TRANSCENDENTALISM AND ITS FAITH IN HUMANITY

We live according to the ways we believe. Consequently, our fate is also the fate of our religions. Therefore, we need to be careful about the belief system that we embrace, however attractive it might be.

Transcendentalism was the religion of Thoreau and Emerson and it remains attractive to us. Transcendentalism represented a rebellion against Deism, a religion that had captured the thinking of the most educated of its day. In “A Theological Interpretation of American History,” C. Gregg Singer explained that Deism had been a cold rationalistic religion. According to Singer, the Deist Lord Herbert of Cherbury understood Deism as having elevated reason as the absolute authority:

·       God did create the world and man, and that man must live according to that which he knows to be good and true. God punishes those who fail to do so, and rewards those who do. But this knowledge of God, and what he requires of man is rationally perceived, and the Bible is binding only to the extent to which its teachings correspond with the dictates of right reason. (Revised Edition; Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing C., 1981, 25)

However, the Transcendentalist regarded bowing before reason, based upon natural law, as too restrictive:

·       Transcendentalists declared their independence from all objective norms of truth and made the individual the ultimate authority and judge of what was true and or false in religion. Some of them went so far as to declare that the earlier Unitarian [closely associated with Deism] reliance on natural law was more degrading to the spirit of true religion than that of the Calvinistic emphasis on the infallibility of the Scriptures and the sovereignty of God. (Singer, 59)

Humanity wasn’t to be limited by reason, the facts, or by any consideration of objective truth. He was regarded as above these considerations:

·       Because man had a spark of the divine in him, the Transcendentalists argued that when man speaks and acts religiously, he is speaking and acting as God speaks and acts. (Singer, 59)

Borrowing from Deism regarding the goodness and perfectibility of humanity, one spokesman for Transcendentalism, George Ripley, explained:

·       [The Transcendentalist] has no belief that human nature is so shackled and hemmed in upon in its present imperfect state, as to be confined to the objects made known by the eye of sense [facts], which is given to us merely for the purpose of our temporal existence and is incapable of ascending to those higher spheres of thought and reality to which the eternal elements of our being belong.

Some Transcendentalist writers actually elevated humanity to the status of God. William Ellery Channing had written:

·       The idea of God, sublime and awful as it is, is the idea of our own spiritual nature, purified and enlarged to infinity.

Singer concludes:

·       From these assumptions it was a very easy step to a belief in the complete sovereignty [controlling reign] of man, and this view received its classic expression in their literature in the words of Emerson: “Let man stand erect, go alone, and possess the universe.” The glorification of man was the central theme of Transcendentalism. (62)

While it is very appealing to believe oneself to be God, His are shoes we cannot wear. Anyone with the slightest degree of self-understanding has to admit that we lack godly powers. We can do little to change ourselves. We cannot grow ourselves even a fraction of an inch or extend our lives for even a moment. We cannot change other people, even those closest to us; nor can we do much to improve our tattered relationships. Instead, the belief that we are gods is a denial of reality and everything we know about ourselves.

Such a belief also requires the payment of dividends in the form of the anxiety of trying to live up to godhood and alienation. Once we prop ourselves up as God, we need to find others who will affirm our fantasy self-image. However, even those who are willing to play along can only do so with some discomfort and cynicism. Eventually, a lack of coming to terms with our true self also becomes a lack of coming to terms with others and obviates any hope of self-improvement. When we refuse to accept ourselves, we also reject the common ground where we can find intimacy with others. Besides, if we are trying to reassure ourselves that we are God, we will be reluctant to take responsibility for our misdeeds.

There are also other costs. Transcendentalism’s inflated view of the individual doesn’t bode well for society. Therefore, Singer had written:

·       It was this glorification of the individual which explains their great antipathy for all institutions and organizations…For the Transcendentalist all government should be self-government for no sovereign individual has the right to judge or govern another sovereign individual….Thoreau looked to the very institutions which they suspected of being inimical to human freedom. (62-63)

Well, if we are all gods, then there is no need for justice, the protection of the innocent and the restraint of the guilty. Instead, each is a God with no need of anyone else, living in a world of their own subjective and chosen reality, lacking any shared reality upon which to relate to others. It’s a “reality” where no differences can be reconciled or mediated, because both gods are equally right and equally wrong. It’s a world that condemns each individual to dwell alone in his own shack with his own divine thoughts, a world of isolation.

Emerson had rhetorically asked, “What is man is man born for, but to be a reformer…” There is nothing wrong about reformation if it is based upon an accurate diagnosis of the problem in need of reform. However, the Transcendentalist disdained the idea of reality:

·       Transcendentalists cheerfully and confidently attacked every social problem with the calm assurance that in time all would be well on the American social scene. (Singer, 72-73)

Nevertheless, they prided themselves as social justice warriors and attempted to enlist big government to champion their causes, contrary to what they believed. Their initiatives, therefore, were ripe with contradictions. Did they see them? Perhaps not, since they distained any serious contemplation of the issues. Ripley bragged:

·       The interests of social reform will be considered paramount to all others…We shall suffer no attachment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no love of purely intellectual theories to seduce us from our devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down-trodden, the insulted and injured masses of our fellowmen. (75)

Interestingly, even gods can become down-trodden. Ironically, the Transcendentalists regarded these down-trodden as gods, while they distrusted the “aristocracy and its political leadership” (78). Perhaps they should have first engaged in a little “abstract discussion.”

Old theories die slowly if at all. Transcendentalism has been repackaged into the image of postmodernism with all of its disdain for objective truth and its contempt for social institutions as the source of all of our problems. It has deconstructed everything of any enduring value, and what we fail to value we also fail to retain.

In contrast to elevating ourselves to godhood, it is restful and healing to simply admit the truth – that we are dependent and needy beings. This acknowledgement allows us to find rest in the One who loves us and has given His life for us.

·       “The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Jesus; Matthew 23:11-12)

Sometimes what is sweet is actually the worst poison. To believe oneself to be God is the surest prescription for a painful fall.