The God of Humanism
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Reading: Genesis 11:1-9
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
Prayer
This morning, we are considering a second god of the age. We looked last week at the god we all struggle with - the god of self. How often we allow self to dictate what we do, how we think, and who we are! We saw Jesus’ answer to self-worship - we we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him, we are freed from tyranny to our sinful natures.
This week, we’ll consider a second human god, but not the individual. This week, we focus on the collective - humanity. The ideology of humanism is tough to pin down - on commentator compares it to nailing jello to a wall! I think, however, there are a couple of core tenants we can identify that can help us grapple with what humanism teaches.
Tenants of Humanism
Tenants of Humanism
We Are Our Standard
We Are Our Standard
This is the core of humanism - that everything depends on man. A philosopher from the mid 5th century B.C. named Protagoras first made the statement that “man is the measure of all things.” He was arguing that the way that men interpret truth was through the lens of their own knowledge and experiences. Others have taken the statement further, however, to mean that everything is dependent on man, including truth. Thus, men make truth to be true rather than truth being something objective beyond man.
This is how humanists see truth - truth depends on the individual, and is subject to change. But there is also a collective value to truth - the collection of individuals within a society shape truth within that community. So then, man is the measure of truth.
The story of the tower of Babel paints a picture of humanism at its core - men determine the “greater good” is to assemble a tower reaching to heaven. They settle in Shinar, on a beautiful plain that seems like a perfect place to live and build. They coordinate their activities - making and kiln-drying bricks, building a city and tower. They seek the common benefit, “mak[ing] a name for ourselves...” (v. 4). For the people at Babel, everything revolves around their communal desires, their collective efforts, their corporate ambitions. Man is the measure - the standard by which everything is to be judged.
We Are Basically Good
We Are Basically Good
At the core of this belief is a second tenant - that people are basically good. Humanists will affirm that people are capable of doing good or evil, but that evil is always a result of something “wrong” or “amiss.” Humanists, whether “religious” or “secular” as they define themselves, all hold some form of belief than man is naturally good or can be educated and trained to be good.
The Secular Humanist Declaration in 1981 states that “secular humanism places trust in human intelligence rather than in divine guidance.” With enough intelligence, people will make decisions that are moral and good for the collective. We can be our own salvation, without the need for God. People on their own are good enough - they just need to be guided properly.
You see this inherent in the Babel narrative.
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.
Verse one tells us that the entire world had one language and the same words. There’s a wordplay going on - everybody is in agreement. But there’s more than that - we have here a picture of all people on this Shinar plain looking out for the “common good.” This is a people who agree together on what is “right” and are working in concert with one another to make it happen. That sounds good, doesn’t it? It almost makes me want to start singing a song like “We are the world, we are the children” or “If I could teach the world to see in perfect harmony...”
Almost. Notice how they act with one mind - same language and same words (1), they all are migrating to the same place (plain in the land of Shinar - 2), have the same work (making bricks - 3) with the same purpose (building a city and tower - 4) and with the same goal (making a name for themselves - 4) and the same underlying fear (being made to disperse over the face of the earth - 4). They believe in one another so much that they are all bought in. They are their own saviors - they have no need of God whatsoever.
We Don’t Need God
We Don’t Need God
And that’s the third tenant. We don’t need God - we’re good enough on our own. The Second Humanist Declaration of 1973 puts it bluntly, “no deity will save us; we must save ourselves.” That’s humanism in a nutshell - the belief that it’s all up to us, and that we (with enough training and proper access to goods, etc.) will be the heroes we need. God is obsolete - we’re too advanced to need him anymore.
Babel makes this obvious. But to see why, look back at Genesis 1:29:
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
The very first command God gives his newly-created humanity was to make babies and spread out all over the place! “Be fruitful and multiply” is a command to populate the earth. Any world view that emphasizes depopulation - that there are just too many people around and that we must stop multiplying - is antithetical to God and his Word.
But the second part of that command, “fill the earth and subdue it” gets to the greater design for humanity. God wants humans to share in his dominion over the world. He has given us, as men and women, a prime place in administering his reign. Just as governments have various agents and individuals who administer the rule of law, so God has his own administration here on this rocky planet third from our sun: US! Paul said it this way:
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
But the men at Babel wanted nothing to do with God’s plan. His instructions were to fill the earth and subdue it - to spread out and to administer his reign over the globe. But what do they do?
2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
They settled together.
3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
They abandoned his design.
4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
They rejected his identification for them, and all in the name of not fulfilling his command.
12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
Humanism seems right. Everyone with one speech and one heart, working on one task with one purpose and one goal - that seems perfect. But it was not God’s goal, not God’s purpose, not God’s task, not God’s heart, not God’s words. So it is that humanism fails. Every. Time.
How Do We Reject Humanism?
How Do We Reject Humanism?
So how do we reject the false god of humanity? I believe the answers are also found at Babel. Look again at verse 4:
Look at verse 5:
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
A while back, I referred to a form of poetic structure called a chiasm. Chiasm is when there are layers to the story or poetry, and the core layer holds the main point. The center of the Oreo is the cream - the best part. Verse 5 is the cream of the Oreo of the story of Babel in Genesis 11.
Do you see the irony? Men wanted to build the tower “with its top in the heavens” (4). But God still had to come down to get to it. Man’s best attempt to get to God is far, far short. God always has to come down to us - we can never ascend to him.
There’s another sign of man’s shortcomings in this verse. God comes down “to see the city and the tower.” The word used here has the idea of inspection - to look at carefully to understand or to reveal the flaws within. When man makes his best attempts to impress God, God sees right through. He isn’t duped. He isn’t distracted. He discerns clearly.
Notice a third shortcoming in this same verse: who does the building? Not men: children of man. It’s subtle, but that’s an insult to these would-be gods. They are not even called men, but children. Just yesterday, I heard an interview with one of the military officials of the U.S. talking about the situation between Ukraine and Russia. This individual referred to President Biden and President Zelensky, but then he said “Mr. Putin.” It’s a small thing, but that change of title from President (which Putin is officially) to Mr. is enough to degrade Putin in the eyes of the listener/viewer. That’s what the narrator is doing - he is minimizing the way we view the people at Babel. Compared to YHWH, the name used for God in this verse, these “children of men” simply do not compare.
We Must Make God the Standard, Not Man
We Must Make God the Standard, Not Man
That brings me to the first way to reject humanism. We must make God the standard by which we measure all things, not man. God is the measure. In a world that believes that man determines truth, that man judges beauty, that man gauges progress, we must reject man as the measure and instead insist that all things be measured by God’s assessment, God’s approval, and God’s glory. Just as God is the only one who can judge the tower of Babel, so God is the only righteous judge of man. Asaph quotes God’s words in Psalm 75:
2 “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity.
3 When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars. Selah
4 I say to the boastful, ‘Do not boast,’ and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horn;
5 do not lift up your horn on high, or speak with haughty neck.’ ”
6 For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up,
7 but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.
8 For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.
Then again, Asaph writes in Psalm 50:
4 He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
5 “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
6 The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Selah
God is the standard - not man. Man is fickle, tossed about with the slightest wind or wave. God is unchanging, the Rock of Ages that will never be moved.
We Must Admit that We Are Not Good without God
We Must Admit that We Are Not Good without God
I am convinced that the people at Babel thought they were good. In fact, the story shows that they believed in the goodness of their cause and their actions. And no wonder - much of what we think of as good is going on. They were united together, seeking what appeared to be good for all humanity. But in reality, they were wicked. And we know that because they were disobeying God’s command to fill the earth. Rather than spreading out across the world to exercise God’s rule, they remained together and sought to ascend into a whole other realm. Men do not belong in the heavens, but they sought to make their way into God’s inhabitation. What they thought was good was really evil.
That’s the second point to rejecting humanism - we must admit that we are not good without God. Humanism puts man in an untenable position - that of perfection, and apart from God! But in reality, man is wicked without God. In Romans 3, Paul opens a fire-hose of quotations from the OT showing just how bad men are without God:
10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Verses 10-12 quote Psalm 14:1-3 (and 53:1-3 too)
Verse 13 quotes Psalm 5:9, Jeremiah 5:16, and Psalm 140:3.
Verse 14 quotes Psalm 10:7.
Verses 15-16 quote Proverbs 1:16 and Isaiah 59:7.
Verse 17 quotes Isaiah 59:8 (with an allusion to Luke 1:79).
Verse 18 quotes Psalm 36:1.
Without God, we are hopelessly lost. The humanist is either too naive or too proud to admit that. We must reject humanism by recognizing that we cannot be good without God.
We Must Recognize that We Need God
We Must Recognize that We Need God
And that leads us to the third reason to reject this worship of “we.” We must recognize that we need God. Our sin puts us in direct opposition to God - and only God can restore our relationship with him.
You might think that the story of Babel in Genesis 11 is missing this element. After all, there is no sign of repentance here. Once God confuses the languages, they disperse - the very thing they were trying to avoid in the first place. But look again.
Look back at verse 6:
6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
I believe God is showing us a little bit of humor here. There’s a tinge of sarcasm in God’s words - he’s not saying he’s impressed and must do something to thwart humanity from it’s well-executed plans. He’s saying that there’s no limit to what they will try to do to oppose him. They will go to the most extreme places to defy the Living God.
Then comes verse 7:
7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
Did you see it? Man tries to build a tower to reach the heavens, but fails. So God comes down. First, in verse 5, he comes down to inspect. Then, in verse 7, he comes down to confuse. God comes to man when man needs God the most - even when man does not even see his need.
God himself sees that they need him, so he demonstrates his mercy by confusing their language. The text stresses this point - one language becomes many languages, and the place gets named after the confusion that occurs. But this confusion is mercy - God is guiding sinful humanity away from the abyss. Without his grace, human beings would have no hope of redemption. But because God intervenes, the promise of future redemption remains secure.
This is the most important part of the Tower of Babel story - God does what it takes to redeem sinful humanity, even to the point of mixing up their language so that they cannot pursue the evil they devise. In the end, God’s plan prevails. Our decision is whether we will act according to our will, or his.
Will we worship at the altar of “we,” making humanity the standard of truth and goodness and forsaking God, or will we make God the standard and recognize our need of God? Will we serve the false God of humanism, or will we serve the Living God who created humanity in his image?
9 “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.