Theological anthropology has become perhaps the major question for folks doing systematic or dogmatic theology today. There are a lot of recent books on the topic: Kathryn Tanner's Christ the Key, David Kelsey's Eccentric Existence, and even beginner theology textbooks written around this topic, like God's Many-Splendored Image.
I'm sure work like this has already been done or is in the process of being done, but a history of the shifts in theological anthropology seems like an interesting topic. Particularly I think it would be interesting to look at how theological anthropology changed after modern science and history pushed the story of Adam and Eve into myth. I wonder if the "creation science" folks aren't really arguing for seven-day literal creation as much as worrying about what a modern view of the creation of the world and the evolution of humans does to the Fall story in Genesis.
The loss of a literal Adam and Eve is a big deal for theology. How thereby do we describe the source of sin? Theologians like Augustine or Aquinas had no problem referring to the story of Adam and Eve as a literal state of affairs that bears on our present condition. If we take away this literal state of affairs, how do we account for the presence of sin?
I know of a few theological responses. One, from the theologian Robert Jenson, says that we should find a different "origin narrative." Jenson says that when Christians think about sin and "the Fall" we should think about the events following the Exodus rather than Adam and Eve, since the sin of the Israelites in the wilderness, building the Golden Calf and so on, is more paradigmatic for the Old Testament than the fall of Adam. Another comes from Norris Clarke, a Thomist philosopher, who says that we may talk about a "creation" of human beings when God began to create immortal, intellectual souls once humans evolved to a particular point of development (following traditional Catholic thinking on the creation of each human soul by God at conception). In this way, there may have been an actual "Adam and Eve."
Origen offered a complicated analysis of Genesis 1-3. He appeared to have thought that Adam and Eve were historical persons, but the paradise narrative was more mythical than historically literal.
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ReplyDeleteGreat post! I don't have a lot to add but I do have questions about a bit at the end.
ReplyDeleteI think Clarke's hypothesis raises some serious questions about our conception of the imago Dei as the starting point for theological anthropology (although I'm aware that not everyone starts there).
If - as most Christian theology has thought - the imago Dei consists in (or is at least indicated by) the possession of rationality then life for those who lack certain forms of rationality or ability appears particularly problematic (see Hans Reinders' Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Disability, Theological Anthropology and Ethics for more on this "commonsense view" and its history).
A proper theological view of the person - if it is to account for the full variety of human experience - cannot simply rest on the idea of ability or rationality.
If I ever felt like I needed to do doctoral work, I'm almost certain my work would focus on Theological Anthropology as it relates to these questions - especially historical views of mental illness or forms of disability being linked to the fall.
Scott: good point! You could speak on this more than I could, but didn't theologians over time become more hostile to "spiritual" interpretations of the Garden of Eden? This is a general guess I have, but I could be wrong. At least by the time we get to Aquinas we have folks who think it is important to mention Origen by name and refute his account of the Garden of Eden when he discusses the production of human souls by God.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be interesting to track the history of a "literal" garden vs a "spiritual" one and look at some of the social and theological factors at work.
Andrew: actually glad you asked that, I've been doing some work on that topic. Critics who say that the "traditional" notion of Imago Dei denies humanity to children or those with cognitive disability are critiquing the tradition for something that was never there. An intellectual soul, for Augustine and also Aquinas, is really a nonmaterial way we relate to God. It's a kind of receptive capacity. Aquinas distinguishes between this capacity and what he calls "rational faculties," which he associates with the senses/human body. So he says that someone with damaged rational faculties can still be part of God's Kingdom because their intellect can be enlightened by grace just like anyone else's can. I can say more on this.
ReplyDeleteAndrew part 2: I should also add, that in Aquinas's physics even a person with cognitive disability would still have to have a "soul," with the same properties as everyone else's, because Aquinas believes that the soul is the form of our body. Our body couldn't exist without the soul forming it.
ReplyDeleteMatt, I'd love to know where I can find that in Augustine and Aquinas. Reinders traces the "commonsense" view of personhood that I'm talking about from Kant backward to Aquinas, Augustine, and ultimately to Aristotle, noting that "One only need substitute rational soul for human being, and one will find the proof of this claim."
ReplyDeleteOf course, Reinders' point is convincing for someone with what could only be called an amateur knowledge of Aquinas and Augustine but still, I'd love to know where, in particular, Aquinas and Augustine make the arguments you referenced -- it would open up lots of new trajectories in research that most people doing theology / disability work have, apparently, missed.
Here's an Aquinas text: he says those with cognitive disabilities that are severe enough that they can't will baptism should be baptized, i.e. they are capable of receiving God's grace and being incorporated into Christ's body.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newadvent.org/summa/4068.htm#article12
I think a lot of people who critique this view don't understand how the soul forms the body in an Aristotelian sense. Remember that for Aquinas, the soul is the body's act of existence. It's not somewhere "within" the body.