around Boston. In 1825, on the same day as its British counterpart, the American Unitarian Association was founded, with headquarters in Boston. In the mid 1800’s rationalist, biblical Unitarianism was gradually replaced by institutional religion and social idealism. Christianity and the Bible became obsolete as human aspiration and scientific theory took over. In 1900 the International Association for Liberal Christianity and Religious Freedom was established as this element in Unitarianism came to predominate. During the 1920’s “humanism” – a non-theistic, anti supernatural Unitarianism -arose and moved Unitarians suddenly into their present mode. In 1961 Unitarians merged with the Universalists in a new united church, the American Unitarian Universalist Association.

As Unitarianism became more and more liberal in its thinking, -its leading lights came to see God “not as First Cause prefixed to the scheme of things, but as Indwelling Life pervading it” (Martineau). One result of this view is the Unitarian concept of humanism, which is agnostic about God and emphasizes the human condition and scientific progress. According to the U.S. Unitarian historian E.M. Wilbur, Unitarian history shows a steady drive toward freedom, reason, and tolerance. Unitarians have been especially responsive to the spirit of the age in which they live, and have been leaders and transmitters of current thought.

Religious Liberalism

Modernist thinking pervades most of the larger denominations today. And, wherever religious liberalism has become fashionable, humanism has moved in behind it. James Hitchcock, in his book What is Smular Humanism?, has confirmed this connection. He speaks of the “gradual abandonment of one wall after another,” that is, the giving up of one significant religious principle after another – until all is lost. He describes the progression in liberal religious thinking, beginning with the earliest positions and moving to the present (pp. 121-122):

1. While the Bible as a whole is inspired, certain passages not compatible with modern science, e.g. the creation accounts, are human inventions.

2. While certain miracles central to the Christian faith, especially Christ’s resurrection from the dead, must be believed, other miracle accounts in Scripture are merely expressions of simpler people.

3. Christians must believe that Christ rose from the dead. However, they need not believe that the tomb was empty on the morning of the third day. The Resurrection can be understood as his continuing spiritual presence among his disciples.

4. While Jesus was certainly the only begotten Son of God, secondary beliefs merely meant to reinforce that, e.g. his virgin birth, need not be believed.

5. While God was certainly present in Jesus in a special way, it is not meaningful to speak of him as the Son of God in the traditional sense.

6. What is central to Christianity is the message of salvation brought by Christ and uniquely achieved through him. The circumstances of this redemption are subject to varying interpretations.

7. To speak of man’s being “saved” by Jesus presents problems since many people do not feel a need of being saved. Jesus is better seen as the greatest moral teacher in the history of the world and Christianity as the pinnacle of world religions.

8. To regard Jesus as unique, and his teaching as superior to that of other religious leaders like the Buddha is arrogant cultural chauvinism. God reveals himself in every culture in different ways.

9. Whatever one may think about the various religions of the world, what is crucial is to believe in an all-powerful God who created the universe and sustains it in being.

10. The word “God” is one which men have used throughout history to refer to some ultimate reality which is the deepest dimension of existence. Personalization of God, and talk about his being creator and lord of the universe, are merely means men have used to make that awareness more vivid to themselves.

What has brought contemporary liberalism to this point? What has made liberals so disposed to “give ground” at every attack by modern thought upon Christianity and its most essential foundational principles? Basic presuppositions are the answer. Hitchcock (pp. 129-130) outlines the basic tenets of contemporary religious liberalism and through them explains this willingness to compromise at every juncture:

1. All religious beliefs are the product of developing human experience and inquiry and, as such, have no special authoritative status.

2. All moral principles are of the same nature. Hence there are no moral absolutes. Right and wrong are essentially determined in accordance with the needs and desires of individuals in particular situations.

3. Two thousand years of Christianity are largely irrelevant to the present, and those aspects of that history still relevant can be made so only by radical reinterpretation.

4. Christianity has no claim to superior status among the religions of the world. All the great religions partake of the truth in accordance with their own cultures and historical situations.

5. The history of Christianity is filled with errors and pernicious evils perpetrated by the church. This is true not only of unworthy behavior of individual Christians, or of distortion of Christian teaching, but of the very nature of historical Christianity.

6. Since religion is mostly the result of human searching and experience, men find their surest and most reliable guides not primarily in the church, or in Christian doctrine (the Bible) but in secular intellectual disciplines and human experience generally. The teaching of the church must be endlessly reformulated in accordance with these.

Such presuppositions logically lead liberals to sacrifice whatever element of spiritual truth the god of intellectual respectability demands. They have compromised with skepticism for so long that they have become skeptics themselves. There is little that they can say for sure any more. Everything is relative. Every truth is true only for now. Tomorrow it may be false. At any rate it will need to undergo some revision periodically, to bring it into line with the latest way of expressing what is true.

How is religion possible at all in an environment of this kind? Only through a complete overhaul of what religion once was. Hitchcock (pp. 130-131) offers this further characterization:

1. Authoritative Christian documents, whether the Bible, historic creeds, or other statements, are either ignored as irrelevant or employed only to the degree that they seem to fit with current secular preoccupations.

2. Worship is regarded primarily as a human experience, not as a way of paying homage to God. Worship services (and sermons) are structured in such a way as to create a sense of community and belonging among the worshipers, with little regard for the transcendental dimension of the action.

3. Christians are not encouraged to have a strong personal sense of their dependence of God’s Providence. God is thought not to intervene in the affairs of men, so that human problems are to be solved through human means only.

4. A personal sense of fulfillment or satisfaction is taken as the ultimate criterion of truth. Thus religious doctrines and practices are kept or discarded to the degree that they seem “meaningful” to the individual. The concept of objective religious truth is effectively denied. The purpose of religion is thought to be the achievement of a subjective sense of spiritual well-being by the individual.

5. All morality is provisional only. Many of the past moral teachings of the church, especially with regard to sex, are now seen as pernicious and deforming. Since personal “need” is the ultimate guide to conduct and since personal fulfillment is the chief aim of existence the liberal often leads a life at odds with traditional Christian morality.

Much of liberal religion is now utterly empty, its content having been gradually drained away over the years. This has created a tremendous spiritual vacuum in the hearts of its people. Many members of liberal churches do not know why they belong. Membership is in fact on the decline. Hitchcock suggests that “by the end of this century, many of the liberal churches will no longer call themselves Christian and will make no special effort to keep alive Christian traditions in doctrine, worship, or ethics. Local churches will have allowed themselves to be transformed into all-purpose community centers in which many kinds of presumably beneficial activities go on but in which no special religious claims are made” (p. 138).

Unitarianism and Liberalism

In his book Our Liberalism Movement in Theology, J. H. Allen said: “The liberalizing of theology has been in some sense the work of Unitarianism from the first. That process includes two distinct steps. One of these steps must be taken by the aid of historical criticism, and the other by the aid of natural science” (p. 124). Allen is correct, in spite of the fact that scholars from other religious denominations have contributed to its progress. From the first Unitarians were not hampered by the theory of the verbal infallibility of the Bibles; and they were therefore prepared to advance the critical work of scholars as it came to them from England and Germany, as was no other religious body in this country.

Two men are illustrative of the leadership role of Unitarianism in this respect. The first is Professor Andrews Norton of Harvard. Norton, a Unitarian, was the author of several important theological works (Historical Evidences of the Genuines of the Gospels, 1837-1844; Internal Evidences of the Genuiness of the Gospels, 1855). In his books he discarded the first two chapters of Matthew, regarding them as later additions to the original document. Also, in an extended note in volume 2 of Genuiness of the Gospels, he denied the Mosaic authorship of Genesis and said that it was not to be accepted as genuine history. Statements of this type are commonplace today among biblical scholars, but then they were rare indeed.

Another Unitarian at Harvard who early showed a willingness to depart from the accepted limits of biblical studies was George Rapall Noyes. Noyes was professor of Hebrew and Biblical Literature in the Harvard Divinity School in 1840 when he wrote that the truth of the Christian religion does not in any sense depend upon the literal fulfillment of any predictions of the Old Testament by Jesus as a person. He said that the apostles partook of the errors and prejudices of their age, that the commonly received doctrine of the inspiration of the whole Bible is a millstone about the neck of Christianity, and that the Bible contains much that cannot be regarded as revelation.

Thus Unitarians, from the first oriented in the direction of humanism, were at the head of the movement which plunged contemporary theology into the mainstream of liberal thought.

Humanism and Religion

In the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I the authors of that document did not deny the existence of God. But the whole thrust of the document was to deny that belief in God could, or ought to have any practical effect. Whether or not God is thought to exist, man must live as if he did not exist. The Manifesto contained affirmations that pertained to religion. For example, there are the following:

1. Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

5. Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values . . . . Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.

6. We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of “new thought.”

7. Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation – all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no ionger be maintained.

9. In place of the old attitudes in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.

One may note that under point number seven the word “religion” is redefined so as to make of it no religion at all (which is the only way secular humanism can coexist peacefully with any sort of religion). Yet “religion” is, by definition, “the personal commitment to and serving of God or a god with worshipful devotion . . . ” (Webster’s Third). It is only from this meaning that others derive. In the vocabulary of humanists, however, it has become a term with which to deceive. Humanistic “ministers” go about putting on a facade of piety’, utilizing the vocabulary of religion, and denying the very existence of the One whom religion itself is supposed to honor. They are the most transparent case of “wolves in sheep’s clothing” in religion today (Matt. 7:15).

About the only religions with which secular humanism can feel comfortable are those that have been emptied of their content by rationalism and modernism. The Unitarians, Universalists, and a few others are among the few that qualify. Other large denominations, especially those associated with the World Council of Churches, are already so completely humanistic in their orientation that there is little real “religion” left in them.

The most recent of the humanist declarations, published in 1980, is A Secular Humanist Declaration. Among its signers are: Khoren Arisian, Paul Beattie, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church and president of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists; Joseph L. Blau, professor emeritus of religion, Columbia University; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical School; Herbert Schneider of the Freedom from Religion Foundation; and Sherwin Wine, rabbi for the Birmingham Temple and founder of the Society for Humanistic Judaism. These names certainly illustrate the close affinity that exists between some religion and Secular Humanism. These men signed their names to a document that expressed “religious skepticism” in the following words:

As secular humanists we are generally skeptical about supernatural claims. We recognize the importance of religious experience: that experience that redirects and gives meaning to the lives of human beings. We deny, however, that such experiences have anything to do with the supernatural. We are doubtful of traditional views of God and divinity. Symbolic and mythological interpretations of religion often serve as rationalizations for a sophisticated minority, leaving the bulk of mankind to flounder in theological confusion. We consider the universe to be a dynamic scene of natural forces that are most effectively understood by scientific inquiry. We arc always open to the discovery of new possibilities and phenomena in nature. However, we find that traditional views of the existence of God either are meaningless, have not yet been demonstrated to be true, or are tyrannically exploitative. Secular humanists may be agnostics, atheists, rationalists, or skeptics, but they find insufficient evidence for the claim that some divine purpose exists for the universe. They reject the idea that God has intervened miraculously in history or revealed himself to a chosen few, or that he can save or redeem sinners. They believe that men are free and responsible for their own destinies and that they cannot look toward some transcendent Being for salvation. We reject the divinity of Jesus, the divine mission of Moses, Mohammed, and other latter day prophets and saints of the various sects and denominations. We do not accept as true the literal interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, the Koran, or other allegedly sacred religious documents . . . (pp. 17-18).

Two other brief points of current news are noteworthy in connection with what we have said above:

Walter Mondale’s brother Lester is a Unitarian minister, Ethical Culture leader, and current Chairman of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists. Walter Mondale, in a speech given to the Fifth Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in 1971, said: “Although I have never formally joined a humanist society, I think I am a member by inheritance. My preacher father was a humanist … and I grew up on a very rich diet of humanism from him.” His father’s name appears on the list of those who signed Humanist Manifesto I in 1933. One can be assured that if Mr. Mondale is elected president he will throw his weight behind every liberal cause around and will return us to the days of the Jimmy Carter presidency, a time when Secular Humanism reigned supreme in government.

The North American Man/Boy Love Association, the organization which feels that it should not be illegal to have homosexual relations with children of any age, recently held its seventh annual meeting in Boston. Charley Shively, a leader in the Boston area, speaking to the conference said he wished to attack a presupposition . . . that parents have a hereditary right to their children, that parents have a right to their children that we do not have.” The National Coalition of Gay Organizations has officially supported the Man-Boy Love group since 1972. The International Gay Association recently voted the group into its membership. And the New York City Community Council of Lesbian-Gay Organizations also has admitted the Man-Boy group. Special note should be taken at the fact that the meeting of the homosexual group was held at the Arlington Street Unitarian Church in Boston.

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 14, pp. 419-422
July 19, 1984