Past Sermons by Rev. George Smith, Retired

Humanism and the Development of Democracy

September 22, 2002

Readings: We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable: that all humans are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson, Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence.

What the gods have been expected to do, and have failed to do through the ages, humans must find the courage and intelligence to do for themselves. More needful than faith in God is faith that humans can give love, justice, peace and all their beloved moral values embodiment in human relations. Denial of this faith is the only real atheism. A. Eustace Haydon.

I have been considering over the last several months an idea that presented itself in the above quotes that humanism is one of the bases for the development of democracy in human society. At the time of the development of democracy in the US, all be it, a representative democracy, the ideas of the Enlightenment through various philosophical and theological tracts came together to focus on our own governmental development. Our democracy then continued to strengthen through out the history of our country as Humanism itself continued to strengthen. In exploring this relationship it seemed to be clear that Humanism and its emphasis on centering life in the human being was an important factor in making it possible for a good strong democracy to develop.

I want to just focus on our western civilization beginning with the 15th and 16th centuries, at the time of the Reformation. Life was anything but easy then. The Middle Ages were winding down, commerce was opening up with the development of the middle class. People and leaders were much less tolerant of each other than we are today. For example, John Calvin, a Swiss reformer, whose theology was the basis for the Pilgrims and Puritans who eventually became the Congregationalists in the US, had Michael Servetus burned at the stake because of his challenge to the idea of the Trinity. There was great fear among the religious and civil authorities of that time. The emphasis was on salvation and thus getting rid of heretics was very important. The center was God. A God that could be very vengeful. Tolerance was not the watchword of that day. It was interesting that the most devastating persecutions of that time were between Christians with the complicity of the local governors. The struggle for religious freedom and tolerance was the beginning of the development of humanism. It moved the center of thought and actions from God to the human being. During this period of history great leaders of the reformation such as Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, etc. challenged the power of the Catholic Church. What was set into motion was that one could indeed think about religion for oneself and focus on the abilities of human beings.

There were two groups at this time which developed liberal and humanist ideas. The Italian Humanists such as Sebastian Castellio and Matteo Gribaldi, though Christian and Theist did use reason as an important part of their religious inquiry. They believed that tolerance in matters of religion was very, very important. They wanted to be free to explore religion in their own way. They left what was Italy at that time under the threat of the Italian inquisition and went to an area which is now in northern Italy, the Grisons. There they were welcomed by the Protestants until they began to question the essence of the Trinity—especially Jesus as God. Eventually they had to flee again or they would have been jailed or worse yet killed. Castellio was a preacher. Tolerance, freedom of thought, reason in religion and human’s exploring their own conscience were themes of his sermons. Gribaldi, a college professor, escaped from Padua after he was questioned about his religious beliefs. After a brief stay in the Grisons, he went on to be a professor at Tubbigen University in one of the German states of that time. His speculation about the trinity often found him at odds with the leaders of his day.

The second group is the Anabaptist from which our modern Baptist, Amish and Menonites have sprung. They believed in personal freedom so that each could develop his or her own religious beliefs. Remember that they were only considering a religious frame work that was Christian. However more importantly they felt that religion should evidence good behavior and doing of good works to help others in need. They too emphasized tolerance.

From the Reformation itself and especially from these two theological threads the idea that humans could decide for themselves and that humans could in some respects be in control of their own destinies, began to develop. It did begin the process which would lead to a higher valuation of human freedom, human rights, and human decision making.

Both of these strands, the Italian Humanists and Anabaptists, came together in the reformation of the Polish church by Faustus Socinus. His reform resulted in a church more specifically relying on reason, establishment of religious liberty, and becoming one of the first to develop a sense of the separation of church and state. It officially supported anti-Trinitarian views. It wasn’t long though before the Catholic Church reestablished its power and destroyed this developing reformed church which was a decidedly humanist within a Christian frame work.

The Reformation set the stage for the development of the Enlightenment in Europe in the 16th through 18th centuries and its concern for the natural rights of the human being. Thomas Hobbes, who very much believed in God, was one of the first of these philosophers to separate religion from the secular. Though much of his work dealt with religious ideas, reason rather than faith was the basis of the inquiry. However, his based his religious ideas on reason rather than on pure faith. His major work, The Leviathan, discussed the nature of government. The state was an organism, being that it is a natural part of existence. The function of Government was to help order the lives of human beings and to protect them from their natural weaknesses. Humans had natural rights though such as freedom, etc. But to Hobbes the best form of government was a monarchy, not a democracy.

This idea of natural rights, so eloquently voiced in our Declaration of Independence, is further developed in the philosophical ideas of David Hume. His work again focuses on the use of reason to explore religion arguing against belief in miracles because they do not meet the test of reason especially through the use of the scientific method. For one of the first times a philosopher argues that morals can come from purely secular thinking and do not need a God to promulgate them. This theory of morals is based on utilitarian ideas focusing on the consequences for your actions. This focus on human actions and decisions further develops humanism in a more secular form though.

At the same time Jean Jacques Rouseau a French Deistic philosopher, brought together ideas about government as being a social contract between the governed and the government. He took seriously the essence of human natural rights that we, as humans, are all born free and equal noting that at that time that meant, white males, but it was a step forward along the humanist path. And further we do not surrender these rights to the state but that the state protects our rights. The human has become primary.

The Reformation set in motion the shift from a God centered world to one focusing on the human’s own ability to make decisions and act for him or her self. Philosophical ideas at the same time explored ideas of human self governance without the control of a sovereign.

The political development in England mirrored this philosophical development of democracy and humanism. Beginning with the Magna Carta in 1215 moving through several centuries of contention between parliament and the monarchs, including the English Reformation with Henry VIII needing to have parliament establish the church of England and making him the head in effect gave that parliament a sense of power that would not be stifled by future monarchs. When parliament ordered the beheading of Charles I, the power of the monarch had been eclipsed. This shifting of power was from a sovereign to the people, in this case not all but certain groups especially the developing middle class echoed the theoretical development of humanism and its philosophical inquiry.

For democracy to flourish there needed to have been a shift in thinking from God in control of humans to humans being in control of their own destiny. For how else could people believe that they could govern?

In America the step to humanism came through the founding fathers who were mostly Deists, those who believed that God set creation into action and then stepped back and allowed it to run on its own. Humans were not interfered with by such a God. The Enlightenment philosophers’ view of natural rights as being a part of humanity allowed for the responsible development of representative democracy in America. This human responsibility actively evidences itself in all aspects of human life, economic with the rise of capitalism, family life with the care and concern for children, education with its extension into the middle class.

Once democracy was established in the US, its development follows the development of humanism. Consider the early Unitarians. They were actually liberal Christians, some being more Deists than Christian, but most believed that reason played a very important part in the development of religious beliefs. I want to take us quickly to the early 20th century and the Humanist Manifesto written in 1933 by Roy Wood Sellars with the help of Curtis W. Reese, Raymond Bragg, Edwin H. Wilson and others. Its salient points for our discussion are: 1. humans are part of nature and develop out of evolution thus not placed here to be the playthings of some God, 2. the universe is self existing and not created, humans are freed from dependence upon God and thus can decide for themselves, 3. existence can be understood and is explored by the scientific method, humans can test life for themselves. These three focus us on our human selves and our own ability and allows us to value ourselves. Thus we can decide and we can contribute to a democracy the government of ourselves.

Reese the Unitarian Minister at that time in Des Moines, Iowa, spoke about two types of religion, theocratic seeing God as the solver of human problems and democracies which sees humans as the solvers of their own problems. Spiritual forces to him were natural phenomena not supernatural. He emphasized spiritual freedom especially the infinite worth of each human. As humanism focused on the human and on the developments of research into what humans are, this sense of human value became even more important in how we treated others.

John Dietrich, Unitarian minister of Spokane, Wash., viewed the world that we lived in as not dependent upon some God outside of us but upon humans themselves being responsible for self. The universe, nature, is the controlling factor. Values, ethical codes are developed by humans so that we can live together more effectively with a government that exists for the people and not vice versa.

So humanism with is liberal focus, supports and indeed is one of the foundations of democracy because it takes seriously the very essence of humanity and our ability to exist within the confines of nature. We can choose. Implied in reason is the sense of freedom because of choice. Fundamentalism, a religious view that sees humans as the plaything of the deity, devalues the importance of the human in his or her own ability to function in this world such as making decisions or following one’s own inner sense of self. It sees the self as acting only for God because God made it that way. It is only in the spiritual dimension that fundamentalist see life’s value life. Thus what happens in our world is not of significance unless it detracts from the spiritual. These fundamentalist ideas are contrary to democracy and its humanist base. It is one of the reasons that I so much fear John Ashcroft and his fundamentalism as they impact our rights and freedoms.

We value democracy because we value the worth and dignity of all humans. We value the ability of humans to decide for them selves. We place a priority upon democratic principles. This has ultimately come out of our humanist heritage. Humanism continues to develop. Its understanding of the human and the human condition continues to increase. Strangely enough we still struggle with our tendency as humans to want to be the sole arbiter of truth for others. It is natural for us to believe the way that we see it is the way for others. This is why it is so particularly important that we continue to reaffirm our faith in and our use of democracy in our congregation. It is not easy. But can be a fruitful venture.