HUMANISM

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXII, Issue 8872, 12 February 1943, Page 3

HUMANISM

(By E.L.8.G.) What it stands for is indicated in Swinburne’s lines: Glory to Man in the highest, For Man is the master of things. Humanism bases everything on its complete confidence in the all-suffici-ency of Man: it forgets the sovereignty of God. It claims that man can get on quite well if he uses his intelligence and energy. With the advance of education and science man will build for himself a new and better world. The wrongs in human life will be rectified, the humanists think, as man becomes more enlightened. They fail to see that man is the victim of evil forces from which lie needs to be redeemed. It is true to say, I think, that the humanist philosophy has been adopted in our age by many good people, including some scientists, university professors, professional men, social reformers and labour leaders. But to-day these people are experiencing a bitter disillusionment. For while they are lib-erty-loving people who stand for the rights and values and sanctities of humanity, and while they thought that the world was being carried forward by science and education they now see all the things for which they stand denied by the new pagan creed. In this situation it. is to be hoped that humanists who believe in justice, charity and the rights of man will realise that it is the Christian Faith that has taught them to value these things, that the Christian Faith is their true champion and leader, and that the divine redemption for which the Christian Faith stands is needed if the world is to be saved from despair and disaster. The humanist must turn from the idea that “Man is the master of things” to the truth that God is the sovereign of all human life. Humanists believe in the brotherhood of man, but they have to learn the truth for which the Christian religion stands, that the only way towards the brotherhood of man is through a recognition of God as the Father of all, and an acceptance of the redemption and way of life offered by His Son, Jesus Christ. The New Paganism

* I have suggested that perhaps the new paganism which is threatening the world will bring humanists to realise the truth of this. What is this new paganism? It is the Totalitarianism of the dictators, whose ambition is to compel the world by brute force to accept their way of life. This way of life is based upon the idea that the individual counts for nothing: it is the State that counts for everything. According to this theory the new man that is in process of creation is not an individual being but a collective personality called the State.

This new paganism exalts the State into the place of God, and it demands that the citizens should give to the State the devotion and obedience which were once rendered to God. There are thousands of men who have met death from the firing squad or have gone to imprisonment in a concentration camp rather than submit to this demand. Among them are not only Christians, but humanists. In an article written by an erstwhile humanist, he admits that the only hope for the world is an acceptance of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The writer is none other than Professor Joad, of Oxford. Let me quote one paragraph from his article. “A man,” he says, “must be free to listen to the voice of conscience, free to cleave to what he feels to be right, free to eschew what he knows to be wrong, free, therefore, to say ‘No’ to the State. It is for claiming precisely these freedoms that Pastor Neimoller and thousands of others who insisted that they owed an allegiance to God as well as Hitler, and that the Divine law overrode the will of the State, are to-day languishing in concentration camps. Meanwhile, all the qualities which the Divine Law, as interpreted by Jesus Christ, have represented as virtues—compassion, kindness, gentleness and consideration for others —are denied and derided and their opposites—ruthlessness, ferocity, arrogance and aggres-

sion—are praised.” Surely these things bring to mind the word which St. Paul wrote to Timothy as he warned him of “the seducing spirits and doctrines ol

devils” which threatened the Faith. | He would be blind who did not see that- this threat exists to-day. Let us, therefore, Like to heart the Apostle's precept: “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the Doctrine; continue therein; for in so doing thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.”