when he wrote,‘that the human being is free in his essence was known neither
to Plato nor Aristotle....Christianity taught that Christ freed human beings,
that they are equal before God, and liberated towards Christian freedom,
independent of birth, status or education.’^43
As problematic as Hegel’s thought may be in many respects, his historical
claim concerning the influence of Christianity on the development of human
dignity is correct. Through a lengthy development based on theimago Deiand
Trinitarian discussions in patristic and medieval theology, Christianity has
granted us a view of personhood that balances the importance and depth of
the individual person with the importance of human solidarity and society. It
is not as if the ancient world had not known a common humanity or talked
about human dignity. Yet when Christians adopted the Platonic language of
becoming godlike, the biblical content transformed the meaning of the older
references. As Henri de Lubac has pointed out in his important book on the
social aspects of Christianity,^44 only the Trinitarian God makes possible a true
and free society of persons, a city built of living stones that is most perfectly
modelled (or should be) by the church as the body of Christ.^45 We have thus
returned to a central idea of patristic Christianity, namely that the incarnation,
death, and resurrection of Jesus have inaugurated a new humanity. Christian-
ity is thus less a religion or creed than a mode of being in communion with
God, wherein we become truly human by becoming like Christ. On this view,
looking at the incarnate Son of God, we can see who we are and are to become.
Christ is the interpretive centre from whichflows our knowledge of God and
human beings. St Basil the Great sums up the essence of patristic incarnational
humanism in his treatise on Christian anthropology:‘What is Christianity?
Likeness to God as far as is possible for human nature.’^46
Patristic humanists like Basil believed in two principles that remain
important for us. First, by replacing the Greco-Roman logos with Christ,
Christian humanists transformed the Greco-Roman‘image of God’. The
logos in which we live, move, and have our being is no longer an impersonal,
cosmic force but the greatIam, the God of Israel as revealed in Christ.(^43) Hegel,Einleitung zu Geschichte der Philosophie,inSämtliche Werke, vol. 17 (Stuttgart:
V. H. Glockner, 1927), 79ff.; quoted in Franz-Xaver Kaufmann,Kirchenkrise: Wie Überlebt das
Christentum?(Freiburg im Breisgau [u.a.]: Herder, 2011), 57.
(^44) Henri de Lubac,Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, trans. Lancelot
Sheppard and Elizabeth Englund (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1988). By Catholicism, de
Lubac means universal Christianity, not the Catholic Church. See, his new preface to the French
edition.
(^45) de Lubac,Catholicism, 335. See also Brunner,‘Personality and Humanity’,inChristianity
and Civilization, vol. 1, 91–105.
(^46) Basil the Great,On the Human Condition, ed. John Behr, trans. Verna E. F. Harrison,
Popular Patristic Series (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2005), 45. Compare this to
Plato’s claim that godlikeness is human destiny, namelyhomoiosis theoi kata to dunatonas the
goal for philosophy (see van Kooten,Paul’s Anthropology in Context, 126).
Christian Humanism and Contemporary Culture 147