The Logic of Christian Humanism
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condition or the actual depths of their existence. As the Protestant reformers put it, one must be shocked into self-awareness through the convicting power of the “law” to expose our misdirected loves. God as the heavenly deity is the operative metaphor for the divine life. And one must look to
where God and human existence are disclosed in proper relation; one looks to Christ and the witness of scripture to the living Christ.put it, “Unless you will have believed, you will not understand” (deritis non intelligetis). Given the fallen and sinful state of human existence, a (^8) As St. Augustine nisi credi-
Christian humanist believes that one must look to the revelation of God in Christ, the faith of the Church, human existence in God.Typically, Christian humanists have differed on this point about belief-full and these alone, in order rightly to understand
understanding in ways similar to how humanists differ in their account of “man.” Some theologians look to the incarnation of God in Christ as the origintion of Christ, the of the Christian message, while others look to the cross and resurrec-end or purpose of the Christian story. In either case, what
makes Christian humanism distinctly uniquely revealing and restoring the right relation of God and humanity. True selfhood is received from God in grace and achieved through the cul-tivation of Christian character in following Christ. There is a double tran-Christian is the focus on Christ as
scendence of the self: one always and already exists in relation to the other who is God, and, what is more, genuine life is a constant struggle to have right relations of love to God, others, and oneself. Causal language is inade-quate: human beings are not just “clay pots” in the hands of an otherworldly
divine craftsman (that would be hypertheism) and the living God is not the product of human wants or feelings or thoughts (as forms of overhumanism would claim).To be a human self, on this distinctly Christian humanist account, is to
find oneself in another, in God, and always to surpass self in the free struggle for the cultivation of character marked by love of others. On the one hand, this outlook continues some of the classical “Hellenistic” focus on nia, that is, well-being or happiness. What is meant by happiness has been eudaimo-
radically changed through reference to the demands of holiness, a right rela-tion to the living God. In a moment we will see that this connection between happiness and holiness is the third element in the bundle of ideas. The proper relation of happiness and holiness is what on our account Christian human-
ists mean by the highest good, the responsible existence.humanists differ from other versions of Christian faith. Knowledge of self With respect to the human capacity for a relation to God, Christian summum bonum, the true aim and end of