The Logic of Christian Humanism
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that, “Whatever it is that makes a man do something, that motive is his god.”what is unsurpassably imporficantly, that the human relation to the good, to the divine, is something that (^22) Whatever motivates and orients one’s life, is, in truth, one’s god, tant and real in one’s life. This means, signi-
can only be lost by the person himself or herself. To be sure, human beings can be coerced, seduced, and forced into evil actions, but the real source of human failure lies not in forces external to oneself, but in one’s own being, one’s lack of constancy and fidelity.
the true good of human life must wed the search for happiness to the demands of holiness. Only then is the goodness of human life celebrated and the changeability of the human heart cultivated, disciplined, in dedi-This is why, one might imagine, Christian humanists have thought that
cation to what is right and good. This is, we might say, the backing for third-way thinking, linking a biblical understanding of the created good-ness of human existence to the quest for human perfection in the theatre of the world found in other traditions and outlooks. The bundle of ideas
that shape historic Christian humanism express a specific way of living the human adventure and also a distinctive way of being Christian. Christian humanism presents the reality and task of the “third man, the believing Gentile.”
With the idea of the third man and third-way thinking, we reach the transi-tion point from the work of the last chapters to a central idea of theological Third-Way Thinking
humanism, namely, the integrity of life. Our contention, again, is that theo-logical humanism is yet another form of third-way thinking, but one that can be practiced by adherents of different traditions. It is a stance in life and also in traditions, freedom within religion. While our account of theological
humanism is indebted to Christian and Western sources, we believe that the outlook and orientation finds resonance with others and finds resources in others who seek to humanize their religious tradition and to think beyond overhumanization and hypertheism.
and explain the idea of the integrity of life as the norm for third-way think-ing about and also living out the human dimension of existence. The idea of the integrity of life will clarify the range of goods we uncovered in classical The next step in our essay on theological humanism is then to explore
images of humanism (theatre, garden, school), but with respect to a norm of right action and a “logic” similar to the one isolated above and used by