CHAPTER I

HUMANISM VERSUS ORTHODOXY

God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. - 1 Corinthians 14:33

        If there is any viable alternative to it, the Christian doctrine of sin ought not to be taken seriously. Its consequences are far too momentous to warrant acceptance on any but the most unimpeachable grounds. The most obvious alternative is to deny that the conception of sin in any form, whether Christian or otherwise, is a meaningful or necessary category for the interpretation of human life. As against this view, the present book must demonstrate that some notion of sin, even though under a different label, is integral to the thinking of every human being. He who denies it ultimately succeeds only in concealing it from himself.
       The other alternative to the Christian view would indeed retain the conception of sin but with a different definition. Historically all such definitions have fallen under one of two main headings: the moralistic view, which regards sin as the violation of given rules and standards; and the dismal conception of sin as some intrinsic defect in human nature. The book must therefore also refute these versions of sin before vindicating the specifically biblical view.
       According to the Bible, sin is properly defined as misplaced allegiance or, to use its technical word for it, idolatry. No man is without his “god,” in the sense of a focal point around which his life takes its orbit and which imparts a distinctive complexion to his values, purposes, and actions. The task of substantiating this conception has been complicated by the failure of Christian orthodoxy always to distinguish it clearly from the other two. Christian thinking has tended historically to assimilate one or the other of them, particularly the notion of sin as intrinsic to human nature. In the popular mind this is precisely what the phrase “original sin” connotes. This puts the theologian in the unenviable position of endorsing a view which the Bible itself repudiates. Its pagan origin, as well as the disparagement of human existence which follows from it, is recalled in the following anecdote from Friedrich Nietzsche:

There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing

Hardness of Heart

him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word; till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke into these words: “Oh, wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do ye compel me to tell you what it were most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is beyond your reach forever: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is-quickly to die.”¹

The pagan world has no real defense against this sophisticated infection. When serious thinkers outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition have squarely faced the problem, they have to an alarming extent succumbed to it.
The awkwardness of the extreme orthodox position is nicely illustrated by its current disadvantage in discussions with thoughtful non-Christians, especially those of a broad humanitarian concern. Having absorbed indirectly the genuine biblical emphasis upon the dignity and worth of man, modern humanists are now obliged to repudiate Christianity in order to defend these principles! When men like John Dewey, Horace Kallen, and Erich Fromm accuse Christianity of devaluating worldly existence and the good things of life, one is embarrassed by how many theological citations they can muster in support of the charge. Little suspecting that the foundation for their own ideals is to be found in the Bible, they abhor the doctrine of sin as an affront to the dignity and creativity of man, a medieval superstition invented by the priesthood to block progress and keep the ignorant in subjection to sacerdotal privilege.
Hence the humanist rejoices that the advance of science has not only helped to overthrow an oppressive institution but also defied the pessimistic teachings which he attributes to Christianity. In so far as he opposes the devaluation of earthly existence he is in fact the unwitting champion of the biblical view as against theological distortions of it. An outstanding example is Lionel Trilling, who writes:

And if we are ill we are ill . . . not by a universal necessity, (but) by a fault in the economy of our powers, not by the nature of the powers themselves.²

¹Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Birth of Tragedy,” in The Philosophy of Nietzsche (New York: Random House, The Modern Library, n.d.), pp. 961f.
²Lionel Trilling, “Art and Neurosis,” in The Liberal Imagination (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1953). p. 177. Professor Trilling attributes the illness of man to a universal accident, an illuminating humanistic alternative to the biblical conception of responsibility.

Humanism Versus Orthodoxy

       If the tide of argument appears to be running with the humanist, however, his advantage is only temporary. When obliged to defend his position, he encounters formidable difficulties of his own. It is one thing simply to assert the dignity of man but quite another to establish it by argument. His case collapses the moment he is pressed for a rationale. This becomes evident when he confronts the catalogue of atrocities in the past and the present history of the race-that is, when the fact of sin stares him squarely in the face. Fearing that to admit the reality of sin would impugn the dignity of man, he searches for an alternative interpretation of the grim realities. His only recourse is to deny on principle that man is even capable of sin. But this expedient, by robbing man of his freedom, has the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of preserving human nobility it forfeits it. For, although to commit sin is certainly no compliment, the ability to do so is. Only if man can do evil is there any meaning in doing good. Only if he is free can creative action be distinguished from destructive.
       A perfect illustration of the humanist’s dilemma is provided by Erich Fromm’s recent book, Man for Himself, whose explicit purpose is to construct a humanistic ethic. The author begins with a glorification of human freedom and the creative capacities of man. By the end of the book, however, he has provided so much clinical evidence for the fact of sin that he reverses himself and adopts a deterministic view.³
       His reluctance to recognize the full implications of the human freedom which he sometimes exalts leads the humanist to contract an injudicious alliance. Having hailed science as the liberator of mankind, he credulously embraces a philosophy which purports to be based upon it: not simply science as a method, but the dogma that there is no other method. From the standpoint of this dogma human freedom is neither possible nor desirable. It is not possible, because of the assumption that human behavior can be exhaustively explained in causal terms. It is not desirable because it would introduce an element of incalculability into the scientist’s field of study. Man is reduced either to the status of a cog in a machine, whose only distinguishing characteristic is a certain cog-consciousness; or he is submerged in an undertow of biological impulses which make a mockery of his fancied rational intentions. In either case the de-

³Erich Fromm, Man for Himself (New York: Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1947). Compare Chapter 1 with Chapter 4, subdivision 5.

Hardness of Heart

personalization of man is accomplished. Why not put him in a concentration camp and make him, like any other guinea pig, the subject of macabre experiments?

The intellectual impotence of humanism to answer this question has been so thoroughly exposed by authors like Reinhold Niebuhr that it hardly seems sporting to rub it in any further. Suffice it to mention a recent book, not from the pen of a theologian at all, but of one of the wisest of contemporary humanists, Joseph Wood Krutch. In his The Measure of Man he analyzes some startling portents in the recent utterances of “scientific humanists.” He concludes:

How defective, therefore, is that so-called Science of Man which never really asks the questions at all and thus proves itself to be, not the Science of Man, but only the Science-Of-What-Man-Would-Be-If-He-Were-Not-A-Man-But-A-Machine . . . While we have exalted man’s importance by making his “welfare” the measure of all things, we have, at the same time, belittled him by assuming that he is, nevertheless, nothing in himself . . . . The grand paradox of our society is this: we magnify man’s rights but we minimize his capacities. And it is only in some totalitarian theory that this paradox can be resolved. Sub-men cannot rule themselves. ⁴

The humanist case against orthodoxy thus backfires. Having charged his opponent with disparaging the greatness and goodness of man, he finds that he lives in a glass house. The orthodox theologian replies, in effect, “We merely develop with greater consistency the same principles which you yourself acknowledge.” The situation acquires a touch of irony from the fact that, although the theologian wins the argument, the humanist’s lost cause is nevertheless one which the Christian not only ought to defend but is also in the best position to substantiate. For the goodness of created existence, the worth and meaningfulness of human life, if not the monopoly of the Bible, at least find their strongest support there. Current discussion sometimes offers the spectacle of the theologian, under the exigencies of debate with the humanist, resorting to a denial of the worth and value of human existence, reveling in anxiety as a virtue, and preaching despair as the Christian gospel.
In a day when the world is more ready than at any time since the early centuries to hear the good news of Christianity, contemporary theology is in danger of succumbing to the mal du siècle and handing the world a stone. Small wonder that men like Joseph Wood Krutch, Lionel Trilling, and Jacques Barzun, though they have seen the fatal

⁴Joseph Wood Krutch, The Measure of Man (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1954), pp. 169f., 200f.

Humanism Versus Orthodoxy

weakness of the humanist position, still cling forlornly to it as at least preferable to what they expect to hear in the name of theology. They are at a loss to understand how intelligent, public-spirited Christians can associate themselves with what to them is a defeatist and obscurantist position.
       When partisans to the two sides of debate must vindicate themselves by pointing to the other’s weakness, then the argument has somewhere taken a wrong turn. It is time to begin again and inquire what false premise has insinuated itself into the thinking of both sides. If such a premise can be detected and replaced, then there is hope of a fresh start, a genuine third alternative which can combine the strength and avoid the pitfalls of the rival factions.
       As the foregoing discussion suggests, the error common to both orthodoxy and humanism is the failure consistently to appreciate the fact of human freedom. While the one disregards it in the name of science, the other accomplishes a similar effect by defining sin as a constitutional necessity of human nature, outside the realm of responsibility and freedom.
        By contrast, the biblical version of sin as idolatry, or misplaced allegiance, is based squarely upon the fact of freedom. Indeed, it follows from it so inevitably that no one who grants the latter can consistently deny the former. The book’s first step, in Part I, is therefore to persuade both humanist and orthodox theologian that human freedom cannot logically be denied. Once this is granted, the definition of sin as idolatry follows automatically. Part II will show how an insufficient appreciation of human freedom has induced Christian thinking to exchange the biblical understanding of sin for an indiscriminate disparagement of human nature. Part III will validate the conception of idolatry in both theory and practice. The implication for Christian thought is that there is a biblical wisdom which constitutes its strongest weapon; for the humanist, that the authentic doctrine of sin, far from being opposed to a true humanism, is in fact indispensable to it.

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