Questioning the Human ─ Toward a Theological Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century

Theological anthropology is being put to the test: in the face of contemporary developments in the spheres of culture, politics, and science, traditional perspectives on the human person are no longer adequate. Yet can theological anthropology move beyond its previously established categories and renew itself in relation to contemporary insights? The present collection of essays sets out to answer this question. Uniting Roman Catholic theologians from across the globe, it tackles from a theological perspective challenges related to the classical natural law tradition (part 1), to the modern conception of the subject (part 2), and to the postmodern awareness of diversity in a globalizing context (part 3). Its contributors share a fundamental methodological choice of a critical-constructive dialogue with contemporary culture, science, and philosophy.

This collection integrates a wider range of approaches than one usually finds in theological volumes, bringing together experts in systematic theology and in theological ethics. Authors come from different American contexts, including Black and Latino, and from a European context that include both French and German. Moreover, the interdisciplinary insights upon which the different contributions draw stem from both the natural sciences (such as neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and ethology) and the humanities (such as cultural studies, philosophy, and hermeneutics).

This volume will be essential reading for anyone seeking a state-of-the-art account of theological anthropology, of the uncertainties it is facing, and of the responses it is in the process of formulating. The shared Roman Catholic background of the authors of this collection makes this volume a helpful complement to recent publications that predominantly represent views from other theological traditions.

Lieven Boeve is Professor of Fundamental Theology and Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He is the author of Interrupting Tradition. An Essay on Christian Faith in a Postmodern Context (LPTM, 30), Leuven: Peeters / Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003, and God Interrupts History. Theology in a Time of Upheaval, New York: Continuum, 2007 and co-authored The Ratzinger Reader, London/New York: Continuum, 2010. He co-edited 18 volumes, of which the most recent are: Edward Schillebeeckx and Contemporary Theology, London/New York: Continuum, 2010; and: Between Philosophy and Theology. Contemporary Interpretations of Christianity, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010.

Yves De Maeseneer is teaching Fundamental Theological Ethics at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium. From 2000 to 2007, he was a member of the Research Group Theology in a Postmodern Context. Since 2010, he is the coordinator of the Research Group Anthropos, an interdisciplinary platform of theological ethicists and fundamental theologians, who are developing a renewed theological anthropology. He also edited (together with Lieven Boeve and Stijn Van den Bossche), Religious experience and contemporary theological epistemology, Peeters, Leuven, 2005.

Ellen Van Stichel is a postdoctoral researcher to the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). For her dissertation Out of Love for Justice: Moral Philosophy and Catholic Social Thought on Global Duties she received the Mgr. Arthur Janssens prize for Christian social ethics (2012). Currently, she is a member of the Research Group Anthropos of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven (Belgium).