Guest Posting by Alex DeSherbinin

I haven't put out a posting of my own for a while, but I welcome this guest posting written by my friend Alex de Sherbinin from Tappan Alliance Church. It is wonderfully thought-provoking and we both welcome any thoughts you, my readers, may have. May Leavenworth

"What Lies Behind Man’s Inhumanity to Man?"
by Alex de Sherbinin

During college I was once in a study group for a course in the humanities. One fellow amused us all by intoning the words, with a thick British accent, “man’s … inhumanity … to man.” While this guy was looking for a laugh, the reality is that man’s inhumanity to man is a great tragedy, as manifested in great brutality throughout history. Yet, even so, it is a symptom of a greater ill rather than the ultimate tragedy that someone would make it out to be.

Europe has recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of V-E day, the day the German’s unconditionally surrendered to the allies. For the past six months I have been trying to fathom the desolation of that war and the nihilism that drove Germans in the Third Reich to create killing machines at Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka and countless other camps throughout the lands it occupied. This is a classic instance of man’s inhumanity to man, and historians ever since have grappled with what drove this supposedly enlightened and rational country to commit mass murder and ultimately to self-destruct.

Behind all the usual answers – Germany’s humiliation following World War I, its economic collapse, Hitler’s personal magnetism, German nationalism and its vilification of the Jews as the “enemy within” – lies a starker truth. Over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries a large proportion of Germany’s population, whether professing to be Christian or not, had gradually given up on God. The country that produced Martin Luther and gave birth to the reformation, with its emphasis on a personal relationship with God rather than one mediated by priests, discarded its beliefs in God and the Bible like a worn out garment.

First came the protestant work ethic (with its overtones of outward piety and working for salvation), then came the enlightenment, and finally came the notion that man is the “integration point” (to borrow a term from Francis Schaeffer) – the be all and end all in this world, the highest good. Thus, as in the Fall, the creature sought to be on equal footing with the Creator, elevating himself to Godlike status. (As a natural outgrowth came nihilist and existentialist thinking that proclaimed the futility of existence; if man is the measure of all things, then those who are intellectually honest can only come to the conclusion that life is without ultimate meaning. Nietzsche’s ubermensch or “superman” was the flip side of his nihilism.)

In the rarified intellectual air of Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, man, evolved from the apes, was increasingly master of his own destiny. Technological and societal progress would go hand-in-hand. Paradoxically, this gradual removal of God and replacement with man-centered philosophies made it all the easier to justify the unthinkable – the extermination of a whole people. Jews, political opponents, gypsies, handicapped people and gays could all be eliminated as an obstacle to “progress.” With no absolutes, no codes of conduct other than those imposed by man, each man was left to create for himself a “personal morality” – one that could justify the taking of innocent lives as expedient and necessary in the pursuit of a greater good.

Lest we be too quick to cast judgment, it is important to recognize that none of us is invulnerable to this line of thinking. We are sinful human beings in need of a Savior, nothing more and nothing less. Humanists would do well to closely examine the lessons of history. Any society that removes God and elevates man to the ultimate good will eventually pay the consequences. As God’s absolutes make way to moral relativity, human vices inevitably take hold of society, either under the guise of “father and country” or in a general breakdown of ethical behavior. Progress through education is an illusion. Germany was one of the most educated nations in history – a country that had produced brilliant thinkers – yet for all its education it had neglected the most important thing – the very thing that Martin Luther had recovered after it had been damaged by the corrupt church of the Middle Ages – that sinful man needs a relationship with a personal Savior in order to live a good and moral life. We cannot do it on our own, and when we try we merely inflate our own pride rather than giving God the glory. The Bible says “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

The biggest tragedy is man’s saying “no” to the God who would be his helper, his comfort, his protector, and the very lover of his soul. We can say “yes” to God or “no” to God, but eventually we as individuals, and then our society as a whole, will pay the consequences. In the words of the Prophet Isaiah (55:6), “Seek the Lord while he may be found.” Any other way and we are on a self-destructive path, for we will dash ourselves on God’s immutable law – a law of love and righteousness. Love first, because God, like any parent, wants the best for us. Then righteousness, because God is Holy and cannot tolerate evil.

The solution to “man’s inhumanity to man” lies not in a political and economic integration that relies on enlightened self interest to remove the threat of war, as European Union leaders seem to think, but in a restored relationship with the Creator. Political systems come and go, and economies can collapse, but God is from everlasting to everlasting. As the relationship with the Creator is restored, this leads naturally to restored relationships among men and women – one in which we acknowledge that we are all equal before the God of the universe and treat each other accordingly.