I sat contemplating, a while ago, an event that happened about 60 years ago in my life.
As a teenager, star-struck with the march of scientific progress, I sat in front of my science teacher and listened with rapture as he told us that God was nothing more than a man-made concept, and that man needed to progress himself from his caveman existence to where we are today (about 1966).
He outlined how man was on a progress path of evolving to an eventual perfection where there would be no more crime, inequality, or poverty, and thus to a higher plane of enlightenment. At that time this seemed a reasonable posit. The extremes of fascism had been conquered not all that long ago in World War II. Communism was being engaged with at the time in the form of the Cold War. An enlightened form of socialism (that was not communist) was in place in New Zealand just then. Financial security existed for all our citizens in the form of full employment and a booming economy. There was considerable upward social mobility.
Also, at that time, as a forerunner of today's geek, I engaged in building radios as a hobby. I believed that if we could understand how radio waves travel through space, we could eventually understand how the universe evolved out of nothingness. What I didn’t realize was that I was listening to a very old philosophy: secular humanism.
What It Is
According to Wikipedia, it is nearly all things to all men. While humanism is now associated with atheism, various church groups in the past have embraced certain forms thereof [1]. However, in the 20th century context, as defined by my science teacher, it is:
Starting in the 20th century, humanist movements are typically non-religious and aligned with secularism. Most frequently, humanism refers to a non-theistic view centered on human agency, and a reliance on science and reason rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world. Humanists tend to advocate for human rights, free speech, progressive policies, and democracy. People with a humanist worldview maintain religion is not a precondition of morality, and object to excessive religious entanglement with education and the state [2].
It is a millenniums-old philosophy [3]. The heart of it is perceived human potential. While God has gifted humans with His attributes (Gen 1:26), when isolated from acknowledgement of God, these attributes become the means whereby humans make gods of themselves (Gen 3:5). In the context in which my science teacher was using it, this logic followed the general scientific thinking at the time—that mankind can build an earthly utopia through right thinking, philosophy, and education, and that indeed we were progressing nicely along those lines in the 20th century, particularly after World War II.
In modern times, as noted above, humanism has primarily been associated with atheism. Atheism, however, faces internal contradictions within itself regarding the nature and destiny of man. This conflict is between the acceptance by atheists of Charles Darwin's "survival of the fittest" view of man's origins—leading to what has often been called “social Darwinism” and the oppressive structures often attending it—versus the humanist view of our special properties and destiny [##4|Susan Farrell, The Morality of Evolution: Kurt Vonnegut’s Liberal Humanist Interpretation of Darwinian Theory (Ian Mueller, Bachelor’s Essay, May 1, 2013), p. 5.##]. As a result, the 19th and 20th centuries have themselves been a complex contradiction of progress and regress as atheism, or at least secularism, has become a dominant worldview in many Western nations.
Most people in the West now have the freedom of personal transport either in the form of the private automobile or various forms of public transportation. Most of us live in comfortable homes with indoor heating, cooling, and running water, and enjoy considerable civic freedom due to the erosion of autocracy in the Western world during the past two centuries and more. But Darwin's "survival of the fittest" paradigm has also facilitated some of the greatest atrocities in human history occur, such as the Nazi holocaust [##5|Farrell, The Morality of Evolution, p. 29.##].
I might add that secular humanism has also borrowed many of its enlightened features from the Protestant Reformation—but alas, through the 19th and 20th centuries, the influence of Protestantism faded and was overpowered by humanism. The humanists took the morality of the Reformation and facilitated social progress thereby [6]. But having removed acknowledgement of the God who is the source of this morality, they facilitated humanism's eventual downfall.
Why It Boomed
The overall effect of material comfort, prosperity, and freedom on Western society would eventually encourage a significant percentage of those in that society to neglect religious faith and become what contemporary researchers often designate as the “nones” so far as religious adherence is concerned. Probably no Western country followed this trend more deeply than my own New Zealand.
A similar though less spectacular trend could be found in all Western countries. Prosperity is all too often the enemy of spirituality, as the modern prophet tells us:
In the midst of prosperity lurks danger. Throughout the ages, riches and honor have ever been attended with peril to humility and spirituality. It is not the empty cup that we have difficulty in carrying; it is the cup full to the brim that must be carefully balanced. Affliction and adversity may cause sorrow, but it is prosperity that is most dangerous to spiritual life. Unless the human subject is in constant submission to the will of God, unless he is sanctified by the truth, prosperity will surely arouse the natural inclination to presumption. [##7|Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, pp. 59-60.##]
When the Wheels Came Off
Material comfort and civic freedom are often intimately related. For many Western nations these attributes reached their peak in the immediate post-war years of the 1950s and ‘60s. But we can now see cracks forming, and indeed the beginnings of a regress back to the 19th century [8]. Indeed this regress, projected far enough, would see us return to the despotism seen in the medieval papacy and Puritan New England. Bible prophecy certainly paints a picture of that happening (Rev. 13). The following Ellen White statement, though in a different context, offers insights on this point:
These theories, followed to their logical conclusion, sweep away the whole Christian economy. They do away with the necessity for the atonement and make man his own saviour. These theories regarding God make His word of no effect, and those who accept them are in great danger of being led finally to look upon the whole Bible as a fiction. They may regard virtue as better than vice; but God being removed from His position of sovereignty, they place their dependence upon human power, which, without God, is worthless. The unaided human will has no real power to resist and overcome evil. The defenses of the soul are broken down. Man has no barrier against sin. When once the restraints of God's word and His Spirit are rejected, we know not to what depths one may sink [##9|White, Testimonies, vol. 8, pp. 291-292.##]
While she was referring to pantheism in this comment, it would apply equally to secular humanism, in that any moral framework that relies on unaided human power is doomed to failure. Thus the better points of humanism have, in recent times, been swept away by social Darwinism and the material focus it brings [##10|Murat Bayraktar, Revisiting Social Darwinism and Inequality in the 21st Century: From Survival of the Fittest to Survival of the Richest ((Rochester, NY: SSRN-Elsevier, 2023), p. 5.##]. Now, in the United States and beyond, we see a growing conflict between these varying aspects of atheism. The humanists are going more extreme in that they are taking equality to ridiculous lengths, as with the belief in non-binary gender identity [11]. On the other hand, the social Darwinists are proposing even more extreme versions of their ideology, with the removal of taxes for the rich [12] and severely limiting public assistance for the poor [13].
It appears many evangelical Christians in America have joined in the fray on the side of the social Darwinists. Perhaps one reason for this is a neo-Calvinism within their ranks which stems from the 19th-century preacher Russell H. Conwell, who said:
Wealth lay within any American’s grasp, if they would only accept their Christian duty to work hard and see God’s hand through the workings of capitalism. Conwell re-interpreted his Calvinist inheritance for this new corporate age, equating poverty with sin and riches with dutiful virtue. “I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor,” he concluded sharply [##14|Catherine Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (Graduate Program in Religion, Duke University, 2010),, p. 53.##].
Thus they find themselves in harmony with the neo-Calvinists and the materialistic agenda often attendant to the same.
Thus the more positive points of humanism will fade and the freedoms and comforts to which it has contributed will fade also. And as the benefits of humanism fade, so too will its public support, and the people will turn on it and side with the cultural and religious conservatives that so oppose it now (Dan 11:40).
Hence I see a future where society will shortly switch its allegiance from secular humanism back to a repressive and false form of Christianity. This should not be lamented by Seventh-day Adventists, but should rather be seen as an opportunity for reform within our own ranks and a return to the preaching of the three angels’ messages with enthusiasm and spiritual power.
REFERENCES
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism#Varieties_of_humanism
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism#History
4. Susan Farrell,The Morality of Evolution: Kurt Vonnegut’s Liberal Humanist Interpretation of Darwinian Theory (Ian Mueller, Bachelor’s Essay, 1 May 2013), p. 5.
5. Ibid, p. 29.
6. https://americanhumanist.org/paths/christianity/
7. Ellen G White, Prophets and Kings, pp. 59-60.
8. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/are-we-heading-back-to-the-19th-century/
9. Ellen G White, Testimonies, vol. 8, pp. 291-292.
10. Murat Bayraktar, Revisiting Social Darwinism & Inequality InThe 21th Century: From Survival To The Fittest To Survival Of The Richest (Rochester, NY: SSRN-Elsevier, 2023), p. 5.
11. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/
12. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/10/politics/trump-2017-tax-cuts-rich/index.html
13. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-67385385
14. Catherine Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (Graduate Program in Religion: Duke University, 2010), p. 53.
Tony Rigden, a former atheist/deist, came into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1980 as the result of a miraculous conversion and the reading of the book The Great Controversy by Ellen G White. He has since been a regular Sabbath School teacher, very part-time lay preacher, elder and briefly head elder. Formerly an electronics technician and computer programmer, Tony is currently still part-time programming but mostly retired. Former hobbies included diving and private flying. Currently he is a volunteer guard (train conductor) for one of New Zealand's leading vintage railways.