Resilience theory has an extensive research history and has appeared in many forms in different research schools over the decades. As a means for understanding the adaptive capacities of complex human and ecological systems, each expression of resilience theory has something to contribute to its contemporary usage. For example, the social disciplines have brought transformation perspectives, ideas of growth through adversity and the identification of resilient qualities. The health disciplines have contributed process-related notions of resilience as relational and involving socio-cultural contexts for improving quality of life. The environmental sciences have emphasised system dynamics, non-linearity, thresholds and temporal and spatial scales. In this paper I map these contributions and the development of resilience theory from a metatheoretical and transdisciplinary perspective. The aim here was not to review theories of resilience but to systematically chart the definitive architectonics, that is, the key theoretical constructs and their relationships, of schools of resilience thinking across various disciplines and research paradigms. Using an adapted version of the multiparadigm method known as metatriangulation, I analysed literature reviews of resilience theory from different disciplines to identify conceptual lenses and their systemic relationships. This architectonic-centred analysis resulted in a number of metatheoretical frameworks that identify: i) explicit and implicit lenses, ii) conceptual strengths and weakness, and iii) opportunities for transdisciplinary integration of resilience constructs. Although it has a reputation for speculative abstractness, metatheoretical research can be useful for the practical task of assessing assumptions in theories on the causes and cures of social problems. Hence, this kind of research has relevance to the complex questions and big challenges that the Anthropocene is throwing up. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of this metatheoretical mapping for the future development of resilience theory and its application to the global challenges of the Anthropocene.