Several years ago, a student’s mother came up to me shaking my hand anxiously and said, “I don’t know what to do with my son. I’ve been praying for him for years; he’s totally upset. He takes drugs; does follies and follies, and does not listen to me of the Christian faith. Could you talk to him?
I warned her that forcing him to come and talk to me would make him a reluctant listener, but I accepted the request, she convinced the young man to come and see me and when he came in, he had a frown, dry and clearly hostile. So I asked him, “Who are you mad at?” he said, “With my mother. “And I said, “Why are you mad at your mother?”He said he was mad at her because “every time I’m there, she tries to push religion down my throat. “
- I said.
- “I see.
- Don’t you believe in Christianity?” He said.
- “No.
- Sir.
- “”All right.
- ” I answered.
- “then.
- What do you believe in?” He said.
- “I think everyone should have the right to do things according to their own interests.
- “”All right.
- ” I said.
- “but why.
- Then.
- Are you mad at your mother?”He said.
- “What do you mean?” Well.
- ” I replied.
- “it may be best for your mother to make religion swallow people.
- “What I hear you say is that anyone can do whatever they want.
- As long as these things are not imposed by their own interests.
- And you want to be able to do your own thing.
- Even if it’s in the interests of others?.
I said, “Don’t you see that if you had complained to me, based on Christian ethical standards, things would be different?If your mother provoked your anger and was totally insensitive to you as a person, then I would have a reason to be by your side. Can I defend your case against your mother? At that moment, he became interested in the Christian faith.
Of course, the purpose of the illustration is for the young man to know what he did not like, but he had not thought about it, he wanted to conclude that there is basically no basis for ethics, but what he did not know. was that he couldn’t live under that reality. And this is the point that even a non-Christian philosopher like Emmanuel Kant has come to the conclusion that life is impossible without God, without justice, without life after the grave.
The starting point is this: if there is no God, if there is no other life, then all our ethical decisions are absolutely insignificant. It’s a real conclusion we can’t escape. If we think about it, we will see that it is the only conclusion we can reach if we leave God out of our minds. The only alternative to absolute ethics is relative ethics. We cannot have an absolute ethic without a personal Creator.
To confess that God is Creator is to confess that we are not useless cosmic accidents, we come from an important place and we are heading to an important destination.
Mechanistic and hyperevolutionary determinists say that the human animal is the greatest advance on a life scale that has emerged from primordial mud; humanity, the adult germ, is the result of accidental cosmic forces, and the fate of the human race is at the mercy of these impersonal and indifferent forces. This view does not leave us in total darkness about the purpose of human existence, nor does it even guide us in the direction of the meaning of human existence. disorganization or disintegration.
The mechanistic vision does not offer an understanding of the meaning of life. Several attempts have been made to develop a sense of mechanistic ethics, but they all failed. Why should germs be moral? If I’m a cosmic accident, why should I, if I want to, care about you?Why prefer life to death?Why should a human being be more valuable than a stone?
Modern versions of secular humanism adopt this mechanistic or evolutionary description of our origins, yet they do not stretch to the inevitable conclusion. Yes, all forms of humanism share a concern for humanity and its well-being, but apart from God, there may be no stable and lasting basis for such concern.
Both Christianity and humanism seek to heal broken relationships and both honor the dignity of the human person. However, their bases of dignity are radically different. The Christian sees the horizontal interpersonal relationship as inseparable from the vertical relationship with God. To stay on the horizontal human plane is to neglect the path to eternal human meaning. To establish human dignity without recognizing the God of Creation, the humanist must act arbitrarily and irrationally. If human beings are born out of chaos, why give them dignity? Since the advent of the Christian faith, humanism has consistently incorporated Christian values and ethics, taking the heart out of the theological context of Christianity. However, this context is the only reason that values and ethics make sense. As a representative human being, I don’t appreciate moral demands if someone tells me to do it. do this or that without giving me any reason. Humanists, without reason, made of dignity and simple values? human experience. To make sure our experience matches their assessment, they claim that life is precious and that each person is a creature of immense worth and dignity. This cry, however, is empty if it comes from a germ that has no other destiny than death.
Christianity teaches that human dignity has its roots in the holiness of God; reflects God’s dignity. This is because human beings are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). The Creator, who has infinite courage and dignity, has sealed us with a value and dignity that springs from his own worth and If this idea is lost, all fundamental and transcendent reasons for treating human beings differently from a dog, dolphin or even weed have been lost. It is no coincidence that the two greatest commandments are love of God and love for one’s neighbour (Mt 22:34-40). The latter cannot be obeyed without obeying the former, and only those who truly obey the former can obey the latter, because if we love God with infinite dignity, we will also love people, because they reflect, even imperfectly, the dignity of the gods. .
Our notion of dignity is fundamentally based on the dignity of God and on being made in his image, that is why we apply titles of dignity to people, but not to animals or other elements of creation, José Silva seems to be more important when called? Sivla?,? The Honorable Congressman Silva? Or “President Silva”. But? Germ Silva? It just doesn’t have the same impact. People don’t build monuments to germs. Not many people cry when a fly dies.
It is not just a matter of semantics or history, the difference in value between humanist and creationist views in relation to human dignity has a profound meaning. Martin Luther King Jr. did not give his life to promote the cause of equal civil rights for black germs. Thousands of people are now working tirelessly on the right to life movement, but not to save the lives of human-incubated viruses. Although we instinctively assume the dignity of human beings, it is pure madness on the part of Creation.
I know that secular humanism speaks for itself of the importance of being virtuous and the importance of working for human dignity, freedom, industry and love, but intellectually I have never seen anything more regrettable than the philosophical kind of humanism. that tells us: on the one hand, that our origin as human beings is a cosmic accident, that we are adult germs born by chance from mud and that we are destined, finally, to annihilation, not being, to the chaos of “das Nichts” , to insignificance, but still, on the other hand, on the other hand, we enjoy enormous importance between our origin and our destiny, it is about fantasy and the projection of desires, it speaks of blind faith, of throwing ourselves into the absurd What could be more absurd than celebrating the importance of adult germs? I tell the secular humanist frankly: “Don’t talk to me about human dignity, because I don’t care if the black or white germs are in the back of the bus And I don’t care about the mud I let us get carried away by a nuclear holocaust. If I want to. worry about human beings and human dignity, I want a reason. ?
If I am asked for a sacrificed and selfless action on behalf of human beings, it is better to have a reason, and that reason has to be greater than simply to say that we have to help people because we are people, because unless we can establish that being a person means something, it would be purely emotional. And the rights granted on the basis of pure emotion end up being annulled. What emotion gives can also prevail. But if our human dignity is bestowed by God and recognized by our culture, then we have fundamental human rights that guide how we treat others under the law and even individually on a personal level.