Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed. By Marc Cortez (original) (raw)

2010, The Heythrop Journal

Renewed interest in theological anthropology likely dates back a quarter-century to the publication of John Zizioulas's Being as Communion in 1985, a work that has been massively influential on all subsequent theology, East and West. Since then, numerous other works in theological anthropology have appeared, many published by T&T Clark. Trying to make some sense of this variegated landscape and to synthesize some of this recent scholarship is Marc Cortez, who teaches theology at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. In his brief introductory chapter, Cortez notes, rightly, that to do theological anthropology properly means one must work in an interdisciplinary fashion, recognizing 'other disciplines as legitimate partners in the process' (p. 7). Theologians, moreover, must remember that the task of understanding the human person is further complicated by the propensity for sin (and so for self-deception) and the recognition that such understanding will never be complete or final but remains an eschatological hope. Cortez's first chapter focuses on the human person created in the image and likeness of God. From the Fathers onwards, this notion has occupied a central place in thinking about what it means to be a human being. Cortez adds nothing new to these discussions, but simply attempts-too briefly-to sum up some of them. He does, however, muddy the waters at least a little in two places. First, he says that 'the fact that imaging God is common to all of creation should caution us about assuming too quickly that the imago will sharply distinguish humans from the rest of creation' (p. 19). I understand his point, but I think this argument glosses too quickly over scripture's insistence on the unmistakable difference between human and nonhuman creatures-as seen, for example, in Psalm 8's very striking avowal that the human person is 'little less than God'. Later on he says that 'the affirmation that human persons are created in the image of God should not be understood primarily as an attempt to define what it means to be human' (p. 37). It is not clear what that is supposed to mean, but it does seem to undercut an enormous body of patristic (and later) commentary on the imago. We have two new significant works by Matthew Steenberg (Of God and Man: Theology as Anthropology from Irenaeus to Athanasius) and Verna Harrison (God's Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation). Both came out this year, and so too late, of course, for Cortez to