Maritain addresses the aspirations of those who build human societies, and the ideals and attitudes that drive them. What he seems to say is that a civilization that 'makes room' for the transcendent Mystery of God will be transformed by God's gift of Himself in the Incarnation. In the discovery of the ultimate meaning that pervades the lives of persons and their distinctive histories and cultures, human civilizations will fulfill and discover their true and particular richness — mysteriously 'opened to eternity' even in this world, and eminently fulfilled in the transcendent coming of the Kingdom of God.
If, however, they glorify themselves and close themselves off from God's presence and grace, they will turn to the darkness of oppressive power and be devoured by the idolatry of their entirely self-referential 'ideals.'
There is much to ponder here for anyone who is concerned about the profound and perplexing drama born of the encounters and clashes of various cultures in our time. Maritain was writing in 1938, on the threshold of an unprecedented global crisis different from the one we face today. Nevertheless, his words resonate in our own present circumstances and address priorities that remain relevant for us today:
"This is, indeed, the wonderful and terrible alternative which faces the world, in the West as in the East. Either civilizations,—in the grasp of inexorable internal oppositions,—will seek to rise up and to defend themselves without penitence of heart, according to the energies of this world and its prince, and in keeping with the law of darkness and sin which is that of politics separated from the gifts of Him who enlightens every man who comes into the world; then the temporal community, or race, or nation, or State, or Liberty itself, will become a devouring idol for man (in fact, they are that already). Or else in allowing themselves to be penetrated by the holy forces of the Kingdom of God, civilizations will be transformed, and will receive into the core of the social and temporal order itself, the life-giving influx which comes down from Uncreated Love and which is promised to men of good will. And thus,—but after what settling of accounts,—they would finally enter into the fullness of their age and would aim at an heroic ideal of brotherly love and an understanding of the dignity of the human person, which may most appropriately be called, it seems to me, the ideal of an integral humanism."
~Scholasticism and Politics, chapter IX (1938)
