Auguste Comte, Humanism, and the Christian Faith

It's a bit odd for me to single out one person in the history of western philosophy, and say, "Look at this and you foresee America's future." Especially when this man lived from 1798-1857. That's around the time Beethoven was dazzling Europe with his nine symphonies.

Auguste Comte, a Frenchman, lived in that transitional time when Christianity was being uprooted and replaced by science and the scientific method. He coined the term "altruism," and came to be called the father of sociology and the father of the philosophy of science -- no small accomplishment.

Why is his thought so important in 21 century America? I'll tell you in capsule summary what beliefs he championed, and then perhaps you can judge for yourself if this view has purchase in America today.

Comte believed that Christianity was finished, done, kaput.

Humanity no longer needed fairy tales and superstitions to grant meaning to life. Yet he knew people had an instinctual need, a passion even, to worship what he called Grand-Etre, the Supreme Being. So in God's place he substituted Humanity itself. He instituted a calendar of saints to celebrate the new humanism, mostly renowned scientists and intellectuals. He also created a catechism, near the end of which he says, "Humanity definitely occupies the place of God."

The sacraments of humanism included Initiation at the age of 14, then Admission at the age of 21 when a person becomes able to serve humanity. Destination or career choices takes place at 28, and Retirement at age 63.

Since Comte realized that Reason itself could not carry the day on such a proposed new direction, he added Feeling and Activity as an afterthought. Altruistic service to humanity would be fostered through an education process that hero worshiped all who brought prosperity, scientific advances, and social progress to society. Even a flag was designed to inspire love and loyalty to Humanity.

Who would create human values and resolves ethical issues? Why, experts, of course. Certainly not the people themselves, who could never represent the most disciplined and highly trained minds. Certainly not God, who never existed in the first place. And certainly not the Bible, which needed replacement by thousands of scientific studies, journal articles, and books showing people how to conduct every aspect of existence, helping all of life become "a continuous and intense act of worship," focused from birth to the grave on the truly human moral standard of "living for others."

In place of the theological notion of Providence—or divine guidance to nations and individuals—Comte stressed human effort and good intentions. He states that "we must look to our own unremitting activity for the only providence by which the rigor of our destiny can be alleviated."

Above all, there must be the supremacy of the intellectual elite, because only experts can understand the technical problems of administering a complex mass society. Though he had unmitigated positive optimism for the worship of Humanity, he died too soon to see his theories made real. But made real they were, and many in America and Europe draw their perceptions of life's meaning from experts in science and technology, the humanities, and the sociopolitical governance of Western nations.

But Comte was wrong about his primary assumption. He was wrong that Christianity had died and needed replacing with sociology and humanism. In fact, during the next century and a half there came an outpouring of the Holy Spirit greater than the world has ever known, affecting a billion people, according to Harvey Cox at Harvard Divinity School. Thus Christianity is still a major force in the world today, now about 1/4 of the world's population, and a recent Gallup poll reporting that 78% of Americans declare themselves Christian. 

Compass psychotheology suggests that God's plan for humanity always includes a remnant of believers who are not assimilated into the humanistic social matrix of their day, but who derive their identity from Christ and their values from Scripture. These individuals respect experts in modern fields of human endeavor, but retain the right to define the purpose of their lives through worshipping the Holy Trinity and look beyond contemporary society to the coming transcendent-eternal Kingdom of God.

Indeed, a major distinction between Auguste Comte, the father of sociology and the founder of the philosophy of science, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father and the founder of Christianity, is that Comte is dead and Jesus is alive.