The Shape of Theological Humanism
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stresses the social character of human existence rather than the solitude of the garden.the way to the integration of life in community and tradition.The importance of education runs deep among humanists. Classical (^37) Discipline and practice are the means of self-overcoming on
Renaissance treatises were written on how best to educate a proper gentle-man. Rabelais, the great Christian humanist and satirist, organizes much of his famous giant. Through serious play, sGargantua and Pantegruelerio ludere around the education of Gargantua, the , Rabelais sought to communicate,
just as others of his ageChristian faith.were committed to education. In the American context, pragmatism was linked not only to humanism but also to a philosophy of education. “Life is,” (^38) Later humanists too, like the Humboldt brothers in Berlin, , truths about human existence and also, like Erasmus,
John Dewey writes, “a self-renewing process through action upon the envi-ronment.” With respect to social life, “Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.”The image of the school underscores the importance of formation and 39
excellence, and also the transmission of social and even religious ideals and values. While the garden pictured human life as a process of cultivation, the school is a more social, less organic image of life. Erasmus, in his Militis Christiani (1503), saw the Christian life as spiritual warfare. Much Enchiridion
later, Søren Kierkegaard imagined the Christian life as training or a drilling in Christian love. His famous discourse meant to build up Christian existence through following the “pat-tern” of Christ who is the truth. Living in truth is a process of transmission Training (Indovelse) in Christianity is edifying
and reduplication in oneself which demands training oneself.Muslims have also written about discipline, practice, and spiritual struggle.proper aim of human existence is not the acquisition of knowledge for The image of the school with its educational discipline means that the^40 Jews and
knowledge’s sake, but, more deeply, to embody a moral or spiritual truth in one’s life and community. One could also look at the metaphors of athletic training or spiritual warfare and how they help to complete the picture of life in the school. The image of the school links several basic humanistic
values (character formation, ideals of excellence, cultural transmission, disci-pline of life through the use of reason) in order to grasp the meaning and purpose of human beings as “things in between.” One is “in between” failure and excellence, discontinuity and transmission or heritage, chaos and the
disciplined life in truth.The revision of humanism in this form centers not on “Being” (Heidegger) or the finality of the other (Todorov, Levinas), but on social forces beyond Around the image of the school one also confronts neohumanist rhetoric.