Robert Burns -Humanism, God and Social Conscience

Robert Burns was an ‘Everyman’ in the way that he was able to appeal to believers in God and those firmly against Organised Religion. His approach in taking an equivocal position on the human spiritual condition earned him admiration from the Humanist Movement, who considered him their own, but he also gained admirers in the radical and reforming Religious Movements.  An ‘Everyman’ is defined as an ordinary person representative of the human race.

In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual ^[1][2], with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances. The name derives from a 15th century English morality play called Everyman.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/everyman#ixzz2AmyM16Gf

The New York Times reported a speech by Robert Ingersoll in 1878, one of the founders of modern humanism, on Robert Burns. This is what Ingersoll had to say.

‘The man was a radical a real genuine man. This man believed in the dignity of labour in the nobility of the useful. This man believed in human love, in making heaven here, in judging men by their deeds instead of creeds and titles. This man believed in the liberty of the soul of thought and speech. This man believed in the sacred rights of the individual, he sympathised with the suffering and the oppressed. This man had the genius to change suffering and toil into song to enrich poverty, to make a peasant feel like a prince of the blood, to fill the lives of the lowly with love and light.’

 

The Chair of the Irish Humanist Association, Iain Decoys in an article in the Irish Humanism Magazine of 2009 ,called Robert Burns: A Scottish Sceptic. He makes the case that Robert Burns was a possible follower of Humanism before there was a movement for it. He eruditely defines Robert’s type of Religious perception as one of a sceptic in religious matters, who argued publically for 'tolerance and social justice.’ He robustly argues against the idea the Robert Burns was a supporter of the sectarian Religious Right wing, despite their supporters arguing that he was an advocate of their position.

 

Deboy’s explains how Burns is often mis –represented in his historical place in the scheme of things.  He says that ‘Burns has been called ‘The Ploughman Poet’, but this is somewhat misleading. It implies he was anti –intellectual, that he rejected a cosmopolitan lifestyle in favour of a more primitive, perhaps naïve way of life. But is completely at odds with his position in Enlightenment Edinburgh.’  He goes on to say Burns independence of mind leads him into deep scepticism about Religion when he attacks the Calvinistic hypocrisy of the Church in Holy Willies prayer. He even suggests that Burns may have questioned the Divinity of Christ though this is not substantiated in Burns writings. He correctly, however points out that Burns recognised an’ unbending moral code of seeming righteous religions could be at odds with social justice ‘.

He goes on to say Burns had to be careful about declaring his scepticism openly as this could ruin his reputation. Even his friends found it difficult to guess whether he had faith or whether he was mocking it. But whatever the case, there is a declaration of faith in this statement to Mrs Dunlop.

‘Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters, I trust thou art no imposter, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence beyond death and the grave is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed off on a credulous mankind’

But this is of course, a letter to one of the ‘whited sepulchres’, Mrs Dunlop, to whom he would be obsequious because she was an advocate of the Calvinistic views of the Church and a person who had the power to make his life difficult.

However he also expressed a streak of orthodox faith - in a letter to the private friend of Robert Muir in 1788 when Burns says……

‘’An honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery to moulder with the clods of the valley – be it so: at least there is an end and care, woes and wants. If that part of us called Mind does survive the apparent destruction of the man, away with old-wife prejudices and tales

Every age and every nation has a different set of stories and, as the many are always weak of consequence they have often perhaps always been deceived.A man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow creatures, even granting that he may have been the sport at times of passions and instincts he goes to a great Unknown Being, who gave him those passions and instincts and well knows their force.

‘These, my worthy friend are my ideas. It becomes a man of sense to think for himself particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark’’

Decoys is arguing that Burns may have declared his faith in God because he felt it was socially acceptable to do so. However his number of references to God in his poetry suggest he had a healthy respect in the’ Higher Force,’  though he may not have accepted the Authority of the Church. One has to presuppose here that Faith is not always dependent on being a Church member of any particular Religion.

The Social Reforming Environmentalist John Muir however was convinced that Robert Burns believed in God and he wrote a small paper on it. John Muir starts off mentioning Robert Burn’s faith in this way…

‘’ His lessons of Divine Love and Sympathy to humanity, which he preached in his poems and sent forth white –hot from his heart, have gone ringing and singing around the globe, stirring the heart of every nation and race.’’

He then goes on to say ‘As far as I know, none in all the world so clearly recognised the loving fatherhood of God as our ain Robert Burns, and there has been none in whose heart there flowed so quick and kind and universal a sympathy.’

He likens his sympathy for the animals like the Mouse as wee timorous beastie like as a godly characteristic. Certainly Muir's environmental conscience sympathised with Burns natural images of the many animals he featured in his poems, but it is to Muir’s conclusion that we must see how Muir saw Burn’s brand of Faith.

‘’Where ever the Scotsman goes, there goes Burns. His grand whole, Catholic soul squares with the good of all: therefore we find him in everything, everywhere. Throughout these last hundred and ten years, thousands of good men have been telling God’s love: but the Man who has done most to warm human hearts and bring to light the kinship of the World, is Burns, Robert Burns, the Scotsman’’

From these two opinions and what they have in common is a belief that Robert Burns possessed a grasp of the nature of the souls in in its journey to aspire to the Higher other World, which some call God, he however did not advocate the Religion of the Church, which failed to embody the spirit of love of all beings that he knew the scriptures taught.  Muir refers to Burn's Spirituality and his support for a cause of just fairness and equality could only be borne from a belief in a Higher Force to imposing it.

If Muir is right and the Humanists are correct then it may be that Burns was supporting a loose form of Gnosticism. In this tradition the Prophet was only the means to God, the communicatorof God’s message, but the Prophet was not in themselves 'God'. He railed against the priest and the pulpit as a supporter of a pure expression of Religion rather than a diluted form of it.  In seeing the difference in this God, His Prophet and His Church, Burn’s form of Religion was of a purer less adulterated form of Religious faith. It may have been the measure of his success with the common man that his allusion to the Higher God was one of a God who glorified the poor and lifted them up via their labours out of their poverty.  His belief in equality puts him on the side of the Church reformers, however this is conjecture when seen against his anger with organised religion and it maybe that the Humanist is right to claim him as their own.

But there is a contradiction here because the references in his poetry put him down as a ‘believer in God'

Here again is proof of Burns morality espousing God’s laws against murder as if by accepting the moral rule by asumption, that he is a believer in God.

“Ye Hypocrites, are these your pranks
To murder men and gie God thanks
Desist for shame, proceed no further
God won't accept your thanks for murder.”
― Robert Burns