Christian humanism gives the world truth and true values as reasons for
hope. Of course, there is no space here to discuss each and every one of them.
Suffice it to say, in general, that Christian humanism fights against the
fragmentation of knowledge and the exclusion of ethics (and theology and
the humanities) from social sciences. This means that ethical values form an
integral component of the epistemology and the methodology of science, not
only of human agency. For instance, humility is required to accept truth as a
given, and not as a product of my own ambition; sociability is requested
because the expression of scientific knowledge is communicative. Social sci-
ences and ethics form overlapping circles. Social science studies practical
human wisdom applied to a certainfield of action, and thus presupposes
human aims as values. Economics, for instance, is widely understood as the
science that‘studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and
scarce means which have alternative uses’.^60 The ends, however, are not
completely interchangeable or value neutral. For example, drug dealing
moves a lot of money but does not exchange goods in a human sense. For
this reason, it does not count as economic activity, and therefore it cannot be
an object of economics.
Christian humanism opts for an inclusive notion of science, a notion that is
not value neutral. As has been repeatedly stated, it does so based on an
inclusive concept of secularity: it sees God in man and in the world, and it
also sees true values in human agency. As Boyle has nicely put it, Christian
humanism is inspired by the belief that all areas of human life must be reached
by the gospel and can be bearers of it,‘and that that is the nature of the good
news itself. To see them [the areas of human life] as they really are is to see
them as the gospel shows them. We do not have to pretend that we are not part
of the post-modern, economic, political, and cultural system in order to
discover our ultimate purpose and identity. We have only to understand the
system correctly and acknowledge the obligations which understanding
imposes.’^61
Goodness, Practices, JudgingGood practices are tied to the values we believe in. Conversely, values need to
be practised, lest they remain theory. In fact, practices comefirst, because the
value judgements of practical reason are not propositions (as in speculative
reason) but actions. Before we formulate our values, we live out a particular
ethics. Before thinking our values, we have acted them out. Even the desire to
(^60) Lionell Robbins,An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science(London:
Macmillan, 1945), 16.
(^61) Boyle,Who Are We Now,9.
216 Martin Schlag