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Thrill killers, the ACLU, Benjamin Spock, and C. S. Lewis

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : September 13, 2013
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Category: Archives, Culture Wars, Worldview

Two young men and their driver (all ages 15 to 17) residing in a small rural town in southern Oklahoma allegedly killed a twenty-two year old college student from Australia by shooting him in the back while he jogged down a road. The only motive mentioned by one of the alleged perpetrators was “boredom”. Within a week another random attack killed an 88-year-old World War II veteran in Spokane, Washington. The two 16-year-old killers’ only motive was robbery. The man was only slightly above five feet tall and died of severe head injuries. What threat could this diminutive 88-year old man have posed to cause the 16-year-olds to beat him to death? These are but two instances among hundreds if not thousands occurring in the United States each year.

Few people in America are unaware of the recent spate of so-called “thrill killings” in various parts of the country. Headlines blaze and talk shows buzz. People shake their heads and use adjectives such as “senseless, heatless, and soulless.” The first reaction to these irrational takings of human life is incomprehension, then anger. We wonder why all of this is happening with increasing frequency and heinousness. Then a quiet sense of unease casts a pall over our minds as we see the evil that is rooted in our being, that indelible hereditary sin stain that has passed down to us from our first ancestor. Either as victim or perpetrator, we wonder, “There but for the grace of God, go I …”

Pundits and experts search for motives and causes that can be addressed and treated, or they attempt to fix the blame on some failure of society or some perceived culpable villains (i.e., the perpetrator becomes the victim). The solutions come in all shapes and sizes including more laws, more regulation, or added layers of social engineering. But the real culprit is the domination of American institutions and popular culture by those holding the humanistic worldview. Always ready with excuses, reasons, and solutions, the humanists with humanistic answers merely exacerbate the trauma inflicted on a society whose central cultural vision is no longer anchored to the biblical worldview.

It has been a half century since prayer was allowed in American schools. The posting of the Ten Commandments in schools and on our public buildings is now illegal. Young people are not taught the values upon which this nation was founded. In fact, they are taught that there are no absolutes, no right or wrong, and all religions and belief systems have equal value.

Unrestrained by tradition or other moral force, popular culture denigrates the central cultural vision upon which the nation was founded. Tradition, by itself, can only maintain a central cultural vision for a time as the moral capital accumulated from adherence to that vision is eroded. If a society’s central vision is corrupt or false, that rebellion may be a good thing if one assumes that there are moral absolutes of right and wrong, truth and falsity. But a popular culture that misreads and wars against the validity of a morally sound central cultural vision will cause that culture to disintegrate. [Johnson, p. 367.]

Oklahoma’s State Capitol is seventy miles north of the little town of Duncan where three bored youths allegedly shot Chris Lane who died in the ditch where he fell. On the grounds of the State Capitol stands a monument paid for with private funds and inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The sixth commandment reads “You shall not murder” (NKJV). Six days after the murder of Chris Lane, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against Capital Preservation Commission of the State of Oklahoma, seeking removal of the monument. The suit states that, “This piece of public property, placed upon public property, conveys an explicit religious message that supports and endorses the faiths and creeds of some churches and sects.” Brady Henderson, Legal Director with the Oklahoma ACLU, stated “Our constitution makes it clear you cannot use state property and state resources to support a particular religion and this monument does just that.” [Fox News.com]

In answer to Mr. Henderson’s interpretation of the Constitution, we once again return to the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison, reputed to be the father of the Constitution which speaks volumes about Story’s understanding of the Founders’ meaning with regard to the Constitution and its Amendments).

…We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general and especially to Christianity which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution…Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and of the Amendments to it, the general, if not universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State…An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation (condemnation), if not universal indignation. [Barton, p. 32.]

One wonders if any of the killers in Duncan, Oklahoma and Spokane, Washington would have had second thoughts about their actions if at some point during their school years a copy of the Ten Commandments had been posted on their school room wall and a teacher had taken the time to explain what each commandment meant.

Even prominent humanists recognize the loss of our fundamental values in American society. One such was Benjamin Spock, famous for his baby care book. His life’s work and influence greatly advanced the humanistic worldview in America. He remained a champion of humanism throughout his life, and his efforts were recognized when he was named Humanist of the Year in 1968. In 1994, four years before the end of his life at age ninety, Spock wrote A Better World for Our Children – Rebuilding American Family Values. In the book Spock expressed considerable concern as he viewed the harmful effects of society on American children.

I am near despair. My despair comes not only from the progressive loss of values in this century, but from the fact that present society is simply not working. Societies and people who live in them fall apart if they lose their fundamental beliefs, and the signs of this loss are everywhere. [Spock, p. 15.]

Amazingly, Spock remained oblivious to humanism’s disintegrating effects and did not see that the ills of society are a direct result of well over a century of humanism’s dominance in American life as it stripped away our fundamental beliefs instilled by a biblical worldview. In his book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis captured the essence of this cultural madness brought about by the unwitting soldiers in the army of the “knowledge class” having been indoctrinated with a humanistic worldview.

It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them a chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth…It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so. All the time…we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible…In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. [Lewis, p. 704.]

America is losing its fundamental beliefs. America’s original central cultural vision is held together by the moral capital banked decades ago but is near depletion. Faced with a hostile popular culture and leadership in our American institutions that embrace the humanistic worldview, we are in critical danger of forever losing the central cultural vision established by the Founders—those men with chests.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 367.

“ACLU sues to remove Oklahoma 10 Commandments Monument” Fox News.com, August 22, 2013. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/22/aclu-sues-to-remove-oklahoma-10-commandments-monument/#ixzz2dHrcZwgM (accessed August 28, 2013).

David Barton, The Myth of Separation, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 1989), p. 32.

Dr. Benjamin M. Spock, A better World for Our Children – Rebuilding American Family Values, (Bethesda, Maryland: National Press Books, 1994), p. 15.

C. S. Lewis, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, (New York: Harper One, 1944, 1947, 1971, 1974), p. 704.

The Baby Veronica Case: Symptom of America’s eroding central cultural vision

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : September 6, 2013
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Category: Archives, Culture Wars

Veronica is the little four-year-old girl who is at the center of an epic custody battle between her South Carolina adoptive parents and her biological father. A member of the Cherokee Tribe, the father agreed to give custody to the birth mother four months after Veronica’s birth but claims he had not known the birth mother had placed her up for adoption. The adoptive parents raised Veronica from her birth in 2009 to December 2011 when the biological father won custody from a South Carolina Court under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 which gives a tribe the right to intervene in custody cases of children with any degree of Indian blood. However, in June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that that the Indian Child Welfare Act didn’t automatically guarantee the father custody. The South Carolina Supreme Court took custody away from the father and gave it to the adoptive parents. The South Carolina Court issued an order for the father to surrender custody immediately after he failed to bring Veronica to a court-ordered visitation with the adoptive parents. The child was never surrendered to the adoptive parents and remains in Oklahoma in the custody of the father while he awaits extradition to South Carolina to face felony charges for custodial interference. [Tulsa World, 8-25-13, 9-5-13.]

Indian tribes have become aggressive in not only defending but expanding tribal sovereignty into many areas of American life heretofore undreamed of. As a result many of the rights of Indians and tribal sovereignty are now superior to many of the rights of all Americans and the laws that govern them. The ICWA of 1978 is but one example. Under the guise of preserving tribal culture, the tribes have used law to prevent adoption of Indian children by non-Indians. The rationale for tribal interventions is summarized by the remarks of Terry Cross, executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association.

Tribal culture remains much alive and part of daily life. That culture is absorbed by living with your family and being with the extended family of your tribe and clan. If children grow up never knowing that way of life, they might not realize what they’ve missed. But that doesn’t make the loss any less real. This is about the rights of children to have their heritage and their culture. It’s about the rights of an Indian child to be raised Indian. [Tulsa World, 8-25-13.]

Mr. Cross’s statements raise a multitude of questions and problems for a society and culture already reeling from the disintegrating effects of the ascending humanistic worldview.

• To what degree of blood constitutes an Indian? In other words, how much Indian blood does it take to be an Indian—1/16th or 1/32nd or 1/64th or 128th? Does even one drop of Indian blood make one an Indian?
• In preserving one’s heritage, why is it more important to preserve the heritage of the 1/16th Cherokee and ignore the heritage represented by the other 15/16ths?
• If the law says that tribes may allow only Indians to adopt Indian children, then why shouldn’t all children placed for adoption in the United States be placed only with parents of the same ethnicity as that of their biological parents?
• If so, how do we decide in which ethnic groups the children are to be placed when the parents are not “pure bloods”? What if the parents do not know their ethnic backgrounds
with any degree of certainty?
• And perhaps the most important question, to which does the Indian owe his primary allegiance: the Indian Tribe first or the United States of America?

Once a government begins awarding special status to particular groups in society, the ultimate combinations and permutations of rights and privileges become surreal and exceptionally divisive (e.g., affirmative action, Sharia law). Because of popular but aberrant definitions of multiculturalism and diversity, American society is drowning in a myriad of Alice in Wonderland laws, regulations, and bureaucratic intrusions that are fracturing the unity necessary for a culture to survive. That unity is defined by the nation’s central cultural vision. We see these clashes tearing at the fabric of our central cultural vision as the culture wars play out between combatants holding the opposing biblical and humanistic worldviews.

The biblical worldview’s focus is not on the differences of various groups but upon diversity’s contribution to the whole of society, and from this emphasis comes unity. Unity is made possible when each member or group is recognized as an indispensable contributor to the body and not something that stands apart. The biblical oneness of all men is shown by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles when he wrote that God made “…of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth…” [Acts 17:26 KJV] The Apostle Paul reiterates the necessity of unity in his writings to the Corinthians, “But now are they many members but one body.” [1 Corinthians 12:20 KJV]

Humanism’s definition of diversity and multiculturalism focuses on differences within society and not society as a whole. With emphasis on the differences, mass culture becomes nothing more than an escalating number of subcultures within an increasingly distressed political framework that attempts to satisfy the myriad of demands of the individual subcultures. There is a loss of unity through fragmentation and ultimately a loss of a society’s central cultural vision which leads to disintegration. Humanism’s impulse for diversity is a derivative of relativism and a perverted concept of equality. [Johnson, p. 398.]

Survival of a culture implies that it must have segregation and denial. By segregation is not meant segregation within a culture but between cultures. It must deny that which is alien and destructive to its central cultural vision. However, such a culture becomes stronger when it welcomes integration of diverse groups that share that common central vision. It is in the humanistic definition of pluralism that cultures are prone to failure. [Johnson, pp. 193, 398.]

By its very essence, culture must discriminate against those outside its boundaries that do not share its central vision. A culture must believe in its uniqueness, worth, and the superiority of its worldview. To attempt to meld together or co-mingle multiple cultures into one culture with multiple centers of vision is to create a powerless culture with little influence and place it on the road to disintegration. By definition, culture must have an inward-looking vision and resist the alien. Without such there is a loss of wholeness, and a culture’s cohesiveness dissolves into chaos as its various parts drift into orbits of parochial interests and egocentrism. [Johnson, p. 193.]

Today, America faces a cultural crisis in which the nation’s cultural unity is being undermined by a humanistic worldview that has seeped into all aspects of American life. The American central cultural vision as known by the colonists, Founders, and citizens to the present day is in peril because the “…inward-looking vision and the impulse to resist the alien are lost.” With such loss comes disruption and eventual disintegration.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Michael Overall, “Fight turning adoption into battle over ICWA,” Tulsa World, August 25, 2013, A-17; September 5, 2013, A-1.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for America’s Central Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 193, 398.

What is your purpose in life? – Part II

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : August 30, 2013
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Category: Archives, Equality

In Part I we described man’s purpose in life from the perspective of the two dominant combatants in the culture wars. One is the biblical worldview of Christianity upon whose principles the nation was founded and governed for 150 years. The other has been described as the official religion of America—humanism. So how do these competing worldviews define man’s purpose? The humanistic vision of the purpose of man is based on the exaltation of the individual, is inward-looking, denies the role of God in man’s purpose, and whose centerpiece is a vague, undefined egalitarianism focused on equality of outcome. Christianity’s view of man’s purpose is rooted in relationship, is outward-looking, and is defined by those timeless truths which are revealed in the Bible.

The exaltation of the individual and denial of the Creator are found in the elemental tenets of humanism, and we need only look to Humanist Manifesto II for affirmation. “The ultimate goal should be fulfillment of the potential growth in each human personality… We can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species.” [Humanist Manifestos I and II, pp. 14, 16.]

The battle between the humanistic and biblical worldviews is not new. Its beginnings are recorded in the third chapter of Genesis. The ancient Greeks judged “man the measure,” and its humanistic roots continued down through centuries until its flowering in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was the egalitarian notions of the French philosophers that became the framework for the disaster of the French Revolution. However, this radical, mystical egalitarianism remains the center piece of the modern humanistic philosophy. By egalitarian is meant a belief in human equality with special emphasis on social, political, and economic rights and privileges and a focus on the removal of any inequalities among humankind. This focus is a forced leveling of society and ultimately results in socialism.

If one reflects on the various descriptions of humanism through its definition, philosophy, application, and worldview, one can see the emphasis on the horizontal (leveling of society) and the sharp contrast with the vertical (hierarchical) with regard to relationships in all spheres of family and society. Humanism’s exaltation of self over family, denial of patrimony, emphasis on the present and the experiential, flexible and interchangeable values, life lived for the moment for there is nothing beyond, and deference to the senses represent a detachment from any hierarchical bonds of duty, obligation, patrimony, and the permanent things. There is no heaven above nor hell below and therefore no hierarchy, only an everlasting march to an unattainable and unknowable horizon that continually recedes into the distance. [Johnson, pp. 306-307.]

Richard Weaver superbly contrasts the humanists’ obsession with the individual and a society leveled by radical egalitarianism with the truth of the opposing biblical concept of relationship and fraternity.

The comity of peoples in groups large or small rests not upon this chimerical notion of equality but upon fraternity, a concept which long antedates it (equality) in history because it (fraternity) goes immeasurably deeper in human sentiment. The ancient feeling of brotherhood carries obligations of which equality knows nothing. It calls for respect and protection, for brotherhood is status in family, and family is by nature hierarchical. It demands patience with little brother, and it may sternly exact duty of big brother. It places people in a network of sentiment, not of rights…” [Weaver, pp. 41-42]

In the Christian worldview, God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity (i.e., relationship). Man’s chief end is to glorify God by communing with God forever. Being God, He knew the course and cost of His creation. But creating man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. In other words free will and the potential for rejection of God was the penalty for the possibility of love. So it is on the earthly plane, to risk love is to risk rejection. Rejection was not a surprise to an omniscient God. Before creation, God knew the cost would be the death of his Son, and this is hinted at in Revelation 13:8, “…Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” God’s infinite love exceeded the cost of that love at Calvary. We were created for relationship!

The primary reason a culture fails is because it loses its cohesiveness or unity. If human relationships mean order in society, then equality as defined by the humanists is a disorganizing concept. Therefore, this radical egalitarianism may be the greatest pathology and greatest threat to the survival of America and the rest of Western Civilization.

Our worldview defines our purpose in life. Lost in the fast pace and minutia of life, few stop to consider the importance of knowing their purpose in life or that there is even a purpose apart from themselves. But as Americans increasingly embrace the humanistic worldview with its cult-like focus on equality and the freedom of the individual from the mores, norms, traditions, and voices of the past, the resultant pathologies are eroding the central cultural vision of the nation. We have become a nation of individuals consumed with self as opposed to relationship.

In twenty-first century America, a majority of its citizens still hold the biblical worldview, but most of the leadership of American institutions has abandoned it for the humanistic worldview. For America to survive, we must rediscover that our purpose in life (both individual and national) is tied to those permanent truths as revealed in the biblical record and not the disintegrating concepts of humanism. Only then can we restore unity under the central cultural vision of the Founders upon which the nation was founded.

Larry G. Johnson

Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), pp. 14, 16.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 306-307.

Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago, 1948), pp. 41-42.

What is your purpose in life? – Part I

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : August 23, 2013
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Category: Archives, Equality

Some may suggest this is a silly or trivial question. For those that attempt to answer, the variety of responses will likely be as numerous as people responding. Many consider life meaningless (and by implication hopeless). Others focus their answers on themselves, e.g., their purpose is to survive whether in a primitive society (kill or be killed) or the modern (the 8 to 5 so-called rat race of working to provide the necessities of life). But these answers are inadequate and do not speak to the fundamental question that every one of us must answer.

Man is a special being, if for no reason other than he is the only creature to ask why he is here. That very question presupposes his denial that he owes his existence to some fantastically improbable celestial and biological crap shoot. Man senses his specialness and cannot abide nothingness as the reason for his existence. He looks at himself and sees faint images of something far greater, and he is compelled to search for answers as to the meaning and purpose of his life. He yearns to be something above what he sees in the natural world. Unique to the earth and its living creatures, man thinks, verbalizes, and symbolizes his quest for connection to some greater purpose. [Ye shall be as gods, p. 401.]

Alexis de Tocqueville words of 180 years ago confirm these sentiments when he wrote: “…the imperfect joys of this world will never satisfy his heart. Man alone of all created beings shows a natural disgust for existence and an immense longing to exist; he despises life and fears annihilation.” [Ye shall be as gods, pp. 172-173.] Tocqueville’s words elevate man’s quest for purpose from the mundane level of survival and the minutia of life. Man must seek answers to that fundamental question of life…what is our purpose?

Each individual’s quest for purpose will be profoundly affected by his or her worldview. Worldview deals with basic beliefs about things—ultimate questions with which we are confronted; matters of general principle; an overall perspective or perception of reality or truth from which one sees, understands, and interprets the universe and humanity’s relation to it. Simply put, a worldview is a person’s beliefs about the world that directs his or her decisions and actions. [Ye shall be as gods, p. 70.] And it is these beliefs (worldview) from which we answer the question, “What is our purpose?”

But not all worldviews are created equal. The beliefs one holds tend to create a pattern, design, or structure that fit together in a particular way. This structure or order (worldview) generally must have a coherence or consistency which is necessary to give orientation and direction for living life. If a person’s decisions, actions or outcomes are not consistent with their beliefs, the conflict must be resolved or over a period of time that person’s integrity and mental health will be diminished. Therefore, a person must discover what is true and live a life compatible with that truth. Also, if one has a false worldview that does not align with objective reality, then that person’s answer to our purpose of life question will not be correct, and they climb the ladder of life with the ladder leaning against the wrong wall.

In America, there are two competing worldviews which give differing views on man’s purpose in life. One is the biblical worldview of Christianity upon whose principles the nation was founded and governed for 150 years. The other is what an acquaintance of mine calls the official religion of America—humanism. So how do these competing worldviews define man’s purpose?

Humanists hold that the preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value in which individuals should be encouraged to realize their own creative talents and desires and exercise maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility. As to the individual, humanists promise a freedom from the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. The freedom espoused by the humanists gives unbridled control to the self and senses. However, one must read the fine print in the humanists’ promises, i.e., individual autonomy must be consonant with social responsibility. Therefore, humanists harness an individual’s dignity, worth, and freedom to the principle of the greatest-happiness-for-the greatest-number which is hitched to the humanist belief that the highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole. The obligations of the individual are subservient to his obligations to the larger society, and those obligations are determined and defined by the humanist intellectual elite, i.e., God is replaced by man as the authority.

In the Christian worldview, each individual was created for a personal and loving relationship with God and each other. Because man is born with the mark of sin that was transmitted to him down through history from his first ancestor, the relationship remains broken. The Christian worldview recognizes the fallen condition of humankind and that God has provided a means whereby man can return to Him through repentance and living in a proper orientation to His laws and plan. A personal (individual) relationship with God is possible only through recognition of who God is and obedience to his precepts. That relationship is restored through the acceptance of God’s son, Jesus Christ, as the individual’s Lord and Savior.

From these two descriptions of worldviews we see a fundamental difference in the purpose of man that form one of the bases for the culture wars in America. One is based on exaltation of the individual and the other is based on relationships. One is inward looking and the other is outward looking. As America has moved from the biblical to the humanistic worldview, the pathologies in American society have exploded as the false worldview of humanism contradicts the innate God-given nature of man. In Part II we will take a closer look at these differences.

Larry G. Johnson

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 70, 172-173, 40l.

Progressivism’s Fatal Flaw

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : August 16, 2013
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Category: Archives, Progressivism

Liberalism as we know it came of age in the nineteenth century and was a product of the Enlightenment, that skeptical and revolutionary humanistic cultural tradition that emanated from eighteenth century Western Europe which “…promoted the belief that critical and autonomous human reason held the power to discover the truth about life and the world, and to progressively liberate humanity from the ignorance and injustices of the past.” [Smith, p. 54.]

For the humanist-liberal-progressive, man is continuously perfectible, a process whereby he will become progressively better and better. Progress is possible because man is not fallen and does not need redemption. Therefore, humanists assert there is no limit to the perfecting of the powers of man other than the duration of the globe upon which nature has spawned us.

Progressives believe that through human reason alone, truth about life and the world can be discovered and pave the way to liberate humanity from ignorance and injustice. How is this to be achieved? Perfect justice, prosperity, and equality are possible if enlightened elites are given the power to organize and run society according to scientific knowledge about human nature and behavior.

Therefore, in the humanist worldview, the liberation of humanity from ignorance and injustice rests on three assumptions:

• Power must be surrendered to the elites to organize and run society. This is achieved through socialism and big government based on man’s laws.

• Reliance on reason and scientific knowledge alone. There is no room for a supernatural God or His laws.

• Man’s nature is basically good and therefore perfectible.

But the liberal chant of progressivism is a flight from reality. If reality is objective truth (and it is), then progressivism is a lie. The humanistic worldview’s pillars of human reason, scientific advancement, flawed understanding of human nature, and organization of society contrary to man’s innate thirst for freedom crumble under the weight of objective truth.

Denial of the progressive’s assumptions does not mean that those with a Christian worldview are unprogressive or deny the value of progress. They only assert that the source of that improvement must come from God and not man. And this improvement must first occur within the individual as he orders his soul by returning to a right relationship with God. For those that look to those universal truths revealed by the Creator in his creation and the biblical revelations to order their souls, they neither progress nor regress but move to the center. It is a matter of being, not becoming. As like-minded citizens order their souls accordingly, order comes to society.

Those holding the biblical worldview focus on the eternal beyond time—not regressing nor progressing in an ever frustrating march to some unknown, unknowable, and unattainable destination. The progressive labors on the treadmill of time, always moving but never arriving at his destination for the goals of infinite progress always recede into the future and therefore are never attainable. In fact, the goals of such progress are not even identifiable apart from the pliable platitudes of the current conditioners of society. For the progressive, time and matter are paramount, but such are rudderless, temporal, and pass away. However, the things of the highest value rest with eternal truths, and without eternal truths man becomes purposeless.

The progressive may even equivocate that although the goal of perfectibility of the human condition will never be attained (something not admitted), the process of self-improvement is still worthwhile and thereby mankind will become better and better. However, an understanding of human nature and history defeats this assertion. Civilization is an intermittent process with some cultures descending from a high state of organization to dissolution. History is replete with societies that achieved great stature in past eras only to fall to ruin—Egypt, Greece, Venice, and Germany to name a few.

In modern times the humanistic worldview in organizing society continues to fail—the greatest example being the socialistic variant of communism in the twentieth century. There is an intimate relationship between the communist ideology espoused by Karl Mark and humanism with regard to the nature of man, the non-existence of the Creator, and the need for a socialistic form of organizing society run by the elites. Both had their roots in the eighteenth century Enlightenment philosophy. Marx’s ideas presented in The Communist Manifesto ultimately were responsible for the enslavement of a third of humanity for three-fourths of the twentieth century, the consequences of which were failure, misery, and death unparalleled in the history of mankind. So we see that regardless of the era examined, the humanistic philosophy fails to sustain its promise of infinite progress and perfectibility of man.

To summarize, the humanistic formula for the perfectibility of man is this: the innate goodness of man + progress over time = perfectibility of man. But the fatal flaw of progressivism in achieving perfectibility of man is that he has a fallen nature, and no amount of psychologizing or social engineering will change that truth.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 103, 213, 219-220, 387.

Christian Smith, The Secular Revolution, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), p. 54. Quoted in Ye shall be as gods, p. 213.