Notebook

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August 29, 2002

What is 'Unitarian anthropology'?

John S. wrote:

Rev. Scott Wells mentioned that he thinks Unitarian anthropology is misguided. I think that I've come across that term in my reading, but am not at all clear as to its meaning. Scott, if you read this, will you give me some sort of definition of "Unitarian anthropology"?

In academic theology, "anthropology" refers to the doctrine of human nature. Calvinist anthropology, for example, says that human beings are "totally depraved" by virtue of Adam's fall. (Some theologians in the Reformed or Calvinist tradition don't buy this extreme version of Calvin, though, and simply say that all aspects of human life and limited by original sin and transformed by divine grace.)

Unitarian anthropology — to put words in Scott's mouth till he replaces them with his own! — has tended to say that human nature is inherently good and intuitively trustworthy as a moral guide. Evil, as several prominent Unitarian thinkers like Emerson have characterized it, is the corruption of the individual by social forces. Many Unitarian Universalists tend to think that "inherent worth and dignity" means "inherent goodness" under the influence of this "Unitarian anthropology."

Universalists in the nineteenth century rarely taught that human beings are innately good. Their doctrines of original sin usually affirmed that we need salvation, but that God's infinite benevolence would find a way to save every broken soul in time.

A nutshell version of the difference? "Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned; Universalists believe that God is too good to damn them."

UUCF-L 8.29.02