A Worldview Perspective on Socialism

Socialism is a hot topic in America these days because one of the Democrat presidential candidates is an avowed Socialist. Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2016 against Hillary Clinton as he tried to claim the Democrat Party nomination. At that time, he was never in a serious position to take that mantle. As a result, his Socialist policies never got a really hard look by the media and the public in general. This time around, however, Sanders appears to be much stronger, and this is causing his Socialist beliefs to get a deeper look.

To be sure, it is not that Socialist policies are foreign to the Democrat Party. Many of these have long been an integral part of their party platform. But there is something different about Sanders. While most Democrats have been more in the “Progressive” camp – looking to implement Socialist policies gradually – Sanders is an avowed, hard-core Socialist. He is not looking to make gradual changes to American society in order to move the country in a Socialist direction. He aims to bring about a radical and immediate transformation. In fact, in one way he has already accomplished his goal. His candidacy alone has lurched the Democrat party dramatically leftward – even if he never does receive the nomination.

In its essence, Socialism, as an expression of Marxism, is a political and economic theory of social organization that believes the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned, or at least controlled, by the state. It is a collectivist doctrine that attempts to bring “equality” to everyone in society by taking from those with money and resources, and redistributing it to the have nots.

While Socialism typically claims to be a secular political and economic philosophy, it is actually built entirely upon a religious foundation. In order to truly understand Socialist beliefs, we need to begin by gaining a solid understanding of its worldview foundation.

Socialism Is an Expression of Naturalism
Socialism is an expression of Marxism, which is a naturalistic belief system. Thus, Socialism emerges out of a naturalistic worldview. Naturalism is the belief that the natural universe is all that exists – there is no God or any kind of reality that exists beyond the natural universe. With that as a starting place, it sees human beings as nothing more than natural animals that have evolved a highly complex brain. The ultimate humanity can accomplish in this life is to create the best this life has to offer – as there is no afterlife.

Based on a Socialist approach, the best this life has to offer is to promote the survival of the species, and to work toward creating a utopian society. This means creating equality of outcomes among the people in society to the highest degree possible. To do that, as was mentioned above, it is necessary to even out wealth by taking from those who produce, and redistribute it to those who don’t. To understand this more fully, let’s break down this belief using a worldview perspective.

Socialism is a Faith System
People who advocate for virtually any form of Naturalism lean toward expressing beliefs that don’t include God. They tend to believe in the Theory of Evolution, and often express the sentiment that they “believe in science.” They see the ultimate goal of human life as related to temporal economic and social outcomes, and most consider themselves non-religious.

These kinds of assertions are not accurate, however. Even an individual’s political philosophy has its root in some kind of faith system, and Socialism is no exception. As was noted above, Socialism is an expression of a naturalistic worldview, which is inherently a religious belief – a faith system.

When exploring the essential core of any belief system, you must simply find how it answers the three essential worldview questions: 1) What does it believe is the nature of ultimate reality? 2) What does it believe about man? 3) What does it believe is the ultimate people can achieve in life? No matter how a particular belief system answers these questions, the answers are necessarily based on the individual’s faith in their particular belief system. There are no possible empirically based answers to these questions. Thus, Socialism, as an expression of a naturalistic worldview, is a faith (religious) system. In order to clarify this even further, let’s look at the most basic worldview elements.

Socialism’s Authority Source
In a moment we will specifically look at Socialism’s answers to the essential worldview questions. Before we do that, though, we must first look at its authority source. Naturalism does not acknowledge the existence of any transcendent being who could possibly provide direction for humanity. As such, there is no possibility for coming up with an authority source for giving moral direction to people beyond the thoughts of human beings themselves. As a naturalistic belief system, Socialism is locked into this way of developing moral direction. Thus, human beings must use human reasoning to determine what is right and what is good.

But this still does not get us to the core of the matter. The question must then be asked, “Which humans get to have their way?” Obviously, different people hold differing opinions on virtually every issue in existence – including political, economic, and moral matters. That being the case, whose reasoning gets priority? The answer to that question, based on Socialist beliefs, is those who are able to establish and hold power in society. Thus, Socialism’s ultimate authority source is the human reasoning of those who are able, by whatever means, to accumulate enough power to get their way.

Socialism’s View of God
The first of the three essential worldview questions is, “What is the nature of ultimate reality?” Another way to ask this question is, “What do they believe about God?”

The simple answer, in this case, is that Socialism denies the existence of God. It is an expression of Naturalism which is officially atheistic.

This does not, of course, mean that everyone who believes Socialism is good is an Atheist, or that people cannot be legitimate Christians if they believe Socialism is the way to go as an economic system. The point here is that Socialism, as a system, has its roots in Atheism. Thus, anyone who claims to be a Christian and a Socialist must somehow hybridize their beliefs in order to fully accept it.

Socialism’s View of Man
Based on its naturalistic foundation, Socialism views man as nothing more than a naturally evolved animal with a highly evolved brain. As such, the focus is entirely on matters that relate to human life in the here and now.

With that as a starting point, the most important thing that humanity can do is to create a situation where human beings are able to survive, and thrive, as they live life in this world. The focus, then, is not on the lives of individuals, but on the ability of the collective to sustain itself. An individual’s wants and needs can only be contemplated in the context of how they promote the survival of the collective.

Socialism’s View of Salvation
It has already been noted that the survival of the collective is the most important focus of Socialism. The way this plays out in the life of the collective constitutes its view of salvation (or the ultimate that can be accomplished by humans in this life).

The basic concept of salvation in Socialism gets expressed by the attempt to create equality of outcomes (vs. equality of opportunity) within society. Essentially, it is an attempt to create utopia on earth – since it is believed that temporal earthly life is the only life that exists. Socialists believe that if humanity can create a societal environment in which everyone is equal in terms of material outcomes, no one will be dissatisfied with life, and this will create peace on earth and enhance the survival potential of the human race.

Socialism’s Societal Expressions
Socialism, itself, is mostly thought of as an economic and political philosophy. While this characterization is not completely wrong, it is also incomplete. Socialism is a belief system that expresses itself in virtually every part of life. In order to understand the more practical implications, let’s take a moment to explore some to of the more prominent ways it gets expressed in society.

Moral Relativism
Since Socialism is an expression of a naturalistic worldview, there is believed to be no such thing as a set of absolute moral laws that apply to everyone in all situations. Thus, there is no such thing as an objectively real right and wrong. Since Socialism considers that there is no transcendent person (God) who exists to provide such rules, there are none that can be deemed to objectively exist.

But in order for society to function in an orderly fashion, there is a recognition of the need for some kind of moral rules. Without them, there would be societal chaos. So if there is that kind of need, where must these rules come from? Under Socialism, they are imposed by those who have political control.

So how, then, do those in control decide what should be considered moral and what should be considered immoral? There are a few basic principles that come into play at this point.

Perhaps the most basic principle of a naturalistic worldview relates to the survival of the species. Obviously, anything that would threaten human survival would be considered the worst sin possible. As such, the survival of the species becomes moral imperative number one. All other moral rules revolve around fulling this one.

A second principle has to do with maintaining order in society. Under Socialism, maintaining order falls under the purview of the government. Since the survival of the species is considered paramount, the natural expression of societal organization falls under the category of collectivism. It is society in general that must survive, and the needs of society take precedence over those of the individual. Thus, it is up to the government to set rules and boundaries for the collective that will insure its survival.

When it comes to the tactics that can be legitimately employed to enforce the rules, there is no necessary limit. It is perfectly acceptable to use whatever tactics, even strong-arm tactics, that the government is powerful enough to enforce. Remember, there is no such then as objective right and wrong, so it is not “wrong” to use blunt force if that is what is needed to maintain order. And, as a side note, virtually every Socialist government considers that maintaining power for itself is a necessary part of maintaining order.

A third important principle that comes into play when Socialist governments are implementing societal rules involves the personal preferences of those who are in power. While the overall concept of Socialism outwardly expresses itself as a system for creating a good and just society for the collective, the actual fact of the matter is something other than that. In truth, it is not the priority of the collective that ends up being dominant, but the priority of those in power. There are actual people making the decisions as to what rules should be implemented and how they should be enforced – and almost without exception, the rules are weighted in ways that favor those in power.

Economic Equality
It was mentioned earlier that Socialism has a strong focus on economic matters. It advocates central control over the economy with the goal of creating equality among the entire population. Thus, the economic element is essentially a tool to further a more important goal – that of equality.

Based on socialist beliefs, it is important to even out the economic situation of all people. To do that, the government is justified in taking money and resources from those who earn it, and give it to others they deem to be in need. They do this by creating a centralized authority that plans the production and distribution of every product and service that is a part of the economy. It is those in authority who get to decide what people need and should have, who will produce the goods and services, and how they will be distributed to those in society.

Now, certainly, taking care of those who are in need is not a bad thing. In fact, every individual ought to be offering a helping hand to those they are able to help. But this kind of emphasis on the individual is not what Socialism is all about. It does not allow individuals to determine how they want to help others. Rather, a small group of people who have political power get to make that choice. In a Socialist system, it is human beings who decide what is moral and what is not, as well as what constitutes need. They are the ones who decide who is needy and who is not. Based on their assessment, they use the tax system to take away the money and resources of those who have, in order to give it to those they deem needy.

Political Control
While Socialists preach equality, there are some qualifications to that ideal. Even they recognize that there must be order in society, and that society will not become and remain ordered without external controls. People don’t naturally tend toward desiring equality of outcome for all in society. History has demonstrated over and over again that people, in virtually every circumstance, look to self interest first. Under Socialism, in order to enforce “equality” on the entirety of society, there must be a ruling class to make and enforce the rules.

This is why, in virtually every case of true Socialism, the end result is some form of dictatorship. We see it in all of the truly Socialist and Communist countries that are controlled either by a single political party or by a strong-man dictator.

Socialism and Christianity
Since Socialism is a belief system that is an expression of Naturalism, you would think that it would not be attractive to Christians. In fact, for Christians who look to the Bible as their primary authority source, that would be a true observation. But there is a whole segment of self-identified Christians, even entire “Christian” denominations, who base their faith on a different source. The truth is, these folks left authentic Christianity long ago, but they still cling to the Christian title.

There is a subtlety in this, however. The truth is, many of these people, maybe even most, don’t even realize that they have left the Christian faith. Over the years, alternative ways of interpreting the Bible have become popular in some places. Some of these alternatives have actually substituted Marxist doctrines for Christian ones. To solidify the deception, however, they have maintained the use of biblical vocabulary. Essentially what they have done is to redefine key words such as love, grace, justice, salvation, and the like, to mean something different from what is actually taught in the Bible. So, people hear these biblical words and think they are hearing a biblical message, when in fact they are being led down a completely non-Christian path.

One of the main expressions of this is conveyed in what is called the “Social Justice” movement. The focus of this movement is to take care of one’s fellow man. Now on the surface, this seems like it ought to be Christian. After all, what could be wrong with looking out for our fellow man? We certainly do need to take care of the widows and orphans, and those who are down and out.

It is not the concept of looking out for our fellow man, though, that is at issue here. Rather, the problem is wrapped up in what that means and how it is to be accomplished. When“Socialist Christians” promote their beliefs, what they really mean is that society (the government) should take the lead by taxing (or otherwise taking) resources from those who have in order to give it to those who do not have. In fact, their entire concept of salvation is to bring “social justice” to this world by creating equality of outcome throughout society. This is a wholly Marxist concept, and has nothing to do with Christian theology.

Socialism is not a biblical concept. It’s goals, its methods, and its theology are completely contrary to what is taught in the Bible. It is an attempt to create utopia (heaven) on earth, rather than recognizing the true identity of heaven. It is an attempt to provide justice in a fallen world using a definition of justice that is based on Marxism. It is an attempt to define salvation in terms of earthly goals, rather than the spiritual salvation based on biblical teachings.

Socialism assumes that fallen humanity can overcome the effects of sin in this life by social engineering. It can’t, and it never will. The only solution to the sin, and thus the equality, problem in this world is to be found in Christ. Socialism never has worked, and never can.

© 2020 Freddy Davis