The Humanist Imagination
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articulates a multidimensional perspective on human life through the use of a range of metaphors about freedom’s place in the world.goods that taken together help to form the integrity of life. Like the image The images we have traced in this chapter open reflection on the range of
of the garden, human life is primordially situated in the realms of life mani-fest in terms of basic and natural goods (chapter 6). Yet with the metaphor of the school, human life and our struggle for the wholeness that is genuine freedom are profoundly social (chapter 7). There are social goods available to
us only insofar as we engage in those practices necessary to form character and sustain communities. The metaphor of the theatre shows that human beings are not only participants in the realms of sentient life and profoundly social beings; we are also reflexive creatures whose self-understanding does
in some fundamental way shape our existence (chapter 8). Through the met-aphors charted, one can see that responsible freedom aims to respect and enhance a complex interaction of basic, natural, social, and reflexive goods in the struggle for integrity.
metaphors of human transcendence (chapter 9). With contemporary neo-humanists, like Todorov or Levinas, the central revision theological humanism makes to traditional thought is to understand freedom in terms of responsi-Of course, other metaphors are needed as well. Especially needed are
bility with and for others. A theological humanist must show that insisting on radical transcendence does not and cannot detract from the pressing inner-worldly challenges people around the world now face. Only in that way do we avoid the abyss of hypertheism. True speaking about the divine
aims to articulate realms of value beyond human preference and power; it seeks also to evoke a love of life rooted in the integrity of life. A theological humanist can only imagine that reach of value by drawing on the many ways of naming God, as well as images of the whole host of human responses to
divine action found in a religious tradition.meaning of the ways of naming God is part and parcel of the enterprise of providing a complex vision of human transcendence within and not against the wider realms of life.^45 A careful examination of the
and its resources for thinking about the divine and human transcendence. In chapter 4 we will engage the logic of Christian humanism. Those inqui-ries will enable us to develop the idea of the integrity of life and its relation In this light, it is vital in the next chapter to chart the criticism of theism
to the range of goods that orient freedom.