Human Rights Theology: A Child of Our Times

Frank Cronin

"We must shape a new philosophy" - E. Muir

There is little doubt in my mind but that the unease I experienced at the National Consultation on Theology and Human Rights was a form of cultural shock. I have been away from theology for twenty years, having last formally studied it as an undergraduate in 1959. And the theologians I heard then did not at all sound like the theologians I was hearing now! What had happened in the meantime? What had brought about such a humanizing of what I remembered as a rather dogmatically abstract, deductive discipline?

The invitation to compose this Epilogue challenged me to trace down this "innovation", and furthermore, to justify my - a professional philosopher - attending a theological conference in the first place.

As best I can, therefore, I shall try to situate Human-Rights-Theology in the wider context of twentieth century humanistic and philosophical thinking. In the process of doing so, I shall try to explain the theological innovation in question, and shore it up against the opposition of the traditionalists who are clamouring for its containment with increasing vigour now at the beginning of the 1980's.

Philosophy can be likened to an exercise of aeration, to a tilling of the soil promoting the sustenance and growth of desired vegetation. It is an exercise of excavation, a digging-down to reveal and perhaps shore-up the foundation structures supporting tottering or emerging superstructures.

Even as in certain climates farming and construction are seasonal activities, so also philosophy is a "seasonal" activity. It waxes and wanes. In periods of cultural stability, philosophy is reduced perhaps to the memory of energetic for bearers who originally broke the ground and laid the foundations which so securely support us. In periods of cultural shock and innovation, philosophy expands and vigorously pursues foundation structures that will either shore up traditional patterns of behaviour. The good citizens of Pisa did not begin excavating until they saw their tower leaning. And then, much to their consternation, they discovered that it was not adequately supported at all, but rested rather on shifting sands.

Most often, indeed, superstructures totter because their foundations have shifted. Cultures - i.e., solutions to life's problems - break down because life presents us new problems to which the old solutions prove irrelevant. Life super-abounds the specificities that we would introduce into it with our cultures. The ground super-abounds the buildings built upon it. And when the ground shifts, gradually or abruptly, the buildings must be adjusted accordingly, if not altogether abandoned. Similarly, when the latent patterns of life itself are rearranged, the specificities of culture, of "tradition", must be adjusted.

Philosophy, then, is the activity of digging into and revealing the ground, the presuppositions, that support the specificities of experience and culture. It is an attempt to understand ourselves. And it occurs especially when the traditional attitudes and institutions no longer solve the problems that life presents us. Indeed, philosophy is then necessary if we wish to act with any semblance of rationality at all. Philosophy is the search for a ground, for a relatively firm footing from which we can advance towards the new problems pressing upon us.

The twentieth century is a time of cultural innovation par excellence. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity of 1905 not only announced a major innovation in our interpretation of physical nature, but inaugurated a century of perhaps unparalleled innovation in culture, culminating, at least for the purpose of this Epilogue, in the Human Rights Theology which is emerging today.

To understand this particular innovation, and many of the innovations characteristic of this century, it is necessary to go back to the Renaissance, and to the reformation of European Culture that began at that time. It is important to appreciate this "began that time". Cultural innovation is not like a tidal wave advancing uniformly across the land. Rather it advances here and recedes there; it moves forwards and backwards, around and under until, permeating the very soil we stand on, it finally engulfs us. But still some individuals and institutions will not see it and deny its presence!

The Renaissance heralds not so much a re-birth of Classical art and literature as it does a new attitude towards our being in the world, a new involvement of man in his circumstances which is only now coming to a head, and perhaps not even yet. The Renaissance was a time of reorientation, a shifting of the focus of human concern form the supernatural and the afterlife to the natural and this life. ("Re-birth" is quite accurate a term especially if we regard it as a born-again resurgence of the cultural innovation that occurred in Ionia in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.) The long centuries of the Middle Ages preceding the Renaissance was a period of this worldly disorientation and a (consequent?) belief in transcendent and supernatural orientation necessary to guide the course of our sojourn in this world.

What is worthy of note is not so much Medieval man's recourse to a transcendent realm of intelligibility and value, but rather his complete loss of confidence that such grounding and orientation could ever be forthcoming from within the natural realm. The world was neatly divided into natural and super-natural realms, and the former was regarded as completely devoid of inner coherence, meaningfulness and human significance. From any natural perspective, therefore, the Middle Ages were truly the Dark Ages.

Renaissance man, initially in artistic and literary ventures, began to emerge from this worldly darkness by discovering the purely natural light that Classical and pre-Christian cultures had celebrated. This world was once again being discovered as a Cosmos, as a beautiful and organized whole.

But the substantive break-through awaited the blossoming of empirical science with Galileo in the sixteenth century and later. No longer was nature merely beautiful and aesthetically pleasing in itself. It was intelligibly organized. Man successively discovered an ordered coherence in nature which enabled him to intervene in his circumstances with desired and predictable results.

Modern science, like its classical predecessor, is founded on the intrinsic intelligibility of nature, and is characterized by two distinguishing marks, one very noble and the other mundane, but important nonetheless. Modern or empirical science is rationally rigorous (deductive) and testable, subject to stringent criteria of spatia-temporal falsifiability. It is the latter of these marks which, while some imitations can be found in antiquity, most clearly separates it from the theoreticism of the ancients. Empirical science subjects itself to rigid standards of spatia-temporal testing, thereby practically demonstrating its worth and practically eliminating error. The more mundane distinguishing mark - which, perhaps, most endears it to the heart of Modern man - is its practical consequences, its practical spin-offs and technological accomplishments. It is empirical science and the fruits thereof which enable us to successfully intervene in our circumstances and in the course of nature. It is Modern and empirical science and technology which enables us today to walk on the moon and physically reach out to the stars.

What was perhaps more speculative (wishful?) on the part of Francis Bacon at the beginning of the sixteenth century, truly comes of age in the next few centuries - knowledge is power, and not only in physical-mechanics and engineering, but in medicine, communications and politics. It is herein that I see the major innovation of Modern man and the Modern period (16th - 19th century). During this period man grows in knowledge and power, and more simply, powerful knowledge. He begins to assert himself and, independently, to make his way in the world. Compared to him, Medieval man had truly been a "child of God", regarding himself as defenceless before the power of the Almighty as visited upon him through the uncontrollable and unpredictable forces of nature. Modern man, on the other hand, powerfully moves into nature, manipulating and rearranging it to fit his designs. Like a boisterous teenager, he declares his independence and sets out to make his own way in the world. He sets out from the vantage-point of empirical science and technology, and, indeed, he does make his own way and effects many changes which would have been impossible but a few decades and centuries earlier.

Medieval man, as it were, had operated in terms of a monologic structure in which he was the passive recipient of messages, designs and information from another, be this (predominantly) God, tradition, or hierarchies of various sorts. Modern man, contrariwise and as it were, operates in terms of a reversed monologic structure in which he is the sender of messages, designs and information to the other, whatever it may be. Innovation rules, and respect for tradition suffers accordingly.

Such, in very broad strokes, was the developing image of Modern man from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Increasingly he put his faith in progress, and acted as if the future would be nothing other than a bigger and better version of today. The future was ripe for exploitation and self-aggrandizement, no end of which was foreseeable - until August, 1914!

William Barrett (Irrational Man) sees that date as pinpointing the emergence of Contemporary man from the comfortable security of his Modern predecessor, as pinpointing the conscious and growing realization that Contemporary, twentieth century man has moved into a new era of insecurity and confusion, but comparative maturity for all that.

The present century is indeed different. The World Wars and the "new" sciences, empirical, social and psychological, incontrovertibly indicate this. And the more recent crises now facing us but confirm our changed status. The pollution, population, energy and war crises indicate that our situation is far from comfortable, and that we have little justification for optimistic unilinear extensions of today into tomorrow. Our circumstances have indeed changed. Our ground has shifted, although, not all people are aware of this to the same extent and at the same time.

And philosophy has shifted as well. Twentieth century Existential-phenomenology (and which is the only contemporary philosophizing I shall be dealing with), is, in my opinion, decidedly discontinuous with Medieval and Modern philosophy. However, and I must repeat this theme with every emergence of discontinuity/innovation, not all twentieth century thinkers can be considered existential (i.e., existential-phenomenological) thinkers. Nonetheless, the soil preparation and foundation - laying attempted by such thinking grounds the Human Rights Theology which is emerging today.

Like his Modern predecessor, the existentialist begins with the natural or this-worldly subjectivity (consciousness) of man. The self predominates. This self, however, is not interpreted in any solipsistic or containerized manner, but is immediately open to what is other than itself. And like his Medieval predecessor, the existentialist begins with the other, objectivity, the term of subjectivity or consciousness. This other, however, is not interpreted in any super-natural or other-worldly manner, but is the natural, worldly other with which I find myself in immediate contact. The point of departure of existential-phenomenological philosophy is Being-in-the-world, Ex-sistence, as the open involvement, interaction and Self and Other.

In fact, "self" and "other" are co-relative components or factors that are extracted out of the original and unitary phenomenon, Being-in-the-world of Ex-sistence.

In a return, perhaps, to the beginnings of philosophy, existentialist concentrate on man, on the What is man? and the Who am I? questions, rather than on the endless variety of What is the object? type questions. And what we have discovered is that the traditional more object-directed questioning (and from this point of view, and in spite of their "subject" terminology, Modern philosophy falls squarely within the traditional object-trajectory) presupposes and is grounded in a familiarity with subjectivity which might or might not support the various super-structures we have built on top of it. And the various superstructures we have about us today! The conflict and tensions dividing us and propelling us, almost, to settle our differences with the fruits of our technological inventiveness, would seem to encourage us to aerate the soil and get back to our ground, to reveal or perhaps construct such foundations as would enable us to adequately respond to the tasks at hand.

Is contradistinction to the preceding monologic interpretation of the human situation, twentieth century humanistic and existential thinking interprets our situation dialogically. Man (and woman) appears within the context of a self-other interaction or dialogue. I initially became aware of myself in the midst of my circumstances. Even as "no man is an island", so no man is an autonomous subject isolated from an object. Rather, I became aware of myself lying in bed (in my infant's crib laughing at my mother reaching down to pick me up?) or listening to music, or digging soil. I discover myself, my living self, pushing against physical circumstances, whatever they might be. Of course, a significant inclusion in these circumstances is other human beings, other "I's", whom I have to take into special consideration, and whom, much to my sorrow, I often discover I do not really know. But do I really know "myself" and my general "circumstances"?

Ex-sistence is illuminatory. It is an area of light (awareness, consciousness) within which I and my circumstances re-veal themselves. And they reveal themselves essentially, intrinsically in interaction, mutually involved with each other - though it is not to be supposed that this mutuality is initially differentiated or uniform. My circumstances press upon me, but they do not suffocate me. I, in turn, press upon my circumstances and sometimes succeed in modifying and changing them into a pattern more to my liking. But often I fail. Or I succeed in introducing the intended alterations, and the result is not as satisfying as I had anticipated. The illumination that permeates ex-sistence is not unadulterated. Darkness modulates the light, and nescience accompanies our science on every level of knowing.

And yet we can know, at least to extent that we can know that we do not know. Error is discoverable, and it is no small achievement that we can learn from our mistakes.

"What is man thou art mindful of him, O Lord?" Indeed, man is an involvement with his circumstances, and which involvement is a tentative meaning - projection, an interpretation that more than anything opens up possibilities of further discovery and further involvement in the task of humanizing the "world", of humanizing our very involvement itself.

Our involvement is a dialogic involvement. I must take the other, my circumstances, into consideration, and the other and my circumstances (when appropriate) must take me into consideration. Together we constitute meaning, an open and tentative meaning. It is open to the discovery and recognition of error, and to the preservation and development within limits of patterns of interaction which have proved, and continue to prove, satisfactory.

But this is to say that our involvement is characterized by freedom, not absolute, but dialogic freedom. I am open to my circumstances and my circumstances are open to me - within limits, as we are now painfully discovering. If I am to successfully dialogue with the other, I must contend with his or her freedom, to "its" freedom. But to content with freedom is perhaps to promote freedom, not only to "let it be", but to support and encourage it to be whatever it wants to be within the legitimate limitations imposed by my own freedom. It is perhaps, resolutely to root out alienating, freedom - constricting and denying patterns of interaction wherever they might be found. It is, perhaps, to promote "ecology" and "human rights", knowing full well that while we have no final answers in these areas, nevertheless the promotion of the same would seem to be grounded in and demanded by the emerging deep-patterns of this twentieth century of the Christian era.

Human rights theology is a child of this century, and, so far as I can see anyway, a very well supported child indeed

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© 2007 Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University