minds. Therapists employ techniques
founded on inner reflection and
exploration
of
consciousness.
Marketing experts stress human
potential for its ability to motivate
men. Entertainers seek an inner
power that will propel them into
popularity.
Scripture exposes this deception.
“There is none who understands;
there is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside; they have
together become unprofitable; there
is none who does good, no, not one!”
The Bible also declares that truth is
found, not by looking inward, but by
looking upward, not to men, but to
God. Hence the prophetic word That
God gave to Jeremiah, “Thus says the
Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts in
man, and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart departs from the Lord”
But where did it all start?
During the Age of Reason, before
the
French
Revolution,
many
social thinkers and philosophers
challenged the truth of the Holy
Scriptures, and therefore exalted
the principle of “reason” in French
society. Because of the upheavals of
the French Revolution of 1789-1799,
the religious and social structure
of Western Civilization, and also of
America, were radically transformed,
as new philosophies were born, that
attempted to “humanize God” and
“deify man.”
When social thinkers and philosophers
of the North misguidedly reacted to
the Age of Reason, the religion of
atheism created what became known
as Romanticism.
ROMANTICISM was a philosophy
that worshiped faith, human emotion,
tradition and nature. Much of the
poetry of that period reflected
confidence in the unity, beauty
and goodness of the universe and
mankind. However, the religious faith
of the Romantic writers rejected the
efficacious atoning work of Jesus
Christ, and trusted in man’s ability
to solve his own problems and to
achieve perfection.
UNITARIANISM, another religious
movement and philosophy stressed
the power of human reason to
determine spiritual beliefs, and
rejected divine revelation as the
avenue of receiving truth. Jesus
Christ was only a teacher and a social
reformer, and therefore not God
Almighty.
TRANSCENDENTALISM proposed
that spiritual reality could be
discovered through human intuition,
without any absolute authority.
Anyone could receive “flashes and
insights” of truth as the highest
form of knowledge. It emphasized
the visionary and idealistic aspect of
human nature. As a result, it denied
the Headship of Jesus Christ and the
supreme authority of the Scriptures.
DEISM asserted the existence of God
as Creator of the world, but Who, like
a clock maker, has programmed it to
now run on its own. Consequently,
divine
providence,
supernatural
revelation, and God’s plan of salvation
for man, were seriously challenged
and rejected.
PANTHEISM declared that God
does not exist as a person, but
that all natural laws, fo