„Theological Anthropology Versus Anthropological Reductionism“, in: E. K. Soulen u. L. Woodhead (Hg.), God and Human Dignity, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, 317-342.
This final essay addresses the problem of anthropological reductionism. The dominant anthropological paradigm of modernity centers on self-conscious subjectivity. Today, along with its religious “grounding” and its moral challenges, this paradigm is increasingly questioned and criticized by new approaches toward human-being being made in the sciences and humanities.
In this chapter I argue that theology should not go to war on the side of new reductionistic approaches against the old ones. It should first appreciate the integrating power of the standard modern paradigm of theological and philosophical anthropology based on self-conscious subjectivity. At the same time, however, it should work on an “Aufhebung” (a sublation), a relativization and development of this paradigm.