Evolution, Human Enhancement, and Human Nature: Four Challenges to Essentialism in Theological Anthropology
View/ Open
Author
Lenow, Joseph E.
Journal
Supplement Series for the Journal of Religion & Society
Supplement Series for the Journal of Religion & Society
Page
205-231
205-231
Editor(s)
Simkins, Ronald A.; Smith, Zachary B.
Simkins, Ronald A.; Smith, Zachary B.
Volume
18
18
Date
2019Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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