On the origin of language: implications for ethics, politics, and theology

Abstract

In this paper I revisit Nancy Howell's essay on the need for a new theology that speaks to the continuity between humans and primates. I interrogate the assumptions and arguments that Howell employs to ground this new theology and unpack the theoretical, theological, and political implications of these assumptions and arguments. I contend that this new theology poses no threat to the status quo as it gives us no new ways of being in the world with others. That is, it gives us no new possibilities. I argue for a new set of assumptions that makes for a new and different understanding of what being human means and, in turn, makes for the beginnings of a new theology.