friendship, and its highest form occurs in those religions in which God is the
absolute,personalground of communion.^94
Thus for Ricoeur and Macmurray the recognition of human knowing as a
deeply interpretive activity allows for the integration of religion as an essential
element in our perception of reality. Yet this integration need not result in
triumphalist excesses of religion. For, as all these thinkers will argue, know-
ledge that goes beyond mere information is by no means self-evident but
always relative to our way of seeing things. No group or tradition can simply
assume its interpretation of reality to be simply common sense. Each view of
the world requires persuasion through argument for, and induction into, these
ways of seeing. With the demise of scientism and the recovery of teleological,
multi-layered understandings of reality, the way is open to re-establish the
liberal arts and the humanitiesfirmly once again as the central training ground
for the human imagination.
Christian humanism, with its biblical emphasis on theLogosor Word, has
always viewed understanding as a gift that has to be unwrapped, appropriated
and tested against the realities of life. This is especially true about our
understanding of what it means to be human. The future of liberal arts may
well depend on both Christian and secular humanists recognizing that the
most ennobling features of human identity—as reflected in Western concep-
tions of dignity, justice, freedom, and equality—have emerged through a
reciprocal fertilization of religion and secularization. The future not merely
of our universities but indeed of our humanity may well depend on a part-
nership of religious inspiration and secular reasoning that guards, transmits,
and translates the most ennobling human insights, the highest artistic and
moral achievements for our time. None of these insights into the dignity and
value of human beings is guaranteed, of course, for all are‘historical heritages
that can be acquired and lost again’!^95
The liberal arts university is essential for doing the cultural work of inter-
preting this historical heritage in our own day, but universities can only rise to
this challenge when their research and teaching are conducted in light of the
question of what it means to be human. Ultimately, this is a religious question,
and, for this reason, the humanities ought to be the intellectual heart of the
university, which facilitates not merely interdisciplinary but inter-religious
dialogue. The humanities ought to be once again at the heart of university
education so that we may re-establish the traditional role of universities to train
students for citizenship rather than for a profession. Yet generally, modern
universities have succumbed to our culture’s siren call for practical, tangible, and
financially profitable results. This problem is not new. Giambattista Vico, the
(^94) John Macmurray,Reason and Emotion(Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992),
123 – 6.
(^95) Brunner,Christianity and Civilization, 106.
158 Jens Zimmermann