The Task of Theological Humanism
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true religion? How can we produce a third way of thinking about religion that respects and enhances the integrity of life and thus the human future? In response to the first question, a glance back in time might help.What is true religion? Any and every religion (including functional
equiva particular, historical traditions and tion, directing them toward the true ultimacy expressed in the words “the integrity of life,” an ultimacy which some religions construe as God. To lents to religion) is true religion, when it both opens them up through critical interpreta-preserves its own unique,
understand this point, recall for a moment Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel ÉmileRousseau provides a before. What can we learn from him? (1762), and its famous chapter “The Creed of the Savoyard Priest.”speculative version of religious humanism, as we called it (^28)
seeks out a priest from Savoy to receive guidance about religion. The priest responds by telling his story about how he broke his vow of celibacy. In being honest about his transgression, rather than covering it up, he was dis-Émile, a young man who had fallen into cynicism concerning his religion,
graced and condemned. He fell into melancholy and from there into radical doubt about his faith. Needing some resolution to his despair, and unable to find it in church doctrine any longer, he turned to the philosophers, but found them too proud and haughty. The priest resolved instead to think for
himself by following the “inner light” of his own experience and conscience. This method led him to develop a “natural religion” by deducing the self-evident truths of the being of God and the existence of the self as finite freedom. From these truths, he derived a series of theoretical and practical
principles applicable to human beings. Proper worship of God is through wisdom and love; and the highest good for humans is the worthiness to be happy. But is this natural religion true religion? Not according to the priest. In the abstract universality of its message, natural religion lacks concrete and
particular symbols, myths, rituals, and community as the medium of its expression.that revealed religion possesses an abundance of concrete and particular sym-So what about “revealed religion,” such as Catholicism? (^29) The priest says
bols and rituals. This particularity is precisely its problem. Revealed based on particular revelations of God that are entrusted only to particular people, and that are handed down through narratives, rites, dogmas, and insti-tutions. Revealed religion, for the priest, cannot be true religion; revealed religion is
religion is intolerant and exclusive. All revealed religions claim to be the one true religion, such that those who believe in a special revelation will be saved and those who do not believe will be damned. Revealed religions tend to make themselves ultimate goods. Many religions make this absolute claim, and