On Thinking the Human: Resolutions of Difficult Notions

Since Socrates, the effort to understand ourselves precisely as human has been the central occupation of Western thought. In this short, profound book Robert W. Jenson argues that not only are all philosophical attempts to accurately think the self doomed to failure, but also that the category "human" is unthinkable without reference to God.

As Jenson says at the outset of the book, "our anthropological endeavors are at once impelled and checked by an epistemic quirk or set of quirks: noti...