SELF-TRANSCENDENCE AS A DEFINING TRAIT OF HUMAN NATURE: REFLECTIONS ON IMAGO DEI IN GENESIS 1-11
SELF-TRANSCENDENCE AS A DEFINING TRAIT OF HUMAN NATURE: REFLECTIONS ON IMAGO DEI IN GENESIS 1-11
Author(s): Laurențiu Gabriel NistorSubject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Philosophy of Religion, Biblical studies, Sociology of Religion
Published by: Editions IARSIC
Keywords: Creation; Human nature; Imago Dei; self-transcendence; human vocation; reductive anthropology; Lonergan; sublation; ethics; human rights;
Summary/Abstract: The increasingly diverse academic conversation about human nature seems to favour reductive theories of human nature, while relegating integrative anti-reductionist perspectives from humanities, especially from theology and philosophy to the periphery. In attempting to offer an anti-reductive response, I re-approach the main Judeo-Christian theory of human nature, through the lens of Bernard Lonergan’s concepts of human nature’s self-transcendence and that of the cognitive process of sublation through which humans operate in and-through multiple and increasingly complex levels of reality. It is through these lonerganian concepts that I approach the Imago Dei view selectively from the Genesis 1-11 narrative, attempting to highlight why and how human nature self-understanding should not only be viewed in anti-reductive terms, but positively transcendental.
Journal: Jurnalul Libertății de Conștiință
- Issue Year: 9/2021
- Issue No: 3
- Page Range: 645-663
- Page Count: 19
- Language: English
