Human Nature Human Evil And Religion

Part I – Becker’s Early Anthropological Perspective

Chapter 1. The Human Situation And The Development Of The Individual Personality

Chapter 2. The Vagaries Of Human And Cultural Construction

Chapter 3. Human Evil And Religion

Part II – Becker’s Mature Anthropological Perspective

Chapter 4. The Human Situation And The Development Of The Individual Personality Revisited

Chapter 5. Successes And Failures In Individual And Cultural Formation

Chapter 6. Human Evil And Religion In Becker’s Mature Thought

Part III – Ernest Becker’s Anthropology And Christian Theology

Chapter 7. Classical Christian Perspectives On The Human Problem

Chapter 8. Contemporary Christian Perspectives On The Human Problem

Chapter 9. Christian Perspectives On The Solution To The Human Problem

Chapter 10. The Human Problem And Its Solution: Ernest Becker And Christian Theology

Additional Info
In this book, Jarvis Streeter details Ernest Becker’s anthropological theories and compares them with traditional and contemporary Christian thought on human nature, sin, and salvation in order to see how the two approaches compare and where Becker might have insights to offer contemporary Christian thinkers.

Ernest Becker was a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of human nature and motivation, drawing from the fields of evolutionary biology, psychology, psychiatry, cultural anthropology, sociology, philosophy and religion to create what he termed a Science of Man. His goal was to understand the most basic human motives, particularly those that led to evil behavior in order to ameliorate them and create a more humane world. He concluded, following the thought of Alfred Adler, Otto Rank and philosophical and religious existentialism, that the related urges to avoid death anxiety, gain self-esteem and symbolically deny death were the key human motives–ones which were also responsible for human evil–and that religion has had a complex role to play for both good and ill in human history.