The Shape of Theological Humanism
14
move. There is a loss of a sense of what transcends human meanings. The advancement of human power and purposes has ironically meant the loss of the human dimension of life. Debray rightly observes that “humans still crave, in order to breathe, non-human spaces.” 8
humanization.” The idea designates a social condition in which what possesses real worth, what should orient actions and social relations, is the extension of the human power to shape and create realities. To be sure, the The triumph of human power in shaping reality is what we call “over-
inscribing of forms of life within cultural projects, symbolic forms, and power is meant to further human f lourishing. This project has brought advances in knowledge, the lessening of disease and want, and the forma-tion of freer and more open democratic societies. Yet it has also led to the
profaning of life through wars, ecological endangerment, and cultural banality. Part of overhumanization is also the unjust distribution of its goods – say, medicine, clean water, stable social orders – and the unfair distribution of destructive features of modern societies: pollution, envi-
ronmental damage, lack of access to hi-tech resources, astonishing pov-erty. Overhumanization is a term for the inner distortion or f law of humanism. It is a now a challenge to the human future.The worldwide resurgence of the religions over the last century has
exposed a contradiction within theism analogous to that found in the lega-cies of humanism. Often reacting to a virulent secularism and legacies of power and injustice associated with the “modern West,” the religions have become global political, social, and cultural forces. On this vision, to be
human is to be responsive to the divine will as it reveals itself in culture and history. Many anthropologists and historians of religion hold that cultures of the past have been religious. Human beings can be construed as osus. (^9) Outside of religious communities with their sacred traditions and their homo religi-
communions with deity, life would be empty and senseless. Human beings belong not to themselves and their puny designs, but to God alone. Theists take joy and hope in their ultimate purpose of pleasing God. Presently, we see the resurgence of theism after its waning in the modern age, often in the
most secular parts of the world.furthered human dignity and self-determination, and advanced understand-ing among the world’s peoples. These religions in certain forms and at times are also forces of destruction, obscurantism, and opponents to know-^10 Theistic religions have relieved suffering, certain
ledge and science. The appeal to conform to God’s will has too often and too readily been used to destructive ends.is the attempt to enfold life within a specific understanding of “God” The distortion in religion works much like the f law in humanization. It