42 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
self a faith claim. Too many intelligent persons still equate
Christianity with fundamentalism and Biblical Uteralism. At
the popular level, C. S. Lewis has argued with unusual clarity
that materialism is no more scientific than theism.22
A simply external, descriptive view which treats human
beings impersonally is of little value for religious education.
Religious insight is motivated by concern and sensitivity; it
appreciates significance as well as commitment. The respon-
sible self-determination of human selves cannot be appraised
in simply genetic, historical terms. Religious education must
deal critically and rigorously with the fundamental question
which all the great religions seek to answer, namely, what
does it mean to be a human self with a particular destiny in
space-time. It cannot affirm its own essential insights with-
out rejecting all reductionistic views of the value judgments
fundamental to the development of personality and charac-
ter.
Mature faith inevitably recognizes that the fundamental
problems of human existence cannot be resolved simply at
the scientific empirical or historical descriptive levels. It
seeks a more comprehensive as well as a more ultimate level
of meaning in affirming that each man is dependent on a
reality greater than himself for self-acceptance as well as for
the final fulfillment of his destiny. The world’s great religions
join a sense of finitude with an appreciation of the authentic
worth of human persons. No major religion claims a relation
to a good beyond the temporal simply from the fact that man
is Bmited or sinful. Indeed, the recognition of finitude does
not of itself validate any positive religious insight. The
transitoriness of human life as well as the persistence of evil
even with knowledge of the good are both recognized as
basic problems.
Although the major faiths claim to bring liberation and