SELF-TRANSCENDENCE AS A DEFINING TRAIT OF HUMAN NATURE: REFLECTIONS ON IMAGO DEI IN GENESIS 1-11
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6574296Keywords:
Creation, Human nature, Imago Dei, self-transcendence, human vocation, reductive anthropology, Lonergan, sublation, ethics, human rightsAbstract
The increasingly diverse academic conversation about human nature seems to favour reductive theories of human nature, while relegating integrative or 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 inand- 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 humannature self-understanding should not only be viewed in anti-reductive terms, but positively transcendental.
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