Abstract
Theological anthropology that wants to contribute to a deeper understanding of the present situation must speak from and about the challenges to human agency posed by the Anthropocene. A response to these challenges faces several challenges and needs to be developed in an interdisciplinary discourse. The Anthropocene constitutes a new context for theology that entails reconsidering human agency and its limits. Thus, theological anthropology must focus on what human beings have in common, irrespective of their faith or religious identity, and the reassessment called for includes the understanding of humanity as well as nature. Nature and humanity should not be seen as separate.
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Notes
- 1.
Eaton, Introducing Ecofeminist Theologies, 67–68.
- 2.
Further on the definition and content of the concept “Anthropocene,” see Chap. 3.
- 3.
Celia Deane-Drummond, “Evolution: A Theology of Niche Construction for the Twenty-First Century,” in Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home, ed. Celia Deane-Drummond and Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser, Religion and the University (London: T&T Clark, 2018), 255.
- 4.
“At the core of the standard conception [of agency] are the following two claims. First, the notion of intentional action is more fundamental than the notion of action. In particular, action is to be explained in terms of the intentionality of intentional action. Second, there is a close connection between intentional action and acting for a reason.” Markus Schlosser, “Agency,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2019), Section 2. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/agency/. For more on different aspects of agency, see below, Part III.
- 5.
This point entails that the present is not a book on morality as such or on ecological ethics. It nevertheless aims at providing fundamental elements for ethics and moral agency, and hence, references to works in these areas will be found in the following.
- 6.
David S. Cunningham, “The Way of All Flesh: Rethinking the imago dei,” in Creaturely Theology: On God, Humans and Other Animals, ed. Celia Deane-Drummond and David Clough (London: SCM Press, 2009), 120.
- 7.
Alistair McFadyen, “Redeeming the Image,” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 16, no. 2 (2016): 122.
- 8.
Willis Jenkins, The Future of Ethics—Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity (2013).
- 9.
However, this does not mean that all notions of salvation are irrelevant for topics like the one discussed here. See Willis Jenkins, Ecologies of Grace: Environmental Ethics and Christian Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
- 10.
This means that the present book focuses on issues that others have developed in a wider and also more detailed manner. For other contributions in the field, see especially E. M. Conradie, An Ecological Christian Anthropology: At Home on Earth? (Aldershot, UK; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005); Celia Deane-Drummond, Sigurd Bergmann, and Markus Vogt, Religion in the Anthropocene (2018); Celia E. Deane-Drummond, Theological Ethics Through a Multispecies Lens: The Evolution of Wisdom, Volume I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); Adam Pryor, Living with Tiny Aliens: The Image of God for the Anthropocene (Baltimore, MD, 2020); Celia Deane-Drummond, Shadow Sophia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021); as well as more general and extensive works, such as David H. Kelsey, Eccentric existence (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009); Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985); Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); and Edward Farley, Good and Evil: Interpreting a Human Condition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990).
- 11.
Forrest Clingerman, “Geoengineering, Theology, and the Meaning of Being Human,” Zygon 49, no. 1 (2014): 15.
- 12.
The profile here is part of the so-called Scandinavian Creation theology, which has something in common with other works that focuses on commonalities with all humans as the horizon within which the Christian message can be understood (e.g., W. Pannenberg, S. McFague). Cf. Niels Henrik Gregersen, Trygve Wyller, and Bengt Kristensson Uggla, Reformation Theology for a Post-secular Age : Løgstrup, Prenter, Wingren, and the Future of Scandinavian Creation Theology, Research in Contemporary Religion (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017).
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Henriksen, JO. (2023). The Task. In: Theological Anthropology in the Anthropocene. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21058-7_1
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