Naturalism: Philosophical Smuggler

Americans who want to know what is wrong with their country might seriously consider the possibility that people are finally making their behavior consistent with their beliefs. For decades, many thinkers have been calling Western culture a “cut-flower civilization” because of its detachment from the historical roots of Christian theism. One could also call it a “smuggler’s civilization,” since it continues to nourish itself on values derived from another world-view. For naturalism, the system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws, without attributing moral, spiritual, or supernatural significance to them, is the basic view of modern, educated man, and this system cannot subsist without smuggled values. Christians believe that scientific humanism has no adequate metaphysical framework in which one can discover and embrace the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.

Naturalistic smuggling is evident, first of all, in knowledge. The naturalistic view of mind is so deficient that one wonders how the scholar could keep on searching for truth with such a humble instrument as the human brain. The naturalist smuggles in a high regard for the operation of the mind, a regard that fits more comfortably with the synthetic-metaphysical systems of Plato and Augustine than with the analytical-empirical views of Hume and Russell. A naturalist starts out thinking but ends by undermining all thought. He must use his mind to prove his philosophy, but then his philosophy affirms that all reasoning is mere cerebration by a physical brain. If reasoning is just an electrochemical operation in the material brain, then why should a naturalist ask anyone to accept his thoughts as “true”?

One normally advances ideas and philosophies because he believes they are true. But when a naturalist says “naturalism is true,” all this can mean is that certain motions take place in his brain—he “thinks naturalism,” an event that stands on the same plane as any other bodily event, like digestion or breathing. Now, it is pointless to ask if an event in my body is true or false. My blood pressure and temperature are not true. Statements, assertions, or propositions about them may be true, but they are just events, waiting to be interpreted by some mind. They certainly do not interpret themselves. Hence, if thinking is only a bodily event, like temperature, it is equally meaningless to say “this idea is true.” One can say only that an idea exists or occurs.

Yet the naturalist does not seem to labor under the humility and skepticism that this analysis implies. He claims to tell us truths about the entire universe, from the most bashful electron to the most remote quasar. He seems to assume that his cerebration is exempt from the reduction he applies to thinking in general. His reduction is true, though all other reasoning is mere somatic secretion. But he cannot have it that way; he cannot have his mind and reduce it too. If the reduction to physical categories applies everywhere, it applies also to the mind or brain that is doing the reducing. That which reduces everything reduces itself also.

Charles Darwin, who contributed much to naturalism’s diminutive view of mind, felt the force of this objection, especially as it touched on his theory of evolution. One could well ask: If the mind, like all else in nature, is still evolving, how can we be sure that its present structure and operation guarantee any truth? Said Darwin:

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? [Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, I, 285].

Naturalism must also smuggle in a sham objectivity and a mental transcendence that “mere nature” does not contain. When the scientist studies something, for instance, he demonstrates his transcendence to nature and matter. If he were nothing but a bundle of mindless reflexes, it would be extremely difficult for him to investigate, say, the behavior of a dog. The dog would be just another bundle of unintelligent reflexes; both scientist and dog would merely secrete that pointless stuff we call thinking. No study would occur either way, just cerebration. If you said the man could investigate the dog, that would mean only, in naturalistic terms: “His behavior studies the behavior of the dog.”

But behavior cannot study anything. Mere behavior cannot observe, evaluate, criticize, interpret, and synthesize. Only a self-conscious reason with powers of observation, memory, evaluation, interpretation, and synthesis can study an animal’s behavior. The mind must stand above any process to say that it can impart meaning to a process. One unconscious process cannot evaluate another unconscious process. Only that which transcends a process can evaluate that process.

If man’s mind is not exceptional, one wonders why his “secretions” are published and those of dogs are not. And why has the secretion of this century been elevated above all others? Naturalism has not always dominated man’s thinking; human beings have also espoused idealism, religion, pantheism, deism, and materialism. Why is the secretion of this century true and the previous ones false? Will the next century produce a new secretion? Will it be true or false?

The naturalist compounds the difficulty just discussed if he believes in determinism—which he logically should. If all things, including our thoughts, are mechanically determined, then objective science is impossible, for the scientist automatically selects the data he evaluates. Einstein functioned merely as an automatic machine in formulating the theory of relativity, as did Newton with the theory of gravitation. Darwin was driven by brute necessity in devising the theory of evolution. No scientist should be congratulated for his brilliant thinking, for he just secreted what was inevitable—his work just oozed out of the brain, so to speak. For all we know, these complex systems of thought may have been caused by something like red beans or ulcers of the duodenum.

Freedom, objectivity, transcendence—none of these ingredients crucial to a viable epistemology is inherent in naturalism. Someone must have smuggled them in.

Naturalistic smuggling is even more evident in axiology, the realm of values, not only in aesthetics but also in ethics. A “naturalistic ethics” seems a contradiction in terms, for it is very difficult to get an “ought” out of a universe reduced to mere nature or matter. One cannot extract duty from physical necessity, as Kant showed. A lie, for instance, is merely an electrochemical event in the physical brain. Why upbraid a man’s chemicals for behaving in a thoroughly natural way? Why condemn murder, rape, theft? It seems clear that mere science cannot establish values; it can never verify a moral obligation. Tragic it is that science, which can do so much, can never prove what it ought to do.

A scientist can prove, for example, that human beings need to love and be loved. But what he can never produce in a million experiments is the proposition: “I should love my fellow human being.” To prove the survival benefits of love is not remarkable; my wristwatch needs oil, my car needs gasoline, my lawn needs fertilizer, my neighbor needs love. These are all factual, descriptive statements, but where would one look for the imperative: I am obligated to oil my watch, gas my car, fertilize my lawn, and love my neighbor? It is not in naturalism, unless it has been smuggled in.

It was Dostoevski who complained most bitterly about this loss of purpose and ethical imperative in non-theism. If there is no God, said Ivan Karamazov, then everything is permitted. And, lest one think such lamentations about the axiological gap in naturalism come only from Christian thinkers, we note that Nietzsche and Camus voiced the same complaint. Camus wrote:

The coexistence of a philosophy of negation and a positive morality illustrates the great problem that is painfully disturbing the whole epoch. In a word, it is a problem of civilization, and it is essential for us to know whether man, without the help either of the eternal or of rationalistic thought, can unaided create his own values.

With even more venom, Nietzsche scorned all those who felt that the demise of Christian theism left altruism unaffected. The English, he said, give up God and then do penance by becoming moral fanatics:

When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole.… It stands and falls with faith in God [Die Gotzen-Dammerung, §5].

Naturalism smuggles into ethics not only purpose and imperative but also a sense of freedom and transcendence to nature. The scientific humanist espouses a world-view that permits neither truth in epistemology nor freedom in ethics. If morality exists at all, it must transcend stimulus, just as genuine reasoning must go beyond mere neurology. Man’s ability to be moral, to combat and control stimuli (in religious terms, to resist temptation), is inexplicable if his actions are physically determined. Corporeal monism cannot tolerate such a tension in the (allegedly) closed circuit of the brain. Christianity makes a lot more sense than naturalism when it explains man’s moral capacities as the response of a transcendent creature to a Creator-God who fashioned him in His own free, moral image. Perhaps naturalism’s worst problem is explaining how a purpose-seeking man was hatched by a purposeless universe.

If this thesis on naturalistic smuggling be true, one can seriously ask: How long will anything—a culture, a church, a university, an individual—last if it is based on smuggled values? How long will the cut flower live, detached from its roots? Should we really be surprised at the rise of irrationalism, subjectivism, skepticism, permissivism, anarchy, and moral nihilism in our society? Could it not be that man is slowly discovering his naturalistic axiology to be nothing but a cut flower, gradually withering in his hand?

Two centuries ago deism proved to be a short-lived theology, a half-way house between orthodoxy and naturalism. In this century, naturalism may prove to be just a half-way house also, a pause between deism and nihilism.

A Gospel For The Affluent

We are not likely to be able to present the Christian message persuasively in our generation unless we understand the appeal of what may truly be called competing gospels. Christians are not the only people who claim to offer a comprehensive way of life. To be spiritually alive we need to know what the alternatives are, why they are appealing and why they are inadequate.

One of the many valuable insights of C. S. Lewis is that the unstated assumption is always more dangerous than the overt attack. If a man openly opposes the Christian faith I am on my guard but I may be ensnared by words of a writer who assumes without argument that the faith of Christ is obsolete. Premises are sometimes more effective when they are unstated. If a man says he is self-centered, I realize that I would be a fool to trust him; but if he proceeds blandly on the assumption that freedom means rejection of any limitation on personal fulfillment I may not see the basic moral flaw in his position and may even think he sounds noble.

Possibly the best example of a faith that is particularly dangerous because its central dogma is latent is that of the Playboys. They are persuasive partly because they do not ordinarily argue their case. Anyone who supposes that this is no threat is not living very close to modern man. Of course only a minority read the expensive magazine or visit the plush establishments in various cities; but the Playboy influence is not limited to these particular expressions. This curious religion is most effective when its doctrine is disseminated without a label. It is as a pervasive faith rather than a profitable business that Playboy is a genuine rival to Christianity. The greatest effect of this largely unexamined faith is the phenomenal success it has had in undermining the idea of chastity.

Fortunately Dr. William Banowsky, the new president of Pepperdine University, has provided us with a careful examination of this particular alternative to Christianity. He shows the vulnerability of what is essentially a neo-hedonistic cult and wisely proceeds to point out its contradiction. The Playboy cult, he says, appears to provide freedom from restrictions on human behavior when actually it brings in a new bondage of conformity. He describes the playboy as “a professional parasite feeding upon the perpetual destruction of the fallen Puritan idol”:

As he goes forth to conquer chastity, self-denial, Priscilla Alden, and the Southern Baptist Convention, he embraces the very demons with which he wrestles. They furnish him, by inversion, with a kind of religious assurance and point of focus that enables him to think he is doing exactly as he pleases. Actually, however, his freedom from ancient taboos renders him credulous to new ones. He is emancipated from past prejudices only to be victimized by contemporary ones. His is not the thoroughgoing relativism it appears to be, but a rigid value system [It’s a Playboy World, 1969, p. 31].

A fact important for Christians is that the current popular hedonism lacks not only personal morality but also compassion for the oppressed. Though the Playboy philosophy provides a pattern for the conduct of millions, giving them the dubious boon of an easy conscience, it has neither a personal gospel nor a social one. We may be sure therefore that its success is temporary; it will not endure. It does not have even an inkling of the insight involved when Christ said he had been anointed “to preach good news for the poor” (Luke 4:18). The Playboy cult is for the affluent.

We can never know all that is required of us but we can at least be sure that the cultivation of the easy conscience, wherever it comes from, is always a heresy. One of the chief differences between the Gospel of Christ and its most popular competitors in our day is that the Gospel cannot when it is loyal to its Founder be simplistic. That is why though Christianity is joyous, it can never settle for hedonism. There is something far more profound than pleasure.—D. ELTON TRUEBLOOD, professor-at-large, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.

Arlie J. Hoover is associate professor of history and philosophy at Pepperdine College in Los Angeles. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Texas and did post-doctoral research at the University of Heidelberg. In 1963–64 he studied in Germany under a Fulbright Grant.

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