The Task of Theological Humanism
120
rise to the justified complaint that modern, liberal democracy, while claiming neutrality, is really an imposition of a political ideology on deeply held reli-gious and moral beliefs and therefore must be resisted. Religious fundamen-talists within various religions decry the notion that their convictions can or
should be validated on any terms other than the convictions themselves. What is missing in the social contract argument, it would seem, is some way to show that the commitment to the public validation of entails a moral and even religious outlook. (^14) One needs to clarify that it is political policies
right and proper to hold some beliefs while testing others. While these prob-lems clarify the central weakness of the social contract tradition, they also expose its greatest insight.The force of the contractarian argument is to insist that human beings
have the ability to step back and ask about the truth and justice of their commitments and accepted identities. Of course, these positions often over-estimate the extent of that capacity to step back and imply that we can put all convictions that sustain our identities into question at once. That is
obviously not the case. Nevertheless, the stepping back, whatever its scope, is an act of freedom, reason, and choice. It is an act of freedom because the capacity to put one’s ideas and ideals into question means that one is not bound by them, determined by them. Identity is not a destiny. Anytime we
ask if our beliefs and forms of identity are ones we want to continue to inhabit, we exercise freedom. That is why oppressive social orders, religious or political, seek to suppress the quest for truth and the criticism of accepted beliefs and practices.
the most intelligent set of beliefs and values to guide social life. What will define and justify those beliefs and values are not internal to them, as com-munitarians insist. Valid beliefs and values for orienting social existence have This act of stepping back is also an act of reason and choice. One is seeking
to be demonstrated within the public order in the thicket of debate and deliberation. What makes a belief valid is both recognition of an identity received and also forward-looking to what will respect and enhance social existence rather than just conformity to inherited ideas and forms of identity.
This only makes sense, we contend, if it can be shown that the commitment to free, rational, and open determination of the ideals is itself part of the one claims a stance of neutralitycontent that seems humanly impossible to adopt. of one’s identity. If that is not the case, then validity of social ideas and
arguments about the social contract. There are also insights in both of these outlooks on social existence that theological humanism will want to preserve. Yet we need to change the terms of the debate.Like the communitarian argument, revisions will have to be made in