To understand the ontological difference between Medieval Europe and the Atlanticist West, one must understand how American civilization was a total and utter rejection of Christian European civilization. This is to say that, despite all superficial claims of civilizational continuity, the liberalism of Humanism is antithetical to the orthodoxy of Christianity in virtually every category of importance. One should make no mistake, Humanism is a distinct religion with a theology that contradicts not only Christianity, but also the vast majority of the cultures and traditions of the ancient past. While Christianity is clear in distinguishing man as a fallen creation in need of God’s mercy, Humanism proclaims the superiority of man as the highest being, either explicitly or implicitly. It replaces the divine with the natural, God with man and mysticism with scholasticism. Divine revelation is discredited as “superstition” while human reason is elevated as the vehicle of enlightenment.
One can write lengthy books about the intricate theological, ontological and cosmological differences and contradictions between the doctrines of Humanism and the doctrines of Christianity, however, what has been given thus far will suffice for the purposes of this article. The modes of thought that have been propagated by liberal Humanist doctrines since the so-called “Enlightenment era” can be traced back to ancient Greece and even earlier civilizations in the east. What is important to note, however, is that such views were always held among a small minority in any given civilization in the ancient past. The vast majority of social orders were very traditionalist and adhered to some kind of platonist idealism. Most civilizations of the ancient past can thus be considered “anti-Humanist” and most certainly illiberal. Christianity was a religion that did not in the slightest differ in this aspect. St. Augustine once stated that:
“The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion, which already existed, began to be called ‘Christian.’”
- St. Augustine, Retract I, xiii, 3
St. Augustine’s words here reveal the Christian religion to be a continuation of long established ancient traditions and concepts from the east. In fact, St. Augustine holds Christianity to be the ultimate fulfillment of all these ancient traditions so deeply rooted in platonist schools of thought. The usage of the term “platonist” as a descriptor here should in no way imply that Plato was the originator of these modes of thought. The term is strictly used as a reference to these specific modes of thought that actually are far older than Plato and that Plato himself was inspired by and was simply propagating further in his own time and place.
