The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine by Colin E. Gunton
Author:Colin E. Gunton
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
9 Human being, individual and social
KEVIN VANHOOZER
‘Know thyself,’ Socrates’ exhortation is as urgent, and problematic, as ever: urgent, because the human race at the dawn of the third millennium, following the demise of the Christian paradigm and the break-up of modernity, is suffering from a collective identity crisis; problematic, because it demands the impossible, since to know oneself truly involves knowing more than oneself. Humans – the self-interpreting animals – have nonetheless responded to the challenge with creativity and zest, striving for self-knowledge through conceptual schemes and cultural works alike.
A THEOLOGICAL STORY?
What is man, that thou are mindful of him? (Psalm 8:4)
To what extent is ‘man’ the proper study not only of mankind, as Alexander Pope suggested, but of theology as well? Theological anthropology offers a distinctive and decisive perspective on the issue of what it means to be human – a question of no little controversy, and one whose answer has wide-reaching consequences not only for the understanding, but also for the practice, of human being: for debates about genetic engineering, human rights, ecology, sexuality, education and politics. The task of Christian theology is to clarify what is distinctively theological in its account of personhood and to formulate criteria for what is authentically Christian in its accounts of human being.
Theological anthropology: method and significance
For all their borrowings from philosophy, virtually none of the early Christian theologians felt obliged to adhere to Socrates’ principle. The human creature enjoys neither metaphysical nor methodological pride of place: humanity comes second both in the order of being and in the order of knowing. Augustine’s famous prayer – ‘our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee’ – expresses a keen sense of humanity’s orientation towards God. The human creature comes second to God, both in the order of being (namely, creation) and in the order of knowledge (namely, revelation). The human being is a ‘metaphysical animal’, constituted by a desire for what is greater than itself, for ultimate reality. John Calvin develops Augustine’s insight into a methodological first principle: ‘Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self.’1 Medieval and Reformed theologians, as well as their creeds and confessions, typically place their discussions of anthropology after the doctrine of God. Theological anthropology is an implicit and derivative, not explicit and foundational, doctrine. We only reach the stage of theological anthropology when we affirm that man is a being who has to do with God, or rather, when we affirm that God is the one who has to do with human being. The primary sources for classical Christian thinking about human being are the doctrine of God and the book of Genesis.
Modern theology, in the wake of the turn towards the subject by Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant, reversed Calvin’s maxim: there is no knowledge of God except through knowledge of self. There is none that can read God aright, unless he first spell Man.’2 Human subjectivity acquires foundational status; the doctrine of God becomes an implication of some aspect of human being.
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