Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 21:47:14 EDT
From:         MKLINE%VDH.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU
Subject:      Humanism vs. Humanity
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              bstudy-l%utarlvm1.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU,
              ivcf-l%ubvm.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU

Subject: Humanism vs. Humanity

    Dr. Francis Schaeffer, Part 2, Humanism vs. Humanity.  (Feb. 1982)

    Pat: People aren't quite sure, of course they think the word
humanitarian, that sounds so wonderful, and the humanities are taught in
school, and there's various other definitions. Could you make some
distinctions between all these various terms?

    FS: Yes, I think it's very important that we really make the
distinctions, otherwise... First of all, we don't know what we're talking
about, but second, we set ourself up to be shot down, and quite properly
unless we make the distinctions.

    Humanitarianism means that we are kind to humanity, and surely then
Christians ought to be the most humanitarian people in all the world. The
humanities would be a study of human creativity, what human creativity
has produced. Now sometimes Christians have looked on this sort of
negatively or at least neutrally, but we should be the people of all
people who should be interested in the humanities, because creativity
comes from being made in the image of God, as the great Creator, and
consequently of all people we ought to be interested in the humanities
and it's on this basis that Calvin, for example, or Milton, have
sometimes been called Christian Humanist. That's an old use of the term.
But we have to understand we're not against the humanities, we are for
them.

    But humanism, in contrast to that, is quite opposite. Humanism is
putting man at the center of all things, and the only knowledge that man
can have is what finite human beings can find out for themselves. They've
absolutely ruled out, dogmatically, the possibility of any knowledge from
God. And it also means that man is the center of all things and creating
all value systems, all the to life, and all the basis for law.

    Pat: Now when they publish a manifesto, manifesto is normally a
militant document. The Communist Manifesto was a militant document. They
have published 2 Humanist Manifestos. Now, is that a militant position
that they want to advance to all society?

    FS: Absolutely. Just as we said yesterday, there is no mixture
between these two concepts of final reality. Either material, or energy
shaped by chance or a personal infinite personal God. Now there can be no
mixture, but they really believe that that's all reality is, and they're
out to take their view and put it across. And the thing that should make
us ashamed as Christians is that they understood that there were two
world views that have no mixture, not only intellectually, but they were
going to produce absolutely different results in every area of life, and
we ought to be ashamed that they understood it before we did.

    Pat: Let me ask you, do you think that Christianity is dominant? Are
they dominant? Who's winning in America? They've obviously won in Europe
already. What about here in this country?

    FS: I would say we're an awful long way down the road. Where we are,
we must realize that up to 80 years ago there was an absolute Christian
consensus in this country. This country was founded on a Christian
consensus on Judean-Christian position, especially as it came out of the
Reformation, and this was dominate view. But beginning about 80 years ago
it began to shift, and all the Titanic changes came in the last 40 years.
So within the time of our own life time, the change has come.

    Today we live in a humanist society. They control the schools. They
control public television. They control the media in general. And what we
have to say is, we live in a humanist society. But, we're moving very
rapidly toward a totally humanist society, and if we don't hurry up and
do something, we're really in trouble.

    Pat: One of the things I hear so often is the question of separation
of church and state. They say, "Well, we're supposed to separate church
and state." And, the humanist don't mean by that what our Founding
Fathers... of course they didn't use that in our constitution. Their
thinking of today is vastly different from what our Founding Fathers
thought.

    FS: Absolutely contrary to it. The First Amendment only meant two
things and nothing else. And that is that they would not have a national
church, like the Church of England, or the Church of Sweden. They were
opposed to the concept of a church for the 13 Colonies. The second thing
is, now listen, because it's exactly contrary to what's been made, the
state would not interfere with religion. And that's all the first
amendment meant.

    And today it's been turned over and made the absolute opposite, so
what is now is that the state is interfering with religion, and the very
opposite thing. And now, notice I'm saying religion and not Christianity,
that religion is now ruled out of any real impact in our thinking. The
craziness of this shows itself that from the very first they've had
somebody pray in Congress. Congress doesn't opened with prayer. So they
still keep doing it. But you can't pray in public school. How
schizophrenic can you get?

    Pat: Well it's the same thing with the Supreme Court. It says "God
Bless This Nobel Court", I mean it starts out that way and yet they deny
the privilege to little children to do what they do and to post the 10
commandments which they have on the walls of their court.

    FS: And I would want to say with all finality, that if the Founding
Fathers could come back and see what's being made of that first
amendment, they would consider it nothing less than tyranny.

    Pat: Let's go back to the concept of law. If you have a Christian
state, what is law? If you have a humanist state, what is law?

    FS: Well, if you have a Christian state, or let's not say a Christian
state, but a state that's founded on a Christian consensus. If you have
this, you have a basis for law. And you must remember that what we have
out of the northern European culture, form and freedom, of balances in
government. These things are absolutely unique in the world. They were
unique in history, sometimes people say the Greek City States had them,
no real scholar believes this.

    In fact, what the Reformation produced was absolutely unique, in
which there was real form, and yet with the Christian consensus, kept the
freedoms from pounding the society to pieces, because there's a law to
base things on. On the other hand, if you come in from the humanist side,
man is the measure of all things, and there's nothing to found it on. So
that it's very interesting that these people move from denying the
building of law upon the word of God, to denying any strict construction
from the Constitution. They're absolutely free to make law what they want
it to be.

    Pat: So the concept of law is existing apart in a sense from man, but
coming from God, and being a discovery of revelation of God. That's where
we started. The idea of Law is King, Lex Rex. That is the king, and now
we're substituting men's views, sociological interpretation for it.

    FS: We've switched it right over. Samuel Rutherford means a great
deal to me, wrote his Lex Rex, Law is King, and what he's saying is "The
king is not law." Now what we've turned it, we've flipped it right over,
from Oliver Wendel Holmes, all these people brought in sociological law,
which means law is made on what a few people think is for the
sociological good of the community at the moment. We flipped it right
over, and now what we're returning to, people don't think of it this way,
is Rex Lex, King is Law. The only thing is, we don't have a king, what we
have is a Supreme Court where we have 51% vote or we have some
technocrats come forward and tell us is for the good of society.

    So, they've kind of flipped it right over, from Lex Rex, now Rex Lex.

    Pat: You think the Supreme Court is the vehicle that the humanists
are using, or the court system, to effect a radical change in society?

    FS: Well government as a whole, but especially the courts. And
there's a reason for this. All the humanist, and this type of thinker,
have used the courts rather than the legislatures. For the simple reason,
the courts are not subject to the will of the people through election or
re-election. Consequently, all the great changes in the last 40 years,
have come through the courts, and what we must get in our mind, is the
government as a whole, but especially the courts, has become the vehicle,
to force this view upon the total population, even if the total
population doesn't hold the view.

    Pat: We have a right to revolt against that, we're going to talk
about that later in these discussions, but there comes a time that you
have a right to revolt against tyranny, don't you?

    FS: If you don't revolt against tyranny and this is what I call the
bottom line, is that not only do you have the privilege, but the duty to
revolt. When people force upon you and society that which is absolutely
contrary to the Word of God, and which really is tyranny.

    (MAKS> Makes one wonder about how "wrong" Operation Rescue is. The
government saying that we must allow the unborn to die. God loves the
unborn. PS 139, etc.<MAKS)

    So Samuel Rutherford was really an amazing fellow. And what he
pointed out, quite properly, is that God is never the author of tyranny.
Therefore, where ever tyranny arises, we have a right to stand against
it, as a matter of principle. And this is the basis upon which the
Founding Fathers built this country.

Maks