Religion and the Human Future – Theological Humanism
An Essay on Theological Humanism
By: David E. Klemm and William Schweiker
Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2008, 202 pgs.
At a time when discourse about religion seems polarized between fideistic theism and reductive secularism, Klemm and Schweiker provide an imaginative ‘third way,’ in the form of a robust theological humanism that draws on and transforms the rich resources of theological and humanistic traditions. Ours is a time when cultures and religions creatively interact but also often collide, and human power increasingly endangers forms of life while great technological advances enable us to better relieve suffering.
This powerful book sets forth a dynamic and robust vision of human life beyond the divisions that haunt the humanities, social sciences, and theology, and religious studies. The authors outline a vision called theological humanism, based on the idea that neither God’s will nor human flourishing alone provides an adequate measure and orientation for human life. The task of human life is responsibility for the integrity of life, and the measure of human action. The idea of theological humanism articulates a profound and ancient insight that is often lost in the current debate between theologians and humanists, and that is that humans are mixed creatures striving for wholeness and integrity.
The most pressing questions in human existence are how we ought to live as individuals and communities and what ways of life are really worthy of being human. Theological humanism is a fundamental stance and orientation in life dedicated to the integrity of life, and resists powerful cultural tendencies on the extremes of human possibilities. Over-humanization is the result of radical self-assertion which is the hallmark of the modern age, both the religious and non- religious. The problem of over- humanization is forgetting an ineluctable truth that human beings are interrelated with each other and with all living beings in their struggle to integrate their lives. In over-humanization, we find the hubris of unfolding life forms into a rapacious greed of an instrumental thinking for which nothing has intrinsic worth. Over-humanization has brought our planet to the brink of catastrophe. Human expansion drives into extinction more and more animal species and endangers all of life on earth.
Theological humanistic traditions have been specifically concerned with cultivating the abilities to both produce and understand meanings in language, along with the reflective art of thinking systematically within dynamic historical contexts of culture. In order for humanity to have a future, the love of liberal learning must once again flourish. Humanistic education promotes thinking about noble and worthy ends and purposes for human pursuits and not merely the means for achieving unreflected ends.
With advances in technology and expansions in global economy, patterns of thought and evaluation increasingly become calculative or instrumental, which perfects ever more efficient and proficient means to achieve the bottom-line goals of corporations or nations. Humanistic learning is desperately needed to counteract the predominance of technical and economic pursuits in thinking. Humanistic criticism aims at liberation from the spell and power of words and slogans.
Theological humanism also draws on the emphasis of intellectual rigour, open, and unrestricted inquiry, and a willingness to challenge and criticize authority for the sake of the truth, wherever it leads. Theological humanism is a kind of countermemory. It witnesses to the transcendent reach of the human spirit to counter the forces of overhumanization. It also opens human existence to a depth and reach denied by too many contemporary neo-humanists and their limitation of transcendence to intra- human lateral relations. The idea of God thereby designates the reach of human transcendence to include but later exceed transcendence. The idea is about a transcendence that cannot successfully be reified by a supreme being. The idea of God surpasses expressions of God which attempt to convey it. The human spirit reaches beyond the confines of communities and traditions into a freedom of genuine spiritual transcendence.
A theological humanist lives through the religions rather than apart from them. One undertakes the discipline of living freely within a particular religion. The human future needs the contribution of the religions, but it needs only self- reforming religions that are dedicated to the integrity of life as a manifestation of divine live and the human good. Religious people should undertake the serious work of reform which will enable them to live more fully and responsibly. Theological humanism is not a specific philosophy or a new kind of religion, although it implies philosophical commitments and religious sensibilities.
To be a theological humanist does not mean that an individual has to stop being a Christian. At issue is how a person inhabits, and lives through, the various identities that shape any person’s community’s actual life. This is the work of freedom and responsibility under the dictates of the cosmopolitan conscience. As a theological humanist, one freely decides to inhabit openly and critically the social and religous forces that have shaped one’s life for the sake of respecting and enhancing the integrity of life. One cultivates the goods of life in oneself and in others, works to educate conscience, and also undertakes reflection on how meaningfully to orient existence. A theological humanist undertakes that way of life within an abiding responsibility with its complexity and in dedication to life with and for others.
One basic reason to adopt theological humanism is a matter of sensibility. It is captured most generally in the idea that human beings are ‘things in between.’ They are not merely composites of animal and angel, but are complex creatures who have isolated sensibilities at several levels. Human beings exist in between basic feelings or senses that arise within and through the levels of goods that permeate life. Our lives transpire in this field of feelings and passions that motivate action and also the profound desire for the integration of life. Freedom is the ability to inhabit that field with responsibility for its integrity. The cultivated conscience is at the core of one’s being and it labours for the integrity of life. This claims is also freedom, a permission to live, and it entails a mandate for life, a mandate formulated in the imperative of responsibility. The dictate of conscience can be heard through the voice of another human being, in the realm of art, through the beauty of natural events, and in religious practise.
The dictate of conscience is not limited to other people. Here too human beings are ‘things in between’. For the theological humanist, we exist between those realities that bespeak the dictates of conscience within the depths of our lives and the awareness that this claim, permission, and mandate to respect and enhance the integrity of life transcends its messengers and means. Religious communities enable people to cultivate their sensibilities for the divine or ultimate reality and other forms of life through participation in foundational myths, intellectual traditions, rituals, particular experiences, artistic forms and styles, and institutional structures. Religious communities often times embody a passion for justice that has no other social outlet. They provide a setting where ethical discourse and education can flourish. In this regard, religious communities offer a bulwark against the proliferation of technically and purely rhetorical uses of language. They provide the means to articulate and orient the claims of conscience.
The reasons for being a theological humanist arise from within the goods of life, spring from the dictate of conscience that bespeak the integrity of life, and are found in the religious resources within which a theological humanist freely and thankfully lives. Theological humanism means developing fundamental moods and attitudes that can ground habits of thinking and acting. Fundamental moods are ways of being open to truth, beauty, and goodness in the world, wherever they may appear. Moods of joy, dread and courage; faith, hope, and love; awe gratitude and humility; compassion, generosity, and good will all inform the heart of theological humanism. To live as a theological humanist, an individual must seek the life of integrity in oneself and in others. A life so dedicated will become different through its call and commitment to see the truth of things and to serve goodness.
According to Klemm and Schweiker, to inhabit a tradition of self-criticality means to apply the norm of the integrity of life to every aspect of one’s beliefs and practises. It is to live religiously in a free and responsible way. It becomes incumbent upon religious people to work for the change they desire within their chosen communities. Individuals must appreciate whatever brings the integrity of life, and criticize whatever demeans and destroys it. Also, individuals must seek a humane future for life in its many forms as the dedication in one’s religious life.
Reviewed by Irene Roth
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