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.
