Evolution, Human Enhancement, and Human Nature: Four Challenges to Essentialism in Theological Anthropology
The Christian theological tradition has been predominantly essentialist: it has held that creation is ordered by God’s providential work into natural kinds, and that each kind exemplifies a nature proper to it. Yet essentialism is often taken to be a discredited position in the modern academy. This...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2019
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| In: |
Journal of religion & society. Supplement
Year: 2019, Volume: 18, Pages: 205-231 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | The Christian theological tradition has been predominantly essentialist: it has held that creation is ordered by God’s providential work into natural kinds, and that each kind exemplifies a nature proper to it. Yet essentialism is often taken to be a discredited position in the modern academy. This paper assesses four contemporary arguments against essentialism: a broadly Wittgensteinian one; a Derridean one; an argument from evolutionary biology; and an argument from transhumanist thought. In so doing, it seeks to establish the criteria that any contemporary restatement of essentialism must meet to be considered a success. |
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| ISSN: | 1941-8450 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion & society. Supplement
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