Christian Humanism
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Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom and individualism are compatible with the practice of Christianity or intrinsic in its doctrine. It is a philosophical union of Christian and humanist principles.[1]
Although its root reach back to the ancient Christian apologists, Christian humanism grew more directly out of Renaissance humanism, which developed from the rediscovery in Europe of classical Latin and Greek texts. Humanism generally reacted against the the religious authoritarianism of the Catholic Church and emphasized human dignity, beauty and potential. While some Renaissance humanists stressed science and sensuality, Christian humanist used the principles of classical learning to focus on biblical studies, theology, and the importance of individual conscience, thus creating the intellectual foundations for the Protestant Reformation.
Later Christian humanists challenged not only the Catholic Church but the authority of the Bible itself. The term today describes a variety of philosophical positions, depending on the degree of emphasis on humanism or Christianity, respectively.
Origins
Christian humanism can be seen as existing at the core of the Christian message. Even the writings of Saint Paul, the earliest Christian writer, may be interpreted as applying classical learning to traditional Jewish ideas and thus developing a new religious philosophy which emphasized freedom from Jewish law and the liberty of the individual conscience in a personal relationship with God. A more direct type of Christian humanism can be seen in the second century, with the writings of Justin Martyr. While far from radical, Justin suggested a value in the achievements of classical culture in his Apology and other works.
Many later Church Fathers also made use of classical learning in developing Christian theology and explaining it to audiences in the Roman Empire. Apologists such as Origen engaged in dialogs with pagan writers and referred to classical texts to defend the Christian faith. The development of Logos theology, a critical phase in the evolution of the mature trinitarian doctrine, emerged from the application of Greek philosophical ideas to the Christian message. Later, influential letters by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, for example, confirmed the commitment to using pre-Christian knowledge, particularly as it touched the material world and not metaphysical beliefs.
Background
After the Muslim conquest, however, Greek learning was largely lost to western Christianity. However, the formal aspects of Greek philosophy, namely syllogistic reasoning, is evident in the Byzantine Empire and, to a lesser degree, in Western European circles in the eleventh century to inform the process of theology. However, the Byzantine hierarchy during the reign of Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) convicted several thinkers of applying "human" logic to "divine" matters.
The rediscovery and translation of formally lost Greek texts in Europe, especially those of Aristotle, resulted new approaches to theology. Peter Abelard's work, which emphasized the use of logical to both expose and reconcile contradictions in the writings of the Church Fathers, encountered strong ecclesiastical resistance in the West in the same period, but also unleashed a powerful new spirit in theological studies. After a period of ecclesiastical reaction in which some aspects of classical learning were banned from theological discourse, writers such as Thomas Aquinas succeeded, though not without considerable difficulty, in establishing the principle that Aristotelian principles could be used as effective tool in expressing Christian theology.
Both Christian and classical humanists placed great importance on studying ancient languages, namely Greek and Latin. Christian humanists also focused on scriptural and patristic writings, Hebrew, Church reform, clerical education, and preaching.
The Renaissance
Christian humanism saw an explosion in the Renaissance, emanating from an increased faith in the capabilities of Man, married with a still-firm devotion to Christianity. Whereas non-Christian humanism valued earthly beauty as something worthy in itself, Christian humanism valued earlthyly existence specifically in combination with the Christian faith.
One of the first texts of Christian humanism was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man (c. 1486). However, the country of Pico's birth, Italy, leaned more toward civic humanism, while specifically Christian humanism tended to catch hold further north, during what is now called the Northern Renaissance. Italian universities and academia thus stressed classical mythology and writings as a source of knowledge, while the universities of the Holy Roman Empire, France,England, and the Netherlands applied classical learning still more to the study of the Church fathers and biblical texts.
Near the end of the fifteenth century Johann Reuchlin became a champion for the humanist cause when he defended the right of Jews to read the Talmud and other Jewish works, which the Dominican intellectual leaders of Germany insisted were anti-Christian, prompting major debates between humanists and traditionalist in the great universities of Europe. Rechlin's younger contemporary, Erasmus, became the leading Christian humanist think of the era and completed the first New Testament in Greek in 1514. His work would come to play a major role in the theological debates of the early Protestant Reformation.
The Reformation and beyond
Christian humanism thus blossomed out of the Renaissance and was brought by devoted Christians to the study of the philological sources of the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Bible. The invention of movable type, new inks, and widespread paper-making put potentially the whole of human knowledge at the hands of literate Christians for the first time, beginning with the publication of critical editions of the Bible and Church Fathers and later encompassing other disciplines.
Erasmus pioneered this movement with his work of publishing the New Testament in Greek, producing a firestorm of interest in the "original" text of the Bible. Martin Luther went even further by translating the scriptures into his native German, while John Calvin, at the Sorbonne, began studying scripture in the original languages, eventually writing his influential commentary upon the entire Christian Old Testament and New Testament except the Book of Revelation). Each of the candidates for ordained ministry in the Reformed churches in Calvinist tradition was required to study the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek in order to qualify.
In subsequent decades, Christians continued to engage the historical and cultural bases of Christian belief, leading to a spectrum of philosophical and religious stances on the nature of human knowledge and divine revelation. The Enlightenment of the mid-eighteenth century in Europe brought a separation of religious and secular institutions and challenged Christian faith in evermore radical ways.
Today, the term "Christian humanism" is used widely to describe widely divergent viewpoints including those of such Christian writers as Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Flannery O'Connor, Henri-Irénée Marrou, Dostoevsky, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Selected Humanist Teachings of Jesus
The Second Great Commandment
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"
- Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27 (also Leviticus 19:18)
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’
“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’
“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’
- Matthew 25:34-40
Prominent Christian humanists
- A. J. Cronin
- T.S. Eliot
- Erasmus
- Christopher Fry
- Søren Kierkegaard
- Jacques Maritain
- Thomas More
- Blaise Pascal
- Jim Wallis
- Boris Pahor
See also
- Christianity
- Humanism
- Personalism
- Religious humanism
Notes
- ↑ Christian World, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1970, p. 42.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Arnold, Jonathan. “John Colet- Preaching and Reform at St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1505-1519.” Reformation and Renaissance Review: Journal of the Society for Reformation Studies, 5, no. 2 (2003): 204-209.
- D’Arcy, Martin C. Humanism and Christianity. New York: The World Publishing Company, 1969. OCLC 3888
- Lemerle, Paul. Byzantine Humanism The First Phase : Notes and Remarks on Education and Culture in Byzantium from Its Origins to the 10th Century. Byzantina Australiensia, 3. Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1986. ISBN 0959362630
External links
All links Retrieved December 3, 2007.
- Christian Humanism, a website maintained by John P. Bequette, Ph.D., Historical Theology
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