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.There are many thoughtful people who draw backfrom embracing that faith.They may have intellectualreasons for this, or they may simply misunderstand whatChristianity proposes, or they may fear that making acommitment would mean a loss of the autonomy soprized in our culture.In the discussion of atheists andatheism in Chapter 4, I noted the presence among us ofthose who are called  atheists in good faith. They arecalled that not condescendingly but in genuine respect2430465013678_Neuhaus.qxd:5.5x8.25sam.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page 244American Babylonfor their human dignity and, in most cases, their intelli-gence and goodwill.The atheists I have in mind frequently prefer to de-scribe themselves as  secularists or as  secular humanists.Christians rightly lay claim to the title of humanism,pointing to a long tradition of great thinkers who arecelebrated as Christian humanists, and noting that noth-ing could be more humanistic than the claim that Godbecame a human being in Jesus Christ.But secular hu-manists, as that phrase is used today, are typically thosewho acknowledge no reality that transcends the saecu-lum, meaning the temporal order.In this view, all thatwas and is and is to be is confined within the limits ofhistory.But do such humanists, can such humanists, livewithout hope? I doubt it.Some kind of eschatology, a vision of what might beand perhaps will be, a sense of destination in which his-tory culminates in the true community for which welong, is inherent in the thought and action of all seriouspeople.Thoughtful secularists know that this longing,this presupposition of purposeful action, has again andagain ended up in utopian irrelevance, chaos, or tyranny.They want no more of that.What then are they to dowith this hope that will not go away and cannot be dis-carded without risking the loss of their humanity, andhow are they rationally to explain it? Many invest theirhope in historical progress, but I trust enough has beensaid on that score.There are alternatives to investing one s life in hopesthat may turn out to be delusory or lead to utopian fan-tasies that result in irrelevance, chaos, or tyranny.One2440465013678_Neuhaus.qxd:5.5x8.25sam.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page 245Hope and Hopelessnessmay, for instance, hope to achieve what we may call  thesatisfied conscience. People of strong moral convictionswho, without explicit reference to religion, believe thereis such a thing as moral law may find assurance that theyhave, all things considered, done what they ought tohave done.By conforming to that moral law, they havegiven their lives something like an eternal validity.This is a position that can be respected, even as oneraises the question of whether it is not implicitly reli-gious in character, for it contains unacknowledgedassumptions about the purposefulness of history, a de-finitive judgment, eternity, and even a kind of salvation.Thoughtful people who adopt this view, however, insistthat they are entirely secular.For such people, every lifelived in faithfulness to moral truth is in itself an instanceof history achieving its culmination.In his sympatheti-cally critical treatment of this position, one philosopherdescribes it as a belief in an  inner-historical eschaton.Reality as a whole may have no telos, or final end, butevery life lived well is a vindication of human hope.Some who embrace this view understand themselvesto be followers of Immanuel Kant, although that wasnot the view that Kant finally adopted.The idea thatevery good person is a kind of inner-historical eschatondoes have a kinship with Kant s teaching that every per-son ought to be treated as an end and not merely as ameans.It is something of a stretch, however, for the per-son of  satisfied conscience to believe that his life an-swers the question of cosmic meaning.Such a view mayreflect a modest opinion of history but an implausiblyinflated opinion of the self.It implies an impossible2450465013678_Neuhaus.qxd:5.5x8.25sam.qxd 1/9/09 1:16 PM Page 246American Babylondisengagement of the self from the history by which theself is constituted and, however well intended, is not eas-ily distinguished from egotism unbounded.There is no vindication of the self in isolation fromthe world of which we are part.Again, the words ofJohn 3:16  God so loved the world that he sent his onlySon. (emphasis added).It is in the redemption of theworld, not in disengagement from the world, that weseek our own redemption.In Christian imagery, thatredemption of the world is the reversal of Babel s confu-sion of tongues, the Last Judgment of justice triumphant,the resurrection of the dead, and the correction andcompletion of all of history s distorted and defeated as-pirations toward the good, the true, and the beautiful.Itis the final deliverance from exile and arrival at the eter-nal home of the beloved community, the City of God atpeace in the New Jerusalem [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]