ANTHROPOCENTRISM

This article discusses the notion and refers to historical forms of anthropocentrism in Christian thought.

Notion. As the name implies, anthropocentrism makes the dimensions of human existence (the supreme reality of the world of man's experience) a central term of reference in the orders of intelligibility and value. Anthropocentrism is only fully intelligible as a correlative of theocentrism on the one hand and a dehumanized naturalism on the other.

Two basic tendencies have constantly manifested themselves in human culture. One is preoccupied with realities immanent to this world, and especially with the supreme among them, man. (Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things.") The other is preoccupied with the Transcendent. (Plato: "God is the measure of all things.") The supreme achievement of human culture is an integration of what is valid in both of these insights. Such an integration is essential to Christianity, founded as it is upon the Divine Word's presence in the world in human flesh (see incarnation). The Christ event at once canonizes anthropocentrism and subordinates it to theocentrism: the intelligibility and values of human existence are safeguarded by their subordination to the divine reality, through Christ.

Historical Review. The reconciliation of anthropocentrism with theocentrism cannot remove the tension that exists between these two terms of reference in man's world-view. It is with reference to this tension that historical forms of anthropocentrism within Christian thought should be understood. Broadly, it seems true to say that thought in the Western Church (which has its beginnings against the background of the anthropocen the world-view of Stoicism) has been characteristically anthropocentric, while that of Eastern Christianity (which developed in a confrontation with a theocentric Gnosticism) has been more markedly theocentric. Thus the great theological controversies of Western Christianity have concerned man's condition under God's grace (Pelagianism, Lutheranism); while those of the East have concerned the supreme mysteries of God (Trinity, Incarnation). In the theological traditions that are the background to the early councils, the anthropocentric tendency was most evident in the school of antioch. It provided a healthy corrective to the theocentric tendency of the school of alexandria.

In reaction to the unbalanced theocentrism of the early Middle Ages, the late medieval period in the West saw the emergence of a new anthropocentrism that progressively obscured the recognition of the Transcendent. It is typified in a concern with the human sufferings of Christ in the Passion that loses sight of the essentials of the Paschal mystery (see resurrection of christ). This tendency emerged as the humanism of the Renaissance and the modern period, more and more emancipated from religious connotations.

With existentialism and personalism a new form of anthropocentrism has emerged in Western thought in recent decades and has had a profound influence upon Christian theology. Its essential correlative is not theocentrism but a positivistic naturalism that would neglect the unique ontological status and value of the human person in a world of things.

Bibliography: c. h. dawson, The Dynamics of World History, ed. j. j. mulloy (New York 1956) e.g., 458–459. k. rahner, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65); suppl., Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil: Dokumente und Kommentare, ed. h. s. brechter et al., pt. 1 (1966) 1:632–634.

[j. thornhill]