Systematic Theology -- Salvation

Humanistic Salvation

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 03

Dictation Name: 03 Humanistic Salvation

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that the government is not upon the shoulder of these strutting tyrants, but upon thy shoulders, that whatever man may propose, it is thou, O Lord, who will, in thy due time, make the disposition. Give us grace to walk by faith, know that thou art on the throne, and that the government is upon thy shoulders. Make us strong Christian soldiers that we may fight a good fight, be faithful soldiers of thy kingdom, knowing that this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of the things that of thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our subject in our first session this evening is Humanistic Salvation, and our scripture is Romans 1:20-23. “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”

Salvation is a concern of man in every area of life. All men are religious creatures. God, having made man, man is inescapably religious, but Paul tells us that men, having abandoned God, worshipped the creature rather than the creator. The profess as wisdom the worship of themselves and of their own will, or the worship of animals and creeping things, and they change the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man.

All you have to do to see the religiousness of all man is to pick up almost any periodical or paper. Men seek to change lives, a new life. They travel to have an uplifting experience. The whole purpose of the sexual revolution has been announced over and over again as the saving of man from hang-ups, salvation. People go through psychotherapy in order to find salvation. The language of redemption creeps into every area of life. One of the better known critics of popular music is Ken Tucker. Writing in the L.A. Herald Examiner in the Sound section, Sunday, April 22, 1979. This is what he had to say about his favorite subject, rock music, “Rock bands tend to admire their favorite artists to the point of idolatry, a tendency easy to fall into when an art like the best rock and roll has the ability to change your life (good religious language, is it not?). To idolize is a part of the fun of rock, but the intensity of devotion makes for some exceedingly bitter feelings when the idol falters. The idolater is then less apt to be quite so enthusiastic the next time a new, lively object of adoration appears. That’s one way rock bands mature, and drift away from the fold, and onto jazz, or classical, or Barry Manilow. I’ve got nothing against the above, but as a committed rock band, it’s saddening every time another rock band defects.”

Now, such statements should not surprise us, man being a religious creature, even in his Fall, man is an inescapably religious creature, religiously motivated. Even in their fall, man recognized the need for a changed life. In fact, the whole language of politics, of psychology, of sociology, of practically any study you take up today that deals with the human condition speaks about the need for a changed life, for salvation, but when they say a changed life, they do not mean that man the sinner repents and becomes himself a changed person, or man the sinner, fallen man. A changed life means the world around you changes. The environment changes. This is the modern doctrine of salvation, and this is what politics is about today. Save mankind by changing the world around him. Do not tamper with man.

As a result, they breed a chronic discontent, a chronic discontent that means that man lashes out at the world around him. The more earnest he becomes in his desire for salvation, the more revolutionary he becomes. I can recall when I was a student, this was a good many years ago, hearing one lecturer say that it would be a sad day when American youth ceased to be interested in sports and in movies. Now, this man was a humanist, but he had a very sharp awareness of the human condition, and he said, “When we cease to have a fun-loving population, they will become like the students of Latin America, and of Spain. Revolutionaries. They will demand social salvation through revolution,” and of course, he was very right.

Today, the things that man predicted have come to pass. Men seek a new life on man’s terms. Basic to these terms, basic to this plan of humanistic salvation is this. For a Christian, salvation is from sin unto the Lord. For humanism, salvation is from God. It means independence from God, and the result is some very wild dreaming by man. Now it’s very interesting to read some science fiction at times and to watch some programs that deal with this. I don’t enjoy them, but once in awhile I will read such a story or watch such a program. Recently, there was one such a television program in which a robot, a creature made by man, had been programmed to be a super-military instrument, and what did he do? He became disenchanted with war, and he became a pacifist, a peace-nik, and he turned against the militarist who had made him.

Now, that plot is not an unusual one. It’s very commonplace. Back in the fifties when cybernetics was just coming into being, and computers were first being manufactured on a large scale, one of the most common types of articles in magazines and in papers was about the possibility of these computers developing a mind in independence from man. The revolt of the robots, the revolt of the computers. That was the type of article that was commonplace in the late fifties. Why? Why did the idea have so much appeal? Now, the scientists themselves who taught that way knew better, and yet the idea had a tremendous fascination for them, and still does.

Well, consider what it involves. Man is the creator, who creates the computer, who creates the robot. If that robot or that computer can develop a mind and soul like this peace-nik robot, and revolt against his maker, then man can do it, too. The logic is faultless. You cannot fault these humanists and their logic. Granted their premise, it all follows. It all falls into place, and so the idea of peace-nik robots and computers that begin to talk back to the programmer, the appeal of that concept is, if they can do it, man, too, can be free from his creator, God, and the programming in man can be set aside, and man can reprogram himself in terms of total independence from God. Now, that’s the appeal of it, and when you go back to original sin, of course, you realize how logical it is, because what is the point of Genesis 3:1-5? The Tempter says to Eve, “Ye shall be as God.” Every man his own god, “knowing (that is, determining) for himself what constitutes good and evil.” That was man’s declaration of independence from God.

Now, man’s idea of salvation is to affirm more of the same. To say, “I want my robots to develop into peace-niks, even though they may turn their guns at me, because it means that then I can turn my guns against God. As I have pointed out before, the whole meaning of the Death of God Movement was not that the men who established that movement ever said that God actually is dead, but they said We have decreed that for us, God is dead, because we do not choose to acknowledge him. We have declared out independence of him, so that for us, God doesn’t exist. They were like the person who decides to cut you dead and says, “I don’t know you. For me, you don’t exist,” and it was so with the Death of God Movement, and it is so with modern man. Modern man has chosen to say, “I do not acknowledge a God. He is, to all practical intent, non-existent for me.” This is the will to independence, to freedom from God, the freedom to be a god, and this means war against God, and war against man. After all, if you want to be free from God and that’s salvation to you, you’re going to say “no” to every word of God, and if you have that will to salvation as autonomy from God, what are you going to say to parents, or to husband, or to wife, or to authorities over you? “No.” You’ll quarrel with them. You’ll fight with them.

In a book I read recently, literary studies, there was a very interesting comment by Kathryn Ann Porter concerning Gertrude Stein, the so-called writer who was also a lesbian, and Kathryn Ann Porter remarked, “She (Gertrude Stein) did a great deal of quarreling for when she quarreled, she seemed to have felt more real.” You get the point then. when she quarreled, she seemed to feel more real. There are many people like that in the modern world. As a matter of fact, one of the definitions of a real black, a few years ago, was one who was in revolt. Those who are law-abiding and hard working were Uncle Tom’s and plastic blacks. They weren’t real. To be real in the modern world means to be at war with God and man, and so youth picks this up, and you have the so-called generation gap. Well, they’re fighting with everyone on all sides, above and below, and on every side, because salvation has come to mean autonomy. You were real. You were free when you fight.

This is the appeal of war, or of revolution, or of social conflict and social hatred. The peace-niks of the 1960’s and the nukes of the 1970’s are no different. They are at perpetual war. Now, modern art shows the same aspect. It is at war with reality. It is at war with all things. One of the greats of modern art, Mondrian{?}, has said, “It is the task of art to express a clear vision of reality.” The artist sees himself as a prophet. He must be free of all controls. One of the greatest, so-called, of the modern architects, once said, “I think we should treat our clients as children.” In other words, if you’re having a building built by these men, you have no right to an opinion. You take what they tell you.

Peter Gay has said, “The innovator must almost by definition offend reigning taste.” An anarchic war against the client, against reality, against society. Is it a successful picture, or sculpture, or building? Well, everybody is worked up about it and is angry. Good. Then, it’s great. Peter Gay has said further, “The riot of modern subjectivity is a symptom of dreadful freedom. The outcry of lost men in an incomprehensible world in which standards have decayed and reason has abandoned its place and its claim to order, the chaos of experience.”

Now, Gay doesn’t object to that. The goal of such art and of such people is to be at war with the world, and not only at war, but on a collision course, determined to destroy everything. Mondrian{?} has said the destructive element is very important to art. Now, artists, you see don’t think of themselves as creators in the traditional sense, but as destroyers. So, the goal of man’s independence and of salvation as independence turns out to be destruction. Well, this should not surprise us, because what is the end result of sin? Of man’s declaration of independence from God? It is death. Salvation means freedom from God, to humanism, and this is the meaning of the Temper’s program in Genesis 3:1-5 where Adam was tempted, and also in Matthew 4:1-11 where our Lord was tempted. Salvation thus, is an intensely humanistic concern, and as a result, humanism sees salvation as declaring an independence from God in one area of life after another. Let us declare our independence from God in politics. Let us declare our independence in law and instead of having God’s law as our law, we’ll make our own law. Let us have independence in education and make it humanistic, not God-centered. Let us declare our independence from God in our vocations, and our arts, and our sciences, and in our churches. The goal of salvation for humanism is from God, so the course of history and of man is suicide. As Proverbs 8:36 says, “All they that hate me love death.” The love of sin is the love of death.

Remember the quotation I gave from Tucker at the very beginning. He said the best rock and roll has the ability to change your life. True, but to change it away from Jesus Christ. This is the goal of our modern culture as well as our modern education, to change men away from Christ, but every change apart from Christ is a step further into the consequences of the Fall, a step into death and hell. Are there any questions now?

[Audience] What was the last Proverb {?}

[Rushdoony] Proverbs 8:36. Yes?

[Audience] You talk about art being in revolt against the world, or art revolted {?} other artists, because just from my observations of art, every movement in art has been a revolt from the previous movement before.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it’s a revolt against any sense of law. It’s a revolt against God. It’s a revolt against standards. So that the minute a new revolt succeeds, it becomes a pattern. Therefore, they must be in revolt against it. Perpetual revolution, you see, perpetual revolt. This is the goal. Yes?

[Audience] {?} same as communism, means revolt. I mean, they have to have a revolution, otherwise, they can no longer become communism.

[Rushdoony] Some years ago, a book was written with an excellent title, states precisely that. Perpetual war for perpetual peace, or perpetual revolution for perpetual peace.

[Audience] 1984.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it’s the world of 1984. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] How conscious do you believe {?} about this, men in Washington, educators, how conscious are they of what they are doing? They look at it, do you believe as a faith, or they simply kind of caught up in the mainstream of everything, not really seeing where it’s taking them, or do they express themselves in terms of a faith as we do, looking upon them, or are they oblivious to all that?

[Rushdoony] A good question in case some of you did not hear it. The question was how self-conscious are the men in Washington concerning all of this that I’ve been talking about. The answer is, of course, that many are not, but a very great number are fully conscious of this. Their goal is to take us away from the world of God and scripture into a manmade world and they believe that anything that will take us in the other direction is good, no matter how bad it may appear at the time. I know that one of the most prominent men in Washington, in the federal government of the past ten years, was approached by a young man whom I know, after he spoke, and was asked, “Why not a return to Christian faith?” and the man made a face at that, and he said, “You’re asking for a return to the Dark Ages. It’s precisely against all that that we are waging our battle.” So he was very clearly declaring that Christianity was the enemy. It was against that, that they were working, to undo all of that. They’re very self-conscious. I have found many of them to be so. The sad fact is that, by comparison, too few Christians are as consistent in their position. They feel they can have a foot in both camps. They can go along with a godless politics, and a godless education, and still be good Christians, or they can affirm a godless economics, and a fiat economics, and still be godly men. The humanists know better. Yes?

[Audience] The topic you seem to be in the humanist versus the Christian. There’s always the man that is looking for some other god, some other idol, some other system of worship, fighting against the triune God. As you look into the humanist, you see different categories of humanism where you would have the communists for one case, would have the Marxist and Leninism as their god and as their theology, you would see other cults, you would see other types of humanists. Why aren’t they fighting amongst themselves rather than they all fighting against Christ?

[Rushdoony] Why aren’t the humanists fighting amongst themselves rather than all fighting against Christ? The answer is, as long as they feel they have a Christian world around them, they are more or less united against us, but there has never been a situation of a triumph, of humanism, where they have not immediately turned on one another savagely. After all, remember what happened in the French Revolution. Marx wrote extensively on that and felt that that was the great problem. How, when you triumph, do you keep the revolution from becoming cannibalistic? Well, nothing he said worked, because certainly, no sooner did the revolution triumph in the Soviet Union, in Russian, than it became cannibalistic. Lenin was almost certainly murdered, at Stalin’s orders, and then there was one liquidation after another of all the old Bolsheviks. Liquidations are by no means over. Red China has nothing but liquidations, and the same is true in the Central European communist countries. It is a part of the pattern, so that they do turn on one another. The idea that the world of humanist could be united is nonsense. They are the most anarchistic of all people, because if your fundamental premise is, every man his own god, how are you going to keep people from each regarding himself as a god and waging war against all others. Well, you can’t, so the triumph of humanism is also the beginning of the end for it. Yes?

[Audience] Do you think we are coming to a turning point now where a reformation could take place?

[Rushdoony] Do I believe that we’re coming to a turning point when a reformation can take place in this country? Yes, I do. I believe that it is precisely for that reason that our situation is going to be so desperate, for the next ten years, at least. The enemy recognizes that the tide is turning against it, and that it is destroying its own world. Its world is falling apart. So, with real desperation, they’re trying to wipe us out before we get off the ground. Yes?

[Audience] Do you think what you were saying there, for the humanists, they have a common enemy, Christianity. Wouldn’t it be the same thing as, you know, Satan comes as Christ, you know, as a deceiver, he comes as an angel of light. Is that the reason you believe that, in the church, evangelicalism, no matter what you call it, that’s why we have conflicts within the church and allies pitting against each other, because of the humanism being so rampant in the church today?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Humanism is very rampant in the church, and that is why there is no real discrimination and discernment. People are willfully self-blinded. I’ll be dealing with that in our {?}

End of tape