What is the difference between Christianity and humanism? It’s easily explained.
Humanists believe in the perfectibility of man by man; and we, as Christians, don’t.
Plato, Rousseau, the modern Left–they all think that if we only get the right science behind it, spend enough money, and apply the requisite measure of brute force, we can solve any human problem. All we need is another law, another set of new regulations, another bureaucracy to put it into play, round up all the dissidents, and bob’s your uncle: Utopia is achieved.
We believe in an ongoing process of individual sanctification, accomplished by God’s grace and by faith in Jesus Christ. We may not reach perfection, but we can get better than we were. As for Utopia, that doesn’t come until Jesus returns and establishes His kingdom on the earth. We do not believe that human nature is just a more complicated form of Play-Doh, to be shaped as desired by anyone clever enough, strong enough, rich enough, or ruthless enough to do it.
But their belief in their own godlike powers, their own wisdom, pretty much explains the whole history of that horrible 20th century. Always breaking eggs to make the perfect omelet, but never getting there no matter how many they break.
See? I told you it was easy.
Also, Christianity views each human being as a unique, individual soul created in the image of God (although seriously damaged by the Fall) and thus infinitely precious AS an individual. Humanism views human beings as interchangeable and often disposable parts, to be shaped by a corporate humanist elite.
You’re right about that, and I might’ve said it myself if I hadn’t been feeling so lucky that I was able to post anything at all.
That explains a great deal.
For humanists, the collective is all. Don’t blame me for that. Blame Plato and Rousseau.
You’re missing the point in order to conveniently assign human thought into political ideology. While admittedly humanism is a widely defined assignment of a philosophy and anthropology, religion is a part of humanism in that it’s a place where many of us assign hope when there doesn’t seem to be any, where we place those elements of human existence where we can’t readily explain the moral or scientific why or how it occurred, and it can be a spiritual plane where we assign social morality for living on an individual level. Religion would simply not exist if there were no humans to give it importance. Besides… the Bible states humans were created in God’s own image. God gave us the gift of reason, the ability question our surroundings and our existence.. and we can assign God, through nature, in providing the necessary instincts to survive and procreate the species, and evolve through the millennia along with the rest of the animal kingdom He created.
Now, most assuredly my interpretation of all this is likely very different than your interpretation… but is not that what this is all about… the diversity of man?
No.. humanism is not a home for liberalism…. just as religion is not the home of conservatism.
The biggest difference I see between Christianity and humanism is Christianity places its focus on God, while humanism places its focus on man. It’s about what man has achieved, and his knowledge and intellect. In essence, humanism attempts to replace God by making gods of men. As such, humanists are often atheistic, or agnostic at best. But the nature of man is to worship something. If not God, then the two primary contenders are the state and nature, or as we see today a combination of the two.
Humanism places its focus on reason, which is all well and good, but human reasoning has its limitations and it’s not infallible. It also has a subjective quality to it. What is reasonable to one person, may be unreasonable or even illogical to the next. Someone like Hitler, for example, thought it was perfectly reasonable to murder six million Jews. This is the great flaw in relying on human reasoning alone. As Proverbs says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Christianity, on the other hand, places it’s emphases on wisdom, for knowledge and reason without wisdom is prone to folly. And true wisdom can only be bestowed by God.
Utopianism is man’s attempt to create paradise on earth but without God. It’s a pale attempt to duplicate what God will do in the millennium. I wouldn’t even call it a uptopia, because all utopias are man-made. I wouldn’t even call it a theocracy, but it’s something entirely different that hasn’t been done before.
There is, at the root of it all, one question and one question only, are we willing to have God be our standard of what is right and what is wrong. Human solutions exclude God from the equation.