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How Greek Philosophers Invented Pagan Humanism
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And Lit the Fuse for Today’s Tyranny
Authority and morality aren’t polite ideas sipping tea in a philosophy hall. They’re more like two ancient gladiators who’ve been swinging swords at each other since the dawn of civilization.
And when you look back at antiquity, the scene isn’t some dusty museum. It explodes with color and noise — Egyptians building stone skyscrapers, Babylonians reading the night sky like a stock chart, Persians running empires smoother than modern governments.
Despite the grandeur of these ancient civilizations, their genius is barely acknowledged today. Instead, Greece takes center stage, acting as if it’s the only civilization that truly understood the art of thinking.
History Isn’t a Museum… It’s a Battlefield With Blood Still Wet on the Ground
The Greeks didn’t own brilliance; they owned the spotlight. Their real superpower? Ancient-world marketing that any PR firm would drool over.
But when you strip away the mythology, Greece looks less like an innovator and more like a brilliant borrower. They grabbed Egypt’s architecture, Babylon’s math, and religious ideas from whoever wandered close enough to shout.
Still, historians swoon over the so-called “Greek Miracle.”
To “scholars” like Hawkes and Hill, this wasn’t borrowed brilliance. It was an original cosmic awakening… the moment Greece allegedly discovered humanism, tossed God out of the story, and put man in the center like a peacock strutting across a marble floor.
But calling this a “miracle” is like calling a house fire a home renovation. Something about it doesn’t quite hold water.
The Greeks Didn’t Strike Gold… They Just Hired Better Publicists
It wasn’t magic that made Greece stand out, it was their marketing prowess. They weren’t the first to build grand structures or delve into deep thinking, but they were the first to get the kind of publicity that modern PR firms would envy.
They weren’t the first civilization to build big or think deep. They were the first civilization whose ideas got the kind of write-ups modern PR firms would envy.
And so Egypt, Babylon, and Persia… the giants who taught Greece half of what it knew… get shoved backstage while Athens strikes a pose.
This isn’t history. It’s branding. The same kind we see today.
Humanism Steps Onstage… Winks at the Crowd… and Shoves God Into the Wings
Crack open any modern textbook and you’ll see the same script: Greece mattered because it crowned man king. Not God. Not truth. Not revelation.
Nothing transcendent, simply… Man.
The Greeks declared humanity the universal measuring stick, the little god of the known world. That idea didn’t stay in ancient marble temples. It marched forward into modern theology like a fox slipping into the chicken coop.
History Isn’t Quiet… It Growls, Bleeds, and Never Stops Swinging
Many modern theologians are cheerleaders for this shift. Liberation theologians refashion Christ into a political activist. James Cone reframed salvation as social revolution. Rosemary Ruether attempted to build theology like a craft project, stitching together goddess imagery, feminist myth, and personal preference.
Truth becomes something you build at home with whatever materials you have lying around.
It’s spirituality à la carte.
Man as the Yardstick… A Measuring Tool That Keeps Changing Length
Oddly enough, the earliest humanists used to accuse Christianity of being too man-centered, probably from leftover Platonic Idealism. Now, humanists spray champagne in the air and celebrate the idea that everyone gets to be their own deity.
Humanism is self-worship packaged as enlightenment.
It’s a spiritual selfie-stick… always pointed at yourself.
Greece Tried Humanism… and It Went Off Like a Hand Grenade in a Library
And here’s the kicker: humanism didn’t lift Greece onto some heavenly pedestal. It blew holes in their political foundation.
Plato and Aristotle… two supposed philosophical supernovas… trained students who ended up becoming unbelievable tyrants. Why? Because when man becomes the highest authority, raw power becomes irresistible.
In fact, the Greeks had to invent a new word for such rulers: tyrannos. Not a compliment.
Tyrants weaponized class envy, stirred the pot of political resentment, and ruled like wolves wearing the skins of wise men.
Meet the Original Hollywood Celebrities Behaving Badly… The Greek gods
Greek religion didn’t help matters. Their gods weren’t holy. They weren’t moral. They weren’t even dependable.
Zeus cheated like a politician with three phones.
Hera simmered in jealousy and revenge.
Ares smashed furniture like Bobby Knight.
Aphrodite stirred chaos for “sport” of all kinds.
Their immortals were basically celebrities behaving badly, long before TMZ.
If the gods lived above good and evil, why couldn’t men?
So people were left with only two paths:
Autonomy — be your own God.
Theonomy — follow the true God.
Humanism swan-dived straight into the chaotic realm of autonomy, where everyone becomes their own god, their own moral compass, and their own law.
Autonomy vs. Theonomy… The Oldest Tug-of-War on Earth
Once man becomes his own authority, everything becomes negotiable. Truth melts. Morality shifts. Law floats away like a helium balloon with the string cut.
Van Til boiled it all down to one ancient conflict:
Who has the final say… man or God?
There is no third option.
When Law Has No Master, Everyone Becomes Their Own King… or Their Own Victim
If God authored reality, then morality has structure and weight.
But if everything is random, accidental, and chaotic, then morality becomes a mood. Ethics become suggestions. Culture becomes the guiding star.
Humanist ethics start strong, sprint hard, and end up running in circles.
Your Environment Isn’t Neutral… It’s Either a Sculptor or a Shredder
Van Til also argued that no one lives in a vacuum. Everyone is shaped by their environment.
If God leavens your environment, then you live inside meaning. If the natural world and the cosmos becomes your environment… you live inside chaos.
Christianity gives a personal world crafted by a personal God. Humanism gives an impersonal universe that doesn’t know your name.
Remove God, and civilization slides into A Moral Vacuum, a bottomless pit of ethical ambiguity. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” becomes the bleak worldview.
Remove God, and civilization slides into a ditch.
“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” becomes the worldview.
History shows it clearly:
Where Christianity advanced, cruelty shrank.
Where secularism ruled, cruelty grew fangs.
Rome practiced torture.
Christianity subdued it.
The Renaissance revived it.
Modern secular regimes industrialized it.
If the universe is impersonal, people become expendable.
Power without God is like a chainsaw in the hands of a toddler. Once power is severed from truth, it goes wild, cutting through the fabric of society with no regard for the consequences.
Once power is severed from truth, it goes wild.
Authority becomes a costume.
Tyranny and anarchy take turns driving the car.
Homes fall apart when men twist scripture into a club instead of a calling.
Biblical authority always flows downward in humility, not upward in domination.
Biblical Authority Isn’t a Throne… It’s a Weight You Carry
Scripture uses words like exousia… power as stewardship, not self-expression.
John Wycliffe saw this clearly. Everything you have comes from God. And everything from God is meant to serve Him.
Rebel against His law, and you lose the legitimacy to rule.
Only regeneration restores true authority.
Augustine Loads the Cannon and Fires Point-Blank at Empire
Augustine wasn’t shy. He declared that a government without God’s justice is nothing but “a band of robbers.”
Here’s how he described it:
“Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on.
If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized.
For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, “What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.”
Dress it up. Give it a crest. Call it an empire. It’s still a mafia with better lighting.
Same action. Superior marketing.
Autonomy Always Ends in the Same Place… A Cliff With No Guardrail
Philosophers like Emerson, Sartre, and Thoreau… all worshiped human autonomy like a god. But as I’ve been repeating over and over… autonomy always collapses under its own weight.
Without God’s law, life becomes contradiction piled on contradiction. Only Christ, through His atonement, makes sense of law, authority, and human destiny.
The Fork in the Road… And Why Both Paths Aren’t Really Paths at All
So here we are… standing at the same ancient crossroads.
Will we rebuild on self-rule, which always leads to chaos?
Or will we rebuild on God’s law, which brings justice, order, and meaning?
Authority and morality can’t survive on human fumes. They need divine oxygen.
Only God’s character gives morality backbone.
Only God’s law gives authority legitimacy.
Only God’s kingdom keeps civilization from devouring itself.
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