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SECULARISM

I  The Term 'Secularism'

Secularism is generally the assertion that certain practices or institutions should exist separately from religion or religious belief. Alternatively, it is a principle of promoting secular ideas or values in either public or private settings. It may also be a synonym for "secularist movement". In the extreme, it is an ideology that holds that religion has no place in public life. The term "secularism" was first used by the British writer George Holyoake in 1846. Although the term was new, the general notions of freethought on which it was based had existed throughout history. Barry Kosmin of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture breaks modern secularism into two types: hard and soft secularism. According to Kosmin, "the hard secularist considers religious propositions to be epistemologically illegitimate, warranted by neither religion nor experience." However, in the view of soft secularism, "the attainment of absolute truth was impossible and therefore skepticism and tolerance should be the principle and overriding values in the discussion of science and religion."

II  The Spread of Secularism

An "atheist" is one who says there is sufficient evidence to show that God does not exist. An "agnostic" is one who says there is insufficient evidence to know whether or not God exists. The "functional etheist" is one who is apathetic concerning God's existence. In a certain extent, the term "secularist" will include all three.

If one combines the numbers for both the "atheists" and the "nonreligious", the total number of secularists is around 20% of the world's population. In the following countries, atheists or nonreligious individuals make up more than 10% of the population: Albania, Australia, China, Cuba, former Czechoslovakia, France, French Polynesia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, North Korea, Macao, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, the former USSR, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vietnam, and former Yugoslavia. The number of secularists is rapidly growing in the US context.

III  The Renaissance (AD 1400-1600)

In the early 1400s, Gutenberg invented the printing press with movable type. As a result, the writings of the past became much more accessible to the public. Such increased accessibility sparked two responses. One was a greater awareness of and obedience to God's Word, which led to the Reformation. The other was a pursuit of humanistic themes, which drew from the writings of Greek and Roman thinkers and served as the foundation for the Renaissance. The word "renaissance" means "rebirth", and that which was reborn was humanity's sense of independence and individualism.

Toward the end of Renaissance, the modern method of empirical science began to develop. The key players were Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Although it may seem ironic now, each of these men believed in the Christian God. They viewed science as one of the means by which to study the handiwork of an almighty Creator and to discern His natural laws. Galileo considered God to have written two "books": the Bible and Nature.

Contrary to popular belief, the cause for the division between Christianity and science originated not with the church but with the university professors who were threatened by Galileo's revolutionary ideas. These professors were steeped in the Greek scientific method, which included observation to a small extent, but it explained the workings of nature mostly through rational deduction from first principles, or assumptions. Based on such assumptions, an entire view of the universe had been developed, apart from actual observations of the universe.

Galileo's recently invented telescope quickly demonstrated the incorrectness of such assumptions. Not willing to be undermined by Galileo, the professors decided to make the controversy a religious one rather than an academic one. They argued that the heliocentric (sun-centered) view contradicted Scripture. For example, Psalm 104:22 says, "The sun rises". Therefore, the sun must revolve around a stationary earth.

In the face of what at that time appeared to be a genuine contradiction between Scripture and the heliocentric theory, the theologians of the Roman Catholic Church had no choice but to condemn Galileo's views, since the conflict had challenged the authority of the church. As a result of this controversy between the Church and Galileo, the schism between reason and faith had begun. There were now two apparently irreconcilable sources of truth: the Church and science.

In the way that philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) responded to a movement called Pyrrhonism he contributed to the trend of moving the source of truth away from the church. Pyrrhonism (named after the Greek skeptic Pyrrho, 365-275 BC) was a form of utter skepticism whereby everything was doubted. As a result, nothing could be known for certain. The significance of Descartes' cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") is that he had used the Pyrrhonists' own method of questioning everything in order to establish one unquestionable fact: The doubter could be certain of his own existence. Descartes had no intention of being a religious reformer; nevertheless, his new method of approaching truth shook Christianity to its core. It was used to shift the foundation for certainty from God to man.

IV  The Enlightenment (AD 1600-1800)

The successes produced by science ushered in the Age of Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, people began to elevate science to the level of being the ultimate test for truth. The discoveries of the laws of science by men like Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Robert Boyle (1627-1692), and Isaac Newton (1642-1727) gave support to the analogy that the universe was like a machine. Such an analogy tended to dismiss the need for a God as Sustainer of the Universe.

Other challenges to the Christian worldview came through philosophers Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), David Hume (1711-1776), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Hobbes drew out the implications of a materialistic philosophy in which matter was the ultimate stuff of the universe. Hume, in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, presented arguments against the veracity of the miracle accounts in the Bible. And Kant encouraged people to assert the power of their own intellect and to throw off the shackles of ecclesiastical authority.

Still, even with the onslaught of the Enlightenment, most people in the nineteenth century, including scientists, believed in the existence of a rational and personal Creator. The reason was that there was no alternative theory to that of creation that could adequately explain the existence of an orderly universe. That changed with Charles Darwin.

VI  The Beliefs of Secularism

(1) The Denial of God: The most fundamental tenet of secularism is the denial of the existence of the supernatural. Matter is all that exists. According to secularism, belief in God is nothing more than a projection of man's own thoughts and desires. God did not make man in His image; instead, man made God in his image.

(2) The Denial of Miracles: After having denied God's existence, it is logical then to conclude that miracles-the result of God's intervention-are not possible. The miracles recorded in the Bible, secularists surmise, must have been the embellishments of the authors who were promoting their particular religious agenda.

(3) The Fact of Evolution: Secularists assert that the existence and complexity of the universe can be sufficiently explained through naturalistic principles as set forth in the theory of evolution. Personality and mind are also the products of the evolutionary process and are sufficiently explained through the interaction of chemical and biological elements. Thus, there is no "ghost in the machine".

(4) The Potential of Humanity: Secularists see religion as being restrictive and escapist. Religion does nothing more than assuage the fears of an ignorant people. If humanity is to survive, secularists say, humankind must face problems squarely and find the answers within themselves, reason, and science. Secularism begins and ends with humanity. Humanity will be able to face the issues squarely only when freed from the shackles of religion.

(5) The Centrality of Science: Secularists are confident that the scientific method of inquiry is the only reliable avenue by which to discover truth and knowledge. According to the secularistic point of view, there is an irreconcilable antagonism between reason and faith, science and religion, empirical observation and revealed authority. The two avenues to truth and knowledge are mutually exclusive.

(6) The Stress on Relativity: Secularists deny that there is an absolute moral reference point beyond humanity, such as a holy God. They contend that humankind does not need an absolute moral standard beyond itself in order to have a sufficient foundation and motivation for moral behavior. Humanity is by nature good, and all that is needed to realize that innate goodness is education, not religious transformation.

(7) The Finality of Death: At death, the individual ceases to exist in any cohesive or conscious form. As the signers of The Humanist Manifesto II wrote, "There is no cedible evidence that life survives the death of the body".

VII Secularism & Christianity

(1) God:

• Secularism: Matter, in one form or another, is all that has existed from eternity and all that will ever exist
• Christianity: God alone is infinite and eternal. The material universe is finite and has not always existed. God created it out of nothing.

(2) Humanity:

• Secularism: Humanity is by nature monistic (a oneness) in that the person consists of only one substance: matter. Humanity represents the highest point of the gradual and random processes of evolution.
• Christianity: Humanity is by nature dualistic in that the person consists of two substances: body and spirit. Humanity, being made in the image of God, represents the highest point of God's creation.

(3) Humanity's Problem:

• Secularism: The problem is that humanity depends on the escapist promises of religion, rather than facing problems squarely and believing that humankind has the potential to create a world in which peace and justice will prevail.
• Christianity: The problem is that humanity has rebelled against a personal and holy God. As a result, we live for ourselves and place our hope in false gods, such as success, money, nature, science, education, etc.

(4) The Solution:

• Secularism: The solution is in extending the scientific method of rational inquiry into all aspects of life, while at the same time maintaining a sense of compassion for the individual.
• Christianity: The solution is in humanity being restored to a right relationship with a holy God through faith in Jesus Christ. While Christianity encourages the rational inquiry of science, it opposes scientism, which goes beyond the limits of science in that it claims that the scientific method is a sufficient avenue to all truth.

(5) Jesus Christ:

• Secularism: At most, Jesus was a good moral teacher. Because the biblical authors embellished the details of Jesus' life, though, we can be certain of very little concerning the historical details of His life.
• Christianity: Jesus was the very embodiment of God on earth. The Bible meets the qualifications for being authentic history. It records that Jesus lived, died for our sins, and rose from the dead.

(6) After Death:

• Secularism: There is no survival of the person's consciousness after death.
• Christianity: There is personal survival after death, either to eternal life with God or to eternal separation from Him.

                      (Indebted to Dean C. Halverson)