Seite - 136 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Band 2:2

137 | www.limina-graz.eu Laurens ten Kate | Strange Freedom search or quest – with a fundamental not-knowing. This openness towards inquiry into the core values of human existence is something liberal reli- gion shares with contemporary humanism. Both articulate and embody the condition of sensus liberalis. If liberal religion raises the question of sense, then humanism raises the question of humanity. Both questions are closely intertwined. One who asks what a human being really is unavoidably asks about the sense of human existence. Humanity thus becomes a question to itself. That is to say, modern human beings must invent themselves, and they must do so again and again, differently each time. The fact that many people today no longer have a clear answer to the ques- tion of humanity’s role, meaning, and purpose is perhaps the greatest challenge for humanism in our time. This fundamental uncertainty, the very complexity of the question of humanity – what do we actually mean when we say human? – in other words, the question of how to endure this ‘being questionable’, how to accompany it, to provide it with words, im- ages and rituals, and so to maintain a liveable life, this is where the future of humanism and liberal religion lies in the 21st century. Living on a Planetary Scale The condition of sensus liberalis has fairly old roots: recent theories of the ‘axial age’ claim that it began around the last millennium B.C., in the Greek and Roman world, in Buddhist Asia, in prophetic Judaism, in Zarathustra’s Persia, in Confucius’s China.6 In the ‘axial turn’ from the world of poly- theism and myth, from gods manipulating human existence, from fate and givenness towards a world of reason and human emancipation, humanity becomes a question in and to itself (Jaspers 1953, part I, ch. 1–5). In the axial age the problem of sense emerges as one of the central subject matters of philosophy, religion and art. I consider that axial theory helps us retrace the birth of sensus liberalis, and hence liberal religion.7 But sensus liberalis has certainly undergone a radicalization in the Post War world. In the last half century, the process of globalization has become overwhelming and almost unstoppable, not least through innovations in media and digital technology. Humanity faces the unprecedented task of creating new forms of coexistence on a planetary scale, while not so long 6 See for a critical survey and treat- ment of this theory Bellah/Joas 2012. 7 See for a detailed evaluation of axial theory also Kate 2014. The axial age is still treated as a specific peri- od (first millennium B.C.) by Jaspers. However, the majority of scholars nowadays consider it to be a conti- nuous process, running through the emergence of Christianity and Islam, through the Middle Ages, and still at work in (late) modernity. How to endure this ‘being questionable’?