Opinion > November 29, 2007

By Matt Brumit | Old Gold & Black columnist

Humanism would be a wonderful thing if it made any sense.

I, too, would love to believe in the ultimate good of humanity, indeed that every human, or at least humanity as a unit, is a god – no, is more than a god, is GOD. And I am somewhat of a humanist myself. “I still believe, in spite of everything,” like the beloved Anne Frank, “that people are really good at heart.”

But that is where my humanism stops. Hitler, Stalin and Mao destroyed modern secular humanism as soon as it was envisioned. And even before them we have the likes of Nero doing the same thing. Humanism never had a chance in this world ruled by humanity. Humanism could only have any credence in a truly good world, a world necessarily ruled by God, and there of course it would exist merely as a form of rebellion. Indeed, as the story goes, Satan was kicked out of Heaven for believing something not unlike humanism. He believed in, if you will, angelicism. He believed that within every angel (or at least that within himself) there was really god, only he would have used a capital G. Humanists say the same thing about every human. So Hitler was a god, or was at least some manifestation of the god that is humanity. Stalin too. And Mao. That’s why they killed their own people. Because they were gods, and gods can do whatever they want, not unlike the Greek gods who destroyed particular aspects of humanity as soon as the whim came upon them.

My disbelief in humanism is not an adherence to pessimism. Rather, I find humanism to be the biggest pessimism instead of the biggest optimism it is supposed to be. For if humanity as a whole or any individual human is a god, what a sad world we live in – a world where the gods kill each other and on top of that, do horrible things to each other before, during and after their deaths. My view of the world is not pessimistic; it is honest. And though I am not an optimist because G.K. Chesterton showed me that it’s OK to not be one (something I had always been afraid of), I am the closest thing to an optimist you will ever hear from. For I believe in God. And I don’t mean some abstract god that somehow filters itself through the genders and races and so forth, becoming anything and everything that walks on only two legs. I worship the God not of humanity but the God that created humanity. He does not filter Himself through anything because He has no need to do so. He created everything and as such knows everything and could control it if He so desired. He is more than male, more than female, more than all the races combined. He is more than a sum greater than its parts because He is not a sum. He is the Source, and we are merely a fraction – an infinitesimally small fraction – of that Source. No, we aren’t Him. No, He isn’t us. He merely used the only materials in existence to create us – those materials by which He Himself is made. And here I don’t mean physical elements. I don’t mean spiritual elements either. I mean elements for which we do not have a name. And I would argue that the only good one can find in the heart of any human comes from these unnamable elements.

Humanists look at our created world and see this infinitesimally small fraction of God’s creative power and think that it is everything because it is all that we can see. Scientists tell us that Christians have a limited view of the universe and that the Big Bang creates for us a universe much larger than anything God could create. But those of us who really know God laugh at this because we know that the “infinitely” large universe is smaller than a neutrino in comparison to God. We find joy in the contradictory largeness/smallness of the universe. When we look at the stars we feel like nothing and everything all at the same time, like the world would be better without us and yet that it was created solely for us.

“But how,” you ask, “is this world – bad as it is – any better with God than without Him?” And that is the question C.S. Lewis said is the only legitimate argument for atheism, an argument he responds to much better than I could ever hope to in his book, The Problem of Pain.

Truly, my point here is not to legitimize God. Indeed, if God can be proven He already has been time and time again. By every sunset. By the birth of every child. And assuming God exists, I doubt he needs me as a character reference. In my opinion, it is impossible for one to prove God to another. It is only possible to prove God to yourself.

My only point here is to show how humanism cannot possibly exist in the world in which it claims we live. Humanism is self-contradictory because it hails as perfect the same humanity that has threatened its own existence since God created it. I do not know how humanity has lasted as long as it has (I would probably have to argue that it’s a miracle), but I do know that humanity’s perseverance is not the result of perfect and innate human goodness.

Matt Brumit is a sophomore from Denison, Texas.