importance of addressing the anthropological question‘what is human nature’
within a framework open to transcendence.^16
The debate about human nature has also become vital in legal discourse,
with recent discussions in both America and Europe centring on the question
whether one should abolish metaphysical grounds for human dignity and
anchor it instead in positive law. The current legal struggles for human rights
that we observe not only in Germany and Europe but also in the United States,
indicate a state of legal affairs that the Catholic theologian Russell Hittinger
has aptly dubbed a‘crisis of legitimacy’of constitutional orders in democratic
societies. According to Hittinger,‘what began for Christian theologians as a
doctrine explaining how the human mind participates in a higher order of
law is turned into its opposite. The natural law becomes“temporal”, the
temporal becomes“secular”and the secular becomes the sphere in which
human agents enjoy immunity from any laws other than those they impose
upon themselves’.^17
Hittinger points us to the heart of the problem both secular and religious
thinkers currently have to wrestle with: in the course of progressive secular-
ization, human dignity and rights enshrined in the constitution have become
separated from their pre-political religious and metaphysical moorings.^18 The
danger of this move is that now the courts define what is natural, indeed even
what counts as religion.^19 Without a metaphysical frame of reference, human
dignity becomes subject to cultural demands, such as the use of human
embryos for stem-cell research, selective abortion, or the euthanasia of society’s
‘unproductive’members. Christian humanism with its anthropology based on
theimago Deiremains a vital resource for the current debates concerning
human identity.
Yet beyond a number of pressing cultural issues that require a robust sense
of human dignity and transcendent reference points for humanflourishing,
Brunner’s citation suggests a second important consideration for re-envisioning
Christian humanism. His statement that Christian humanism is adebt‘Chris-
tianity owes the world to this day’forces us to ask what kind of debt he has in
mind. What exactly does Christian humanism‘owe’present culture? Brun-
ner’s point is not simply to point out Christianity’s failure to live up to its
humanist ideal but to stress the open-ended and dynamic, rather than static,
quality of Christian humanism. The Catholic theologian Karl Rahner provides
the theological reason for this interpretive quality of Christian humanism.
While indeed the incarnation establishes the essential dignity of every human
(^16) For example, adhering to the old secularist wish to overcome religion will do nothing to
produce constructive solutions for the continuing migration of Moslems and Christians from the
Middle East to secular Europe.
(^17) Russell Hittinger,The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World
(Wilmington, NC: ISI Books, 2007), 14.
(^18) Hittinger,The First Grace, 14. (^19) Hittinger,The First Grace, 145–8.
Christian Humanism and Contemporary Culture 141