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The Gravity of Sin: Augustine, Luther and Barth on Homo Incurvatus in Se. By Matt Jenson. London and New York: T & T Clark, Ltd., 2007. 224 pp. $39.95 (paper); $130.00 (cloth).
Currently, there is a broad consensus in theological anthropology for construing human personhood in terms of relationships. Matt Jenson in The Gravity of Sin garnishes insights from this consensus to present a harmartiology (the doctrine of sin) based on a relational model, and he builds upon Eberhard Jüngel's comment that a sinner is "a person without relations" (p. 2). Jenson persuasively argues that the metaphor of "a person curved in on oneself (homo incurvatus in se) provides a comprehensive paradigm for understanding sin. Thus, sin involves turning towards oneself and away from God and others. "This incurvature is one in which sinful humanity asserts a sort of gravitational pull, seeking to suck all others into its orbit" (p....