who awaits humanization through the efficacy of culture, a sphere of freedom
in which a multiplicity of forms can be imparted to theproto-humanum.^35
CONCLUSIONThe wars of the twentieth century brought the state into question. This
artificial construct—the state as sovereign—proved to be disastrous not only
with respect to individual liberty but also other good things that individuals
might freely choose. The Protestant theologian Karl Barth aptly called the
post-Second World War time the era of‘disillusioned sovereignty’.^36 The
underlying premise or attitude of negative anthropology therefore had to
make a different turn—namely, that the predicates of sovereignty once given
to the state must be transferred back to individuals in the name of human
rights. But what is the status of individuals who enjoy rights? How can a
radically indeterminate human nature, allowing and even demanding freedom
to make oneself to be whatever he pleases simply through choice, be the bearer
of human rights? What seems on the surface to be important moral–juridical
institutions—the covenants, conventions, constitutions of human rights—
include a barely sunken premise of negative anthropology.
This, then, is the crisis discerned by John Paul II. Let us imagine the repair
of institutions after the Second World War. That experience was fertile soil for
practically understanding many of the challenges faced by Western societies of
which I name only a few major ones in passing: the need to limit state
sovereignty according to constitutional democracy, bills and charters of
basic rights, adjudicated by independent judiciaries; the importance of private
property and a market economy regulated by the rule of law and directed to
the well-being of society; the clear distinction between polity and church;
international assemblies with some authority to check unilateral declarations
of war, and to make modest but real interventions in cases of humanitarian
crises; the importance of voluntary associations both within domestic regimes
and across jurisdictional lines.
In addition, we know that in the half century since the Second World War,
much of world has become thoroughly disillusioned about the utopian solu-
tions that were offered and prevailed in modern times: Marxism, fascism,
racialism, and, more recently, the myth that markets are completely self-
regulating. While there are always perplexities at the level of policy, at least
(^35) Georges Cottier, OP,‘Reflections on Marriage and the Family’,Nova et Vetera1/1 (Spring
2003), 18, 20.
(^36) Karl Barth,Church Dogmatics, vol. 3/4:The Doctrine of Creation, ed. G. W. Bromiley and
T. F. Torrance (London: T & T Clark, 1961; repr. 2004), 410.
Christian Humanism and the Crisis of Modern Times 251