Useful for 'No One': A Theological Response to 'No Self' Views of Human Personality Open Access
Yarbrough, Brandon Wayne (2012)
Abstract
Useful for 'No One':
A Theological Response to 'No Self' Views of Human
Personality
Most theological anthropologies formed within Christian
traditions
simply take for granted that human persons are animated by
singular,
centralized "selves." This is unfortunate (1) because many
contemporary
philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists have crafted
compelling cases for
adopting 'no self' theories of human subjectivity and (2) because
essentialist
commitments to "selves" and their "self-interests" - both prominent
conceptual
components within most contemporary Christian theologies - tempt
persons to
abandon aspirations toward saintliness and to neglect important
duties of
charity. In this paper, I argue that Christian theologians as
theologians stand to
benefit from respecting the phenomena-referencing conceptual
expertise of
cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind and from risking the
use of 'no self'
concepts for understanding human personality. Furthermore, I argue
that by
changing our understanding of "who we are" in this way, we
effectively alter
what passes for a valid and credible analogical representation of
God-in-relation-
to-our-world. If 'no self' animates human persons, then Christian
theologians
have reason to prefer (a) analogical representations of God's love
for humanity
that represent God's love as some set of divine processes whereby
certain
essential potentials among human lives are nurtured to (b)
analogical
representations of God's love that present God's love as some
divine self's career
of gifting human lives with futures of autonomy. If 'no self'
animates human
persons, love-realization cannot be viewed as a vehicle for
self-realization. The
person who becomes 'no one' is primed for acknowledging that
love-realization
is the unrivaled goal of Christian living.
Table of Contents
No Table of Contents Provided.
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