Religion and the Human Future An Essay on Theological Humanism

Living Theological Humanism^10

Some of the most ancient and yet always pressing questions in human existence are how we ought to live as individuals and communities, and, Recollection

further, what ways of life are really worthy of a human being. Those were the questions raised throughout this book. Our essay has charted the global debate about these questions and also various proposals for how to answer them. We have presented theological humanism as a fundamental stance and

orientation in life dedicated to the integrity of life. Most of the book has been spent making sense of how this stance and orientation enable people to inhabit their religious convictions freely and humanely. We have done so by engaging a welter of images important to the theological and humanistic

imagination, but also by isolating and refining a specific “logic” that is meant to hold together the bundle of ideas that characterize theological humanism. This strategy has allowed us to draw from the rich conceptual and symbolic resources of traditions, but also to revise them in light of the current situation

and trends in neohumanism.tendencies on the extremes of human possibilities. Overhumanization is the result of radical self-assertion as the hallmark of the modern age, religious We have also argued that theological humanism resists powerful cultural

and non-religious. It appears in many forms, including the secular humanist agenda with its quasi-religious faith in unconstrained human freedom or post-theistic religious forms. The problem of overhumanization is forgetting an ineluctable truth: human beings are interrelated with each other and with

all living beings in their struggle to integrate their lives. In overhumaniza-tion, we find the hubris of enfolding life forms into the rapacious greed of

9781405155267_4_010.indd 1669781405155267_4_010.indd 166Religion and the Human Future: An Essay on Theological Humanism © 2008 David E. Klemm and William Schweiker. ISBN: 978-1-405-15526-7^ David E. Klemm and William Schweiker5/2/2008 6:27:22 PM5/2/2008 6:27:22 PM