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    Evolution, Human Enhancement, and Human Nature: Four Challenges to Essentialism in Theological Anthropology

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    2019-18.pdf (400.1Kb)
    Author
    Lenow, Joseph E.
    Journal
    Supplement Series for the Journal of Religion & Society

    Page
    205-231

    Editor(s)
    Simkins, Ronald A.; Smith, Zachary B.

    Volume
    18

    Date
    2019
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    Abstract
    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.

    Keywords: theological anthropology, evolution, transhumanism, human enhancement, human nature
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10504/121333
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