Toward A Christian Worldview - Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed

Chapter 4: False Philosophical Systems
On the other end of the spectrum of atheism we have humanism
or naturalism (Karl Marx, Ludwig Feuerbach). This system of thought
is purely anthropocentric, wherein man, as the measure of all things, is
virtually deified. Man is the summum bonum of creation; he is ultimate.
Feuerbach, for example, claimed that “man is the god of
man.” {1}
Atheism is naturally materialistic. This is recognizable in the
classic statement of Feuerbach that “a man is what he eats.” It is also
noticeable in the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin. Evolutionism
is a form of humanism which absolutizes the origin of the biotic
aspect of the universe. Man is purely a material being. Man does not
have a mind (he thinks with his brain), and belief in life beyond the
grave is pure superstition.
In summarizing some of humanism’s central teachings, R.C.
Sproul points out its irrational nature:
Man is a cosmic accident. He emerges from the slime by
chance. He is a grown up germ. He is moving inexorably
toward annihilation. Yet man is a creature [sic] {2} of supreme
dignity. He lives his life between two poles of meaninglessness.
He comes from nothing; he goes to nothing. His origin is meaningless,
his destiny is meaningless. Yet, somehow, between his
origin and his destination, he acquires supreme dignity. Where
1. Confirm Ludwig Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion (New York:
Harper and Row, 1967), 17; where Feuerbach writes: “This doctrine of mine is
briefly as follows: Theology is anthropology.”
2. A consistent Darwinist would not call man a “creature,” because that would
imply that man was created by a creator God.
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