Theological anthropology is being put to the test: in the face of contemporary developments in the spheres of culture, politics, and science, traditional perspectives on the human person are no longer adequate. Yet can theological anthropology move beyond its previously established categories and renew itself in relation to contemporary insights? The present collection of essays sets out to answer this question. Uniting Roman Catholic theologians from across the globe, it tackles from a theological perspective challenges related to the classical natural law tradition (part 1), to the modern conception of the subject (part 2), and to the postmodern awareness of diversity in a globalizing context (part 3). Its contributors share a fundamental methodological choice of a critical-constructive dialogue with contemporary culture, science, and philosophy.
This collection integrates a wider range of approaches than one usually finds in theological volumes, bringing together experts in systematic theology and in theological ethics. Authors come from different American contexts, including Black and Latino, and from a European context that include both French and German. Moreover, the interdisciplinary insights upon which the different contributions draw stem from both the natural sciences (such as neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and ethology) and the humanities (such as cultural studies, philosophy, and hermeneutics).
This volume will be essential reading for anyone seeking a state-of-the-art account of theological anthropology, of the uncertainties it is facing, and of the responses it is in the process of formulating. The shared Roman Catholic background of the authors of this collection makes this volume a helpful complement to recent publications that predominantly represent views from other theological traditions.
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Theological anthropology, the project of articulating what it is and what it means to be human in relation to the transcendent God, stands at a crossroads in the second decade of the 21st century. Powerful forces shaping contemporary life-science and technology, the workings of the global economy, re-configurations of social and political power, regionally, locally, and globally-seem to render that project deeply problematic in terms of both its substance and its methods. The discourse of theological inquiry, moreover, has itself been pluralized, nor only in consequence of these encompassing cultural challenges, but also as a result of a renewed self-critical awareness of theology's own deep embedding in socio-cultural and historical particularity. The essays in this volume offer incisive diagnoses of these challenges and promising strategies to address them. They provide a solid basis for confidence in the continuing importance of a renewed theological anthropology for the living faith of the Catholic Church in its concrete engagements with the full range of the workings of the world.
