Introduction
4
We have entitled the book Theological Humanism, and it appears, happily, in the Blackwell Manifesto Essays and ManifestosReligion and the Human Future: An Essay on
series. The connection between an essay and a manifesto requires a few words in terms of the style and intention of the book, since we aim to change the terms of debate about humanism and theology.A manifesto seeks to awaken, inform, challenge, and move its readers to
action. Throughout history, manifestos have been used as battle cries to incite judgment and promote social causes. An essay is different. Coined by Michel de Montaigne, an of oneself in response to various topics, subjects, and situations. An essay essai, means, in its original sense, a trial or testing
aims at understanding self and others; a manifesto is a declaration of policy. The two ideas, and the styles in which they are presented, seem utterly opposed. How, then, can we write an essay as part of a manifesto series?This book does seek to awaken, inform, challenge, and also move people
in response to the current global urgency. Yet by calling it an essay we signal that our interest is the or policy of action. The quest for truth requires a rhetorical form suited to self-critical inquiry and which invites discussion and argumen quest for truth rather than the novelty of the position tation beyond
strife between hardened convictions. Rather than denouncing other posi-tions or proclaiming the radical character of one’s own discourse, an essay is an adventure in reflection. In a time when too many intellectuals apparently hanker after the new and the strange, it is appropriate, we believe, to focus
sustained attention on how to understand and orient life realistically and responsibly. Because this is an essay, we have also not engaged in the scholarly duty (and joy!) of providing endless footnotes or extended analysis of texts and thinkers. The notes provided, the concepts coined and analyzed, and the
theories we engage are well considered and certainly defensible even if we provide, coin, analyze, and engage with greater brevity than found in a typical academic treatise.Nowadays many people cast a skeptical eye on books that use ideas like
“truth” or “goodness” or “humanity,” let alone “the integrity of life.” The diversity of cultures, human fallibility, and the sad reality of failure or fanati-cism fuels skepticism about big questions and big ideas. This skepticism, so understandable in its origins, too easily leads to a relativism wherein nothing
is claimed and defended as true, good, and just. In that way, such skepticism endangers the human future insofar as it threatens the belief that there are valid limits and measures to human existence and social life. The seduction