Assurance for the modern age. (Part 6)

Assurance for the modern age

Part 6: A possible positive world view for the secular age

How then might an entirely secular worldview look that still succeeds in promoting a fulfilling inner life, and fuelling a life that we regard as good – and hopefully win general approval? I think that simply following good customs in our culture, or even being a person of good character is not sufficient. I think we need to adopt a set of values and principles that can direct even a good character beyond simple qualities of kindness and honesty (wonderful as they are) to a life that has self-consciously set goals that are not based on personal achievement and satisfaction, but on achieving good goals for society and in our personal development. If you want to argue, “Well, we all do that!”, my challenge is to ask how effective this is? In contrast to the life of faith, where the believer has adopted a comprehensive package to guide their lives towards goodness and to guard them from selfishness, unless your secular philosophy has principles as coherent, intense, demanding and overarching, so that the whole of life comes under the direction of your values and principles, then it is likely that our lives are – to some degree – “lost” in wishy-washy good intentions that are superficial rather than transforming to your own life, and through you, transforming to society. I freely acknowledge that many religious people treat their faith in a similarly superficial way – and I would not exclude myself from this criticism. Nevertheless, with faith there is an overt goal, a belief in the complete sufficiency of your faith – even if you only intermittently live out the full depth and implications of your faith. In other words,, even though religious people often fail, they are trying to succeed in living the right way – which is the same as living life to the full – rather than never even attempting the task – and, perhaps, spending the whole of your life simply distracting yourself from the questions that ultimately really matter.

So, for a secular ideology to achieve the same impact – both internally on the individual, and through them on society – it would have to be an all-embracing, comprehensive way of life that energises living a good, fulfilling, creative and beneficial life. I will try and explore what this might look like – trying as hard as I can not to be drawn into those faith values that I already hold.