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Theological Foundations For An Ethics Of Cosmocentric Transfiguration: Navigating The Eco-Theological Poles Of Conservation, Transfiguration, Anthropocentrism, And Cosmocentrism With Regard To The Relationship Between Humans And Individual Nonhuman Animals, Ryan Patrick Mclaughlin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the past forty years, there has been an unprecedented explosion of theological writings regarding the place of the nonhuman creation in ethics. The purpose of this dissertation is to propose a taxonomy of four paradigms of eco-theological thought that will categorize these writings and facilitate the identification, situation, and constructive development of the paradigm of cosmocentric transfiguration. This taxonomy takes shape within the tensions of three theological foundations: cosmology, anthropology, and eschatology. These tensions establish two categorical distinctions between, on the one hand, conservation and transfiguration, and, on the other, anthropocentrism and cosmocentrism. The variations within these poles yield …