RT Article
T1 Original Sin, Racism, and Epistemologies of Ignorance
JF Zygon
VO 56
IS 2
SP 517
OP 532
A1 Mulder, Jack 1978-
LA English
PB Wiley-Blackwell
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1764117093
AB The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it explores and shows ways in which one important view of racism parallels the Christian doctrine of original sin. Second, it argues that this comparison helps to close the gap between the two main strands of Christian thinking about original sin. Philosophers and theologians are often asked to decide between Augustinian or Irenaean theories of original sin. An epistemology of ignorance, especially as applied in discussions of racism, helps us to see how this dichotomy may be short-sighted. For virtually no one, in an epistemology of ignorance, matures into being a racist. Nevertheless, as Charles W. Mills famously argues, the epistemology of ignorance he terms the Racial Contract has a historical inception, namely, the period around the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I close the article by discussing whether a model of original sin similar to an epistemology of racist ignorance might satisfy the dogmatic constraints of the Catholic tradition.
K1 white ignorance
K1 Racism
K1 polygenism
K1 Original Sin
K1 monogenism
K1 epistemologies of ignorance
DO 10.1111/zygo.12691