What Is the Paradox of Humanity | Russell Moore
Channel: Henry Center
Date: 2021-11-16

Lecture Title - Paradox Lost: Longing, Alienation, and the Mystery of Humanity in a Technological Age

The Christian concept of creation is contested in the present age for many reasons, but one of those reasons is the incredibility of a distinctiveness of humanity beyond the explainable and the material. Figures from the past century—from Walker Percy to Wendell Berry to Marilynne Robinson—though have drawn from theology, biology, psychology, and the humanities to suggest that the mysteriousness of human nature points beyond itself to a greater mystery of the cosmos. Christian theology can account both for the human similarity to the rest of nature and the human predicament of alienation from nature, and from ourselves. A sense of humanity as a paradox of integrity-in-brokenness, intelligibility-in-mystery, cultivation-in-conservation, and wayfaring-in-habitation can help us to reconcile the tensions between imagination and reason, community and individualism, and realism and justice while maintaining what we intuit to be true—that humanity is unique—alongside the challenges to that uniqueness in questions about whether humanity is alone in the universe or can be replicated by an algorithm.

Russell D. Moore (PhD Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the Editor in Chief and Director of the Public Theology Project at Christianity Today. He is author of several books, including Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel (B&H, 2015), The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home (B&H, 2018), and The Courage to Stand: Facing Your Fear Without Losing Your Soul (B&H, 2020).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

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