Secular humanism Archives

Grand Central Question, Abdu H. Murray. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: Every worldview addresses the fundamental “why” questions of human existence and the author contends that the worldviews of secular humanism, pantheism, and Islam each have a “grand central question” and that the grand central questions posed by these worldviews find their deepest and most satisfying answers in the Christian gospel.

Abdu Murray grew up as a Muslim, trained as a lawyer, and spent years questioning the beliefs of those around him–atheist, Christian, pantheist–until he was confronted with some questions of his own that led to a his embracing the Christian faith.

In this book, Murray begins with the important and costly search for truth, acknowledging that this could lead to great loss–of respect, of family, even of life–and leaves us with the question of what the truth is worth for us. He then explores the idea that every worldview in some way addresses some basic questions including:

What explains existence? Or is there a God?
Is there an objective purpose and value to human existence?
What accounts for the human condition?
Is there a better life or salvation from our present state?

He contends that each of the belief systems–secular humanism, pantheism, and Islam–is particularly concerned with one Grand Central Question that receives the greater emphasis in that system. For secular humanism, it is the question of the basis of human dignity when there is no God. On what can the inherent value of humans be grounded? For pantheism, it is the question of how do we escape (and explain) suffering? Finally, for Islam, it is the question of the greatness of God, and how one might worship a great but unapproachable God.

In three sections, Murray expands upon the central question for each worldview, showing how the worldview attempts to address this, the shortcomings of those explanations and why he believes the Christian gospel provides the most cogent and satisfying explanation. For the secular humanist, simply asserting the intuition of our worth may not be enough if we come up against superior beings considering us expendable. Appealing to fine-tuning arguments of design, Murray proposes the grounding of our worth in God as his image bearers.

Likewise, pantheism argues for the elimination of desire as the basis for the escape from suffering. Yet this does not do away with the reality of suffering. Christian faith speaks of a God who enters into our suffering, and rather than trying to deny or transcend its existence offers meaning in suffering as well as an ultimate deliverance from it.

Finally, and perhaps especially valuable because of the author’s own prior beliefs, is his exploration of Islam. He particularly explores the idea of “God is greater” and proposes that the very things Islam denies are in fact what offer the greatest possible God, a God who is One not only as we are but uniquely one essential deity in three persons, a God whose love arises from the eternal relations of the three, and a God who may be approached in worship because he approached us in his Son. Furthermore, this Jesus did not have a substitute die on the cross, hardly a sign of greatness, but died as the substitute for humanity.

He concludes with the proposal that the Christian gospel does not address one Grand Central Question but provides answers that address the range of questions about human existence that intellectually satisfy and can spiritually transform.

I appreciated the idea of a “grand central question”, although I wonder if proponents of these worldviews would be comfortable with this rubric. His discussion showed evidence of many dialogues with people who hold the views he is addressing, but I wonder if the book would have felt more authentic if he had dialogue partners from these three “worldviews” responding to his proposals.

I think what set this book apart was the sensitive and insightful exploration of Islam, including his narrative of how careful study of the Qur’an actually led to his examination of the gospels. I hope he will write further on Muslim-Christian engagement, which seems so important and needed in our day.

Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life by Anthony T. Kronman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Anthony Kronman had me by the time I got to the subtitle. I wanted to know, “why, indeed, have our colleges and universities given up on the meaning of life?” It brought to mind a conversation with a religious studies faculty about the evidence from studies of spirituality in higher education of the longing of students to talk openly about these questions in their classes. The faculty person said something to this effect, “I could never do that. What we are about is the academic study of religion and not the personal beliefs of students.”

Kronman begins the book describing a philosophy seminar on Existentialism taught by his undergraduate college department chair. The seminar met in the chair’s home. The readings were demanding, the discussions about a life well lived were passionate. Birthed in those discussions was the conviction that higher education was a place “where the question of what living is for can be pursued in an organized way” (p. 6). His book is an impassioned argument for both why higher education has largely abandoned such discussions (except in late night bull sessions!) and what is to be done.

He, like others writers about the current state of the university, traces the history of colleges and universities in our country from their beginnings as church supported institutions designed to impart classical education informed by a Christian theological perspective. He sees this being supplanted in the era after the Civil War with the rise of what he calls “secular humanism”. By this he means that with the rise of Darwinism and higher critical skepticism in theological circles, the old “dogmatic” (his language) consensus was eclipsed by a pluralistic chorus of voices beginning with the Transcendentalists in this country and the Kantians and others in Europe. In place of the fixed set of courses of classical and Christian teaching came a much larger and growingly flexible core of courses introducing students to the “Great Conversation” about life’s big questions. No longer was the idea to faithfully transmit traditional belief, but rather to expose student to the multitude of voices that would allow the student to crystallize his/her beliefs. In one form or another, this secular humanism reigned in the humanities until the late 1960s. It was this Kronman experienced and this he would argue the university needs to recover today.

Two developments in the university account for the eclipse of the secular humanistic ideal of education. The first was the rise of the research ideal, first in the physical and then the social sciences. The discovery of new knowledge rigorously elaborated through experiment and publication that resulted in economically and socially useful knowledge challenged the secular humanist ideal. The second was the rise of various critical studies that might be lumped under “post-modernism” that analyzed any discourses on meaning and truth as simply exercises in power and affirmed politically correct forms of multi-culturalism. Perhaps one of the most telling critiques in this book is his exposition of how these approaches constrain honest, passionate discourse because of the fears of falling afoul by clothing a “power agenda” in the language of truth or meaning, and fears of offending some statute of political correctness. Both the research ideal and the political correctness of the classroom ruled out honest, rigorous, passionate discussions of meaning and life well lived.

The final part of the book in many ways are the most personal as Kronman honestly faces the question most of us like to deny–the fact that we will all die and that all of us need some compelling answer to what we will live for in the face of our death and even be willing to die for. He concedes, somewhat pejoratively in my view, that religious institutions, particularly “fundamentalists” are the main ones talking about these questions. He rejects these as giving up intellectual and personal freedom and calls for the world of higher education to once again take up these perennially important matters.

This is where I find myself saying “yes, but” to Kronman. In my recent blog post “Whither, or wither, the liberal arts” I related the lifelong impact of similar courses in my own life at an urban commuter university serving working class students like myself. One way or another, young adults at this stage are exploring these questions. The disciplined, intellectually rigorous exploration of these matters to clarify one’s own deepest commitments seems far more important than simply acquiring the credentials for a job that may or may not exist in ten years.

Where I dissent from Kronman is in his dismissiveness toward religious answers as an important part of this discussion. It seems he assumes that the only two choices are mindless dogmatism or intellectually rigorous secular humanism. He fails to acknowledge the tradition of religious humanism that united serious inquiry with reasonable belief. Nor does he acknowledge the long tradition of thoughtful Catholic scholarship continuing to the present day that carries on this tradition nor the resurgence of thoughtful scholarship in fields like history and philosophy that link belief in a transcendent God and rigorous and intellectually credible scholarship. The great loss here is that Kronman tars religious sources with a broad brush that makes them adversaries to the kind of enterprise he proposes, when in fact at least some of these might be allies in the recovery of “education’s end.”

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