Inner Animalities: Theology and the End of the Human

Eric Daryl Meyer

Published by Fordham University Press 2018

Inner Animalities

Theology and the End of the Human

Eric Daryl Meyer

In the series Groundworks: Ecological Issues in Philosophy and Theology

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823280179

Overview
Contents

About this book

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, the 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? Meyer 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 a matter of bodily life and death, but a matter of ultimate significance.

Bringing a theological perspective to the growing field of Critical Animal Studies, Inner Animalities puts 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.

Works with both contemporary theological and philosophical work and such ancient sources as Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Evagrius of Pontus.

Author / Editor information

Meyer Eric Daryl :

Eric Daryl Meyer is Assistant Professor of Theology at Carroll College.Eric Daryl Meyer is Assistant Professor of Theology at Carroll College.

Reviews

...provides a number of fresh thoughts and new perspectives and will be a lasting contribution to the growing field of Human-Animal Studies.

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.

Carol J. Adams:
What does it mean to be a creature in the proximity of the realm of God? How might we think of Imago Dei, incarnation, sin, and redemption, relieved of the blinders of human exceptionalism? Eric Daryl Meyer makes an elegant case that the idea of human uniqueness is a sign of human fallenness. He sees and seizes Christian theology’s potential to widen how human beings understand ourselves. This book offers that rare gift: a theological way out of the protracted, defensive, and limited need to keep humanity from its God-given animality. In its important theological interventions and conceptualizations, in its vivid and visionary discussions, this book gives me hope.

Aaron Gross, University of San Diego:
Meyer adds considerable nuance to the more widespread observation that Christian anthropology depends on a notion of animality in its understanding of the human. More clearly than any thinker I’ve read, Meyer shows that the moment Christian theologians disavow animals often betrays a trace of another way of thinking about animals, humans, and God. He has brought out internal inconsistencies in Christian theological articulations of the human/animal binary in a remarkably fruitful way.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. Critical and Historical Animalities
1. Gregory of Nazianzus: Animality and Ascent Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2. Gregory of Nyssa: Reading Animality and Desire Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
3. The Problem of Human Animality in Contemporary Theological Anthropology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
PART II. Constructive A nimalities
4. Animality and Identity: Human Nature and the Image of God Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
5. Animality in Sin and Redemption Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
6. Animality in Eschatological Transformation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 224
Keywords: Animals; Critical Animal Studies; Ecological Theology; Giorgio Agamben; Gregory of Nazianzus; Gregory of Nyssa; Image of God; Jacques Derrida; Original Sin; Resurrection of the Body; Theological Anthropology

eBook

Published: July 3, 2018
ISBN: 9780823280179