THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: THE DOCTRINE OF HUMANKIND
One of the areas of Christian thought focuses on humankind, i.e. its origin and nature. A theological view of humankind may or may not resonate with other views in other branches of human knowledge, especially the scientific branches. Theology attempts to view humankind in terms of its relationship to God.
Theology views humankind as a creation of God, and not merely a result of spontaneous or sporadic occurrences in nature. Humankind is conceived (at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition) to have been made in "the image and likeness of God." In some respects, humankind is deemed to be stewards of God on Earth. At other points in human history, humankind is deemed to be an agent of God in history, i.e. carrying out God's intentions and will for the human race, and in some respects, the planet as whole.
As a distinct topic, "theological anthropology" is relatively new to the theologian's agenda. It is a doctrine about "human nature" or what it is to be a "person." Christian thinkers have always had things to say on that topic, of course, but for most of the history of Christian thought, they have said it in and with discussion of other topics. Thus they have always made claims about human beings as part of creation, about human beings' ability to know God, about the "fallenness" and "sin" of human beings, about the dynamics by which people are "redeemed" from that sin and made new beings, and about the ultimate destiny to which they are called. Each of these was a theological topic in itself. In the process of of discussing these matters, theologians traded on conceptual schemes designed to describe what it is to be a human being, what it is to be the sort of being of whom all those things concerning creation, revelation, sin, and so on, were claimed (David H. Kelsey, "Human Being," in Christian Theology: An Introduction to It's Traditions and Tasks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, p. 167).
Theological anthropology in the narrow or strict sense has tended to focus on either or both of two major guiding questions: (1) What is it about human beings that makes it possible for them in the finitude to know the infinite God? (2) What is it about human beings that makes fallenness possible in such a radical way as to require the redemption to which Christianity witnesses? In the classical theological tradition, these questions were addressed not directly in and of themselves, but in the process of other topics. Theological anthropology became a topic in its own right only in the modern period. And perhaps not by accident, the basic conceptual scheme used to analyze humankind changed radically. As we shall see, what had been in the classic tradition an often implicit discussion of "human nature, became in the modern period an explicit discussion of "subjectivity." What is the significance of this shift is what we seek to explore in this essay (Ibid.).
A relevant question relative to theological anthropology is "Why do we need to distinguish humankind from the rest of creation?" If according to science, we are part of the animal kingdom, why do we need to be differentiated from the rest of that kingdom? If, we as human beings experience fallenness and redemption, does the rest of the animal kingdom also experience those? If we, as human beings are made in "the image and likeness of God," can we claim the same for the rest of the animal kingdom? If so, why do we apparently place greater value on the life of humankind than what we do with the rest of the animal kingdom?
If the religious and theological view of humankind is different from the scientific view of humankind, does that then mean that one is right and the other is wrong? Do we uphold one and discard the other, or can the two views coexist side by side? Does either view need to be demythologized?
I personally, as a theologian submit that the scientific views of humankind do not necessarily have to be regarded as an enemy of the theological perspective. Since both scientific and theological views are human constructs, they both have elements of truth, and they both have their limitations.
The classic formulation of theological anthropology was largely based on the story of the creation and the fall of humankind in Genesis 1-3, interpreted, at times, through conceptual schemes borrowed from Greek philosophical traditions. The focus was on Adam and Eve, who were understood in a double way. On the one hand, they were taken to be the historically first individual human beings. On the other hand, they were taken, to be the scriptural ideal type or paradigm of "human nature" as such (after all, the Hebrew word from which "Adam" comes is the generic term for humankind). It is not logically necessary that the first human beings should also be normative for what it is to be human. The assumption that they are creates a problem: Ideal types are highly general. Which features of the concrete Adam and Eve, as described in the Genesis story, are part of the ideal type that is normative for human nature. And, by what principle does one select them (Kelsey, op. cit., p. 168)?
The view of human nature generated by this story had two major themes: (1) A picture of the place that human nature has in the unchanging structure of the cosmos that God created and (2) a picture of humankind's unique capacity for communion with God-what has traditionally been called the "imago die (image of God)" (Ibid.).
If our view of humankind in its original, and subsequent fallen state, is based on the Genesis narrative, then we must ask if take a literalist approach to this narrative, or do we take into consideration the variety of literary genres that we encounter in Scripture. Do we take the view of humankind in Scripture as allegory, history, legend, myth, or what? Do we in essence, take the Scriptures to be a document of faith or a mere literary document?
Theological anthropology may be able to deal with persons in their genuine concreteness by a second "turn" from the person as patients or subjects of consciousness to persons as agents. There are at least two different kinds of movements that may promise a new turn to the agents. On one side, in Liberation Theology, and other political theologies, we find that the Marxist tradition lurking in the background, either informing and influencing Christian analyses of the human predicament and God's engagement in it, or being influenced in turn, by these theological perspectives. These movements have not yet perhaps fully articulated the conceptual schemes on which they rely. But it is already evident how much they depend on an analysis of personhood in which the concept "praxis" is central, a concept that focuses on persons as agents before they are are subjects of consciousness, taken precisely in their concrete material contexts. Second, there is a revival in Anglo-American philosophical theology of a modest art of metaphysics that tries to sketch a conceptual scheme central to which is an analysis of "action" and of persons as "agents." This too is a varied phenomenon, no single school of thought at all, and certainly not yet the fount of a highly articulated set of proposals. But like the first movement, it promises to be fertile for new constructive proposals of better ways in which to elucidate the Christian witness to the liberating and humanizing effect of personal dependence on God (Kelsey, op. cit., p. 193).
En fin, we are left with the question "Who has the right view of humankind?" Even if we say that the theological view of humankind is more "correct" than the scientific view, we still have to contend with the variety of hermeneutical principles in Christian theology relative to human nature. Each Christian community has its own biblical and theological hermeneutic which leads it to have its particular view of what and who is humankind. Do we rely on the view that humankind is created in an original state of holiness and uprightness, and then fallen into sin? Do we subscribe to the liberal view that human nature is intrinsically good? Do we buy into the notion of Christian realism that leads us to believe that by education, we can bring about the perfect society? These, just like other questions of theological consideration, will be ongoing in the construction of theology. Because we are not "seers," we cannot predict with precision whether or not there will ever be a consensus on the nature and destiny of humankind. We continue to live with the questions.
In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona
Past Professor of Theology
Tainan Theological College/Seminary
