John Hassler Dietrich

From Philosopedia

Dietrich, John Hassler (1878—1957)

A minister of the First Unitarian Church in Minneapolis, Dietrich also was on the advisory board of Charles Francis Potter’s First Humanist Society of New York. He was a signer of Humanist Manifesto I. Also, he was the first Unitarian minister to refer to his way in religion as “humanistic,” echoing elements of the Greek enlightenment and of the Renaissance.

His friend, Curtis Reese, was another Unitarian clergyman to adopt the label “humanist.” Dietrich liked Paine’s “religion of humanity” and the ideas of thinkers as diverse as Ludwig Feuerbach, George Eliot, Auguste Comte, and Robert G. Ingersoll. As an explanation of his outlook, he wrote,

• Humanism simply ignores the idea of God, failing to see any evidence of intelligent purpose in the universe, which surely is the minimum basis of Theism. The attitude taken is one of open-mindedness and inquiry, not of denials. . . . Old religions assume that there is a personal God at the center and source of things, from whom all power and blessings flow. Religion consists in bringing oneself into right relation with this personality. . . . In contrast to this, the Humanist says that it is useless to try to determine just what is the ultimate center and source of all power and blessing. . . . The all-important thing is that we strive to bring ourselves into better relation with that portion of reality with which we come into actual contact. . . . If human life is to have meaning, we must give it that meaning. . . . The world is so saturated with the theism and supernaturalism of the Christian church that any other form of religious aspiration is regarded as impossible, if not unthinkable. . . . We perceive an apparently endless process of constant, related change, which we call evolution—not in the narrow sense that man has sprung from lower animals, but in the broad sense of a changing, developing mode of existence.

He also wrote,

• Whereas the Christian church connects the power for goodness with one name in the world’s history, humanism recognizes that goodness springs from many sources, so that its formula of worship would base itself, not upon the name of Jesus or Buddha [Siddhartha] or Mohammed alone, but would express reverence for the divergent forces of the universal good.

To a Western Unitarian Conference in Des Moines, he pointed out:

• What you are calling the religion of democracy, I am calling humanism.

Edwin H. Wilson has said that some of the Unitarian clergy who defended the rights of humanists, such as Dietrich and Reese, were “evolutionary theists,” declaring that evolution was God’s way of creation. In contrast, Dietrich and Reese were frankly non-theists, unwilling to use such terminology.

In 1956, he elaborated upon changes in his views to Warren Allen Smith:

• I was one of the original, if not the original minister, to preach the interpretation of religion which I called Humanism and for twenty-five years I proclaimed this doctrine to large audiences in a Unitarian Church, but I no longer call myself a Humanist except in the sense you attribute to the lexicographer, “a term denoting devotion to humanity and human interests.” I sometimes called my Humanist Religious Humanism and sometimes Naturalistic Humanism. In any case it was the Humanism now represented by the American Humanist Association and its various members, and I think is quite accurately defined by your definition of Naturalistic Humanism. But of late years, due to much reading and mature thought, my philosophy and religion have undergone a complete revision. I now think it a philosophy too narrow in its conception of the great cosmic scheme, about which we know so little, and concerning which we should be less dogmatic and arrogant. It in no wise reflects the humility which becomes the real seeker after truth. I see now how my utter reliance upon science and reason and my contempt for any intuitive insights and intangible values which are the very essence of art and religion was a great mistake. I think the Humanism of that period served a good purpose as a protest movement against orthodox dogmatism, but its day has passed. What I am trying to say is that the positive side of Naturalistic Humanism was and is fine—its insistence upon the enrichment of human life in its every form; but its negative side, cutting itself off from all cosmic relationship and denying or ignoring every influence outside of humanity was and is very short-sighted. In other words, it should not have drawn such a hard and fast line between Humanism and Theism, making them contradictory. That was all right so far as orthodox theology and supernaturalism are concerned, but there is a type of theism—a kind of naturalistic theism—which does not stand in direct opposition to a real Humanism, and I have come to accept that type of theism. Do not ask me to define it, for I still agree with Robert Herrick, when he said
• God is above the sphere of our esteem And is best known, not defining him.

Dietrich concluded,

• Perhaps I am a theistic humanist, but not in the sense you define it, or a humanistic theist. I like to think of myself as both a theist and a humanist.

In his 80th year, after a long battle with cancer, Dietrich died. A private funeral service was held at Berkeley Hills Chapel. Edwin H. Wilson, Unitarian minister and one of the founders of the American Humanist Association, who visited and talked with him shortly before his death, reported that in his last days Dietrich was beginning to study Italian and investigating Sartre's Existentialism as "a Humanism."

Mason Olds observed in his study, American Religious Humanism, that "[Dietrich's] significance as a religious thinker is based on his audacity in rethinking doctrines of the western religious tradition from the perspective of naturalistic humanism."

More than two hundred of Dietrich’s lectures have been published, and he wrote for the Humanist Pulpit (7 volumes, 1926-1933).

(See entries for Charles S. Braden, Brian Eslinger, and Dorothy S. Grant.)

- Original is in the Houghton Library, Harvard University

Biographical Study by Alan Seaburg

In the Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography, Alan Seaburg has written an all-encompassing biography of Dietrich [[1]]. Seaburg underlines Dietrich's changes of viewpoints over the years:

• A private funeral service was held at Berkeley Hills Chapel. Edwin H. Wilson, Unitarian minister and one of the founders of the American Humanist Association, who visited and talked with him shortly before his death, reported that in his last days Dietrich was beginning to study Italian and investigating Sartre's Existentialism as "a Humanism." [[2]].

• In 1941 he and his wife went to live in Berkeley, California. There he occasionally did some preaching and continued to ponder the evolution of religion. This led him to write to Joseph S. Laughran that his "philosophy and religion have undergone considerable, if not drastic revision. I realize now how my utter reliance upon science and reason and my contempt for any intuitive insights and intangible values which are the very essence of art and religion, was a great mistake; and the way in which I cut mankind off from all cosmic relationship was very short-sighted and arrogant."

Mason Olds [[3]] observed in his study, American Religious Humanism, that "[Dietrich's] significance as a religious thinker is based on his audacity in rethinking doctrines of the western religious tradition from the perspective of naturalistic humanism."

{CL; EU, Paul H. Beattie; EW; FUS; HM1; HNS2; U; U&U; WAS, 17 August 1956}