Law describes the way things would work if men were angels.

Man can know his world without falling back on revelation; he can live his life without feeling his utter dependence on supernatural powers.

For humanism also appeals to man as man. It seeks to liberate the universal qualities of human nature from the narrow limitations of blood and soil and class and to create a common language and a common culture in which men can realize their common humanity.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion

Thus Christian humanism is as indispensable to the Christian way of life as Christian ethics and a Christian sociology.

The true makes of history are the spiritual men whom the world knew not, the unregarded agents of the creative action of the Spirit. The supreme instance of this-the key to the Christian understanding of history-is to be found in the Incarnation- the presence of the maker of the world in the world unknown to the world. ... The Incarnation is itself in a sense the divine fruit of history-of the fullness of time-and it finds its extension and completion in the historic life of the Church.

Yet humanitarianism is not a purely Christian movement any more than it is a purely humanist one