Is Humanism a religion? I contend that Humanism does not
qualify, but it is compatible with religious experience. Beginning with how
religion was defined in ancient times, I argue that the element or aspect of
transcendence is vital. I then look at whether transcendence is and could be in Humanism.
Religio, religionis (f, Latin) is
translated principally as "supernatural constraint or taboo" or
"obligation," in line with the verb religare (to bind). Secondary
meanings of religio include "sanctity" and "reverence, respect,
awe." In short, the etymology of religion indicates that the phenomenon is
based on the binding nature of a religious object that is transcendent (i.e.,
not based in our realm, including Nature), hence the supernatural attribute or
manifestation associated with the nature of the binding, or obligation. So
religion is not based on feeling obliged to respect Nature. Hence the ancient
nature religions had as a core belief the notion that deities, which are not
based in our realm, control various features of Nature. For example, Zeus
controls lightning, and Poseidon causes storms on the seas. Somethings (i.e.,
deities) were premised to exist that transcend Nature. Therefore, Nature itself
not get us far enough in referring to religion even in the nature religions. In
theism, too, a religious object is believed to exist that is
"other-worldly" and hence supernatural.
I submit that the most
determinative aspect of religion—indeed, I would even say its essence—is transcendence, an orientation
whose reference-point lies beyond the limits of human cognition, sentiment, and
perception. Transcendence is something that a person does; it is experiential even as it is not experience as we know
it. Technically, transcendence does not require a belief in religious object,
such as a deity (i.e., an intelligent being with a personality based beyond our
realm—that of Creation). On a bare basis, the focus can be to a focus-point that
is beyond the limits of human cognition, sentiment, and perception; as a point,
which by definition has no surface-area, the referent operates as a non-attribute-holding
place-holder that engenders “deep” transcendental yearning or striving. Such an undertaking, I contend, serves as the foundation
of religion and spirituality. Accordingly, the binding is ultimately applied to the yearning or striving, rather
than to normative strictures ensuing from a religious object (e.g., the Ten
Commandments).
It follows that respecting human
potential, such as exists within Nature, does not get us to religion. Nor does
Nature itself get us there. Feuerbach errs, I submit, in
attributing divine status to Nature, and, more specifically to the potential of
our species (i.e., our better instincts). He points to the case of nature
religions, which he claims involves the “worship of nature as a divine being”
because “nature is primary and fundamental, and cannot be derived from anything
else.”[1]
Yet having such a placement within Creation,
for example, does not render something divine for lack of a transcendent
extension. Even as representations of “the world in a mode differing from sense
perception” rather than “a being different from the world,” the original conceptions
of gods fell short.
Feuerbach can ironically be drawn on to attest to the shortfall. “I
do not look on nature as a god, as supernatural, supersensual, remote,
recondite, and One; [Nature in contrast] is a manifold, public, actual being
which can be perceived with all the senses.”[2]
There being “nothing mystical, nothing nebulous, nothing theological” in his
use of the term, Nature, it falls short of being divine because it is based and
confined to our realm without a transcendent dimension.[3]
So too does his conception of God as “abstracted from the world”—God being “only
the world in thought.”[4]
Such a god cannot, by definition, extend beyond the world. Feuerbach’s
characterization of the word divine as
“beneficent, magnificent, praiseworthy, and admirable” also falls short in
accounting for the term’s distinctly religious
connotations; a political ruler, for example, could be praised as being
beneficent, magnificent, and admirable without any hint of anything religious
or even spiritual.[5]
Similarly, Feuerbach’s claim that spiritual
means “intellectual and abstract” falls short, as these descriptors could
apply to the orientation of a secular scholar whose trade is theory.[6]
Feuerbach, being such a scholar, also characterizes "divine" as
"supreme”—his reference here being to Nature itself. The religious
connotations of the word, divine, are
not satisfied, however, for something can be supreme and yet not transcendent.[7]
Life, for example, “is the supreme good.”[8]
In fact, Feuerbach maintains that God, as a supreme
being, “is in its origin and basis nothing but the highest being in space,
optically considered: the sky with its brilliant phenomena.”[9]
Being the highest being in Creation may be impressive by our standards, but
this does not get us to religious transcendence, which is qualitatively
different than even infinite space and time.
In his ascension in his resurrected
body into Heaven, for example, Jesus goes up skyward, but not simply up and
up into the sky. Rather, he becomes engulfed in a cloud, which signifies the
inherent mysterium of a transcendent
divine object (i.e., God) that inherently goes beyond the limits of our ability
to think and see yet not in the sense
that the infinite space in the sky lies beyond our conceptual and visual
abilities. Feuerbach rejects this sui
generis transcendental dimension of religion, claiming that all “religions of
some imagination transfer their Gods into the region of the clouds . . . all Gods are lost at last in the blue vapor
of heaven.”[10]
The transcendent to him is merely the fiction of human imagination; God’s
goodness is “merely the utility of nature, ennobled by the imagination.”[11]
So Feuerbach tries to secularize religion, claiming it “is merely
the art of life and simply expresses the forces and drives which directly
govern the life of man.”[12]
Accordingly, he misapplies religious terms to “earthly” objects—which in religious
terms is idolatry. In fact, in claiming that
“man has in himself the measure, the criterion
of divinity,” Feuerbach can be said to be engaging in self-idolatry.[13]
Hence, he posits, “if a being’s worthiness to be worshipped, hence his divine
dignity, depends solely on his relation to human welfare, if only a being
beneficial and useful to man is divine, then the ground of divinity is to be
sought solely in human egoism.”[14]
Feuerbach thus hails Nature as sacred, for example, because we are
so dependent on it.[15]
“All the strange and conspicuous phenomena in nature, everything that strikes
and captivates man’s eye, surprises and enchants his ear, fires his
imagination, induces wonderment, affects him in a special, unusual, to him
inexplicable way, may contribute to the formation of religion and even provide
an object of worship.”[16]
Just because something is captivating or enchanting, even special or unusual,
does not render it sacred—which is to say, with significance that transcends
our realm. Yet Feuerbach attacks the attribution of the sacred to transcendent religious objects. Such “an
object first takes on its true intrinsic dignity when the sacred nimbus is
stripped off; for as long as a thing or being is an object of religious
worship, it is clad in borrowed plumes, namely, the peacock feathers of the
human imagination.”[17]
Humanism, moreover, also falls short of religion and even spirituality
in eschewing the sheer existence of any transcendent religious object(s). Put
another way, Humanism limits itself to recognition only within the limits of human
cognition, sentiment and perception. Yet Humanism can be religious or spiritual,
I contend, on account of the human (instinctual)
urge to undertake transcendent yearning. Given the salience of religious
experience both cross-culturally and through human history, the human brain may
have an instinctual urge—admittedly stronger in some people than others—to
engage in transcendent experience whose orientation or focus is curiously beyond
the capacities of the human brain. If transcendence
is simply one of many human qualities or abilities, pursuing its potential is
consistent with the aims of Humanism: to develop human potential.
The key for Humanists whose transcendentalist urge is ardently felt
lies in distinguishing the experience—the yearning itself—from whether
religious objects exist beyond the limits of human cognition and perception. No
such objects need be presumed to exist in order to engage in the human yearning whose focus lies
inherently beyond the capacity of the brain; it is enough—and indeed, crucial—for
the focus to be beyond. This is what enables Humanism to be religious without
having to believe in God. Put another way, God for the Humanist may be the
transcendence itself, rather than a transcendent entity. Both Augustine and
Calvin stress that the Christian god is love; God is the love between people
that issues out in universal benevolence. Yet such love, having a divine basis,
cannot merely be moral in nature; transcendence cannot be of own kind, or sui generis, and yet reduce to morality.
So a religious Humanism cannot simply be human morality; a unique way of being
human hitherto assumed to be conditioned on belief in particular conceptions of
religious objects (e.g., God) must be uncoupled
for the Humanist to admit to his or her own human religious nature.
In summary, Humanism in
the limited sense that it is commonly "understood" does
not qualify as a religion for lack of transcendence. To niggardly hold to the
ideologically constrained common view and presumptuously erase and replace the
default meaning of religion does not do justice either to Humanism or religion.
Like the "other shore" in Buddhism, the very existence of the abyss
that Humanists and Theists alike insist separates Humanism and religion is, I
submit, an illusion foisted by narrow-minded, partisan thinking. Humanism is
not, but could be, religious.
1. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 89.
2. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 91.
3. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 91.
4. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 114.
5. Ludwig
Feuerbach, The Essence of Religion,
trans. Alexander Loos (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004), p. 7.
6. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 116.
7. Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Religion,
trans. Alexander Loos (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004), 4.
8. Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence
of Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 53.
9. Ludwig
Feuerbach, The Essence of Religion,
trans. Alexander Loos (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004), 11.
10. Ludwig
Feuerbach, The Essence of Religion,
trans. Alexander Loos (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004), 11.
11. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 111.
12. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 53.
13. Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence
of Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967),
53-54.
14. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 62.
15. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 37.
16. Ludwig
Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of
Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 45.
17. Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence
of Religion, Ralph Manheim, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 38.
