Inner Animalities: Theology and the End of the Human (Groundworks: Ecological Issues in Philosophy and Theology)

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Synopsis
Most theology proceeds under the assumption that divine grace works on human beings at the points of our (supposed) uniqueness among earth’s creatures—our freedom, our self-awareness, our language, or our rationality. Inner Animalities turns this assumption on its head. Arguing that much theological anthropology contains a deeply anti-ecological impulse, this book draws creatively on historical and scriptural texts to imagine an account of human life centered in our creaturely commonality. The tendency to deny our own human animality leaves our self-understanding riven with contradictions, disavowals, and repressions. How are human relationships transformed when God draws us into communion through our instincts, our desires, and our bodily needs? This study argues that humanity’s exceptional status is not the result of divine endorsement, but a delusion of human sin. Where the work of God knits human beings back into creaturely connections, ecological degradation is no longer just (just!) a matter of bodily life and death, but a matter of ultimate significance.Inner Animalities enters the growing fields of Critical Animal Studies and Human-Animal Studies from a theological perspective, putting Gregory of Nyssa and Karl Rahner in conversation with Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Kelly Oliver, and Cary Wolfe. What results is not only a counterintuitive account of human life in relation with nonhuman neighbors, but also a new angle into ecological theology.
Copyright:
2018

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9780823280162
Related ISBNs:
9780823280148
Publisher:
Fordham University Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Fordham University Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Health, Mind and Body, Religion and Spirituality, Philosophy
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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