- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Preface
- Notes on Contributors
- 1 In Pursuit of Human Dignity: An Introduction to Current Debates
- 2 Dignité/Dignidade: Organizing against Threats to Dignity in Societies after Slavery
- 3 Würde des Menschen: Restoring Human Dignity in Post-Nazi Germany
- 4 The Secret History of Constitutional Dignity
- 5 Constructing the Meaning of Human Dignity: Four Questions
- 6 Human Dignity: Experience and History, Practical Reason and Faith
- 7 Dignity: The Case Against
- 8 Socio-Economic Rights, Basic Needs, and Human Dignity: A Perspective from Law's Front Line
- 9 The Triple Dilemma of Human Dignity: A Case Study
- 10 Dignity Rather than Rights
- 11 Dignity, Person, and Imago Trinitatis
- 12 Human Dignity and the Image of God
- 13 Dignity as an Eschatological Concept
- 14 The Vanishing Absolute and the Deconsecrated God: A Theological Reflection on Revelation, Law, and Human Dignity
- 15 A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth
- 16 Human Dignity and the Foundations of Human Rights
- 17 In Defence of Human Dignity:Comments on Kant and Rosen
- 18 Citizenship and Dignity
- 19 Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Simply Trying to Do the Right Thing
- 20 Human Dignity: The Constitutional Value and the Constitutional Right
- 21 Dignity in a Legal Context: Dignity as an Absolute Right
- 22 Human Dignity in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights
- 23 Justifying Freedom of Religion: Does ‘Dignity’ Help?
- 24 Which Dignity? Which Religious Freedom?
- 25 From Imago Dei to Mutual Recognition: The Evolution of the Concept of Human Dignity in the Light of the Defence of Religious Freedom
- 26 ‘A Communion in Good Living’: Human Dignity and Religious Liberty beyond the Overlapping Consensus
- 27 Dignity and Disgrace: Moral Citizenship and Constitutional Protection
- 28 The Dignity of Marriage
- 29 Response to Tollefsen and Cameron
- 30 Dignity and the Duty to Protect Unborn Life
- 31 Is Dignity Language Useful in Bioethical Discussion of Assisted Suicide and Abortion?
- 32 Dignity, Choice, and Circumstances
- 33 Human Dignity, Interiority, and Poverty
- 34 Dignity as Perception: Recognition of the Human Individual and the Individual Animal in Legal Thought
- 35 The Good Sense of Dignity: Six Antidotes to Dignity Fatigue in Ethics and Law
- 36 Human Rights, Human Dignity,and Human Experience
- 37 The Concept of Human Dignity: Current Usages, Future Discourses
- 38 Discourses of Dignity
- 39 Dignified Disciplinarity: Towards a Transdisciplinary Understanding of Human Dignity
- Select Bibliography
- Tables of Cases, and Other Legal Authorities
- Index
A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth
A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth
- Chapter:
- (p.275) 15 A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth
- Source:
- Understanding Human Dignity
- Author(s):
David P. Gushee
- Publisher:
- British Academy
This chapter argues that biblical revelation served as the most important source, at least in European civilization, for the still critically important moral claim that each human life carries profound worth, and the related moral-legal demand that each human being’s dignity must be respected. In Christian theo-ethical terms, this means that the real issue is ‘the God-declared sacredness of each human life with correlated moral obligations’ rather than merely ‘human dignity’. The chapter enters into the biblical materials to present in their own distinctive ways central elements that gave birth to a sacredness-of-life norm and continue to fund that norm today. I reserve a few comments at the end of the chapter to discuss how and why ‘sacredness of human life’ became ‘human dignity’, and what was lost (and perhaps gained) when that transition occurred in the modern period.
Keywords: sacredness of life, sanctity of life, human dignity, imago dei, biblical revelation, secularization
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Preface
- Notes on Contributors
- 1 In Pursuit of Human Dignity: An Introduction to Current Debates
- 2 Dignité/Dignidade: Organizing against Threats to Dignity in Societies after Slavery
- 3 Würde des Menschen: Restoring Human Dignity in Post-Nazi Germany
- 4 The Secret History of Constitutional Dignity
- 5 Constructing the Meaning of Human Dignity: Four Questions
- 6 Human Dignity: Experience and History, Practical Reason and Faith
- 7 Dignity: The Case Against
- 8 Socio-Economic Rights, Basic Needs, and Human Dignity: A Perspective from Law's Front Line
- 9 The Triple Dilemma of Human Dignity: A Case Study
- 10 Dignity Rather than Rights
- 11 Dignity, Person, and Imago Trinitatis
- 12 Human Dignity and the Image of God
- 13 Dignity as an Eschatological Concept
- 14 The Vanishing Absolute and the Deconsecrated God: A Theological Reflection on Revelation, Law, and Human Dignity
- 15 A Christian Theological Account of Human Worth
- 16 Human Dignity and the Foundations of Human Rights
- 17 In Defence of Human Dignity:Comments on Kant and Rosen
- 18 Citizenship and Dignity
- 19 Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Simply Trying to Do the Right Thing
- 20 Human Dignity: The Constitutional Value and the Constitutional Right
- 21 Dignity in a Legal Context: Dignity as an Absolute Right
- 22 Human Dignity in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights
- 23 Justifying Freedom of Religion: Does ‘Dignity’ Help?
- 24 Which Dignity? Which Religious Freedom?
- 25 From Imago Dei to Mutual Recognition: The Evolution of the Concept of Human Dignity in the Light of the Defence of Religious Freedom
- 26 ‘A Communion in Good Living’: Human Dignity and Religious Liberty beyond the Overlapping Consensus
- 27 Dignity and Disgrace: Moral Citizenship and Constitutional Protection
- 28 The Dignity of Marriage
- 29 Response to Tollefsen and Cameron
- 30 Dignity and the Duty to Protect Unborn Life
- 31 Is Dignity Language Useful in Bioethical Discussion of Assisted Suicide and Abortion?
- 32 Dignity, Choice, and Circumstances
- 33 Human Dignity, Interiority, and Poverty
- 34 Dignity as Perception: Recognition of the Human Individual and the Individual Animal in Legal Thought
- 35 The Good Sense of Dignity: Six Antidotes to Dignity Fatigue in Ethics and Law
- 36 Human Rights, Human Dignity,and Human Experience
- 37 The Concept of Human Dignity: Current Usages, Future Discourses
- 38 Discourses of Dignity
- 39 Dignified Disciplinarity: Towards a Transdisciplinary Understanding of Human Dignity
- Select Bibliography
- Tables of Cases, and Other Legal Authorities
- Index
