Is the practice that humankind is the central or

most important element of existence, especially

as opposed to God or animals.
Job (Job 3 : 1 – 26)
TRANSHUMANISM
God’s response
Job 38:4,12; 39:1,19
"Where were you when I founded the earth? . . .
Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the
morning and shown the dawn its place? . . . Do
you know about the birth of the mountain
goats? . . . Do you give the horse his strength,
and endow his neck with splendor? “
“God asks questions about cosmic nature and
Job gains insight into human nature. The
wonders of creation that are paraded before Job
were not unknown to him before this
extraordinary revelation.”
• They constituted the everyday world that he
knew, but which he did not understand; the
ordinary world within which he lived, but which
he seems to have taken for granted. This
breathtaking, even mystical, experience of
creation has catapulted him out of his narrow
confines of anthropocentrism into the vast
expanses of mystery. It has brought him to realize
that human history unfolds within the broader
context of the natural world, and not vice versa.
Job comes to see that the natural world does not
merely serve the ends of human history.
Creation Theology
• “His encounter with the ineffable Creator-God
has led him to this new insight. It is an insight
that transforms him from a self-pitying victim
of circumstances to a human being who has
endured the struggles of human finitude and
emerged chastened, yet nonetheless a
mystic.”
“God’s speeches have shown Job that, in the
midst of measureless natural grandeur, the
ambiguity of human life can be confronted with
the honesty and humility that it requires, an
honesty and humility that can admit to and
accept the limited capacity of human
comprehension.”
“Creation itself has expanded Job’s vision and
called him to a deepening of faith that goes
beyond understanding. In the end, cosmology
does not defeat anthropology; rather it opens its
arms to welcome back its prodigal son.”
• “Notions such as frugality and sufficiency in our
use of natural resources, the viability of human
life and the earth’s ability to sustain it will all play
an indispensable role in theological thinking. The
irresponsibility and impertinence of human self-
centeredness will be replaced by a sense of
respect and responsible stewardship, and the
bottom line of monetary calculation of resources
will give way to aesthetic contemplation of
natural beauty, a contemplation not unlike that of
Job. "