Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism

(Martin Jones) #1

which is more than information. Communities of friendship and trust are of
paramount importance. Only in communities (families, schools, parishes,
neighbourhoods, etc.) can virtues be effectively transmitted. I define a com-
munity as a (not too large) group of people who share a core of common
values, practices, and institutions, to which one belongs with a sense of stable
membership. True community does not instrumentalize relationships. Friend-
ship can develop in such communities. Friendship is mutual benevolence and
an exchange of something good (not only in a material but also in a spiritual
or relational sense) of which both parties are aware. The better the goods
exchanged, the stronger the friendship. Real friendship is therefore based on
real goods. Aristotle has shown beautifully that perfect friendship is only
possible between virtuous persons who by their friendship maintain and
render each other virtuous.^62
The programme of cultural transformation needs communities in which
virtues canflourish and spread. Virtuous practices stimulate emulation, and
most of all they enrich communities and the whole of society with the joy and
friendship they make possible.


Beauty, Institutions, Acting

Beauty has to do with love. Beauty is the splendour of truth, which attracts
me to something without me wanting to use it as a means. I cannot use
something beautiful, but I can use something that is good and useful.
Abeautifulflower is an aim to itself; it serves as nothing else. Agoodflower
can be aflower that has healing effects or nourishes well. We lovethings
when and if they are beautiful. It goes the other way round with human
persons. Merely physical human beauty (‘sex appeal’) attracts our desiring
love (eros), whereas our giving love (agape)isselfless friendship. We give
other people beauty through our love (agape). Through our selfless giving
they becomefinalities of our actions. That is why beautiful gifts express our
love of persons.
Christian humanism’s contribution to the transcendental of beauty in the
world affirms every human person as creditors of our love. We must never use
them for aims that are not for their good or the common good.
Why and how is beauty linked to institutions? As has been shown, social
ethics articulates itself in institutions—that is, in the structures and patterns of
standardized human behaviour that make human action comprehensible and
predictable in a certain cultural context. Faith, and thus Christian humanism,
are intrinsicallyfinalized towards inculturation, and therefore crystallize in


(^62) Aristotle,Nicomachean Ethics, Book 8, 1156b7–1157a.
218 Martin Schlag

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