In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Because today, my brothers and sisters, is a festival of Christ our Lord, we use the lectionary and the liturgical text assigned to that festival. It is not the text readings, hymnography what we’d use on a normal Sunday. The vestments are different; all the texts are different. In matins this morning we did not have the gospel of the resurrection; we had another gospel. This is the day, exactly nine months before Christmas, on which the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Thus our entire attention on this day is directed to the mystery of the Incarnation.

Now the assertion that we make, the assertion that the Word became flesh, implies a whole lot of things, but it certainly creates an entirely new and unexpected context in which to pose the question: “What does it mean to be a human being?” So in the answering of that question, the Christians are divided from everybody else in the world. What does it mean to be a human being? If we find the world largely at odds with our view of it, it’s because of a different answering of that question: What does it mean to be a human being? You see, it is not logically possible to affirm God became man, and then go on to consider humanity apart from that affirmation.

In short, the doctrine of the Incarnation must dominate—hear that word “dominate,” dominus in Latin: must dominate, have complete lordship over—anthropology. You see, anthropology directs itself to that question, exactly that question: What does it mean to be a human being?

Now, I’m suspecting that many of you have had the misfortune of taking anthropology classes in college. I had the misfortune of teaching. [Laughter] One thing I found very quickly, teaching the anthropology classes, is that I could not use the textbook. The textbook is simply a form of zoology; that’s all it was. It wasn’t an anthropology at all. It’s hard to teach cultural anthropology when there’s no culture around. So anthopology—anthropos: you see the Greek word anthropos—anthropology addresses the question: What does it mean to be a human being?

The arrival of Jesus of Nazareth on the scene of history necessarily divides the human race regarding its most elementary anthropological assumptions. Those who confess that the Son of God is now a human being are obliged to consider the concept of humanity in a way different from those who deny that confession. Now, make no mistake, it’s hard for Christians themselves to get this together! At lunch with Fr. Hopko the other day up at Wheaton, along with some graduate students like John Coatney and some of the junior faculty, Hopko made that point about how difficult it is for Christians themselves to get it together. He remarked that almost all—something like 99%—of the Christological heresies involve some denial of the humanity of Christ. I think a practical denial of the humanity of Christ is fairly widespread these days, even among people who call themselves Christians.

Consequently, it’s no wonder that they fall for every kind of false anthropology. Christians can actually take an anthropology class in college and not see anything wrong with it. They clearly have not got it together about the Incarnation. Those who confess that the Son of God is now a human being are obliged to consider the concept of humanity different from those who deny that confession or who don’t know about that confession. There’s no possible reconciliation between the two; it’s a fight unto the death. It’s a great historical struggle. We who make that confession are not capable of viewing humanity except through a Jesus-lens.

The secular society in which we live makes a number of anthropological assumptions that we Christians must renounce and, when appropriate, must refute. Now this morning I would like to review with you three of these secular assumptions. Now why am I doing that? I was thinking about this this morning when I was putting on my socks, something to which I devote a great deal of attention. Why am I preaching this sermon this morning? I asked myself that. Consequently, it’s not in my script. And I yelled into the other room to my wife, “You know why I’m preaching this sermon this morning?” She says, “I have no idea.” [Laughter] I said, “I’m trying to do for this congregation what Irenaeus did for the Christians at Lyons. I’m trying to inoculate them from the dominant ideologies of the day, because these things are poisonous, and I don’t want anybody to appear before the throne of God and God ask them certain questions and you’ll say: I didn’t know; and God will say: Who was your priest!?” [Laughter]

Now, among the many heresies posed by modern secularism, today I choose three which strike me as especially pernicious. Let’s look at three contemporary anthropologies. First, let us consider anthropology as kinetic chemistry, or at least a branch of kinetic chemistry. According to this theory, the human being and all human activity find their adequate and correct explanation in physical laws, mathematical theorems, and chemical reactions. Nobody here believes that, but most of this country does. Most of this country believes that the human being and all human activity is adequately explained by physical laws, mathematical theorems, and chemical reactions. People nowadays say when people fall in love, “Oh, it’s chemistry!” They actually say that it’s chemistry. Or if they happen to have a thought, they think it’s some sort of electromagnetic activity.

This secular assumption, which is taught to American children today from elementary grades to graduate school, it’s been around for quite a while, at least since the encyclopedists of the mid 18th century. Since the time of the encyclopedists, however, the theory has grown more rotten. The encyclopedists had some sense, at least, that human existence could be morally improved. But, you see, if the only way—if this theory is really true, the only way to improve, morally improve human beings, is through better chemistry. It is though somehow those with the better diets have the higher moral sense. Now, although Diderot and d’Alembert were pure materialists, they did recognize a difference between good and evil. Indeed, they were full of plans for the reform of human society by education and social engineering.

Now, the problem with this kind of anthropology I think should be obvious. If the human being is only a product of biochemistry, then the only way to improve him is by some biochemical process. I mean, you’ll automatically get better if you take vitamins. And if someone had some very serious moral problems, a deep moral habit, how does the contemporary world want to control it? Drugs? Drugs? Having anxiety? Take a shot, take a pill. Drugs! It’s all pharmacology!

It’s a simple fact, however, that’s there no such thing as a moral principle derived from mathematics, physics, or chemistry. They do not give us… They give us nothing with respect to moral principles. It is pointless to look to these disciplines for moral guidance. That is to say, even as the mass murderer plots his next assault, he can appreciate the merits of better living through chemistry.

Now, take an example from literature. In his long detective story, The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins paints the unforgettable portrait of the character called Count Fosco. Absolutely intriguing character, Fosco. This unsavory individual, who’s arguably the worst villain in a story full of villains, was trained as a chemist, and he believed that the entire human race, as well as each human being and all human behavior, can be explained and controlled by the laws of chemistry. I quote—for the first time in my life, I quote Count Fosco. Probably the last time in my life. Here’s what Fosco says.

The best years of my life have been passed in the ardent study of medical and chemical science.

He’s not a doctor, by the way, and fights with the doctors. The doctors overall are quite humane; he’s not. Fosco goes on.

Chemistry especially has always had irresistible attractions for me from the enormous, the illimitable power which the knowledge of it confers. Chemists—I assert it emphatically—might sway, if they pleased, the destinies of humanity.

He recognizes that! If this is true, the destiny of humanity can be controlled by chemistry, and he really believes this. However, the laws of chemistry place no moral restrictions on Fosco. Even the human conscience, he imagines, is the product of chemical forces, which can be adjusted. It so happens, however, that chemistry expresses no views relative to the telling of a lie, the violation of a confidence, the defrauding of an inheritance, the degradation of a spouse, or the taking of a life. Chemistry, in the hands of the wrong person, is a science of poison and explosives. For this reason, the Christian reader breathes an understandable sigh of relief when the chemical remains of Count Fosco near the end of the story are found floating of the flotsam of the same river, then put on display in the Paris morgue.

Christians, basing their convictions on the dogma of the Incarnation, will insist that the value of the human being vastly excels the price assigned to the chemicals that compose its flesh; that human thought is not adequately explained as an electromagnetic force; that human volition is rooted in a freedom transcendent to physical laws; and that human destiny is not reducible to the elements listed in the periodic table. Against this biochemical kind of anthropology rings the question posed by the Word incarnate: What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul? This kind of question is difficult to address in a secular society like ours, for much of the educational enterprise is devoted to convincing the modern student that he has no soul. We are approaching the day when the asking of that question—What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?—will be an unintelligible question, will be a nonsense question. People will not be able to relate to it, which means there will be no anthropology.

Second, let us consider anthropology as autobiography. According to this kind of anthropology, authentic human experience is entirely subjective, and the human fall consists in man’s socialization. Once again, this anthropology goes back to the mid 18th century. In 1754, Jean-Jacques Rousseau published his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, which effectively reduced anthropology to subjectivism.

Probably the best representative of Rousseau’s philosophy, in our lifetime, was a man named Claude Lévi-Strauss. Claude Lévi-Strauss summed up the thesis of Rousseau, alluding to Rousseau’s autobiography, The Confessions, Lévi-Strauss inquired, “Does the anthropologist write anything other than confessions?”  Lévi-Strauss is an anthropologist, a cultural anthropologist. He’s in the behavioral sciences. The father of the modern behavioral sciences is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Lévi-Strauss contended that Rousseau’s teaching on individual subjectivity was his major contribution to the modern understanding of what it means to be a human being. I quote Lévi-Strauss. He couldn’t have been clearer. “Rousseau did not simply anticipate anthropology; he founded it.”

Nowadays Rousseau is everywhere. In fact, one of my friends whose birthday is today—but I don’t see her here; she must be sick—she says she wants to design a t-shirt with the inscription, “Blame it on Rousseau.” [Laughter] Blame what on Rousseau? Almost everything you see! [Laughter] One of the most notable qualities of modern secular society today is the dominance of subjectivity. To be a human being in this setting is quite simply to be a me. I’m the human being: me. That’s how Rousseau… Isn’t that the way he starts his Confessions? “I’m going to tell you the story of a man: me!”

That is to say, much of contemporary anthropology is raw selfishness, total preoccupation with the self. If I were to pick from literature a character who best illustrates this thesis, none would serve better, I suspect, than a man by the name of Harold Skimpole. This fairly minor character in Dickens’ Bleak House is a thoroughly disgusting person, who recognizes no moral claims except his own selfish prejudices and who blames the complexity of society for all his problems: If society would just let me alone, I’d be fine. That’s Rousseau’s thesis, isn’t it? [Laughter]

I must confess that during my long years of working on campus, an unusual number of my students seem to have been grandchildren of Harold Skimpole. So he must have existed outside of Bleak House, because he seems to have had so many grandchildren. None of them were named Skimpole, but that’s not to be wondered at, since Skimpole, if you recall, had only daughters. Perhaps we should consider it an excessive compassion on the part of Charles Dickens that he did not call Skimpole to die by spontaneous combustion in place of his other character, Krook. Indeed, I’m going to question Dickens on that point when we meet. I’m hoping Dickens is in heaven. Against such subjective anthropology, that of Rousseau, we have the anthropology of the incarnate Word who proclaims, “He who loves his life will lose it.”

Third and last, let us consider anthropology as biological evolution. Now, here’s the point where physical science meets history, and Darwin and Nietzsche kiss one another; the survival of the fittest becomes the will to power. Human history attains its perfection with the arrival of the Übermensch. Now, the Übermensch is not the Superman with the blue tights and the red cape, who appeared—I was fairly young at the time—he appeared in April of 1938, and I was only two months old, so my memory of it is very… That’s not the Übermensch; that’s just some guy in blue tights and a red cape and has something to do with Kryptonite. I don’t understand all that. [Laughter]

According to this brand of anthropology, human perfection consists in those qualities of intellect and will that set a man above weaker, less intelligent men. Now, Nietzsche saw this as a moral perfection, by the way. Anthropology as a moral dimension, because the Übermensch, the superior man, is not governed by the laws as other people are. Because of this type of anthropology, the history of the world since Darwin and Nietzsche has been a saga of murderous revolutions and international crime. Even more than the encyclopedists and Rousseau, Darwin and Nietzsche have produced nothing in this world—nothing!—but misery.

If we go to literature to illustrate this theme, I don’t know where we would start, but let’s be merciful. Let’s choose a character who repented of it! Let us consider the character of Raskolnikov. In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov conceives of himself as being an extraordinary man, and then formulates a theory whereby an extraordinary man has the right to commit any crime as long as he’s doing it for the betterment of humanity. That is to say, if he does it, it’s really not a crime; it’s really not a prestupleniye. Prestupleniye means stepping over, going over the line. It’s really not a prestupleniye, if a superior man does it, an extraordinary man. The laws under which the ordinary men must live do not bind the conscience of the extraordinary man. The justification for these extraordinary men to have the right to transgress the law is because they are not held—if they are not held to a greater standard, they will cease to be great. To be great means that one must break the inferior laws that govern inferior men. Great theory.

Raskolnikov applies this theory to the world when he plots to commit murder. He feels this is an acceptable thing for him to do because he is an extraordinary man. Now, he also recognizes that the police force is made up of ordinary men. [Laughter] So they might take a different view on it, so he must hide his crime. Remember taking the axe and hanging it inside his coat in the loop, with that great scene? Things quickly unravel when Raskolnikov commits the murder. He wasn’t expecting a second person on the scene, Lizaveta. She must be murdered, too. Turns out, she is pregnant, so Raskolnikov unwittingly murders her unborn child—third murder. Things are unraveling. Raskolnikov has begun to slaughter the next generation. The next generation, ironically, was the generation that was supposed to benefit from his murder. Far from proving himself an extraordinary man, Raskolnikov is caught in a downward spiral of increasing violence. He’s in danger of becoming a monster.

Fortunately for Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky was a merciful author, so the young, foolish man was given a chance to repent, or else he does not end up like Count Fosco or Harold Skimpole. In one of the richest symbols in Dostoevsky’s great story, Raskolnikov receives the cross from the hand of Sonya. He listens to her read of the raising of Lazarus, and he learns to carry the cross. At her command, he goes down to the crossroads. He goes down and kisses the ground at the crossroads, the place where the cross marks the earth. And he confesses his crime; he confesses his prestupleniye.

It is significant that this story takes place during Orthodox Lent. Raskolnikov finds repentance on Lazarus Saturday. That is to say, Raskolnikov learns the anthropology of the Word incarnate who proclaimed, “He who loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will find it.” All three of these texts that I’ve used this morning all came from last Sunday’s gospel, doesn’t it? What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” “What will a man give for a soul?” “He who saves his life will lose it. Who loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will find it.” Amen.