More Than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture

by Paul Louis Metzger

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2023

Overview

We live in a culture of commodification. People are too often defined by what they do or own; they’re treated as means to an end or cogs in a machine. What goes missing is a deep sense of personhood—the belief that all humans are unique subjects with inherent worth and the right to self-determination in authentic communion with others.

In a world dominated by things, Paul Louis Metzger argues, we must work hard to account for one another’s personhood. We need to cultivate relational structures that honor every human’s dignity in vital interpersonal community. The theological and philosophical framework known as personalism can help guide us toward such a culture. Drawing from a wide range of thought leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope John Paul II, Metzger presents a personalist moral vision founded on the Christian ideals of faith, hope, and love. He demonstrates how this moral compass can help us navigate a pluralistic world by applying it to a variety of pressing ethical issues, including abortion, genetic engineering, immigration, drone warfare, and more.

Ultimately human personhood begins with the personal, triune God, who invites us to live more fully as human beings. When we refuse to reduce our fellow humans—and ourselves—to mere abstractions or objects, we follow the example of Jesus in honoring the value of every person and of creaturely life as a whole.

Key Features

• Demonstrates how this moral compass can help us navigate a pluralistic world
• Presents a personalist moral vision founded on the Christian ideals of faith, hope, and love
• Draws from a wide range of thought leaders

Contents

Part 1: Compass Navigation

• Missing Persons: The Loss and Recovery of Personalism
• More Faith, Hope, and Love: Metaphysical and Methodological Conditions for a Personalist Moral Vision

Part 2: Individual Persons and Relations

• More Than Abilities: Pro-Life for All in a Throwaway Culture
• More Than Genetic Perfection: The Value of Imperfect Bodies
• More Than Pleasure: A Personalist Approach to Sexuality and Marriage
• More Than the Battle of the Sexes: Gender, Patriarchy, and the Imperative for Equality
• More Than Avoiding Suffering: On Physician-Assisted Suicide

Part 3: Global and Cosmic Relations

• More Than Racial Conflict: Race, Power, and Solidarity
• More Than Market Value: Immigration Beyond the Criteria of Merit
• More Than Just War: Human Value and Drone Warfare
• More Than Domination of the Earth: Personalist Environmental Ethics
• More Than Space Exploration: The Ethics of Leaving Earth

Part 4: Journey’s End

• Rediscovering Persons: Finding Our Way Home

Product Details

• Title: More than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture
• Author: Paul Louis Metzger
• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2023
• Logos Release Date: 2023
• Pages: 452
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Personalism; Church and the world
• ISBNs: 9780830851126, 9780830850914, 0830851127, 0830850910
• Resource ID: LLS:MRTHNTHRWWYCLTR
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-07-18T14:51:59Z

About Paul Louis Metzger

Professor of Christian Theology and Theology of Culture, Multnomah Biblical Seminary.