Abstract
Nearly five hundred years ago Martin Luther countered Erasmus’ rather optimistic understanding of human nature with his strong language of “bondage of the will.” The landscape, though, has been radically changed by a new science of human nature. Building on a decade or more of basic research, four heavyweights in the secular world, Peter Singer, Steven Pinker, Jeremy Rifkin, and Matt Ridley, have explanations for why we are becoming less violent and more empathetic. Emanating from P. Ricoeur, R. Niebuhr, K. Barth, and St. Paul is a counter-truth that asserts the very desire to transcend our essential self is the one thing we cannot change without making us something other than human.
Keywords
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.