The Shape of Theological Humanism
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the centuries have argued. Yet that does not mean that one might not be mistaken, even distorted. It means that one cannot be compelled to violate the primary mode of being, one’s humanness.The claim or call of conscience is the sense of the “oughtness,” presence,
and reality of the integrity of life grasped under the forms of the universality, finality, autonomy, and locality. It includes intimations of basic, social, natural, reflective, and spiritual goods, intimations found in feelings and sensibilities. The dawning of conscience is an “awakening” to the depth and purpose of
responsible life. Various metaphors try to explore the senses linked to con-science: it can sting, the conscience can be terrified or despair, a goad to action, it can testify to the integrity of one’s life. Stated otherwise, the four-fold form of the moral claims (autonomy, finality, universality, locality) is not
exhaustive of the integrity of human life.beyond humans to other forms of life. The demands of universality, finality, locality, and autonomy are tests or critical markers for a valid understanding and application of the imperative of responsibility: respect and enhance the^17 These forms extend considerably
integrity of life before God. However, the four “tests” are about the applicationthe good, the integrity of life. The content of the integrity of life includes, then, basic, social, natural, and reflective goods and also the spiritual good of of the imperative rather than providing content to a conception of form and
conscience.the claim of others that meet in the idea of the “integrity of life” and the claim of conscience. Conscience, the felt reality of the demand to respect The confluence of these goods expresses both a longing for integrity and
and enhance the integrity of life tested by universality, finality, autonomy, and locality, is at one and the same moment an act of beyond the self and yet also the response to conscience there is an affirmation of self and the acknowledg-creative enactment of human powers. In conformity to a claim
ment of others. To put it differently, a life dedicated to responsibility both responds to the claims of others and creates a way of life bearing its own distinctive force and tenor.There is a certain awakening to life when the oft-silent voice of conscience
arises through the dimensions of our lives as mortal beings within the wider compass of life. The voice of conscience is the call to dedicate one’s life to the struggle of moral and spiritual integrity which fashions existence, paradoxi-cally, for a good beyond what is directly achieved, immediately desired. The
remainder of this book is a meditation on that upsurge of conscience under-taken to articulate, to give voice, to this claim of life upon us, thereby to awaken ever more fully to the reality of life within the power of divine life. In this way, the integrity of life present and real in the claim of conscience