Truth, goodness and beauty spring forth from God alone. Like a spring-fed mountain lake, He is the source of these transcendent realities in the universe.
In his treatise Against the Heresies, St. Irenaeus (130-202 AD) said, “God is man’s glory. Man is the vessel which receives God’s action and all his wisdom and power.”
So why do we claim these qualities come from ourselves?
The philosophy of humanism is the ultimate expression of human pride, and, ironically, gives the opposite of what it claims to provide (improving humanity by applying ethical principles to everyday living).
Though it’s an ancient fallacy, today’s brand of humanism has grown out of American philosophers and bio-ethicists Tom Beauchamp and James Childress‘ Principles of Biomedical Ethics, with their four cardinal ethical principles of beneficence (do as much good as you can), non-maleficence (“first, do not harm”) autonomy (as in respect for), and justice (distribute health resources fairly).
What was originally meant as a guide for medical ethics only (and proven to be inadequate even for that, I might add), modern humanists have attempted to apply these four principles as their primary solution to eliminate injustice in our world.
Professed on their website, humanists proclaim we don’t need a God to be good or happy, having adopted their own dogma called “the ten commandments of humanism”.
Living solely on these, however, presents the problems we see in our society today (particularly in our justice system, education system and in medical ethics).
Namely, there are contradictions, inconsistences and overlap: Some of the ethical “commandments” can be temporarily suspended to satisfy the desires of certain people at the expense of others. (Although they don’t tell you that on their website.)
Without any absolutes, who decides what is morally objectionable in a humanistic world? And at the cost of how many lives?
A better question to ask ourselves is, how are we doing as a nation that has largely rejected God? Is there more beneficence, autonomy or justice?
Today, America is (and continues to be) among the top countries in the world for human trafficking, with little accountability in sight for the perpetrators. The average age of victims when they are first trafficked is between 12 and 14 years old.
In contrast, following God’s eternal laws (the Ten Commandments) leads to true peace, joy and order–which fills the individual, and naturally flows outward into a society.
Their fulfillment is grounded in experiencing the love of God, not the love of self striving for self-fulfillment (as is with humanism).
They keep us grounded to the people and duties God has placed in our daily lives and help us to “stay in our lane”.
When we don’t engage in spiritism or occult practices, lie, gossip, give free reign to our tempers, venture into lust and sexual sin, envy others’ seemingly “better” lives, steal or murder, we are happier people!
“If only you had been alert to my commandments, your happiness would have been like a river…” (Isaiah 48:18, JB).
The difference between the “ten commandments of humanism” and God’s laws is God’s laws always lead to more abundance of life.
The problem is, our language is changing–not in words, but in meaning. To combat this degradation, the Christian must learn and use words in the context of their original definitions.
Why? Because when language loses its vibrancy and substance, it fails to contextualize, find and define the truth.
For instance, the word “gay” used to mean “happy” or “pleasant”. Now it has come to mean “homosexual”.
Most recognize the word “bully” to mean “brute” or “persecutor”. But it’s original Old English definition means “excellent” or “good”, as in expression, “bully for you.”
“Jackass” and “ass” were once regarded as a male donkey or just a donkey. Now both are used commonly as an insult or swear-word.
Even “love” has been reduced to a mere feeling, emotion or sentiment.
Though we can be ignorant of it, fail to describe it, or teach it ineffectively with words, St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) rightly declared that the “truth suffers, but never dies.”
Like a treasure buried in a field, we can always uncover the truth. There lives an objective truth to everything in existence–whether we like it or not, and whether we choose to ignore it or not.
So the problem is not the lack of truth–it’s a lack will to find it. There has never before been such universal means to discover it (technological advances, high literacy rate, access to information).
Today, we are seeing the rotten fruit of willful ignorance.
This is the great deception of our time–the illusion of no truth–when in fact it is but a mockery, a reversal that targets the young and the confused (and indeed, the humanists themselves) to their own disillusionment, discouragement and despair.
We are re-living the age of Pontius Pilate, where objective truth is being put on trial, and an execution looms.
But who is truly slave and who is master?
The truth? Well, as the 2nd century (unknown) author of the Letter to Diognetus so beautifully stated:
“When we had been shown to be undeserving of life, his [God’s] goodness was to make us worthy of it. When we had made it clear that we could not enter God’s kingdom by our own power, we were to be enabled to do so by the power of God.”
The truth is, God is master and we are His humble servants. And rather than this bringing shame upon us, we are filled with joy to be His imperfect instruments of love, mercy and peace until we meet Him face to face.
Deo gratias!
“A servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him” (John 13:16).