East of Eden and the Problem of Human Freedom
Steinbeck, secular humanism, and the problem of evil
East of Eden is John Steinbeck’s magnum opus, and in contention for the prestigious title of “the Great American Novel.”
And yet, many readers fundamentally misunderstand what this novel is about.
The story borrows the architecture of the book of Genesis — specifically the story of Cain and Abel — and follows three generations of a family’s lineage to make inquiries into human nature, inherited sin, generational guilt, and man’s capacity to be a moral agent in search of redemption in a fallen world.
Readers are often surprised, then, to discover that East of Eden is not actually a Christian novel. Steinbeck himself was theologically conflicted, and he conceived this novel as an argument for secular humanism, expressed through the Christian aesthetics and vocabulary of Genesis.
As such, the novel is an apotheosis of early 20th-century modernity: the grand architecture of man attempting to recover from the disillusionment of two world wars and the proverbial death of God, and attempting to consider whether man is truly free to live divorced from the divine.
And this creates a fascinating tension.
Steinbeck wants to affirm man’s freedom while rejecting the transcendent moral order that Christianity uses to define good and evil. He wants man to be free to choose, yet his greatest villain, Cathy Ames, seems to be born without the capacity to choose good at all.
Today, we’ll explore Steinbeck’s proposal for how man can live without God, why his novel is so celebrated, and the potentially fatal flaw that remains as a lingering threat to modern man’s emancipation from religion.
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Steinbeck’s Philosophy
The best way to understand Steinbeck’s philosophic vision is to refer to his journal entries from The Log from the Sea of Cortez.
This was written two years after the release of his acclaimed novel The Grapes of Wrath, and part of his notes are a response to critics that his writing was too scientific and detached from the human experiment. His works were written in a disinterested perspective that refused to praise or condemn the moral actions of his characters.
Steinbeck responded by stating that this wasn’t a flaw on his part, but an artistic choice that reflects the full maturation of an artist — to write non-judgmental stories that refuse to endorse nor condemn its characters. His term for such writing was called “non-teleological thinking.”
The word telos was crucial to both Aristotelian philosophy and Christian morality. Teleological thinking says human beings have an objective end toward which human flourishing is ordered. For mankind, his purpose was to be good, resist evil, and love God. This telos therefore, informed his life story and gave him meaning.
Conversely, Steinbeck’s non-teleological writing is scientific. His narration does not treat his characters as mysterious beings with rich interior lives. Instead, they’re often introduced concretely without mystery (paraphrased):
“Cathy Ames was evil.”
“Samuel Hamilton was a good-natured man.”
“Adam Trask was naive but kind.”
Critics chastised Steinbeck by saying this attempt at objectivity was de-humanizing. Traditionally writers wrote in praise of goodness and condemnation of evil, but Steinbeck’s non-judgmental attitude seemed to permit human atrocity.
And yet, Steinbeck disagreed. His response to this charge is perhaps the most quintessential response an American could give — an appeal to human liberty.
Freedom as the Greatest Good
The positive moral vision of East of Eden is summarize by the narrator in chapter 13:
“And this I believe:
that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for:
the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
In true American fashion, Steinbeck makes an appeal to human liberty. The “summum bonum,” of his philosophy is the free exploring mind of the individual, to be protected from coercion by any institution or outside force.
One thinks of the cliche phrase, “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
Now, I think Steinbeck’s philosophy is beautifully written. I still recall the chills it gave me when I first read this in my car in my university’s parking lot, and felt like giving Steinbeck a standing ovation.
Yet, beautiful as this philosophy is, it is not the philosophy of Christianity, but liberal secular humanism. Recall Christianity says freedom is found by a love of truth — of conforming one’s mind to reality, and conducting their behavior to be virtuous, rather than vicious.
In other words, Christian freedom is found by a love of Goodness and hatred of evil.
This, however, is notably absent from Steinbeck’s philosophy. The “summum bonum,” is not a freedom of flourishing from taking virtuous actions, rather the freedom to let any man do whatever he wants, even if his desires are vicious. This is precisely why he champions writing non-judgmentally, for it is far better to seek to understand the wicked individual than to condemn them.
While this non-judgmental tolerance sounds admirable, critics have argued that Steinbeck undermines this very philosophy in his own work.
Despite Steinbeck’s insistence that human beings are free, and that their freedom is the ultimate good that ought to be protected, he introduces one infamous character who may be one of the vilest and most corrupt characters in all fiction.
Her vicious behavior is not just a blight on the narrative that makes East of Eden a thrilling read, but suggests Steinbeck’s very vision of freedom may be self-undermining and destructive to human flourishing.
Here’s why…
