The Humanist Singular

Rosenstock-Huessy offers a test for distinguishing between humanism and faith (Die Sprache des Menschengeschlects): Whenever “man” is used in the singular without reference to God, the speaker or writer is giving voice to humanism.

The easy liberalism that says “Man creates God is false” not only because man is a creature but because Man in the singular does not exist except as a gift of unity from God: “The tragedy of man is that they can never hope to become Man except by the grace of God. God must have given us a chance to form One Single Man before we may reveal God.” 

Homer knew this: With him, “it was still notorious that there were ‘many cities of men’; in this honest manner, the Odyssey begins. Our liberals jump to the conclusion that we can build a city of Man without God blessing our work” (232).

The easy use of the singular, implying that the race can be united “by mere cerebration, without personal commitment and sacrifice” puts the world in the place of God. Against this, the whole of Christian history has struggled: “The great pope Gregory VII fought this surrender; he called it simony. Luther fought it; he called it indulgences. Julien Benda fought it; he called is La Trahison des Clercs. The city of God which fights it will live to the thousandth generation; and the city of men which does not fight it, will have vanished before the fourth generation” (232).