The Task of Theological Humanism
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stopped through appropriate force, and are undertaken without the dehu-manization of combatants and non-combatants.law is the same as just war: the social order can and ought to aim at the integ-rity of life and thus protect human beings from unwanted desecration of (^21) The presumption of just
humanity. The desecration can take many forms, of course: torture, oppression, unending poverty, and on and on. At the core of all these forms of intolerable acts against human beings is the denial of a the right to have rights. (^22) They deny the claim on a person’s part to be a crea-human being as a creature with
ture who can rightly claim against the all things being equal – to be fulfilled, rneed to be integrated in order for personal and social life to flourish.All things being equal: while a human being (on our account) has the community that other rights ought – ights rooted in the various goods that
right to claim the right (say) to participate freely in the social and political life of a community, the vary from community to community. What cannot be justly violated (on our account) is the standing of a human being as one who has the inviolable form and the extent of participation can and will
right to claim other social rights. Political and social power as well as the distribution of social goods are limited and tested by the standing of human beings as moral creatures. Here is the proper domain of human rights dis-course, that is, claims against political and religious coercion and rights for
social goods. What then grants a human being this right to have rights? Is it God? Is it the political community? Is it custom and tradition? What grants a human being the right to claim other rights is freedom of conscience as a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for living a life of integrity, even while,
as theological humanists, we also insist on the religious depth and force of conscience. What grants legitimacy to a political or religious community is the extent to which it respects and enhances that “right” and therefore in its structures, policies, and procedures fosters conscientious social life.
short essay. The decisive idea to grasp is that social identity finds its good not in itself but in the project of conscience and so in responsibility for the integ-rity of life. On reaching that conclusion we return to the question of the Many questions must remain unanswered or not fully addressed in this
central social good in our age. We can speak about the The Cosmopolitan Consciencecosmopolitan conscience.
In the light of the deep tensions we have charted above between accounts of the relation of morality, religion, and politics in the US context, one can grasp something about the global scene as well. If one looks at military and