Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 178:709 (Jan 2021)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: John A. Adair

BSac 178:709 (January-March 2021) p. 100

Periodical Reviews

By The Faculty And Staff Of Dallas Theological Seminary

John A. Adair

Editor

“Four Theses Concerning Human Embodiment,” Gregg R. Allison, Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 23, no. 2 (2019): 157–80.

Allison is professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This article was delivered as a Faculty Address to faculty and students at the seminary, 4 September 2019 (174).

After a series of reasons why he believes a theology of embodiment is important, Allison outlines four presuppositions: “1. Human nature is complex, consisting of a material element and an immaterial element” (158); “Christian theology and the church have been, and continue to be, infected with Gnosticism/neo-Gnosticism” (158); “While historically relegated to secondary status (behind, for example, Trinitarian theology and Christology), theological anthropology, with a particular emphasis on human embodiment, is a crucial theological locus today” (159); and “These four theses explore the ontology of human embodiment and will not address gender roles and authority structures” (160).

Allison’s first thesis is “Embodiment is the proper state of human existence. Indeed, God’s design for his image bearers is that they are embodied human beings” (160). Embodiment is essential for imaging; a disembodied human could hardly be seen. Allison, surprisingly, insists, “Not only did God once create an original pair of human beings, and not only does God continue to create human beings; God personally creates each and every individual” (162). This seems to make God personally responsible for birth and developmental abnormalities, as well as infant mortality.

In his second thesis, Allison asserts, “A fundamental given of human existence is maleness or femaleness. Indeed, human sex/gender maps almost completely onto (correlates with) human embodiment” (163). He does note the exception of “the genetic [mis]condition of intersex, which effects a certain percentage of human beings—statistics range from .04% to 1.7%—and will not be part of our discussion)” (163). He continues, “God’s design for his image bearers is that they are gendered/sexed human beings” (163). Readers will wonder why he omits these human beings from his discussion, especially if “God personally creates each and every individual” (162).

Allison’s “third thesis is that a fundamental given of human exis-tence is particularity, which is defined as the condition of being an individual”

BSac 178:709 (January-March 2021) p. 101

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