Small Steps Towards a True Humanism
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
| Charles Ringma
We are living in conflicted and troubled times. I am assuming that I don’t need to spell this out. We are all aware of the anxieties we carry about the health of planet earth and the health and wellbeing of earth’s occupants – the human community with its deep ideological, religious and political divisions.
And much closer to home and at the micro-level, we are concerned about dysfunctional families, so many with mental health issues, many lacking a good work-life balance, lack of affordable housing and ongoing poverty, among many other issues.
But at a much deeper level, we here in Australia, and possibly elsewhere in the West, seem to be uprooted, lacking in sustainable values and lifestyle practices. We live with a sense of fractured community and a scarcity of social capital.
Rather than being deeply rooted in family and other institutions, and formed into a way of life that has life-giving values and practices, our current state of atomistic individualism with its ethos of meritocracy has left us akin to refugees whose humanity we regularly abuse.
Simply put, so many of us have become exiles in our own world. Far removed from the sustenance of nature and community, and far removed from transcendent values, many of us are literally lost in having to create our own identity, values and life purpose. And with the culture’s pervasive, but false, promise that this is the great gift of freedom with its endless quest for something fuller, better and brighter, we, the weary creators of our own world, may well have become lost in the process. Our sense of freedom seems burdensome, even oppressive.
While acknowledging the many challenges facing us, possibly the more fundamental is the need to recover a humanity that is based on a true humanism.
Some readers, who know my theological orientation, may be surprised that I am using this kind of language. But I do so deliberately. And I readily admit that this statement is fraught with linguistic and hermeneutical difficulties. The notion of anything being “true” is problematical today in our post-modern culture. And the term “humanism” sounds too ideological. Moreover, it has secular connotations and in dictionaries is usually defined as human sensibilities in opposition to spirituality. But this bifurcation needs to be subjected to a hermeneutics of suspicion. Simply put, humanism is a way of thought and action of humans, and there is no reason why such thought and action should exclude beauty, imagination and spirituality. In fact, if our notion of humanism excludes these dimensions of life then we are championing an anorexic humanism. The human being is never simply homo faber (humans as makers and creators), but also homo adorans (humans as worshippers).
With sectarianism alive and (un)well in our modern world, with quick polarisations a key strategy, with brutal othering of the other and with a chronic failure to listen to the other, to dialogue, to have respectful conversations, to talk about a recovery of a true humanism seems a doomed project from the beginning. And to raise the bar of difficulty and to complicate things even more, I wish to raise the question of whether the Christian faith can contribute to an understanding of and living into a true humanism.
I recognise that this is a controversial question for some, and a non-sensical one for others. There are some within the Christian faith tradition who would claim that the task is to undo a true humanism. And there are those in secular society who would point out that the Christian faith has nothing to offer for a true humanism, because of its world-denying orientation and its coercive practices.
Let me make some initial suggestions as to why it need not be so. First of all, the Christian tradition has also demonstrated a world-formative orientation. Second, this tradition has a history of love and care of neighbour and the quest for justice, even though Christians in their long history have often failed to live in fidelity to the gospel.
Having said this, more should be said. If secular society believes that the Christian faith has nothing to offer, how can contemporary secular humanism laud its achievements when there is so much social fracturing, dysfunctionality in our institutions and lack of commitment to the common good? One Royal Commission after another in our country has exposed all sorts of failure, corruption and oppression.
So, it may thus be possible that in a new humility Christians and their secular counterparts and those of other faiths can engage in exploring what a true humanism could look like. And all are welcome to sit at table. I am sure that neo-Marxists, feminists, conservatives and those of other faiths, among many others, have something to contribute.
At this point, I wish to make only three suggestions from within the Christian tradition. And remember, I am only talking about small steps!
Firstly, despite the pseudo-science of Social Darwinism, the dysfunctionality of racial discrimination and attitudes of cultural superiority, we all share a common humanity. Within a Christian frame this is formulated in the phrase that we are all made in the image and likeness of God. In many contemporary societies an approximate concept is that we are all equal before the law. While the theological statement is an ontological faith proposition, the legal statement is at best functional and needs to be won again and again, for equality remains elusive and in many societies there is still radical discrimination. Thus, the theological notion of all made in the image of God is a more fundamental basis for advocating and promoting the common equality humanity.
Secondly, the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his embrace of humanity, seen as an incarnational humanism, affirms the human condition not primarily in terms of culture or law. Instead, it is seen as a theological concept rooted in the purposes of God for humanity. And in Christ’s salvific work on the cross, all of humanity has been provided for in terms of redemption, restoration, healing and flourishing. Again, a significant humanising provision for all.
These two themes reflect God’s creational and redemptive vision. And within a Christian frame these are ontological and normative. But they are also universal.
From such a base all sorts of other themes can be explored. I touch on one other.
Not only do we share a common humanity and have been provided for in a common redemption, but we are all born, shaped and sustained in relationship. Atomistic individualism is a cultural nonsense that is nicely (perversely) promoted to keep us striving and ever seeking to gain the advantage over others through beauty, status and power. The reality is that we need each other. Cooperation and care are the social glue that not only nourish the person but also build the common good of all. Within a Christian frame this is articulated in terms of love of neighbour and doing good to all, even the enemy. Other religions echo this call, and we know from life experience that the mantra of competition needs to merge into the long journey of cooperation. A recovery of the relationships of transcendence, mutuality, social bonding and our connectedness to the natural world, all as integrated phenomena, can surely build a truer humanism than the present severing of bonds through individualism, competition and the misuse of power.
And a note to my companions in the faith community. Many of you have been taught that Christians need to save the world. But we have not been sufficiently taught to make the world. And by making it, I am not talking about dominating it. Instead, I am talking about caring for and shaping our world with all the issues of human safety, wellbeing, flourishing, justice and sustainability. Christians live under a double mandate or calling to build the faith community and to contribute to society as a whole. In seeking to live the dialectic of both, they may be able to contribute to a true humanism.
I would love you to join the conversation.
Charles Ringma is Emeritus Professor at Regent College, Vancouver; Research Professor at the Asian Theological Seminary, Metro Manila; Honorary Research Fellow at Trinity College, Queensland; and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Catechetical Institute, Waco, USA.
Image credit: The Thinker (‘Le Penseur d'Auguste Rodin devant la façade sud de l'ancienne Chapelle du Sacré-Coeur, aujourd'hui annexe du Musée Rodin, rue de Varenne, VIIe arrondissement, Paris, France). By Jean-Pierre Dalbéra at Wikimedia Commons.