ABSTRACT
This chapter asks how Brunner's theological anthropology can provide relevant insights to further enrich the Capabilities Approach (CA) and the relevant development paradigm. While the notion of human “capability” in CA provides the necessary link for theological engagement, the CA is also a worthy engagement partner due to its instrumental role in undergirding contemporary development policies in the United Nations development framework and beyond. This chapter argues how as a normative approach to human welfare, the CA has the capacity to provide steer to the pursuit of quality of life and help lend people true agency. Both can be seen as crucial factors in human flourishing. Using primarily the CA as developed in the social philosophy of Martha Nussbaum, this chapter seeks to enrich the understanding of human flourishing by providing enriching insights from theological anthropology. These insights pertain to a certain “thickening” of the understanding of the social dimension, but also to a warning of the consequences of ignoring the human condition as a perhaps underestimated factor in introducing fragility and vulnerability into human capability.
