Preservation and Protest proposes a novel taxonomy of four paradigms of nonhuman theological ethics by exploring the intersection of tensions between value terms and teleological terms. These tensions arise out of the theological loci of cosmology, anthropology, and eschatology. The individual paradigms of the taxonomy are critically elucidated through the work of Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Berry, Dumitru St Niloae, and Jurgen Moltmann and Andrew Linzey. McLaughlin systematically develops the paradigm of cosmocentric transfiguration, arguing that the entire cosmos-including all instantiations of life therein-shares in the eschatological hope of a harmonious participation in God's triune life, a participation that entails the end of suffering, predation, and death. This paradigm yields an ethics based upon a tension between preservation and protest. With this paradigm, McLaughlin offers an alternative to anthropocentric and conservationist paradigms within the Christian tradition, an alternative that affirms both scientific claims about natural history and the theological hope for eschatological redemption.
Ryan Patrick McLaughlin is an associate fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animals Ethics and adjunct instructor in the department of theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology at Duquesne University.
Contents:; Preface; Introduction; Part I: A New Taxonomy of Nonhuman Theological Ethics; 1. Current Taxonomies of Nonhuman Theological Ethics; 2. Three Theological Loci for a New Taxonomy; 3. A New Taxonomy; 4. Anthropocentric Conservation; 5. Cosmocentric Conservation; 6. Anthropocentric Transfiguration; Part II: Cosmocentric Transfiguration in the Theologies of Jurgen Moltmann and Andrew Linzey; 7. Moltmann on God, Creation, and the Fall; 8. Moltmann on Redemption and Mission; 9. Moltmann's Nonhuman Theological Ethics; 10. Linzey on Creation, Fall, and Redemption; 11. Linzey on Christ, the Spirit, and Anthropology; 12. Linzey's Cosmocentric Transfiguration; 13. Moltmann and Linzey: Comparison and Analysis; Part III: Toward an Eco-Eschatological Ethics of Preservation and Protest; 14. Theological Foundations for Cosmocentric Transfiguration; 15. Possible Critiques of Cosmocentric Transfiguration. 16. Cosmocentric Transfiguration: An Eco-Eschatological Ethics of Preservation and Protest; Conclusion: Cosmocentric Transfiguration as the "Best of Both Worlds"; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
