Exploring Vulnerability [1 ed.] 9783666540639, 9783525540633

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Heike Springhart / Günter Thomas (eds.)

Exploring Vulnerability

Heike Springhart / Günter Thomas (eds.)

Exploring Vulnerability

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstþtzung der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISBN 978-3-666-54063-9

You can find alternative editions of this book and additional material on our Website: www.v-r.de  2017, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Gçttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting by Konrad Triltsch GmbH, Ochsenfurt

Contents

Heike Springhart / Günter Thomas Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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I. Theology and Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Heike Springhart Exploring Life’s Vulnerability : Vulnerability in Vitality . . . . . . . . .

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Günter Thomas Divine Vulnerability, Passion and Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Kristine A. Culp Vulnerability and the Susceptibility to Transformation . . . . . . . . .

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Andrea Bieler Enhancing Vulnerable Life: Phenomenological and Practical Theological Explorations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Andreas Schüle “All Flesh”: Imperfection and Incompleteness in Old Testament Anthropology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Dean Phillip Bell Vulnerability in Judaism: Anthropological and Divine Dimensions

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. .

II. Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 William Schweiker Vulnerability and the Moral Life: Theological and Ethical Reflections . 109 Michael S. Hogue Ecological Emergency and Elemental Democracy : Vulnerability, Resilience and Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

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Contents

Stephen Lakkis Enforcing Vulnerability in Contexts of Social Injustice: A View from Taiwan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Pamela Sue Anderson Arguing for “Ethical” Vulnerability : Towards a Politics of Care? . . . . 147

III. Law and Politics

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Charles Mathewes Vulnerability and Political Theology

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Martha Albertson Fineman / Silas W. Allard Vulnerability, the Responsive State, and the Role of Religion . . . . . . 185

IV. Medicine and Philosophy

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Antje Miksch Vulnerability and Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Anna F. Bialek Vulnerability and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Marina Berzins McCoy Wounded Gods and Wounded Men in Homer’s Iliad

. . . . . . . . . . 229

Mikkel Gabriel Christoffersen Vulnerability and Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Index

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Heike Springhart / Günter Thomas

Introduction

Life’s vulnerability is a powerful, simultaneously threatening and enriching, dimension of all human life. Though not a new discovery, the awareness of vulnerability and its social importance has increased in recent decades. Incidents like terrorist attacks and natural catastrophes, threats to democracies due to populism and security risks posed by digitized personal data, contribute to a heightened awareness of vulnerability and tempt persons and communities to increase security, hence invulnerability. In terms of individual life, disease, dying, violence, and trauma mark the threatening dimensions of vulnerability. And in communal terms, vulnerability has become a crucial term in medicine and health politics, in geology and economics, philosophical ethics and anthropology, as well as in research on conflict and peace, urban planning and migration, and resilience and happiness. Although theology has only recently joined these conversations, it has much to contribute. A theological concept of vulnerability aims for a realistic description of vulnerability ; one that both acknowledges vulnerability in its ambiguity and explores ways to value vulnerability as the human condition itself. We must ask both why we should value life’s vulnerability in its various dimensions at all and how we can develop a notion and concept of vulnerability which grasps the complexities of life as well as the multidimensional interconnectedness of human life in its individual, social and political forms. The starting point and focus of our exploration of vulnerability is theology and religion. Based on anthropological, Christological and biblical traces, we explore vulnerability as an inherent yet ambiguous dimension of life. Aiming at a realistic concept of anthropology, this endeavor is driven by a twofold conviction: On the one hand, vulnerability’s threatening aspects challenge theology to face the risks and the tragedy of life. On the other, theology offers a transformative notion of vulnerability. We are convinced that such a transformative notion of vulnerability is the basis for adequately valuing vulnerability. Vulnerability as a phenomenon is related to individual human beings, but also to the social systems and the systemic interconnections between politics, law and medicine. As a theological concept vulnerability has ethical implications and is directed towards “ethical vulnerability”, as it is related to questions of care and the socio-political sphere. The ethical and the political

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aspects in the explorations in this book unfold and reflect those with regard to their implications for the moral life. Law and medicine are two practical fields of resonance where vulnerability is of central importance. With respect to law, the challenge is to conceptualize the very basic condition of humanity as essentially vulnerable, not just autonomous. How does the legal system protect vulnerable life and also give room for vulnerability in its enriching dimensions? With respect to medicine and the health care system, the perspective on salutogenesis offers a view in which vulnerable human life can be valued. Within the various essays of this book the conceptual and hermeneutical aspects of vulnerability are explored from within particular fields of expertise and through various perspectives. They are, however, brought into conversation with the overarching interest in developing a constructive and reflective approach to vulnerability in its various individual, social, political, legal and religious forms. The essays published here were first presented and discussed at the IWH Symposium “Vulnerability – a new focus for theological and interdisciplinary anthropology” (September 6th – 9th, 2015), held at the International Academic Forum Heidelberg (IWH). The authors represent not only various academic disciplines, but also different religious traditions and multiple sociopolitical contexts (Germany, USA, Denmark, Great Britain, and Taiwan). As editors of this volume, we are honored to include the contribution of Pamela Sue Anderson (1955–2017). A feminist philosopher, Pamela Sue Anderson was concerned about issues of vulnerability, capability and moral theory in many ways, though she was consistently focused on the flourishing of life. In the spring of 2017, a few weeks before the manuscripts of this book went to the publisher, Pamela Sue Anderson passed away. By including her essay we commemorate a scholar of immense intelligence, kind-spirit and multilayered awareness of vulnerability. This book would have not been possible without the support of many persons and institutions. We especially thank all of the contributors for their inspiring contributions to the meeting in Heidelberg, where their openness to mutual learning and inspiration was clear, as well as for their essays that mirror our common labor and conversations. We also want to thank the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for the research grant that made the symposium and this publication possible and the Evangelische Landeskirche in Baden for generous financial support. We express our gratitude to the International Academic Forum Heidelberg (IWH) for providing logistical support to this international and interdisciplinary project and for acknowledging its academic quality and relevance by considering it an “IWH Symposium”. Finally, we want to thank those persons who gave decisive and necessary assistance to our work: Hendrik Fränkle who helped with the organization of the symposium in Heidelberg; Tobias Friebe and Virginia Johnston White,

Introduction

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who provided thorough proofreading of this book; Moritz Reissing, who paved the way to publication; and, especially, Benedikt Friedrich, who managed the entire process, from organizing the symposium to overseeing the completion of this book. This book is also related to The Enhancing Life Project, directed by William Schweiker (The University of Chicago) and Günter Thomas (Ruhr University Bochum) and supported by a generous grant of the John Templeton Foundation. Along with The Enhancing Life Project, it shares a concern for exploring religious, scientific, and social meanings of “Enhancing Life” and the vision of flourishing life in and through the reality of vulnerability. Heidelberg and Bochum, May 2017 Heike Springhart and Günter Thomas

I. Theology and Religion

Heike Springhart

Exploring Life’s Vulnerability : Vulnerability in Vitality As through a long abandoned half-standing house only someone lost could find, which, with its paneless windows and sagging crossbeams, its hundred crevices in which a hundred creatures hoard and nest, seems both ghost of the life that happened there and living spirit of this wasted place, wind seeks and sings every wound of the wood that is open enough to receive it, shatter me God into my thousand sounds…1

Vulnerability and anthropological realism2 Life’s vulnerability is a powerful, threatening, and at the same time enriching dimension of all human life. While this is not a new discovery, the awareness of vulnerability and its social importance is increasing in the last decades. Incidences like terrorist attacks (from 9/11 to the recent events in Nice in July 2016, Berlin December 2016, London and Stockholm in spring 2017), Chernobyl and Fukushima, natural catastrophes, the endangerment of democracies due to populism and the rise of threats to personal data due to digitalized communication, lead to attempts to increase security, hence invulnerability, and at the same time contribute to a heightened awareness of vulnerability. In terms of individual life, disease, dying, violence, and trauma mark the threatening dimensions of vulnerability. Vulnerability has become a crucial term in medicine and health politics, in geology and economy, philosophical ethics and anthropology, as well as in research on conflict and peace, urban planning and migration, and resilience and happiness.3 Theology 1 Ch. Wiman, “Small prayer in a hard wind”, in Ch. Wiman, Every Riven Thing (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2010) 72. 2 I want to thank William Schweiker for helpful comments and enriching conversations on this essay and on vulnerability in vitality. 3 H. Keul, “Verwundbarkeit – eine unerhörte Macht”, Herder Korrespondenz 12 (2015) 39–43, on p. 40; S. St,lsett, “Towards a Political Theology of Vulnerability : Anthropological and Theological Propositions”, Political Theology, Vol. 16 No. 5 (2015) 464–478, on p. 464; M. Wenner, “Vulnerability, food aid, and dependency. Views from development geography”, Hermeneutische Blätter 1 (2017) 158–170, on p. 160; Based on a survey of the projects of the German Research Council (DFG), Hildegund Keul shows that the number of vulnerability-related research projects is constantly rising. In 1999 it was only two projects, in 2015 already 20 projects were realized, none of these, though, was a theological project. H. Keul, “Resilienz aus Verwundbarkeit. Der

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has only recently joined these conversations, but has a lot to contribute. This is true, in particular, for theological anthropology, if we, as I will argue, aim at doing realistic anthropology. I will explore a differentiated concept of vulnerability that has its origin in anthropology, but opens up to a theological concept that transcends anthropology. This exploration will take place in three moves. The first one is focused on the conceptual level and offers a comparison and defense of vulnerability with rival concepts as basis for a realistic theological anthropology. The second move goes from the concept to phenomena of vulnerability and unfolds vulnerability in a matrix of its dimensions. Both moves address the question: How can a concept of vulnerability help us better understand human life? The third move shifts to hermeneutics and is a more substantive, descriptive analysis which provides the content for the concept and its place in theological anthropology. It addresses the question: why and how do theological insights help us better understand human life and its vulnerability? Theological anthropology, in my understanding, offers a conceptual framework to grasp the broad variety of human experiences. As a theoretical conceptual field, theological anthropology explores lines of reflection of the human condition and gives orientation with relation to the question: what does it mean to live a good life?4 It does so within a theological context. Hence, human beings are seen not only as individual subjects, but also within their social and systemic context and in the light of religion. Realistic anthropology aims at a realistic description of what it means to be human. Its realism is humanistic insofar as it raises the prescriptive question about the goodness of human life and the value or worth of vulnerability.5 Vulnerability is the human condition; to be human means to be vulnerable. While vulnerability as a phenomenon is not controversial, the question whether and in which respect vulnerability is a value and whether and in what respect it forms the core of a realistic anthropology is an issue to be discussed further.6 Vulnerability in its complexity, I will argue, forms the basis and the center of a realistic anthropological framework. Vulnerability is the human condition that becomes real in various forms and situations: dying, disease, harm and violence, but also love, trust, aspirations for enhancing life, just to name a few of the related concrete experiences. Especially the threatening aspects of human life – like disease and dying, violence and trauma – need to be grasped anthropologically – rather than as discreet unrelated experiences – in order to come to a realistic approach to human life. Vulnerabilitätsdiskurs als Chance für eine gesellschaftsrelevante Theologie”, Hermeneutische Blätter 1 (2017) 105–120, on p. 111. 4 See William Schweiker’s contribution in this volume. 5 D.E. Klemm/W. Schweiker, Religion and the Human Future. An Essay on Theological Humanism (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2008), 76. 6 St,lsett, “Political Theology”, 467.

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By approaching these aspects via the concept of vulnerability, it becomes clear that there is no reason to theologically sugarcoat them nor blame them as consequences of sin. Within the long theological tradition of theologia crucis from Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation (1518)7 to Moltmann’s Crucified God8 and also within the various attempts to approach suffering in theological terms from Jonas’ God after Auschwitz9 to Soelle’s Suffering,10 either human suffering or the suffering of God are often seen in relationship to the hamartiological aspects of sin. This hamartiological approach insinuates a causal understanding of suffering, disease, and dying that leads to problematic shortcuts. That is, it claims that human sin is the “cause” of the vulnerabilities that are constitutive of human existence. Vulnerability, I argue, here helps to do what Luther found crucial for a theology of the Cross: taking a sharp and close look at reality and naming things as they are. The threatening and the enriching vulnerable dimensions of human lives are described with such a close and sharp look, even as they are framed and reframed into a theological framework which makes clear that theology is not only about simple solutions, but about naming things as they are.11 At the same time, it avoids the causal structure of hamartiologically oriented concepts. In light of these theological traditions we can say : reflecting on vulnerability in theological terms has a long tradition in terms of content. But as a term and concept it has only recently become part of the classic theological and anthropological semantics.12 My general approach is to take real and concrete human experiences seriously and let them challenge the conceptual reflection in order to develop an anthropological concept of vulnerability. The notion and concept “vulnerability” can be applied to theological resources, like the theology of Creation, Christology or eschatology, on the one hand, and can be developed further constructively on the other hand. This belongs, in particular, to the hermeneutical move in this essay. It unfolds the theological dimensions of 7 M. Luther, “Heidelbergae habita / Heidelberger Disputation (1518)”, in W. Härle (ed.), Martin Luther. Lateinsch-Deutsche Studienausgabe, Vol. 1 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006), 53. 8 J. Moltmann, Der gekreuzigte Gott. Das Kreuz Christi als Grund und Kritik christlicher Theologie (München: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1972). 9 H. Jonas, “The Concept of God after Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice”, in L. Vogel (ed.), Mortality and Morality. A Search for the Good after Auschwitz (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 131–143. 10 D. Sölle, Suffering (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975); F.A. Keshgegian, “Witnessing Trauma. Dorothee Soelle’s Theology of Suffering in a World of Victimization”, in S.K. Pinnock (ed.), The Theology of Dorothee Soelle (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003), 93–108. 11 Naming things as they are is for Martin Luther the key to a „theologia crucis”. M. Luther, “Heidelbergae habita”, 53. 12 Within theology the main contributions are: K.A. Culp, Vulnerability and Glory. A Theological Account (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010); H. Springhart, Der verwundbare Mensch. Sterben, Tod und Endlichkeit im Horizont einer realitischen Anthropologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016); H. Keul, “Verwundbarkeit – eine unerhörte Macht”, Herder Korrespondenz 12 (2015) 39–43.

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vulnerability further under the assumption that theology has to add more complexity, depth and realism to the concept of vulnerability. This is why the phenomena of vulnerability will be referred to theological topics with which they resonate. We first ask, which theological resonances are evoked by vulnerability and then unfold those specific theological topics in order to ask what they offer for a theologically and anthropologically rich and realistic concept of vulnerability. While the anthropological realism purpose of this paper aims at the differentiated description of human vulnerability in both its enriching and threatening forms, the humanistic character in it lies in the valuing of vulnerability. Hence, vulnerability is considered to be more than a lifethreatening dimension of human life. Vulnerability becomes real in vitality in a broad sense, for instance, in love. The relation and realization of vulnerability in love hence will be explored later.

Anthropological realism and vulnerability Anthropological realism is based on the conviction that empiricism and experience are of importance for anthropological and theological thinking. The anthropological question “What are human beings?”13 points to the tension of particularity and universality in anthropology : Which human being is in the center of anthropology? The dying human? The loving? The vulnerable? Anthropology faces the challenge that the complexity of experience and of reality is always deeper than even the most complex theories. In order to develop a realistic anthropology, the empirically detectable reality is both the starting point and the field of resonance and approval of theological anthropology. This implies that a realistic anthropology is based on empirical reality and also is to be criticized by it. Thus, the relationship between the experiential fields of resonance and the anthropological concepts is one of mutual criticism. This implies that the realism of realistic anthropology is visible in its aim of challenging and questioning empirical experience and reality through interpretation by theological contents that may be anthropological, Christological or eschatological. Realistic anthropology emphasizes the potential of mutual interpretation of empiricism and dogmatics and bears a critical dimension in two directions: with respect to dogmatic contents and with respect to empirical reality. The anthropological question in realistic perspective is: what does it mean to be human? The goal is to understand the deeper dimensions of humanity by following a crucial pattern. Since I understand the human being as embedded in other forms of life, my purpose is not to raise the question about the 13 Ps 8; NRSV.

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uniqueness of humanity or the question about the human essence that marks the differentia specifica. Hence, this essay focuses on understanding the processual complexity of human life rather than defining and distinguishing human life from other forms of life. By doing so my intention is to give room and a theological framework for the multidimensionality of human life, such as multidimensional experiences like joy, anxiety, violence, love, suffering, disease and dying, multidimensional humanity in body, soul and spirit and multidimensional existence that is realized through its embeddedness in various contexts, such as social, political, regional and religious contexts. This concept of vulnerability aims at the mutual interwovenness of these dimensions and seeks to grasp it, describe it and value it. Vulnerability, as a core category of realistic anthropology, faces skepticism and risks, which must be addressed. Feminist thinkers, like Judith Butler, have pointed out that the feminist skepticism about vulnerability has been “quite enormous” for a long time because of the identification of women with vulnerability and the consideration that women are the vulnerable sex.14 In this interpretation, vulnerability was seen as a weakness of a particular group that could be socially defined and used for social discrimination and exclusion. Similar skepticism is expressed by representatives of Disability Studies. Following the conviction that persons are not per se disabled, but that they experience being disabled by society, there are high levels of sensitivity and skepticism of vulnerability as a social category. Both the feminist skepticism and the skepticism of Disability Studies thinkers are right to point out that vulnerability is not a distinguished characterization that only describes specific human beings, such as women, people with disabilities, people of a specific race, etc. Instead of using vulnerability as a means or criterion for social discrimination, emphasizing the fundamental or ontological character of it makes clear that vulnerability is the shared human condition that is essential for all human life, regardless of gender, health status, race or religion. We have to differentiate between ontological or fundamental vulnerability and situated or contextual vulnerability.15 Ontological vulnerability addresses vulnerability as the human condition. There is no invulnerable human life; human life as such is vulnerable. Birth and death mark the vulnerable transitions in which the interrelated dependency, fragility and the bundle of possibilities ahead and behind become real. Human life is susceptible to harm and to love, to transformation and violence, to disease and decay. In its 14 J. Butler, Notes toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), p. 123. 15 H. Haker, “Vom Umgang mit der Verletzlichkeit des Menschen”, in M. Bobbert (ed.), Zwischen Parteilichkeit und Gerechtigkeit. Schnittstellen von Klinikseelsorge und Medizinethik (Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2015) 195–225, p. 197. See also the contributions of Andrea Bieler and Stephen Lakkis in this volume.

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ontological dimension, vulnerability names the potentiality of being harmed, wounded and affected. Ontological vulnerability is the shared human condition of every human being. Situated vulnerability addresses vulnerability in different levels of realization as there are social, cultural and environmental conditions that increase or lower vulnerability. With respect to situated vulnerability, natural, social and theological aspects are overlapping. Talking about situated vulnerability implies considering the conditions under which vulnerability is increased or decreased and also the conditions under which vulnerability is life-threatening and endangering. If one seeks the enhancing of life, one can likewise consider the conditions under which vulnerability fosters openings for deeper interpersonal or religious relationships, for love and for mutual trust. Anthropological realism needs to keep ontological and situated vulnerability together. If one would reduce vulnerability to its ontological dimensions, it would lose its transformative power and also the realism in taking the human condition seriously. If one would reduce vulnerability to its situated dimensions, one would run the danger of discriminating against vulnerable social groups which would then be seen as deficient, weak, or even not fully accountable for life. A thick theological concept of vulnerability is counter-cultural in the sense that it puts a critical sting to the attempts to describe humanity primarily or even exclusively as autonomous, independent, strong, and powerful. It is important to note that vulnerability is not meant to deny the importance and constitutive character of human freedom, which leads to autonomy, independence and strength, but it is meant to form the foundation of an anthropological and theological space for suffering, disease, risk and tragedy in human life and beyond. Vulnerability has somatic, psychic, and systemic dimensions, but it is the somatic, bodily dimension in particular that makes it a crucial topic for theological anthropology. In recent years, the importance of embodiment and corporeality of human life has become a crucial issue for anthropological thinking.16 The most obvious vulnerability is the bodily vulnerability related to disease, violence and wounds. Denying vulnerability means denying the bodily dimension of life. But it is also the vulnerable body that reminds us that we are always more than our bodies. The tension between having a body and being a body, which has been developed by Helmuth Plessner, can be referred back to the tension of ontological and situated aspects of vulnerability.17 The idea of being a body addresses the fact that being human means being a body, we may add: being human means constitutively being a vulnerable body. The 16 Klemm/Schweiker, Religion, 77. The body and embodiment have been put into the center of theology and philosophy via two almost independent traces: the early feminist theologies and the recent debates on interdisciplinary anthropology. For a detailed discussion see Springhart, Mensch, 173–82. 17 H. Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 1975).

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idea of having a body addresses the fact that human beings are able and responsible for dealing with their body in the sense that they can make it an object distinguished from themselves. Having a body has its resonance in the situated vulnerability. This can be seen, for instance, when a person gets seriously ill and when the whole life seems to be reduced or to a high degree focused on the disease, for example the fight against cancer, or the attempts to reduce pain which overwhelms all other sensations. At the same time, in situations of severe disease it becomes utterly obvious that we are more than our bodies. The body might wane, but there are many cases where the power of life, creativity, and relationships increase in those intense phases of life.18 A realistic anthropology focused on a differentiated concept of ontological and situated vulnerability forms the basis of a theology of vulnerability. Such a theology of vulnerability cannot be developed in total in this essay, but it would have to explore the aspect of vulnerable creation and its being threatened by sin and shame, guilt and destruction. At the same time, it grasps the inherent susceptibility to transformation that nourishes aspirations and is the precondition for enhancing life. It would then explore divine vulnerability addressed in incarnational Christology and God’s susceptibility to humanity. The stigmata of the resurrected Christ are traces of vulnerability and are the signs to prove God’s humanity. As after resurrection the stigmata lose their destructive character we would have to ask in an eschatological perspective whether vulnerability is part of the continuity in humanity which is perpetuated in the New Creation or whether and how far the threatening and the enriching dimensions of vulnerability would be overcome in the Eschaton. The third strand of a theology of vulnerability is human vulnerability which points out that human beings as creatures are per se vulnerable. Human vulnerability as ontological and situated vulnerability is threatening as well as enriching; it is an ambiguous feature of human life. It is important to note that the ambiguity of the negative threatening aspects of vulnerability and the positive enriching aspects of vulnerability is not an easy balance. It is the realization of a broad range of realizations of vulnerability, which, in some cases manifest as pure threat and endangerment, in others pure joy or trust, and still others as all of the above. The intention here is to dare a sharp look and to raise the question about the value of life’s vulnerability. We will explore vulnerability further as a form of human vitality. In order to do so, we first have to explore vulnerability versus the struggle for invulnerability and then, second, explore the opposition of vulnerability 18 This is related to the fact, that the body binds human life up in a “network of relations”, as Judith Butler puts it: “We cannot understand bodily vulnerability outside of this conception of its constitutive relations to other humans, living processes, and inorganic conditions and vehicles of living.” J. Butler, Notes, 130.

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and resilience. Invulnerability and resilience are the two traditional reactions to vulnerability, and they are rival concepts to vulnerability. Both respond to vulnerability as a problematic dimension of human life to overcome. The rival concepts to vulnerability, invulnerability and resilience, however have marked shortcomings, as they lead, each in its own way, to a static and isolationist understanding of the human life. Vulnerability as a concept offers room for the processuality of life and for mutuality in social life. Hence, as a category, vulnerability is essential for a complex, thus realistic, anthropology. Through comparison with other concepts, I will unfold that vulnerability is relatively more adequate than other concepts for anthropological realism.

Acknowledgement of vulnerability versus striving for invulnerability From ancient philosophy until today’s national security-based politics, striving for invulnerability has been a leading principle, or at least vision, of anthropological, social, political and theological thought.19 The relation to invulnerability hints to the root of the term “vulnerability” in the military realm. Its Latin root is vulnus and vulnerare meaning wounds and to wound. The traditional struggle for invulnerability can be seen in the Stoic philosophy, but also in the mythologies about Achilles and the Germanic myth of Siegfried whose bath in dragon blood was meant to make him invulnerable. Heroes are those who are invulnerable and who are not affected by what is opposed to them.20 This leads to a subtle connection between invulnerability and shame. If we think about the deaths of soldiers that were called the death of a hero (socalled “Heldentod”), the shame of being overwhelmed and killed was covered by attributing this death to specific strong conditions or for the sake of a higher good, like the nation or the ideology. With the current awareness of vulnerability through terrorist attacks, shootings or plane crashes, as well as the manifold attempts to enhance personal health and fitness, the increasing awareness of vulnerability leads to 19 E.C. Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability : A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice (New York: Routledge, 2014), 75. See also: T. May, A Fragile Life: Accepting our Vulnerability (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 67. 20 The Hero was considered to be a person whose nature is characterized by an attractive shape and with extraordinary bodily strength. See the article on “Held / heros” in “Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschaften und Künste”: „Held, lat. Heros, ist einer, der von Natur mit einer ansehnlichen Gestalt und ausnehmender Leibesstärcke [sic!] begabet, durch tapfere Thaten [sic!] Ruhm erlanget, und sich über den gemeinen Stand derer Menschen erhoben.“ Vgl. Art. Held, heros, in Johann Heinrich Zedler: Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Künste. Band 12, Leipzig 1735, Spalte 1214 f. For a discussion of the Stoic tradition see the contribution of William Schweiker in this volume.

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aspirations to invulnerability, which in the long run increase vulnerability instead of decreasing it.21 Within the theological tradition, the axiom of apathy with relation to God also follows the line of invulnerability. Focusing on invulnerability implies several problematic aspects. Beyond the failure of attempts to become invulnerable another problem is disregarding sociality and mutuality as essential parts of the human condition. The striving for invulnerability is basically reduced to situated vulnerability, as it is related to specific situations and conditions under which invulnerability can be sought, enhanced and envisioned. In contrast, consenting in vulnerability instead of invulnerability has existential and conceptual aspects of calmness and an acceptance of the fundamental openness of life, because it is connected to an acknowledgement of the contingency of life. In this respect the concept of vulnerability can be considered as a counter-cultural force that forms the foundation of a realistic anthropology. Its counter-cultural character lies in the fact that it denies the surprise about the fundamental vulnerability which becomes visible in the sudden aspirations and attempts to become invulnerable after incidents that confront us with vulnerability. Paradoxically, it is not the struggle for invulnerability that enhances life and gives room for vitality, but the venture of vulnerability. The venture of vulnerability is not to be confused with a pure acceptance or embracing of vulnerability.22 The venture of vulnerability for Dorothee Sölle is connected with the courage to weep, which includes the abandonment of pride and the openness to the Spirit of consolation.23 In weeping the openness to vitality and to consolation gives room for enhancing life instead of silent regression towards invulnerability.24 In short: while striving for invulnerability diminishes mutual openness among human beings and of human beings towards threatening or enriching ways of life, the venture of vulnerability enhances vitality because it strengthens the susceptibility to change and transformation. Its enhancing 21 We may think here of the attempts of states to become more secure in the face of terrorist attacks by intensifying the activities of national security agencies. While they in most cases fail to avoid those attacks, they increase the vulnerability of communication among citizens of free countries. We may also think of authoritarian ways of leadership on all social levels, which is based on the attempt to have an invulnerable leader but which leads in fact to a loss of trust and hence to a weakened leadership. For discussion of strategies of invulnerability see the contribution of Kristine Culp in this volume. 22 R. Sirvent, Embracing Vulnerability (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2014); B. Brown, Daring Greatly (New York: Gotham Books, 2012). For a critical account in terms of bioethics see R.A. Klein, “Schmerzfrei Leben? Religionsphilosophische Perspektiven auf den Diskurs über die Affirmation und Integration von Verletzlichkeit”, NZSTh 2015; 57(3), 301–337. 23 D. Sölle, “Lob der Tränen”, in D. Sölle, Das Fenster der Verwundbarkeit (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1987) 228–237, p. 229. 24 There is a long tradition of weeping figures in literature: Achilles weeps over Briseis, Odysseus weeps because he was meandering for 10 years, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, Hiob weeps over his misfortune, Sokrates weeps over his friend and Isaia weeps over his people. Sölle, “Lob”, 230.

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force lies in the processive character that comes with this susceptibility to change and transformation. It takes the course of life and the ongoing transformation of life not only seriously, but considers it an essential part of life rather than an endangerment of a certain status of life.

Vulnerability and Resilience Another rival concept to vulnerability is the concept of resilience. In psychological perspective, resilience is considered the appropriate response to vulnerability.25 The strengthening of resilience aims at stabilization and survival under threatening conditions.26 We cannot follow the research on resilience in broad details here, but we have to focus on the main aspects which are constitutive for resilience and which form the interface on which the vitality of vulnerability can be explored. In a narrow sense, resilience is the capability to survive under threatening, traumatizing conditions. In a broader sense, it is the power to get along and to arrange oneself with the given, which aims at the acceptance of a given situation and the focus on how to live with it. Here again, the distinction between situated and ontological dimensions is of importance. In terms of situatedness, there is no doubt, that resilience can be seen as a capability to live on, to survive and to cope with threatening situations. In terms of ontology, though, which here also means in terms of a broader conceptual perspective, resilience as a basic concept has its limits. The reason for that is that it stops the struggle for improvement, hinders resistance in a political sense27 and is not open to the vision of enhancing life. Due to the basic assumption that a specific situation is what it is instead of the assumption that a specific situation can be or has to be transformed, enhanced, or made flourishing, resilience lacks the vision of a possible transforming and enhancing of life. Hence, it was noted that resilience is “the terrain of restoration par excellence”.28 While invulnerability tends to nourish the anxiety and be overly disquieting, resilience in contrast nourishes pacification and tends to be overly quieting. Resilience as a basic pattern of culture and conceptualization needs to be 25 See the contribution of Antje Miksch in this volume. 26 The importance of resilience was explored in research with holocaust survivors. In traumaresearch the guiding question was: what were the conditions and factors that helped these people not only to survive but to live on with no major post-traumatic disorders. See L. Reddemann, Kriegskinder und Kriegsenkel in der Psychotherapie (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2015); A. Kühner, Kollektive Traumata (Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag 2007). 27 See the contributions in J. Butler et al. (ed.), Vulnerability in Resistance (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016). 28 S. Bracke, “Bouncing Back: Vulnerability and Resistance in Times of Resilience”, in J. Butler et al. (ed.), Vulnerability in Resistance (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016) 52–75, p. 59.

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corrected by a concept of vulnerability which is more open to the transforming visions of enhancing life due to the susceptibility to life-threatening and enriching facets of human and social life. This openness to enhancing life is based on the processive character of vulnerability that is rooted in its constituent mutuality and responsiveness. Unlike resilience, vulnerability implies both the acceptance of given vulnerable situations and the need to enhance life and deal with risky parts of vulnerability. This ambiguity is of crucial importance for the anthropological realism that is shaped by the mutual resonance of experience and theological and anthropological reflection. In short: while reliance on resilience as a basic human pattern diminishes visions of enhancing life, the concept of ontological and situated vulnerability addresses both the fundamental vulnerability of all human life and situations as well as conditions under which vulnerability is decreasing or increasing. As a processive concept it opens up for realistic visions of enhancing life. The comparison of vulnerability with the rivaling concepts of invulnerability and resilience shows that vulnerability is relatively more adequate for a realistic anthropology than those other concepts. That leads to the question: how should we value vulnerability?

Valuing vulnerability as Enhancing of Life While it is not controversial that human life per se is vulnerable, the question whether or not life’s vulnerability can be considered a value or good of human life is controversial. The assessment of vulnerability differs in the many books on vulnerability that have been published over the last years. Interestingly enough, most of them were published outside theology and religious studies. Overall these works offer two different conceptual tendencies in terms of the assessment of vulnerability. The first one follows the origins of the term vulnerability in psychology or medicine. Here, vulnerability is basically considered as a risk factor for somatic or psychic health, which means vulnerability is considered the problem, which shall be solved by increasing resilience. The basic question then is: How to avoid or cope with vulnerability? Vulnerability in this first category, is considered to be mainly negative, it is not considered to be a good of human life. The second tendency goes in the opposite direction and pleads for embracing vulnerability.29 These approaches take vulnerability seriously not only as a weakness but also a strength. They reflect that reality that being vulnerable also means being susceptible to love, to trust and to friendship. They rightly point out that a shared vulnerability increases mutual trust. The problem in many of these approaches is that they 29 See the books of Roberto Sirvent, Bren8e Brown and Kristine A. Culp.

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tend to overlook the threatening dimensions of vulnerability. The basic question of these approaches is: How to embrace vulnerability? Vulnerability, in this second category, is thus considered to be positive, a value or good of human life. Yet, both ways to approach vulnerability fail in coming to a sufficiently complex and thus realistic view and concept of vulnerability, because they have a one-sided perspective of vulnerability which lacks the realistic and thick description of the ambiguity of vulnerability. Neither a purely negative notion of vulnerability nor an exclusively positive one is able to grasp the complexity of life’s vulnerability. A realistic anthropology which values vulnerability as a human good has to deal with the ambiguity of vulnerability in its threatening as well as in its enriching dimensions. Valuing vulnerability as the core of a realistic anthropology marks the programmatic dimension of such an anthropology, so it can also be seen as a humanistic anthropology.30 The question then becomes: How can we develop a concept of vulnerability, that values vulnerability as a human good, but is also realistic and sensitive about the ambiguities in vulnerability as threatening and enriching? Naming and facing those ambiguities, I argue, is part not only of the realism of this concept but also part of enhancing of life in its vulnerability. Vulnerability as a thick theological concept helps overcome simple either-or-alternatives between an exclusively negative or exclusively positive notion of vulnerability. Thus it helps to see both: The chances of being affected and susceptible to human and non-human environments and a way of an essential openness to life, but also the power of being exposed to dangers, the necessity of taking risks and life between risk and tragedy. It is the complementarity of ontological and situated vulnerability, that makes vulnerability a value of human life. As ontological, vulnerability is the human condition, and as such it is the precondition of trust, love, communication and mutual affection, and also the finitude and fragility of human life. As situated, vulnerability is shaped by actual conditions and factors and can be decreased and increased. In both perspectives, ontological and situated, vulnerability is a risk and a resource of human life. On the fundamental or ontological level, we can say that it is good to live a vulnerable life, while at the same time, vulnerable vitality exists under the threat of death and its finitude. On the situated level, we also may value the multifaceted vulnerability, but face at the same time the strife-filled and threatening dimensions that come with it. In other words: the full range of vulnerability makes it a value, not the particular situations of vulnerability, or at least not all of them. Theologically, this position is based in Creation and the goodness of Creation. Vulnerability, finitude and fragility are dimensions of God’s good creation. This leads to the question: Is it theologically and ethically possible to 30 See K.M. Rankka, Women and the Value of Suffering (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1998).

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draw a distinction between those forms of vulnerability, which are a dimension of God’s good creation on the one hand and destructive forms of vulnerability, where there is the need to work on the enhancing of life and to strengthen vitality on the other? This is connected to the hamartiological question and a realistic notion of sin. Sin as the fundamental brokenness of humanity is part of the ontological vulnerability, as it is the unavoidable human condition. If sin becomes real in deeds of guilt, we may connect it with situated vulnerability. In terms of sin, the distinction between sin and guilt is crucial for a hamartiology that avoids moralistic short-circuits as well as hamartiological blindness. An understanding of sin that is correlated to vulnerability has the potential to grasp the destructive and threatening forms of sin in Creation but also sharpens sensitivity to the reality that there are powers of sin and structural dimensions of sin, which we cannot use to explain threatening aspects of life. On a descriptive anthropological level, valuing vulnerability hence implies to value the threatening and the enriching forms of vulnerability. The realism acknowledges that the basic value of vulnerability implies a challenge, sometimes a threat for human life, but it does not destroy the fundamental worth and dignity of it. The programmatic humanism then points out that this fundamental worth has to be defended and needs according action, which one may connect with the situatedness of vulnerability. Realistic anthropology discovers and protects the finitude of human life and treasures it, but also gives room to struggle with it and see and name life as it is. In this respect it gives up on a vision of a perfection reachable out of human action, while simultaneously keeping the horizon of eschatological consummation, which takes the threatening aspects of vulnerability seriously.

Dimensions of Vulnerability – a Matrix So far, I have explored why the concept of vulnerability is relatively more adequate to form a realistic anthropology. In the following we move from this conceptual defense of vulnerability to actual content and a claim about how to adequately understand vulnerable life. This marks the shift to the hermeneutical move that will unfold the theological dimensions of vulnerability further under the assumption that theology has to add more complexity, depth and realism to the concept of vulnerability. In order to understand vulnerable human life better, I will explore the dimensions of vulnerability within a matrix that helps to grasp the different phenomena of vulnerability. Its explanatory range reaches from the somatic via psychic to social systemic dimensions of vulnerability and takes internal and external aspects into account. Then I ask, which are the theological resonances that are evoked by vulnerability and unfold those specific theological topics under the guiding

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question: what do they offer for a theologically and anthropologically thick and realistic concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability is not only differentiated as ontological and situated vulnerability, but as a phenomenon, or better, phenomena; vulnerability is multidimensional and multifaceted. Its multidimensionality can be explored via a matrix that is characterized by guiding differentiations on two axes. First, vulnerability has a somatic, psychic and social-systemic dimension. These three dimensions form the horizontal axis. The somatic, psychic and social dimensions permeate and cause each other, but they can be differentiated as specific facets of vulnerability. Second, the somatic, psychic and systemic dimensions of vulnerability will be considered and described with regard to the perspective, out of which the concrete injury or potential vulnerability may be seen or becomes reality. Thus, on a second axis, there is the distinction between vulnerability which occurs from outside and vulnerability which is carried out from inside. The somatic, psychic and social-systemic dimensions of vulnerability will be interpreted and described with respect to specific theological fields of resonance and meaning. This means that vulnerability is seen in two respects, namely as the possibility of being hurt or harmed and as awareness of this possibility. Besides vulnerability means concrete experiences of injury and harm that have happened. So, vulnerability as a phenomenon grasps three aspects: The potentiality of being wounded, harmed or injured, the awareness of this potentiality and the experience of concrete injury, harm and affectability. With respect to the somatic dimension, we have already pointed out that vulnerability is an embodied phenomenon. In ontological terms, somatic vulnerability means the fragility of the body as well as its affectability, its susceptibility to transformation and the possibility to intervene into the body.31 In terms of situated somatic vulnerability, concrete experiences of injury, harm and affectability, such as disease, violence, but also sexuality come into play. The somatic vulnerability first occurs externally, that is the risk to be injured and harmed through interventions from outside. Somatic vulnerability from outside may be caused by accidents or be carried out as violence. Somatic vulnerability from inside can be seen in disease and dying.32 When talking about disease, we have to distinguish between various forms: acute disease which, at least potentially, is a temporary episode, life-threatening disease, which is potentially disease to death, and chronic disease, which is a 31 See also: H. Springhart, “Integrity and Vulnerability of Life”, in G. Thomas/H. Springhart (ed.), Responsibility and the Enhancing of Life (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2017). 32 The example of disease shows that the distinction of external and internal aspects of somatic vulnerability has its limits, as one can say, that some diseases are caused by germs from outside or are consequences of effects of violence or accidents. In order to explore the multidimensionality of vulnerability, the distinction nonetheless has its heuristic value.

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constant element of life beyond the alternatives of “healthy” versus “sick”. Chronic disease is an actualization of vulnerability as the human condition. Part of the experience of somatic vulnerability carried out from inside is a transforming perspective of the body. If one has to deal with acute disease, the body or the particular part of the body which is affected by the disease is considered as a partial element of the body which is hit by the risk of vulnerability and which is to be repaired. In the situation of acute disease under the perspective of recovery we become aware of vulnerability, but as a temporarily experience. As there is no threat for the whole existence of the ill person, vulnerability is related to a specific and single part of the body. The relationship to the body becomes ambivalent when one has to deal with life-threatening or chronic diseases, which oscillates with regard to the experience of vulnerability. Especially during a life-threatening disease, but also in connection with chronic disease the impression of being thrown back to the body is of high importance. Due to the loss of hitherto self-evident functions of the body, or at least a part of them, it becomes perceptible, that one does not only have a body, but that one also is a body. Especially in the situation of chronic disease the now noticeable somatic finitude comes to consciousness which can be realized, for example, in the loss of individual functions of the body or in the constant experience of pain. The awareness of vulnerability is thus increased and the existential dependency on these bodily functions becomes perceptible. If a disease is life-threatening this experience is intensified due to the fact that the body now becomes in itself the threat for life. Two contrasting experiences are related to chronic or life-threatening disease: on the one hand the experience of being reduced to the body, on the other, the experience of alienation from the body. As a vulnerable part the body is now seen in opposition to the person, who realizes within the situation of concretized vulnerability as disease that she is more than her body. The somatic dimension of vulnerability which can be realized in harm that hits the person from outside as well as in disease and dying from inside, describes the risk of bodily existence and the endangerment by violence or disease. At the same time somatic vulnerability is a resource because it is an indicator of the limits of controllability and feasibility of human life. In order to come to a theologically rich, hence complex, and realistic notion of vulnerability, the theological resonances evoked by the somatic vulnerability are crucial and of constructive importance. With regard to the somatic vulnerability, we have to consider the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his death at the Cross. The point of God’s humanity in Jesus Christ is the vulnerable situation of his birth and the situation of radical vulnerability at the Cross, and the risk of incarnation that God takes in Jesus Christ.33 According to Paul, 33 See W.C. Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 16; G. Thomas, “Das Kreuz Christi als Risiko der Inkarnation”, in G. Thomas/A. Schüle (ed.), Gegenwart des lebendigen Christus (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2007) 151–180, on

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Christ’s vulnerability has a direct impact on human vulnerability and vice versa. In 2 Corinthians Paul emphasizes: [We are] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.34 Our bodily vulnerability is not a defect of the created body, but it is the visualization of the life and death of Jesus. The close connection of human and Divine vulnerability on the one hand takes vulnerability’s cruelty seriously, on the other hand it is given a Christological meaning. Both aspects are expressions of the ambiguity of vulnerability. The psychic dimensions of vulnerability are the second aspect on the horizontal axis of our matrix. Although there is no doubt that somatic and psychic vulnerability are closely related to each other, one has to differentiate psychic vulnerability from somatic vulnerability. Psychic vulnerability may reach beyond the somatic aspects of vulnerability. In ontological terms, psychic vulnerability is the affectability and mutual openness as a precondition for trust and sociality that is part of the human condition. Situated psychic vulnerability is related with shame and trauma, but also with love and affection. With respect to psychic vulnerability we can also distinguish between internal and external aspects. External psychic vulnerability describes the violation of the psychic integrity by interventions from outside, such as sexual abuse, mobbing or other forms of shame and humiliation. These external dimensions of psychic vulnerability are connected with internal psychic vulnerability that can be described analogically to the above mentioned acute cases of disease and can be realized as acute violation and traumatization, but also as chronic psychic disease, such as depression, for example. Psychic vulnerability and shame are closely connected. Shame and vulnerability have a paradoxical connection, as shame works as protection of the vulnerable person, it increases situated vulnerability at the same time.35 Vulnerability in psychic regard is first of all this risk of violation and endangerment for the psychic integrity of the person. At the same time and especially with regard to the psychic aspects vulnerability is the precondition of trust, empathy and interpersonal relationships.36 The awareness of p. 152. See also Guenter Thomas’ contribution in this book. For a detailed discussion of the Christological implications of vulnerability see Springhart, Mensch, 185–94. 34 2Cor 4:10; NRSV. 35 See D. Zobel, “‘Der Herr lasse sein Angesicht leuchten über dir …’ Scham in der Seelsorge. Eine Problemskizze“, in M. Oeming/W. Bo[s (ed.), Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft und kirchliche Praxis (Münster : Lit–Verlag, 2009) 205–20, p. 206; S. Marks, Scham – Die tabuisierte Emotion (Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 2009), 36; M. Hilgers, Scham. Gesichter eines Affekts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 42012), 129–31.; S. Pattison, Shame. Theory, Therapy, Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); B. Williams, Shame and Necessity (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1993). 36 A. Carse, “Vulnerability, Agency, and Human Flourishing”, in C. Taylor/R. Dell’Oro (ed.), Health and human flourishing (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2006) 33–52, on p. 34.

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vulnerability serves as an essential factor for respectful communication and relationships, trust and sensitivity towards others. As vulnerability is an indispensable resource of humanity37 it enables us to love and to be loved as well as care for others and be taken care of.38 In theological terms, the ambiguity of psychic vulnerability resonates with the notion of faith that is understood as the venture of vulnerability. Faith is characterized by a general openness to the other, to the world and to God. It is based on the awareness of the need for salvation and on the assumption that there is always something beyond this life, be it in eschatological terms, be it in existential terms. The awareness of human finitude and potential failure is expressed exemplarily in the confession of sin. The ambiguous character of vulnerability as endangerment on the one hand and as trust oriented vulnerable sensitivity on the other hand, shapes faith in the classic trifold concept, that is faith as trust (fiducia), knowledge (notitia) and confession (assensus). This is related with the realization of human self-endangerment as a consequence and expression of sin. Human beings are not only vulnerable with regard to potential violations through other people and other circumstances, they are also vulnerable with regard to their own actions. In other words: Human beings are in danger to become an agent of vulnerability. Following the distinction of ontological and situated vulnerability, I argue for a notion of sin that is related to the ontological dimension of humanity. This means that sin is not reducible to morals and to sinful deeds, but that sin describes the separation of God and humankind.39 In terms of anthropological realism, the notion of sin grasps the unavoidable vulnerability of human life, but it is not the reason for it. In other words: I am not arguing for a causative notion of sin, but for an approach that takes sin as part of the description of human life as it is, separated from God and exposed to structures, will and desires that endanger the goodness of one’s own life and of the life of others. Martin Luther’s anthropological claim of the believer as simul iustus et peccator – as sinful and righteous at the same time – takes seriously that human life is unavoidably separated from God, hence sinful, and at the same 37 S. Kay Toombs, “Vulnerability and the meaning of illness. Reflections on lived experience”, in C. Taylor/R. Dell’Oro (ed.), Health and human flourishing (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2006) 119–140, on p. 131. 38 The aspects of shame and care are each subject of broad discourses. We can’t follow them in detail here, but a theology of vulnerability would have to include them. In terms of care see among others E.F. Kittay, Love’s labor. Essays on women, equality and dependency (New York: Routledge, 1999); S. Dodds, “Dependence, Care, and Vulnerability”, in C. Mackenzie/W. Rogers/ S. Dodds (ed.), Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 181–203. 39 Paul Tillich’s notion of sin as estrangement aims at this existential or ontological dimension of sin. The notion of estrangement helps to come to a notion of sin which goes beyond a moralist reduction to deeds. But it has to be developed further in order to grasp the power of sin which grasps human beings and which leads to destructive and endangering dynamics. P. Tillich, Systematische Theologie, Vol. 2 (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 1987), 52.

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time it emphasizes the goodness of life. If we refer this notion back to the concept of vulnerability, vulnerability can be described as endangerment and self-endangerment also of the justified. The ambiguity of vulnerability resonates with the complexity of faith that is expressed in the praise of the richness of life, in the lament over suffering and threats to life and in the honest and close look at life’s ambiguities. Hence, the notion of faith emphasizes the character of vulnerability as a venture and marks its realism. The third aspect of vulnerability on the horizontal axis of our matrix is the social systemic dimension. Vulnerability is not only a feature of individual human beings, but it is related to social interdependency and interwovenness. Social interdependency becomes relevant, in particular, in situations of care. Those are characterized by an increased vulnerability for both, the care-giver and the care-recipient. The situation of care, which itself is often rooted in situated vulnerability, such as disease, forms an inequality of power due to different roles. The care-giver, be it the professional therapist or the relative who is taking care, is in a much more powerful situation than the carerecipient. Hence, in social systemic terms the increased vulnerability through interdependency is also an endangerment. Especially in interpersonal relationships that are characterized by dependency and different levels of power like the education system, the family system, but also in systems of care like medicine, psychology or pastoral care, vulnerability is of utmost relevance. Those who are in the more powerful position owe those who are in the less powerful position respect and responsible behavior given this vulnerable relationship. In terms of the social systemic dimension, vulnerability, first, is characterizing the different agents in interdependent and interwoven systems. Second, we have to talk about the vulnerability of these systems themselves. The vulnerability of the social systems occurs in the sense of questioning and endangerment from outside the social system or in the sense of self-endangerment from inside the system. This is true not only for the social systems, but also for the ecological and the legal system.40 The emphasis of the social systemic dimension of vulnerability aims at the emphasize that human beings live in various social systems. This implies a critical aspect against the idea of a principle autonomy as guiding category for understanding what humanity is about. While there is no doubt about the liberating power of situated autonomy, the idea of a principle autonomy of the human being misses the point of social interdependency, createdness and vulnerability. In theological terms, the social systemic dimension of vulnerability resonates with the eschatological concept of the tension between the real world and the redeemed world, thus, the tension between Creation and New 40 M.A. Fineman, “Equality, Autonomy, and the Vulnerable Subject in Law and Politics”, in M. Fineman/A. Grear (ed.), Vulnerability. Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013) 13–28, on p. 16.

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Creation, which is connected to the question of the embodied community transcending times and worlds. This community is the church as the body of Christ, that is constituted by the awareness and recognition of one’s own vulnerability and of the vulnerability of others as the community of the vulnerable, sanctified by the Spirit.41 By being the body of Christ, the believers are not only vulnerable in an individual sense, but as parts of the body of Christ they carry the stigmata of Jesus Christ. These stigmata are the signs of the vulnerable God, which indicate the overcoming or transformation of vulnerability in an eschatological sense. The Lord’s Supper as the meal of vulnerable members of the vulnerable body of Christ is the remembrance of Christ’s vulnerability and at the same time it is the eschatological outlook towards the transformation or overcoming of vulnerability. The story of the disciple Thomas according to the Gospel of John (John 20:24 ff.) is of particular interest here. Thomas, the disciple, asks for the possibility to touch the stigmata of the resurrected Christ in order to make sure that he grasps the reality of the resurrected body. It is interesting with regard to vulnerability that the stigmata and thus the vulnerable body stay visible even after resurrection. As stigmata and scars they are still visible signs of Christ’s vulnerable humanity, but they are at the same time transformed and have lost their destructive character.42 The matrix about the various dimensions of vulnerability shows that in terms of content, vulnerability is a multifaceted phenomenon that evokes different theological resonances. Those resonances are a means to understand human vulnerable life better and to include conceptually the transformative dimension of vulnerability without sugarcoating vulnerability’s risky dimensions. Vulnerability is a risk: it is human endangerment and susceptibility to harm with regard to body and soul and within social systemic contexts. At the same time, vulnerability is a resource: it is the precondition and the expression of trust, mutual respect and responsibility and salutary limitation of the illusion of a feasibility of succeeding and perfect life.

Love’s vulnerability – Vision and vulnerability Following up the theological resonances evoked within the matrix of vulnerability, we now turn to the last move of this essay, the hermeneutics 41 Placher, Narratives, 137. See also Th.E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008). 42 One might ask here whether it is only the negative aspects of vulnerability that are overcome in the eschaton. This would introduce a strict separation of positive and negative aspects of vulnerability. In theological terms, I argue for the transformative power in vulnerability. As affectability and openness, but also as endangerment and frailty it nourishes the aspiration for transformation.

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of vulnerability. The guiding question of this essay has been: Why and how do theological insights help to understand human life and its vulnerability better? As theology adds more complexity, depth and realism to the concept of vulnerability it makes it possible to consider vulnerability a value of human life without focusing only on the positive aspects of vulnerability. The theological resonances are related to love, each in a particular way. Love has an anthropological and a theological dimension and as such it is a paradigmatic focal point for valuing vulnerability. Love’s vulnerability consists of the mutual openness and affectability that is essential for it, but also of the risk that comes with this utmost openness to the other. We have seen that Divine vulnerability becomes visible in the incarnation of Jesus Christ and in particular at the Cross. Divine vulnerability and divine love are connected to each other, as the transformative power of God’s vulnerability characterizes the incarnation.43 Love increases vulnerability and requires vulnerability. This is not only a basic anthropological fact; it is also true for the Christological interpretation of love. Christ as the incarnation of God’s love shows his vulnerability and affectability by becoming human. First of all, the incarnation as expression of God’s love increases Divine vulnerability. Also divine love requires vulnerability in order to really adopt humanity and to be affectable and susceptible to human life in general and the encounters with specific human beings in particular situations of healing, for example. The Cross then reveals the connection of shame with vulnerable love, as part of the passion of Christ is the humiliation that comes with it. The risk of love is the possibility of shame and of being shamed, while shame at the same time protects vulnerability and increases it. Another aspect of vulnerability that is related to divine vulnerability is the mutual co–constitution and growing which is part of love’s vulnerability. Love is the expression of the need of the other and cannot exclusively be done in oneself. Through his theology of the cross in the Heidelberg disputation, Luther refers to love’s vulnerability and the emphasizes that the cross is the space of the mutuality of divine love. Divine love and divine vulnerability focus on the mutuality and transformative power of vulnerable love. In the theological resonances explored above, we have also seen that faith, with its essential openness to the other, the world and to God, is a resonance to vulnerability. Faith as the venture of vulnerability marks the awareness of the need for the other, for salvation and for human and divine love. It also marks the vulnerable love to the other, to the world (that is rather called responsibility) and to God. Faith as expression of vulnerable love of the individual focus on the awareness of the need for mutuality and of the risk of vulnerability.44 43 See also J.B. Pool, God’s Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2011), 113. 44 St,lsett, “Political Theology”, 469.

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Finally, the ecclesiological and eschatological resonance to the social systemic dimensions of vulnerability open the horizon to the church as the community of vulnerable limbs of the vulnerable body of Christ. Love’s vulnerability in the social, communal and ecclesiological sense is related to the aspects of care and vision. Love sees more and deeper and dares to look beyond the masks. This is true for personal love, but also for love as a sign of the vulnerable community. Love’s vulnerability is connected with vision and with seeing sharper and deeper. At the same time, love is expressed in a selective blindness, that has to do with the empowering dimension of vulnerability in love.45 A community shaped by vulnerable love in this sense will be able to be selectively blind for certain aspects in their members because it is aware of its vulnerability and its vulnerable love. A theologically thick description and concept of vulnerability is based on the close connection of love and vulnerability. Love’s vulnerability has theological and anthropological roots and makes it possible to perceive vulnerability in its ambiguity and transformative character. Life’s vulnerability is essential for its vitality and is existentially and hermeneutically related to seeing and to being seen sharper, deeper and sometimes in a selectively blind manner. Vulnerability is crucial for anthropological realism, that is based on its ambiguity and the mutual opening up of theological resonances and experiential reality. This anthropological realism takes vulnerability to be a value of humanity, as it nourishes the vision of a deeper, complex and transformative humanity, shaped by visible vitality and by the transformative dynamics which also help overcome threatening dimensions of vulnerability. The inherent mutuality and processive character of situated and ontological vulnerability characterizes it as crucial to a humanistic vision of enhancing life.

45 The aspect of selective blindness in love is also highlighted by H. Arendt, Vita activa oder: Vom tätigen Leben (München: Piper, 101998), 309.

Günter Thomas

Divine Vulnerability, Passion and Power

Introduction Is God, in his or her own life, vulnerable?1 Does it make theological sense vis#-vis the canonical conversations and the dogmatic traditions to speak of divine vulnerability? Isn’t it the case that the line of demarcation between human and divine life is between vulnerable and invulnerable existence? Human life is “dust that breathes” (Gen 2:7), perishable and like grass (Psalm 103:15–18).2 Isn’t the very core of Christian hope the conviction that God’s sovereignty and power creatively frames and transforms the frail, violent and sinful creaturely life (Gen 6:11.13)?3 This paper claims that it is not only possible, but necessary, to conceive of God as vulnerable. To use vulnerability in a rich, non-reductive and complex sense helps reframe, reorder and reexamine the Christian dogmatic tradition. It is a productive and illuminating “Verfremdung”, which opens up new views a) on the work of the Spirit of God, b) the intimate and dynamic connection between the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, c) the divine life and its ‘history’ of interaction with creation, and d) new perspectives on the Church as the body of Christ.4 Despite the fact that vulnerability is not a term used in the 1 For a better flow of the text I will use apparently non-inclusive male gendered language – intending this language to assume inclusiveness. The use of female gender language would be paternalistic and presumptuous. 2 For a theological humanism placing this image at it center see W. Schweiker, Dust that breathes: Christian faith and the new humanisms (Chichester/Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). 3 Gen 6:11: “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” Cp. W. Dietrich, “Im Zeichen Kains: Gewalt und Gewaltüberwindung in der Hebräischen Bibel”, Evangelische Theologie 64 (2004), 252–67. 4 The concept of vulnerability has not enjoyed wide currency in constructive theological reflection. There is, however, an emerging conceptual field of vulnerability research. See i. e. for a conceptual move to ecclesiology see i. e. N. Koopman, “Vulnerable Church in a Vulnerable World? Towards an Ecclesiology of Vulnerability”, Journal of Reformed Theology 2, no. 3 (2008), 240–54; J.B. Pool, God’s wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian symbol of divine suffering. Vol. I: Divine vulnerability and creation (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2009); J.B. Pool, God’s wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian symbol of divine suffering. Vol. II. Evil and divine suffering (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2010); R. Sirvent, Embracing vulnerability : Human and divine (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2014); E.O.D. Gandolfo, Power and vulnerability of love: A theological anthropology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015); most recent H. Springhart, Der verwundbare Mensch: Sterben, Tod und Endlichkeit im Horizont einer realistischen Anthropologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016).

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first order language of Christian faith nor a key term in traditional theology, it is worthy of consideration for a constructive theological hermeneutics of vulnerability. At the same time, working with this concept and the dogmatic material might shed new light on the very concept of vulnerability itself. By working through the classical dogmatic materials with this particular frame, I hope to enhance the general discussion about vulnerability. The overall hypothesis of this essay is the following: The concept of vulnerability and its related lively discourse can help theology overcome several tricky impasses. It might provide the necessary tools and imaginative domain to move beyond the current alternatives of an almighty and impassible God on the one side and notions of a permanently painfully suffering divine love and powerless God on the other.

Historical orientations: Three views on divine vulnerability Christian faith and the ‘root-disaster’ of the cross O darkest woe! / Ye tears, forth flow! / Has earth so sad a wonder? / God the Father’s only Son / Now is buried yonder. …// O sorrow dread! / God’s Son is dead! … // O Ground of faith, / Laid low in death. / Sweet lips now silent sleeping! / Surely all that live must mourn / Here with bitter weeping.5

Or, instead of the lyrics of Johann Rist, phrased in the words of the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel: God has died, the God is dead-this is the most frightful of all thoughts, that everything is, and true is not, that negation itself is found in God. The deepest anguish, the feeling of complete irretrievability, the annulling of everything that is elevated, are bound up with this thought.6

Or even in the words of the Apostle Paul: “… but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles…”7 One must realize the magnitude of the disaster of the cross; it is a disaster of a higher order. Combining the semantic field of Christianity with the semantic 5 These are the famous lyrics of Johann Rist dating back to 1628 for the first verse, to 1641, verse 2–8. 6 G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the philosophy of religion: The lectures of 1827 (Berkeley University of California Press, 1988), 465, according to a passage from the 1831 lectures. “However, the process does not come to a halt at this point; rather a reversal takes place: God, that is to say, maintains himself in this process, and the letter is only the death of death. God rises again to life, and thus things are reversed. The resurrection is something that belongs just as essentially to faith as the crucifixion.” (465). 7 1 Cor 1:23 New International Version (NIV).

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field of disaster management, one can say : the cross of Jesus Christ is the disastrous end faced by a disaster rescue team on a failed mission. Within the narrative world of the canonical stories and imagination, the pervasiveness of violence in all flesh is a disaster which endangers God’s creation.8 In this framework, God sends God’s son incarnate into the world to deal with this first disaster, only to lead to another disaster : the triumph of deadly violence over the person who lived a life of love, compassion and nonviolence. Against this background, the question: “Is the living God vulnerable?” is not new. This is a very old question, as old as Christianity itself, it is only now articulated with new terminology and placed inside a new conceptual scheme.9 To be violently put to death manifests the highest risk implied in a vulnerable existence. How can this death be reconciled with the immanency of the kingdom of God? How can this death be reconciled with the power of the Almighty God, the Lord of history, the Savior of the weak and oppressed, the Creator of heaven and earth? By emphasizing and taking seriously the claim that there is a deeper connection between God the Father and this Jesus of Nazareth, the early Christians took up a problem which would be labeled a ‘wicked problem’ today.10 All four Gospels as well as the theology of Paul attempt to offer elaborated explanations of this problem, either via more narrative or more conceptually developed solutions.

The in/vulnerable God and the search for understanding the cross Mainstream Christian tradition opted to solve this problem by emphasizing the almightiness, the sovereignty, the freedom, the power, and eventually the invulnerability of God himself. Christ’s suffering as a victim was interpreted as a heroic self-sacrifice. The Christological debates of the first three centuries reflect an intense quest for understanding this Christ event and its internal tensions. The discovery of a Trinitarian understanding of God is also closely connected with this wicked problem. By the preliminary end of these debates a model emerged in which the Divine Godhead did not really suffer at the cross and remained, and remains, in no way limited in terms of his sovereignty. According to this model, the suffering and death of the Son of God does not say anything about the true and inner divine life, the essence of God. Two powerful factors supported this development: First, when Jewish theology was encountering the world of Greek philosophy and culture – long 8 The conversation with Ren8 Girard’s theory of mimetic violence and its reception in theology and religious studies is intentionally left out in this essay. 9 One of the fields conceptually close to vulnerability is im/mutability. For the most part, both discourses are still quite separated. For noteworthy exceptions see (with an ethical orientation) Sirvent, Embracing vulnerability ; Pool, God’s wounds: Vol. I. 10 For the first and classical formulations of wicked problems see H.W.J. Rittel/M.M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning”, Policy Sciences, no. 4 (1973), 155–69.

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before Christianity emerged – it had to make a choice. In Greek culture there were two distinct bodies of discourse about a notion of the divine. On one side Olympic heroes and deities, described and unfolded in mythic and literary imaginations. On the other, ongoing discourses in natural philosophy and the philosophy of nature on first and unifying first principles beyond the messiness of human and mythic-divine affairs, beyond conflict and the turmoil of emotions.11 Philo of Alexandria, the great Jewish philosopher and theologian, favored the latter body of discourse and became the first influential philosopher of religion for the early development of Christian theology.12 Both Philo of Alexandria and the early church fathers rooted their work in this philosophical tradition which examined a more or less personalized first principle and unifying entity.13 The second important factor relates to this finding from a recent extensive study by two biblical scholars: in both Testaments, the very idea of almightiness and its implicit correlate of invulnerability is tied to a deep perception of the believer’s own powerlessness and need to be rescued by a saving intervention.14 Any strong notion of God’s power is always developed in contexts where people struggle to live up to God’s promises with respect to justice and the flourishing of life. In short, the canonical conversation does cast some doubt on any hasty attempt to question God’s power and attribute to him vulnerability. The vulnerable and weak God might just be a possibility for the middle-class imagination, an idea of the economically affluent, the culturally powerful and independent cosmopolitan.

11 Rationality and unity, clarity of thought and reliability transcending the instability of immediate perceptions, immediate emotions and eventually the weakness of moral life had been of central concern. For most of Greek philosophy what can change is deficient compared to what cannot change. Correspondingly, the possible is often of lower dignity than the realized in real, because it can still change in a process of realization. Cp. E. Jüngel, “Die Welt als Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit”, in E. Jüngel (ed.), Unterwegs zur Sache: Theologische Bemerkungen (München: C. Kaiser, 1972), 206–33. 12 On Philo, see D. Winston/J.M. Dillon, Two treatises of Philo of Alexandria: A commentary on De gigantibus and Quod Deus sit immutabilis (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983). 13 We don’t know what course the history of Christian doctrine would have taken if both Jewish and Christian thinking would have embraced the Greek world of mythic imagination and theater performance. For a juxtaposition of this mythic theology and “philosophical theology” see W. Burkert, Greek religion: Archaic and classical (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987). Within current historical reconstructions there is quite some debate going on to what extent Christianity really did develop a conception of an unchangeable, impassible and utterly dispassionate godhead as a default model. Without any doubt, rabbinic theology did take another path and incorporated strong notions of divine compassion and co-suffering. See in this volume the essay by Dean Bell. 14 R. Feldmeier/H. Spieckermann, Der Gott der Lebendigen: Eine biblische Gotteslehre (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 139–202.

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The suffering God in 20th century theology : A solution with a problem The classical notion of God’s invulnerability was very much called into question in the Protestant theology of the 20th century and had its precursors already in the 19th century. For example, Isaak Dorner was one of the key figures who paved the way for colossal changes in the first and second half of the 20th century.15 Notions of a suffering God were important not only to process theology in the United States, or theologies of incarnation in Great Britain, but also to Continental theology.16 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Juergen Moltmann, Eberhard Jüngel, Paul Fiddes, W. H. Vanstone, Gloria Schaab, Arthor Peacocke – were just a few of the theologians working on the theology of the suffering and, in some way, weak God.17 The turn to Christology was key for this significant reorientation. This central insight is nicely captured in a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letter of July 16, 1944): God is teaching us that we must live as men who can get along very well without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who makes us live in this world without using him as a working hypothesis is the God before whom we are ever standing. Before God and with him we live without God. God allows himself to be edged out of the world and on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us. Matthew 8:17 makes this crystal clear that it is not by his omnipotence that Christ helps us, but by his weakness and suffering.

This is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man’s religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world; he uses God as Deus ex machina. The Bible however directs him to the powerlessness and suffering God; only a suffering God can help. To this extent we may say that the process we have described by which the world came of age was an abandonment of a false conception of God, and a clearing of the decks for the God of the Bible, who conquers power and space in the world by his weakness.18

15 I. A. Dorner, Divine immutability: A critical reconsideration, (Fortress texts in modern theology ; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994); also R. Williams, “I. A. Dorner : The Ethical Immutability of God”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54 (1986), 721–38. 16 The early British impulses are reflected in J.K. Mozley, The impassibility of God: A survey of Christian thought (Cambridge: The University Press, 1926). 17 Most recently, this debate has reached even evangelical theologians in the United States. On the one side there is the broad movement called “open theism,” on the other side open resistance to any change in this direction. For the latter see the contributions in D.S. Huffman/E.L. Johnson (ed.), God under fire: Modern scholarship reinvents God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002). 18 D. Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God: Letters and papers from prison (New York: Macmillan, 1954), 164.

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The quotation from Bonhoeffer shows three aspects of the current situation. Undeniably, he perceives the powerful challenge to any classical theistic understanding of God that is posed by the success of the sciences, a modern understanding of history and the growing weight of the theodicy question. Indeed, the deep crisis of theological theism can be seen in this quote. The weak God – if there is a God at all – is already the result of many forces and developments in modernity.19 This specific context, according to Bonhoeffer, forces the churches and Christian theology toward a multi-layered act of recognition, which at the same time is an act of rediscovery : First, a centering on the weak and powerless God who not only allows himself to fall victim to violence, but even allows human beings to push him out of Jerusalem onto Golgotha, eventually out of the human world altogether. Hence, the current “geistesgeschichtliche” situation enables us to read the Bible with new eyes and vice versa. Second, in order to avoid any kind of false optimism or even triumphalism, Bonhoeffer drives a wedge between cross and resurrection. Third, he acknowledges – over against many theologians who emphasize the autonomy and power of ‘modern man’ – the ongoing need for help. Hence, the short text points in two opposite directions: The almighty ruler is obviously no longer needed, but “help”, or even redemption, is still necessary. There are still powers and spaces which need to be conquered! Bonhoeffer’s pointed remarks on divine weakness and vulnerability raise far-reaching questions: in the midst of overwhelming powers of violence, how can this weak God be the one who can help in situations of powerlessness and desperation – beyond the existential and psychological help of a co-suffering companion? Why is the weak God not simply objectifying desperation? Where are the potentials of transformation located? Is what he envisions not also an attempt to avoid or even reject lament and any rebellion against the powerful but obviously inactive God? Is the weak God free from being responsible, from becoming morally ambiguous?20 To attribute vulnerability to God appears to be almost frivolous and na"ve – at least in the conceptual framework of a sound

19 For current interpretations see C. Link, Theodizee: Eine Theologische Herausforderung (Neukirchen: Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2016), 185 ff.; W. Krötke, “‘Teilnehmen am Leiden Gottes’. Zu Dietrich Bonhoeffers Verständnis eines ‘religionslosen Christentums’”, in W. Krötke (ed.), Barmen – Barth – Bonhoeffer : Beiträge zu einer zeitgemäßen christozentrischen Theologie (Bielefeld: Luther-Verlag, 2009), 357–80. 20 This is the implicit question raised by Hans Jonas, who argues that one of the following three attributes of good needs to be sacrificed: Intelligibility, goodness and almightiness. See H. Jonas, Der Gottesbegriff nach Auschwitz. Eine jüdische Stimme (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2004); H. Jonas, “The Concept of God after Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice”, The Journal of Religion 67, no. 1 (1987), 1–13. In the philosophical theology of Hans Jonas one can see, that the emphasis on divine weakness is a strategy of excusing God. This can be observed in the protest in Z. Braiterman (ed.), (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).

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theism and its intellectual heirs.21 Is the suffering companion really exhaustive of the full life of God? Is the power of God only the power of suffering love? Is it true that suffering love is the only and foremost way God exercises his or her power? Could it be that theology was falling into another trap – not that of a naked and bleak theism, but into what is called in German “eine Verohnmächtigung Gottes”. Thus the question posed at this junction in theological development is: Can the concept of vulnerability help us move beyond the impasse of either longing for a Deus ex machina or conceiving of not only a powerless but even helpless God? The position taken in this essay is: “Yes, it can!” To get there, we must explore the inner connection between vulnerability and creativity.

Conceptual orientations: Variations on vulnerability For quite a long time vulnerability did not have good press. A vulnerable subject is subjected to the possibility of wounding, hence vulnerability conveyed the weak and deeply problematic side of human existence. In this line of thought, it does not come as a surprise that it was a highly gendered concept: women are the vulnerable sex and female the vulnerable gender. An important first and already decisive move in the discourse of vulnerability is the moral recoding of the condition of weakness and at the same time the degendering of the condition of vulnerability. As the feminist philosopher Esther Kittay put it: “Everyone is some mother’s child”.22 Over against this primarily static view of vulnerability, environmental studies proposed a more dynamic concept, though one still based on a predominantly negative understanding of vulnerability. In this context, vulnerability is a problem which demands ongoing effort to build up resilience against it. To address or prevent dangers the structures of resilience might create more risks, but the overall valuation remains in place: both a given pattern of structure of vulnerability vis-#-vis a given structure of resilience determines a certain risk.23 The core of vulnerability is unavoidable exposure to unwanted, unintended and unexpected negative change. The threat of disaster and the fear of disaster accompany the knowledge of one’s own 21 Cp. R. Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). For a fervent critique from the side of evangelical theologians see the contributions in Huffman/ Johnson, God under fire. 22 E.F. Kittay, Love’s labor : Essays on women, equality, and dependency (New York: Routledge, 1999), 23. 23 The vulnerability to dangerous weather conditions might be the same, but more expensive stone houses raise the resilience level so that the risks of destruction are reduced. Cp. i. e. P. Gardoni/C. Murphy/A. Rowell (ed.), Risk analysis of natural hazards: interdisciplinary challenges and integrated solutions (Heidelberg: Springer, 2016).

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vulnerability. A city on a tectonic fault-line in an earthquake zone is extremely vulnerable and tries to deal with it by building houses which can absorb the possible shocks.24 At first sight, it appears obvious that such a negative (stable or dynamic) concept of vulnerability is of very limited use in theological reflection on the life of God. At best it could have a constructive and orienting function in anthropology in order to capture aspects of the finite, fragile and ultimately mortal human life.25 This in a double sense mono-centric view of vulnerability (both in terms of a focus on negativity and concentrating on one entity) was called into question by feminist philosophy. Erinn Gilson expanded the concept of vulnerability to be a basis of social life in its complex relationality. At the same time, she convincingly distinguished vulnerability as a basic condition of life as well as situational and contextual condition. For Gilson, “ontological vulnerability is an unavoidable receptivity, openness, and the ability to affect and to be affected. Situational vulnerabilities other specific forms that vulnerability takes in the social world, of which we have a differential experience because we are differently situated.”26 “… Identifying vulnerability as an ontological condition enables us to see it as an open-ended condition that makes possible love, affection, learning, and self-transformation just as much as it makes possible suffering and harm.”27 Gilson’s view implicitly suggests a strong notion of necessary risk in relationality. “Vulnerability is defined by openness and affectivity, and such openness entails the inability to predict, control, and fully know that to which we are open and how it will affect us. That kernel of the unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unknown can prompt in us alteration that is likewise unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unknown.”28 And yet, without such risk, there is no openness of processes and no growth of a relationship in dynamic interactions. “The ability or capacity of vulnerability is […] that openness that allows us to move forward, to change, to experience something new, to pass from what we take ourselves to be to what we are becoming, and so perhaps learn.”29 Such an understanding is not only more complex, but also more realistic. 24 For two most recent examples for this negative view representing different philosophical traditions of vulnerability J. Tham/A. Garcia/G. Miranda (ed.), Religious perspectives on human vulnerability in bioethics (Dordrecht/Heidelberg/New York/London: Springer, 2014); and M. Coeckelbergh, Human being @ risk: Enhancement, technology, and the evaluation of vulnerability transformations (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013). 25 It should be noted however, that such a negative reductionist concept of vulnerability needs to be further transformed and developed even in theological anthropology. This is one of the arguments in Springhart, Mensch. 26 E.C. Gilson, The ethics of vulnerability : A feminist analysis of social life and practice (New York: Routledge, 2014), 37. 27 Ibid., 38. 28 Ibid., 127. 29 Ibid., 179.

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Moreover, it rightly shifts attention from the vulnerable subject as a single either abstract or individual entity to the facets of social life which emerge out of the interaction between vulnerable actors.30 As a result vulnerability impacts understandings of moral obligations by highlighting the necessity of compassion and building up of trust.31 Though this closer look at the conditions of vulnerability, not only the dangers, but also the potentials of vulnerability come into sight. Vulnerability is one of the basic conditions of relationality and of the emergence of communication as well as social constructions. Sensitivity to other human beings, perceptibility with respect to one’s own states and the multiple environments and contexts one inhabits, and attention to the needs of actions of others, all rely on this basic condition.32 All impulses to transcend one’s own bodily and intellectual life depend on this state of vulnerability. And yet, even this more nuanced and social conception of vulnerability does not exclude the possibility of a risk that becomes a fatal risk: destruction and death. Processes of victimization as well as processes of defense, even violent defense, are based on vulnerability.33 This leaves us with the following 30 At this junction, Martha Fineman is unfolding the relationship between vulnerability and law. See M.A. Fineman, “The Vulnerable Subject: Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition”, Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 20, no. 1 (2008), 1–23; M. Fineman/A. Grear (ed.), Vulnerability : Reflections on a new ethical foundation for law and politics (Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate, 2013). 31 The discourse on trust is so far not substantially related to the discourse on vulnerability – even though both are intimately related. The necessity of trust is an implication of vulnerable life which needs to work with a temporal dimension. This becomes most apparent in dealing with vulnerable patients in medicine. See i. e. J.C. Jackson, Truth, trust and medicine (London/New York: Routledge, 2001); E.D. Pellegrino/R.M. Veatch/J. Langan, Ethics, trust, and the professions: Philosophical and cultural aspects (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1991). For a systemic view cp. N. Luhmann, Vertrauen: Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion sozialer Komplexität (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1968). 32 The discourse on vulnerability challenges the system-theory discourse to specify the relation between the openness and the necessary operative closing of a given social or psychic system. It needs to be pointed out that even operationally closed autopoietic systems need to be sensitive to their environment in order to maintain their border-preserving mechanism. At the same time, vis-#-vis much vague talk about relationality one needs to emphasize: vulnerable and thereby somehow relational and ‘open’ systems still need strong self-referential operations for selfpreservation. See N. Luhmann, Social systems (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), chap. 5. Subjectivity and Identity are the classical terms preserved for this specific function. 33 For this reason vulnerability can be ‘played out’ or exemplified within the imaginative domain of two opposite root metaphors: ‘life is love’ or ‘life is a battle’. In most current feminist literature on vulnerability the key root metaphor for unfolding the concept is the first root metaphor, love. But the imaginative domain of ‘life is a battle’ is also very influential. Nordic mythology – in all its current manifestations in popular culture – is a powerful manifestation of it. The narrative of Siegfried makes the case for the unavoidability of invulnerability : The bare and unlikely accident of a falling leaf undercuts the attempts to become invulnerable. What life is, is a constant battle in which all creativity is invested in shielding off aggression in the midst of an endless succession of events of situational vulnerability. When the root metaphor of ‘life is a battle’ reigns either the superiority of power or the superiority of detachment (the stoic solution) are

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question: What is the relationship between the fatal risk of vulnerability and crucial moment of creative potential in vulnerability? What element limits the other? Is the fatal risk limiting the creativity or is the creativity limiting the risk? The general methodological thesis of this essay is that the ‘event’ of Jesus Christ, spanning from the incarnation to the resurrection and ascension, suggests a complex differentiation of the relationship between divine risktaking and divine creativity. In the case of the Triune God, it is his passionate creativity which makes the difference to human vulnerability.

The cross of Jesus Christ: Divine vulnerability, risk and passion The cross in light of the incarnation as an act of passion Vulnerability as a basic condition of divine and human life does not necessarily imply the willingness to actively increase one’s risk because of a passionate engagement in favor of the other. Vulnerability in itself does not imply that the vulnerable person sets initiatives, cares and is going to be passionate about something or even someone. Even if a vulnerable life is interacting with other vulnerable and needy life, this responsiveness does not need to be passionate. The stoic conception of life – both with respect to divine life and human life – aims at a maximum of control in terms of passions and engagements. The divine vulnerability, however, shown in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is intimately connected with an engaging, caring and essentially passionate posture. As John 3:16 clearly states, vulnerability implies a responsiveness that is more than a stimulus-response pattern. The Creator’s care and long ‘history’ of interaction with Israel and humanity is a history of a dramatic engagement.34 Only divine passion created this situational vulnerability which is the mark of the incarnation. The birth stories in the Gospel of Luke are all stories of endangerment (King Herod), rejection (stable), imposed the goals. For a comparison of Nordic mythology and the Judeo-Christian Tradition see K.H. Miskotte, Edda und Thora: Ein Vergleich germanischer und israelischer Religion (1939) (Berlin/ Mu¨nster : Lit, 2015); a lucid exploration of the trope vulnerability in ancient Greek culture cp. M. McCoy, Wounded heroes: Vulnerability as a virtue in ancient Greek literature and philosophy (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); and also Marina McCoy’s contribution in this volume. For a reconstruction of the modern tradition linking violence, pain and vulnerability see B. Liebsch, Verletztes Leben: Studien zur Affirmation von Schmerz und Gewalt im gegenwärtigen Denken: Zwischen Hegel, Nietzsche, Bataille, Blanchot, Levinas, Ricoeur und Butler (Zug: Die Graue Edition, 2014). 34 See i. e. P.D. Hanson, The people called: The growth of community in the Bible (San Fancisco: Harper & Row, 1986); also T.E. Fretheim, God and world in the Old Testament: A relational theology of creation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005).

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change (Flight to Egypt). The incarnation, the sending of the beloved son, was not divine necessity but an act of risk-filled self-exposure to passionate care. God put himself into this situation (John 1) -with all consequences. God did not find himself eternally in the situational vulnerability of Jesus of Nazareth – but placed himself in this peculiar situation (Phil. 2; John 1). In the theology of the New Testament it is a specific passion which is the moving power behind the incarnation, that is divine love – not wrath, not envy, aggression or curiosity.35 The cross as dark possibility of a vulnerable life Why can the cross be such a misfortune, even disaster?36 The cross of Jesus Christ stands in a double relationship: a) to the divine life and b) to God’s history of interaction with his creation and with Israel. In this history and (!) story of reciprocal interaction, that is, the unity of action and experience on both sides, the incarnation is not only a culmination point, but an attempt to overcome violence by love and compassion. The sending of the Son has the meaning and goal of overcoming ‘the world’ as an abbreviation of a creation leaning towards violence. It is a divine initiative to save the unbearable risks of creation from self-destruction, and overcome the many forms of violence through the practice of love.37 It should be kept in mind that this also concerns the bodily existence suffering from illness. This divine initiative realized in the life of Jesus does meet violent resistance from the very beginning. In this respect, the gospels are in all their variations eventually passion narratives, that is to say narratives about the willingness of divine life to take the risks of creaturely life.38 The cross of Jesus Christ brings two complexes of urgent questions to the forefront of attention: 1. Is God in Jesus Christ defeated in his attempt to battle violence and injustice with vulnerable love? Is there any hope that God can 35 The incarnation is a key element in the (temporal) responsive relationship between God and the created world of heaven and earth. See G. Thomas, “Das Kreuz Jesu Christi als Risiko der Inkarnation”, in G. Thomas/A. Schuele (ed.), Gegenwart des lebendigen Christus (Leipzig: EVA, 2007), 151–79. 36 For linking theology and disaster studies see N.H. Gregersen, “Theology and disaster studies: from ‘acts of God’ to divine presence”, in R. Dahlberg/O. Rubin/M.T. Vendelø (ed.), Disaster research: Multidisciplinary and international perspectives (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2016), 34–48. 37 Without any doubt this divine mission has a rich internal complexity as it has been described i. e. by Jürgen Moltmann as three “Pozesse” or more recently by Michael Welker in the model of the three offices of Jesus Christi. Unfortunately, this multidimensional aspect of the incarnation cannot be unfolded at this point. 38 In the words of Eberhard Jüngel, the being of God is “ein der Vergänglichkeit sich aussetzendes, weil auf das Nichts sich einlassendes Sein.” See E. Jüngel, Gott als Geheimnis der Welt: Zur Begründung der Theologie des Gekreuzigten im Streit zwischen Theismus und Atheismus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977), 301.

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lead history to a good end and be victorious vis-#-vis the cruelties, the barbarism and injustice of this world and eventually redeem the histories of violence and pain? Given the potentially fatal vulnerability of divine life in the life of Jesus, is there any ground for hoping that God might wipe away the tears (Rev. 22)? Is Jesus’ cry of God-forsakenness simply spelling out the eternal risk of divine life?39 To phrase it differently : If God is vulnerable – is the death of Jesus pointing to the ultimate possibility in divine life to be overwhelmed by the world? And: 2. What is the divine ‘response’ to this violent death – both with respect to God’s own life and also with respect to the aggression and violence of the world? Both dimensions need to be held together. If divine vulnerability implied the risk of the death of Jesus without transformative response, God would give up the goal of the incarnation. It is at this junction, where the concept of vulnerability helps to raise the right questions and reject false alternatives.40 To simply attribute change in God would open up the possibility of God not only suffering and experiencing death, but of changing his saving and transformative intentions manifest in the incarnation and the life of Jesus (both his preaching and his actions). In the midst of the suffering love – philosophically speaking ‘being subject to change and being affected’ – God is challenged to remain faithful – philosophically speaking ‘being unchangeable’ – in the face of the seemingly ultimate triumph of violence against compassionate existence. God’s willingness to subdue him under the special conditions of a sinful and violent world needs to meet his unwillingness to give up the intentions at work in the incarnation in the first place. If under the conditions of creaturely life Jesus Christ can be overwhelmed – does this imply that divine care fails in the end? Is the cross the 39 This is the particular veri of evangelical critiques of a vulnerable God. See J.S. Spiegel, “Does God takes Risks?”, in D.S. Huffman/E.L. Johnson (ed.), God under fire: Modern scholarship reinvents God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 187–210. 40 At this junction theologies of atonement transform the event of victimization into a sacrifice – an interpretive move already prominent in the New Testament. The very broad and intense debate about atonement and sacrifice cannot presented here. See J. Frey/J. Schröter (ed.), Deutungen des Todes Jesu im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); B. Janowski, “Das Leben für andere hingeben: Alttestamentliche Voraussetzungen für die Deutung des Todes Jesu”, in V. Hampel/R. Weth (ed.), Für uns gestorben: Sühne – Opfer – Stellvertretung (NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener, 2010), 55–72; for the relation between processes of victimization and sacrifice see S. Brandt, “Hat es sachlich und theologisch Sinn, von ‘Opfer’ zu reden?”, in B. Janowski/M. Welker (ed.), Opfer: Theologische und kulturelle Kontexte (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2000), 247–81. The theology of the Gospel of John offers another solution to the conflict so drastically spelled out in Mark. By interpreting the victim as a sacrifice for the friends it shifts the focus of attention from the God-forsakenness to the giving of life. For the Gospel of John’s J. Frey, “Zur johanneischen Deutung des Todes Jesu”, Theologische Beiträge 32 (2001), 346–62; “Die ‘theologia crucifixi’ des Johannesevangeliums”, in. A. Dettwiler/J. Zumstein (ed.), Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); and G.v. Belle (ed.), The death of Jesus in the fourth Gospel (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 200; Leuven/Dudley : Leuven University Press/Peeters, 2007).

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unambiguous sign for the victory of destructive freedom in creation? Is love, compassion and the search for justice something for the loser in history – somehow attractive but ultimately in vain? Is there a creative responsiveness in divine life which can turn the tide? If violent death is the ultimate risk taken by God to exemplify a life not characterized and formed by violence and sin, but of compassion, is God accepting the final risk? Alan Lewis made a claim which precisely captures what is at stake at this point and also shows an ill-founded optimism: “Surely this: that trust, defenselessness, and vulnerability are in themselves despite all appearances, finally more productive and protective than all stratagems of aggression or defense, attack or retaliation, self-assertion or protection.”41 In light of the cross alone, this claim cannot be sustained. Looking at the creativity and transformative power of vulnerable love, the empirically oriented process theologian Daniel Day Williams saw more precisely that there is no final assurance that can lead out of the deep ambivalence of an open-ended process, in which God goes on “creating new worlds forever, with new risks, new possibilities, new attainments.”42

The resurrection of Jesus Christ: Creative response and limitation of the risks of vulnerability The violent death on the cross of the son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, presents a challenge to the divine life. The resurrection is a forward and backward looking reaction to this event. It is a creative response which is a) a patient confirmation, b) a vivid rejection and c) an ingenious transformation. This response brings to light essential and possibly unique aspects of the vulnerability of divine life. The resurrection as confirmation: vulnerable life and divine intentions The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a threefold act of confirmation. First, it confirms and newly asserts that the incarnation and the life of compassion leading to the cross was not a divine ‘mistake’. The divine compassion and intentions manifest in the incarnation are confirmed. For this reason, it is a somehow bodily event responding to the bodily events of incarnation and the cross. God’s passionate faithfulness and ongoing care for the world is reaffirmed in this event. That God cannot finally be irritated is performed in 41 A.E. Lewis, Between cross and Resurrection: A theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001), 312. 42 D.D. Williams, The demonic and the divine (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 83.

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this life-giving act. Consequently, this powerful act of faithfulness can be taken as a sign for hope, that human violence, ignorance and destructiveness cannot frustrate divine intentions. Seen in this perspective, the resurrection is the ultimate event of divine world-loyalty. The God who came to the world cannot be pushed out of the world through the violent death at the cross. Second, the empty tomb signifies the importance of the bodily existence of Jesus. What survives the cross is not just an idea or a powerful ideal. The divine response confirmed the way into to the vulnerable life, into the flesh and the full bodily existence – which is the core of the incarnation in all Gospels, even though with some significant variations. Disembodiment is not the solution to the problem of a vulnerable life in the flesh. Instead, the very special condition of vulnerability is confirmed. This confirmation happens in a ‘twisted’ way of both emphasizing the empty tomb and the new bodily life in specific form of continuity with the cross: The resurrected Jesus wears the scars of the crucifixion.43 The vulnerability of embodied existence is affirmed, not undone or denied. Third, the resurrection confirmed not an idea, but the practice of compassion and love – which always raises the risk and vulnerability up to its limits. The resurrection as rejection: the limitation of human vulnerability and the fight against the triumph of violence The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a threefold act of powerful rejection – not only on the level of interpretation, but as an event claimed in interpretation. It is a ‘telling event’ (sprechendes Ereignis), not just the manifestation of a message. First, this event denies the possibility that God can be eventually defeated and overwhelmed in his vulnerability. The rejection is directed against the triumph of violence in processes of victimization. It signals a clear limit to the divine/human vulnerability in Jesus of Nazareth. However, it is not a denial of vulnerability and not an outright rejection of the event of the cross itself. It is not an act of undoing but an act of a creative and denying transformation, a fervent response to this violent death on Good Friday. This rejection is an act of the life-giving Spirit of God – an act in itself which must not be conflated with the ongoing work of the Spirit both in creation and in the life of the Church. Any theology of the cross which focusses exclusively on the cross – after the event of the resurrection – presents a false abstraction.44 43 For the theology of the empty tomb see G. Thomas, “‘Er ist nicht hier’. Die Rede vom leeren Grab als Zeichen der neuen Schöpfung”, in H.-J. Eckstein/M. Welker (ed.), Die Wirklichkeit der Auferstehung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002), 183–220; for the theological significance of the scars marking the body of the resurrected Jesus see G.W. Most, Doubting Thomas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005). 44 When Jürgen Moltmann emphasizes with respect to the cross, “God is not more glorious than he

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Second, the resurrection is a clear rejection of processes of victimization which lead to this death. To be victimized is a manifest risk of the vulnerable condition playing out in the cultural, financial, political, legal and religious realms. Not only the healing stories in the Gospels, but also the resurrection demonstrates that for both creaturely life and for incarnate divine life there are unbearable risks in creation which lead to unintended and unacceptable consequences – which are in conflict with divine intentions. In the resurrection, as well as in healing stories and the search for justice, God is fighting against something. The condition of vulnerability in creaturely life has a dark side, too. The power of the Spirit vividly rejects any shortcut between the processes of victimization and sacrifice. In the grey area between victimization and sacrifice suffering love is often exploited. For this reason, the resurrection is a powerful rejection of any false idealization of suffering love. Consequently, the systemic powers of denial cannot have the last word over this life of embodied compassion. Without this vivid rejection the divine life would be clouded in both a moral ambiguity and an ambiguity of power. Not to resist the power of violent victimization leading to violent death would make God an accomplice of this violent affirmation of life over life. Third, the resurrection as a distinct event in space-time denies the possibility of an eternal battle between life and death, between good and evil, love and hate in God and eventually in the world. It is a denial of an eternal unity of life and death which might justify the triumph of violence. The living God does not embrace, but rebukes, the unity of life and death present in Jesus’ life and death.45 The power of the Spirit rejects the idea that to give one’s life for a cause is the best way to promote this vision of life – as a kind of ultimate display of conviction and strength in self-sacrifice.46 The resurrection is a rejection in the form of a creative and utmost unilateral intervention. The worldly powers which reject this Son of God and disguise this life of compassion will not succeed. The last word, so to speak, with respect to the life of Jesus, is neither his own self-interpretation nor the is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is in this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humanity.”, he then abstracts from the power of the Spirit, who transcends the fragile creativity which is always part of human vulnerability – and the power of suffering love. Cp. J. Moltmann, The crucified God: The cross of Christ as the foundation and criticism of Christian theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 205. 45 At this junction we clearly take issue with the theology of Eberhard Jüngel – who reserves the formula “unity of life and death in favor of life” as a description of God – because in Jesus Christ God identified him with death and incorporated it into the divine life. See Jüngel, Gott als Geheimnis der Welt: Zur Begründung der Theologie des Gekreuzigten im Streit zwischen Theismus und Atheismus, XIII, 434 f., 471 u. 525; for a critique see also G. Thomas, Neue Schöpfung: Systematisch-theologische Untersuchungen zur Hoffnung auf das ‘Leben in der zukünftigen Welt’ (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2009), 285–314. 46 This is within the canonical conversation the issue in the debate between the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John with respect to the resurrection. It goes without saying, the current essay takes sides with Mark.

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performative act of the crucifixion put into place by those who reject him. It should be kept in mind that it is not a rejection of the cross, but of the apparent ‘success’ of deadly violence and exclusion which needs a creative response. Any kind of life in the spirit in the church follows from and is dependent on this act of God’s creative power in the spirit. The resurrection neither grew out the possibilities of this world nor developed out of the power of suffering love. Jesus did not raise by the power of the Spirit of God into the life of the Church – a life, in which the human life and the life of the Spirit are always intertwined.47 Any doubt and ambiguity with respect to the final forces in creation and history(ies) can find hope and determinacy of the human spirit in this initial and utterly unilateral act of the Holy Spirit. This is why the Apostle Paul underlines that “if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain…. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1Cor 15, 14+19).48 The idea that Jesus was resurrected into the memory of his cause and continuation of the ideals of his life as they were carried on by his followers is a dangerous underestimation of the forces of violence and systemic distortion operating in this world. This act ‘in the power of the spirit’ (Romans) grows out of God’s passion and impatience – not his stoic tranquility and detachment. Not only were the disciples’ attitudes changed, but the very basis of their grief and disappointment – even if we have access to this only in the medium of human witnesses and human faith. The resurrection as transformation: The power to maintain divine intentions over against resistance The resurrection of the Son of God in the power of the Spirit is a creative transformation with several dimensions. In order not to change intentions under changed conditions of creaturely realities, God has to change strategies. Hence, the resurrection is a manifestation both of faithfulness and changelessness as well as innovation and change in the divine life.49 47 Both the narratives of the ‘bodily’ resurrection and the ascension emphasize this insight. For one of the rare studies on the ascension see D. Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999). 48 Framed in a larger theological discussion, the resurrection is the ultimate stumbling block of any kind of panentheism – because this event does not grow out of the possibilities present in the life of the world – its physical, biological, cultural and social potentials. For that reason, the resurrection as ‘event’ plays no role in most forms of panentheism and empirical theology. See i. e. G.L. Schaab, The creative suffering of the Triune God: An evolutionary theology (New York: American Academy of Religion, 2007); and among many i. e. M.C. Shaw, Nature’s grace: Essays on H.N. Wieman’s finite theism (New York: Peter Lang, 1995). The empty tomb is the ‘marker’ of a qualitative and substantive change. See Thomas, “‘Er ist nicht hier”’, 183–220. 49 To put it pointedly : In some way, one could formulate that God is learning. God is neither

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First, it offers a dramatic change in the divine dealing with violence and destruction in creation with respect to three alternatives: a) The resurrection does not imply a destruction of the evil acting forces. Lethal violence is not surmounted by destruction, punishment and exclusion of the perpetrator. The perpetrator is not violently rejected, but the victim is given new life. This model of dealing with violence in all flesh is the opposite of the model present in the flood-narratives of Genesis: In these theological discourses divine power is used to destroy the violent human and non-human agents. And yet, the resurrection model moves even beyond two other strategies: 1) the limitation of violence through divine commands and 2) the buildup of resilience against violent inclinations by carrying the law in the heart – a model ranging from the Deuteronomist tradition to Immanuel Kant. The new model is already reflected in the life-giving life of Jesus.50 The divine response to destructive violence against vulnerable life is the giving of new life. Any destructive violence has to reckon with the possibility of divine creativity. In the resurrection, the Spirit of God responds to Jesus in the same way as Jesus responded to other destructions of life he encountered in his life and mission. Second, the resurrection deeply transforms the way establishing justice deals with the victim. No other forms of rejecting violence can bring back life to those who became victims of real violence. No future life of an idea, no future life of a way of shaping the world can bring back the lost life.51 No future can redeem the past. Not even the regret and remorse of the perpetrator can bring back the life he or she destroyed or robbed. The possibility of loss that cannot be compensated is intrinsic to the condition of human vulnerability and the irreversibility of time. No future justice can redeem or even justify past injustice. This is why there is no redemption of history without a new divine life-giving initiative.52 The power of this transformation reaches beyond the power of co-suffering and companionship. With respect to the canonical conversation, for this reason the Gospels sharply distinguish the resurrection

maintaining or even raising his normative expectations (like asking for more obedience, moral engagement of spiritual commitment) nor simply adjusting his cognitive expectations to the course of the violent world and its conditions (accepting the way the world seems to be and agree to the violence among all flesh) – but creating anew based on the given experiences. 50 For the live-giving existence see B. Janowski, “‘Hingabe’ oder ‘Opfer’? Die gegenwärtige Kontroverse um die Deutung des Todes Jesu”, in R. Weth (ed.), Das Kreuz Jesu: Gewalt, Opfer, Sühne (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 13–43; “Das Leben für andere hingeben: Alttestamentliche Voraussetzungen für die Deutung des Todes Jesu”, 55–72. 51 This neglect of the connection between justice and redemption is most striking in any form of process thought and empirical theology. 52 On the creative side on the last judgement G. Thomas, “Gottes schöpferische Gerechtigkeit”, in R. Heß/M. Leiner (ed.), Alles in allem: Eschatologische Anstöße: J. Christine Janowski zum 60. Geburtstag (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2005), 109–32; siehe auch E. Jüngel, “‘Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht’ aus theologischer Perspektive”, in E. Jüngel (ed.), Ganz werden: Theologische Erörterungen V (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 323–44.

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of Jesus of Nazareth in the power of the Spirit as a radically transformed new creature and the sending of the Church in the power of the Spirit. Third, the “unity of life and death in favor of life”, which is the mark of good creaturely life – one could say, Noahitic life after the flood – is deeply altered. Death is no longer overcome by the continuation of life in other beings. Death is not overcome by living on in other people’s lives or in other natural, cultural or social processes – a process A.N. Whitehead called “objective immortality”.53 The very nature of a blessed life is a life that gives life and is hence continued in other lives – both biologically (i. e. genes), culturally (memory) and socially (offspring, philanthropy etc.). Alfred North Whitehead’s notion of objective immortality as well as the notion of blessing – becoming part of future realized events – is transformed. The unbearable consequences of vulnerability are taken up and addressed in the distinct individual life which suffered in pain and ended in death. That this individual person Jesus of Nazareth was creatively addressed in the resurrection is the message of the empty tomb.54 The response to the cry of forsakenness is not consolation and continuation in others’ lives, but the giving of new life.55 But this new life is more than the growth of life through the creation of more nourishing environments or the giving of mortal life, as in the Lazarus narrative (John 11). As a consequence, death is no longer the necessary price of life. Whitehead’s insight that life is robbery and in need of justification does not hold true anymore.56 Fourth, the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a sign and anticipation of the new creation is an indication of divine learning.57 The world which united the powers of the law, politics, public opinion and religion in order to put the Son of God to death cannot be transformed only by compassion and suffering love. Over against many theologies of divine compassion and suffering love we need to realize that the resurrection shows the clear limits of compassionate divine co-suffering with human suffering. The Father who co-suffered with the Son, who lived a life under the 53 A.N. Whitehead, Process and reality : An essay in cosmology (New York: Free Press, 1978), XIV. 54 See Thomas, “‘Er ist nicht hier”’, 183–220. 55 ‘Blessing’ is the enhancement of life under the conditions of the first creation by continuation and flourishing of one’s life in the life of others. It corresponds with Whitehead’s ‘objective immortality’. Within the framework of a philosophical and religious naturalism this is the type of resurrection that can be achieved. This is vividly defended i. e. by M. Johnston, Surviving death (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). For a succinct analysis and reconstruction or the trope of forsakenness in 20th century Christology, see A. Clarke, A cry in the darkness: The forsakenness of Jesus in Scripture, theology, and experience (Oxford/Macon: Regent’s Park College/Smyth & Helwys, 2002). 56 “But whether or no it be for the general good, life is robbery. It is at this point that with life morals become acute. The robber requires justification.” Whitehead, Process and reality, 105. 57 For a portrait of a dynamic growth of implications of the liveliness of God see R. Feldmeier/H. Spieckermann, Der Gott der Lebendigen: Eine biblische Gotteslehre (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 515–546.

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conditions of creaturely life permeated by violence responded to this death not only with the promise of, but with the beginning of a deep transformation of life. The resurrected Jesus Christ is the beginning of the new creation of heaven and earth.58 Not a clearer, more powerful and effective communication of divine intentions (in the form of what is theologically called ‘law’) will save from the self-inflicted endangerment of the world, but a radical transformation both of powers (heaven) and ordinary lived life (earth). The resurrection is the recognition of the intrinsic limits and of possible helplessness of suffering love. In this sense, the resurrection through the father in the power of the spirit is a progressive and disruptive event, which does not ‘naturally’ grow out of Jesus’ life of compassion manifest in healing and support of the weak and powerless. This change in God is a change necessary to maintain the divine faithfulness, care and compassion for the highly endangered world fraught deeply with risk. It is necessary to keep up the intentions manifest in the incarnation of the divine Logos and spelled out in the Magnificat in spite of the God-denying powers.

Divine vulnerability – Necessary differentiations The concept of vulnerability is not only able to reframe, reorder and reemphasize notions of divine power/powerless, mutability/immutability and changelessness/change. It can also create a field of discovery where new aspects of the reality of the triune God are seen anew. Contextual challenges of theological reasoning as well as the canonical conversation ask theological discourse to make use of other models and conceptual schemes.59 The initial rapprochement to the concept of vulnerability found the distinction between ontological vulnerability and situational vulnerability helpful. Within this theoretical distinction God’s own vulnerability is distinguished from the specific vulnerability in the person of Jesus of Nazareth – the life under the full range of conditions characteristic of creaturely life. And yet, in light of a more comprehensive look at the connection of cross and resurrection I would like to differentiate the following three problematic types of divine vulnerability and propose a fourth one in the next section: 58 Thomas, Schöpfung, 414 ff. 59 For the role of models in all scientific reasoning see the recent and very comprehensive collection by B. Thalheim/I. Nissen (ed.), Wissenschaft und Kunst der Modellierung: Kieler Zugang zur Definition, Nutzung und Zukunft (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), without taking into account theology ; see also R. Wendler, Das Modell zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft (München/Paderborn: Fink, 2013).

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Apparent divine vulnerability The divine being can be imagined as totally unaffected, self-determined, selfsufficient and sovereign. Any notion of vulnerability would just be an issue of semantic illusions – or : a kind of adjustment or ‘appropriation’ to the more single minded religious minds. Only in second-rate human perception and imagination would the divine being appear to be vulnerable. The wise and rational privileged observer – most of the times the philosopher or the theologian – would be able to see this as illusion and self-deception. This is the type of vulnerability in many forms of traditional God-talk influenced by classical theism, ranging from Thomas Aquinas and Friedrich Schleiermacher to most current defenders of divine immutability.60

Self-constrained divine vulnerability In this second conceptual constellation or model there is only a very weak notion of vulnerability present, one which, at first sight and in a paradoxical sense, is limited by and a manifestation of total divine self-determination and power. Whatever the divine being encounters, the change which might come along with it is only intrinsic change. God is suffering and loving, but any change brought about on the basis of this type of vulnerability is essentially internal, that is to say self-induced change.61 The theology of Karl Barth is the prominent representative of this model.62 God can be sensitive to the world and be really affected, but whatever happens in the responsive exchange is only a repetition of what God is already in his Trinitarian self-relations. Vulnerability as a basic ‘ontological condition’ as well as any manifestation 60 For a detailed discussion of Thomas Aquinas see M.J. Dodds, The unchanging God of love: A study of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas on divine immutability in view of certain contemporary criticism of this doctrine (Fribourg, Suisse: Pditions universitaires, 1986). In Friedrich Schleiermacher’s theology the very concept of God is based on the idea of not being able to be affected by anything of the world. See F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt (1821/22) (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2008), §32. For a current defense of divine invulnerability cp. D. Castelo, The apathetic God: Exploring the contemporary relevance of divine impassibility (Milton Keynes/ Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2009). Interestingly enough, this thought also reappears among process theologians, where the very being of God as love is eventually invulnerable. See D.D. Williams, “Vulnerable and the invulnerable God”, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 17, no. 3 (1962), 223–29, 228. 61 For the philosophical distinction between internal and external change see B. Leftow, “Eternity and immutability”, in W. Mann (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion (Malden: Blackwell Pub., 2004), 48–77. 62 This is lucidly analyzed in E. Jüngel, Gottes Sein ist im Werden: Verantwortliche Rede vom Sein Gottes bei Karl Barth: Eine Paraphrase (Tübingen: Mohr, 1967).

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and consequence of situational vulnerability in the life of Jesus of Nazareth is always and fully an expression of divine self-determination. Strong divine vulnerability This type of vulnerability differs from modest vulnerability in one decisive respect: God’s vulnerability denotes the possibility that he might experience severe limitations of his self-determination with respect to his life, goals and visions. This vulnerability is not without its own creativity, but remains open to the ultimate possibility of divine heteronomy and the divine suffering a violent death. This strong vulnerability implies the possibility that the divine being can be so affected by the world, that he might have to give up his original goals, intentions and aspirations. The interaction with the world becomes, in principal (!), an open-ended and eventually uncertain adventure. History might essentially be a tragedy.63 Within the conceptual horizon of strong vulnerability, external forces can limit, change and eventually destroy the possibility spaces of the respective being. Change, which lies at the core of any vulnerable life, can have many directions: The enhancement or the endangerment of life. And yet, under conditions of creaturely life, highly vulnerable life can potentially be overwhelmed, even to the point of death, by violence. This conception can be found in most panentheistic theologies64 and so-called empirical theologies strongly influenced by process philosophy – both on the side of Christian and Jewish theology.

Responsive divine vulnerability Responsive divine vulnerability implies a deep sense of self-determined openness. The divine being can be affected and moved by the fate of the world – which is a key moment in the caring and compassionate relationship to creation. This modest vulnerability entails a responsiveness, in which although the response might be triggered by events outside of God, the content and quality of the response is not determined. Thus change in the divine being would be both externally triggered and internally determined. There is a relation of deep resonance between God’s actions and perceptions on the one hand and the ‘worlds’ on the other– without God being determined 63 This is clearly seen by Williams, The demonic and the divine, 45–90. 64 J.-O. Henriksen, Life, love, and hope: God and human experience (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 287, emphasizes the novelty of the resurrection and the fact that it does not evolve out of creaturely possibilities, but it remains unclear how this would affect his panentheism, which excludes any divine interventions or dramatic changes of divine possibilities to be realized.

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by the events of the world.65 In such fields of resonance new divine reactions to new events in the world can emerge. Even though the openness of exchange characteristic of vulnerable beings implies that not all possibilities are present in the same way to God, he can still keep up long term objectives in face of severe challenges.66 This relationship involves mutuality, interaction and open processes, but not the possibility of radical heteronomy, that is of being determined by the other or mutual causality. In addition, it must be stressed that responsive divine vulnerability is realized and manifest in the complexity of the triune God. The specific profile of responsive divine vulnerability can only be grasped by focusing on the diverse ‘positions’, roles and functions of the three divine centers of action and perception. For Christian theology, the life of the Trinity is the manifestation of divine vulnerability characterized by passion and power. Against this background the event of Jesus Christ is an event of intense resonance between God’s life and the life of the world. The event of the incarnation realizes the opening up of an intensified field of resonance, in which the divine perception of the world and the divine action in the world is dramatically heightened. In the incarnation the divine life decides to subdue himself to embodied creaturely life and its strong form of vulnerability out of compassion and love. The intimate closeness to creation that God chooses in the life of Jesus of Nazareth is marked by the most perilous and strong vulnerability in which compassionate giving of life encounters the violent robbing and destruction of life. In the situation of forsakenness, the suffering love is exhausted and comes to its end. This point of God-forsakenness of the Son is an event of divine passion in a threefold sense of the term. It is the moment of intense divine passivity and immense suffering. However, it is also a moment of raising and stirring up divine passion as transformative emotional engagement. And yet, it is not divine wrath that is aroused. The resurrection becomes the event of passionate creativity. The violent death of Jesus of Nazareth is the implied risk of the incarnation, which is the willingness of God to subdue himself to creaturely life in order to make visible true humanity, to disclose God’s intentions and to reconcile the violent world with himself.67 On the cross, however, God’s own creaturely type of creativity in this deeply vulnerable life of Jesus of Nazareth has come to its end. This critical situation of divine suffering and co-suffering sparks divine passion. Therefore, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a differentiated and intervening divine response growing out of the life-giving power of the Spirit in the situation of Jesus’ death and defeat and the violent resistance of the 65 For a strong emphasis on this responsiveness on the side of biblical studies see J. Kessler, Old Testament theology: Divine call and human response (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2013), 381–445. 66 Such challenging change might be, among others, what might be called ‘negative novelty’, ranging from sin, to violence and horrendous natural evil. 67 Thomas, “Kreuz”, 151–79.

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world. The resurrection signals not just a powerful possibility but a reality which cannot be mirrored in acts of human compassion and co-suffering – even though communicating hope and building both sensitivity and resilience (endurance) are essential moments in the life of the Spirit. And yet the question remains: Does God’s passion reach beyond human acts of compassion and the regenerative forces in the natural and social life? Anyone traveling theologically on the road of naturalism has to say no. And anyone traveling on the road of ‘the great suffering companion’ has so say no too. But the event of the resurrection in the power of the Spirit witnesses to a passionately creative power of the Spirit both present in and beyond this world. The beginning of the passionate and powerful renewal of heaven and earth is sparked in the situation of utmost vulnerability. Because of this specific constellation of passion and power in the divine life, the divine vulnerability both dignifies creaturely vulnerability and provides hope for the inescapably dark sides of human vulnerability.

Kristine A. Culp

Vulnerability and the Susceptibility to Transformation

The narrative of pervasive risk, vulnerability to hazards, seemingly unavoidable harm, and at best, resilience, has come to characterize our time. Any account of vulnerability must acknowledge and respond to the complex threats that are irreversibly shaping contemporary life. I have argued that an adequate account of vulnerability must consider potential positive transformation as well as harm.1 In this essay, I hope to clarify what is gained by construing vulnerability as susceptibility to being changed, for ill or for good, rather than solely as susceptibility to harm.2 I begin this essay with a sketch of the complex susceptibility to harm that comprises a disaster. I discuss two disasters: the 2005 landfall and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which offers a potent symbol and example of the complex interlocking susceptibilities to devastation, and the 1527 outbreak of the plague in Wittenberg, Germany, specifically, Martin Luther’s practicaltheological assessment of that disaster. Luther’s response to the plague introduces the topic of a theological account of vulnerability, placing such an account not in relation to theodicy, but rather in relation to practical wisdom about life in its multiple dimensions. Next, I discuss some basic features of a theological account of vulnerability, focusing on vulnerability as susceptibility to being changed. I conclude with some comments about the relation of vulnerability, invulnerability, resilience, and transformation.

A hurricane and the plague: Narrating and managing risk Our symposium nearly coincides with the tenth anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, one of the worst “natural” disasters in U.S. history by many measures. Storm surges breached the seven meter (22 1 K.A. Culp, Vulnerability and Glory: A Theological Account (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010). 2 I would like to thank Heike Springhart and Günter Thomas for this symposium and the invitation to participate in it. Heike imagined this symposium and called it into being; Günter helped to make it a reality. I’m grateful for their initiative and for the rich exchange that resulted.

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feet) high levees in New Orleans, flooding 80% of the city ; flooding accounted for the most significant number of the 1,800 deaths. Katrina was one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history, horrendous for its toll and scope, if far less deadly than the massive tsunami in Indonesia nine months before or than the toll of droughts and famine every year. Moreover, Katrina represented the worst civil engineering failure in U.S. history, a failure that was exacerbated by manifestly inept disaster response efforts.3 These failures were geometrically compounded by geographies of poverty and race: by local communities already disproportionately susceptible to everyday risks, especially the lower ninth ward of New Orleans. Media coverage, with resourceful reporting boosted by emerging new media platforms, vividly revealed the devastation – and the shame – to a global viewership.

A society permeated by risk Hurricane Katrina remains complex example and potent symbol of the interlocking susceptibilities to harm and devastation that characterize contemporary societies and of the ambiguities of human interventions. The narrative of pervasive risk and seemingly unavoidable harm has come to characterize our time as much as the narrative of seemingly unavoidable progress dominated the early twentieth century. Katrina – as reality, global media event, and symbol – also catalyzed the emergent fields of disaster management and risk analysis. That is my real starting point: the acknowledgment that “vulnerability” has become a technical term in a narrative of global risk.4 The English word, “vulnerability,” comes from the Latin root vulnus or “wound” and typically suggests the “wound-ability” of sentient creatures.5 As a term of risk analysis, vulnerability is transferred analogically to realms of existence that have been created or altered by human power, which is to say to virtually every dimension of existence. Systems, populations, places, governments, corporations, and the planet itself are depicted as having vulnerabilities and being vulnerable. Risk and vulnerability analyses are driven by 3 The Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recalls that Katrina became a “lethal debacle” that made the “administration’s cronyism and incompetence obvious to anyone with a TV set.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/opinion/ paulkrugmanaheckuvajob.html 4 See, e. g., J. Weichselgartner, “Disaster mitigation: the concept of vulnerability revisited”, Disaster Prevention and Management 10, 2 (2001): 85–94. 5 Vulnerable “comes from late Latin vulnerabilis, from vulnus ‘wound.’” The word and its opposite invulnerable first appeared in print in the late 16th to early 17th century. See “vulnerable, adj.” OED Online. September 2016. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/224872; “vulnerability, n.” http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/224871 (accessed September 19, 2016). See also Marina McCoy’s contribution to this volume.

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dire and often volatile situations such as Katrina and other “natural” disasters, deforestation and overpopulation, urban violence and policing, failed states and terrorism, and mass migration. Risk analyses consider a wide array of factors that can make populations, places, and systems more susceptible to hazards and disasters, ranging from poverty, race, and gender, to land use, energy dependence, building codes, democratic practices, and public policy. Sociologist Ulrich Beck observed that “Modern society has become a risk society in the sense that it is increasingly occupied with debating, preventing and managing risks that it itself has produced.”6 A concern to manage and minimize risk can become the occasion for government intervention on multiple levels of life, for example, to stabilize markets and engineer cities and terrains, or to heighten policing, surveillance, and to destroy “security risks.” Intervention can be for the well-being and health of populations, as Silas Allard and Antje Miksch discuss. Ulrich Beck observes (and Mike Hogue also argued in this symposium) that the recognition of risk can also become an occasion for political debate, grassroots response, and reinvigorated politics. Although my essay will not directly address the ambiguities of modern risk management, they remain as a background concern. Of course, in a manner of speaking, “risk management” emerged long before Hurricane Katrina. Recognizing threats to human life and responding through social remediation is intertwined with the creation of societies, organizations, municipalities, governments. We can see this when we turn back 500 years to another disaster, the plague, and to Martin Luther’s counsel in the face of the epidemic. Luther de-naturalizes the disaster and offers practical wisdom for responding to the devastation and contributing to the well-being of the entire town.

The plague in Wittenberg, 1527 The plague came to Wittenberg, the town where Martin Luther made his home, in 1527. Luther, who remained in Wittenberg during the plague despite the urgings of others, wrote to colleagues in Breslau who had inquired “whether one may flee from a deadly plague.”7 Luther replied with sage, straightforward advice in what we might call disaster management. “Our plague here in Wittenberg has been caused by nothing but filth,” he notes bluntly. He does 6 U. Beck, “Living in and Coping with World Risk Society”, in H.G. Brauch et al, Coping with Global Environmental Change, Disasters and Security : Threats, Challenges, Vulnerabilities and Risks (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2011), 11; also see his discussion of Hurricane Katrina, 15. 7 M. Luther, “Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague” (1527), in T.F. Lull(ed.), Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 736–55.

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not assume that the epidemic is a “natural” disaster, but rather that it has been brought on by a social condition: “filth.” According to Luther, affliction by the plague should not be accepted passively or interpreted as a direct act of God. He counsels prudent individual action: “We should seek our daily food, clothing, and all we need and avoid destruction and disaster wherever we can, as long as we do so without detracting from our love and duty toward our neighbor.” He does not call for Christians to sacrifice themselves, but rather to follow the command to love the neighbor and promote the health and well-being of the whole town, while avoiding needless loss of one’s own health and life. “Use medicine,” he urged, and stay out of the way if your “presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others.” Luther also recommended what were, in a manner of speaking, public health initiatives: to support and maintain hospitals with contributions from all individuals and the government and to create public burial grounds outside the town. Throughout his work and life, Martin Luther attempted to re-align theology, ministry, the church, and human life in general to the realities of suffering and need. He addressed the abuses and inadequacies he found in the church of his day, not only in relation to the terrors that assailed his own soul, but also in relation to disease, poverty, and famine. For example, in 1541, Luther wrote about poor people and destitute ministers “whose hunger stares at you out of their eyes.” He argued that response to their hunger rather than fasting and “the pomp of popery” ought to characterize authentic Christian life and signal the true church. “Naked children, men, women, farmers, citizens, who possess no tonsures, miters, or priestly vestments also belong to the church.”8 Addressing the all-too-common conditions of disease, famine, destitution, and disempowerment “calls the thing what it actually is,” to use the words of his 1518 Heidelberg Disputation. In suffering and in the cross, Luther taught, God’s grace and glory are known in their inversion.9 Pretensions to power and assumptions of certainty based on knowledge, affections, or actions are surrendered; faith alone, a “joyful bet” on God, yields certainty. This paradoxical construal of the relation of divine power to human life offered assurance amid the trauma and travail of historical life. At its best, it set persons free to respond to the trauma, even to create new civic initiatives; at its worst, Luther’s paradoxical account can undermine capacities for responding to God and to the world. In responding to the plague, Luther called “the thing what it actually is” – an epidemic fueled by social conditions – and stayed under the cross, as it were, not fleeing from a plague-ridden town but rather 8 Luther, Against Hanswurst (1541), in J. Pelikan/H.T. Lehman(ed.), Luther’s Works (Fortress Press/Concordia Publishing House, 1957) 41:198–99, 211. 9 Luther, Heidelberg Disputation (1518) in T.F. Lull(ed.), Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 30–49, esp. proofs 20–22, 24.

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seeking to respond to his neighbors’ suffering and to remediate the conditions that contributed to his town’s plight.

A theological account of vulnerability The term “vulnerability” may be relatively new to theology, but as Luther’s and medieval Jewish responses to the plague indicate, wound-ability and disaster are hardly new theological topics.10 At their best, the religions do not merely compensate for suffering or offer explanations for divinities’ implication in causing suffering (theodicies). Rather, they protest it, and they address how suffering can harm, incapacitate, and destroy persons and worlds. The religions offer means for public acknowledgment of pain and trauma, and they give it expression through theological language and ritual acts. Public acknowledgment and expression, in turn, can enable resilience, response and, perhaps eventually, transformation.11 The long history of religious thought about and in response to suffering and pain, the sophistication and complexity of theological diagnosis of human life, and the varied registers of response are among the reasons why an account of vulnerability can and should engage religious and theological thought productively. Theology in the thick of life Much of Christian practice and thought – like that of other religions – can be understood as a vital and often innovative response to suffering and trauma. For example, early Christian rhetoric and liturgy re-described victims of persecution and torture as witnesses, “martyrs.” Such re-description restored agency and motivated resistance to the power of the empire, and thereby also helped to create Christian culture and community.12 However, the rhetorical

10 Note too that Thomas Aquinas pondered the “wounds” of sin: the devastating effects of original sin and how actual sins exacerbated the wounds of ignorance, malice, weakness, and concupiscence. Summa theologica I–II.85.3. See also Dean Bell’s chapter in this volume. 11 See E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 9 and chap. 1 passim and my discussion in Vulnerability and Glory. Scarry examines the work of Amnesty International, whose efforts against torture build on “the assumption that the act of verbally expressing pain is a necessary prelude to the collective task of diminishing pain.” The recent contributions of the Black Lives Matter movement have many parallels with the work of Amnesty International. 12 See Elizabeth Castelli’s argument that early Christian communities interpreted the experience of persecution “within a framework of meaning that drew upon broader metanarratives about temporality, suffering and sacrifice, and identity.” This framework “articulated a competing theory of power” that transformed “‘persecution’ into ‘martyrdom’ and powerlessness into

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and symbolic conversion of suffering into sacrifice and agency is not the full compass of Christian theological response. Consider Irenaeus, the late secondcentury theologian and Bishop of Lyon in a time of martyrs. He emphasized renewal and repair of the world through Christ and the Spirit – through divine recapitulation and restoration – rather than sacrifice. According to Irenaeus, creatures are susceptible to God’s restorative power and thus can be made capable of bearing the glory of God. For Irenaeus, the glory of God is the human fully alive. Mortal creatures can be strengthened to bear the full aliveness of life. When I introduced the relatively new term, “vulnerability,” to theological reflection, it was to articulate some of these ancient sensibilities about susceptibility and transformation. In my book, Vulnerability and Glory, I critically engage historical sensibilities by tracing theological ideas and tropes as those figures move and change through centuries of theological thought. I follow figures and tropes such as “the sign of the cross,” the marks of suffering, “treasure in earthen vessels,” martyr, witness, and testimony. I am not attempting to somehow excavate the “true” meaning of these symbols, but rather to “condense” them with other symbolic resources in ways that explore and make available dense interactions of theological language, meaning, and felt import. My approach is thus more historical, thematic, and constructive than systematic. It has been formed especially by a strand of American theology that has been attentive to sociality, community, and environment (by H. Richard Niebuhr in particular), and by feminist theologies and theory, which have also directed attention to sociality, community, and environment, as well as to physical and bodily situatedness. A theological approach to vulnerability ought to begin, not first in disaster and suffering per se, but in the thick of life, where creatures suffer from all manner of things and are susceptible not only to devastation, but also to restoration and transformation. This picture – of susceptibility to being changed for good and for ill – is the one I have sought to develop in a theological account of vulnerability. This account is of enfleshed, situated, mortal creatures who are susceptible to destruction as well as to transformation and who are, despite and because of their susceptibility, capable of bearing glory. power.” Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 25, 48. Parenthetically, terrorist movements and authoritarian political movements use not unrelated rhetorical strategies to lend religious legitimation to their movements, that is, they employ rhetorical alchemy to turn threats of violent death into opportunities for sacrifice and martyrdom. Such use of religiously-fueled rhetoric abolishes individual integrity and agency and usurps universalizing power for a particular agenda, whereas religious and political movements at their best can intensify individual integrity and agency while extending possibilities of resilience, resistance, and transformation, and also reaching to the broadest possible horizons, and thus resisting authoritarianism.

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Features of a theological account of vulnerability In this section, I highlight four features of a Christian theological account of vulnerability, the first being that vulnerability is placed within an account of life before God. Second, I take vulnerability to be an enduring feature of creaturely life, not a temporary condition to be ameliorated. Third, and closely related, I argue that vulnerability is most adequately construed as susceptibility to change, for ill or for good, that is, as susceptibility to harm and to positive transformation. Finally, this theological account of vulnerability contrasts with what I call theological strategies of invulnerability.

(a) Vulnerability addressed theologically in relation to an account of life before God Before God or coram Deo, “in the sight or presence of God,” is a phrase associated particularly with Martin Luther. Luther’s pragmatic disaster management advice was of a piece with his theology. Persons should not be passive, waiting on the hand of God to somehow act independently and outside the sphere of human interaction. Rather, all life – individual and corporate, within and without the institutional church, in routine and extreme situations – is lived in and before God. The scene that typically illustrates Luther’s coram Deo took place at the Imperial Diet of Worms, which met not far from where this symposium gathered. You know the scene: against a hostile gathering, Luther testifies from the conviction of his conscience, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” In Luther’s instructions about the plague, it is not only the individual conscience that is placed before God. Luther effectively places the whole town and, indeed, the whole world, before God. All life, from the depths of individual conscience to the breadth of public life, from deadly illness to the care of neighbor love, exists in and before God. God should not be viewed as punishing and testing selected individuals who were deadly ill (though Luther, fully a medieval and not a modern on this point, thought that perhaps the devil was). No place or person, neither the interiority of conscience nor the social condition of a town threatened by epidemic, was closer or farther from the reality of God. The corollary is that all persons, not only clergy or divinely appointed agents, are responsible for the well-being of their selves, neighbors, and community. Luther may have crystallized the formulation coram Deo, but the insight was already there in Augustine’s vision of a city of God, in Paul’s vision of a world aching with birth pains, in Jesus’ welcoming of strangers and outcasts, in the prophets who announced the presence of the Lord in the poor and oppressed, and in stories of a creator who sculpted a world and pronounced it good. This

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is, in broad strokes, a picture of life before God as a dynamic space of susceptibility and responsibility to self, others, world, and God. The spatiality of the phrase, “before God,” is useful for thinking about susceptibility and responsibility as well as for signaling the interconnections among various dimensions of life – for example among bodily, social, political-economic, moral, and spiritual life. “Before God” suggests a field of tensive, changing relations – among God and creatures, among creatures and cosmos, between past and future, between glory that is known and glory that is yet emerging. “Life before God” signals the space of creaturely and cosmic existence—a space that is suffused and encompassed by the horizon one might venture to name “God.” However, we creatures are never “before God” without also being susceptible to, interrelated with, and accountable to fellow creatures and the cosmos – and responsible for their well-being. In addition, “life before God” indicates a locus of theological reflection, a symbolic terrain. I use this designation to signal a field of inquiry related to but wider than the conventional systematic loci of theological anthropology and ecclesiology. I’m a constructive theologian who is especially concerned to engage and extend the critical, imaginative power of theological symbols and ideas. Doing so requires rendering religious and theological sensibilities accessible, accountable, and relevant to public life. (b) Vulnerability as an enduring feature of creaturely life I take vulnerability to be an enduring feature of creaturely existence, not a temporary condition that can be or should be overcome. Sentient creatures live and change, and that change is not only metabolic; they are susceptible to being changed by other creatures and their environment. Human creatures in particular are always susceptible to harm and therefore almost inevitably marked by suffering and wrong – sometimes by unfathomable tragedy or brutality. The second account of creation in the book of Genesis pictures human creatures formed of dust and bones and animated by breath, by spirit. These creatures have a place and a span with other creatures; they will return to bones and dust. They are, in another biblical trope, “clay pots” that can be damaged, even irreparably so, but that can also be renewed. As the Apostle Paul depicts them to the church in Corinth, these clay pots of human being can have profound integrity and purpose even when they have been subject to intense harm; indeed, he writes, they can bear “the extraordinary treasure of the grace and glory of God.” In these accounts, creativity and destruction are closely entwined – and the possibilities of transformation are as difficult to explain as the realities of devastation. These biblical figures of breath and bones and of clay jars may seem at once odd and familiar to our time. For all of the possible technological enhance-

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ments and global reach that have altered and become part of human existence in the twenty-first century, humans are still recognizably earthen creatures, small miracles of matter and breath, mortal and yet often surprisingly durable, durable and yet sometimes shockingly mortal, who are capable of causing great harm and of being utterly devastated, and who are also capable of bearing glory. The language of vulnerability can help interpret these biblical pictures of susceptibility, devastation, and transformation, and the complex history of their interpretation and effects. Inversely, the history and sensibilities that are conveyed with these tropes can help create a more robust interpretation of vulnerability. (c) Vulnerability as susceptibility to change, for ill and for good An adequate theological approach to vulnerability must account for potential positive transformation as well as harm. Creaturely vulnerability encompasses not only the capacity to suffer harm and be damaged, but also capacities implied by contrast: to be kept safe and whole, to have integrity and dignity, and to be healed and lifted. This robust notion of vulnerability can be read from the beginning to the end of the Bible in the stories of creatures who rise and fall, who make and break covenants, who are astounding in their perversity and cruelty and also in their capacities to love and do justice. It is suggested by Gospel narratives in which Jesus and his disciples are vulnerable to rejection and to welcome. The complexity of vulnerability is indicated in the story of Jacob at the ford of the river Jabbock, wrestling through the night with a mysterious stranger, who leaves Jacob both limping and transformed. It is found at the very heart of the Christian gospel in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. In his advice about the plague, Luther counsels about the intentional and inadvertent risk that persons may face and about the passive and active harm that persons may do to their neighbors and towns; he also counsels how persons may best extend care and love to their neighbors through individual acts and through public policy. The effects of the plague can be both heightened and ameliorated by human connections with others and their environment. As living, sensing, desiring, enfleshed, and self-reflective creatures, humans are never not dependent on and interdependent with other persons, living things, and the earth. They are vulnerable to being changed by other persons, living things, and their environments, and they remain vulnerable. Moreover, that is how they become the persons and communities they are. In this picture, vulnerability does not equate with or necessarily entail powerlessness or weakness. Rather, vulnerability is the situation in which earthly existence may be harmed and degraded; it is also the situation in which persons and communities may be strengthened to bear the glory of God and

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the glory of being fully alive. Moreover, creatures are not more “glorious” when their vulnerability is overcome, but when they are strengthened to full capacity and when their aliveness is perceived within, rather than over against, their creaturely particularity and perishability.

(d) Vulnerability in contrast to strategies of invulnerability Human creatures, Christians and their churches included, are not only vulnerable, they are also ambiguous. Persons, communities, cultures, and environments are not only susceptible to harm and devastation, they have already been injured and altered. At the same time, they are not only vulnerable to healing and transformation, they have already been strengthened and changed. They are complexly vulnerable to harm and to healing, and as a result of those vulnerabilities, they become complex and ambiguous mixtures of good and ill, creativity and destruction, true and false, and perhaps even of the holy and the demonic. A theological account of vulnerability must be adequate to such complexity as well as to interdependent, moving fields of life and to a living God. These moving, changing relations defy simple definitions, grammars, or logics. Unfortunately, theologians and leaders of religious communities, not unlike politicians and others, have often turned to strategies of invulnerability to reduce tensions and control change. Sectarianism and triumphalism are two enduring strategies of invulnerability that Christian theologians at their best have sought to avoid, even if not always with complete success. Luther, among others, grappled – as we must in our day – with the ambiguity of persons and institutions, with the devastations of poverty, hunger, and persecution, with tyranny and freedom, with how organizations, texts, practices, and traditions mediate “salvation,” and with the presence and sometimes seeming absence of God in history. Complex vectors of transformation and devastation remain in selves and communities and characterize the situations in which selves and communities continue to exist and change. Furthermore, these vectors cannot be divided easily into intra- or extra-Christian realities. Theological strategies that focus on defending Christian character, institutions, dogma, or morality are inadequate to such vectors of devastation and transformation. Such strategies of invulnerability tend to focus on removing the ambiguity from persons, institutions, and places and on ensuring salvation, authority, power, and so forth at the expense of transformative engagement in the vulnerable, ambiguous, and sometimes glorious world of which Christians and their doctrinal systems and ecclesial bodies are part.

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Resilience, Invulnerability, and Transformation In the disaster management and risk assessment literature, the language of resilience and sustainability typically appears as the counterpart to vulnerability and risk. Resilience is an important response to dangerous threats, and often a necessary one – especially, say, if the threat is an earthquake, and schools are being built without adequate earthquake -resistant and -resilient building techniques and materials.13 In our conference we heard about resilience in relation to law, health, and democratic processes. Resilience typically carries the connotation of sustaining harm in a way that will allow harm to be absorbed or resisted and the “structure” of the building – or, by analogical extension, of the person or community – to survive. At the risk of gross oversimplification, I’ll observe that “resilience” may still imply that the threat of harm is “out there,” threatening to imbalance the (existing) structure or to invade its core, whereas the complex vulnerability and ambiguity of persons and communities complicates such inner/outer distinctions and heightens possibilities of negative and of positive change. Sometimes, resilience can also imply positive transformation that addresses integral features and extends throughout the building, person, or environment, but even then resilience suggests the presence of an ongoing external threat. We should ask whether resilience, when formulated as an optimal response to the risk of harm and thus failing to signal the kind of thoroughgoing change that transformation and “glory” suggest, might still function as a strategy of invulnerability. In no way do I want to suggest that a theological account of vulnerability would or could suffice in place of well-informed disaster and risk management. Hurricane Katrina, health epidemics, policing amidst racial stereotypes and tensions, and failed states represent pressing concerns and often dire realities. Theological reflection should heighten, not lessen, attention to the thick, often dire, realities of existence, including grossly disparate risks of devastation. My contribution is relatively modest in the face of such conditions: I have argued for a more robust account of vulnerability as susceptibility to being changed for ill or for good. This account is located within a dynamic, multidimensional account of life before God, an account that acknowledges that threats of devastation and possibilities of trans-

13 I am thinking particularly of the more than 5,000 children who were killed in the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China. The Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei made several works to mourn the children and to tangibly represent their loss and the government corruption that contributed to it. The works include a massive installation, “Straight,” made from 38 tons of painstakingly re-straightened (inadequate) steel rebar that became mangled in the earthquake and failed to hold the school buildings together. See http://www.npr.org/2013/01/23/169973843/in-accor ding-to-what-ai-weiwei-makes-mourning-subversive.

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formation continue to emerge and shift even as profound tragedy and ambiguities endure. Theology ought not be involved in ensuring invulnerable selves and communities, but rather in acknowledging vulnerability – that is, the susceptibility to being changed for ill and for good – as a constitutive aspect of life before God. As I noted above, theological symbols and religious practices can offer means for public acknowledgment of pain and trauma, allowing its expression through theological language and ritual acts. Public acknowledgment and expression, in turn, can enable resilience and response and, eventually, transformation. Theological symbols and religious practices can likewise offer means for public acknowledgment of healing and positive change, thereby interpreting and enriching possibilities of transformation and realities of transformed existence. Theology does not have to deny ambiguity or promote invulnerability to do this necessary work. Transformation toward the glory of God does not mean defeating present existence or reverting to some original uncompromised state. Rather, it involves reorientation and reconstruction of multiple dimensions of personal and shared life. To use an old word, the task is conversion rather than evasion of creaturely vulnerability and ambiguity : being turned toward the grace and glory of God and turning toward greater integrity and richer relatedness with others and God. This transformation occurs in receiving and radically reinterpreting life as a gift of God. Thereby the ambiguous, tragic, and sometimes glorious lives of selves and communities, of creatures and cosmos, are resituated before a living God.

Andrea Bieler

Enhancing Vulnerable Life: Phenomenological and Practical Theological Explorations1

Fundamental and Situated Vulnerability Over the last decade, the phenomenon of vulnerability has increasingly caught scholarly attention in a variety of academic disciplines.2 It challenges a robust thread in Western philosophical thought that denies or devalues this basic dimension of human existence by putting an emphasis on the self as reliable, self-sufficient, and independent. In this paper I critique an understanding of the autonomous self that holds the capacity “for deliberation and rational transcendence of emotion – that is, effective self-determination and selfcontrol, grounded in our capacity as ‘willers’. On this model, we are able to determine our own motivations and conduct on the basis of reasons, freeing ourselves from the forces of fear, desire, anxiety, grief, and the like.”3 Opposing these assumptions, theories that consider the meaning of vulnerability search for an alternative understanding of the human person and of community. Vulnerability draws its meaning from its Latin roots vulnus, which means wound. As various definitions suggest, vulnerability should be understood accordingly as the capacity of being wounded and being susceptible to 1 This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. The following reflections proceed from Verletzliches Leben. Horizonte einer Theologie der Seelsorge (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017). 2 Among the most recent publications see M.A. Fineman/Anna Grear (ed.), Vulnerability : Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics (Surrey : Ashgate, 2013); E. Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability: A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice (New York: Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory Vol. 26, 2014); C. MacKenzie et al. (ed.), Vulnerability. New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (Oxford 2014); S.Herrmann, Symbolische Verletzbarkeit. Die doppelte Asymmetrie des Sozialen nach Hegel und Levinas (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013); and B. Liebsch, Verletztes Leben. Studien zur Affirmation von Schmerz und Gewalt im gegenwärtigen Denken (Ettlingen: Die Graue Edition, 2014). In addition, Judith Butler’s work has been an influential point of reference, see e. g., Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2006). With regard to theological anthropology see H. Springhart, Der verwundbare Mensch im Horizont einer realistischen Anthropologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). 3 A.L. Carse, “Vulnerability, Agency, and Human Flourishing”, in C.R. Taylor/R. Dell’Oro (ed.), Health and Human Flourishing: Religion, Medicine, and Moral Anthropology (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2006) 33–52, on p. 36.

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physical, social, or emotional injury. In this vein, being vulnerable reflects the menacing trait of human existence as being susceptible to harm. It seems necessary, however, to move away from such a solely deficit-oriented understanding because it will not help illuminate the complexities that the varied phenomena of vulnerability imply. Hence, I seek not to reproduce a reductively negative concept of vulnerability that evokes merely images of oppression, frailty, absence of autonomy, and powerlessness. Instead, a broader approach able to embrace the ambiguity and multiplicity of experiences that pertain to the radiant exposures that unfold in human life is needed. I propose to differentiate between fundamental and situated vulnerability.4 Fundamental vulnerability encompasses a fundamental openness to the world that implies the potential to affect others and to be affected. This fundamental openness is univocal; it cannot be avoided. It hints at the fact that our corporeal being in the world is characterized by a porosity that is constantly stimulated by the engagement with the natural environment and by human relationships. This porosity has a somatic, a sentient, and a social dimension. The following practical theological reflections on vulnerability draw from insights in phenomenology of the body as well as from critical theory that seeks to engage discursive practices and social constructions through which the vulnerable subject emerges. Integrating both theoretical perspectives advances a practical theological approach that is invested in perceiving and interpreting phenomena of vulnerability with regard to embodiment and affectivity as well as in the realm of social performances and ethical deliberations.5 Developing such a concept lays the groundwork for a practicetheory that explores the enhancement of life in the midst of phenomena of vulnerability. The development of such a conceptual framework needs to be supplemented by empirical work in which those who are rendered invisible are invited to articulate how the multifaceted phenomena that emerge from within the precariousness of life play out on the experiential level. Fundamental vulnerability encompasses phenomena that all human beings share as they exist as lived bodies in – or better – towards the world (das LeibSein-Zur-Welt).6 The second dimension pertains to what I call the materialization of situated vulnerability. Here, particular issues come to the fore that are only shared by certain individuals or groups in particular moments in time 4 Erinn Gilson offers a similar distinction, in: The Ethics, 37. 5 Mayra Rivera situates the renewed interest in phenomenology of the body in the theoretical turn towards issues of materiality in recent years. This turn seeks to overcome a narrow focus on language and discursive practices in relation to corporeality, social positioning, and power. See M. Rivera, Poetics of the Flesh (Durham/London: Duke University Press, 2015), 8–10. 6 The notion of Leib-Sein-Zur-Welt is prominent in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work. It captures the dynamic reciprocity of the lived body and the world. This reciprocity exists in the constant movement of ever changing constellations. See M. Merleau-Ponty, Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1966), 126–28.

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and under particular circumstances. I use the notion of oscillation to describe movements within and between these dimensions. With regard to situated vulnerability I wish to highlight three aspects: a) Situated vulnerability refers to the extent to which the access to the basic goods that enable human flourishing – access to health care, education, food, housing, and a fairly safe living environment – is ensured in a way that is not life-diminishing or life-threatening. It also relates to the impact the environmental crisis has on human and non-human beings. b) The second dimension of situated vulnerability refers to the grammar of political and cultural discourse that is often structured in binary terms (e. g., we and they, healthy and sick, black and white, here and there). These binaries hold the potential to unleash discourses of normalization from which the vulnerable subject emerges; for instance, the refugee or the disabled person. c) The third dimension pertains to deeper processes of cultural and religious symbolization in which some sort of meaning-making occurs as the following questions are addressed: What does it entail to be a vulnerable subject? How is human vulnerability perceived? What does it mean to be a vulnerable creature coram Deo, before God? Does it make sense to talk about divine vulnerability? And how does God relate to human and non-human creatures in their vulnerability? Situated and fundamental vulnerability are intertwined in the lived experience; for heuristic purposes, however, it makes sense to distinguish between them. In the following, I will focus on developing some thoughts on fundamental vulnerability and how social conditions bleed into embodied living, which is both precarious and fully alive at the same time.

Oscillation of Having a Body and Being a Body Fundamental vulnerability is grounded in the perception of being a body in the world. It finds its gestalt in the oscillating interweaving of having a body and being a lived body (einen Körper haben und ein Leib sein). At the fragile edges of this oscillation, phenomena of vulnerability emerge as they shift from potentiality into actualization. They are grounded in the affectivity of embodiment (leibliche Affizierung) that shows itself in ambiguous ways. This ambiguity encompasses the precondition for being able to love, and simultaneously it implies the risks of being fully alive as a human being. Phenomena of vulnerability that arise from this oscillation hold a potentiality that has been expressed in different ways; for example, as the virtual of the real in Gilles Deleuze. According to Deleuze, the virtual of the real is insufficiently described when called “possibility.” Rather, the virtual of the real refers to phenomena that constantly postpone realization. In this perpetual deferral, they shape the human imagination and become a productive domain. In

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Deleuze’s elaborations, the virtual encompasses the trace of memory of past events that is subdued in perceptions of the present.7 The trace of memory is vital for the oscillation of having and being a body. It also shapes of what we might call body memory. Let me explore more in depth the oscillation of having a body and being a lived body. The German language provides a helpful distinction: “einen Körper haben und ein Leib sein.” This distinction is difficult to translate into English, since the term body is used for both. Körper derives from the Latin corpus and depicts the body as an object, a thing, as well as the corpse, the dead body. The body as Körper refers to the thing that is somehow me and to which I can relate, in what Helmuth Plessner in his philosophical anthropology calls “eccentric” positionality : I can face it as an object that can be explored and reflected upon.8 This corporeal self-reflexivity also embraces the felt sense of being a lived body within a dynamic life world. It creates a paradoxical perception of one’s own corporeality that oscillates between knowing and not knowing, respectively owning one’s body. Under the hands of others, the body as object can be dissected, cut open; it can be cared for in medical terms, or pampered for purposes of beautification. The ‘having’ that comes alongside with the body refers to connotations of possessing, objectifying, and ownership.9 Having a body oscillates between an active and a passive pole. On the one hand, it refers to self-reflexive activities through which human beings shape their entry into the social world. On the other hand, there is the more passive dimension of having a body. It arises in the moment of heightened body consciousness when a sense of estrangement arises. This is the case in the sensation of acute or chronic pain, when a person turns into a patient by becoming aware of his irregular heartbeat or when a woman is instructed by her gynecologist to do a self-examination of her breasts on a regular basis. In both cases an intensified experience of having a body emerges through acts of intimate yet objectifying relating. In addition, in the twentieth century MRI, X-RAY, and other body scanning technologies heightened a sense of body exploration in the having-a body-mode. Now we receive pictures from the having-a body-realm from which the paradoxical oscillation between seemingly objective images and intimacy arises.10 The 7 See G. Deleuze, Das Zeit-Bild. Kino 2 (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997), 109. For an interpretation of Deleuze’s notion of the virtual see also M. Ott, “Virtualität in Philosophie und Filmtheorie von Gilles Deleuze”, in P. Gente/P. Weibel (ed.), Deleuze und die Künste (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2007), 106–20. 8 See H. Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter, 1975) and J. Fischer, “Exzentrische Positionalität. Plessners Grundkategorie der Philosophischen Anthropologie” in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 48 (2000), 265–288. 9 For a thorough analysis of the more active dimensions see M.R. Müller et al. (ed.), KörperHaben. Die symbolische Formung der Person (Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2011). 10 See B. Kevles, “The Transparent Body in Late 20th Century Culture”, in Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the 20th Century (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 261–69.

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visualization of inflamed tissue or of a tumor might produce a sense of estrangement, as one’s own body arises as a threat to one’s own life. Paradoxically, this sensation might also go along with an intensified feeling of intimacy that this tumor is not outside of my corporeal being in the world. There is another social dimension that highlights the receptive mode. The sense of having a particular body arises through the gaze of others. Through this gaze the disabled body, the aging body, the black body, and the female body are materialized; the gaze also creates white or male bodies. The gaze, we might say, emerges from the life world and is absorbed, taken in, and resisted by the one who receives it. It is in itself ambiguous. It can be followed by recognition that engenders respect, affection, interest, or even desire for the other that is not self-absorbed. It can, however, also unleash various forms of violent behavior and attitudes from diminishment to annihilation. From a phenomenological perspective, this process is called reversibility. The received gaze is internalized and will then be projected back in modified form into the life world. I proceed from the assumption that it is within this receptive mode of having a body that situational vulnerability kicks in and is mediated through bodily perception. Here, a fragile edge, an opening between these dimensions, can be recognized. Perceiving vulnerability in the realm of having a body explores this edge in an attempt to discern when, and under which circumstances, modes of having a body turn into violent exposure and when they contribute to the flourishing of life. Being a lived body in the world does not refer primarily to the perception of the body as an object, but to the felt sense that this is my body (das leibeigene Spüren), a sensation that is always attached to my singularity ; it arises from my intimate, embodied perception of how the world encroaches upon me. This sense of being a lived body in the world unfolds in the realm of pathos (der Raum des Pathischen). By pathos I mean the realm between passivity and activity in which we are constituted by events that hit or overwhelm us or by encounters that surprise us. The realm of pathos can be pleasant (falling in love) or threatening (fear overcame him); oftentimes it can be a mix of both: being attracted to someone or something can be beautiful and terrifying at the same time. The effect of encountering misogynistic or racist attitudes is also situated within the realm of pathos; it influences the sense of being a lived body in the world. Accordingly, racism and sexism can be understood as social constructions that deeply affect a sense of embodiment.11 11 I give various examples for different sorts of body objectification in my book Verletzliches Leben with regard to processes of racializing and disabling bodies. For instance, Kay Toombs who lives with Multiple Sclerosis offers a thoroughly thick description of what her sense of being a lived body in the world is about. She carefully depicts her sense of agency in the framework of dependence as she pictures particular moments of being fully present to a situation and of living with a sharp sense of body awareness, as well as being frozen in time, or of falling out of the world. All of these aspects describe her sense of being a lived body in the world. It becomes clear

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But, note, self-reflexivity in the realm of ‘having a body’ remains ambiguous – it is not always a bad thing. The woman who examines her breast on a regular basis and one day feels the lump she long feared, might save her life in the midst of this heightened sense of vulnerability.

Permeable Affectivity The oscillation of having a body and being a lived body is embedded in a permeable affectivity (leibliche Affizierbarkeit) that is characterized by an immediacy beyond intentionality and control. This immediacy carries a fragility that engenders the need for attentiveness and care as well as for social engagement. Permeable affectivity is related to the basic needs of embodied living, expressed in hunger and thirst, the need for sleep, and the effects of exposure to light and darkness, heat or cold. It is no accident that potent religious symbols and rituals are attached to the sphere of permeable affectivity. At its fragile edges the peril of death and/or the desire to be fully alive are broken open. This is certainly true for the Jewish and Christian traditions: eating and drinking, light and darkness, dreams and visions unfold as mediating spaces of divine presence. Permeable affectivity always carries a sense of ambiguity between the endangerment of life and the desire to be fully alive. In religious terms, it is about being fully alive in the light of divine presence. Permeable affectivity as a locus of vulnerability unfolds in time, related to the process of aging as a life-long process; finding its heightened expression at the fringes of life in being born and in dying. The temporal dimension of permeable affectivity is closely connected to issues of relational dependency and, specifically to asymmetrical relationships of dependence, which are intensely discussed in ethics that deal with different concepts of care. Permeable affectivity is related to the immediacy of basic human needs; it has a temporal dimension. It is also characterized by an openness towards the world which cannot be captured in Descartes’ dualistic distinction between res cogitans and res extensa. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, for instance, insists that we relate inter-corporeally in a dynamic open intercoupling in which vulnerability forms a key element of our inter-permeation with each other and with the world.12 His notion of being a lived body in the world, however, has to be socially situated further. The lived body with its permeable affectivity in her descriptions that the processes of finding herself as a disabled person not only relate to constructions mediated through language, but also to multiple ways of how she experiences her embodied self in spatial configurations, in shifting human relationships, and in relating to technological devices. 12 See Erinn Gilson’s analysis of Merleau-Ponty, in The Ethics, 130–34.

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becomes the medium through which we perceive the world and from where our hermeneutical efforts begin.

Duration and Perspectivity Furthermore, being a lived body in the world can be characterized by constant duration (Ständigkeit) and by partial perspectivity. My body is constantly with me in a changing life world. At the same time, my body is partially withdrawn from my sensation, since I am not able to perceive myself through multiple angles of vision. In addition, the felt sense of being a lived body in the world is often muted. It is, however, intensified in certain moments, e. g., of acute pain or of sexual pleasure. This tension of duration and partial perspectivity as well as the described muteness, creates a sense perception that is always incomplete; it moves on the edges, fluid, never static, and as such it contributes to a multifaceted unity of an active I and a rather passive Me. Here, the “I” experiences herself as an agent and as acted upon. This is how we interact in the world with others with whom we share the experience of being a lived body in the world, and thus we share this tension of bodily duration (Ständigkeit) and partial perspectivity. Encountering oneself and others in this way always creates an oscillation of knowing and not knowing, seeing and not seeing that releases a sense of loss of control. Neither can I gain complete self-awareness and knowledge, nor can I entirely figure out the other that I meet. Nor can I entirely recognize what happens in this third space that is created in the event of an encounter. This uncertainty engenders an ambiguity carrying a trace of alterity that relates back to my own sensation of being a lived body in the world in which I also experience this oscillation of knowing and not knowing myself. This uncertainty expands into the lived world. For that reason, perception – as Merleau-Ponty would say – is always moving in the twilight, when darkness and light are intermingling.13 Our efforts at meaning- making are attached to this ambiguity. From a phenomenological perspective, meaning-making processes with regard to vulnerability, are situated in the perception of the intertwining of the affective lived body experience and the symbolic sense-making process (die affektiv-leibhaftige und die symbolisch-sinnhafte Ebene).14 Accordingly, the meaning of vulnerability does not exist. Rather, we should speak about meaning-making processes within an interactive field consisting of three layers: 13 See Merleau-Ponty, Phänomenologie, 232. 14 I borrow this differentiation from Michael Staudigl, “Entwurf einer Phänomenologie der Gewalt”, in J. Dreher (ed.), Angewandte Phänomenologie. Zum Spannungsverhältnis von Konstruktion und Konstitution (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2012) 173–94.

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a) the subjective giving meaning to something (Sinngebungen), these are active and conscious acts of interpretation that arise from our embodied interaction within the life world; b) the emergence of meaning (Sinnbildung) that transpires from the affective dimension of receiving imprints from the life world as a lived body experience; c) and the intersubjective creation of meaning (intersubjektive Sinnstiftungen) that refers to the realm of social construction, the creation of a shared understanding of something. Fundamental and situated vulnerability intertwine in oscillation as they find their expression in concrete phenomena. Many of them have to do with an embodied exposure that holds the potential for the flourishing or the diminishment of life. They all carry the complexity of being a HandlungsWiderfahrnis-Gemisch. Hereby, I mean the expressions of vulnerability that imply the possibility of agency : the capacity to discern a problem, to build up an intention, and to act accordingly. Yet they also carry the trace of Widerfahrnis, the experience that something hit me, befell me, overwhelmed me, inspired me, or even shocked me prior to my being in the world as an agent, prior to my will and my good or bad intention. This Widerfahrnis does not just dissolve as I act in the world. Rather, it creates a trace that runs through our attempts to shape our life worlds, our attempts to craft networks and institutions that, in the best case, serve the flourishing of life. The event of Widerfahrnis is situated in the realm of pathos (Raum des Pathischen). It can be understood as the third figure between logos and ethos, hence between our attempts to rationally discern phenomena of vulnerability and between ethos, which I define as the realm of morals, ethical reflection, and the formation of habitus.15 Pathos also refers to the affective trace that is ingrained in our bodymemory ; it points to the qualities of emotions that are attached to the experience of being a lived body in the world. Think of the feeling of shame as expressed in the flushing of the face, the desire to cover one’s face or to close one’s eyes and withdraw from the gaze of others or from the judgment of an internalized voice. Feelings of shame come in different intensities. In the case of ‘burning shame’ one wishes to disappear entirely or feels frozen and paralyzed. The pathos dimension of such emotions is a zone of intensified vulnerability. It is also the realm of heightened cultural and religious meaningmaking. Let me summarize: I propose distinguishing between fundamental and situated vulnerability. I suggest attending to three dimensions within situated vulnerability : a) to the question of access to basic human goods which ensure human flourishing, b) to the grammar of political and cultural discourse 15 See further deliberations on the realm of pathos in chapter 4 of Bieler, Verletzliches Leben.

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through which the vulnerable subject emerges, and c) to the deeper processes of meaning making, where the religious quest and theological reflection are located. I laid out the claim that fundamental vulnerability arises from the oscillation of having a body and being a lived body in the world. Having a body moves between an active and a passive pole. Vulnerability is attached to the more passive pole. The lived body experience as the felt sense of ‘this is my body’ is often muted but comes to the fore in certain moments; it is uncontrollable and as such belongs to the realm of pathos as that which comes in unpredictable ways. The oscillation of having a body and being a lived body is situated in embodied affectivity. Embodied affectivity relates to the immediacy of human needs, to the temporal dimension of being a lived body, and to the tension of constant presence and partial perspectivity. These aspects are all ambiguous phenomena that carry the potential of vulnerability and can move towards the flourishing or the diminishment of life. By now it should be obvious that I reject a notion of vulnerability that is solely negative and static. In such a concept, vulnerability would describe the capacity of being wounded and being susceptible to physical, social, or emotional injury. Being vulnerable would then exclusively reflect the menacing trait of human existence as being susceptible to harm. Such a reductively negative understanding merely evokes images of oppression, frailty, absence of autonomy, and powerlessness. I think such an understanding operates intensely in some strands of religious discourse and practice in which the world is divided into the strong and the weak, those in need of care and prayers, and those who care and say the prayers. The latter remain invisible in particular ways. This us-versus-them-differentiation creates the myth of invincibility. A broader approach is needed in order to trace the potential for the enhancement of life that is implied by the phenomena of vulnerability. This might relate to matters of restorative justice in political and economic terms, as well as mending wounded relationships in cultural and religious terms. It might also pertain to the creativity that trauma unleashes, the potential to envision a future after disasters and atrocities, the creativity to imagine something as if it were something else, the courage to trust the other, and to trace an understanding of intimacy in which becoming oneself by giving oneself away emerges as an option in the desire to be fully alive. Enhancing life thus entails a full acknowledgment of all dimensions of vulnerability. Phenomena of fundamental and situated vulnerability need to be examined with regard to their harmful and their life-giving dynamics. Regarding the harmful dimensions, careful consideration needs to be given to those aspects that can be transformed and those that need to be accepted as unchangeable.

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Becoming in the Realm of Creative Passivity What does it mean to be created as a vulnerable being coram Deo, before God? From a theological point of view – and I speak here as a Christian theologian – when we evoke the coram Deo horizon the question materializes: What does it mean to be a vulnerable creature? The recognition of being a creature emphasizes the creative passivity that constitutes human life.16 Accordingly, we begin with an understanding of life as gift. Being alive coram Deo begins with the insight to the more passive constitution of the human condition. As creatures, human beings become the locus of divine presence. I suggest writing a processual understanding into the notion of creatureliness17: creative passivity unfolds as creatures are gifted with the capacity to respond to the excess of love and grace overflowing. Becoming a creature happens as God realizes God’s self as creator in the gifting of openings and departures, in transcending stuckness, in creating surprising possibilities that humans do not possess or control. In receiving them we become creatures intercorporeally in attending to others. Becoming a creature thus means entering into a dynamic reciprocity in which we respond in a doxological sense with joy to the God who is the giver of life and to the other. The response to the other is couched in the mutual recognition of our shared vulnerability and also at times in the careful attention to asymmetrical relationships that might come with it. Religious practice coram Deo, I suggest, should be moved by the attempt of discovering or uncovering this sense of potentiality that lies in these openings. It is about an attentiveness seeking to relate to creativity in the midst of crisis, the birth of new life unfolding, the risk of love in which the freedom to become a creature finds a gestalt in relating to others. Becoming a divine creature is attached to the paradoxical freedom of becoming oneself in giving oneself away to an other. Attending to vulnerability coram Deo relates to this sense of potentiality. Religious practices in pastoral care, in liturgy, and in education ought to focus on uncovering this potentiality (Möglichkeitssinn).

Divine Vulnerability And how do we speak of God who is becoming creator in relating to the world? In the Christian account, we seek to speak in Trinitarian terms as to offer a model of dynamic relationality within the Godhead and in God’s relating to 16 See in detail Bieler, Verletzliches Leben, Einleitung. 17 Regarding the concept of creative passivity see I.U. Dalferth, Umsonst. Eine Erinnerung an die kreative Passivität des Menschen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 231–33.

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the world. The theological challenge at hand is not only to reflect on how God relates or attends to human vulnerability, but also on the extent to which it makes sense to speak of a vulnerable God. The formative tension within the Christian tradition needs to be revisited: on the one hand, the apatheia tradition is called upon in the depiction of the divine; on the other, the biblical images of God consist of anthropopathic depictions that speak abundantly of divine affectivity, and thus vulnerability. I propose to distinguish between reflexive and transitive divine vulnerability. Transitive vulnerability reflects on the ways God’s own affectivity touches the world in a threefold sense: a) it implies the risk of being injured by others, b) it implies the capacity of divine empathy with the suffering of others,18 and c) it implies a divine solidarity as co-suffering that unleashes transformation and change towards the flourishing of life. Transitive vulnerability is grounded in reflexive vulnerability. Without reflexive divine vulnerability, or the ability to experience pain for the divine self, God would not possess the capacity to suffer from, for, and with creaturely alterity. Without transitive divine vulnerability, or the capacity to suffer from, with, or for creaturely alterity, God would not possess the capacity to suffer from, with, and for the divine self in its needs. In that sense, I argue for this kind of permeability of the economic and the immanent Trinity in light of the concept of divine vulnerability.19 Besides working on a conceptual theological framework that deals with the issue of divine vulnerability, the theological reflection on metaphors that derive from scripture is a pivotal theological task. Of special interest should be the depiction of God’s passions and desires such as love and tenderness, as well as the wrath of God or the depiction of divine remorse. All of these speak to God as the moved mover. I thus seek to renounce ideas of God’s unmoved mercy (regungslose Güte), a love without any inner movement. A notion of divine affectivity and movability, however, does not and should not preclude a sense of steadfastness of God’s yearning for an unfolding of justice as it is expressed in various ways throughout the biblical scriptures. It should also not include a regressive understanding of empathy in which the one who is empathizing dissolves in the suffering of the other. This is not how the divine passions are depicted. To bring it back into the realm of human relating: Having a father figure who is steadfast in his promises and his commitments to his daughter or son is a good thing. But never experiencing this father displaying any form of overflowing and passionate affection is a sad thing. It can create a sense of existential loneliness in the child, a feeling like falling out of the world, since it 18 Divine empathy also plays into the concept of dynamics/power/energy as it unfolds in many healing stories in the New Testament. 19 J.B. Pool, God’s Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering, Vol. 1: Divine Vulnerability and Creation (Eugene: Princeton Theological Monograph Series, 2009), 171.

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has never been embraced by a caring touch. Reflecting on divine faithfulness, justice, mercy, and embrace in similar way hints at the beauty and the deep wisdom within the Jewish and Christian traditions. On the other hand, if the significant other in your life displays a kind of empathy in which he or she dissolves and cannot be present to your pain as a companion, this is not helpful either. The ability to love an other in intimate relationships or care for somebody in professional settings requires one to be fully present to, but not absorbed by, the pain and suffering of the other. In this vein, we might speak of God’s compassion as intense suffering with and on behalf of all creatures. However, divine suffering, even dying and death, should not be understood in regressive terms. Rather, it discloses God’s will, intention, and creativity to restore, and finally, radically transform the wounded creation. Unfolding this kind of analogical imagination, we need to keep in mind that God’s overflowing love and mercy always exceeds analogies that derive from the world of human relating. For sure. Yet, this excess always creates a resonance as God immerses God’s self into the flesh of this world in all its fragility, risk, and potentiality. All of this grounds an understanding of incarnation in christological and pneumatological terms, and in this framework it makes sense to employ of such analogies.

Andreas Schüle

“All Flesh”: Imperfection and Incompleteness in Old Testament Anthropology

Woundedness in Greek and Hebraic Storytelling In his seminal book “Mimesis”, Erich Auerbach points to several subtle differences between Greek mythology and biblical narrative. As Auerbach observes, in classical Greek literature, the protagonists appear caught up in the present1 – they do not grow up, and they do not grow old. There is typically no biographical development, which is typical of the characters in the Old Testament. Homer’s depiction of Odysseus is an illustrative example for classical Greek literature. Odysseus is already a mature man when he sets sail to join the Trojan War, and he will not see the shores of Ithaca again for some twenty years. And yet, the Odysseus who returns home after all his adventures seems to be the same man – unchanged, with no battle scars or signs of aging. Homer lets the story end with Odysseus successfully reclaiming his throne and his wife Penelope. While other textual traditions retain diverse pieces of information about Odysseus’ death, this part of his biography apparently never enjoyed “canonical” status. On the Old Testament side, Jacob exemplifies a very different type of hero. His story begins, literally, in his mother’s womb, when he grabs his twinbrother’s heel (Gen 25:26). We see him grow up, develop his less than flawless character, found a family, and struggle with his responsibilities as a clan leader who proves incapable of controlling and protecting his children. In the final chapter of his story, Jacob has to migrate to Egypt where he dies an old and blind man (Gen 49:29–33). The stories of Odysseus and Jacob are both dramatic narratives with many twists and turns, and they both have a happy ending of sorts; and yet, the architecture of drama is very different in each case. Apart from biographical development, there is another important difference between Greek and Hebraic drama, which Auerbach mentions only in passing. It is striking that the Greek heroes can fall in battle, be struck down by the gods, they can die tragic deaths, but their dying is never dull, never trivial, and hardly ever natural.2 There is no frailty, no physical weakness, and 1 E. Auerbach, Odysseus’ Scar, in E. Auerbach (ed.), Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 12. 2 Ibid., 21–22.

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certainly no slow decay due to sickness or age. It would be inconceivable in Greek drama to let the hero end the way, for example, the Old Testament does with King David – a senile old man, manipulated by his advisors, and incapable of pleasing a woman (1 Kgs 1:1–4). To risk a somewhat general statement, in the Old Testament, vulnerability, fragility, and finiteness are constants in the depiction of human beings, on the Greek side they are the exception.3 Of course, the Greek heroes, too, are vulnerable, but their vulnerability is something hidden and discrete, a secret that, once revealed, typically becomes the cause of their demise – Achilles’ heel being perhaps the most prominent example. Again, a direct comparison is instructive. When Odysseus, upon his return to Ithaca, plays the stranger in his own home, spying on his wife and daughters, a simple scar gives away his true identity.4 When his old nanny washes his feet, she recognizes the scar – Odysseus becomes enraged, so he grabs her by the throat and threatens to kill her, should she reveal his secret. The narrator goes into some detail of telling the reader that Odysseus received the scar after he had been attacked by a wild boar when he was still a boy. It is a peculiar implication in the storyline of the Iliad and Odyssey that even twenty years of various wars and struggles apparently did no harm to Odysseus’ body, so that the only sign of physical imperfection is the scar from a long time ago. This little detail becomes meaningful only in the particular context of Odysseus’ return home.5 While he pretends to be a man who only looks like Odysseus and shares the same bodily characteristics, it is the old scar, about which only few people know, that gives him away. However, and this is important for the comparison with Old Testament texts, Homer does not allow the scar to alter the course of the story. The secret is safe with Odysseus’ nanny, and so it will be for the hero himself to reveal his true identity in the opportune moment.6 The case is very different with Jacob in the book of Genesis. There is of course the famous story of the fight with the angel at the Jabbok River (Gen 32:23–33), which includes several characteristics of Hebraic storytelling. The attack happens unexpectedly with no narrative build-up: “Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.” (Gen 32:24b–25) This is all that we get to hear by way of introduction. Neither the protagonist nor the reader is prepared for what is about to happen. However, the story then dwells upon the particular detail that matters most, which is the moment when the attacker strikes Jacob on the hip, so that he walks away limping, marred for the rest of his life. The wound is on open display ; it characterizes the hero as 3 Ibid., 20. 4 L. Bernays/B. Zimmermann (ed.), Homers Odyssee (Freiburg i.Br./Berlin/Wien: Rombach, 2010), 19.392. 5 Auerbach, Odysseus’ Scar, 3–4. 6 Bernays, Odyssee, 19.491–494.

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vulnerable, and yet, there is something cathartic about this vulnerability, something that is necessary for the story to continue. Jacob’s fight at the Jabbok River sets the stage for the reconciliation with his brother Esau, but it also gives the reader a sense that Jacob is a somewhat tragic figure, hardly ever in control of what happens around him. He stumbles into situations where the happy ending is not necessarily the result of his own doing.

Human Beauty and Anthropological Realism The differences between Greek and Hebrew literature with regard to the motif of woundedness point to different assumptions about vulnerability as an anthropological theme. One needs to keep in mind that, in the ancient world, vulnerability, especially bodily vulnerability, was a much more tangible reality than in our own time. Sickness, physical decay, and dying were part and parcel of everyday life. One has to assume that there was at least one case of stillbirth or infant mortality in every family, and of course there were no senior homes or hospices for aging and dying elders. Vulnerability was a much more overt and undeniable reality than it is, or seems to be, in the modern era. While this was true for the world of antiquity in general, the cultural and religious responses to the experience of vulnerability varied significantly. Much of Greek literature and art do not so much deny human vulnerability and finitude but rather emphasize their opposite, namely beauty, perfection, and strength. As Auerbach emphasizes, Greek heroes are frozen in time. This is an artistic way of keeping them alive in an ideal state, where the ravages of time can do them no harm. It may be fair to say that Greek art is a way of protesting against the ghastliness of mortal existence. It is a way of giving beauty and physical integrity the kind of presence and permanence that they do not have in the real world. So it is not surprising that beauty also has a religious connotation, which, again, finds a particularly poignant expression in the Iliad, most notably in the fight between Achilles and Hector and, subsequently, in Hector’s burial. Homer spends considerable effort depicting the heroic splendor of both champions7, although, of course, the fight is the result of a cruel misunderstanding and, therefore, means that a precious life will be lost for no good reason. As is well-known, Hector delivers a heroic fight but he does not stand a chance against the half-god Achilles. So he dies on the battlefield, deserving a proper burial. However, still full of hatred, Achilles ties Hector’s body to his chariot and drags it to his camp where he leaves it unburied as a way of exposing not only Hector’s dead body but also his ultimate weakness and 7 Homer, Ilias, in P.v.d. Mühll (ed.), Ilias und Odyssee (Wiesbaden: Löwit, 1972), 22.131–134.

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frailty.8 Achilles’ intention is to humiliate his opponent by letting everyone witness his dead body deteriorate. However, the gods decide to interfere and counter Achilles revenge. First it is Apollo, the God of healing and wisdom, who protects Hector’s body with a fleece: Dawn would find him (Achilles) there, as she lit the sea and shore. Then he would harness his swift team to his chariot, and rope Hector’s corpse to the rear, and when he had dragged him three times round Patroclus’ mound, return to rest in his hut, leaving Hector’s body stretched out on its face in the dust. Yet Apollo kept the flesh from being spoiled, pitying the warrior even in death, and he covered the body with his golden aegis so that Achilles could not damage the skin as he dragged the corpse along.9

Finally, Zeus himself decides that Hector deserves all the honors of a proper burial because he led a pious life, fearing and worshipping the gods: Yet of all the mortals in Ilium, Hector was dearest to the gods. At least he was so to me, never failing in his gifts towards me. My altar never lacked for sacrifice, for a share of all his meat and drink, the offerings that are our privilege.10

So upon Zeus’ order things eventually become right. What follows is one of the most moving scenes in classical literature. At night, Hector’s father Priam enters the camp of the Greeks and meets Achilles. In the middle of war and enmity there is a moment of true humanity when Priam kisses the hands of Achilles11 who then surrenders Hector’s body.12 What book XXIV of the Iliad illustrates is the correlation between beauty, humanity, and piety. Obviously, beauty is more than outer appearance. Rather, it is about integrity and dignity and, even more importantly, about being exempt from or elevated above the damages that can be done to one’s dignity and integrity. At least in Homer’s case, religion and acts of humanity are ways of not letting the ugliness of life, whether it be physical or moral, have the final word about what human life is or what it could be. Again, there is an element of protest against the fact that, left to its own devices, life will end badly and not bring forth beauty, or support the nobility of human life. These things are not in the material world or, as we might put it, they are not in nature; rather they require an effort, an awareness, and a sensitivity that come with morality and with religion. Shifting back to the Old Testament, the main difference seems to be that the Old Testament, broadly speaking, marks finiteness and vulnerability much 8 Iliad, 22.395–402. 9 Ibid., 24.12–21 (trans. A.S. Kline, Homer – Iliad, 2009, http://www.poetryintranslation.com/ PITBR/Greek/Iliad24.htm, accessed Feb 5th, 2017). 10 Ibid., 24.64–70 (trans. A.S. Kline, Homer – Iliad, 2009, http://www.poetryintranslation.com/ PITBR/Greek/Iliad24.htm, accessed Feb 5th, 2017). 11 Ibid., 24.505–506. 12 Ibid., 24.560–564.

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more explicitly as the condition of human existence than classical Greek literature.13 To be sure, this seems to be more a difference in perspective than in the actual assessment of the human condition. One might also say that the Old Testament does not use the depiction of physical beauty and wholeness as an ideal in order to overshadow the reality of finiteness and frailty. To put it in very general terms, according to the Old Testament, this ideal, if and when it exists, can only occur within and through, rather than above and beyond, the world as it is.14 Again, one could point to narrative traditions in the historical books to illustrate what scholars have sometimes called the “anthropological realism” of the Old Testament. These narratives make it a point, that hardly any of the protagonists of the Old Testament stories have any particular disposition to stand out and shine. And if they do, it is not always clear why. They rise above but they also fall back into the trivialities of existence. Perhaps it is fair to say that the Old Testament does not celebrate resistance to and protest against the imperfections or corporeal existence to the same extent as Greek literature. But it is not simply the alleged biblical realism that introduces a different tone to the anthropological discourse of the Old Testament; there is also a melancholic awareness that, by and large, creation never rises to the beauty and abundance of its creator. Vulnerability is a mark of creation, and the Old Testament, throughout, emphasizes precisely that.

The Incompleteness of “All Flesh” In the following, we will focus on texts from the Old Testament that show reflections of an existential-philosophical nature. More specifically, one can differentiate between two different paradigms that are associated with prophetic literature on the one hand and with the Torah on the other : 1. the paradigm of incompleteness and 2. the paradigm of imperfection. One of the key phrases that link both of them is kol-basar “all flesh.” In Hans-Walter Wolff ’s famous Anthropology of the Old Testament, the term “flesh” characterizes the human being as “frail” or “feeble” (“hinfällig”).15 Turning to our first category, the experience of vulnerability as a point of departure for religious expectation, one of the most prominent examples of kol-basar “all flesh” occurs at the beginning of Second Isaiah: 13 S. Paganini, “’Krankheit als Element der alttestamentlichen Anthropologie”, in C. Frevel (ed.), Biblische Anthropologie. Neue Einsichten aus dem Alten Testament, QP 237 (Freiburg i.B.: Herder, 2010), 291–9. 14 S. Schroer, “Old Testament Resistence against Sport and the Cult of the Body”, in A. Berlejung/J. Dietrich/J.F. Quack (ed.), Menschenbilder und Körperkonzepte im Alten Israel, in Ägypten und im Alten Orient, ORA 9 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 225–33. 15 H.W. Wolff/ B. Janowski (ed.), Anthropologie des Alten Testaments (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2010), 56–64.

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Avoice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way for YHWH, level in the wilderness a path for our God. Every valley shall be raised and every hill and mountain shall be low, everything steep shall be even, and whatever is rough shall be plain. The glory of YHWH will be revealed and/so that all flesh will see (it) together because the mouth of YHWH has spoken. A voice says: “Proclaim!”, but I said: “What should I proclaim? All flesh is like grass und its consistency is like the grass of the field. The grass withers, flowers fade when the breath of YHWH blows on them. Indeed, the people are grass!” (Isa 40:3–6)

It appears somewhat strange that Second Isaiah, allegedly the gospel of the Old Testament, begins on this somewhat melancholic note. After all, Second Isaiah’s prophecy marks a historical juncture. The Babylonian exile of Israel was over and parts of the deportees had begun to return to Judea. Most of Second Isaiah includes oracles of salvation and a message of comfort and redemption after the exile, which Isaiah views as divinely ordained punishment for Israel’s sins. Isaiah looks back on Israel’s past as a history of failure, which was about to open up to a more hopeful future. It is precisely at this juncture where our passage is located. The language of “all flesh is like grass” conveys the sentiment that there is really nothing strong, permanent, or selfsufficient in human nature. In Isaiah, “all flesh” is a way of saying that it is not in human nature to overcome its own imperfection. “All flesh” is weak and vulnerable, which means that it has a tendency to fall back into chaos, where suffering is caused by some people and experienced by others. Let me point to one linguistic detail that is significant in this regard. You may have stumbled over the translation “all flesh is like grass und its consistency is like the grass of the field,” which may sound cumbersome, at least in a mostly poetic text. “Consistency” here is a translation of the Hebrew term chaesaed (7E;), which typically means “grace”, “faithfulness”, or “loyalty”. Here, however, it seems to point to the goodness, solidity, or material quality of a given thing. So the prophetic diagnosis is sobering. All flesh, meaning all of humankind, has no higher material grade than simple grass that grows and goes with the blowing of the wind. In other words, Second Isaiah opens his prophecy of salvation for Israel with an image of utter vulnerability as a way of emphasizing the qualitative gap between what the people are and what they are about to experience as God’s salvific deeds in history. However, in the same context the image of “all flesh” is also used in conjunction with the glory of God that “all flesh” is supposed to see and witness. So there is a way in which “all flesh” can relate to what is ontologically superior. It would take us too far into the exegetical details of the book of Isaiah, but it may be worth mentioning that, for Isaiah, the glory of God is in fact what gives perspective, direction, and focus to the material world, without

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which it would not have any particular value or dignity. So there is in fact a sense that “all flesh” may be the first but not the final word about the meaning of human life. And when Isaiah begins his account of the salvation and redemption of Israel with an image of utter vulnerability, then this is not so much a mark of a permanent defect but rather of incompleteness or unfinishedness. One might also say that the weak and vulnerable world of all flesh is God’s initial creation, which awaits completion and, to that extent, healing. It is a world that does not evolve in any linear progression towards this goal, but depends on the ever fresh and liberating impact of God’s power.16 To come back to the comparison with Greek literature, the prophetic traditions of the Old Testament, too, include an element of protest and resistance. Given that the world of flesh is deficient and lacking, it cannot be all that a good and benevolent creator could accomplish. There is a firm expectation that God will erase the marks of vulnerability once and for all. So it is quite consistent that part and parcel of seeing the glory of God is the appearance of a messianic figure, who, led by the Spirit of God, brings salvation to the wounded ones: “The spirit of the Lord YHWH is upon me, because YHWH has anointed me, He has sent me as a herald of joy to the humble, to bind up the wounded of heart, to proclaim release to the captives, liberation to the imprisoned” (Isa 61:1). There is a certain danger of reading this simply as pious rhetoric or wishful thinking. Closer to what the text might have wished to convey is what Gerhard von Rad means when he talks about prophetic expectation, which is nothing less than an expectation for God to complete what, in its present state, does not have the chaesaed, the consistency of what Isaiah eventually calls the new heaven and the new earth.

Imperfection as the Reality of “All Flesh” But let’s move on to an example of the notion of “all flesh”, which falls under the second rubric that we defined earlier, namely vulnerability as a correlate of violence. This takes us to rather familiar territory, namely the flood narrative in the Primeval History (Gen 6:5–9:17). As is well known, God decides to send a big flood to erase every creature from the face of the earth. There are two different explanations provided for God’s decision. The one that interests us most is found in Genesis 6:11–13, in the so-called priestly strand of the Primeval History. It reads as follows: 16 K. Bieberstein, “Jenseits der Todesschwelle. Die Entstehung der Auferweckungshoffnungen in der alttestamentlich-frühjüdischen Literatur”, in A. Berlejung/B. Janowski (ed.), Tod und Jenseits im alten Israel und in seiner Umwelt, FAT 64 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 423–44.

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Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.”

This passage is intrinsically linked to the creation report in Genesis 1. As a matter of fact, it is the direct continuation of the priestly storyline, which becomes immediately clear in connection with the end of the creation in Genesis 1:31: God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

What connects the two passages is the motif of God seeing and evaluating the world. However, the results of God’s assessments are diametrically opposed. The world that was deemed very good and that received God’s blessing drowned in corruption and violence so that all that is left for God to do is destroy a world that has already self-destructed. Surprisingly, God apparently neither foresaw this fatal development nor was he able to avoid the catastrophe. God’s very good creation ends in self-destruction.17 That is one of the first things that the Bible tells us about the world in which we live and of which we are a part. Unfortunately, this is one of the most overlooked and under-appreciated nuances of the Primeval History, probably because the reception history of Genesis 1 tended to view creation as the ideal world that God made and that ‘fell’ through human sin. However, this is not quite the sentiment that the priestly writers want to convey. While God does create a good world as distinct from the primordial chaos, this world is far from perfect, and it is far from finished, since God has to establish new rules for the inhabitants of the world after the flood (Genesis 9:4–6), in order for it not to deteriorate over and over again. By employing the language of “all flesh” the flood narrative presents itself as a story about vulnerability and as a story about violence. It is a story about vulnerability, because it is clear that “all flesh” is too weak to withstand the powers of destruction. Again, one might use Isaianic language here and say that the world does not have the chaesaed, the kind of robust goodness to protect itself. At the same time, it is a story about violence, because “all flesh” denotes the world as raw and as living by the principle of ‘live and let die’. It is not entirely clear how the priestly authors imagined the state of the world prior to the flood and what it meant that the world was filled (or had filled itself) with violence. From the fact that the regulations that God’s implements after the flood, one can conclude that there was uncontrolled killing and blood-shedding for no apparent reason. While God had ordered 17 A. Schüle, Der Prolog der Hebräischen Bibel. Der literar- und theologiegeschichtliche Diskurs der Urgeschichte (Genesis 1–11), AThANT 86 (Zürich: TVZ, 2006), 260–8.

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the world in such a way that every species had its habitat and its assigned food source, the creatures apparently did not stay within the limits of the order of creation. It has often been noted that already the creation account seems to preprogram a conflict between land animals and humans, since they are assigned to the same space, the dry earth. Humankind receives God’s blessing and charge to be fruitful and multiply, whereas the land animals do not (Gen 1:25.28). If this is the source of conflict, then the spreading of violence would have been in fact a flaw in God’s design of the world. However, the notion that “all flesh” had corrupted its ways means that every living thing in heaven, on the earth, in the ground, and in water was involved in bringing about the disaster. One possibility would be to think of an epidemic that befell the world and turned formerly peaceful creatures into arbitrary killers. However, as God’s assessment suggests, this is not a temporal issue, nothing that could be cured or eliminated. Rather, the proneness to violence is something that, as we might say today, resides in the DNA of “all flesh” – before the flood, and after. This also implies that the world of creatures is both the victim and the culprit. It suffers from the violence that it creates. It inflicts harm and it suffers from harm. Its vulnerability is not only a measure of the suffering that it experiences but also a measure of the suffering that is causes. In contrast to the prophetic traditions as outlined above, the Primeval History in particular and the Torah in general do not use the language of “all flesh” to foster eschatological expectations. Vulnerability is not so much an indication that the world is unfinished but that it is in fact imperfect. The Primeval History in all its different literary layers testifies to a permanent qualitative gap between the world ‘as is’ and the world that God had intended. The solution, however, is not eschatological change or any perspective of gradual or immediate improvement. The Primeval History as the prologue of the Torah lays out a different prospect. The expectation is not that God continues to work on his creation; rather God implements a system of order that will keep the world from succumbing to its own violence.18 This is precisely what happens after the flood. First, God repeats that blessing that he had given to humankind and charges Noah and his offspring to be fruitful and multiply, followed by a set of commandments that pertain to human as well as animal life (Gen 9:4–6): But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

18 A. Schüle, “The Primeval History as an Etiology of Torah”, in A. Schüle (ed.), Theology from the Beginning. Essays on the Primeval History and its Canonical Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 165–76.

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When God begins to implement laws in addition to the order of creation from Genesis 1. It is God’s law, the Torah, that fills the gap between the world as is and the world as it was meant to be. So it is adequate to say that the laws and regulations that God implements carry the marks of human vulnerability but they also carry the signature of God’s glory.

Conclusions Having examined texts from the historical books of the Old Testament, as well as from the prophets and the Torah, we can now draw some tentative conclusions. 1. The narrative culture of the Hebrew Bible is characterized by a strong interest in what has been called anthropological realism, meaning that even the heroes of the narratives in their transitory moments of strength and greatness are always depicted against the backdrop of finitude and frailty. They occasionally (and mostly unexpectedly) rise above, but never escape the tough realities of human existence. This is a way of saying that there are no exceptions to the rule of human life being subjugated to physical finitude on the one hand and to the contingencies of human history on the other. 2. The prophets and the Torah can be read as providing meta-texts to the historical narratives of the Old Testament. As such, they offer conceptual frameworks (or paradigms) in which these narratives could be or should be read. And here one finds two different ways of conceptualizing vulnerability : as an indication of incompleteness (prophets), or as an indication of imperfection and defect (Torah). Consequently, both paradigms offer different solutions to their perception of a less-than-perfect and, therefore, vulnerable world. The prophetic traditions elaborate on the notion of eschatological fulfillment, which includes the expectation of another decisive divine intervention that will finally rid the world of what causes suffering and pain (Isa 2:1–4; Mic 4:1–4). The Torah, on the other hand, holds no such expectations but lays out a system of cultic and moral order, which is robust enough to resist the impact of evil in the world.

Dean Phillip Bell

Vulnerability in Judaism: Anthropological and Divine Dimensions

Introduction In this article I explore Jewish approaches to human and divine vulnerability. Jewish discussions of human vulnerability may be approached by the general condition of humans as well as by the liminal and marginalized experiences of Jews in history. On first examination, divine vulnerability appears to be more properly a Christian, as opposed to Jewish, theme – given the dual nature of Jesus and his suffering. However, diverse biblical, rabbinic, and medieval Jewish sources reveal numerous episodes and narratives that address the theme of God’s vulnerability. These narratives often had to do with the nature of the Covenant between God and the Israelites. While covenants can be made between more and less powerful parties, they often entail concession and limitation as part of the relationship. Similarly, while the medieval Jewish philosopher and legal scholar Moses Maimonides articulated a belief that God cannot be described in anthropomorphic ways, the very descriptions of God in many biblical and rabbinic texts simultaneously present God as distant and powerful on one hand and familiar and all too human on the other. God is prone to both physical and emotional realities and vulnerabilities that we can all understand. God is regularly described in bodily terms. And, God gets angry and jealous, even if God can also be compassionate and flexible – both sets of characteristics, some would maintain, are quite human. Before I explore the issue of anthropological dimensions of vulnerability in Judaism, therefore, let me briefly consider some classical Jewish discussions about God that may be useful in framing a broader discussion. After that I will draw a few preliminary conclusions and explore vulnerability of people through a more detailed examination of several Jewish accounts of natural disasters in early modern writings. These texts highlight significant aspects of human vulnerability – environmental challenges, social and communal complexities, and relationships with God through what is often referred to as an “economy of sin.” Based on these topics and a quick review of recent discussions of vulnerability, I conclude with a few suggestions about ways to understand vulnerability and utilize vulnerability as a conceptual and an explanatory tool.

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Divine Dimensions of Vulnerability The first text that I consider is fairly well-known and often discussed. It is referred to as the “Oven of Akhnai,” and it is a brief text from the Babylonian Talmud, in the tractate Baba Metzia (59a-b), from the order of “Nezikin” (Damages). This tractate includes discussion of a range of civil matters, from property to usury. The text begins by discussing whether a certain kind of oven is susceptible to uncleanness or not. The term “Akhnai” may refer to the owner of the aforementioned oven, but in this case the word also carries the meaning of “snake,” referring to the numerous arguments wrapped around the issue. After some transitional comments, the text continues in earnest with a debate between Rabbi Eliezer and the other Sages: … It has been taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument [that the oven is not subject to impurity], but they did not accept them. Said he to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let this carob-tree prove it!’ Thereupon the carob-tree was torn a hundred cubits out of its place – others affirm, four hundred cubits. ‘No proof can be brought from a carob-tree,’ they retorted. Again he said to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let the stream of water prove it!’ Whereupon the stream of water flowed backwards – ‘No proof can be brought from a stream of water,’ they rejoined. Again he urged: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let the walls of the schoolhouse prove it,’ whereupon the walls inclined to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked them, saying: ‘When scholars are engaged in a halachic dispute, what have you to interfere?’ Hence they did not fall, in honour of R. Joshua, nor did they resume the upright [position], in honour of R. Eliezer ; and they are still standing thus inclined. Again he said to them: ‘If the halachah agrees with me, let it be proved from Heaven!’ Whereupon a Heavenly Voice cried out: ‘Why do you dispute with R. Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the halachah agrees with him!’ But R. Joshua arose and exclaimed: ‘It is not in heaven.’ What did he mean by this? –Said R. Jeremiah: That the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because Thou hast long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, After the majority must one incline. R. Nathan met Elijah and asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour? – He laughed [with joy], he replied, saying, ‘My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me. …’

This rather curious text has been cited widely in Jewish thought and history. Generally speaking, it is leveraged in discussions related to jurisprudence and governance, with its emphasis on the power of the majority opinion. More striking is the notion at the end of the passage that God has been “bested” by human interpreters. In part this situation arises because God allows it. But more to the point, the assertion is that once the Torah, the law, has been revealed and placed on earth it is a law for people and society and not for the

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heavens – not for God, nor for the ministering angels. As such, God cedes power over the text and in fine rabbinic fashion, the interpretation of the text is relegated to humans. Interpretation follows very specific rules and boundaries. God becomes “vulnerable,” in a sense, precisely as God allows humans to own and to manipulate the text to arrive at practical applications of the law in daily life. God is “defeated” by people in that the argument from heaven – one might say the true or ultimate interpretation – is voided and the determination is left to people. God is vulnerable in part because God allows this to be the case; more to the point, however, we might say that in the rabbinic construction of the world, God created the world and the laws, but then moves off to allow people to apply them. This is, after all, a world of people and not angels. The result, however, is that God and God’s law are vulnerable to misinterpretation – interpretation that does not accord with the divine plan. Yet God is vulnerable only insofar as God has ab initio established the principles of rabbinic interpretation and the governing authority of humans. It is in the very Covenant, or relationship, that God allows vulnerability and it is in the negotiation or tensions between universal law and localized or particularistic application of that law that such vulnerability is fully realized. The result is that God can, in fact, be “bested” by the rabbis. Interpretation, as those who have applied modern literary theory to rabbinic writings and processes have argued, is where the real creative power lies and it is humans and not God who oversee that process. The “Oven of Akhnai” episode is certainly not the only in rabbinic literature in which God is challenged (and bested) by humans. In numerous cases in rabbinic writing the rabbis question what they find to be morally problematic divine laws or behavior. In some of these cases, God changes a particular position and is proven to be susceptible to human arguments. In one such case, after hearing a complaint and response by Moses regarding God punishing the righteous for the sins of their parents, for example, God concedes that Moses has taught God something and God agrees to nullify His decree.1 Indeed, in one Talmudic passage, God declares, “I rule mankind. Who rules Me? The Tzadik [the righteous person]. For I make a decree and they annul the decree.”2 Even in the biblical text itself, God seems to be vulnerable. In reading the story of the flood we typically associate God’s decision to destroy the world with a disappointment with humans for their sins. However, some scholars suggest that God was in fact disappointed with God’s own abilities as Creator, 1 D. Weiss, “Divine Concessions in the Tanhuma Midrashim”, in J.D. Levenson/K. Madigan (ed.), Harvard Theological Review 108:1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) 70–97, on p. 79. 2 Moed Katan 16b, cited in B.L. Sherwin, Toward a Jewish Theology : Methods, Problems, and Possibilities (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991), 92.

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more than with the sins of God’s creatures, which God forwarded as something of a secondary rationalization to justify this decision to destroy the world.3 According to this interpretation, before God can try re-creating the world more perfectly, God needs to start over. Indeed, some rabbinic stories discuss prior worlds created by God. According to this view, God can err and is truly vulnerable. It is not only in rabbinic exegesis of problematic or apparently incongruous biblical passages that God appears to be vulnerable in Jewish thought. Allow me briefly to review one other intriguing discussion about the divine, in what we might call classical Jewish thought. It comes from kabbalistic discussions emanating from the person and circle of the sixteenth-century Safed mystic Isaac Luria. We have almost nothing written by Luria himself and instead must rely on the writings of his disciples. Accordingly, one pupil summarizes one aspect of Luria’s thought as follows: How did He [God] produce and create the world? Like a man who gathers in and contracts his breath, so that the smaller might contain the larger, so He contracted His light into a hand’s breadth, according to His own measure, and the world was left in darkness, and in that darkness He cut boulders and hewed rocks.4

While the term tzimtzum (contraction) was utilized in the Middle Ages by Moses ben Nahman (Nahmanides) – famous for his own mystical and exegetical works as well as his debate with the convert from Judaism Pablo Christiani in the middle of the thirteenth century – Luria further developed the term and the associated concept. For Luria an important question was how there could be room for anything in the world besides God if the world is filled with God’s glory, the “Ein Sof,” or the Godhead. In order for other things to exist, he concluded, God had to contract some part of God’s essence, receding back into the Godhead and leaving an empty void. Although this void is only a minuscule point for God, within it there is room for all the worlds together. Into this void God then emanated all the worlds. In traditional Midrash, the concept of tzimtzum is related to God contracting the “Shekhinah,” or presence, into the Tabernacle – that is a concentration of the divine being within a small space. The opposite is the case for Luria, who instead described the absence of the divine presence from a small space. Withdrawal in this case is a prerequisite to expansion and creation. As God’s presence is contracted it leaves a trace, material from which “vessels” come in to being. There was debate within Luria’s own school about whether such trace material was of God or was separate from and external to God – Luria appears to have taken the latter approach. Many succeeding rabbis discussed this notion. Some rejected a literal 3 Sherwin, Toward a Jewish Theology, 82–83. 4 Quoted in M. Berenbaum/F. Skolnik (ed.), Encyclopaedia Judaica, (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2 2007), 22 vols. See “Kabbalah”, 641.

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approach and favored a figurative reading of the concept, noting that the literal interpretation makes God too anthropomorphic.5

The concept, however, does speak to the issue of vulnerability in a very real sense. In order for creation to occur, God must selflimit and so become vulnerable – concealed – from God’s own Omnipresence. As we noted in the previous example, the tension between the universal and the particular and the relationship established between the Creator and the created entail vulnerability. But we should not lose sight of the fact that vulnerability in both cases is also a creative and constructive force. Without divine vulnerability there is no human growth. Indeed, the very relationship that creates a situation of actual or potential vulnerability or limiting for God opens the way to development and growth for people.

Anthropological Dimensions of Vulnerability Within the biblical text itself we see many cases of human vulnerability – from morbidity (death in warfare and through old age) to punishment for transgressions against divine law. Indeed, the idea of an “economy of sin,” whereby humans are punished for transgressing God’s laws was frequently drawn from biblical writings and rehearsed in Jewish history – as it has been in Christian and Islamic history and texts as well – and at times this concept reflected an ultimate human vulnerability. In assessing anthropological dimensions of vulnerability in Jewish history, texts related to natural disasters provide a useful window on to how Jews understood and discussed both human limitations and the relationship between human mortality and divine power, which was generally seen as responsible for such disasters. Early modern Judaism provides many valuable texts that discuss such vulnerability in the context of natural disasters such as earthquakes, plagues, and floods. These texts not only provide insights into actual contemporary life experiences and thought, but they also regularly draw from biblical and rabbinic discourse, allowing us to draw some comparisons with the episodes related to divine vulnerability discussed above. After briefly contextualizing a few examples and highlighting several central themes, I will return to a fuller analysis of the cases taken together.

5 Here and above, see the overview in M. Hallamish, An Introduction to the Kabbalah (Albany : SUNY Press, 1999), 197–201.

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Earthquakes In the midst of complicated political and social conditions, a severe earthquake struck the city of Gerona in northeast Spain in 1427. We possess an anonymous Hebrew chronicle detailing the event.6 The author began his account by providing a clear description of the date and time of the quake and he connected it with biblical passages suggesting punishments for sin and transgression of the Torah. Indeed, permeating the entire presentation were many biblical quotes, which were often strung together in long succession, making the structure of the account more akin to a biblical commentary or Midrash than a chronicle, memoir, or scientific observation. The account described the destruction wrought by the trembler and it narrated the evacuation of the city. The author drew from biblical texts and historical precedents, but also inserted numerous observations taken from contemporary chronicles.7 While the author called the earthquake a wonder of God, he was quick to point out that no Jews died in the event. In fact, the account could be construed as obliquely polemical, as it juxtaposed the fact that no Jews died in the quake with descriptions of the destruction of Christian sites and the death of some Christians. Typically leveraging the well-known work of Pliny, the author associated the earthquake with a variety of natural conditions, including rising water levels, vapors and smells emanating from the earth, rain and clouds, as well as wind inside the earth. Here he balanced traditional classical thinking about the relation of wind and earthquakes with rabbinic discussions about earthquakes as signs and miracles, as well as punishment for sins. Indeed, the author suggested that the earthquake should be a sign to turn to God and he observed that the tremors themselves ceased upon repentance.8 Throughout, it was God who was the agent directing the earthquake,9 as the author cited Isa 24, “and behold the Lord will strip the earth bare ….”10 Ultimately, earthquakes were presented as mysteries of God that were beyond human understanding and that should allow us to see the power of God and 6 C. del Valle (ed.), Los terremotos de Girona de 1427 en la fuente hebrea (Madrid: Aben ezra Ediciones, 1996), Hebrew text with Spanish translation. 7 Consider, for example, del Valle (ed.), Los terremotos de Girona de 1427, section 9: “And already it was written in Tolomeo in the introduction of the book, that when stars are aligned what transpires, and earth[‘s foundation] tremble (Isa 24:18) it sweeps him from his place (Job 27:21).” 8 See, for example, del Valle, Los terremotos de Girona de 1427, at the beginning of section 6: “[In] the city of Barcelona and Gerona each man turned to his God above.” 9 See del Valle, Los terremotos de Girona de 1427, sections 7 and 20, for example. 10 del Valle, Los terremotos de Girona de 1427, section 1 reads: “The earth is tottering, tottering (Isa 24:19) and behold the Lord will strip the earth bare, and lay it waste, and twist its surface, and scatter its inhabitants (Isa 24:1) because they transgressed Torah, changed law, broke the ancient covenant (Isa 24:5) …”

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increase our estimation of Him.11 The author ended the account with a review of some significant earthquakes in history, placing the events in Gerona within both an historical and theological context. Vulnerability for the anonymous author was related to the human condition. While the punishment for sin motif played a central role, vulnerability was clearly conditioned by human behavior as well as natural and divine conditions that were beyond human understanding or control. What is more, people were differently vulnerable, depending on a variety of factors such as geographic location and religious denomination.

Plagues The great plague epidemic in northern Italy of 1629–1631 resulted in the deaths of about 280,000 people. The plague had a devastating effect on the Jews in the city of Padua, where two-thirds of them succumbed to the disease.12 Rabbi Abraham Catalano (d. 1642), who had studied both Torah and medicine,13 authored an account of the plague in Padua. The plague account is quite long and covers a great deal of material. The author stressed the notion that God punishes with the plague, but he also discussed at great length the practical ways to address the plague and the means by which one can save one’s family and community. As Catalano noted in his introductory paragraphs: … I will faithfully make known to the generations three useful lessons from this story. The first lesson is to understand that this is God’s way. Our God’s wrath is kindled and there is no one who can save us from His hand. The living being will take it to heart to end transgression and limit sin lest the evil adheres to him and he dies for his sins. The second lesson is that the generations to come will know how to behave and properly prepare for a devastating plague in the world in their days as we did at this time. In this report I will describe not only everything that we did but also all that is appropriate to be done to be saved from the plague in general and after it dissipates. The third lesson is to save children naturally from pestilence that prowls in the darkness and to make known to them in this report how specifically a family should behave in order to survive. 11 Earthquakes are one of the mysteries of God beyond our understanding (del Valle, Los terremotos de Girona de 1427, section 15) that demonstrates the power of God (sections 19 and 20, for example). 12 Columbia University exhibition, https://exhibitions.cul.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/he brew_mss/communities/x893_ab8 (last accessed March 13, 2016). 13 A. Catalano, “A World Turned Upside Down”, C. Roth (ed.), Kobetz al Yad (1946) 67–101, on p. 70.

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Catalano recorded various rules and regulations from the Jewish community and from the local and territorial authorities. He reviewed the timing of the outbreak and spread of the plague and he described in detail the death of many individuals, including his own family members. This text, like others, reveals the multi-dimensional relationship between pre-modern Jews and Christians. In the early stages of the plague, the Jews in the ghetto appeared to be relatively unscathed. Later, when the plague spread disastrously to the ghetto, Christians were forbidden by the city and Venetian authorities from entering the ghetto. Throughout the ordeal, Jews negotiated with the non-Jewish authorities on a broad range of concerns, from disinfection of goods, to expenses related to the lazaretto, the return of goods, and the re-opening of the ghetto. Despite restrictions on travel, some Jews and others fled the plague for other cities, towns, and rural areas yet unaffected by the disease. The plague could surface internal communal concerns as well. The author, who served on the central board formed to address the plague, frequently noted the preparations that were made to provide money and food for the poor and the broader Jewish community, as well as medical attention provided for the sick and burial for the dead. As the plague progressed, participation in formal religious services decreased, even as confessions, lamentations, and supplications were added to the prayers. While the rabbi saw God’s hand in the events of his day, and while the medical practitioner was familiar with traditional scientific and medical theories and practices, the pragmatist wrote the treatise. In grappling with the vulnerability of individuals and communities, Catalano stressed the importance of practical issues – from negotiations with the authorities to internal boards of governance; from detailed processes of marking houses and operating hospitals, to disinfecting goods. He believed people may be vulnerable to natural conditions, however brought about, but he clearly maintained that vulnerability can be mitigated through preparation, planning, and good policy. He recorded a variety of ways that people could protect themselves and concluded: … And you, people of my community, remember and do not forget, before a plague reaches you, send a delegate to the holy community of Venice and pay his salary, so that he can help you when you are in trouble and if a matter comes up against you before the ministers, which is not religious [in nature], whether [for example] to hand over the ghetto or a single person, this one can stand there in the breach.

Like other early modern Jewish writers, Catalano was concerned with the vulnerability of humans. The economy of sin, however, was not central to his account. Rather vulnerability must be addressed at the level of the individual, the family, and the community. Catalano clearly saw that vulnerability differs between people and its impact can be affected by human actions. Catalano did not reject religion – either as an explanation for plague or as a means to redress

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its effects. Still, Catalano was primarily concerned with calling people to action: learning from past events, leveraging political assets, and planning strategically in advance of disasters. What is more, the many examples provided by Catalano indicate the diversity of vulnerabilities that people face – some succumbing, others surviving, due to many different, at times unknowable, factors. Floods Many diverse Jewish sources provide details about climate conditions and flooding, some in great detail and some almost in passing. Among the most extensive and detailed Jewish flood narratives from the early modern period, is that of Juspa, the Shammash (sexton) of Worms, in the middle of the seventeenth century, which was appended to his customs book for the community.14 While quite intriguing, Juspa’s account did not compare in scope to the later, eighteenth-century, Jewish flood accounts in Hebrew and Yiddish.15 What is more, his entries did not, on the surface, appear to serve any specific purpose, as they were not recorded as the basis for any particular customs. Unlike other early modern Jewish flood narratives, Juspa did not focus on human sin as an explanation for floods nor did he provide supplications or evidence of more “religious” responses to such events. Throughout, Juspa discussed a wide range of related themes and he covered an expanding and contracting geographical circle, focusing sometimes on very specific aspects of Jewish life and other times on much broader societal and economic issues. In his first entry, Juspa treated the flood of the winter of 1651 (22 Tevet; January 15). He noted that the waters increased and flooded into “our place Warmaisa,” forcing people to flee by boat. Juspa narrated the broader flooding of the streets and quarters along the Rhine before returning to the Jewish quarter and the inundation of Jewish houses and the flooding of certain Jewish wine cellars. Juspa reminded his readers that he saw the flooding with his own eyes and he provided very specific details of the flood. In the second entry, for Winter 1658 (22 Adar I; February 25) Juspa provided only a brief initial account, describing the heavy snow of the early part of the month, which later resulted in the flooding of the Rhine. Juspa completed the entry by narrating the freezing of the Rhine in that year. In this second entry, Juspa took an even broader or more universal perspective. He noted that the waters of the Rhine increased until they came into “our city Worms” and he wrote later that the floodwaters came into every 14 Customs Book of Worms by Juspa, Shammash (, Jerusalem: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 21998), addenda, 260–63 [Hebrew]. 15 See D.P. Bell, “Navigating the Flood Waters: Perspectives on Jewish Life in Early Modern Germany”(Leo Baeck Institute, Yearbook 56, 2011) 29–52.

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place. There is no specific mention of the Jewish quarter, Jewish property, or Jewish losses in this entry. Rather, Juspa utilized very traditional language when he noted that not even old people could remember such a quantity of snow, repeating the standard generational memory measuring stick of many early modern writers. Still, Juspa insisted that he himself witnessed the events, placing himself and by extension the Jewish community, into the broader environmental conditions that affected the entire city. The last three entries deal with summer flooding during the 1660s and 1670s. These entries are quite universal in their description of the devastation wrought by the flood waters. In none of the entries did Juspa reference the Jewish community specifically. Juspa also did not note that he had witnessed any of these events himself. In the first of these last entries Juspa discussed the Summer of 1663 (25 Tammuz; July 30) in which the Rhine and Neckar Rivers flooded. He detailed the damage to the grain in the fields and collected in the granaries. He noted that many villages along the Rhine were devastated by the waters that sat for a long time and only slowly receded. The destruction of pastures, Juspa pointed out, would affect the animals at that time and during the ensuing winter months, when food for them would be scarce. Roads were closed and travel had to be diverted. Juspa closed this entry with reference to a two-hour lunar eclipse in the subsequent month of Av (17 Av (one of the Jewish fast days; August 20) that he hoped would be a good omen for all Israel. It is only in this parting comment that Juspa revealed a specifically Jewish orientation, though the recording of eclipses was certainly a very widely used tool in early modern Germany for explaining disasters and articulating hope for salvation from future grief. The devastation, nevertheless, continued at the end of the same month with another, unprecedented flood on 26 and 27 Av (August 29–30). Again, utilizing very standardized language, Juspa wrote that there … came a flood of many waters, the likes of which were not seen or heard by a man of our generation, and the waters passed over so many places and fields and vineyards on this side and on the bank of the Rhine River, in places where people did not remember that there ever came such waters, because they came into dry places, fields, and vineyards, and went into distant lands … and this was a miracle to people. And it did such damage that cannot be narrated.

Juspa detailed the death of animals, the destruction of grains and vines, as well as man-made edifices such as wooden bridges, mills, and houses. Juspa ended this entry by arguing that the increase in water three times in one year was a great and powerful miracle for everyone to see and hear, and he pleaded that the mighty waters not bring any further trouble. Like other early modern chroniclers, in some ways Juspa recorded local events to serve almost as an archive of local history. Precisely in this context, one might expect Juspa to mention some liturgical addition or custom in response, but he offered none.

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As in many early modern Jewish accounts of floods (and other natural disasters), Juspa balanced internal and external foci. Although the position of the Jews and their possessions and their legal standing appeared rather tenuous in some cases, most Jewish accounts made no mention of negative consequences for the Jews and, as with Juspa’s account, they revealed knowledge of the city beyond the Jewish streets or quarter. While Jewish authors generally focused on the impact of such events on and the vulnerability of the Jewish community, they also described the effects on the broader population and frequently extended their comments beyond the borders of their own city or town. As Juspa demonstrated, Jews were familiar with the Jewish section of the city as well as the city at large – “our place” or “our neighborhood,” as opposed to “our city” Worms – and the broader countryside. Jewish accounts would continue this balancing well into the modern period.16 Within their own residential space, Jewish narrators had a clear sense of geography and hierarchy – noting the most extensive damage by location (heavily in the west of the Jewish quarter in Worms, it would appear) or by social status (noting the losses of particularly wealthy men or communal leaders17). In Juspa’s accounts vulnerability was variable and depended on numerous conditions: spatial (related to regional location and position within the city); communal (for while the flood could affect certain individuals more significantly, it also affected the entire community); conceptual (forcing individuals and communities to grapple with causation); and, perhaps more importantly, practical response and future preparation. What strikes me as especially interesting in Juspa’s narrative is his shifting perspective, that alternates rather seamlessly between communal, civic, and regional concerns and developments. At times, like other early modern writers, Juspa is very particularistic – he provides commentary related specifically to the Jewish community or he notes a broader Jewish context. At other times, however, the account is shorn of any specific Jewish focus and Juspa narrates general developments in a more universalizing way. Much more than we might expect, Juspa changes registers quickly and rather easily. Although the Jewish community of early modern Worms cannot be seen as easily integrated into the broader society, members of the large Jewish community clearly interacted at all levels with their non-Jewish neighbors, shared in the larger culture, and responded to similar events and levels of vulnerability.

16 See Bell, “Navigating the Flood Waters”. 17 See Reuter, Warmaisa: 1000 Jahre Juden in Worms (Worms: Verlag Stadtarchiv Worms, 1984), 92–93 and 132–33 for historical lists and maps of houses in the Jewish quarter.

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Conclusions: Understanding Vulnerability The texts we have examined related to divine vulnerability suggest that vulnerability can be related to self-imposed limitation. Such vulnerability may emerge from a covenantal relationship as well as the act of contraction that makes creation itself possible. Vulnerability appears to be located precisely in the tension or intersection between universal and particular – between God and human interpretation and application, between all-encompassing and contracted. In the realm of anthropological vulnerability, we considered three cases of Jewish discussions of and responses to natural disaster in the early modern period. From these cases we learned that vulnerability is variable – it depends upon geography, social condition, and religion, for example. At times, vulnerability appears to be conditioned by human behavior ; at other times it is Nature and the environment – with or without God’s direction – that appear to dictate human vulnerability to disasters. We noted occasions when theodicy, or the economy of sin model, was employed – explaining human vulnerability and suffering as a result of divine punishment for human sin. On the other hand, there are certainly examples in early modern and modern Jewish narratives when that economy is clearly more rhetorical than meaningladen and when it was not even referenced. Our examples also pointed out that human vulnerability can, and must, be addressed by human action as well – steps taken by communal leaders to provide supplies, medical attention, political support, but also prayer and penance. Finally, we have seen that vulnerability can exist in layers – circles of impact that indicate greater vulnerability or perhaps simply greater impact on specific individuals or communities. As with divine vulnerability, in the case of humans, the intersection of universal and particular helped to define the nature and level of vulnerability. How do these initial observations relate to current discussions about vulnerability, and comparatively, resilience? The term vulnerability is derived from the Latin word “vulnus,” or wound.18 Vulnerability is defined in various ways, including: the ratio of risk to susceptibility ;19 the inadequacy of means or ability to protect oneself against adverse events and to recover from them;20 or the capacity to be harmed by a stress or perturbation. 18 C. Mackenzie/W. Rogers/S. Dodds, “Introduction: What is Vulnerability, and Why Does It Matter for Moral Theory”, in C. Mackenzie/W. Rogers/S. Dodds (ed.),Vulnerability : New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1–29, on p. 4. 19 M.J. Zakour/D.F. Gillespie, Community Disaster Vulnerability: Theory, Research, and Practice (New York: Springer, 2013), 17. 20 See K. Marre, “Components of Risk: A Comparative Glossary”, in J. Birkmann (ed.), Measuring Vulnerability to Natural Hazards: Towards Disaster Resilient Societies (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 22006), 569–618, especially 596–603.

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Vulnerability is often presented as a counterpoint to or inversion of resilience, though many find resilience as part of the overall process of vulnerability. In the area of disaster studies, for example, vulnerability refers to susceptibility, risk, resilience, and resistance.21 According to one interpretation, the core factors of vulnerability are susceptibility, sensitivity or fragility, coping or adaptive capacities, and exposure. Vulnerability is, therefore, a process that can change over time and space. Vulnerability includes social, economic, environmental, and institutional dimensions. As a result, both resources as well as networks affect how vulnerable an institution or community may be. Poverty, social isolation, or marginal status are often indicators of high levels of vulnerability.22 Social and economic capital are, correspondingly, seen as necessary for resilient responses to the vulnerabilities associated with disaster. There are various kinds of vulnerability – for example, dispositional (potential), occurrent (actual),23 or pathogenic vulnerability (vulnerabilities that are particularly ethically troubling, and which may exacerbate existing or create new vulnerabilities).24 In fact, individuals and communities may face multiple vulnerabilities in a layered fashion.25 Some recent discussions of vulnerability have argued that vulnerability is universal and constant among humans.26 It is not the characteristics of certain groups, but the result of the very embodiment of human beings.27 According to this line of thought, the result is that, “While we can attempt to lessen risk or act to mitigate possible manifestations of our vulnerability, the possibility of harm cannot be eliminated.” Of course, vulnerability is complex and can take many forms, affected by harm that is beyond individual or human control. As a result, other scholarship has noted that vulnerability is particular and can vary a great deal depending upon individual contexts, characteristics, and resources.28 For our purposes, it is also important to point out that some have argued that vulnerability is not purely negative. It is not only about harm and injurability ; it can also be generative: “It forges bonds between human beings and leads us to create institutions.”29 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29

Zakour/Gillespie, Community Disaster Vulnerability, 20. Ibid., 148. Mackenzie/Rogers/Dodds, “Introduction”, 8. Ibid., 9. W. Rogers, “Vulnerability and Bioethics”, in Mackenzie/Rogers/Dodds,, Vulnerability, 60–87, on p. 70. For an excellent new study that explores vulnerability in a theological context, particularly in regard to illness and end of life concerns, while simultaneously considering the anthropological dimensions of vulnerability, see H. Springhart, Der verwundbare Mensch (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), especially 12, 203. M.A. Fineman/Anna Grear, Vulnerability : Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2013). Ibid., 21. Ibid., 149.

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Are there lessons for vulnerability studies to be drawn from Jewish discussions of divine and anthropological vulnerability? Let me suggest a few points for consideration that may advance the discussion. First, vulnerability often appears at points of convergence across fields of experience: universal and particular ; internal and external; theoretical and practical. While vulnerability is clearly something real and while it can exist in individual domains or contexts, the expression and full force of vulnerability comes at places of intersection, one might say of relationships – relationships between individuals and communities, relationships between humans and God, relationships between universal sensibilities and particular concerns or needs. Second, and related, understanding vulnerability and responses to vulnerability is enhanced by considering religion and, especially, the relation between humans and the divine. In such interactions we see that vulnerability has multiple dimensions and is not simply limited to morbidity. Spiritual vulnerability is essential for understanding the full impact of vulnerability as an interpretative and explanatory category. As such, vulnerability transcends the physical and “this-worldly.” Grappling with this issue allows us to consider many different ways of approaching vulnerability in physical and other manifestations. Finally, just as there are diverse types of vulnerability there are also multiple methods of responding to and mitigating vulnerability. Here I would stress the relevance of developing resilience (religious, social, communal, political, etc.). But, for efforts at resilience to be most effective, we must understand the particular types of vulnerability and the specific conditions that various vulnerabilities create or from which they stem. Like all heuristic categories, vulnerability holds out a great deal of promise, even as it has its own limitations and problems. Still, the notion of vulnerability may provide a much-needed alternative and a fresh perspective for understanding life in the past, today, and for the future.

II. Ethics

William Schweiker

Vulnerability and the Moral Life: Theological and Ethical Reflections1

Introduction The task of the reflections that follow is to explore human vulnerability and the moral life from the perspective of theological and ethical reflection. Of course, these terms mean so many different things to so many different thinkers that they need immediate clarification. Theology and ethics, on my understanding, are forms of “second-order thinking,” that is, thinking about thinking, or, better yet, interpretations of interpretations. Religion simply means the convictions and practices of some community, its interpretation of reality and leadership, and the ways it enables members to access sacred or divine powers for the sake of the conduct of life. Theology submits those first-order convictions, practices, and interpretations to scrutiny in order to articulate and assess their meaning and truth. This means that theology might need to reconstruct religious commitments, that is, the bundle of convictions, practices, and interpretations that allow religious people access to the divine or sacred. I will be doing some of that work in this essay. I will be exploring Christian theology in particular, although, given my definition, other religions could engage in theological thinking as well. Morality is also a set of first-order convictions and interpretations about how one can and ought to responsibly orient personal and social life. It includes other claims as well, like what it means to be a moral agent and accounts of the good of life, that are the subject of “ethics” as second-order critical and constructive reflection on morality. This means that “ethics” can be theological as well but could also be non-theological, that is (are) “philosophical” ethics. The difference is whether or not the right and good conduct of life means gaining access to some suprahuman power(s) that is definitive of religious life. More important than definitions of theology and ethics, it must be said that for ethical thinkers, philosophers, and theologians, human vulnerability 1 This essay was originally given as a lecture for the conference “Vulnerability : A New Focus For Theological And Interdisciplinary Anthropology.” I want to thank the organizers of this conference, and, especially, Professors Springhart and Thomas for the kind invitation to give this lecture. I am also happy to bring greetings from The Enhancing Life Project, a Templeton Foundation funded project that is co–led by Professor Thomas and myself. Collaboration is always a good thing, but especially when it is around topics as important as the enhancing and vulnerability of life in our global times.

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has hardly been missed or neglected. A simple glance at any human life is apt testimony to the fact that we are vulnerable beings. We are born; we die; we hope; we love; we cry ; we labor ; we dream; we rage ; we wonder. Vulnerability is all around us and is everywhere within us. We should not be surprised, then, that vulnerability is a major issue in ethics, theological or otherwise. Insofar as human beings are incomplete, striving, and changeable beings, that is, in as much as human life must be developed throughout a lifetime and can also be harmed in any number of ways, vulnerability is a constitutive feature of being human. To perform virtues or vices, and to strive or fail to fulfill some life-plan, to be mindful of the reality of vice and also to suffer loss are traits of being human. As St. Augustine and others might put it, human beings are changeable creatures on different registers of existence and this changeableness is, as we might now put it, the condition of possibility for human fault and righteousness. The different registers of existence, as we can call them, are important to understanding this point. As mortal beings, we are born, we age, and we die each of which is a form of changeability. As social creatures, we are vulnerable to forms of care, friendship, and social forms but also open to shame, disrespect, and isolation. Insofar as we are reflective, learning beings, here too we are open to the increase of understanding and knowledge, but also susceptible to deception, false consolation, error, and ideologies. As beings located in space and time, we are vulnerable to changes in our habitat, the loss of memory, and upheavals and displacements in our localities and our personal and social histories. Thus, we can take it as given that human beings are changeable, striving, and incomplete creatures and so vulnerable in both positive and negative ways. Oddly, some contemporary critics imagine that these blatantly obvious facts of human life were somehow missed by Enlightenment thinkers, say, by Immanuel Kant, and also classical minds like Plato and the Stoics. This charge probably arises from the fact that in our time we are ever mindful of the many forms of oppression that beset people around the world, say, for example, horrendous poverty, unjust sexual treatment, political tyranny, and so many others. While this is true, one can say with utter confidence that classical and modern thinkers did not miss the significance and depth of human vulnerability. Indeed, it was basic to everything classical and modern thinkers taught about the right and good conduct of life. At issue for the ancients and moderns – and, I think for us as well – are what I will call “the modes of vulnerability” and their meaning for the moral and religious life. And for the purposes of these reflections, the vulnerability that orients my argument is a troubling fact that is played out on different registers of life. The troubling fact is that while we know the coming reality of ecological endangerment, unjust economic and social relations, and the possibility of altering human life beyond recognition through biotechnology, sadly, that

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knowledge is not motivating of action.2 Put more precisely, the knowledge of vulnerability on these three registers of life (nature; society ; species) does not generate beliefs as reasons for action. Dangerously, this means that human power is neither limited nor directed by knowledge or other motives for actions with respect to the natural environment, social life, or our embodied existence. Apathy or a sense of inevitable disaster now seem bound to the expanse and exercise of power across the three registers of life just noted. Yet if we are to resist the immoral equation that “might” equals “right,” what then is ethics to do? Clearly we need to explore the relation between knowledge and belief where a belief is a reason for action and ethical knowledge is about the limits of human power, limits taken to be morally good. But I am ahead of myself; I return to this observation later in this essay. Something of the essay’s topic noted, let me begin by clarifying the method of these reflections and then offer a typology of accounts of vulnerability and the moral life. In the second step of the argument, I will explore some explicitly Christian theological accounts of the topic. Most of the reflections that follow are thereby exploratory and also an analysis of the moral meaning of vulnerability. Nevertheless, at the far end of these reflections, I will gesture toward my own account of the moral life from a specific theological perspective, what I have elsewhere called “theological humanism.”

A Typology of Beliefs As already intimated, one task of these reflections is to outline a typology of accounts of vulnerability in classical and modern thought. Before doing so, it seems wise to clarify my tactic or method of reflection. I hope the reasons for adopting this strategy will become clear as the argument proceeds. To state it technically, I adopt a hermeneutical approach to theological ethics that also entails a claim about sources for thinking and how to defend claims. As the philosopher Susan Wolf has noted: Aristotle is well known for his use of the endoxic method in defending moral and conceptual claims. That is, he takes the endoxa, “the things which are accepted by everyone, or by most people, or the wise” as a starting point in his inquiries.3

Something like this method was also used by early Christian thinkers as well. St. Augustine, in texts like “On the Morals of the Christian Church,” adopted 2 On this see J.-P. Dupuy, The Mark of the Sacred (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013). 3 S. Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 10. Part of this section of the essay has been drawn from my other writing, specifically, “Humanity and the Global Future” in The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 36:2 (Fall/Winter 2016), 3–24.

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the method but gives it a crucial theological twist. Augustine begins by bracketing distinctly Christian claims and examines endoxa about the human good and justice, but as the argument proceeds he removes the brackets and shows the indispensable contribution Christian convictions make to the shared topic of inquiry. I will proceed, in terms of method, in the same way in the following pages. Notice that unlike some theologians and philosophers, my root assumption about language is that Christian discourse while distinctive is not sui generis; it is not utterly unique. As human realities, natural languages cannot be ultimately incommensurable. Given this fact, there is no reason in principle why distinctly religious discourse should not to be explored when examining the conduct of human life. It too can contribute to the understanding and orientation of life. For the sake of this essay, I want, then, to explore some expressions of the endoxa, some widely accepted beliefs, about vulnerability and the moral life, with respect to which I want to make a theological and ethical contribution.4 We can briefly indicate these modes of vulnerability by asking a related question: to what or to whom is an agent vulnerable and how is one vulnerable? When the question is put in that way, it becomes clear that there are three basic modes of vulnerability arising from the registers of life, as I called them, that have been widely explored in the history of theology and ethics. What are these basic modes of vulnerability? Fundamental patterns of moral and religious thought about the registers of life, often expressed metaphorically, generally connect reflection on human existence, social life, and even claims about the cosmos, the universe. In different terms, these patterns of thought configure and articulate the extent of our relations that define the structures of lived reality. The patterns of thought and life are usually deeply embedded in a culture and society ; they constitute what has been called “the social imaginary.”5 The patterns identify the implicit or explicit ontology of a culture, that is, they are accounts of the meaning of the structures of lived reality within which human life must be lived. However, it makes a difference, as W. Clark Gilpin has recently noted, whether a thinker begins with human existence or social life or metaphysics and the universe.6 4 This essay is meant, then, not only to be about “vulnerability and the moral life,” but also to enact a method for theological reflection on the topic. Another way to designate the method of my lecture is to say, as H. Richard Niebuhr famously put it, that I am engaged in “Christian Moral Philosophy.” The perspective and standpoint of my argument is Christian while its subject matter is our shared life as moral agents rather than just the Church. See H.R. Niebuhr, The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1999). 5 See C. Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004) and D.E. Klemm/William Schweiker, Religion and the Human Future: An Essay on Theological Humanism (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). 6 W.C. Gilpin, Religion Around Emily Dickinson (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015). The attempt to specify heuristic patterns of thought is found in the work of

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And this is also the case with respect to the modes of vulnerability. Each of the types of ethics I will note includes the complete bundle of ideas about what I am calling a “pattern of life,” that is, self, society, and the cosmos. Yet each takes one or the other of these three focal points, and so one or another basic register of life, as central to their ontology of the moral space of life and also ideas about what it means to be a vulnerable moral agent. A caveat must be noted here. Of crucial importance, but a point that cannot be explored in these pages, is that each of the foci is also internally complex. That is to say, society is really a society of societies, as Niklas Luhmann might put it. While an integral whole, any human society is to greater and lesser degrees constituted by the interactions of social subsystems, say, family, religious institutions, political order, law, and the like. Likewise, the human self is internally complex. One might speak, as does Plato, of the “tripartite soul,” or one can explore the relations and tensions among reason, will, and the emotions and appetites as does Thomas Aquinas, or, of the will and the “otherness” in the self as does Paul Ricoeur.7 Likewise, the “cosmos,” the Greek term originally meant an ordered whole, is, for many classical thinkers, an internally differentiated reality of different kinds of beings, souls, and material realities. Nowadays, physicists seek a unified theory of reality even as we know, especially at the sub-atomic level, that chaos seems to rule. Indeed, it is precisely the otherness within society, self, and, cosmos that constitutes human beings as changeable moral creatures. This is because a human being must orient life within the complexity of reality and the complexity and tensions within her own life in terms of what is owed others, her own orientation in life, and the possibilities and limits of finite existence.8 That said, in this essay I am focusing on the relations among the foci in a pattern of life rather than the complexity within self, society, and cosmos, a topic that is, to be honest, my usual preoccupation. Let us briefly sketch a typology of positions admitting, for the sake of time, that in-depth analysis of any one thinker or basic type is beyond the scope of this paper. First, thinkers have long noted that human beings are vulnerable to internal, psychological forces. For instance, the ancient Stoics and Epicureans traced, in different ways, our vulnerability to pleasure and pain and the extent to which an agent can rationally direct or surmount those emotions and psychic states. The Stoic sage is to practice apathia in the struggle for selfsufficiency by ordering life through reason, that is, the divine spark in the self, but also by fulfilling the duties of one’s station. Not surprisingly, two of the most famous ancient Stoics were a slave, Epictetus, and an Emperor, Marcus many American theologians, ranging from Jonathan Edwards in the 18th Century to, in our time, H. Richard Niebuhr, James Gustafson, Sallie McFague, and, most recently, Kristine Culp. 7 See P. Ricoeur, Oneself as Another (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1992). 8 For a brilliant account of this insight about the self and freedom see M. Midgley, The Ethical Primate (New York, NY: Routledge, 1994).

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Aurelius. The divine mind, the logos, assigns a person their station in life and the duties it entails. The sage, living by reason, conforms to nature and fulfills his or her duties. Likewise, the Epicureans understood that human pleasures are fleeting and thus a sage in search of tranquility must seek a life that reduces pain since this aim alone can lead to some constancy in life. One attains that peace by escaping the illusion of permanence in the self and quelling inordinate desires. In both of these cases, despite profound differences, the idea was that the rational, moral life could triumph over psychic and emotional vulnerabilities that beset embodied mortal human life. But that kind of moral rationalism, of which there are many modern examples as well – for example, Kant, while focused on “self-mastery” nevertheless had to consider forces acting on the agent, say, fate or the gods – also includes an account of the nature of reality within which human beings live and die. We can note the metaphysical atomism of the Epicureans, Stoic pantheistic determinism, or Kant’s distinction between laws of nature and the law of freedom. However, one can, secondly, shift the focus and begin one’s ethical account of vulnerability and the pattern of life by focusing on the profoundly social nature of human existence. Aristotle, for instance, thought that “ethics” was part of “political science” because every human activity depends on the life of a community. Politics is thereby about the highest human qua human good. Of course, here too was a form of rationalism since Aristotle insisted that the good life requires the use of phronesis, practical reason, in order to discern the proper mean between opposing motivations in changing circumstances and thus to advance in a life of virtue. He was also clear that humans are subject to forces beyond their powers, say, the winds of fate and moral luck (as some current thinkers call it), and therefore, not everyone can achieve “happiness,” eudaimonia, in this life. Nevertheless, the good that is achievable in this life includes friendship, a profoundly social relation, as well as contemplation by the philosopher of the unchangeable good, the so-called Unmoved Mover. Even the standard for discerning the “mean” between excess and deficiency in motives for virtuous behavior is found embodied in the life of those the polis deems wise, good, and virtuous. Aristotle too was a rationalist of sorts since the highest good is contemplation of the Unmoved Mover and virtue demands the use of practical reason. What is distinctive about human beings is not their animality or sociality but our lives as rational agents. This focus on the social in an account of a pattern of life is intensified in the modern world by exploring how a society generates ideologies with respect to the means of production giving rise to class warfare (Marx), the culturally mediated table of values that besets Western cultures with a life-denying religiously based nihilism (Nietzsche), or, to choose one more example, structures of inequality and the General Will against idyllic and noble natural state of humans (Rousseau). Each of these positions, in radically different ways, conveys the belief that as social beings, moral agents are subject to

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ideologies, systems of value, and structures of inequality. To be sure they also examine the other facets of a pattern of life, say, Marx’s dialectical materialism and idea of species nature, Nietzsche’s ideas about ressentiment and the eternal return of the same, or Rousseau’s ideas about education. The point here, then, is that humans as moral agents are profoundly vulnerable to social relations. If we shift the focus for a third time, we can note the beliefs about powers or realities, divine or not, that exist beyond self and society and are at work in the cosmos to whom or to which moral agents are fundamentally vulnerable. In the famous “Myth of Er” in Plato’s Republic the soul having seen the Good makes a choice and then is reincarnated in matter in such as a way that knowledge of the good is clouded and can only be regained through the rigors of dialectic examination. Philosophy, Plato teaches, is learning to die which means learning to abstract from sense impressions and illusions to apprehend the eternal “forms” of reality. The one who knows the good, the philosopher is naturally the ideal ruler of the human community, the polis. Here the bundle of ideas in a pattern of life are all present and yet there is a way in which the form of the Good, and so a metaphysical claim, is basic to the moral life. The mind is vulnerable to the senses, to dialectic, and, importantly, to the ascent to vision of the forms. Philosophy is at war with vulnerability ; it is learning to die to the world and thus to be unchangeable. Spinoza too outlines a metaphysical ethics around the idea that there is only one substance, that is, God, and we are modes of substance. The answer to human misery, he holds, is to understand this fact about reality and to think and to act in ways that increase one’s conatus, one’s power to remain in being. More recently, one could explore the work of Hans Jonas and his “metaphysical biology” in a theory of responsibility to see how the evolution of life on earth is a condition of the possibility for human action or the work of E.O. Wilson and his understanding of evolution and sociobiology as the roots of morality. Such then is a typology of accounts of vulnerability and the moral life attentive to the different foci of what I have called the “pattern of life.” It is clear that classical and some modern thinkers sought a balance or equilibrium among the foci in a pattern of life, that is, an account of justice as right order, as defining the right orientation of life. This required, we should note, lines of continuity among the foci of a pattern being self, society, and cosmos, a continuity conceived in terms of reason, or materialistically as matter, or in relation to the gods God. Importantly, at various points and in various ways the idea of the gods or God entered our analysis of a pattern of life. What happens if we “lift the brackets” a little bit more and explore the theological meanings of vulnerability and the moral life within Christian theological claims?

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Theological Insights Much more could be said about each of the thinkers and schools of thought that I have noted, as well as others. Such exposition is not possible now. However, the conclusion to be drawn is that different forms of vulnerability inhere in the different interpretations of the foci of a thinker’s or community’s pattern of life. That insight is what the idea of modes of vulnerability is meant to designate. That is, a materialist psychology found among the Epicureans is a different mode of vulnerability than Spinoza’s monism or Plato’s account of the form of the Good and the human ascent to the good through philosophy. Yet, as I just noted in passing, in the thinkers we have recounted there is the assumption that one can develop an encompassing account of the “pattern of life” wherein there are no gaps, tensions, or incommensurability between the dynamics of self or society, or even the cosmos. Importantly, many ancient thinkers (as well as modern political conservatives) speak about justice in this way, that is, justice is right order in self, society, and even cosmos. That idea of justice stands in contrast to the modern discourse of rights, entitlements and preferences in modern liberal morality. And each of these are different from the idea of and struggle for justice among oppressed peoples.9 Rather than entering the debate about justice, I want now to ask: what does our typology mean, if anything, for theological ethical reflection? By speaking of the theological meanings of vulnerability, I do not intend to indicate some version of natural or rational theology devoid of reference to a community of living conviction and conduct. To be sure, some of the thinkers already mentioned develop versions of natural theology.10 My concern in this essay is to draw from the treasure trove of Christian discourse and thereby to continue hermeneutical reflection in the service of ethics. Seen in this light, one could show how Christian thinkers have outlined God’s relation to a “pattern of life” in which each of its constitutive foci – self, society, cosmos – and the relations among them are examined in their theological depth and meaning. The question then becomes the degree to which a theological account transforms, negates, or reconstructs reflection on each of the foci in a pattern of life. The same would be true of theological conceptions of justice, for instance. For example, one could easily show how Aquinas’s account of the virtues radically transforms Aristotle’s virtue theory by insisting that the theological 9 On these positions see, for example, N. Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), A. MacIntyre, Whose Justice, Which Rationality (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), and M. Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 10 For an account of the relation of ethics and natural theology see W. Schweiker, “Morality and Natural Theology”, in R. Re Manning (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology (Oxford, 2013), 310–24.

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virtue of love (caritas) is the “mother” of all the virtues and thus the virtues have their unity in God who is love. Aristotle could never have conceived of such a unity of the virtues, especially around love. Aquinas also explores law and the common good basic to human created social existence and how God acts in and through forms of law to govern the universe towards justice and the common good, which is God as well. Likewise, Aquinas’s hyleomorphic conception of being as composed of matter and form where, ultimately speaking, “form” is given by the logos (reason) of God (i. e., the mind of God that is incarnate in the Christ) provides the conceptual means to articulate the pattern of life from the perspective of God’s cosmic working. Indeed, it provides nothing less than a Christological metaphysics wherein Christ as Logos is the principle of the interdependence of self, society, and the cosmos. We could just as easily show how, interestingly enough, Karl Barth’s Kirchliche Dogmatik also gives a profound interpretation of the foci of a “pattern of life” that is Christological in focus even as it decisively rejects a Thomistic account of Being in favor of hearing the “Word of God.” The point, then, is that one could (and should!) show how Christian theologians provide an account of the foci of the pattern of life by relating each foci to God in Christ, even as they give methodological priority to one or another of the foci. This also means, as it did for philosophical accounts, that there is the assumption that one can develop an encompassing theological account of the “pattern of life” and, therefore, there are, in principle if not in fact, no gaps, tensions, or incommensurability between the dynamics of self, society, or cosmos, because God is acting in and through each part of the pattern. Yet if that is indeed the case, what contribution, if any, does Christian theological reflection make to a construal of the pattern of life in our contemporary globalized context? Despite the radical difference between Barth, Thomas, and other theologians, it would seem that theological reflection within the Christian tradition make three contributions to our inquiry into vulnerability and the moral life in the current age. First and most obviously, there is a purely theological point, that is, a point about the divine. Each of the foci in a pattern of life is related and backed by a claim about God’s being and activity. That is to say, the idea of the different foci of a pattern of life and the vulnerabilities they each entail provides the means to consider the interdependence of life on God, however that interdependence is construed. It also provides a way to speak of divine sovereignty not removed from the contingencies of life, but intimately active within the three foci that order human vulnerability. God’s sovereignty is direct because God is present in every aspect of life, and yet God is also mediated by the foci of a pattern of life, the “secondary causes” as they used to be called. This mediation of God’s action insures a relative autonomy of self, society, and cosmos, and that autonomy explains the extent to which a person, social order, or cosmic power can obey or seek to thwart the devine will. Yet note: the classical “omnis” (all powerful; all knowing; all present) provided a metaphysical way of speaking about divine sovereignty in relation to the

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pattern of life, but it also posed the problem of theodicy once God was conceived as loving or benevolent. Ironically, the attempt to relate God to the whole of a pattern of life posed in pointed form the problem of God and the reality of evil within and among the foci of a pattern of life. That is, if God is indeed related to the full compass of a “pattern of life,” then all of the conflicts, losses, sorrows, deaths, and injustices in life betray the divine will and presence as good, loving, and just. The insight here is that a theological account of the pattern of life refuses to dodge the question of injustice and innocent suffering. In fact, it takes these human problems into the very core of reflection on what is good and divine. The second contribution of a theistic account of the pattern of life is that it helps to explore the agency of God or other suprahuman forces (the economy ; media) and how God or those forces are living and acting realities in and through the foci of the pattern of life. This transforms how one understands human agency. Given the supremacy of the divine being, God is working in the dynamics of the human moral agent. For Thomas, to use him again as an example, God is operative in the human agent through infusing the theological virtues in a person’s soul, that is, excellence of the power to act with respect to a supernatural end, but also through natural law and the ordering of society. Even Barth argues that once a person hears the Word of God, there is no place for any decision other than to obey or revolt. God is the condition of hearing God’s word and obeying the divine command. Barth also claims that Jesus Christ is “noumenal man” whereas we are “phenomenal man.” Oddly enough, an analogous point about human agency open to suprahuman powers could be made with respect to Marxist accounts of history in relation to class struggle or a Hegelian philosophy of history. In each case, the individual human agent is the means through which God, or Capitalism, or Geist is active in the world and in history. Put abstractly, a “theological” account of the pattern of life complicates the idea of human agency since God or other suprahuman powers act within the person without demeaning or destroying human agency. Surely, advance consumerist societies are an excellent example of this point; consumers’ life are animated by the market.11 20th century theologians coined the term theonomy to make sense of this claim about “dual agency,” that is, God’s action in human action, but the same point can be extended to other suprahuman powers. Oddly enough, this can also be seen in an economy in the profound sense of the term, that is, the law (nomos) working through the oikos (household management). The third theological contribution to the interpretation of the pattern of life returns us to the underlying problem of these reflections, namely, the relation between knowledge and beliefs as reasons for acting, as well as the moral limits, if any, to power. On a Christian account of human action, at least in the 11 See B. Rittenhouse, Shopping for Meaningful Life: The Religious Motive of Consumerism (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2013).

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Western strand of thought that runs from Augustine through Martin Luther and into the present, the rupture between knowledge and action is the consequence of human sin. Arising out of the internal complexity of the self as its possibility but not necessity, as Reinhold Niebuhr put it, sin is the disjunction between what one’s knows ought to be done and what one actually does. It is thereby a denial of the obedience owed to God. As St. Paul put it in Romans 7: 18b–19: “I can will what is right, but cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil that I do not want is what I do.” We cannot pause to explore arguments about the bondage or the abyss of the will.12 On this theological account, divine grace is the necessary and sufficient condition to transform knowledge into beliefs that motivate and empower right action. As one account of Luther’s thought puts it: “The whole existence of the believer, of the community of believers and of everything that is not God is in this way enveloped in the realization of the promise that God is.”13 If that is so, at least from a Christian theological perspective, then our anxious condition in the face of the endangerments to the environment and to the human species is doomed without the presence of divine grace. Does the disjunction between reasons for action and knowledge open a fateful vacuum that political power quickly fills such that the only norm and good of life is the increase of political power? Is the final irony of our situation, theologically conceived, that we are doomed to self-destruction because of our vulnerability to divine grace – that is, some “other power” that animates our lives (i. e., political parties; the market and consumption; religious convictions)? And how could that bleak and seemingly hopeless possibility ever be communicated to others in a global age of radical normative and religious diversity?

What Direction for Ethics? I hope that these reflections have clarified somewhat the complexity of thinking about “vulnerability” and the moral life, theologically and otherwise. We have reached, ethically speaking, a troubling conclusion. If the capacity to connect knowledge to action through beliefs as reasons for acting is a morally basic one, then it would seem that we are in an extremely dire situation. Informed people and even governments have plenty of knowledge about the global challenges we face ranging from the spread of disease, threats to the ground water supply, tyrannous political regimes, global climate change, human trafficking, to the ambiguity of genetic research and manipulation. In 12 For classic treatments of this problem see Martin Luther’s treatise “On the Bondage of the Will.” 13 Ch. Schwöbel, “Promise and Trust: Lutheran Identity in a Multicultural Society”, in C-H Grenholm/G. Gunner (ed.), Justification in a Post-Christian Society (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publication, 2014), 28.

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the same light, some accounts of divine grace and the Christian pattern of life seem to provide an opening for the workings of other power(s) since human beings as such and because of sin cannot connect knowledge and action. It would seem that various interpretations of a pattern of life that we have explored, theological and non-theological, are ethically ambiguous at best or ethically irrelevant at worst. In this context some thinkers, for example, Hans Jonas, insist that we must shift from knowledge to the emotions as the drivers of human behavior and develop what he calls a “heuristics of fear” to move people and governments to act on behalf the earth and future generations. Jonas even counsels rather draconian non-democratic political measures to institute and enforce policies needed to meet our time of global endangerment. Others speak about an age of “panic” and the need for apocalyptic thinking.14 And theologians, as noted, appeal to the infused virtue of love (Thomas), the Word of God (Barth), or a shift from anxiety to trust in God’s promise of grace (Luther) in order to respond to the weakness of knowledge to motivate action. Ironically, due to the radical extension of human power in our age, the weakness or bondage or abyss of the will, call it what you like, now infests the whole pattern of life as an inverse reality to that of the classical God who is all powerful and sovereign over reality. Has our bondage enveloped the world to become the engine of the relentless extension of human power? If so, we could call this condition, as I have elsewhere, “the overhumanization of the world.” The global pattern of life, in other words, is folded into human power even while our power seems undirected by knowledge of our ecological, biological, and technological situation. How then to respond? I have thoughts on these matters, of course. I could also spell out a theory of human motivations in relation to the emotions keyed to different kinds of basic goods and the correlate need to integrate those goods into a recognizably human life. So too, we could examine different social systems and even claims about the moral space of life, that is, a moral ontology for the pattern of life. The intricacies of those reflections are impossible to explicate in the space of this essay.15 What, then, are we to conclude from these reflections? The upshot of our reflections is, I judge, that we live in a situation in which the moral challenges people face are putting pressure on how we conceived of the pattern of life, theologically or not. It is no longer adequate, I submit, to assume that a freestanding metaphysics or doctrine of God provides the context or grounds for thinking ethically in our global age. In our situation, the pressures to re-think interpretations of self-society-cosmos arise out of global moral and political challenges. When creation actually groans in travail, 14 See H. Jonas, The Imperative of Responsible: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1984). Also see J.-P. Dupuy, The Mark. 15 For a discussion of these matters, see D.E. Klemm/W. Schweiker, Religion and the Human Future.

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as St. Paul put it, we must reconstruct our accounts of the pattern of life. And I am suggesting that this reconstruction must be one in which human freedom and vulnerability are not quickly folded into an encompassing and total metaphysic, whether that is theistic or a humanistic account of the pattern of life. This is, in one respect, not a new situation. Throughout history, and especially during the so-called “axial age,” religious and philosophical interpretations of life have been reconstructed because of pressing ethical reasons: consider the Hebrew prophets attacks on cultic worship, Islamic transformation of indigenous polytheism, Buddhist rethinking of samsara out of compassion for every suffering being, or, in Christianity, Jesus’ upending moral boundaries through acts of healing and feeding as well as teaching the love of enemy.16 The reconstructive thinking that I am now advocating must also be tied to an account of moral motivation and the interpretation of religious ideas, symbols, and practices that activate the springs of human action, in order to aid the relative weakness of knowledge claims as forces of motivation. Ironically, we need a theological ethics that invigorates human action beyond claims about the utter passivity of persons in relation to divine grace and sovereignty, while also clarifying the proper limits of human power born from our responsibility for future generations. Unlike previous reconstructions of religious thought and practice, in our age vulnerability and the moral life comes to focus on a future that is vulnerable to and changeable by present human action. Ironically, we need to defend that which does not yet exist. Insofar as it does not yet exist except in idea, we must weave together knowledge and predictions from the natural and social sciences with other sources of moral motivation. Stated otherwise, we must develop interpretations of the “pattern of life” that do not order reflection through one or another foci, but, rather, seek to articulate the reflexive and mutually interdependence of foci in order to orient human action responsibly within and not against the registers of life. In this light, we can say that the salient form of vulnerability for the moral life is the vulnerability of future life to legacies that continue to motivate destructive actions along with the apathy, fear, hopelessness, and sense of powerlessness that now beset persons and societies.

16 On this see R. Bellah, Religion and Human Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).

Michael S. Hogue

Ecological Emergency and Elemental Democracy : Vulnerability, Resilience and Solidarity

Introduction It has only been 50 years since the famous image of Earth from outer space, the “Big Blue Marble,” first appeared in 1972; and only a little more than 25 years since the “end of nature” was announced by the American writer and activist Bill McKibben in 1989. But now, as a result of the pace and deepening effects of human impacts on the Earth since then, an alternative set of images and ideas come to mind. Now we see the Earth as a hall of mirrors, for wherever we look into Earth’s systems – the oceans, the glaciers, the atmosphere, the climate – we see our species’ self-image reflected back. And what we see in this reflection, instead of the end of nature, is the end not only of the idea but also the reality of the human as set apart from nature. To live in this reality is to live in the context of the Anthropocene, a human age in the history of the Earth in which human, plant and animal, the personal, political and the planetary have become vividly and dangerously entangled. The Anthropocene is a sign of the paradox that we have entered a human age for the earth in which the ontological difference between the human and the earth has come to an end – by making the Earth homo imago, we have (re)discovered ourselves as earth creatures, terra be¯stiae. This essay is a small part of a larger project that explores the theoretic generativity of this paradox as it intersects with the moral and political crises of ecological emergency.1 My guiding thesis is that the philosophical space opened by the ending of the separatist idea of the human creates an opportunity to reimagine the nature and tasks of political theology. Working out of the radically empirical, process and pragmatist lineages of American religious naturalism, I integrate an immanental theology and a horizontal politics into a theopolitics of “elemental democracy.”2 The concept of

1 This work is supported through the Enhancing Life Project, an international research project convened through a collaboration between Ruhr-University Bochum/Germany and the University of Chicago. My monograph, American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World, will be published by Columbia University Press in early 2018. 2 By “American religious naturalism” I refer to a tradition in American philosophy of religion influenced by radical empiricism (e. g. William James), pragmatism (esp. James and John Dewey), process philosophy (esp. Alfred North Whitehead), and the empirical theologies of the

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“elemental democracy” is meant to capture both the ecological and the fundamentally participatory character of this mode of democracy – it refers to an ecologically attuned expression of democracy as a “way of life,” as a set of communal practices and habits more basic than any particular system of institutional political forms. With this larger project as my context, I will make a case in this essay for the concepts of panarchy, vulnerability and resilience as theopolitical categories and link them to an ecologically inflected Marxist account of social change. I will then conclude with brief comments on how these concepts give shape to the practice of “elemental democracy.”

Panarchy, Vulnerability and Resilience Let me begin by asking you to picture in your mind’s eye a 3-D image of the infinity symbol. Now multiply the image as many times as you can fit into your mind’s field of vision, so that there are multiple overlapping and intersecting images, as far up, down, out and in as you can imagine. The images should be of diverse scales, from the infinitesimally small to the impossibly huge. Now imagine that time is cycling through them, at different rates. Some are cycling so quickly that they are blurred, others appear to be motionless. What you hold in your mind is an abstract representation of “how things in the broadest sense of the term hang together in the broadest sense of the term,” as Wilfred Sellars described such things.3 You are contemplating a symbolic interpretation of the warp and the woof of the whole of things, the quality and texture of the world in-the-making, a world of complex relations, of flows, processes and cycles, a nested world of nests of nested systems. At least this is so according to the theory of panarchy. Panarchy is an emerging multidisciplinary theoretical hypothesis used to interpret the dialectical patterns of vulnerability and resilience in interconnected complex adaptive systems. Hypothetically relevant from the level of cells to civilizations, it is an example of metaphysics in the style of Alfred North Whitehead – it names an empirically grounded, speculatively dilated set of falsifiable hypotheses intended to illumine how systems work. The systems ecologist C.S. “Buzz” Holling developed the theory after many years observing the adaptive cycles in forest ecosystems. As he explains:

Chicago school (e. g. Shirley Jackson Chase, Shailer Matthews, Henry Nelson Wieman, Bernard Loomer and Bernard Meland). 3 W. Sellars, “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man”, in W. Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1963), 1–40.

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Panarchy [refers to] the hierarchical structure in which [natural and human systems]…as well as combined human-nature systems…and social-ecological systems…are interlinked in never-ending adaptive cycles of growth, accumulation, restructuring, and renewal. These transformational cycles take place in nested sets at scales ranging from a leaf to the biosphere over periods from days to geologic epochs, and from the scales of a family to a socio-political region over periods from years to centuries.4

Panarchy assumes that no complex system exists independently of others. Rather, systems are nested at higher and lower levels of complexity and larger and smaller scales. They also move through adaptive cycles at different rates. Consider the example of a forest system: The higher and slower-moving cycles [e. g. the regional ecosystem, the global biogeochemical system] provide stability and resources that buffer the forest for shocks and help it recover from collapse. A forest may be hit by wildfire, for example, but as long as the climate pattern across the larger region that encompasses the forest remains constant and the rainfall adequate, the forest should regenerate. Meanwhile, the lower and faster-moving cycles [e. g. from particular niches in the forest ecosystem down to soil bacteria] are a source of novelty, experimentation, and information. Together, the higher and lower cycles help keep the forest’s collapse from being truly catastrophic. But for this healthy arrangement to work, these various adaptive cycles…mustn’t all peak at the top of their growth phases simultaneously. If they do, if they are ‘aligned at the same phase of vulnerability’… they will together produce a much more devastating collapse [for example, a forest fire coinciding with a regional drought].5

As an integrated theoretical hypothesis, panarchy reveals the adaptive dialectic of vulnerability and resilience in complex systems. To provide another example, consider the global financial system. The global financial system is comprised of a supranational network of borrowers, lenders, investors, governmental and intergovernmental financial entities, international trade organizations and multilateral treaties, all operating on a global scale. It includes transnational insurance companies and supervisory entities, central banks such as the IMF and World Bank, regional banks such as the European Central Bank, as well as the abundance of lightly regulated hedge funds and private equity firms. Over the past few decades of neoliberal deregulatory, privatizing, and free trade policies, the financial system has grown into a metasystem that now 4 C.S. Holling, “Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems”, Ecosystems 4 (2001), 390–405, on p.392. Holling identifies four interrelated phases within the adaptive cycle: 1) growth/exploitation (high diversity-redundancy, high potential, low connectivity); 2) accumulation/consolidation (high connectivity, lower diversity/redundancy, lower potential); 3) release/collapse (given the diminished resilience and agility in previous phase, shock/disturbance can be relatively minor and change can be immediate total); 4) restructuring/ renewal (release/collapse opens up new potential, loosens connectivity, and increases diversity). 5 T. Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2006), 230.

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interconnects many other subsystems. Using panarchy theory, the economist Roger Boyd explains that, “the actions of governments and central banks to forestall crashes during the period from the early 1980’s to the present day have allowed the financial system to grow to a scale and complexity well beyond what would have been possible without the repeated forestalling of collapse.”6 Governmental and central bank interventions have made it possible for the financial system to metastasize into a driver of other systems. It has become bigger and more volatile all at the same time, as evidenced by the hypersensitivity of markets to social, political and “natural” events, and by the hyperactivity of monetary adjustments seeking to prevent collapse. In becoming a less resilient system but a more powerful influence on local and regional economic, social, and ecological systems, the potential collapse of the financial system will be much more pronounced than if it had been allowed to cycle through release and reorganization phases. That state interventions have prevented this from happening is one of the glaring contradictions of neoliberal ideology. Disruptions to or within any one of the national or regional sub-systems could lead, through interconnected and mutually amplifying feedback loops, to multisystem collapse. This illustration demonstrates the application of panarchy as an interpretive scheme, helps explain the volatility of the geopolitical contexts of social change, and provides a critical context for my next task: articulating vulnerability and resilience as theopolitical categories. Vulnerability and resilience can be defined in diverse ways. I interpret them as transdisciplinary concepts useful to the task of analyzing system behavior in response to change. Degrees of vulnerability and resilience vary according to the internal structure of systems – the components and processes that internally constitute a system – and the system’s exposure to external threats and risks. Resilience can also be analyzed into simple and complex varieties. Simple resilience refers to the capacity to “bounce back” from change; simple resilience is regenerative or reparative. Complex resilience, on the other hand, is a characteristic of systems that are reflexively aware of their risk exposure and creatively learn to adapt to change. Systems with complex resilience are self-renewing, or catagenic – something new is born through breakdown.7 Diversity within systems, when integrated, enables systems to perceive, respond and adapt to diverse changes in diverse ways. Redundancy makes it possible for systems to continue to function through times of stress and malfunction, while agility makes it possible for systems to adapt quickly. Cohesion enables the efficient flow of information through systems which, in turn, maximizes system responsiveness. 6 R. Boyd, “Panarchy : Implications for Economic and Social Policy”, Resilience (December 12, 2014) http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-12-12/panarchy-implications-for-economic-so cial-policy. 7 The term “catagenesis” comes from T. Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Alfred A Knopf Canada: 2006).

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Defined in this way vulnerability and resilience are non-moral attributes of system behavior. They are not in themselves normatively charged – the question of whether a system is morally good or bad, or just or unjust, is categorically distinct from the question of whether it is resilient or vulnerable. As theopolitical categories, vulnerability, resilience and panarchy serve a primarily hermeneutic function. Critically, they provide a set of empirically robust concepts useful to the theopolitical task of interpreting the depths and dynamics of socioecological and socioeconomic systems. Constructively, they can be used to identify system weaknesses and strengths in order to better know how to strategically intervene within them, whether to accelerate their demise or to creatively build up their resilience. Insofar as vulnerability and resilience productively perform these functions, they reflect a pragmatic commerce with the world that illumines some important realities, of which I will highlight three. First, in a world of interpenetrating systems, vulnerability and risk are ontologically basic – esse qua esse vulnerabilis est. To be a system in a world of systems is to be vulnerable. Second, human systems, from individual selves to cultural and social systems, are structurally and functionally dependent upon, and entangled with, all the other systems of nature. The human niche is socioecological, all the way down. Third, the more dynamic and complex systems become, the more nonlinear and unpredictable their behavior will be. In sum, these concepts reflect a view of the world as a multilayered nest of interpenetrating systems, of chance, surprise and contingency – a scene of uncertainty, creativity, and risk. Thus we are all vulnerable. Vulnerability is intrinsic to the evolution of life and human creativity. If not for our vulnerabilities as a species, we would not have evolved the capacities and powers for intelligent, coordinated action that distinguish us among other forms of life. In this deep sense, vulnerability is basic to our species’ identity and human experience. And yet, at the same time, there is a growing multitude of socially, economically, and ecologically precarious people and communities who are more vulnerable than others. Does this mean that there are gradations and types of vulnerability? I argue that it does, and that they are linked to the risks produced by the externalized effects of our cumulative responses to basic and ontological vulnerability. In other words, our collective habitual responses to ontological vulnerability shape the forms, patterns, and norms of our socioecological habitats. And, more to the point, some of the most predominant habitual responses to basic vulnerability have produced forms of risk that render some of us much more vulnerable than others.8 The sociologists Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck have made related arguments. Giddens, for example, differentiates between two types of risk. He 8 In my larger project, I refer to these as the 3 E’s: externalization of costs, extraction of value, the logic of exception.

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defines “external risk” as “risk experienced as coming from the outside, from the fixities of tradition or nature.” For most of the history of our species, we experienced risk in this sense. But manufactured risk is “risk created by the very impact of our developing knowledge upon the world.”9 Ironically, the historical increase of manufactured risk can be correlated to human attempts to decrease external risk. The problem, however, is not only that we are generating new kinds of risk. It is also that the magnitude of the risks we face now are historically unprecedented. As Ulrich Beck writes, “contemporary nuclear, chemical, ecological, and biological [risks] are…not limitable, either socially or temporally…[nor are they] accountable according to the prevailing rules of causality, guilt, and liability….” For these reasons, he continues, “the regulating system for the ‘rational’ control of industrial devastation is about as effective as a bicycle brake on a jetliner.”10 Beck’s and Giddens’ accounts of contemporary risk are helpful. They provide useful concepts for thinking through the moral threshold we have crossed as a species. But the political dimensions of manufactured risk, or the asymmetries of cause and effect and the disparities of risk exposure, must also be engaged. And to do this, I argue that in addition to basic human vulnerability, which is our species expression of life’s ontological vulnerability, we should add the category of precarity – an acute and asymmetrical condition of exposure to risks manufactured by systematized efforts to deny, transcend, or otherwise externalize, ontological vulnerability. In contrast to precarity, privilege is a condition experienced by those among us who by accident of genealogy and geography have been born into contexts of advantage, and have consciously and unconsciously consented to systems that reinforce, justify, and exacerbate our disproportionate and unearned advantages. Human history shows over and over again how the privileged have coped with their basic vulnerability in ways that directly or indirectly make other groups more vulnerable – though ontological vulnerability is dispersed through the species, precarity, or exposure to manufactured risk, is uneven. Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and Haiyan, among other human-induced disasters, provide tragic evidence of this.11 Thus while it may be right to universalize vulnerability in its ontological 9 A. Giddens, Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our Lives (New York: Routledge, 2003), 26. 10 See U. Beck, “Politics in Risk Society”, in U.Beck, Ecological Enlightenment: Essays on the Politics of the Risk Society (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1995), 2. 11 The evidence until recently indicated that global warming was increasing the intensity but not the frequency of hurricanes and typhoons. There is now more data that shows frequency is also increasing. See, for example, Q. Shiermeier, “Did Climate Change Cause Typhoon Haiyan?”, Nature (November 11, 2013), http://www.nature.com/news/did-climate-change-cause-ty phoon-haiyan-1.14139. See also, “Hurricanes and Climate Change: Exploring the Potential Causes of Increased Storm Intensity”, Union of Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org/ global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/hurricanes-and-climate-change.html#. VXglV89Viko, accessed June 11, 2015.

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sense, it would be morally and politically problematic to homogenize precarity.12 People and communities who, through accident of genealogy and geography have been born into socially, economically, and ecologically disadvantageous contexts, tend to be more exposed to manufactured risks, such as rising sea levels and toxic waste. In contrast to the privileged, we can refer collectively to these peoples and groups as the “precariat.”13 The precariat are those most vulnerable among us who, in a time of manufactured risk and ecological emergency, are becoming the emergently powerful base of an unfolding elemental democracy. But what more specifically do I mean by this and how, why and where is this “unfolding” taking place? Lest I be misunderstood, I am not suggesting that the precariat is any more virtuous or intelligent or democratically disposed, by nature, than any other human collective. But their location within ecological, social, and economic systems exposes them disproportionately to manufactured risks and renders them vulnerable in ways that extend beyond ontological vulnerability. Thus the precariat refers not to a morally enlightened cultural identity group but to a global class of culturally diverse, socially marginalized, economically exploited people defined by their acute vulnerability within socioecological systems of manufactured risk. More to the point, the precariat lives at the rupturing edges of the current capitalist panarchy, where the increasingly visible social and ecological contradictions of contemporary capitalism converge. They are the most exposed to the multisystem risks produced by mutually amplifying socioeconomic and planetary vulnerabilities. Now, what is the relevance of all of this to a theopolitics of elemental democracy? In dialectical thought, the concept of contradiction refers to a tension that is both a constitutive feature of a system and a source of its potential dissolution. In Marx’s critique of capitalism, the primary contradiction is the social contradiction in the relations of production – that is, the relation between workers and owners. According to Marx’s labor theory of value, capital accumulation depends on the extraction of surplus value from labor. The 12 This division is itself vulnerable. The boundary dividing ontological and manufactured vulnerabilities is not always clear. One of the ways this boundary has been conceptualized philosophically and theologically is through the distinction between natural and moral evil. But in a time when “natural disasters” such as droughts and hurricanes can be correlated to the burning of fossil fuels, this distinction has become ambiguous. Paradoxically, however, the distinction between those who are more and less at risk to manufactured vulnerabilities has become more vivid. 13 Guy Standing theorizes the “precariat” as a new social class. For Standing, precarity is primarily a social and economic condition. It refers to the growing numbers of economically insecure, underemployed and intermittently employed people around the world. Though Standing doesn’t include ecological vulnerability in his theory, I am suggesting a conception of the precariat as a socio-ecological class. See G. Standing, Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Bloomsbury : Bloomsbury Akadamic, 201).

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capitalist class that owns the means of production accomplishes this by keeping wages lower than commodity value, by making production as efficient as possible, and by expanding markets. The labor theory of value is intrinsic to the Marxist account of the logic of capital accumulation. But it also yields a contradiction: the combination of labor’s diminishing consumer power and increasing production efficiency leads to overproduction and the cyclical phases of boom and bust that characterize free market systems. This social contradiction in the relations of production between labor and capital is widely understood as the constitutive contradiction of capitalism as theorized by Marx. More recently, however, a debate has emerged about a second contradiction, an ecological contradiction within the conditions of production.14 The argument is that just as the imperative of capital accumulation exploits workers, it also exploits the natural environment; and just as the exploitation of workers manifests an untenable social contradiction within the relations of production, the exploitation of the natural environment manifests an untenable ecological contradiction within the conditions of production. John Bellamy Foster identifies this as Marx’s account of metabolic rift. During the industrialization of agriculture in the early 19th century, sometimes referred to as the Second Agricultural revolution, metabolic rift refers to depleted soil fertility resulting from a combination of intensive agricultural production and the mass migration of people from rural farming to urban manufacturing environments. The need for fertilizer was so desperate that England and the United States colonized territories to gain access to guano and raided catacombs for their bones.15 14 Three prominent positions in this argument are represented, respectively, by James O’Connor, John Bellamy Foster, and Jason W. Moore. O’Connor argues that there are two contradictions, social and ecological. Foster argues that there is one metabolic rift, with interrelated social and environmental dimensions. Moore rejects the distinction between social and ecological relations and talks about relations between human and nonhuman natures. Moore also locates the historical origins of the metabolic rift in the 16th century rather than in the “second agricultural revolution” of the 19th century. See for example, J. O’Conner’s, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism (Vermont: The Guilford Press, 1997);J.B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology : Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), and The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on Nature (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2011); and W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (New York: Verso, 2015). 15 In 1856 the US passed the “Guano Islands Act.” The US Code of Law, Title 48, Chapter 8 stipulates that, “Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.” Furthermore, the Act ensures, “If the discoverer dies before perfecting proof of discovery or fully complying with the provisions of section 1412 of this title, his widow, heir, executor, or administrator shall be entitled to the benefits of such discovery.” The Legal Information Institute at Cornell University School of Law, https://www. law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/48/1411, accessed June 12, 2015.

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In this classic colonial example, metabolic rift refers to the imperial extraction of natural resources, including bird dung, from the peripheries of capitalism’s imperial centers. A neocolonial form of the rift emerges through the harvesting of low-wage labor and commodities markets and emerging consumer bases in the postcolonial and developing world. The carbon colonial rift, which runs through and complicates the classical and neocolonial rifts, is caused by the overexploitation of the atmospheric commons by the fossilfueled economies of the developed, industrialized, wealthy nations of the global North – nations that account for less than one-fourth of the world’s population and more than two-thirds of cumulative historical GHG emissions. According to this line of argument, the imperative of capital accumulation yields two contradictions – social and ecological – and capitalism as a whole is fundamentally extractive: it extracts surplus value from labor by keeping wages lower than the value of commodities, and it extracts surplus value from nature by externalizing the ecological costs of production. To live at the edge of these contradictions – to be simultaneously economically exploited, socially marginalized, and ecologically vulnerable – is no doubt a precarious place to be. But might the convergence of these contradictions also be catalytic? Could the aligning of the vulnerability phases of the social, economic, and ecological systems within the capitalist panarchy also become a moment of breakthrough and democratic renewal? With something like this in mind, James O’Connor, a leading eco-socialist thinker, argues that the two contradictions have created different kinds of social movements. Whereas class-based union movements issue from the first contradiction rooted in the relations of production, newer social movements, such as feminism, racial justice, gay rights, multiculturalism, and environmentalism, issue from the second contradiction, rooted in the conditions of production. Though there has historically been a significant divide between class and labor movements on the one hand, and feminists, environmentalists and multiculturalists on the other, new alliances and coalitions are forming across these divisions. The convergence of precarious power is emerging all around us. It is emerging, for example, in the Climate Justice movement, in participatory economic alternatives to competitive market-based approaches to production and exchange, in the efflorescence of the Commons movement and its innovations in democratic governance and provisioning, in the growing economic and civil disobedience of the Degrowth movement, and in many forms of Transition communities around the world. But broader society is generally unaware of these converging movements, for they are taking shape, in relation to broader societal awareness, at the perceptual level of what Alfred North Whitehead describes as causal efficacy. Precarious power is distributed rather than concentrated, and incremental, dispersed change precedes the cascade into something new. But our obeisance to news media corporations that respond to and cultivate an ethos of spectacle has allowed our minds to

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become stunted by the empirics of presentational immediacy. Despite the conclusions by commentators like Paul Hawken who argue that we are living amidst “the largest social movement in all human history,” we have trouble seeing the unfolding of these socially and environmentally just innovations in community, economy, and politics.16 Making more of this visible is one of the constructive tasks of a theopolitics of elemental democracy, especially if the point of such a political theology is not merely to denounce what is wrong with the existing world, but also to announce, and thus to help bring to life, a counterworld of socioecological justice that is already in-the-making.17 A second task is to articulate elemental democracy as a theory and practice of socio-ecological solidarity. After all, the diverse and dispersed nature of precarious power could become a source of movement strength and resilience, or vulnerability and demise. On the one hand, diversity and dispersed power are ingredients of resilient systems, contributing to their agility and responsiveness to change. On the other hand, if insufficiently coordinated, diversity and dispersed power can impede information flow and lead to system dissipation. Thus the political effectiveness of the diverse movements of the precariat is contingent on their resilience, and their resilience is contingent, at least minimally, on their connectedness. Connectedness depends on the forging of common purposes across the diverse identities that have fragmented the left into competing environmental, social justice, labor and class agendas. The prerequisite of political connectedness helps explain the force of the sociologist David Hollinger’s recent claim that, “The problem of solidarity is shaping up as the problem of the twenty-first century.”18 His point is that in a time such as ours, moral urgency increases the demand for solidarity at the very moment when increasing pluralism makes the forging of solidarities more difficult. Therefore, to the extent that effective response to ecological emergency depends on forging common purposes across the diverse identities 16 P. Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming (New York: Viking, 2007). 17 As defined by Gunter Thomas and William Schweiker, Principal Investigators of the Enhancing Life Project: “A counter-world is a reality that manifests a distinction between present conditions and possible states of affairs. They function to instigate processes of transformation of life. Counter-worlds may be found in religion and the religious imagination, but also, for instance, in media narratives, cultural ideologies, social ideals, and visions of technological enhancement. Counter-worlds can be designed as utopias or dystopias. Accordingly, they can function for the enhancement of life, but also be used, implicitly or explicitly, to distort and endanger life.” Enhancing Life Project, http://enhancinglife.uchicago.edu/resources, accessed March 5, 2016. 18 D.A. Hollinger, “From Identity to Solidarity”, Daedalus (Fall 2006), 23–31. As Hollinger interprets it, the problem of solidarity arises when a group or community is compelled to ask who they are as a “we”. While communities tend to define themselves as a “we” in terms of common identity, solidarities are organized around common purposes. Though the question of “we” is not a uniquely 21st century question, it is a question that has arguably been made especially acute in the context of contemporary pluralism, moral urgency, and political polarization.

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and agendas that make up the precariat, solidarity has become a sub-problem within the larger emergency.

Towards Elemental Democracy For C. Douglas Lummis, democracy remains “a virginal political idea…a promise yet to be fulfilled.”19 But isn’t it intrinsic to the organic conditions of the “power of the people” that democracy can never be fully and finally realized?20 The democratic ideal of the power of the people entails that the struggle for democracy be conducted democratically, which is to say, by people empowered; and yet the people are continuously changing, as are the threats to their empowerment. One of the great paradoxes of democracy is thus that it is most faithfully idealized when it is understood to be unfinalizable, and most fully (but never completely) realized when this unfinalizability activates continuous democratic struggle. In this basic sense, the work of empowering the people – which is simultaneously the ground, context, and aim of democracy – is continuous. Democracy is never achieved but is endlessly becoming.21 This is the paradox through which “elemental democracy” emerges, for it reveals the vulnerability of democracy. This revelation provokes the basic questions of how to sustain democratic struggle and how to build more resilient democratic communities, not only in face of democracy’s unfinalizability, but also against the many and powerful countervailing forces opposed to democracy. This question is as generative as it is daunting. For sustaining democratic struggle and building more resilient democratic communities depends on embracing democracy’s vulnerability. The flipside of this is the rejection of every claim to democracy’s fulfillment. Elemental democracy accepts that the struggle for democracy is unending and that there is no transcendent reality that is “democracy achieved.” Embracing democracy as an imminent ideal is pivotal to the liberationist task of an immanental political theology. It is pivotal insofar as it can lead us to reject the cynical claims that there is no alternative to the way things are, or 19 C.D. Lummis, Radical Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 15. 20 For a process philosophical account of this, see P. Ochoa Espejo, The Time of Popular Sovereignty : Process and the Democratic State (Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2011). 21 Along these lines John Medearis argues that, “If the democratic ambition is collective, egalitarian management of the institutions and forces that shape our lives, each of these situations includes an element of the opposite, a spiraling loss of such control or an inability to exert it …. Yet neither dismay, nor resignation, nor retrenchment in the face of these democratic troubles is warranted. The democratic path…simply is continuous oppositional exertion, without any expectation of transcendent victory.” See J. Medearis, Why Democracy is Oppositional (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 2.

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that the way things are is how they should be, or that the state and the market as they currently exist are the only vectors for radical change. And it is liberationist insofar as, by breaking through the captivity of closed ideas such as these, it frees up the critical energy necessary to undo the enclosure of democracy by the state and market, which is itself critical to freeing up the constructive energy necessary to democratically nurture the mutual flourishing of human and more-than-human life. As difficult as the work of recovering and radicalizing democracy will be, an elementally democratic counterworld is being prefigured in some of the postcapitalist approaches to governance and provisioning already mentioned. What is more, elementally democratic experiments such as these seem to be proliferating – there is a breakout of what political theorist Sheldon Wolin refers to as fugitive democracy, democratic innovations that escape the capture of institutionally fixed forms of democracy.22 If we look closely and can learn to see them, and, more importantly, if we participate in building the solidarities that their resilience depends upon, these innovations and experiments may turn out to have been, from some retrospective view from the future, the beginning of the renewal of democracy in a radical ecological mode, the birth of a socially just and ecologically responsible democracy out of the ashes of an emergency that marks the release and self-caused collapse of the existing capitalist panarchy.

22 S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960, 2004) and Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (Princeton: Princeton University, 2008).

Stephen Lakkis

Enforcing Vulnerability in Contexts of Social Injustice: A View from Taiwan

Introduction: Vulnerability as an issue of scale, rather than kind The range of contributions in this volume is a testimony to the highly multifaceted and diverse nature of vulnerability. Instances span the spectrum from ontological experiences of the vulnerability of physical life and the endangerment of individual life by disease and illness; ecological vulnerability (where we talk in a communal sense about the vulnerability of the species); relational vulnerability (the vulnerability of our emotions and reputation); as well as social vulnerability and the endangerment of personal and shared life in communal situations – to name just a few constellations.1 But in this paper I will not try to develop a typology of vulnerabilities at all. Nor do I want to repeat an argument that stresses our fundamental ontological vulnerability (though I will touch briefly on aspects of that below). That is certainly not because we should deny or ignore the radical vulnerability of all life. And neither is it out of a hesitance to push the issue of fundamental vulnerability with those whose power may have caused them to lose sight of their own vulnerabilities. Quite the opposite. I agree with other contributors in this volume that it is particularly those well insulated from vulnerability who need to regain an awareness of their own ontological fragility. Instead, I would suggest that the difficulty that arises from simply focusing on ontological vulnerability is that once such vulnerability is accepted, we still find ourselves far from any practical response to that vulnerability. Even worse, seen from this practical perspective the universality of ontological vulnerability can lead us into false equivalencies which negate the particularity and (most importantly) severity of suffering and vulnerability. The danger of stressing our common human vulnerability is that it can lead us into thinking that all vulnerability is common. In other words, stressing the simple universality of vulnerability can cover over the incredibly different levels to which we experience vulnerability. Yes, all life is vulnerable, but that should never imply that we are all vulnerable in the same ways or to the same degree. Exposure to systematic genocide and exposure to the common cold both point to the ontological vulnerability of life, but their difference in scale and effect require them to be assessed and managed in different ways. Therefore, in this paper I 1 See the editors’ introduction for an overview of these forms of vulnerability.

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want to focus more on issues related to the scale of vulnerability (however we may struggle to measure that). And specifically, I want to focus on practical issues related to a response to that vulnerability, especially in social contexts, in communal situations of injustice, and with regard to the oppression of the weak. I will then close with a brief postscript on the Taiwanese context. But to begin, and to expand on this social dimension of the topic, let me offer a first thesis: Despite its various types, vulnerability always presents itself to us in practical terms as a relational phenomenon. Or in other words, vulnerability always presents itself to us as an imbalance of power between some form of I or we and an other.2 By that I mean that we experience vulnerability as being vulnerable to an other. We are exposed to the actions and effects of an other, and vulnerable to or from the actions of that other. This holds true even in situations of violent self-harm.3 If we begin from this relational aspect of vulnerability, it naturally leads us to a focus on power, and towards a more authentic, dynamic (and useful) understanding of contexts of vulnerability. We then leave behind more static, ontological conceptions of vulnerability, conceptions that just accept in matter-of-fact terms our given nature as vulnerable without allowing for the imbalances in power and varying levels of vulnerability that can make vulnerability such a life-threatening issue. In the relationship between oppressor and victim, we can of course admit that both parties are (ontologically) vulnerable creatures. But to leave the discussion there is to obscure the greater level of vulnerability to which the victim is exposed. While we can agree in principle that all creatures are vulnerable, that vulnerability is rarely thematized in life before the point when the other utilizes, actualizes, or exploits that vulnerability in our lives. Only then does our ontological vulnerability become an urgent issue for us. Only then do we feel endangered by our vulnerability. Thus a relational understanding of vulnerability leads us in a very different direction from a static assumption and acceptance of our vulnerable nature. Such a relational understanding will push us to ask: “Who is now exploiting my vulnerability?”; “Who is the other that is now linked to me in this power structure and placing me at risk?”; and most importantly, “How do I go about addressing this imbalance of power?” This is the matrix of questions I hope to hold up here: not how we categorize or confess our vulnerability, but rather how we deal with it and, more pointedly, how we deal with those who are exploiting our vulnerabilities. In doing so, I specifically

2 While we could make a fine distinction between power and control here (so that vulnerability can be seen as exposure to a lack of control), for our simple purposes the two can be grouped together here. 3 In such instances of self-harm, we see an exocentric act where the body is first objectified, so that we treat our subjective Leib as an objectified Körper. This type of objectification of one’s own body need not necessarily include intentionality ; even when the causes are ignorance or negligence, the harmful objectification of one’s own body remains: we harm ourselves.

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want to approach this question from underneath, from the perspective of the weak. Connected to this question is the problem of paternalism which can easily infuse much of our discussions on vulnerability. In a simplistic binary model, the vulnerable weak are taken to be completely passive, unable to act or even speak for themselves.4 While it is sadly true in many cases that the weak are indeed rendered passive and voiceless under the power of active systems of oppression and even learned helplessness, the situation is rarely that binary. In systems of vulnerability, power does not just flow in one direction. One creative response to vulnerability on the side of the weak (which also represents a significant option for empowerment) can be seen in Schadenfreude: in the hope to rejoice in the downfall of the oppressively proud and mighty. In an attempt to examine options for a response by the weak to situations of social injustice, I want to circle around this motif of Schadenfreude.5 As noted, in doing this I will examine the topic of vulnerability not from above, but from below, not from the perspective of the ontologically vulnerable “victimizer”, but from the perspective of the exploited victim within a context and relationship of social injustice. This will allow us to take a clearer look at vulnerability in contexts where there is a significant power imbalance between the socially vulnerable and socially “invulnerable”.

Outdoing the Other in Pursuit of Greater Invulnerability? One of the advantages of classical, dualistic theological anthropologies was that they offered good pastoral tools for confronting the horror of human vulnerability. The body may be diseased and destroyed, broken and tortured, but peace and comfort can always be found in the invulnerable and eternal soul. Despite the shocking vulnerability of the body, at least the life of the soul will continue. Thus the soul in its immortality and immutability offered a means to transcend the transience and fallenness of bodily life. The soul persisted in its absolute invulnerability to the forces of earthly life (being vulnerable only to divine judgement). But the concept of the transcendent soul opened up opportunities to address more than just the vulnerability of the body. At the turn of the 17th century a British Reformer, Thomas Helwys (c.1550–c.1616), took this ontological invulnerability of the soul and applied it in a novel way to the 4 That this volume includes no representatives from the economic Third World or voices from intensely marginalised people – i. e. voices of the most vulnerable – is a testimony to the difficulty that our vulnerability discourse faces. 5 The presentation version of this paper was originally entitled: “In Praise of Schadenfreude.”

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politico-religious conflict current in England at the time, specifically to argue for the soul’s transcendence not merely over the bodily conditions of life but over the political authority of the state as well.6 The 1555 Peace of Augsburg had affirmed cuius regio, eius religio, the right of rulers to determine the religion of the people living in their territories. But among early English Dissenters this raised concern that an inviolable power over both tables of the law (over earthly as well as heavenly matters) was being placed in the hands of rulers, leading to a power imbalance between subjects and rulers on matters of faith. Since rulers buttressed their religious power with military might and the authority of the crown over its subjects, this made the effects of the power imbalance more acute. To address this imbalance and the perceived royal overreach into religious affairs by James I, Thomas Helwys drew on the concept of the soul and its sole accountability to God. In this way, Helwys could use the soul as a means to transcend the king’s power over religious life, thus elevating the faith of the individual believer out from under the authority of the crown. For Helwys, that meant no human institution, earthly social structure, or political force (indeed not even any other individual) could appropriate final rights and jurisdiction over the religious aspect of a person’s life. This drove Helwys to present the very first argument in the English language for the universally-applied right to absolute freedom of religion, which he achieved by leveraging the ability of the transcendent soul not only to transcend our bodies but also to eclipse and trump the power of the king. In his 1612 treatise, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, Helwys argued against King James I, writing: For we do freely profess that our lord the king has no more power over [his Catholic subjects’] consciences than over ours, and that is none at all. For our lord the king is but an earthly king, and he has no authority as a king but in earthly causes. And if the king’s people be obedient and true subjects, obeying all human laws made by the king, our lord the king can require no more. For men’s religion to God is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.7

Since James I was using the earthly power of the crown to control the spiritual faith of his subjects, Helwys appealed to the believer’s sole accountability to God to allow them to transcend the power and control of the king. In other words, in the imbalance of power between subjects and the king, Helwys found a way to outdo and outbid the power of the king. By using this Überbietungsstrategie, Helwys could go one up on the scale of invulnerability, 6 T. Helwys/R. Groves (ed.), A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity (Macon: Mercer, 1998 [original 1612]). 7 Ibid., 53.

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using the soul’s relationship to God to elevate the status of ordinary believers up over the authority of the king. The king may be ruler over earthly affairs, and his power over the physical lives of subjects may be inviolable in practice (backed up as it was by the use of force), but when the king attempted to regulate aspects of the soul, he violated and trespassed upon the authority and jurisdiction of God. Our lord the king has power to take our sons and our daughters to do all his services of war and of peace, yea, all his servile service whatsoever. And he has power to take our lands and goods. … Thus has God given our lord the king all worldly power which extends to all the goods and bodies of his servants. And does our lord the king require any more?8

Thus Helwys uses the transcendent soul and its direct connection to the power of the Almighty God to elevate human life up into a position of invulnerability, out of the reach of earthly power. Ironically, though unsurprisingly, as testament to the very real situation of vulnerability in which Helwys found himself, Helwys paid for this argument with his life. Shortly after publication of his treatise, James I had Helwys imprisoned in Newgate Prison where he subsequently died.

Ontological Invulnerability and De-human-ization As we saw from Helwys’s example, one way to address the social power imbalance between the weak and the powerful, between the vulnerable and the “hardly vulnerable” is to find ways to elevate the weak, to find methods of shoring up their vulnerability, raising and strengthening their position until they are raised up to (or beyond) the power of their oppressors. The human soul, within a classical dualistic anthropology, can be a tool that lies readily to hand for this purpose. Yet I want to suggest that this approach that tries to lift us up out of our human vulnerability actually leads in the wrong direction.9 The helpful push towards “anthropological realism” tries to do justice to the validity of human life in all its most vulnerable manifestations. But as we saw 8 Ibid., 33. 9 With regard to the invulnerable and transcendent soul, on the one hand there is a growing awareness that dualistic concepts of the eternal soul are indebted more to Platonic philosophy than to biblical traditions; cf. e. g. the extended analysis and discussion in J. Moltmann, God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation (London: SCM, 1985), 244–55. The movement in theology over the last few decades to recover a nonreductive physicalist anthropology testifies to the great efforts to return to more biblical concepts of the holistic human creature without the need for the ontological support of such a Platonic soul; cf. here e. g. W.S. Brown/N. Murphy/H.N. Malony (ed.), Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).

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above, we also need a kind of “social realism”, an anthropological understanding that is not individualistic, but rather encompasses a sober understanding of the way that human beings are caught up in these social networks of vulnerability. We know that violence, injustice, and oppression dehumanize by making us less than we are. But the pseudo-divinization of the human creature, through appeals to concepts such as the Platonic soul, also dehumanize – by attempting to make us more than we are. Concepts which try to lessen or explain away the radical vulnerability and frailty of creaturely life distort that life into something that it is not. Here we should follow the valuable contributions of disability theologies in reinforcing the awareness that all human life is inherently fragile in its creatureliness, and fundamentally connected to limitation and finitude.10 If we do not understand creaturely embodiment as shaped by the intrinsic limitations and endangerment of human life, then we have not understood it at all. While there are certainly contexts of human life which are less vulnerable than others, less exposed to risk and danger than others, as well as states of life that promote human flourishing, and while we certainly want to strive towards less vulnerable conditions of life, to promote strategies that grasp after the “invulnerability of life” is to distort and de-human-ize our creaturely existence. In the life-endangering imbalance of power in social conflicts, efforts to remove human life from situations of critical vulnerability are incredibly important. But these efforts should not lead us to think that through dogma, policy, medical intervention, or other means that we can overcome or abolish our ontological human vulnerability. To swap a heart of flesh for a heart of stone, or to deny the fragility of life in order to raise it to the level of the invulnerable is not to elevate the state of human life, but to fall into denial about the vulnerability that defines limited and endangered creatureliness itself. But where do we go from here? In social situations of injustice where there is an overwhelming imbalance of power between social actors, that abuse of power harms and dehumanizes the oppressed. And yet if we work against that vulnerability in an attempt to deny it, then we also end up dehumanizing ourselves. Denying fragility in social contexts, hardening and petrifying the suppleness of life, advancing religious philosophies that seek to divinize creaturely life and transform it into something other than what it is, attempting to protect the oppressed by promoting dehumanizing systems of invulnerability, all also contribute to the distortion of human life. So is there a way out? 10 Cf. e. g. D.B. Creamer, Disability and Christian theology. Embodied limits and constructive possibilities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); N.L. Eiesland, The disabled God. Toward a liberatory theology of disability (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994); T.E. Reynolds, Vulnerable communion. A theology of disability and hospitality (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2008); J. Swinton, “Who is the God we worship? Theologies of disability. Challenges and new possibilities”, International Journal of Practical Theology 14/2 (2010), 273–307.

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To Be-little the Mighty : Justice and the Enforcement of Vulnerability In situations of social injustice, we recognize the danger and distress of vulnerability and we witness the dehumanizing power of abuse and oppression. This naturally leads us to want to prop up vulnerable life. As we saw, Helwys did this through the power of the soul and an appeal to human rights, specifically the freedom of religion. In modern contexts we also often turn to legal and human rights frameworks to buttress and elevate vulnerable persons.11 It is important that we do not negate the vital importance and immense practical value of such rights frameworks, and work to implement them where we can. However, despite the importance of this work, at the same time we should always guard against the danger of dehumanization that can result from the desire to use such strategies of invulnerability. For that reason, I want to suggest a possible alternate approach: to deal with social systems of injustice not by trying to overcome vulnerability on the side of the weak, but rather by enforcing vulnerability on the side of the strong. We have good support for this approach across very many biblical traditions, but we see perhaps the most noteworthy example in the Book of Job. Job 9 provides an exceptionally dramatic description of the injustice and monstrous oppression that results from a power imbalance between the horrifically vulnerable and the overpoweringly invulnerable; in this case not in the conflict between the weak and their human oppressors, but rather in the struggle between the weak human creature and the unjustly invulnerable God. Job rages in accusatory tones against the invulnerable Almighty : Who has resisted him and come out unscathed? … When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him. If he snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, “What are you doing?” … Even if I summoned him and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing. He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. He would not let me catch my breath but would overwhelm me with misery. (Job 9:4b, 11–12, 16–18).

In this passage, what Job is denouncing is the invulnerability of God, God’s ability not only to act unjustly but to do so with impunity knowing that he exists in a space completely invulnerable to the demands of justice.12 And 11 For a good practical example, see E. Flynn, From rhetoric to action. Implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), and B. Norwich, Dilemmas of difference, inclusion and disability. International perspectives and future directions (London: Routledge, 2008). 12 For an overview, see the discussion on Job’s charge against God’s injustice here and the futility of attempts to counter it in N.C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 184–195.

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while the weak and the outcast can be rendered more vulnerable by being ignored and made invisible,13 God is not rendered vulnerable through his invisibility ; God is not the victim of the unseeing other. Instead, as Job argues, God uses his invisibility to pursue injustice. Like the thief or the secret police, God amplifies his unjust power precisely through his invisibility, since he can use it to hide his acts and to hide from the gaze of justice. And even if people were actually to witness God’s unjust actions, God’s power places him beyond any human ability to intervene. God is invulnerable to accusation; and, as Job fears, even if someone were to denounce God’s tyranny, God would use his immense power to torture and destroy any accuser. Job, as the vulnerable victim, knows that he is helpless before a God who “would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason … [who] would overwhelm me with misery.” But what is astonishing in Job’s drama is that faced with such overwhelmingly abusive and unjust invulnerability, Job does not seek some way to elevate his own position or to make himself invulnerable to abuse. Instead, he seeks the opposite: a way to violate the oppressive invulnerability of God, to tear down this invulnerability so as finally to expose God to the normal processes of justice: “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him” (9:33–35a). Job’s outrage and despair is directed at what he perceives to be the deeply unfair invulnerability of God.14 While on the surface this text rages against the unjust invulnerability of the Divine, of course this critique applies equally well to all the minor would-be deities of society : human oppressors who see themselves as elevated beyond vulnerability to all law, censure, or judgement. This brings us back to the contemplation of Schadenfreude and the hope that it represents. In the conflicts of social injustice, what the Job texts and others like them reveal is not the desire to make the vulnerable invulnerable, or to negate the inherent vulnerability of creaturely life. Rather the hope is that oppressors would be forcibly made vulnerable. The theological hope is to actively bring about the vulnerability of those who hubristically regard themselves as untouchable and invulnerable. The hope is, quite literally, to belittle the other, to “bring low” the mighty. There is not space here to trace this motif through the biblical traditions, 13 See the extended analysis in T. Breyer, “Social Visibility and Perceptual Normativity”, in M. Doyon/T. Breyer (ed.), Normativity in Perception (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 140–157. 14 The pathos of Job’s despairing outrage is overwhelming, because it touches on the deep sense of injustice in all human life: How dare God be invulnerable and yet abandon us to our vulnerability? How dare God expose us to unbearable sorrow, and yet use his invulnerability to deflect all blame? From a Christian perspective, we could say that this is precisely the accusation which God responds to and accepts in the suffering and vulnerability of Christ.

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especially through the triumphal psalms and hymns of the Old Testament, hymns that celebrate the glorious “bringing low” of Israel’s mighty enemies. But whether it is in the the post-exodus hymn of praise (Exodus 15:1–18) or in Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), we repeatedly hear the joy that celebrates the final “making vulnerable” of the powerful, God’s actualization of their vulnerability, scattering those who are proud in their inmost thoughts, bringing down rulers from their thrones, and hurling horse and driver into the sea. This Schadenfreude expresses the joy at the long awaited and hoped for downfall of the oppressively mighty, especially when such reversals come from the divine hand. It is these divine acts that confront the mighty and break apart their constructed fiction of invulnerability, working against oppressive strategies of invulnerability, and forcing a destabilization of the oppressor’s self-identity. Compelling oppressors to acknowledge and come to terms with the reality of their vulnerability is still an active approach used in conflicts today. Indeed, it is the logic that drives terrorism. As former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin noted, terror is about “destroying the prestige” of the oppressor, about dirtying the face of power, and forcing the oppressor to admit to its own vulnerability.15 In this respect, terrorism becomes an iconoclastic, anti-heretical, and deeply religious act, one that aims at destroying the divinization of earthly power and the idolatry of invulnerability. In the terrorist act, the minority oppressed, instead of trying to negate or overcome the social reality of their own vulnerability, instead use terror to testify to the oppressor that resistance continues to exist – a resistance that denies and falsifies the oppressor’s narratives of invulnerability and absolute control. Here, instead of an Überbietungsstrategie which attempts to outbid the power of the other or to raise the weak up above the invulnerable other, the aim is rather to pull the other down and make them shockingly aware again of their own fragility and vulnerability. In this way, enforcing vulnerability on the other (in an admittedly highly ambivalent way) opens up a space for (also highly ambivalent) change. But we also see this same movement being played out in less exotic contexts. For example, it is well established that the power imbalance between the vulnerable and the invulnerable also lies at the heart of social pluralism.16 Habermas argued strongly for a structured social pluralism based on a measured social instability or the promotion of a balance of power, where each sub-community defends itself against other sub-communities, and especially against the power of society’s overarching functional systems (such as politics, 15 M. Begin, The Revolt, quoted in B. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 52. See also the discussion in M. Danner, Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War (New York: Nation Books, 2009), 556–7. 16 For a concise treatment, see M. Welker, Kirche im Pluralismus (Gütersloh: Kaiser/Gütersloher, 1995).

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law, economy and the media), maintaining and enforcing the vulnerability of those systems.17 The task for social sub-groups is to find a way of uniting together into a functional civil society, all the while actively preventing those large social structures and powers from deforming or manipulating smaller communities. To achieve this, and to prevent society from succumbing to the tyranny of the masses or the totalitarian powers of social homogenization, the aim is to find ways to destabilize excessive power and instead foster vigorous social competition.18 The destabilization of homogenizing power was something that Reinhold Niebuhr also stressed in his social ethics, and especially in his defense of the democratic system. As he famously argued in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, the advantage of (what we would call) a pluralist, competitive democratic system is not that it leads to truth, but that it helps to keep the sin of human pride in check. It is the hubris of invulnerability by leading social powers that demands other centers of power be established in society, powers that can constantly oppose and hold in check dominant claims to invulnerability. Thus Niebuhr’s epigram that “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”19 In structured pluralism, it is a constant concern of sub-groups to guard against the ideology of invulnerability on the part of the strong. In other words, we protect the weak by enforcing checks and balances, by enforcing systems of vulnerability.

An unconscionable solution? A Taiwanese Postscript on the Sunflower Movement While the idea of a reversal, of witnessing a humbling of the proud, is woven into the Christian gospel and its eschatological hope, and builds part of the texture of our hope in the kingdom of God, can such a hope really be actualized? Can we enforce vulnerability in practice? In Taiwanese society, tensions between the vulnerable and invulnerable are regularly encountered. In recent years, two areas have been especially of concern, at both the international and domestic levels. In both instances, I would argue that the enforcement of vulnerability offers a productive step forward. In closing, I want to offer a very brief postscript on the Taiwanese context. First, the relationship between Taiwan and China is one that is marked by concerns about China’s physical, political, military, and market invulner17 Ibid., ch. 1. 18 Cf. ibid., esp. 18–24. 19 R. Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: AVindication of Democracy and a Critique of its Traditional Defense (New York: Scribner’s, 1944), xi.

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ability. In the massive power imbalance between these two countries it is clear that Taiwan cannot follow the route of direct engagement or conflict. But a simple approach of passive resistance, of refusing to assimilate and refusing to accede to ideas of Chinese “invulnerability,” can already in itself be a liberating act. A second, more immediate example can be seen in our domestic political situation. Two significant challenges facing Taiwanese politics and industry come from the joint problems of corruption and abuse of power.20 While there has been some slow progress in tackling the issue, Taiwan’s middling scores on corruption indices21 are a reminder of the continuing need to confront the thinking that self-enrichment is an accepted perk of political office. But a prevalent acceptance of “honest graft” that tolerates the use of position for self-benefit brings with it a connected expectation of protection from legal culpability. With some notable exceptions (which tend to prove the rule),22 a degree of invulnerability to judicial oversight and even invulnerability to standard administrative or governmental penalties is regularly assumed as a perk of office. In 2014, problems with governmental abuse of process sparked the socalled Sunflower Movement, a widespread social protest movement spearheaded by student groups. On 18 March 2014, protesters stormed Taiwan’s Legislative Assembly, taking over the building and forcing a stop to legislative process. They occupied the legislative chamber until April 10th. In its own way, the Sunflower Movement acted to enforce vulnerability in a political system that had attempted to place itself outside the reach of power. While our own theological students as well as many church members were involved in the protests, some church leaders denounced the protests as deeply un-Christian. There were regular appeals to the importance of obedience to worldly powers, but also a more thoughtful appeal to the idea that Christian faith and action should focus on the “building up” of life and the other that is inherently at odds with protests that work to stop the other and pull them down. Thus the focus on Schadenfreude I have outlined in this paper seems to offer an “unconscionable solution” and to aim us in this more negative direction: feeling for vulnerabilities in the mighty, and searching out possibilities to tear down, criticize, and quite literally be-little. I agree that it is fair to ask to what 20 This was a focus in my research for the workgroup on “Traditional Norms and International Corporate Responsibility/Integrity in South East Asian Contexts” led by Michael Welker and organised by the Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology, at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. 21 In Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, Taiwan scores just over 60 out of 100 points. See: http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_ index_2016 22 Furore surrounding the imprisonment of former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on corruption charges being a good example.

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degree the heightening of vulnerability rather than its alleviation can still be counted among so-called Christian behaviors. Can we describe Schadenfreude as an appropriately Christian emotion? I would not want to dismiss out of hand that such tactics and emotions can be appropriately Christian. When the enforcement of vulnerability destroys pride and opens up the oppressive other to justice, this can lead to processes of transformation and healing. The process of making the other vulnerable may indeed be a painful one, but it can be a valuable penitential motion that leads to the growth of justice as well as to the renewal of hope on the part of the weak.

Pamela Sue Anderson*

Arguing for “Ethical” Vulnerability : Towards a Politics of Care?1

Introduction This paper aims to argue for a concept of vulnerability, which is ethical in the sense of a positive openness to self- and other-affection rather than an exposure to violence only. This implies (a capability for) openness to change through mutual affection. In other words, an openness to a new future as a dynamic process (in becoming) will transform, and always be transforming, life. Previously, I have suggested that an openness to self-affection makes possible a relational accountability for a politics of restorative justice. So, why not, for uniting vulnerability and the politics of care? In the twentieth-century, Anglo-American philosophers gendered the debates in moral theory, opposing ethics of care to an ethics of justice, that is, a stereotypical woman’s voice to a man’s voice. But this hyper-traditional gender opposition in ethics is not my main concern here – instead seeking a distinctively ethical vulnerability is. Ideally, a reciprocal accountability (say, in a politics of care) would support my proposed sense of “ethical”, ensuring that vulnerability is not merely an openness to being wounded; it is not a mere wound which needs to be healed; a weakness which requires strengthening; or a liability to harm or a disability which makes for dependency. Treating the latter first of all as negative conditions tends to fit a value-hierarchy, with vulnerability at the bottom, and invulnerability at the top of the moral scale for hyper-traditional social development. I will contend that one reason for negative readings of vulnerability lies in an inequitable distribution of material, social and/or physical conditions; and this is a political issue. So my aim is to reconfigure vulnerability, describing it on two levels: (1) a phenomenological level of vulnerability would disclose the materially specific, lived experiences of intimacy, as an openness to love and affection, while admitting affection could * Pamela Sue Anderson passed away only a few weeks after finishing the work on this essay, on March 12, 2017. Her paper grew out of the work of the conversations of the “Vulnerability-Group” of The Enhancing Life Project in which Pamela shared her thoughts, passion and wisdom with Andrea Bieler, Kristine Culp, and Heike Springhart. 1 My contribution to this project (on vulnerability) was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, via The Enhancing Life Project. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

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generate negative effects of fear, shame or rage; a phenomenology of vulnerability might describe a wounding, say, by affection in a state of love, or of loss; but again, this is not merely an opening for intimacy wounding, or loss; and (2) an ethical level of vulnerability would be an openness to affective relations between subjects who interact; ethical openness to change and to being changed would be positive, insofar as enabling relational (overcoming any asymmetrical) accountability. For instance, ethical vulnerability might be manifest in an openness to the Aristotelian good of friendship, or to the Butlerian social ontology of a livable life, in which vulnerability is a mode of relationality. A phenomenology of bodily vulnerability is a precondition for repairing injustice; this should enhance a dynamic process for rendering vulnerability ethical.

Preliminary questions: care, justice and ethical vulnerability At a glance, we might think that a politics of care means the same thing as an ethics of care. For me as a philosopher who teaches ethics, including feminist ethics, the latter label is very familiar : an ethics of care has been a feminist ethics inspired by Carol Gilligan’s In A Different Voice (1982). Yet I would like to address the role of politics here. In ethical debates, it has been the question of justice, and not of care, which has led ethics into the realm of politics; and it seems right to think that justice makes all the difference to the vulnerable!2 So, why not turn directly to an ethics of care, or the question of justice, for my argument about vulnerability? My answer will emerge as we address the gendered qualities stereotypically associated with care (ethics) and justice (politics). In the twentieth-century, feminist ethicists debated the gender differences between an ethics of justice and an ethics of care. So, it could be that a politics of care is best distinguished from a masculine morality, which was at least at one time read as an ethics of justice; this latter was known by its normative (and political) ideals of moral impartiality and moral invulnerability ; and often these ideals were advocated by, and motivating for, an (economic) utilitarianism. If so, the position referred to by a politics of care, might have been opposed by twentieth-century gender theorists to a politics of justice, by advocating partiality (instead of impartiality) in its concern for vulnerability. Let me note at the outset that my paper, instead of reducing vulnerability to 2 Might a politics of care include restoring justice, repairing relationships, love and forgiveness? Previously, I have argued that cases of intimate violence have made any duty to forgive in practices of restorative justice a highly contentious matter, see P.S. Anderson, “When Justice and Forgiveness Come Apart: A Feminist Perspective on Restorative Justice and Intimate Violence”, The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 5, 1 (February 2016), 113–134.

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an exposure to violence, aims to say something life-enhancing about vulnerability : as a capability, vulnerability would be an openness making change possible, enabling forward movement in life, moving from what we take ourselves to be to what we are becoming (some have called this, an aliveness in life). Arguably this capability for openness or exposure, however painful, is necessary for learning to love and for enhancing our social, ethical and spiritual relations; this requires freely expressing the vulnerability inherent in all of life. Yet vulnerability as an exposure is also endangering; nevertheless, enhancing life cannot happen without this open capability for living, learning and loving life in all its dimensions. At this point my main task is to argue for vulnerability as “ethical”. My aim is to address the excessive moral demandingness, which I contend, emerged in twentieth-century debates about moral theory, ironically, in both justicebased utilitarianism and care-based morality. By excessive moral demandingness, I mean that an impossible moral obligation is placed on the so-called moral subject either externally or internally. The moral demandingness of utilitarianism rests in its objective norms of moral invulnerability and impartiality, while the moral demandingness of care-based theories rests in its internalized norms of caring for the vulnerable, in the way an excessively available mother sacrifices her needs (and becomes excessively vulnerable herself) for the sake of her child. I am not going to discuss in great detail either utilitarian-based or care-based moral theories. However, my present concern should be located at a point beyond either of these moral theories; for this reason, I stipulate that they are moral theories, while my concern is to argue for ethical (not moral) vulnerability, and to see if ‘the politics of care’ can manage to avoid the pitfalls of earlier care-based theories of morality. Basically, I see the problem with what has been ambiguously labelled “care”3, in how the carer internalizes overly demanding moral standards, often to her own detriment – but also, to the detriment of an (alternative) ethical accountability, where the carer, as much as the cared for, would be open to affections, leading to egalitarian, affective relations. Crucially, a relational accountability – whereby we can call one or another to account – will be, as I hope to demonstrate, necessary for a distinctively ethical vulnerability. I am not yet clear whether a politics of care can preserve or achieve this ethical accountability, without some form of justice as our primary political standard: for this reason, I will touch on my recent work concerning the case of forgiveness (for intimate violence), expected of the one who suffers intimacy wounding (or, core intimacy harm), in practices of restorative justice. But I will stress here that this forgiveness might be expected of us all, the 3 For my own early discussion for the problem with the term “care”, see the section on “Careknowing” in P.S. Anderson/B. Clack (ed.), “An Ethical-Epistemological Approach to Philosophy of Religion: Learning to Listen”, in P.S. Anderson/B. Clack (ed.), Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings (London: Routledge, 2004) 87–102, pp. 92–94.

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phenomenologically and ethically vulnerable, in practices of repairing or enhancing our lives. I will be arguing that a negative condition of vulnerability (ignorance) persists with the “un-ethical” treatment of the vulnerable (and at times, this includes oneself), as if vulnerability is always a weakness, or a disability, to be rid of! The latter is relevant to the contemporary pursuit of moral invulnerability in public life – as politics – in utilitarian terms, with an outcome of the greatest amount of welfare for the greatest number. However, as already suggested I find the philosophical and ethical problem with contemporary moral theories, such as utilitarianism which seeks to maximize the best overall state of welfare, in an assumption that we, humans, could and should become invulnerable as the highest scale of moral development; and, of course, this is the position which was criticized by those women theorists who both argued for maternal thinking, identifying itself with care for the vulnerable, and allowed themselves to become vulnerable in personal relationships of care. But it has been argued, not only by a politics of maternal thinking, that the ideal of moral invulnerability flies in the face of our actual lived experiences, in which not one of us can escape vulnerability, or at least not indefinitely. In fact, this morality, as I am labelling it here, of invulnerability fails to be ethical (in the sense for which I argue here) by ignoring the positive role of vulnerability in our personal, social and material relations. So, what I advocate as distinctively ethical vulnerability acknowledges and activates an openness to becoming changed; this openness can make possible a relational accountability to one another on ethical matters. Becoming accountable might be the end of my story of vulnerability in the positive, ethical sense of being open to a creative interaction; or, being called to account, for our affections. Yet an openness to affection, to being affected and affecting, in love and other relations is only the beginning of any positive understanding of vulnerability. The question is, whether my conclusion to our story, to criticizing hyper-traditional gendered moralities of in/vulnerability, of justice for men and of care for women, will be compatible with a politics of care? and why is one’s answer to this question, ethically significant? It must be admitted that we might not be able to dismiss the negative conceptions of vulnerability, which I have just defined as either the lowest point on the scale of moral development in a politics of justice or the condition in which providers of excessively demanding love and care find themselves, when internalized moral standards begin to undermine one’s own capacity to care for oneself. And this would also be to miss out of far more positive understandings of vulnerability as a potential (or a capability). Instead we might, then, need to accept the conceptions in order to understand the role that they have been given in public life today : to evoke a moral response, in a variety of ways: from a simple generosity towards a vulnerable provider (a mother who might not have enough food for her children) to a simple

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protection of a child from harm (a person who is dependent or unable to protect themselves physically). And yet, these sorts of moral responses, I contend, generally have an un-ethical sense built into them; that is, such “morality” will involve a patronizing or impersonal approach to the vulnerable, as lesser persons, or as unusually needy individuals; and so, they are only seen as a drain on the overall welfare of any society. So, again, for the sake of argument I am distinguishing “moral” from “ethical”, in order to show that what I have called “moral” has an un-ethical sense, insofar as it results in a paternalist, controlling and oppressive treatment of (those pejoratively called) the vulnerable; and this latter would have a moralizing sense which is, moreover, unjust precisely when it comes to claiming a deceptive “moral invulnerability” as superior to ethical vulnerability. In addition, the negative understanding of the vulnerable as less capable than the morally invulnerable subject generates an excessive moral demand on the latter, which will in the end be harmful (since is is an impossible state or goal) to both persons, to those called, “the morally vulnerable” and to those called, “the morally invulnerable”. For this reason, I am advocating an ethical vulnerability – where ethical is employed, rather than moral – in order to emphasize the necessary role of accountability, requested or given, for a reciprocity, not an asymmetry, between persons in ethical relationships. In theoretical terms, contemporary moral theory – notably, in the form of utilitarianism, but also some forms of virtue ethics (MacIntyre) – has tended to interpret vulnerability as a condition (of need, dependency) or, simply, a lack which requires a moral response. Basically, utilitarian action would intend to improve conditions of social well-being for those vulnerable as dependent individuals, (only) in order to try to achieve an overall experience of happiness for the greatest number of individuals. Yet, it must be said that ignorance of the demanding nature of this moral requirement is worrying – and it is often claimed by the critics of utilitarianism that the goal of the greatest amount of welfare for the greatest number of individuals, leaves us with the morally over-demanding theory – in focusing only on the best overall outcome of aggregate (moral) action, it does not focus on real individuals. Thus, insofar as the moral subject would have to act with the welfare of all others in mind, she or he would run the danger of both potentially sacrificing their own selves and their own personal relations, for the sake of improving conditions of life for the greatest number of impersonally construed individuals, and failing to improve the lives of the marginalized vulnerable. Alternatively, if not applying the moral theory of the utilitarian, which – to be fair – is already well-known theoretically for being morally overdemanding in its attempt to be impartial, we might turn to a certain feminine, or feminist, criticism of moral impartiality. I have in mind the critic of utilitarian ethics and abstract theories of justice, which might be friendly to the alternative gendered position of an ethics of care. By this, I mean women (and some men) – who have been care-givers in hyper-traditional societies,

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say, in religiously conservative homes, with stereotypical gender roles, where mothers have done the majority of care for the family members – they would have learned to act, in order to protect the vulnerable, the dependent and the needy. Such caring actions have, again hyper-traditionally, been associated with giving love and protection on the basis of moral partiality ; and there could be at least four facets to this care-ethics: caring for, caring about x, taking care and caring about caring in personal relationships. In other words, whether we describe these latter moral theorists as advocating a feminine or feminist ethics they would hold that, instead of acting according to the utilitarian goal of impartiality, to ensure so-called moral invulnerability, we allow women (and some men) to follow a different voice (that of care) in ethics. Roughly speaking, this different voice would be motivated by an intuitive concern for personal relationships; the goal of this care-ethics is, then, not impartiality or invulnerability, but partiality and responsibility for the needs of others, especially the vulnerable for whom, for instance, a mother has a special moral sensitivity or intuition in her capability for caring. However, I am taking another step: to question of care critically as a moral norm aimed at generating a more adequate, so-to-speak ethical politics of care – or, at least this is part of the goal in arguing for ethical vulnerability. This goal would require turning to a feminist ethical critic of caring for the vulnerable (morally): the feminist critic would show that implicit in any un-reflective caring actions, on behalf of the negatively construed vulnerable, will also tend to an excessive moral demandingness. As I have already suggested, then, this excess is similar to the problem with the utilitarian goal of moral invulnerability in being overly demanding, except that an ethics of care is – instead of seeking to be impartial and invulnerable – by definition, both partial to one’s own personal relations and open to the cared for, and to caring about vulnerability. Thus, both vulnerability and partiality are internalized in caring for, taking care of one’s care for, and caring about how we care for, other people. Yet in caring, it remains difficult, but not impossible to achieve a balance, approaching what I think is necessary for ethical vulnerability ; that is, an accountability in which we can call one another to account. Implicitly, we tend to treat the politics of care as either a potentially feminist politics, or a politics shaped by a stereo-typically feminine approach to care. But at this point in my paper, it is also necessary for me to be clear that: a feminist perspective is not one single, fixed view of women and their relationships. The diversity of current feminist perspectives reveal – nevertheless – a shared concern among contemporary feminist ethicists as well as moral and political philosophers about women in relation to in/justice, vulnerability and forgiveness.4 4 N. Lacey/H. Pickard, “To Blame or To Forgive? Reconciling Punishment and Forgiveness in Criminal Justice”, The Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 35 (2015), 1–32; M. Nussbaum, Anger and

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In an earlier publication, “When Justice and Forgiveness Come Apart: A Feminist Perspective on Restorative Justice and Intimate Violence”,5 I tried to locate the sexually specific situations of women’s vulnerability in a hypertraditional social world. To clarify the nature of injustice and the role of vulnerability in cases of forgiveness for intimate violence, I suggested that intimacy wounding – that is, a physical and psychological vulnerability – is experienced in actual life prior to harm in situations of ethical vulnerability. Here I suggest that we distinguish the positive ethical concept of vulnerability from a solely negative situation of vulnerability. Moreover, I would like to clarify two levels (there might be more) of vulnerability : (i) the phenomenological level of experiencing vulnerability is a primary capacity for being wounded, or a potential wounding; on this level, for example, there is a range of positive to negative vulnerable experiences, from the loving affection in sexual intimacy to the injurious violence in core intimacy harm (a phrase I owe to Chon Tejedor); and (ii) the ethical level of vulnerability that describes a wounding, but also a potential in relational accountability, where vulnerability is inherent in (human) life, not something that can or should be eliminated, or be thought of as a mere liability. Instead distinctively ethical vulnerability would be the basis for a relational accountability, for an openness to change, of calling one another to account for immoral, non-moral or unethical wound(s).6 Ethical vulnerability opens up an opportunity to restore justice, or to repair, the horrendous pain of wounds (vulnerabilities), due to intimate violence, with relational accountability. A double wounding of phenomenologically lived and of ethically damaged vulnerabilities constitutes the Forgiveness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); M. Bell, Hard Feeling: The Moral Psychology of Contempt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); A. Gheaus, “Is Unconditional Forgiveness Ever Good? ” in P.S. Anderson (ed.), New Topics in Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Contestations and Transcendence Incarnate (Dordrecht-London-New York: Springer Publishing, 2010) 51–68; K.J. Norlock/Jean Rumsey, “The Limits of Forgiveness”, Hypatia 24, 1 (Winter 2009) 100–122; L. Allais, “Wiping the Slate Clean: The Heart of Forgiveness”, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 36, 1 (2008), 33–68; M.U. Walker, Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); T. Govier, Forgiveness and Revenge (London: Routledge, 2002); J. Graf Haber, “Forgiveness and Feminism”, in J. Graf Haber/M.S. Halfon (ed.), Norms and Values: Essays on the Work of Virginia Held (Lanham, Maryland, USA and Oxford, UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing, 1998), 141–150. J. Boss, “Throwing Pearls to the Swine: Women, Forgiveness and the Unrepentant Abuser”, in L. Duhan Kaplan/L.F. Bove (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 1997), 235–46. 5 P.S. Anderson, “When Justice and Forgiveness Come Apart: A Feminist Perspective on Restorative Justice and Intimate Violence”, The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 5, 1 (February 2016), 113–134. 6 For a slightly different use of terms and distinctions on this matter, see M.U. Walker, “Moral Vulnerability and the Task of Reparations”, in C. MacKenzie/W. Rogers/S. Dodds (ed.), Vulnerability : New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 110–133.

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injustice of sexual intimacy harm. Ethical repair of this injustice and harm will need to work with the just emotions of resentment; that is, careful attention must be given to resentment of unethical injury and of contempt of the unethical agent himself or herself.7 Both of these emotions – that of resentment and that of contempt – are forms of anger, which necessarily distance, say, an abused woman from her abuser and (his or her) violence; and these various forms of the cognitive emotion, of anger, have a positive purpose. Roughly speaking, the distance which is created by anger, between a sexually abused subject and a sexual abusing subject, makes a cognitive emotion of anger both positive and necessary. It is necessary to distinguish injustice from justice which would include ethical accountability. Anger, which is positive in separating the abused woman herself from the abuser, begins the process of recognizing the injustice for what it is and preventing the further injustice of (re)-victimization (without ethical accountability) and ongoing abuse (with intimacy wounding). Thus, ethical vulnerability would require that we hold one another ethically accountable, as I have argued previously, in practices of restorative justice. To make explicit what will be implicit in my central example – forgiving core intimacy wounding – a hidden premise is that a survivor of intimate violence does not have an unconditional duty to forgive. Any such “moral” duty could be construed as over-demandingness – which if motivating the sexually abused, easily becomes a vice – as in the mother who accepts the abuse of her husband out of a morally and excessively demanding sense of care for him, but not herself. I have referred to intimate violence, in order to denote physical, sexual, emotional, financial, psychological and spiritual abuse that is perpetuated by, for example, adult males in a hyper-traditional – misogynist – social world on adult female partners in close, personal relations. Now, the question is, how would a politics of care address this violence? Certain contemporary political theorists have advocated a practice of restorative justice, which admits a role for forgiveness, in cases of personal abuse in private life. However, feminist critics have contended for decades that private should not be separated from public life when it comes to the injustice of intimate violence. The problem with separating intimacy wounding from the ethics of public life – from a politics of care, perhaps? – would be allowing unethical relations to go unaddressed in private, intimate relations. This is why certain feminist philosophers, advocating an ethics of care, have come to argue that, instead of immediately forgiving her offender, the survivor of 7 I assume (i) that contempt is a justified and proper attitude as a morally appropriate emotional defense against an unjust person; (ii) that resentment is a justified and proper form of anger as a morally appropriate, emotional response to unjust action(s). The latter appropriate emotional response to injustice was called, “settled resentment” by Joseph Butler, see his Sermons 8 and 9 in Bishop Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel (London: James and John Knapton, 21729). For more on the roles of resentment and contempt, see Bell, Hard Feeling, 235–58.

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intimacy wounding should voluntarily consider withholding forgiveness, in order to hold the offender accountable. This would give the abused, at the very least, time to reflect on the offense to which her, however temporary, response might be a form of anger, possibly resentment and contempt.8 And it would give to the process, if successful, moments of ethical accountability. Seeking to understand what a politics of care might be, I have turned to feminist care-ethicists who discuss the case of forgiveness and moral repair. It can be shown that an ethics of care would not advocate being unforgiving. But nor would it advocate having an unconditional duty to forgive. Instead, if advocating a politics of care, which transcends any public/private divide, we must question whether unconditional forgiveness is an ethical requirement in every situation, whether one is a carer or a cared for. If so, this is excessively (overly) demanding for any moral theory, including an ethics of care. But the next question is, would a politics of care find an affinity to restorative justice here? It might be possible to elucidate the elements making up practices of restorative justice as both focusing on the personal relationships, which are the focus of an ethics of care, and focusing on the question of principles, like reciprocal accountability, which would be a focus of an ethics of justice. As I see it, one of the most significant outcomes of twentieth-century feminist gender debates between an ethics of justice and an ethics of care was to show that the former type of ethics ignored the role and nature of personal relationships in ethics. In contrast, the latter type of ethics assumes that personal relationships are at the heart of women’s moral decision-making.9 Let me say, for those readers who are unaware of the feminist ethical literature from the past thirty years or so, the ground-breaking argument for feminist ethics was, roughly, that (white) women in twentieth-century Anglo-American ethics had a different voice to western men when it came to contemporary moral philosophy and, certainly, to hyper-traditional societies. In 1982, following Carol Gilligan’s ground-breaking book, In A Different Voice, a white woman’s voice was associated with, in Gilligan’s terms, an ethics of care.10 This meant that “a woman’s voice” (which at that time was not read in intersectional terms of gender, race, religion, class and other social mechanism of oppression), so a white, upper-middle class voice of women, in ethics exhibited care for and care about maintaining personal (again, what I identify as hyper-traditional) relationships, including their reparation when they had been broken down by a failure to care, or to take care.11 At the same 8 Bell, Hard Feeling, 137–47, 152–65. 9 For an application of an ethics of care, see S. Ruddick, “Care as Labor and Relationship”, in J.G. Haber/M.S. Halfon, Norms and Values: Essays on the Work of Virginia Held (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), 3–25, especially 4–6 and 20–1. 10 C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 11 Although it is not possible in the present essay to analyze fully the gender stereotypes at play in these early feminist debates in twentieth-century philosophy – that is, the philosophical debates concerning ethics of care and of justice – for some relevant critical points about care, see

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time it was argued that, in contrast to this stereotypically gendered ethics of care, an alternative stereotypical ethics of justice described (white) western men’s voice in ethics as directed to a certain abstract form of justice as impartiality, with the educated man’s formal talk of their own rights and independence as (stereotypically male) individuals in the face of wrong doing and injustice. Admittedly, I have followed other more recent feminist philosophers who dispute any sharp gender distinction between care and justice on the grounds of unfair stereotyping of men and of women, in associating each with their own respective, fixed type of heterosexually gendered norms. At this point, I might interject, in order to ask whether restorative justice could be seeking an alternative, uniting the two types of ethics, giving us both care and justice in its practices. If so, restorative justice might be an attractive alternative – insofar as non-binary when it comes to care and justice – it addresses seriously suffered injury (vulnerability-harmed), wounding of personal relations and human emotions, as well as un-ethical (vulnerability-stigmatized), wounding done to ethical standards of behavior, across differences of gender, race, class, religious and sexual orientations. To consider this more closely, let us look at the problem of unethical relations rendering forgiveness a vice, for caring partners with an overdemanding sense of personal obligation. This problem arises stereotypically in hyper-traditional contexts – notably in pre-modern religious traditions – where ethical accountability is undermined, for example, in a woman (because of her social position – in the home – or private sphere of life) who is unable, for either internalized or imposed reasons, to call her abuser to account ethically. I could mention misogynist forms of Christian patriarchy here – because this gender stereotype is known – as a form of patriarchy, making up hyper-traditional societies; but these are unlikely to be any worse than other forms of patriarchy within or outside of other world religions. The crucial thing to bear in mind for what might be construed as a politics of care within practices of restorative justice is that human emotions in practices of repairing wrongs are highly, materially and socially specific.12 So, it is ethically and personally dangerous to generalize about resentment and contempt, let alone forgiving and shaming, in practices of restorative justice. Anderson, “An Epistemological-Ethical Approach to Feminist Philosophy”, in P.S. Anderson/B. Clack (ed.), Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings (London/New York: Routledge, 2004), 87-, especially on pp. 92–4. 12 For example, emotions related to forgiveness – anger in the forms of contempt and resentment – but also to the restorative dimension of re-integrative shaming. See E. Ahmed/J. Braithwaite, “Forgiveness, Shaming, Shame and Bullying”, The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 38, 3 (2005), 298–323; J. Braithwaite, “Rape, Shame and Pride”, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 7, 51 (2006), 2–16; and J. Braithwaite, “Redeeming the ‘F’ word in Restorative Justice”, The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, 5, 1(2016), 79–93.

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Instead of generalizing in a global manner, we might well take the specific situation of hyper-traditional Christian women (what I assume to be women following pre-modern traditions of Christianity when it comes to gender and sexual norms in politics) under patriarchy for illustrating the complexity of the issue of a just forgiveness. One core difficulty is that the moral development of women within a patriarchal hierarchy of stereotypical heterosexual moral norms has been measured by sweeping generalizations: that women should develop peaceful and loving dispositions, while men should develop autonomous strength for fighting conflicts (including wars), and as necessary, for violent self-defense. In other words, the difficulty which becomes a vice is – again assuming a woman’s stereotypical gender as determined by westernized Christian patriarchy – in women who are too forgiving and too loving, to be ethical or just. In contrast, the moral/ethical development, speaking about the other sexual stereotype, of men in the same Christian context results in them having a strong sense of their own individual power, pride and fairness. Within this hyper-traditional picture of moral/ethical development, stereotypical Christian men following their own ethic of formal legal procedures of justice, are justified in intimacy wounding, if need be, and forgiven for it; for instance, in the name of procreation. These binaries of gender – of God-given femininity and masculinity – merely re-enforce situations where forgiveness is what women offer and justice is what men determine. These gendered stereotypes for morality become decisive reasons for justice and forgiveness coming apart in relations between men and women under at least one hyper-traditional Christian form of patriarchy – which is the form of my illustration. The decisive case is that of silencing women when it comes to, say, marital rape and other forms of violent sexual abuse within the family, or indeed, within the religious communities. The fundamental problem is, then, the sharp, normative distinction between public and private life. This distinction persists in conservative home and church life (which again I am designating as hyper-traditional Christianity), where private morality is kept separate from public ethical life. The practice of separating (the ethics of) private life from (the ethics of) public life might equally exist in the families/homes of other patriarchal religions/societies – but it is to this gender division which I think a politics of care must respond. Let us consider more closely the claim that forgiveness is a vice, at least for some women, who do not recognize their own vulnerability – and accountability – so, on both levels of vulnerability, the phenomenological and the ethical. Forgiveness would be a vice in women, insofar as it perpetuates the kinds of inequalities – in family life and personal relations – against which feminists have long struggled. Forgiveness is a vice when it maintains injustice. This is when, what I describe as “unethical” relations of intimacy are maintained between subjects; but in large social contexts we might find it more appropriate to call these oppressive relations in unjust love. I would

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imagine that a politics of care would come in here. For women in hypertraditional (e. g., patriarchal) societies, who are already suffering injustice, inequalities and other evils, forgiveness has been said to lock in their social and economic dependence on men, their relative powerlessness and their fragile sense of self-esteem. Thus, it has been concluded in some feminist philosophical literature that under conditions of serious social and economic inequalities, women would be better off withholding forgiveness “in the name of self-respect”.13 Whatever the social context, the separation of two spheres of life is highly problematic for our case of forgiveness whenever and wherever it hides privately embedded assumptions about women, men and their intimate relations – those which would undermine just practices and ethical reparations. In such social contexts, forgiveness as a vice, whether in private or public life, continues unnoticed and/or untouched as long as women who are violently abused have been taught to forgive immediately and unconditionally ; this teaching (private doctrine) damages their own lives, while concealing injustice. It also damages the lives of other women and men to whom the abused women are related, whether in families, in religious communities or in public spaces, where they allow themselves to be injured, treated unjustly in the name of charity. Parenthetically, the question of what is love? – charity, or caritas? – arises in discussions of care and of vulnerability, since the caring person is often thought of as the loving person; and the vulnerable person is often thought of as the person in need of love. But aren’t we all in need of love? In the end, intimate relations to other women or men are damaged when the person wounded in gender or trans-gender specific ways is too quick to forgive intimate violence; and hence, these wounds perpetuate damaged relationships. The woman injured, abused or raped, simply bears the further cost of forgiveness by absorbing rather than confronting the injustice of her offender. The vice of forgiveness absorbs injustice; that is, intimacy wounding is absorbed by the too forgiving or loving woman rather than wiped away by just practices. A feminist ethicist might consider how it is that public and private spheres of life function differently in locations of intimate violence against (women) subjects who are not understood. In particular, this lack of understanding can easily result from a pervasive failure to take into account the role of gender, sexual orientation, class, race, other social and material mechanisms of oppression such as religious norms and duties; failing to understand one another is especially true in the case of the human emotions surrounding the intimate violence of sexual abuse. The masculine gender stereotype, represented (above) by an ethics of justice, in the public sphere fails to 13 Haber, “Forgiveness and Feminism”, 146–147. For an earlier essay on self-respect, see D. Novitz, “Forgiveness and Self-Respect”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (1988), 299–315.

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achieve the appropriate restoration of personal relations in public life, while the other feminine gender stereotype, represented by an ethics of care, within the private sphere of life promotes exclusively loving and forgiving relations. However, with these stereotypes, the question of whose good is achieved remains, as will be seen, an issue for both types of ethics. In 1982, Gilligan’s In A Different Voice did show that the dominant scale employed in the Anglo-American academic world (that is, at and around Harvard) to measure moral development was unable to make sense of the ethical decision-making of (Harvard) women as anything but underdeveloped. In the intervening thirty-four years since Gilligan published her account of the different ethical voice of women, massive changes have taken place in the writings of moral psychologists, women philosophers, feminist ethicists, political theorists, pastoral tutors and many other scholars: we came to recognize the decisive role of traditional relationships – between women and their children, women and their husbands, women and their social world, between a woman and everyone else with whom she works and lives – for ethical theory and practice. It became clear that ethics and gender relations could not be understood without accounting for reparation and justice; and here, again, we could think of a politics of care. Would a politics of care be characterized by ethical vulnerability in repairing personal and social relations, with a standard of justice? Obviously, Gilligan alone did not cause the change in thinking – ethically and politically – about women, gender and moral reparation; but what is relevant are the two ethical categories for the decision-making of women and of men which seemed to have their source in Gilligan’s gendered contrast between care and justice. Basically, Gilligan demonstrated that a women’s different voice was that of the responsible carer who cares for, takes care of, and cares about personal relations, when it comes to right and wrong decisions. In contrast, according to the Gilligan-shaped thinking of women, the role of relations tended to be absent from men’s abstract thinking about – retributive and distributive – justice and so, eclipsed from democratic conceptions of formal, rule-based ethics. We find that this traditionally western-masculine eclipse of personal relations and emotions from conceptions of justice was persuasively challenged by those early Anglo-American feminist ethicists who unearthed an ethics of care in their studies of women’s decision-making.14 However, this rather crude gender binary of care and justice, in discussions of the different voice of women from that of men, is no longer sustainable (if it ever was); we have many new understandings of gender, transgender and sexual relations. Nevertheless, I propose that something similar to the crucial role of relations in an ethics of care can be said about the role of personal relations in practices 14 For example, see J. Tronto, Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethics of Care (New York: Routledge, 1993).

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of restorative justice. This is extremely significant; yet we would not want merely to extend the gender assumption of 1980s care ethics. A dominant masculine, or masculinist, assumption is that a primary focus on personal relations renders restorative justice, like care, feminine: here feminine roles – include the femininity in gender roles but also in the fluidity of transgender experiences – still contain implicit norms; these are often overly demanding moral norms to do with caring, or forgiving, out of a moral sensitivity to vulnerability, that is, both being vulnerable and being aware of vulnerability. Thus, we have found not only the moral demandingness of impartiality in utilitarian ethics (or an ethics of justice) with its ideal of moral invulnerability, but the moral demandingness of partiality in care ethics. The dual gender-stereotypes for the two ethics become similarly problematic when it comes to how vulnerability is understood, or not. If we take seriously the range of different personal – gender, transgender, gay and lesbian – relations and the hyper-traditionally established relationships, in answering questions about how to repair what has gone wrong in spheres of both public and private life, we begin to see how the division of ethics into that of men (justice) and that of women (care) forced an unworkable separation of social reality into gender binaries. The question is whether the complexity of ethical vulnerability and accountability in both caring about each other and forgiving oneself and others either rid the gender binary from, or dissolve them within, restorative justice. Feminist ethical interventions into restorative justice warn of the dangers in not protecting victims of intimate violence, when the process of forgiveness has the effect of de-criminalizing private life. In contrast, earlier feminist ethical interventions into retributive and distributive practices of justice made private life become public, so that intimate relations become open to legal sanctions, protecting familial relations from injustice. Personally, I remain apprehensive about forgiveness in practices of restorative justice – which, remember, I am questioning as a possible politics of care: Is care, with its focus on personal relationships, bound up with the need for forgiveness, and to forgive, rather than to blame? As a contemporary feminist philosopher, I have been apprehensive, for similar reasons, about Gilligan-inspired practices of ethics in caring relationships. Both practices run the danger of ignoring ethical accountability – on both levels of phenomenological experience and ethical wounding – in the name of caring for, or caring about… the other’s reparation more than one’s own. Ignorance of the nature of one’s own emotional vulnerability seems to go along with an unawareness of the social and material context of one’s beliefs. Nevertheless, there is something extremely significant in bringing together relational ethics and restorative practices, respectively, in care and in justice: a feminist perspective on ethical relations and social norms ignores either the relationality of care or the restoration of justice at a great cost! In brief, what Gilligan-inspired ethics of care did achieve was to encourage a

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greater concern with personal relations and partiality in ethics rather than claiming to follow a strict impartiality in all matters moral and political. So, an ethics of care brings about a politics of care, that is, transformation in politics could only take place once the impact of the care debates in ethics became evident on political matters such as public-private life and social justiceinjustice; transformation aims at improving materially and socially specific embodied care. Impartiality was a crucial moral standard in Anglo-American moral and legal philosophy at the time when Gilligan framed her ethics of care. Assumptions of impartiality in politics and ethics shaped legal thinking in the Anglo-American social world(s), generally, in twentieth-century (philosophy) at least. Yet, if this impartiality is given up for partiality (in caring), we simply fall into a trap of political stereotypes – gender types – which do not solve the problem of vulnerability, since it fails to be ethical on both sides – the lives of the privately and of the publicly vulnerable – of a politics of care! But can a politics of care address the ethical significance of partiality in our political and ethical lives, while remaining ‘a politics’ concerned with universal issues of injustice and justice? In the end, it seems to me that the ultimate challenge for a politics of care is to avoid the danger of internalized (care-based) or externalized (utility-based) moralizing. Both types of moralizing produce the excessive demands – the over-demandingness – on the moral agent and continue to oppress, and quite literally wound, not only the so-called “vulnerable” (the marginalized onto whom the “invulnerable” project their own needs), but those loving persons who single out other persons in need of special care, at the expense of their own lived vulnerability. My argument for ethical vulnerability (as requiring a mutual, relational accountability), however, will meet an additional challenge from Judith Butler’s recent writings on precarious life and corporeal vulnerability.15 Butler might be arguing for an ontology – not an ethics – of embodied vulnerability ; but this is not clear to me at least, because vulnerability manifests itself in highly materially and socially specific ways; so, basically, vulnerability does not look like the same thing – universally – for everyone. However, even if Butler is unable to establish an ontological vulnerability, which is a universal condition for all of life; she equally does not establish an ethical, or ethics of, vulnerability ; in this light, Butler remains a highly significant dialogue partner for my own work on vulnerable life or, enhancing vulnerable life!

15 J. Butler, Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004); Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004); Frames of War: When is a Life Grievable (London: Verso, 2009); and Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).

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A brief Coda My challenge in arguing for ethical vulnerability is indicated in various ways by Judith Butler’s recent writings on precarious life.16 Butler points out that an increased sense of vulnerability is one that is often accompanied by a similarly increased sense of violence, which is demonstrated by the fact (of the matter) that there is nothing in the “recognition of one’s own embodied vulnerability that necessarily inspires generous love, empathy or tolerance”17. Nevertheless, Butler claims that recognition of our lives as dependent on others – especially, in grief, desire or loss – could be the ground on which we could build nonviolent affection (e. g., non-militaristic political action); but this would require us to attend to, abide by, what I suggest is the un-thought here; that is, we must think of our dependence on others, “by staying with the thought of corporeal vulnerability itself”.18 Butler tends to associate vulnerability in politics with grief, or mourning, as motivating either retaliation or other avenues open to grief, especially forcing us to change. However, the question I have is whether loss of loving affection is also a motivation to seek love again motivating politically. Is love that powerful? Butler also sees the sense of dispossession, which comes from grief, as forcing one beyond oneself, becoming undone by the loss of another (of the beloved). But again, there seems to be no clear or certain path from the reality of corporeal vulnerability to a normative ethics or a just politics, since there is nothing specifically normative in recognition of becoming undone. Nevertheless, its remains ethically significant that we cannot will away either corporeal vulnerability, dispossession or our undoing by another. So, I want to insist that Butler’s image of “attending to, abiding by”, the un-thought thought of corporeal vulnerability remains equally significant for both ethics and politics. In this light, do I think that it is merely Butler’s view of normativity which leaves us in this ambiguous and ambivalent situation between vulnerability and violence? Clearly Butler would find that taking up norms in response to the realities of vulnerability will themselves be injurious precisely because of corporeal vulnerability.19

16 J. Butler, Undoing Gender; Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004); Frames of War: When is a Life Grievable. 17 Butler, Undoing Gender, 23. 18 Ibid. 19 In A. Murphy, Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary (Albany : State University of New York, 2012), 75, Ann Murphy has claimed that “Vulnerability’s ethical ambivalence is also revealed in a phenomenology of touch that marks an exposure to alterity”.

III. Law and Politics

Charles Mathewes

Vulnerability and Political Theology

Introduction1 We are thoroughly and inescapably vulnerable creatures, as ten seconds of steady self-reflection will tell anyone; yet we feel it necessary to hold multi-day international conferences to remind us of this fact. As a species, we have more power than ever before, ever more autonomy from our environment and our neighbors, yet every day more and more of us feel an increasingly deep sense of our connectedness, and our endangerment. There are encouraging and discouraging reasons for these facts. They should give us hope, and make us wary. We increasingly recognize (though this recognition is always open to reversal) our common vulnerability and fragility, and, likewise, increasingly feel the need to respond to those facts. But our growing recognition is matched by our alarm at the increased visibility of forms of ferocious hostility between humans that corrode our very capacities to recognize our mutual vulnerability and fragility. The irony and pathos of our situation should be more visible to us than it is. I want to bring this irony and pathos more vividly before our eyes. And I want to argue that all these facts about us are fundamentally political facts, and that it is as a distinctively political problem that we should come at this concern. It is a “political” problem because it is caused in important ways by the contingencies of our political arrangements. And one of our most pointed particular political problems is that we deny our vulnerability and avoid acknowledging it, instead of anchoring our politics partly upon it. The typical theological genre within which such challenges are articulated and addressed is “political theology.” As I use it here, political theology is that form of theology that frames political matters within the Christian community’s fundamental narrative of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation, and that reflects on the lived practices and institutional realities of Christian communities’ attempts at a Christian way of life, selfcritically using the given idioms of Christian thought and Christian life in order to illuminate politic’s’ direct and indirect consequences for efforts to live out such a life. In this sense, Christian political theology is the self1 For their incisive comments and suggestions on this paper, I thank Heike Springhart and Günter Thomas, William Schweiker, Fannie Bialek, Paul Jones, Kris Norris, and Jennifer Geddes.

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understanding and deliberate practice of Christian communities to name whatever pathological political context in which they exist (and to which they may well contribute), and then to organize their inner life as best they can to resist that context in order better to be transformed into what they profess is coming into being as the new political context of the Kingdom of God, the republic of grace. Because political theology attempts to create the institutional conditions in which particularly political problems, as distinctively political, can be confronted, it should have something to say about the problem of vulnerability. I think it does. This paper makes that case in three steps. First, it identifies several important and broadly political contexts for this paper and explains what it means by vulnerability. Second, it identifies some ways that Christian theology might say something about vulnerability so understood. Third and finally, it suggests how Christian political theology can apprehend vulnerability and powerfully articulate it for others – both to its native speakers, and to those for whom theology is a foreign tongue.

Preliminaries: Context and Definition Our fundamental existential vulnerability is always concretized in some moral setting, which gives our moral deliberation its own particular texture and color, and today is no exception. First, as I have already said, we face a largescale crisis of solidarity, a crisis of recognizing, and acting on the recognition, that our own lives, hopes, and destinies are inextricably intertwined with those of others. This crisis has multiple causes, but it seems inarguable that the struggle to find a way to bring people together for common purposes, within countries as well as between them, is resisted by powerful forces. Second, we are growing in awareness of what counts as vulnerability, and concomitantly of greater need for our own responsibility. The question of the so-called Anthropocene, for example, revolves around this issue; as Bruno Latour has put it, this creates in us simultaneous senses of increased agency and profound vulnerability.2 Third and finally, consider what William Schweiker calls, in his paper, “the underlying social imaginary within which our thinking takes place.”3 Here we must consider especially the “moral revolution” of modernity. By this I mean what thinkers such as Charles Taylor, Michael Ignatieff, and Didier Fassin have discussed: the construction, in modernity, of a moral culture that educates us into ever-more extensive scope and depth of intentional human control and power, and burdens us with ever-higher demands for solidarity and benevolence. This transformation is institution2 B. Latour, “Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene”, New Literary History 45 (2014), 1–18. 3 See the contribution of William Schweiker in this volume.

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alized in the rise of “humanitarianism,” a nest of cultural practices and beliefs directed at helping those in need, through humanitarian institutions like the Red Cross and M8dicins Sans FrontiHres, the emergence of UN Human Development Index, and the like. This is not an unproblematic sign of moral progress. In his book Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present, Didier Fassin argues that this humanitarianism is the contemporary mode of “political theology,” employed when our ordinary, mundane, quotidian politics gives out, and which exists “where ‘the tragedy of the modern condition’ can no longer be eluded.”4 In this third context, as in the first two, the motivational context of our efforts is ambiguous. Furthermore, attempts to engage these phenomena are always also complicated by the particular voice in which the engagement is offered, and the particular audiences that hear that voice. As an unapologetic piece of Christian theological discourse, this paper speaks to at least two different audiences, and can be heard in two different ways. First, it will be heard by a broadly Christian audience, interested in its construal of the inner logic of what one Christian perspective has to say about this problem. Second, it will be both heard and “overheard” by a series of non-Christian audiences, who may meet its interpretations and proposals with varying degrees of skepticism, and may themselves hear the words as directed to them, not necessarily of a directly evangelical character but more in the way of suggesting how Christian discourse might offer conceptual or symbolic resources for them to consider in their own quite diverse contexts. We all have our unselfconscious parochialisms, and this is my attempt to bring at least one aspect of my parochialism to slightly less unselfconscious articulation. I will come back to this issue later, when I talk about theology’s, and the churches’, multiple roles in debates about the “public philosophy” of our societies today. Along with my above specifications of the contexts into which this piece is an intervention, I should note a few things about my understanding of vulnerability. First, while vulnerability may look like an innocent, commonsense concept, with its meaning given on its surface, not requiring any contentious interpretation, it is not. When we discuss it in a pluralistic context, we see very quickly that it has no non-contestable content. For example, in the US, contemporary political and cultural discussions of “trigger warnings” in academic life, and “privilege” in the social system as a whole, is in part a dispute about what counts as vulnerability. Indeed vulnerability may be an “essentially contested concept,” that is, a concept whose very meaning, not just its use, is a matter of deep contestation. Perhaps the semantic plurality is a sign not of the sloppiness of the concept, but of the richness of the topic. Second, vulnerability is used as a critical principle, sometimes as a critique 4 D. Fassin, Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present (Berkeley : University of California Press, 2012), 248–54. See also D. Hollinger, After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History (Prinecton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

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of modernity, in both good and bad senses. First of all, it can be used in a good critical way : to uncover and allow us to assess presumptions we had not fully appreciated before. Many thinkers from Heidegger to Judith Butler, indeed also Nietzsche, explore what we can learn from thinking that the human is other than wholly and straightforwardly sovereign over itself.5 But this critique is easily reframed as a reaction against modernity, a rejection of all it represents. It is easy to get carried away with vulnerability. We are vulnerable to the concept’s excesses, and we ought to beware, and resist, the temptation to use vulnerability as a weapon. Third, vulnerability has its immediate home not simply in the body but, more precisely, in the somatic sensorium. While there are other forms of vulnerability – psychic, spiritual, systemic – which are powerful as well, the primary phenomenological context in which we encounter vulnerability is our bodily vulnerability. But note: vulnerability need not simply be about fleshly injury to be somatic. It can involve smell, taste, touch, audibility – the scream of a person, the cry of a baby. To talk about bodies is not just to talk about woundable meat. It is to talk about a way of being in the world that is sensitive to input and information from that world, through all five senses. Consequently, and fourth and finally, vulnerability is not most fundamentally the capacity to be wounded. While wounding may be the dominant context whereby we come to experience ourselves as vulnerable, that experience has only chronological, not logical, priority. Vulnerability seems better understood as a description of our openness than our woundable-ness: the way we are porous to what is not-self. Alternatively, we can say that wounds need not always be injuries – wounds can be of love, of knowledge. Either way, vulnerability shows that our subjectivity is permeable: we can be re-figured, disfigured, transfigured, from outside. What is outside the body or the self is not most fundamentally our enemy. Instead of being the capacity to be wounded, vulnerability is more basically the capacity to be touched, to be reached. With these preliminaries completed, I want to turn now to some brief remarks on vulnerability in Christian theology in general (in Part II) before focusing on Christian political theology in particular (in Part III).

Vulnerability in Christian Theology Günter Thomas is right to say that, historically, the explicit category of vulnerability has had no functional space in traditional theological discourse. Nonetheless, I do think that what we identify as “vulnerability” is one way to 5 Among others, see M. Fineman/A. Grear, Vulnerability : Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics (New York: Routledge, 2013).

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express something that much of the larger Christian tradition has deemed important about our fundamental condition. And we are not bereft of sources that may provide inspiration and provocation for our reflections; from Ignatius of Antioch and Irenaeus of Lyon through Julian of Norwich to Luther and contemporaries like D.M. MacKinnon, Dorothy Soelle, and Rowan Williams, there has been deep and abiding reflection on the conditions of human life in ways that throw light on how we are vulnerable beings.6 Both in its protology and in its eschatology, Christian theology has insights to contribute about vulnerability. First, it implies a particular interpretation of our vulnerability as created; second, it suggests how the Christian community should acknowledge that vulnerability, and respond to it, in its moral teachings, its political action, and its spirituality. I want to say something about both below.

Protological insights: Vulnerability as Creatureliness To begin with, we can construe vulnerability protologically, in terms of human creatureliness. In a metaphysical and cosmological sense, vulnerability teaches us about the creator/creature distinction, and thus throws light on our construal of the Creator, as well as on the creature. Here human vulnerability is not an inescapable endangerment, but as genuine encounter, the gift of the other in the self. God’s transcendence is a mark of God’s genuine and radical otherness; recognizing our vulnerability to God illuminates God’s transcendence of our condition – not our condition as vulnerable, note, but as created. At the same time, however, this God is not distantly indifferent; and so alongside God’s transcendence, our vulnerability to God’s radically intimate presence bespeaks God’s immanence to creation as well. As Augustine says, “God is more inside me than I am,” and this is meant to represent how the Divine presence can saturate our experience of the world and ourselves. In this way Christian theology figures vulnerability not as essentially a susceptibility or tendency towards nihilism, but as an inescapable condition of intimate exposure to the Divine other as a creature of God. This explains what has historically been the central temptation of Christian accounts of vulnerability, and perhaps many other such accounts as well: the temptation to interpret vulnerability as a form of endangerment and fragility, to see it as a perilous condition – in short, to see it as a secondary and lesser good condition to the condition of being in–vulnerable. This is in a way to attend to the ex nihilo and not to the creatio; and to do this is already to be fallen into sin. Construing vulnerability as creatureliness brings into view a phenomeno6 See K. Culp, Vulnerability and Glory : A Theological Account (Minneapolis: Westminster/John Knox, 2010).

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logical positivity to the condition that may remain at least less articulate if it is left merely in the terminology of “vulnerability”. But can creatureliness be figured laterally between humans, as it were, on the horizontal plane of politics, as opposed to the mountaintop of worship? Does creatureliness help us apprehend the vulnerability within creation? In fact, I will argue next, Christian understandings of the person of Christ help us understand vulnerability in light of that category’s normative appropriateness in Christian accounts of Christ’s Cross, death and resurrection. Christological and Eschatological Insights Christians should see vulnerability as a created fact: we were created as vulnerable, we did not fall into it. Similarly, in terms of eschatology and Christology, the Christian churches have proclaimed the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in ways that suggest that humans are not redeemed from vulnerability, but for it. Vulnerability is neither in humanity’s beginning nor its ending an accidental feature of the human, it bespeaks a fundamental truth about the nature of human being, namely, that we are not meant to be autarkic selves, we are not ideally invulnerable. Post-lapsarian life in this world reveals that humanity is caught in a perennial struggle with our temptation to feel shame at our vulnerability, our temptation to conceive ourselves as ideally in–vulnerable. This conception of human vulnerability as part of our soteriological destiny is crucially anchored in Christian reflections on the mission of Jesus. In many Christian construals, Christ shows believers that human vulnerability is not completely eschatologically effaced or transcended: if anything, it is transfigured, revealed as the true basis of human being. The wounds on Jesus’s body are for the Christian theological traditions a crucial clue here: while the painful reality of wounding does disappear, some eschatological depictions render the human, at least as embodied, more vulnerable than we are today.7 Later theologians took up this theme. For example, Augustine, following upon Paul, argued that just as Jesus kept his wounds after the Resurrection (e. g. Lk. 24:39, Jn. 20:20, 24–29), so God will retain on human bodies at least the marks that were suffered for the faith.8 The wounds of the martyrs – those who died for the faith – will not be effaced, but will remain, though “in those wounds will be no deformity only dignity” (no deformitas, only dignitas), the scars transfigured and turned into “marks of glory” on their bodies.9 7 See M. McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). 8 See R. Dodaro, “Augustine’s Revision of the Heroic Ideal”, Augustinian Studies 36:1 (2005), 141–57. 9 See Augustine, City of God, trans. T. Rettig (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 22.19, 22.25, and Tractates on Gospel of John 1–10, trans. R. Dyson, The Fahters of the Church, (Was-

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Augustine developed this theme most notably in his sermons,where he talked repeatedly about the Holy Spirit teaching the church how to groan, how to suffer. Nor is Augustine unique among Christian thinkers; consider Gregory of Nyssa’s effort to transfigure apatheia into a Christian virtue, or Irenaeus and Maximus’s insistences on Christ’s full humanity as needed for him to recapitulate and thereby redeem the whole human, or Julian of Norwich’s expression of human sanctification through the spiritual pedagogy on Christ’s suffering. On all these accounts, the embodied Christ is the paradigm of the human, and the complexity and metaphysical unavoidability of Christ’s passional life actually turns out to undergird a significant theme in Christian theology. None of this implies that this was the universal witness of Christians, nor even that it is the necessary view. Such a proposal remains at best a potential trope for Christians to develop in larger systematic fashion, in whatever cultural context they have found themselves, and with whatever theological idioms they have found themselves to be equipped. But that broadly analogous tropes have been developed at diverse times and places in the past seems indisputable. Interestingly, then, as with so many other categories of our professedly “secular” world, while we cannot quite say that Christianity “discovered” vulnerability, we should acknowledge that the putatively secular category we employ today is very deeply marked by its prehistory in the forge of Christian theology. As ever, of course, this is an ambivalent heritage; consider (internal) feminist and (external) Nietzschean critiques of Christians’ temptation to valorize vulnerability and suffering. If we are to think about vulnerability, every word theology would write should be written in light of these and similar concerns and critiques. Nonetheless, in these ways, and while fully acknowledging the truth of Günter Thomas’s suspicions of the historical anachronism of the concept, the category of vulnerability may be a useful idiom in which to reflect upon Christian depictions of what it means to be human. Such depictions may have insights about vulnerability that may enrich both Christian understandings of the human and of God, and also enrich non-Christian reflections as well. But there is another powerful means of influencing Christians and nonChristians alike, and that is through the particular way political theology takes up these issues, and shows how this abstract conceptualization is manifest, hington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 6.2. For a slightly different but interestingly consonant picture, see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q.54. a.4. For more see M. McCarthy, “An Ecclesiology of Groaning: Augustine, the Psalms, and the Making of Church”, Theological Studies 66:1 (March, 2005), 23–48.; K. Cooper/C. Leyser, “The Gender of Grace: Impotence, Servitude, and Manliness in the Fifth-Century West ”, Gender and History 12:3 (November 2000), 536–51; and R. Dodaro, “Augustine’s Revision of the Heroic Ideal”, Augustinian Studies 36:1 (2005), 141–57.

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exposited, cultivated and explored in the community that is the Christian church. I turn to this topic next.

Vulnerability in Christian Political Theology How then can Christian political theology offer useful insights on vulnerability, in order to disrupt our current political pathologies? Admittedly, the influence of Christianity on politics has often been reactionary ; in Kathryn Tanner’s words, the churches have typically supported “conservative adherence to established political and social relations, willing complicity in social injustice, quiescence before conditions that cry out for change.”10 But church practices have occasionally worked not to reinforce, but to resist, the pathological patterns that grip us. They have done so both directly, for Christians, and indirectly, for Christians’ fellow citizens, and both institutionally and dispositionally, by cultivating practices and habits of interruption as well as embodying practices and habits of radical reconstruction. Today, those practices and habits of interruption and reconstruction can fruitfully be understood as anchored in a fundamental cultivation in believers of the recognition of human vulnerability. In our context – a context, recall, of severe challenges to solidarity – the churches are trying to teach their members to frankly acknowledge and openly confess their own vulnerability, morally and spiritually to acknowledge and respond to the vulnerability of their neighbors, civically to witness to the fundamental created vulnerability of all humans as part of our created good, and publicly to profess that that fact has implications for the ordering of social obligations, not only in the churches but in the societies in which those churches find themselves. The complexity of that prescriptive sentence attests to the challenges this project imposes on Christian churches. So many of our toxic social habits and practices keep their choke-hold on us because of their tacit and unquestioned character. But those pathological social structures and habits are vulnerable too, for they are complex and fragile systems, able to be disrupted by the slightest direct resistance. Here, human vulnerability becomes an opportunity that the churches should seize. I will say something about this first in terms of the institutional mediations the churches can employ ; then, second, in terms of the overall habitus they may cultivate; and then third and finally in terms of several concrete practices and attitudes that they can commend.

10 K. Tanner, The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 2.

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Thinking Institutionally Political theology is that part of Christian theology that diagnostically illuminates a political context in the service of prescriptively informing believers’ inhabitation of that context. It cultivates a constructive political philosophy for Christians, most immediately by resisting and unlearning pathological patterns that afflict the inhabitants of a particular time and place, Christians and non-Christians alike. It does this work through working in, on, and through institutions. Institutions are those cultural structures that specify and buffer us. Understood broadly as a social structure with an “inheritance of valued purpose with attendant rules and moral obligations,” institutions are part of human nature.11 They coordinate humans’ continued dependence upon and relations with one another, and shield us against an often quite inhospitable environment. Humans need institutions to survive and thrive, given our fundamental vulnerability, in two distinct senses of that term. First, we are vulnerable and insecure creatures. We are not born immediately self-reliant, nor realistically are any of us ever going to be wholly self-reliant; in order to survive, to buffer us against the world’s shocks, we need one another. Second, and arguably even more fundamentally, consider our indeterminacy as infants, or as individuals tout court: Because humans are born quite openended creatures, the cultural context in which we are set “specifies” us, makes us become the creatures we take ourselves to be. We are, in this way, vulnerable to culture, in ways that are strongly unlike any other creatures. Whether we like it or not, institutions are inescapable for creatures like ourselves; we inhabit them, and they inhabit us. Wolves’ behavior does not vary across different packs of wolves; but no such continuity is visible in humans. Many good rules of thumb for dealing with bears in Europe would work well in North America; but try to treat an American, an Australian, and a German the same way, and you will get very different responses – and those are three relatively similar cultures.12 When Aristotle defined the human as “zoon politikon,” he was saying something similar : humans are those creatures who live not simply in families or herds, but in explicitly institutional settings, in “political” conditions. Furthermore, institutions not only shape us, but through institutions, we shape the world. If the history of social change teaches us anything, it is that free-standing moral energies, no matter how vigorous, are not durable sources of long-term social and individual renovation and reform; without any explicit distinctive social structures that stand in creative tension to the dominant 11 H. Heclo, On Thinking Institutionally (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 38. 12 See A. Gehlen, Man: His Nature and Place in the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

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social institutions, they are too likely to be coopted by those institutions, digested into their dominant value systems, and thereby become nothing more than yet another sub-species of the consumerist identity politics that our freemarket culture loves to produce. Moral passion without structure or system is invariably transformed into the fools’ gold of exhibitionist status-seeking and self-congratulatory moral voyeurism. In short, passion without institution is blind, while institution without passion is inert. Any worthwhile political theology will therefore undertake a survey of its surrounding institutional ecology, in order to properly apprehend the structural situation within which it attempts to guide its religious community, and to recognize – and where it is proper, to reflectively assess, critique, manage and nurture – those structural networks. Any adequate political theology, then, will think institutionally, and the inculcation of this sociological imagination is the first political task of the churches. This dislocation is what it means to see institutions, and to think institutionally : to see humans as not simply existing in a given natural order, but also as embedded in and enabled by a fabricated “factical” order, an order that is made by human effort and thus neither divinely ordained nor humanly immoveable. To think institutionally is to see the world as importantly a human work, and as thus significantly plastic. For such “institutional thinking” to happen, to treat institutions as objects of analysis, those institutions must be recognized through some distanciated form of representation as contingent, de-naturalized. (This is why good political theology happens most readily on the margins.) To do this, some critical leverage must distance the analyst from the object under study, and this typically happens through the contrasting institution of the church. Churches were born quite self-conscious of their reality as a new kind of institution, as peculiar configurations of human community compared to other institutional forms – as other institutions, an “other” city, an “other” family, an “other” kingdom.13 A great deal of “political” theology is ecclesiastical theology, using reflection on what Christians mean by ecclesiology and “the church,” particularly on how that concept differs from other institutional realities, in order to throw a kind of indirect light on the other institutions that bear down on and sustain Christians in the world. By imagining themselves as members of a different kind of political community, one other than the “worldly” ones that surround them, Christians can imagine history in terms of the career of this other community through time, and not of the antics of nations and empires. In this sense, the church qua church has 13 See G. Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 85. For more see C. Markschies, Christian Theology and Its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire: Prolegomena to a History of Early Christian Theology (Waco, TX: Mohr Siebeck/Baylor University Press, 2015), esp. pp. 187–90, and W.O. McCready, “Ekklesia and Voluntary Institutions,” in J.S. Kloppenborg/S.G. Wilson, Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (London: Routledge, 1996) 59–73.

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been potentially – though very rarely realized – the central site of Christian attempts to “think institutionally.” However, one significant and too-rarely noted fact about the modern world is the apparent difficulty of thinking in explicitly institutional terms, of developing such a “sociological imagination.” We are so successfully institutionalized into thinking of ourselves as individuals, and the state as simply the coordinated voluntary consensus of our individual agencies, that we cannot see the institutional infrastructure that sustains our very individualism. We inhabit forms of relatively invisible institutionality, especially those related to economic forces, (though also, especially among the poorer and more marginalized groups in society, sometimes of forms of police institutionalization). The real story of the rise of “neoliberalism” is the power of economic and increasingly financial institutions and their affiliated (and often subservient) institutions as forces that shape our identity today, along with intensified policing. And yet we rarely see them, because we are not taught to see at this scale, hear at this pitch. Our blindness to the particular institutional ecology that sponsors our agency is part of the power that the institutions have, and the institutions at least occasionally recognize this and try to reinforce it.14 Given this context, what should the churches as institutions do to help their members cultivate a truer political vision, and a saner political way of life?

The Habitus it Commands: Humility and Gratitude Once Christians are taught to see the institutions amidst and within which they live, they must be taught what attitudes to take towards them – how, that is, to feel towards them, and to have those feelings color their overall dispositional orientation toward the world. In terms of vulnerability, Christians must be taught to pair their conceptual awareness of the inescapable institutional infrastructure surrounding and penetrating humans with an affective apprehension of the fragility and vulnerability of humans that humanity’s necessary “institutionality” reveals about us as creatures. That is to say, by explicitly attending to humans’ institutions, Christians can apprehend humanity as necessarily vulnerable, in a way that they would not otherwise manage to do. First, if the churches are institutions, then they too work to shape and create people in particular determinate ways; they are spaces where people can come to articulate their most basic experiences of the world and share those experiences with their fellows to be renewed in their Christian convictions and 14 C. Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), P. Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the State in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

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strengthened in their nascent gracious habits. And the way they do so is to cultivate Christians to become redeemed sinners. And now, in this age, against many versions of the gospel of success, or what Luther would call a “theology of glory,” the dominant work of the Christian churches is not to be places of unmitigatedly chipper people. Rather, alongside exultation and joy at God’s inauguration of the new life, churches will cultivate in believers a deep recognition and inhabitation of vulnerability through a rendering visible the dependencies and injuries of the community, while also and simultaneously proclaiming the already inaugurated, yet only eschatologically achieved, overcoming of those injuries, and satisfaction and consummation of those dependencies. This is not a matter of morbid melodramatic breast-beating. The point is not to seek suffering masochistically, but to recognize it, and not flee from it, not try to hide from the facts of human need or human suffering or human failure, within the church or beyond. Again, this is a learned and habituated practice, itself institutionally hosted and disciplined. In his ethnography of a New Guinea tribe entitled Becoming Sinners, the contemporary anthropologist Joel Robbins talks about the dramatic transformations necessary for people when they enter into Christian faith; and a theologian as long ago as Augustine insisted that the fundamental task of the Christian communities in his own world was to learn how to long, and to groan.15 So cultivated, this practice of recognizing human vulnerability bears an ethical imperative: to witness to human dependence and brokenness in everfuller and more honest recognition of those realities, and to seek to discern and proclaim how God is sustaining that dependence and healing that brokenness, through works of justice and love, both our love and the love of others. The vulnerabilities recognized by the community need not be merely their own vulnerability ; they can be, indeed, typically will be, the vulnerabilities of the weakest among them, the poor and the outcast and the infirm. Such figures are both other humans with whom we must relate, in order to suture the fissures that appear in the body politic, and also as the most visible examples of the necessary vulnerability of all humanity. Over time these imperatives habituate the practitioner to see humans as vulnerable in their being, not most fundamentally because of any individual moral or spiritual failing on their part. This is quite significant. What we see is not a quirk of our own individual character, but a constitutive feature of human nature. The various flaws and pathologies from which we suffer “predate” us and our individual choices. In a way they reveal something of the logic of Christian notions of original sin. They teach us that we are seduced and distorted by forces far beyond the merely individualist or moralist energies of our own particular past actions. 15 J. Robbins, Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a New Guinea Society (Berkeley : University of California Press, 2004).

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Pathologies of identity, masculinity and femininity, race, so much of our “personal” failings in fact predate our agency ; these pathologies are not fundamentally individual choices, but political conditions. To talk about our maladies we must talk about our cultures and societies, we must talk about our politics. Furthermore, our healing comes not through a restoration or shoring up of our defensiveness, a rebuilding (or really, building) of our subjectivity’s walls, but a life of joy together in redemptive vulnerability. Thus, this groaning church is gathered not only to hear judgment, receive forgiveness, and to confess its own brokenness and the brokenness of the world; it is also called to prophetic proclamations of the healing of the world in Christ. So part of what we need to learn is our inescapable vulnerability to redemption, and the helpless joy that comes at our salvation. Thus, the basic disposition is an ever-deeper awareness of our vulnerability and non-isolatedness. In this setting, the practice of the church as groaning is part of, and foundational to, a more visibly general practice of hearing judgment, being (and publicly confessing) repentance, and seeking anew to announce, and participate in, the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth. As Willis Jenkins, puts it in The Future of Ethics, there should be: two senses of “church” for Christian ethics: those communities that gather in word and sacrament to tell the story of Jesus, and those communities that make the reality of Jesus by bearing responsibility for the world’s suffering. The former maintain the interpretive lexicon for recognizing the latter.16

Given the importance of this motif of “bearing responsibility for the world’s suffering” in some forms of Christian ethics, the question then becomes, how is this habituation into a deepening awareness of human vulnerability accomplished? How are Christians called to participate in this healing through more concrete particular practices that contribute to political theology’s stated aim of altering the political context of the church? That is my next theme. The dispositional orientation that the churches wish to inculcate in their believers has a political dimension as well. This orientation means to make us not only see the ways that our current institutional set-up vexes and damages the kind of dispositional formation that they want their adherents to possess, but to feel in our bones the absurdly self-imposed, and yet un-self-removable, prison of our own forms of pathological institutionalization, and to long for a better kind of institutional life, one that allows us to bear our vulnerability, and one another’s, in more fundamentally gracious a manner.

16 W. Jenkins, The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013), 104. See also P. DeHart, The Trial of the Witnesses: The Rise and Decline of Postliberal Theology (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 2006).

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Practices of Reformation These affective transformations will be cultivated by, and reflexively manifest in, particular practices that the churches deliberately perform. These practices interrupt the easy flow of institutional invisibility, and create new forms of self-conscious relational solidarity across the boundaries of those institutionalized social divisions that fracture societies into isolated and oppositional fragments. Many such interruptive practices exist. Here I want to describe three potential ones. Such practices are the treasure-trove that any contemporary political theology should draw from in offering its own account of sanctifying interruption, and cultivating institutional thinking. The first is found in the common ecclesiastical practice of the “passing of the peace.” The sheer act of turning to fellow parishioners, your “neighbors” in the pews in whatever church in which you happen to be, looking one another in the eye, shaking hands, and speaking, begins to form political community in a powerful way, first of all by breaking down the invisible walls of etiquetteenforced pretended invisibility. It may seem strange to think that simply seeing and being seen, let alone heard, is an important political fact, and yet it is. Modern philosophy since Rousseau and Hegel has insisted on the fundamental human need for esteem or recognition from one another as a basic human necessity and a prerequisite for political community. Much contemporary political turbulence can be understood as struggles for recognition, provoked by a felt lack of recognition, by our anger at being disrespected.17 This practice reminds us that we are vulnerable simply by virtue of being visible – vulnerable to recognition and to mis-recognition, even to invisibility itself. Furthermore, it is not only us who are so vulnerable, but everyone else as well. In so explicit a practice of recognition, the covert political dynamics of visibility and invisibility are brought explicitly to the surface: It turns out that we need to struggle to see, and to struggle to see truly. Günter Thomas argues that ours – the struggle for attention, and the struggle for recognition – is an inescapable, indeed tragic situation, due to the finitude of public attention, particularly as that attention is channeled and focused by the media. Empirically this cannot be doubted. But in the simple act of breaching the invisible civil boundary of anonymity, which in this case is a kind of public blindness, this church practice simultaneously highlights this situation and suggests that there is something deeply wrong with it. The second practice is found in the common church practices of the confession of sin and petition for mercy and grace. These practices encourage participants to articulate, for themselves and others, their waywardness and 17 See A. Honneth, Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Cambridge/Malden, MA: Polity, 2007).

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the divine generosity and mercy that leads such waywardness back to God, a generosity and mercy that works through others but also as an autonomous force on human agency. This mercy helps parishioners recover the path from which Christians understand themselves to habitually and repeatedly stray. In such practices, we find the seeds of quite a radical re-thinking of human agency, of the character of ourselves as acting beings. What exactly it is we do when we “act”; is the best model of our agency found in the conceptualization of it as the physical realization of a prior mental intention formulated in an agent’s head? Normally we take some such picture as more or less natural and inevitable; it certainly underpins a great deal of our individual moral intuitions about responsibility, merit, and blame, as well as of our socialethical intuitions regarding justice and desert. But what if this whole tangle of intuitions is radically flawed? What if our action is more primordially responsive rather than active? What if we are, in Luther’s terms, more acted upon than acting? These forms of confession, both of sin and of grace, underscore how this community depicts otherness as implicated in one’s inmost subjectivity, and how the self should learn not to deny the presence of that otherness, but to accept it. These practices work to transform our understanding of action, making us realize that we are not ideally “invulnerable” to reality, creating and enacting our life-plans in finally autarkic fashion, but in fact deeply implicated in and obligated to one another for ourselves, our habits and opportunities, even our very desires. These forms of confession also suggest quite a different account of human agency, in which agency is enabled by our context. To be ourselves, we need others; conversely, in caring for others, we are doing liberatory work. Historically this has been doubly obscured, first because caregiving has historically been, and remains today, designated in a derogative way a subsidiary and degraded kind of pre-political “women’s work” contrasted to masculine Promethean self-making. In fact, autonomous agency and involvement with others are not dichotomous: vulnerability and empowerment are two sides of same coin, and any serious account of the vices of domination, from Augustine’s analysis of the libido dominandi to feminist accounts of masculinist agential self-deception, reveals that they do not make for flourishing on the part of the dominators.18 Christian practices of confession, then, invite a reconceptualization, not just of individual agency, but of the kinds of political relations we ought to have to ensure our own, and our neighbors’, greatest autonomy and dignity. 18 Among others, see S. Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender (Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002); L. Tessman, Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); A. MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Humans Need the Virtues (London: Duckworth, 1999), and C. Mackenzie et al. (ed.), Vulnerability : New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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The third practice has no obvious particular event in the worship practices on which it can be hung, but it seems visible beneath them all. This is the steady pressure to reconceive all authority, not just what we take to be “political” authority but definitely that too, though also ecclesial authority, in the pulpit and at the altar as much as in the pews, as vulnerable, Christ-like. This practice implies quite a profound revisioning of social legitimacy, which is often imagined as in some important way invulnerable, unreachable and untouchable (and by extension unchallangeable). On this vision, righteousness is no longer properly conceived as hierarchical; the doctrine of Christ’s two natures make it possible to meet God “laterally,” as it were – face to face. While God may seem “above” creation in our current situation, in fact this verticality is due fundamentally to our sinful rebellion against God, and not on God’s necessary “verticality” to us. The relationship between Creator and creature is not properly modeled on a master and servant. If God’s transcendence is no longer essentially explicable on social hierarchies, then those hierarchies can no longer hide behind the legitimating cloak of God’s transcendence. Human authority now looks more troubled than it did before – consider, Augustine’s insistence that “rule,” dominari, was a consequence of the Fall, not a natural part of Creation, which originally held no lords and no servants.19 There is no invulnerable authority in our reality : God has foregone it in Christ, and humanity therefore cannot possess it either. The struggle to come to terms with this idea is an old story in Christian thought. In fact it reaches back at least to Late Antiquity when the bishops of the Christian churches slowly, and many times unwillingly and inadvertently, saw their “classical” authority transmuted into something quite different, and insodoing produced a rather significant transformation of the overall social imagination of their world. After emerging in the second and third centuries under the old Roman title of “Pater,” in sense of paterfamilias, then moved (with Cyprian and Eusebius) to something distinct, a new kind of authority, not rooted in the Roman familia, and authorized by visible ascetic practices such as celibacy and living in community ; these practices in turn transformed gender dynamics as well, slowly altering Roman conceptions of masculinity and femininity in powerful and in some ways liberating fashions.20 Even today, conceptions of political authority and now cultural celebrity are often represented as communicating invulnerability. But such is not the case. All three of these practices, in different ways, work to help us un-do the conception of the ideal state as an invulnerable state, and to conceive instead of the ideal human condition as one that is graciously accepting of its 19 City of God 19.15; see also Literal Commentary on Genesis 9.9. 20 K. Cooper, “Christianity, Private Power, and the Law from Decius to Constantine: The Minimalist View”, Journal of Early Christian Studies 19 (2011) 327–343. See also K. Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). See also C. Leyser, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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vulnerable status, to God and to the neighbor. These practices are both negative and positive, interrupting pathological institutional habits and structures and re-relating humans in new circuits of solidarity and vulnerability. Were the churches to actualize the power of their practices, they could better teach their parishioners these lessons: revealing the vulnerability of the human in general as opposed to the idea of some sort of techno-capitalist privacy and isolation; highlighting and affirming the vulnerability of human wealth against the illusory fortifications of global financial capitalism; exposing the necessary vulnerability of creation to humanity itself; and they could do all of this both within the churches’ walls, to their members, and beyond them as well, as resources for a new “public theology.” What that means, I turn to next.

Conclusion: The Churches and Public Philosophy Vulnerability promises to be fruitful both as a “political theology” and, in a different register, as a more inclusive “ethics of citizenship” as well. Recognizing and building a political theology on a frank recognition and full exploration of human vulnerability may help us address some of the most serious political pathologies we face today, and thereby work within distinct communities and as a larger community of a multitude of religious and nonreligious commitments to come to know a good in common that we cannot know alone. Any contemporary political theology will help its communities confront the difficulties of recognizing our need of each other, our need of solidarity, as a response to our condition of vulnerability. Most adults will allow that we are not autarkic beings; but what to do with that fact is still disputed. Many people respond to our vulnerability as Hobbes proposed we ought to, with an infinitely escalating paranoia. But some communities, some Christian ones among them, have suggested that this condition of mutual co-existence, of our need for one another and our susceptibility to being affected by one another, can warrant our possible solidarity with one another. Perhaps our vulnerability, once we have named it, is not itself the problem we must solve, but the solution to the problem of our far too isolating solitudes. Furthermore, vulnerability, even in the theological frame offered here, has a reach beyond the purely ecclesiastical. It is not only parishioners who stand to learn from the churches’ revitalization of these practices and habits, and the convictions that undergird them. This can contribute to the common good, by helping others who are not Christians to see and be transformed – by provocation as well as by analogy and inspiration. After all, churches can work in public life in at least two registers. First, they speak directly to their members. But they can also speak through their members, through their

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example, and their witness, to audiences lacking any prior commitment, or even interest, in the churches’ as moral authorities. In this indirect way, the churches’ convictions can be shared far and wide. And yet there will still be tensions attendant to any such effort at “public theology.” In many ways, the burgeoning theological interest in vulnerability is paralleled by similar projects from other perspectives, using other idioms. For example, Judith Butler’s interest in “precarity,” or what the rest of us would call the precariousness of human life, bears remarkable similarities with the interest in vulnerability. Butler has identified and explored the manifold ways in which we can be undone by each other, in grief as well as in joy, and thereby reveal our fundamental sociality, how we are inevitably “implicated in lives that are not our own.”21 But parallels are often only partial. In this case, Didier Fassin has pointed out that understandings of “precarious” do not recognize the theological dimensions of the category as fully as it should. “Precarious” comes from the Latin precor, to pray. To see another as precariously placed, Fassin suggests, is already to be making claims about them, and about our response to them, that have moved from obligation to gratuity, from demand to noblesse oblige, that teeter at the voluntary edge of the theological, that imply the apprehension of a vertiginous excess, beyond demand or obligation on their part. To see another’s situation as precarious, that is, is to be already precariously placed oneself, teetering on the boundary between the secular and the sacred. It suggests, as it were, that the recognition of another’s vulnerability can only take at the cost of acknowledging one’s own vulnerability as well: a vulnerability to the other, and to the theological language in which the other’s vulnerability seems to present itself to you, even if you lack the idiomatic resources whereby to incorporate that theological language into yourself in a digestible way.22 For Fassin, that space of uncertainty, teetering between sacred and secular, however tragic it is, is perhaps the most honest place to be. For Christians, however, there is more to say. The recognition of another’s value, another’s vulnerability, is tied up with the admission of one’s own vulnerability as well; and both find their full articulation in the vulnerability of the people of God on pilgrimage in this world as the body of Christ. As a lens through which to view our situation, vulnerability is in the world, but perhaps not fully of the world. The precariousness of vulnerability as a piece of “public philosophy” – simultaneously glimpse-able in ourselves and others, and yet also not unfailingly obvious by the immanent evidence offered for its validation – speaks to a larger precariousness in the churches’ work in “public theology,” and perhaps even “political theology.” So while the churches’ capacities for 21 J. Butler, Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004), 19 and 22. See also J. Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004). 22 Fassin, Humanitarian Reason, 4–8.

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self-deception and hidden self-interest cannot be denied, the sincerity of their desire to contribute is palpable, and the prospects are not bad. For in the idea of vulnerability, the churches have the possibility of teaching their participants a richer political philosophy – a richer “public philosophy” – than they would otherwise possess, and that will aid them in understanding what their civic duties are, and why they are that. Here it seems to me that the “social teachings of the Christian churches” can take many different forms; mine is just one of many. So long as the language provides faithful citizens some intelligent way to connect their explicit theological commitment to their political location, we are at least trying to speak analogous languages – languages whose words try to make not just visible but vivid a different imagination of the human, and the world, than we currently possess. Arguably, one powerful civic gift of the church is to make that imaginary visible – even if, in doing so, in the very act of “public theologizing” that that political theology undertakes, the church, and its theology, renders itself particularly vulnerable to its audience. But in a way, that seems appropriate in this situation: for here, at least and at last, the churches can be said to practice what they preach.

Martha Albertson Fineman / Silas W. Allard

Vulnerability, the Responsive State, and the Role of Religion

Introduction This chapter addresses the growing (and empirically based) perception that the law, politics, and the state itself are failing in their most fundamental task: ensuring a just and equitable society. It argues that we must intentionally and attentively construct a system of laws and legal responsibility that is responsive to and recognizes the fact that everyone in society has needs as individuals, as well as considers the role that institutions play in individual and collective lives. The following pages set forth an argument for the intentional and society-centric development of a political and legal ethic of compassion, which mandates a more socially responsive state than currently exists in many Western democracies. It does so, first, by considering the universality of human vulnerability and dependency and, second, by subsequently recognizing the state’s responsibility to respond to the implications and consequences of that shared human condition. The vision for a responsive state that is articulated here is secular in its roots and exposition. Though it may resonate with many religious understandings of social justice: understandings that emphasize compassion, love of neighbor, and communal flourishing. Organized religions and religious dictates, however, do not and cannot stand alone to address growing socialeconomic inequality and the complex needs of those who are ill-served by the secular “values” expressed in contemporary society. While religion may be separate from the state, it is not totally independent of the state either ; not as a fact of social life nor as a subject of legal regulation. Therefore, the argument in this chapter for a responsive state also raises a set of questions about the role that religion might play in the responsive state and about the relationship between religion and the responsive state. The chapter is written as a conversation. In the first half of the chapter, Martha sets out the argument for a responsive state from the perspective of vulnerability theory. In the second half, Silas responds by framing some issues and questions about the role of religion in the responsive state.

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The “Still Face” of a Compassionately-Challenged Society Recently, while reading an article titled “The Decline of Empathy and the Appeal of Right-Wing Politics,” I was struck by the relevance of the lessons gleaned from an experiment with mothers and infants, to figuring out how to foster a society that valued and practiced policies of social justice.1 In the experiment, mother and infant interactions were analyzed in two contrasting situations. First, there were the situations where mothers responded with normal reciprocal mirroring to their infants’ facial expressions during play. In contrast, in a second set of situations, the mothers were instructed to continue to play with the infants, but to make their facial expression “flat and neutral” for some, relatively short, period of time before reverting to normal interaction. The researchers observed that when the mothers’ faces were neutral and still, the infants became anxious and desperately tried to reconnect with their mothers. Failing to receive a reciprocal interaction (per instructions from the researchers), the infants “showed ever-greater signs of confusion and distress, followed by a turning away from the mother, finally appearing sad and hopeless.”2 The researchers labeled the experiment an example of the “still face paradigm” and concluded that for human beings (and other mammals) a “caretaker’s attunement and engagement is necessary to foster security, self-regulation, and empathy in the developing child.”3 The author reviewing these experiments extrapolated from the studies and deemed the still face paradigm to be a “metaphor” for adult life in contemporary society. This breakdown in empathy and the resulting sense of helplessness that infants experience, he asserted, also describes the “experience of many people as they interact with the most important institutions in their lives, including the government.”4 In other words, the stillness of society’s face – or the lack of visible response and recognition to growing inequality and widespread suffering and anxiety – betrayed the “natural” expectations and needs of those governed and led to the infliction of social and individual harm. In the author’s opinion, governmental inattentiveness and indifference inflicted widespread “damage to our psyches, causing distress, anger, and hopelessness,” as well as status-anxiety and causing trust in others to break down (and, one presumes, in our institutions as well).5 The author continues with the observation that the “profound

1 M. Bader, “The Decline of Empathy and the Appeal of Right-Wing Politics, What Is He Thinking?” (blog), Psychology Today, Dec. 25, 2016, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-is-hethinking/201612/the-decline-empathy-and-the-appeal-right-wing-politics. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.

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corrosive effects of social and economic inequality”6 exaggerates this phenomenon. My discipline is law, not psychology, but it begins, as do many other disciplines, with a set of assumptions as to what it means to be human, as well as speculations about the effects and consequences of social interaction and norms on humanity. This research on infants is interesting in that regard because it emphasizes that there is a fundamental and “natural” dependence of human beings, at least initially, on the care and attention of others. We are social beings who are inescapably enmeshed in social relations and institutions, and for that reason, we are also dependent on the rules, norms, and values that shape and define those relations and institutions. Those rules, norms, and values are expressed in various ethical systems within society : religion, philosophy, history, and psychology to name a few. Unlike many other disciplines, however, law is tasked with the development and implementation of a set of coercive rules applicable to all. This process necessitates creating powerful organizing institutions, which are anchored in the state’s legitimate monopoly of power over life, liberty, and property. Through what is termed “the rule of law,” a society expresses what it considers to be legitimate and universally applicable standards of behavior reflecting its generally shared values and norms. Those rules or laws govern the relationships with and responsibilities to others that members of society have as individuals. In doing so, these laws also shape and define the institutions within which we inevitably find ourselves enmeshed throughout life, such as the family and the market, as well as institutions such as finance, education, health, and the many other structural arrangements that accommodate and facilitate social and economic interactions. These rules reflect a societal or social judgment as to what is considered the 6 Ibid. At this point the author continues his reflection, adopting a rather standard analysis of the effects of inequality – employing a notion of relative vulnerability – as well as implicating some version of a discrimination paradigm as the way to understand and approach the widespread economic and social situation. In doing so, he focuses on the white working class, seeking to bring them within the groups worthy of attention – to include them within the groups to whom the government does respond. His plea is for more equality for working and middle class white citizens. But this is not an answer when those who now govern us are indifferent to everyone’s need for recognition and empathy – for the situation in which the “still face” of government is turned to every citizen, not only some. The fact that some succeed and even thrive in this Hobbesian world is not surprising. But formal equality, or mere inclusion, is not the answer: rather, we must be able to argue for governmental responsibility – a state or collective responsibility to attend equitably (often differently) to the needs of all individuals in creating and monitoring the laws that govern our day-to-day interactions, as well as constructing the social institutions and legal relationships in which we are inevitably and inextricably embedded over the course of our lives. This subject of a responsive state must be drawn so that it is empirically based and with realistic expectations for both the individual and the institutions of the state. Those institutions must be designed to be empathetic and compassionate in light of the realities of the human condition. This project is the purpose of a vulnerability analysis, which will be developed in the following section of this chapter.

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appropriate allocation of responsibility for both individual and societal wellbeing between the collective (be it a governmental or institutional entity) and the individual. Complex and interlocking systems of rules, norms, and socially defined roles within society’s institutions create expectations, entitlements, and aspirations, as well as form the bases for collective judgements and reaction. If these institutions (indeed society) are to endure, the rules upon which they are based must reflect a realistic understanding of the relative individual, institutional, and state capabilities and limitations. Furthermore, to be deemed compassionate these rules must also be shaped by an understanding of the needs and challenges of contemporary society and its terms and mode of operation, not based on perceptions formulated in another, simpler, and more homogeneous era, which are then merely reflexively applied.

Understandings of the Human and the Collective in Contemporary Society Returning to the “still face paradigm,” we might ask: what lessons are inevitably learned by those currently struggling within a society that appears unresponsive to human need and suffering? How should we respond when the state is unresponsive? Contemporary Western societies are typically organized around values of individualism and autonomy and reflect a faith in free market “principles” to provide for the collective welfare.7 In its extreme form (as in the United States of America), the state is seen as mostly unnecessary to individual and institutional prosperity and urged to get out of the way. In this type of neoliberal market-oriented society, belief in privatization and efficiency have not only prevailed, but triumphed, over more socially attentive and responsive models of society. What happens to social cohesion and trust when the individual is held to expectations imposed by a regime of “personal responsibility,” tempered slightly by some recognition of “individual rights” against state excesses? It is a society built around competition, not compassion. The primary concern of this chapter is the damage that occurs to the social fabric of a society when the failure to thrive is blamed on the individual, and the social institutions and relationships upon which we are all dependent have been drained of the resources they need to provide the minimum component of the constitutionally mandated equality of opportunity and access. It laments the incoherence in the related and contingent social institutions that populate the complex global and market-oriented societies that have been 7 This is not to suggest these societies are uniform, only to argue there is, at least rhetorically, a dominant paradigm for neoliberal market-oriented societies.

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created in the past several decades. These are societies where the means for individual survival, as well as the possibilities for flourishing, are cavalierly assumed to be within an individual’s grasp, ideally not requiring any sustained governmental responses. Rather than accepting this designation of individual responsibility, we should be asking ourselves, and those politicians and policy makers who shape our institutions, a bevy of hard questions; we should be demanding answers that reflect at least some recognition of social responsibility. To start this inquiry, let us ask those politicians obsessed with austerity to imagine what lessons children learn when the books and other materials they are provided in public schools are outdated and incomplete and the equipment required for even a modestly adequate technological education is both worn and sparse? What do these children understand as necessary for a fulfilling life when music and art are missing from the curriculum and physical education is deemed a luxury? How do children understand the value society gives them when the buildings in which they are “educated” are desperately in need of repairs and their local community refuses to generate the resources necessary to address the problem? How do these children understand their society’s sense of justice and fairness when, at the same time they are experiencing deprivation, they see a multimillion dollar sports complex or some other symbol of societal indulgence for the well-off being constructed with the assistance of public resources? This is not just an exercise to engage from a child’s perspective. For everyone, the significant question should be: how do we understand and evaluate “justice” when the state acts (or fails to act) in seeming ignorance of the economic and social contexts in which its citizens find themselves? What lessons are learned by those who are ill, elderly, and disabled when they are abandoned to the whims of for-profit insurance companies or the degradation of a public system that views them as failures and potential cheats? How should we judge a society that allows its most-in-need citizens to suffer or die unattended because state protection is seen as “insulting” and a denial of “agency?” And, what lessons are learned from those dependent and needy family members (particularly children) when the state is cautioned not to interfere in that private family, even to protect some members against the neglectful, harsh, or abusive treatment of others except in extraordinary circumstances? What is the response of those abandoned to their assumed autonomy and liberty in a system that privileges privacy and valorizes profit maximization over a norm of welfare provision? Even those who seem fully engaged with social institutions should question the allocation of responsibilities and rights those institutions have been constructed to contain. What lessons are there for employees and workers when their collective interests are undermined and fragmented into ineffectiveness by perversely named “right to work” laws? When attacks on unions are validated by governmental officials? Workers are left to grapple

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with the dictates of an increasingly remote employer in an “at-will” employment system; one where employment is the supposed source of welfare benefits, such as health insurance and retirement or social security. What recourse do they have when the legal system provides them little protection from the employer’s obsession with efficiency and profit and instead asserts a perverse and hollow rhetoric of equality of liberty which disregards the existing power inequality within the employment relationship? What is the recourse when the meager rules that protect worker health and safety are vilified by multinational corporations? And the politicians whom they influence argue such protections are an unnecessary interference with free markets and threaten to repeal them? What recourse is there for all of us when those same corporations attack environmental protections, calling them inefficient and unnecessary restraints on a free market, leaving individuals alone to bear the health and other burdens that result in the name of “growth” and “progress” (but, which actually result in an obscene glut of profits to be held by very few while burdening the rest of us with economic and health consequences for which we will be individually responsible)? Who answers the question of why the Dow Jones index is considered news worthy of hourly reporting, while the number of children without health insurance or going hungry and the very visible and verifiable consequences of climate change are ignored? Such social harms are reported (if reported at all) by those in positions of power as “aberrations” and “exceptions” to a market system we are assured is functioning efficiently and in the interests of all. The “private” market’s routinely generated negative social consequences are either ignored or justified by a government increasingly uncaring and unresponsive to individual circumstances and needs. The list of social arrangements leading to individual and collective disillusionment with the promises of equality and justice could go on, but the central, overriding question – the question that begs for answers steeped in a sense of social justice and compassion – is: what are the lessons we inevitably all learn from our contemporary political system and its fixation on individualism steeped in an “ethic” confined to personal responsibility and a political rhetoric that extolls the virtues of a restrained state and the primacy of market-based social justice? Such an approach to governance asserts and reifies (against realistic assessments of the human condition) the values and virtues of individual independence and liberty and ignores (and sometimes expressly either exploits or vilifies) the reality of human vulnerability and dependency. Ironically, at the same time as the modern state validates and facilitates the perceived needs, ambitions, and appetites of collective economic entities, such as the corporation and other contractual relationships, it fractures and diminishes the social dimension of collective life, isolating individuals and abandoning them to an empty and unrealizable liberty. The compelling task in the twenty-first century is to address the seeming

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abdication of state responsibility to the individual that has emerged in modern societies, which seem much more attuned to the needs of the market. What language and concepts can challenge the relentless rhetoric extolling individual independence and glorifying personal responsibility? How can we articulate a compelling argument for the recognition of a collective responsibility to the individual; one that does not revert to the illusion of a meritocratic and unencumbered market as the means to creation and just allocation of social goods? How do we demand that the state be both responsive and compassionate? How do we demand that the state and its laws responsibly appreciate and respond to the realities and limitations of the human condition and accept the attendant responsibility that, of necessity, confers on the state and the institutions it has created to govern our relationships with each other?

Vulnerability Theory8 The Vulnerability and Human Condition Initiative at Emory University has been developing an approach to social justice issues that recognizes the essential role of the state in forming a society responsive to the actual lives of human beings and the planet we inhabit. This approach envisions a “responsive state” that is simultaneously more realistic about what it means to be human and more compassionate towards that reality than the dominant political and policy approaches in much of the world today. We begin by positing that universal human vulnerability is what unites us as human beings. This foundational concept does not exclude or ignore the particularities and differences among us; rather, it seeks to focus on the political and legal possibilities inherent in the recognition of a universal construct – the vulnerable subject. This subject is at the center of the 8 This section is informed by the following articles in which I further develop the vulnerability approach: “Equality and Difference – The Restrained State”, Alabama Law Review 66 (2015); “Vulnerability and LGBT Youth”, Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 23 (2014); “Feminism, Masculinities and Multiple Identities”, University of Nevada – Las Vegas Law Review 13 (2013); “‘Elderly’ as Vulnerable: Rethinking the Nature of Individual and Societal Responsibility”, The Elder Law Journal 20 (2012); “Beyond Identities: The Limits of an Anti-discrimination Approach to Equality”, Boston University Law Review 92 (2012); “The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State”, Emory Law Journal 60 (2011); “Evolving Images of Gender and Equality : A Feminist Journey”, New England Law Journal 43 (2009); and “The Vulnerable Subject”, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 20 (2008). This section is also informed by the following books: M.A. Fineman/J. Fineman (ed.), Vulnerability and the Legal Organization of Work (Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming 2017); M.A. Fineman/U. Andersson/T. Mattson (ed.), Privatization, Vulnerability, and Social Responsibility : A Comparative Perspective (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016); and M.A. Fineman/A. Grear (ed.), Vulnerability : Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013).

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Initiative’s ambition to develop tools with which to confront neoliberal and individualistic assertions about the nature of state and individual responsibility and the proper functioning of an “ideal” state. Our vision is not for a restrained state or small government. On the contrary, we recognize that the state is always active and involved in fashioning rules and regulations – laws – that govern the relationships among human beings and the institutions in which we all inevitably participate over the course of our lives. Contemporary Western systems of law and justice reflect a preference for liberty and autonomy. An independent and fully-functioning adult constitutes the “idealized ordinary” or paradigmatic subject – the being whose professed capabilities, aspirations, and needs guide the generation of policy and law. In such a vision, the legal subject is one among equals, inhabiting a world that valorizes personal, not societal, responsibility. State intervention or regulation is perceived as a violation of liberty. Social arrangements and institutions, such as the family and the corporation, are deemed “private,” even though they are shaped by law and have significant implications for the well-being of children, workers, and society at large. Suggestions for public supervision are easily deflected by facile reference to ideological constructs, such as family privacy, meritocracy, and free markets. Vulnerability theory rejects this static and deficient misrepresentation of what it means to be human, arguing for the recognition of a legal subject that reflects the complex and varied lives actually lived by human beings. The concept of the “vulnerable subject” recognizes that human beings are first and foremost embodied beings who, as such, are inherently, universally, and constantly “vulnerable.” The term vulnerable is used to reflect the reality that throughout the life-course we are constantly susceptible to changes in our bodily or physical well-being. Changes in embodiment can be developmental, evolving as we move from birth to death. Such changes can be negative and located in our mortality ; they may also be positive, reflecting our growth, increasing capacity, and need for human connection. In addition, changes in bodily well-being often result from circumstances over which individuals have little or no control: accident, illness, or catastrophe (naturally occurring or humanly provoked). We must therefore understand bodily vulnerability as fundamental to the human condition – not just a characteristic of some particularly or uniquely weak or disadvantaged individuals. The second assertion of a vulnerability approach is founded on a principle of social solidarity or unity and based on the realization that there cannot be an “I” without the “We.” Because there is no position of invulnerability, and we all are born, live, and die within a fragile materiality, we are also inevitably embedded beings. Individual and collective vulnerability must be compensated for, accommodated, or mitigated if human beings are to survive. Bodily needs necessitate that human beings form social relationships and institutions, which range from the family to the nation-state and beyond. In other words, functioning and responsive social units are the only (although only

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partial) antidote for human vulnerability. In other words, we are beings dependent on the care of others. This unavoidable form of reliance is most evident in childhood, when we are totally dependent on others, usually our family, for nurture and sustenance, but the need for care from others may also appear through aging, disability, or illness. Our dependence on social arrangements does not, however, end with the intermittent need for care. Throughout the life-course human beings are dependent on social relationships and institutions that can provide them with resilience. Resilience is found in the resources and assets that will allow us to weather inevitable change; not only to survive, but to thrive in the face of our vulnerability. No one is born resilient; resilience is produced over time, within and through social institutions and relationships. Individuals are more or less resilient and, therefore, more or less able to address the individual and particular manifestations of our shared vulnerability, depending on the quality and quantity of the resources they can command. There are different types of resilience-producing resources, accumulated across different social sites. For example: material resources are produced in employment and financial arrangements; social resources are gained when we act with others, as we do in unions and by taking political or civic action; “human capital” is accumulated through educational institutions or other skill-generating sites like apprenticeships; relational resources are formed in families and friendships; and existential resources can come from interaction within religious institutions or through aesthetic experiences. It is manifestly and increasingly obvious that the resources of resilience are not distributed equally within American society, nor across many other societies today. While a deficit of resilience is typically attributed to individual failings under a regime that tends to blame individuals and assigns them responsibility, a vulnerability approach concentrates primarily on the functioning of social institutions. When established equitably and functioning fairly, such social arrangements can and do respond to, mediate, compensate, and mitigate our vulnerability. But fair and equitable functioning does not describe the majority of our current social arrangements. The structure and operation of our institutions are often flawed or malfunctioning. When that happens, the blame and the response must be societally, not individually, focused. The concept of vulnerability is also useful here. As human creations, institutions and the social relations within them are also, although differently, vulnerable. Institutions can be corrupted and captured, as well as decline and decay. They can cause harm and create situations that exacerbate or exploit human vulnerability. Institutional relationships can be oppressive or unjustly unequal in terms of power and privilege. We recognize this to some extent when we make laws against discrimination in the workplace or in educational institutions based on certain identity characteristics, such as race or gender. Vulnerability is offered as a supplement to an antidiscrimination approach, through a sharpened recognition of an undeniable shared aspect of humanity

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– our condition of bodily vulnerability and the dependence on social arrangements that it generates for us all. While this perspective acknowledges the necessity and past successes of antidiscrimination law, the remedy that vulnerability theory seeks is not equal treatment, as it is when the claim is discrimination. Rather, the demand is for our social relationships and institutions to be generally crafted in a more compassionate and responsive way. This shifts the focus from current antidiscrimination categories to our social identities – those of employer/employee, parent/child, creditor/debtor – and insists that these roles and relationships be brought under consideration and adjusted for when they are inequitable. Such a task requires a state attentive to and active in the face of human vulnerability : a responsive and compassionate state.

Vulnerability, Religion, and the Responsive State A political or legal theory that seeks to set the conditions for governance in the twenty-first century needs to consider the place of religion in that theory.9 This has not always been the assumption in legal and political theory, but the decline of the secularization thesis – a claim about the eventual and inevitable disappearance of religious belief and practice – serves as a reminder that religious persons and institutions are an inevitable part of the social fabric and, thus, subjects and objects of the conditions of common life.10 In the prior sections of this article, Martha discussed how vulnerability theory alters the locus of state responsibility and state action by calling into question the atomized liberal subject and foregrounding the interdependence of all people due to both our embodiedness and our embeddedness. In this section, I raise the question of what it means to encounter religion in vulnerability theory and through the paradigm of the responsive state. I raise three relevant questions to be addressed here: (1) How might religious narratives contribute to the development of vulnerability theory? (2) What role could religious institutions play in building resilience alongside the

9 This is the case whether religion is considered unique as a phenomenon or as a species of a broader phenomenon such as the Rawlsian notion of comprehensive doctrine. J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). For one discussion of different approaches to the treatment of religion, see C. Laborde, “Equal Liberty, Nonestablishment, and Religious Freedom”, Legal Theory 20 (2014): 52–77. 10 See J. Casanova, “Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective”, The Hedgehog Review, 2006; see also C. Taylor, “Why We Need a Radical Redefinition of Secularism”, in E. Mendieta/J. VanAntwerpen(ed.), The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).

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responsive state? (3) How does the responsive state respond to claims for religious exercise?11 In this space of this chapter, I cannot offer a definitive answer to these questions, nor do I think such an answer is ready at hand. Rather, I raise these questions for dialogue and debate among vulnerability theorists. What I hope to offer here is a tentative framework for those conversations and some initial thoughts on how vulnerability theory and the responsive state might offer new perspectives on what are, in most cases, longstanding debates about the relationship between the state, religion, and social justice. Addressing these questions starts with the recognition that religion can serve to build resilience in individuals and communities by creating social assets,12 existential resources,13 and, although often under-appreciated, material or physical resources.14 Equally, exposure to the loss of one’s ability to practice religion, the loss of one’s religious community, and the systematic undermining of a belief structure should be considered aspects of human vulnerability. Thus, while vulnerability theory is not grounded in any religious ontology and draws its orienting principles from the universal human experience of being vulnerable, religion as a form of human being and belonging does not fall outside of the theory.

The Religious Narrative and the Responsive Nomos My first question, regarding the role of religious narrative in vulnerability theory, proceeds from Martha’s point above that vulnerability theory and the responsive state may be compatible with many religious traditions. It is certainly true that many religious traditions hold a commitment to human flourishing and social justice, goals shared by vulnerability theory.15 This 11 An important fourth question is whether and how religious communities might incorporate vulnerability analysis into their own internal critiques to ask how vulnerability is mitigated or exacerbated within the religious community itself. Because that question is addressed by a number of other chapters in this volume, I defer to my colleagues’ excellent discussions. 12 M.A. Fineman, “The Vulnerable Subject”, 15 (“[S]ocial assets are networks of relationships from which we gain support and strength, including the family and other cultural groupings and associations.”); see also M. Fineman, “The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State”, 271. 13 Fineman, “The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State”, 271–2. 14 Ibid., 270. For a discussion of the importance of considering religion’s material aspects, see M.A. Vasquez, More Than Belief: A Materialist Theory of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). For a good example of the religious (or theological) implications of material provision in a religious context, see R. Spurrier, “Disabling Eschatology : Time for the Table of Our Common Pleasure”, Liturgy 31, no. 3 (2016): 28–36 (arguing for the theological importance of the shared meal of bread and wine at the communion table and the shared meal of fried chicken in the fellowship hall). 15 The examples here could be numerous. For one collection of relevant examples, see J. Runzo/

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possibility suggests that religious narratives could be brought to bear on the project of developing vulnerability theory and a responsive state. As the legal theorist Robert Cover eloquently argued, “No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning.”16 As Martha describes above, vulnerability analysis has a powerful secular narrative grounded in the universal human experience of being vulnerable. This narrative is universally available because it is grounded in each person’s embodied and embedded reality. As Anna Grear has further articulated, the person (or subject) is “both fully embodied and ineluctably embedded in lived actualities and material conditions,” a situation that leads to recognizing the simultaneously universal and enduring character of vulnerability as well as its particular and differentiated experience as risk or harm. According to Grear, the embodied, embedded, universal, and differentiated character of vulnerability also demands a “high degree of epistemic humility, because subject-positionality emerges as a central implication.”17 While this narrative may be available to all people through reflection on their embodied and embedded experience, for some this experience will take on meaning through religious narrative. Or, to use Grear’s formulation, the subject-position of the religious person is often embedded within a meaningmaking religious narrative.18 The understanding of human vulnerability and its moral (and legal) consequences would be contextualized by that narrative. To give only a brief example, consider the Hebrew Bible’s admonitions regarding treatment of the stranger or alien: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”19 The legal rule set down in Leviticus has its origins in another aspect of the religious narrative of the Hebrew Bible: the Exodus narrative of the Israelite’s slavery in and eventual escape from Egypt. Susanna Snyder writes of the Exodus narrative and its moral implications for how one is to treat the alien:

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N.M. Martin/A. Sharma, Human Rights and Responsibilities in the World Religions (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003). R. Cover, “The Supreme Court, 1982 Term – Foreword: Nomos and Narrative”, Harvard Law Review 97 (1983–1984): 4. A. Grear, “Vulnerability, Advanced Global Capitalism and Co-symptomatic Injustice: Locating the Vulnerable Subject”, in M.A. Fineman/Anna Grear(ed.), Vulnerability : Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics (London/New York: Routledge, 2014), 41–60, on p. 49. For one perspective on religion as a meaning-making enterprise see T. Tweed, Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); see also Cover, Nomos and Narrative, 5 (“Every prescription is insistent in its demand to be located in discourse – to be supplied with history and destiny, beginning and end, explanation and purpose.”). Lev 19:33–34 (emphasis added). See also, Exod 23:9 and Deut 10:19. Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.

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It was an awareness of their own “strangerhood” that led to this emphasis. The people of Israel had first-hand knowledge of what it felt like to be outsiders and their experiences of slavery, exile and imperial domination were annually re-enacted at the Passover. Having such a strong bond of understanding of themselves as strangers and sojourners created “a bond with [other] sojourning strangers, whom Israel must love as themselves.”20

The law of Leviticus is grounded in the experience of shared vulnerability. The law operates from both a collective memory of being exposed to vulnerability and an awareness that the vulnerability does not go away ; rather, one form of building resilience is to welcome those who are now “strangers.”21 This narrative then informs approaches to contemporary law, including immigration and refugee law, by both Jews and Christians for whom the religious narrative is meaningful.22 Thus, we have one example of a religious narrative that would support a vulnerability analysis, and there are certainly others that are ripe for exploration by vulnerability theorists.23 These narratives hold the potential to broaden the normative power of vulnerability theory in society by complementing and enriching vulnerability theory’s secular grounding in the human condition.

The Role of Religious Institutions in the Responsive State While the responsive state is a key actor, vulnerability analysis recognizes that all societies contain multiple institutional forms. As Martha notes, “The societal institutions we create should be seen as functioning in interlocking 20 S. Snyder, Asylum-Seeking, Migration and Church (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012), 164, quoting J.E. McKinlay, Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2004), 24. 21 “Stranger” is an ambiguous term both on account of translation and because when deployed in many contemporary contexts it refers to those seeking entry into a country that was colonized by Europeans and their descendants. Who is a “stranger” in a place like the Southwestern United States is complicated by a dynamic history of invasion, border drawing, and migration. Thus, it is important to recognize laws relating to the stranger are as much about the social location of an individual who does not have or is denied forms of institutional resilience in a society, as they are about political membership. See M.D. Carroll, Christians at the Border (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 102–4. 22 See, for example, M. Hetfield, “Because We Are Jewish”, August 1, 2013, http://jewishtimes.com/ 8845/because-we-are-jewish/news/national-news/ (“What HIAS [Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society] has done is moved from the ‘Exodus’ period of our first 120 years, in which HIAS focused on bringing Jews from oppression to freedom, to HIAS’s ‘Leviticus’ period, in which we fulfill Jewish values and assist refugees of all faiths and ethnicities based on our own Exodus experiences); Carroll, Christians at the Border, chap. 2. 23 For a similar treatment of the hijra narrative from Islam, see M. ‘Abd al-Rahim, “Asylum: A Moral and Legal Right in Islam”, Refugee Survey Quarterly 27 (2008): 15–23.

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and overlapping ways, creating layered possibilities of opportunities and support, but also in configurations containing gaps and potential pitfalls.”24 Religious institutions are clearly part of this interlocking and overlapping network of social institutions. This includes religious communities themselves (often, but not necessarily, referring to a community that gathers together for religious practice such as the attendees of a given mosque, temple, or church), as well as significant networks of non-profit and civil society organizations that range from neighborhood soup kitchens to billion dollar hospital networks. Thus, we can ask how religious institutions interact with society’s other institutions to “produce (or fail to produce) social, political, and economic resilience.”25 Examining the interlocking and overlapping structures of the responsive state and religious institutions, we might first ask when and how the state would partner with religious institutions in efforts to build resilience. One aspect of this question would look to extant infrastructure. Consider, for example, a responsive state’s provision for the receipt of healthcare for all persons. Many people in the United States receive their healthcare from religious hospital networks because these networks comprise a significant component of existing healthcare infrastructure.26 Likewise, there are large networks of religious schools and social service providers. In some cases, these religious service providers serve a broad range of constituents grounded in a general ethic of charity or compassion. In other cases, religious service providers exist largely to serve religious communities due to particular community needs, desires, and trust.27 In light of this existing infrastructure, when and how should a responsive state leverage the capacity of religious communities and institutions to build resilience? Consider here the practice of refugee resettlement. Of the nine agencies that partner with the State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, six are religious agencies.28 These agencies and their local affiliates greet newly arrived refugees at the airport and take responsibility for helping the refugees to settle in their new community. There are a host of reasons that religious agencies would engage in this kind of work. But, it is 24 M. Fineman, “Equality, Autonomy, and the Vulnerable Subject in Law and Politics”, in M.A. Fineman/Anna Grear(ed.), Vulnerability : Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics (London/New York: Routledge, 2014), 22. 25 Fineman, “Equality”, 24. 26 ‘13 Largest Non-Profit Hospital Systems by Number of Hospitals’, Becker’s Hospital Review, September 4, 2009, http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists-and-statistics/13-largest-nonprofit-hospital-systems-by-number-of-hospitals.html. 27 For some examples of the role of religion in social service provision, see the symposium “Global Legal and Religious Perspectives on Eldercare”, Journal of Law and Religion 31 (2016), and E.L. Idler(ed.), Religion as a Social Determinant of Public Health (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 28 ‘Voluntary Agencies’, Office of Refugee Resettlement, accessed February 9, 2017, https:// www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/voluntary-agencies.

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worth noting here the structural advantage that religious institutions have in facilitating resettlement. In addition to the financial support provided by the Department of Health and Human services, religious agencies can leverage the volunteer resources (including time, donations, and money) of local religious communities. This is not to argue that non-religious agencies cannot leverage local resources, many do. It is to point out that religious communities have extant networks of churches, mosques, temples, and other forms of religious community, many of which see this kind of charity work as essential to their community activity. There is, however, also a question of what oversight or limits should be placed on religious institutions. As Martha has noted with regard to all institutional forms that rely upon the state for their corporate existence in law : To the extent that these legally constituted institutions distribute significant social goods, they should be monitored by the state. State involvement in the creation and maintenance of these institutions requires that the state be vigilant in ensuring that the distribution of such assets is accomplished with attention to public values, including equality or justice, or objectives beyond private or profit motivation.29

Religious institutions may, in fact, create particular “gaps and pitfalls” as they overlap and interlock with other social institutions, including the state. Take two of the examples discussed above. Religious hospital networks may have objections to performing certain health procedures, particularly reproductive health procedures. This may raise questions regarding whether hospitals or doctors should be able to refuse to perform certain procedures and, if so, what procedures are necessary to guarantee that patients have access to the full range of healthcare. Such questions are exacerbated in the modern health care market as hospital consolidation may create geographic zones in which an alternate healthcare provider is not available.30 Here is a clear gap that is created by the interaction of religious exercise and market forces, a gap that the resilient state would seek to address in some way. The question is how that redress would be formulated: through state intervention to fill the gap, through regulation of religious providers, through incentivizing other private providers into that area, or by some other mechanism. Moving from religious hospital networks to refugee resettlement, the reliance on religious institutions for resettlement raises the significant potential pitfall of religious proselytizing among resettled refugees. Such efforts could range from the misuse of agency authority to win converts, such as conditioning aid on engagement in religious activities, to the passive proselytization that comes with expectations of assimilation into a society with a strong religious 29 Fineman, “The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State”, 272. 30 My thanks to my student, Katherine Freeman, for bringing this issue to my attention. The ACLU has raised the issue in a report: J. Kaye et al., “American Civil Liberties Union”, Health Care Denied (May 2016), https://www.aclu.org/report/report-health-care-denied.

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majority.31 Could the responsive state both leverage the capacity of religious institutions for refugee resettlement and address these pitfalls? Under current practice, the cooperative agreement between the State Department and the agencies prohibits proselytizing by the agencies.32 But, one could imagine the responsive state going further, using a vulnerability analysis, to bolster the community resources of arriving refugees to assist the communities in maintaining their cultural and religious identity (both potential forms of resilience). Thus, these examples highlight both religious institutions’ capacity for creating resilience in society, both within a religious community and more broadly, as well as ways that religious institutions may create particular gaps and pitfalls. Further research in this area could help delineate viable approaches for the responsive state to work with religious institutions in a way that maximizes resilience for persons, the institutions, and the state itself.

Religious Exercise in the Responsive State Finally, the responsive state, like all states, must make decisions about goods that it will promote and harms that it will discourage. In making these determinations, the responsive state seeks to ameliorate the harms that result from human vulnerability by maximizing the resilience of all members of the society. But, how should the responsive state respond in situations where the exercise of religion by one individual or community threatens to exacerbate the vulnerability of another individual or community? Such scenarios arise due to both state law that limits a religious exercise and some religious exercises themselves. This is illustrated by two recent cases before the United States Supreme Court. Consider, on the one hand, a Muslim prisoner’s desire to grow a beard consistent with the expectations of his religious tradition and in contravention of prison rules established to maintain safety within the prison.33 Consider, on the other hand, a religious employer’s refusal to offer certain contraceptive options as part of the employer’s health plan due to a religious belief that such forms of contraception are morally wrong.34 In both cases, the first thing to note is that vulnerability theory is not 31 My thanks to my student, Sai Kolloru, for bringing the issue of the passive proselytization of assimilation to my attention based on his work with Burmese refugees. I look forward to his research on this issue and recommendations for addressing the passive proselytization of assimilation. 32 US Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, “The Reception and Placement Program”, last accessed February 9, 2017, https://www.state.gov/j/prm/ra/receptionplacement/. 33 Holt v. Hobbs, 135 S. Ct. 853 (2015). 34 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751 (2014).

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interested in a hierarchy of rights approach. The goal is not to identify the more important right and condition the lesser right on the full expression of the greater. Or, to put it in the language of vulnerability theory : human vulnerability manifests in different harms – harms particular to individual contexts – but there is no hierarchy of vulnerability.35 To take the example of the Muslim prisoner, the question from the perspective of vulnerability theory is not: “Which is more important, the right to exercise religion or the penological interest in safety?” Nor is the question: “Is the Muslim prisoner facing discrimination?” Rather, the relevant question is: “How can the penal institution promote resilience in the form of both bodily integrity (safety) and religious integrity (exercise)?” The framing of the question is important because the latter framing, drawing on vulnerability theory, may make space for more creative, community-based solutions that focus on the institution and all its members, not merely on the individual claimant. In this case, the court reaches that kind of conclusion: the prisoner’s request for a half-inch beard posed no threat to the penological interests of safety and order.36 Acknowledging that vulnerability theory rejects a hierarchy of rights approach helps to highlight the way in which it seeks to promote resilience broadly. This goal may well be compatible with the traditional balancing test employed in US free exercise cases: “Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”37 This “substantial burden test” seeks to balance the exercise of religion against government’s responsibility to the broader society. First, it assumes that government will pass laws of general applicability to advance the common good. Where these laws conflict with the exercise of religion, religious groups will receive an exemption unless the government can show a compelling interest and use of the least restrictive means to achieve that compelling interest. Consider the now infamous US Supreme Court case, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell. The issue in Hobby Lobby was the requirement under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that employer health plans include contraceptive coverage for female employees. The owners of Hobby Lobby and another closely held corporation objected to certain forms of contraceptive that they viewed as abortifacient and which, therefore, violated their religious beliefs about the sanctity of life, including the life of a fetus. The majority’s decision in 35 Fineman, “The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State”, 266–9. 36 Holt, 135 S. Ct. 863–7. 37 Restoring Religious Freedom Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb–1 (2012). The test is now contained in a statute passed by the US Congress in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), which heightened the standard for receiving a religious exemption under the Free Exercise Clause in the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

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Hobby Lobby turned on the question of “less restrictive means.” The Court held that the Affordable Care Act did not use the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling government interest because alternative arrangements for providing contraceptive coverage had already been created for religious non-profit organizations. Because the Court believed an alternative arrangement existed that would achieve the compelling government interest of providing contraceptive coverage without burdening the religious conscience of the corporate owners, the owners received an exemption to this requirement.38 Arguably, the outcome of Hobby Lobby arrives at the same place a vulnerability analysis might. By requiring alternative coverage provided by the government, the opinion seemingly builds the resilience of female employees by guaranteeing access to contraception without burdening the religious exercise of the corporate owners. Justice Ginsburg in dissent, however, called into question whether the majority’s solution would truly provide as effective of coverage given that women seeking contraceptive access would need to juggle multiple health insurance schemes, one employer funded and one government funded.39 This is, in part, an empirical question, but it is also a good reminder that while the substantial burden test may be theoretically compatible with a vulnerability analysis, there is always an important question of implementation. Notwithstanding the equivocal discussion above, a vulnerability analysis would wholly disagree with the majority opinion in Hobby Lobby insofar as it recognized a religious exercise right for closely-held corporations that turned on the religious beliefs or conscience of the owners. The court recognizes a religious exercise right for closely held corporations reading the “person” in the statute broadly to include a corporate personage.40 The court then imputes the religious beliefs of the owners to the corporate personality.41 As many others have pointed out, this fails to recognize that the corporation as an institution is more than ownership. The corporation prospers through the labor of employees. To associate the corporate personality only with the religious exercise of the owners ignores the institutional reality of the corporate form and the interests of the employees who may not share the perspective of ownership on the issue of contraception. Thus, to allow the corporation to deny coverage to employees based on the religious objections of employers ameliorates the vulnerability of one group while exacerbating the vulnerability of another.

38 Hobby Lobby, 134 S. Ct. at 2781–3. 39 Id. at 2801–2 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Justice Ginsburg raises a number of other challenges to the majority opinion as well. 40 Id. at 2768–9. 41 Id. at 2775.

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My hope is that this third discussion highlights some of the key elements to considering the place of religious exercise in a vulnerability analysis. First, the rejection of a hierarchy of rights approach may help to create space for imaginative solutions that build comprehensive resilience. Second, there may be some degree of overlap with current approaches (at least in the U.S. context). Third, there is an important conversation about institutional religious exercise, which would benefit from the work of vulnerability theorists.

Conclusion Vulnerability theory offers a new way of thinking about the construction of a just and equitable society that pays careful attention to our embodied and embedded lives. The goal of creating responsive institutions that advance social justice is both shared by and complicated by religious persons and communities. But, those persons and communities are also an integral and essential part of the social fabric. Continued work on vulnerability and religion can help develop vulnerability theory by working out these points of cooperation and conflict so that there is a place in the theory for religion as an essential aspect of human society.

IV. Medicine and Philosophy

Antje Miksch

Vulnerability and Health

Perhaps the most fundamental development in medicine over the past decades is the recognition that we can no longer think about health as being solely a characteristic of the body or the mind, because body and mind are not two separate domains – they are intimately interconnected and completely integrated. The new perspective acknowledges the central importance of thinking in terms of wholeness and interconnectedness and the need to pay attention to the interactions of mind, body, and behavior in any comprehensive effort to understand and treat illness.1

Based on the awareness that health is connected to mind, body, and behavior, this holistic view of health should be carefully integrated into examinations of individual and societal vulnerability. The connection between health and vulnerability could be addressed from different perspectives. A pathogenic perspective emphasizes the fact that vulnerability increases the risk of getting ill. Furthermore, being ill, especially with long-term chronic conditions, makes a person even more vulnerable. However, from a salutogenic approach, vulnerability could be considered as a coefficient in explaining the continuum between health and disease. Mackenzie et al. differentiate three aspects of vulnerability in relation to health.2 First, individuals are faced with vulnerability because they are “embodied individuals with needs and emotional dependencies, beings who are dependent at the core because of features of our constitution given the biological and social nature of our humanness.”3 So simply being human is rooted in unavoidable vulnerability. Second, there is a situational vulnerability in the circumstances and contextual issues of life. Third, there is a politically and institutionally supported aspect of vulnerability. “If a policy prevents or excludes vulnerable persons from participating in an activity, ostensibly for their own good, problems are usually not far away.”4 1 J. Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (New York: Bantam Books, 2013), 174. 2 C. Mackenzie/W. Rogers/S. Dodds, “What is vulnerability and why does it matter for moral theory?”, in C. Mackenzie/W. Rogers/S. Dodds (ed.), Vulnerability : New essays in ethics and feminist philosophy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1–32. 3 S. Matthews/B. Tobin, “Human vulnerability in medical contexts”, Theor Med Bioeth 37 (2016) 1–7, on p.2. 4 Ibid., 3.

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For a deep understanding of the interface and sometimes the imbalance between a pathogenic and a salutogenic approach to health and vulnerability a multidisciplinary perspective is needed. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines vulnerability as “the degree to which a population, individual or organization is unable to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impacts of disasters.”5 There are several risk factors described in conjunction with vulnerability within a person and within individual circumstances. From a public health perspective, these risk factors also describe vulnerable groups, such as children and adolescents, elderly people, people with chronic conditions or pregnant women. Furthermore, poverty, malnutrition, poor housing, social inequality or deprivation contribute to the vulnerability of whole groups. Dahlgren and Whitehead described a complex model of the determinants of health in 1991.6 This model has played an important role within the development of health promotion and continues to do so to this day. Discrepancies, imbalances and shortages in all the fields described in the model contribute to health-related vulnerability. At the core of the model are individual aspects like age, gender, ethnicity or constitution (e. g. genetic or biological). Though these factors are important for health, they are often unalterable and beyond the reach and influence of individual or public-healthrelated efforts. Within the model of Dahlgren and Whitehead these factors are surrounded by individual lifestyle and behavior factors such as nutrition, physical activity or smoking. When looking more closely at the model, social and community networks (e. g. family, friends or neighborhood) are surrounding. Sustainable social and community networks are protective in terms of health. On the other hand, health-related risks often arise from lack of surrounding and protective networks. The next layer in the model includes living and working conditions in which these social networks are placed. These conditions include access to and ability to act within education, employment, the health care system, welfare services or housing. They also include general socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions, such as income level, availability of work, and the ability to secure a livelihood, existence of transport system or the access to food, clothing, and other required necessities like running water, hygiene or sanitation. These general conditions are directly connected with health and should be a focus for social policy priorities and public health efforts. Within the health care system, inequalities within the determinants of health often lead to a vicious circle: a “direct correlation between the increase of co-existing vulnerability factors and the escalation of health care 5 B. Wisner/J. Adams, Environmental health in emergencies and disasters: a practical guide. (World Health Organization, 2002). 6 G. Dahlgren/M. Whitehead, Policies and Strategies to Promote Social Equity in Health. (Stockholm Institute for Futures Studies, 1991).

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disparities.”7 Dealing with social and health inequalities is therefore one of the key challenges of today’s society. Public health concepts, programs or population-based strategies should aim to reduce socially-induced inequality of health opportunities. One important health-related challenge for a society is demographic change. In the future, this demographic development will result in an aging of society and a rapidly growing proportion of old and very old people. The aging of society is accompanied by a bursting prevalence of chronic conditions and multi-morbidity. Due to the shift in age groups, the increase in demand for health services in the future will be accompanied by a decrease in available labour force to provide the services required and to establish a financial basis. Furthermore, there will be an enormous lack of people working in the health care sector, as for example nursing staff. In the past, much was investigated in medical and pharmaceutical research to increase life expectancy. These added years could enhance health outcomes and well-being, but only if these extra years are healthy. Therefore, healthrelated quality of life, individual health status or well-being should gain more importance. Instead of total recovery, care should focus on the best possible management of the disease and additional impairments of daily life, especially for patients suffering from one or several chronic conditions. For older people, improvements within health-related quality of life often may be more important than any possible extension of lifetime. It is crucial for society to take care of the elderly, to ensure their activity in daily life, and to value the resource of old age. However, senior populations are not alone in being vulnerable to healthrelated issues. Young and middle-aged adults alike face the increasing prevalence of psychosocial stressors, from the increasing compression and aggregation in working conditions or the growing demand for a satisfactory work-life-balance, all of which contribute to depression and burnout. Moreover, childhood and adolescence need to be taken into account. A lot of children grow up suffering from poverty and severe shortages of material and social resources. Others are threatened by serious psychosocial stressors. Given the widely researched and recognized correlation between health and social inequality, especially in childhood, a primary policy challenge is ensuring equality in opportunities and improving access to health services as well as educational institutions for all children, regardless of family class, ethnic background or income level. Nevertheless, the degree of threat within the same situation differs between individuals. “Perhaps this is related to the amount of control that they feel over their situation. The less control one has over a situation, the more vulnerable one feels.”8 As a consequence, public-based

7 C. Grabovschi/C. Loignon/M. Fortin, “Mapping the concept of vulnerability related to health care disparities: a scoping review”, BMC Health Services Research 2013, 13:94. 8 A.C. Rogers, “Vulnerability, health and health care”, J Adv Nurs, 26: 65–72.

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health promotion should also focus on empowerment and individual participation. A definition of the concepts of “disease” and “health” is needed for a deeper understanding. From a pathogenic point of view, illness and disease are associated with pain, symptoms, complaints, limitations, impairment or frailty. In contrast, health is sometimes defined as the absence of these. Other definitions emphasize aspects of well-being, happiness or the capability to cope with stress, strain or other burdens in life. However, the level of perceived symptoms or burden is influenced by social or individual judgements or appraisals. “These subjective notions develop in the course of the socialization of every individual within a specific social context and climate.”9 In 1948, the World Health Organization defined health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This was the first time a definition of health was formalized that goes beyond the disease-oriented approach. Since then, this definition has been used broadly, though because of its idealism, often criticized. This definition requires careful reflection on the risk of unrealistic expectations and genuine inaccessibility. Nevertheless, the definition has made a substantial contribution to the development of a holistic view of health. In 1986, the World Health Organization reached another milestone.10 Within the Ottawa Charter, health promotion was defined as “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, an individual or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment.”11 Health itself is seen as a basic resource and prerequisite for success in daily life. Furthermore, within the Charter, the WHO postulated a pathway of solutions for the management of health-related vulnerability. This way includes enabling the individual and the mediation of actors of all related sectors. It is stated that, “people cannot achieve their fullest health potential unless they are able to take control of those things which determine their health.”12 Within the WHO framework, harmful products, lack of peace, unhealthy living conditions and environments, inadequate nutrition, pollution, occupational hazards and social inequity were identified as the greatest threats. “The fundamental conditions and resources for health are peace, shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice and equity. Improvement in health requires a secure foundation in these basic prerequisites.”13 This approach mainly focuses on the aspects of 9 J. Bengel/R. Strittmatter/H. Willmann, What Keeps People Healthy? The Current State of Discussion and the Relevance of Antonovsky’s Salutogenic Model of Health (Federal Centre for Health Education, 1999). 10 World Health Organization, Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986). 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid.

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vulnerability that challenge politics and communities. However, as mentioned before, vulnerability is equally important for the individual. Health-related stressors for individuals can be genetic or biochemical, disease-specific or physical, as well as psychosocial.14 Regardless of the nature of the threatening factor, the extent of the impact on individual health depends on the number of available resources and factors of resistance and resilience. Psychosocial vulnerability is associated with higher mortality and morbidity, a higher prevalence of chronic and infectious diseases and higher hospitalization rates. Social-health-related deficits could be, for example, isolation and loneliness, lack of social support, low levels of social engagement, lack of sense of control of one’s own life and a low socioeconomic status. Social vulnerability could also be created through discrimination and human rights violation. From a psychological perspective, several personality variables were identified to be specific vulnerability factors for mental disorders like depression. These include dependency, self-blame, perfectionism, dysfunctional attributions, and a high need for external approval.15 Coping with these and other stressors remains a lifelong task. In the late 1970s, Aaron Antonovsky focused on the connections between health, stress and coping, in so doing he developed a positive connotation of health and gave this area of research a fundamentally new direction. His major research question was, “What keeps people healthy or how do people manage stress and stay well?” Within the development of the salutogenic approach, he described a model focusing on factors supporting human health and well-being rather than the pathogenic factors that cause diseases.16 Antonovsky’s theory rejected the predominant biomedical dichotomy separating health and disease. He described the relationship between illness and health as two ends of a continuum and the individual health status as a continuous variable between the two poles. Furthermore, he postulated that diseases are part of normal human life. He observed that stress could be found everywhere or in every life, but not all individuals have negative health outcomes as a response to the perceived stress or trauma. Instead, some people are healthier than others despite their exposure to stressors and factors of vulnerability. This grounded his theory on the realization that there have to be resources to help those coping with existing stressors: he called these resources generalized resistance resources. Antonovsky postulated that the generalized resistance resources enable individuals to manage stressful events and even make sense of harmful situations. These resources are diverse and include physical or biochemical resources in the immune system; economic like money for food, clothing, healthcare or 14 N. Schneiderman/G. Ironson/S.D. Siegel, “STRESS AND HEALTH: Psychological, Behavioral, and Biological Determinants”, Annu Rev Clin Psychol. (2005) 1: 607–628. 15 A. Besser/G.L. Flett/P.L. Hewitt, “Silencing the Self and Personality Vulnerabilities Associated with Depression”, in D.C. Jack, A. Ali (ed.), Silencing the Self Across Cultures: Depression and Gender in the Social World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) 285–312. 16 A. Antonovsky, Health, Stress and Coping (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1979).

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education; or social like knowledge or intelligence, flexibility, social support, socioeconomic status, culture or religion. A lack of any kind of these resources could contribute to the individual’s vulnerability and could be a stressor – directly and immediately. He argued that over time, in response to positive experiences provided by development and the successful use of different generalized resistance resources especially in childhood, individuals are shaping their own global salutogenic competence. Antonovsky called this essential concept the Sense of Coherence. In 1979, Antonovsky defined the Sense of Coherence as: ”a global orientation that expresses the extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring though dynamic feeling of confidence that one’s internal and external environments are predictable and that there is a high probability that things will work out as well as can reasonably be expected.”17 Later on in 1987, he completed this definition as follows: a global orientation that expresses the extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring though dynamic feeling of confidence that (1) the stimuli from one’s internal and external environments in the course of living are structured, predictable, and explicable; (2) the resources are available to one to meet the demands posed by these stimuli; and (3) these demands are challenges, worthy of investment and engagement.18

According to Antonovsky, the sense of coherence is formed by the following three components: comprehensibility (making sense of internal and external stimuli even if there are extreme life events like illness, death or war, the ability to perceive information as structured, ordered and consistent), manageability (a profound belief that there are skills, support, help, or resources to manage situations or life events self-controlled and self-effective, or with the support of others or the trust in god, self-effectiveness and certainty that one will be able to cope whatever it will be), and meaningfulness (considering life events as challenges worthy of investing emotional or cognitive energy and engagement, problems have a meaning and can be overcome). Positive and successfully managed life events especially in childhood are crucial to shaping one’s Sense of Coherence. Therefore, the availability of generalized resistance resources within the individual, the social network or the circumstances of life are essential prerequisites for and a pathway to health and well-being. Someone with a strong Sense of Coherence, whatever its sources, who is confronted with challenges, threats or tension, is able to activate the necessary resources to manage the challenge, the tension or the stressful life event successfully. Furthermore, within future stressful circumstances he will benefit from positive experiences within his own life or within his area of social support. The relationship between Sense of Coherence and health status has several 17 A. Antonovsky, Health. 18 A. Antonovsky, Unraveling The Mystery of Health – How People Manage Stress and Stay Well, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1987).

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components: first, the physical and mental health status itself can affect the degree to which a person is exposed to stressors. Second, good health is a resource in itself, and finally, being near to the healthy end of the continuum can facilitate the effective use of other resources. Within a systematic review, Eriksson and colleagues evaluated the body of evidence concerning Sense of Coherence (SOC) and health: “The SOC is a resource that enables people to manage tension, to reflect about their external and internal resources, to identify and mobilize them, to promote effective coping by finding solutions, and resolve tension in a health promoting manner.”19And further on: “There is a strong relation with factors measuring mental health like optimism, hardiness, learned resourcefulness, locus of control, mastery, self-esteem and self-efficacy, acceptance of disability, and social skills.”20 On the other hand, Sense of Coherence is negatively associated with fear, burnout and depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Further on, they found lower circulatory health problems (e. g. a lower diastolic blood pressure) in people with a high Sense of Coherence. In particular, there seems to be a psychological association. “In stressful situations SOC seems to have a moderating effect on health. People with high SOC seem to be more resilient under stress than people with a low SOC.”21 In conclusion the Sense of Coherence seems to have a moderating effect between factors of vulnerability and expressions of health. This includes objective health measures and perceived health as well. To support his theory, Antonovsky used the metaphor of the river of life: …my fundamental philosophical assumption is that the river is the stream of life. None walks the shore safely. Moreover, it is clear to me that much of the river is polluted, literally and figuratively. There are forks in the river that lead to gentle streams or to dangerous rapids and whirlpools. My work has been devoted to confronting the question: “Wherever one is in the stream – whose nature is determined by historical, social-cultural, and physical environmental conditions – what shapes one’s ability to swim well?”22

The river is the direction of life. Shaping one’s ability to swim and therefore struggling with all the health-related burdens within the river is a lifelong task. The process of health can be seen as a lifelong learning experience including reflecting on vulnerability, self-effectiveness and evaluating options for action and change. Health includes a physical dimension such as positive body awareness, the absence or tolerability of complaints or symptoms or physical capacity, as well as a psychological dimension including a sense of well-being, happiness and life 19 M Eriksson/B. Lindström, “Antonovsky’s sense of coherence scale and the relation with health: a systematic review”, J Epidemiol Community Health 60 (2006), 376–381, on p.376. 20 M Eriksson/B. Lindström, “Antonovsky’s sense”, 378 21 Ibid. 22 A. Antonovsky, Unraveling The Mystery, 90.

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satisfaction, as well as social networks, self-realization and a sense of meaningfulness. Health has to be regarded as a dimension on its own, with independent significance, against the background of stress and strain, risks and hazards, and with the aim of a balance of resources and resilience and the mindful handling of health-related vulnerability. Beside Antonovsky’s approach there are other theories concerning health, risk and vulnerability like resilience or hardiness. Resilience as a fundamental direction in life could be defined as the process of adaptation in the face of trauma, threat, illness or other kinds of stress or burden, like burnout or job loss, financial trouble or family problems. Being resilient does not mean that someone is not faced with illness or stress, quite the contrary : it means that a person is able to cope and activate support and resources. Resilience includes several factors like self-efficacy or healthy and secure relationships giving sufficient support in different stages of life. Resilience is dynamic. The development of one’s individual resilience is process-driven and contextual, depending on the circumstances of life. Furthermore, resilience is variable: the availability of individual coping strategies depends on the current situation of life. In summary, it can be said that health itself is a multifaceted complex. Health-related vulnerability depends on a broad range of aspects. Any approach to health should go beyond the health care system in a narrow sense and should take into account salutogenesis or resilience without neglecting pathogenic or disease-specific thoughts. Bringing together these perspectives is promising to give a chance to healthy individuals within healthy communities. Health can be activated through empowerment of individuals and organizations. The development of health needs mindfulness and care, especially as circumstances of life often are based on human vulnerability. As Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote: “Cultivating mindfulness can lead to the discovery of deep realms of well-being, calmness, clarity, and insight within yourself. It is as if you were to come upon a new territory, previously unknown to you or only vaguely suspected, which contains a veritable wellspring of positive energy for self-understanding and healing. Moreover, it is easy to familiarize yourself with this territory and learn to inhabit it more frequently. The path to it in any moment lies no further than your own body and mind and your own breathing. This domain of pure being, of wakefulness, is always accessible to you. It is always here, independent of your problems. Whether you are facing heart disease or cancer or pain or just a very stressful life, its energies can be of great value to you.”23

23 J. Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living, p.Ixi.

Anna F. Bialek

Vulnerability and Time

The word vulnerability names the susceptibility to wounding, a description that anticipates the realization of this susceptibility, but marks the space and time before it occurs, even the possibility that it will never come. Vulnerability is in this sense an unrealized, indeterminate condition, named for one of its most fearsome potential determinations – the vulnus, the wound – but significantly agnostic as to its inevitability, or even its probability. My aim in this chapter is to suggest that this indeterminacy of vulnerability is crucial to the promise of the concept for ethical and political thought, though it has been largely ignored in recent discussions of the term. These discussions have focused instead on the imperatives that might be derived from the condition of vulnerability understood as something already present, effectively determined, and ready for a response. I will argue that the emphasis on response misses a greater opportunity in the term: to indicate potentials for which we can prepare, in ongoing processes of prediction, action, and renegotiation. Recent discussions of vulnerability in ethical and political thought have developed in a few different arenas, including the feminist ethics of care; bioethical discussions of patient vulnerability, dependency, and autonomy ; considerations of disproportionate vulnerabilities in conditions of climate change, economic inequality, and other structural injustices; and theories of corporeal vulnerability as an ontological condition motivating ethics and politics more broadly.1 Each has significant ties to the others, making many projects difficult to classify in one domain; some of the ontological arguments, for instance, have deep roots in considerations of structural injustice or the feminist ethics of care, or both, while the ethics of care has informed conceptions of vulnerability and autonomy in bioethics, among other examples. Each conversation also has substantial differences from the others, and differences among the voices within it. What these projects largely share, however, is a concern about the lack of discussion of vulnerability in much of 1 For an account of the recent literature on vulnerability in the ethics of care, bioethics, and theories of ontological vulnerability, see C. Mackenzie/W. Rogers/S. Dodds, “Introduction: What is Vulnerability, and Why Does It Matter for Moral Theory?”, in C. Mackenzie/W. Rogers/S. Dodds (eds.), Vulnerability : New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), especially pp. 4–6. For an account of the role of vulnerability in discussions of structural injustice, see E. Gilson, The Ethics of Vulnerability: A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice (New York/London: Routledge, 2014).

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modern Western thought, and the relation of its absence to the often violent, destructive, and dominative idealizations of an invulnerable sovereign subject in the same traditions. Recognizing human vulnerability as an ethically and politically significant feature of human life, they contend, resists modern tendencies to view vulnerability as an embarrassment needing only to be overcome. Insofar as these tendencies participate in dominative, masculinist, and often violent conceptions of the ideal ethical and political subject, discussions of vulnerability as something other than a source of shame participate in a critique of those ideals. Indeed, many of the recent discussions of vulnerability have emerged precisely from critical projects of this kind.2 I will focus here on a project with these aims against the modern sovereign subject: Adriana Cavarero’s arguments for ontological corporeal vulnerability and its ethical and political implications.3 I want to suggest that Cavarero has substantially ignored the role of indeterminacy in vulnerability in a way that blunts her critique of sovereign subjectivity and misconstrues the ethical import of vulnerability in potentially dangerous ways. Through this discussion, I hope to suggest a larger problem with discussions of vulnerability framed against sovereign subjectivity that similarly ignore considerations of indeterminacy and its effect on an ethics and politics of vulnerability. Cavarero’s discussion of vulnerability derives its ethical import and imperatives from the inevitability of vulnerability’s determination. As vulnerable bodies, she argues, we are irremediably exposed to either violence or care, since even a lack of care would be a form of violence.4 The determination of our vulnerability is thus assumed in the condition, and the question is only how it will be determined: since I will affect you, my effect on you can be good instead of bad, helpful instead of harmful (whatever these terms might mean). Vulnerability thus demands a caring response lest it 2 The feminist ethics of care present particularly clear examples. In its early iterations in the work of Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, for example, the field developed accounts of a vulnerable, dependent subject specifically to replace conceptions of the subject as ideally invulnerable and normally independent. As the field developed in the work of Joan Tronto, Eva Feder Kittay, and later works by Gilligan and Noddings, it largely retained the conceptual opposition between a vulnerable, dependent subject, associated with femininity and feminine caregiving responsibilities, and an invulnerable, independent subject associated with masculine excellence and liberal democratic ideals of freedom, productivity, and capability. See C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), N. Noddings, Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), E.F. Kittay, Love’s Labor : Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency (New York/London: Routledge, 1999), and J. Tronto, Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (New York/London: Routledge, 1993). 3 See particularly A. Cavarero, Horrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); “Recritude: Reflections on Postural Ontology”, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 27, Number 3 (2013), 220–235; and “Inclining the Subject: Ethics, Alterity, and Natality”, in J. Elliott/D. Aldridge (ed.), Theory After Theory (New York/London: Routledge, 2011) 194–204. 4 Cavarero, Horrorism, Chapters 5 and 7.

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receive a violent one, a hand that provides and protects instead of the one that strikes. In many cases, such actions are laudable, and I do not want to argue that we should abandon care for the vulnerable or even significantly diminish its role in discussions of vulnerability. But I do not believe we are using the concept of vulnerability as productively as we might when we construe it to demand care in the way Cavarero suggests, and as many projects in the ethics of care, among other examples, have similarly suggested. Rather, I want to consider whether the import and imperatives of vulnerability might come instead from its anticipation of potential determinations, as yet unrealized, and thus in an important way, from its indeterminacy : from the way vulnerability names certain potentials but also marks the space and time of anticipation, in which great work might be done, and much else, also, might arise and occur. I will suggest as much – in an experiment of interdisciplinarity – by looking to a discussion of vulnerability that specifically honors its indeterminacy, I want to argue, by responding to its agnosticism with Christian faith: that God will determine one’s vulnerability in ways that the Christian should seek, desire, and love, but should not demand or seek to control. Through an analysis of “the question of Christological keno¯sis, or ‘voluntary self-emptying on the part of the second person of the Trinity,’” Sarah Coakley has argued that instead of seeking to determine vulnerability in responses of care or violence, Christians should cultivate it as an indeterminate susceptibility to God for God to realize, ‘emptying’ themselves on Christ’s example to “‘make space’ for God to be God.”5 The faith that drives this practice, as well as the practice itself, I will argue, sets critical assumptions of Cavarero’s account into relief, adumbrating the hard edges by which she and others have defined, delimited, and determined vulnerability by suggesting where it might be better left open, indeterminate, and “empty,” as the Christic example suggests. I will begin, then, with Cavarero, before turning to Coakley’s discussion of keno¯sis.

Cavarero: Inclining the Sovereign Subject Cavarero’s arguments aim to recover the concept of vulnerability from its role in models of sovereign subjectivity, particularly the model of restless pursuit of secure and invulnerable sovereignty in Thomas Hobbes and his inheritors. In Hobbes’s account, every encounter with another person presents an opportunity for the other to strike, a vulnerability that, at least in the state of nature, demands a preemptive strike to secure oneself against the threat. For Hobbes, the subject must constantly seek to secure his or her self-sovereignty, 5 S. Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy, and Gender (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 3 and 34.

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because even “the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest” in a way that propels the “perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death.”6 There is no one sufficiently weak that I need not fear them; I can only win a fight, dominating the other, to achieve at least an “atmosphere of invulnerability,” as one of Hobbes’s inheritors, Elias Canetti, describes.7 Thus there is an important symmetry in encounters with others, when they occur. I meet the other knowing that they are as able to kill me as I am them. Until one of us has defeated the other, either killing or dominating him or her, we must anticipate the other’s strike at any moment. Our vulnerability to the other thus demands violence: it is the responsible, selfprotective move to hurt the other, since it is by the other’s hand that I will be hurt. Against this “exquisite geometry of postures” and the violence it demands and propels, Cavarero posits a different scene as a paradigm of vulnerability : the scene of mother and infant.8 The mother inclined in care stands (or bends) in sharp contrast to the “homo erectus,” as Cavarero names him, the selfsovereign, self-sufficient, self-legislating human being held by Hobbes and others as an exemplar, often to ill effect.9 While the “homo erectus” stands upright and alone in his ideal configuration, and may fight to achieve the position, the maternal geometry posits relation in multiple postures: the mother inclined, the infant laid out in radical exposure, completely dependent on the mother’s response, and the work of response that follows: the lifting, feeding, rocking, washing, and so on. In contrast to the symmetry of the Hobbesian encounter, this scene is defined by asymmetry. The mother inclines toward the infant lying down, unable even to hold up his or her own head. On this horizontal plane, the child is utterly helpless, unable to flee from danger let alone capable of fighting in self-defense. His or her complete exposure in this way constitutes the child’s radical vulnerability and dependence, two terms that define Cavarero’s relational view : radical vulnerability and dependence necessitate response, the argument goes, since they define even unresponsiveness as a response to the other. To ignore the infant’s cries is not a neutral act, but a violent one. To care for the infant is the only non-violent behavior ; there is no neutral or static form of co-existence without responsive engagement of the relationship. In this way, the radical vulnerability of the infant makes one’s inclinations toward or away from him or her immediately meaningful, and immediately ethical. Vulnerability emerges in this account, then, as the demanding condition that inaugurates and defines a caring, non-violent ethics and politics. But vulnerability in this scene is ascribed completely to the infant, with ethics and 6 7 8 9

T. Hobbes, The Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 87 and 70. E. Canetti, Crowds and Power (New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1962), 227. Cavarero, “Recritude”, 223. Ibid., 220.

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politics following in response to this condition. What does this asymmetry do to the account, and for it? Many arguments for relationality emphasize that we almost all play both roles – mother and infant, caregiver and dependent – at some time in our lives, and so the picture of maternal inclination is a full one.10 The maternal scene simply recovers the common experience of these roles as distinct – the frequent and normal asymmetry between people disregarded in the sovereign subject’s presumption of symmetry in encounters, in which subjects are equal until proven otherwise and worthy of exploitation where thus proven more vulnerable, less powerful, and dependent on the other’s mercy and care to survive. There are dangers, however, in using a radically asymmetrical relationship of this kind as a paradigm in accounts that are meant to resist dominative arrangements of power, as has emerged in discussions throughout this collection. How is the extent and nature of care determined such that it does not dominate the vulnerable itself, in the form of paternalism, over-protection, or otherwise? What recourse might there be if the response goes awry in these ways? Moreover, what resources does this picture offer to determine what it would mean to respond with care, beyond the admonition against violence? In a radical asymmetry of the kind Cavarero posits, it is not clear whether the vulnerable being has a voice in the negotiation of these questions; indeed, it appears that their determination lies entirely in the hands of the caregiver, and perhaps others around him or her. This is a position of domination over the vulnerable, despite Cavarero’s effort to move away from a contest of domination to an ethical regime of non-domination and care. Cavarero aims to undermine the “structural premise” of the postures of sovereign subjectivity and the choice, from the position of the upright, either to strike in violence or bend in care.11 But in her return to the maternal scene for this account, she emphasizes the asymmetry of the encounter between mother and infant, and the demand of the infant’s radical vulnerability and dependence for the mother’s response. She comes to “maternal inclination” as “the postural archetype of an ethical subjectivity already predisposed, and even willing, to account for the dependence and exposure of the naked and defenseless creature,” a “necessary configuration, an indispensable inclination” in response to vulnerability free of the posturing of sovereign

10 See, for example, V. Held, The Ethics of Care (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006), especially pp. 13–15, and Cavarero, Horrorism, 21–32. Similarly, but with significant differences, we arguably play both roles constantly, as in Levinas’s description of the encounter with the Other : as I encounter the Other, I play the responsive role, but I am passive in this role to his or her demand on me, resembling some of the passivity of the infant. Likewise, as I encounter another, he or she also encounters me as the Other, and so the roles reverse themselves. See E. Levinas, Otherwise than Being, or, Beyond Essence (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1981), especially pp. 3–11. 11 Cavarero, “Recritude”, 233.

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subjectivity.12 But inclined in this way, over the radically vulnerable infant whose vulnerability makes an ontological demand for care, the mother is poised to enact new forms of domination, well-intentioned but possibly devastating in their own way. I want to suggest that the emphasis on response, responsibility, and the choice or disposition to incline in care misplaces the critical work of attending to vulnerability by emphasizing possibilities still within the “structural premise” of sovereign subjectivity – possibilities that have been ignored or criticized, and might be worthy of recovery, but whose recovery does not fully undermine the premise of sovereign subjectivity itself. I applaud Cavarero’s recovery of the vulnerable subject as something more, or other, than a threat necessary to exploit, and her rejection of the postures of sovereign subjectivity within the encounter, the endless assumption and effort of maintaining uprightness, or “rectitude,” as she reminds us to take as a synonym.13 But she enacts these critiques by reinforcing the arrangement of the scene as two individuals, one facing the other (if having to incline to do so), responding to his or her condition with no clear continuation of the relationship beyond the frame, and the forms of negotiation over the needs and norms of care that it might allow. In this way, I want to suggest, Cavarero considers the asymmetries of encounters between subjects still according to the framing of sovereign subjectivity, with the norms of care, violence, exploitation, and obligation only reversed: instead of finding the other’s exposure to be an opportunity to strike and gain advantage, it appears as a demand to care, but within the same closed frame of the encounter. The encounter is no longer strictly face-to-face in the way the sovereign subject expects, as the infant cannot hold up his head to meet his mother’s gaze as a potential opponent. But the encounter is still defined by the structure of exposure and response that the face-to-face encounter implies, a structure that insufficiently considers the continuation of the narrative beyond its scene. To undermine the structural premise of the encounter fully, we must attend to a different asymmetry than the one between the two persons posed in the paradigmatic scene. Rather, we might find ethical and political import in the asymmetrical relationship of each person to time – to what happens next, to what is to come, to replies both violent and caring, to the lack of reply, possibly violent in its own way, and to much else, as yet unimaginable, for which we wait in the experience of vulnerability. And to consider this potential further, I want to turn now to Coakley’s account of Christic vulnerability and the different posture it might inspire, of prayer.

12 Ibid. 13 Ibid.

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Coakley : Anticipation in Prayer Like Cavarero, Coakley begins with problems in the “Enlightenment demand for an empowered human ‘autonomy’” and the framing of power and vulnerability that it provides.14 She then contends that what is needed to resist such power – for feminist aims, and other struggles against oppression – is not an embrace or reclamation of it for the oppressed, but a substantial reformulation and reframing of its meaning and structure. In particular, Coakley argues, feminists do not need a persistent “resistance to ‘submission’” that renders Christian submission to God necessarily oppressive and antifeminist, as some have claimed, but a reframing of the relationship between power and submission altogether that allows a transformation of their oppressed condition.15 Where Cavarero turned to the experience of vulnerability in infancy for such a reframing, Coakley turns to Christian traditions of Christ’s vulnerability, power, and submission to rearrange the sovereign subject’s scene and reformulate the questions asked of it. Unlike Cavarero, however, Coakley’s question is not “how can we make the scene end well?” because its conclusion is a matter of faith, beyond human control in important ways. Thus she avoids what I have identified as Cavarero’s mistake of reiterating the sovereign subject’s question and only offering a different answer, or a different rubric for what counts as an answer. Rather, Coakley asks how human beings can participate in and toward the ending – to be found in, and ultimately determined by, God – maintaining and cultivating an openness to it, and thus specifically avoiding the determination of it themselves, which would close the space for “God to be God.”16 Instead of asking how we can make the scene end well, she asks how we can act well in the scene itself, in the condition of vulnerability : how we might practice its indeterminacy, and how we should live in and with it despite the great appeal of securing ourselves against its significantly dangerous risks. The focus of her interpretation of Christic vulnerability is Christological keno¯sis, the “‘voluntary self-emptying on the part of the second person of the Trinity.’”17 The word is found in Phil 2:7, when Paul describes Christ,

14 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, xii. 15 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, xiii. Coakley takes Daphne Hampson as her primary opponent in this argument, a theologian who has explicitly claimed that she is no longer a Christian because of its conflict with her feminism. See D. Hampson, Theology and Feminism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990). 16 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 84. 17 Hampson, Theology and Feminism 155; quoted in Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 3.

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who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself [heauton ekeno¯sen], taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.18

This passage famously presents a series of apparent paradoxes about the nature of God and the second person of the Triune God, the nature of humanity, and the nature of the relationship between and among them. Does “though he was in the form of God” imply a pre-existent divine life for the second person of the Trinity, prior to the incarnation? Is it this pre-existent divine who “empties himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men”? Why would Christ “empty himself,” and what could that mean? If Christ is fully human and fully divine, of what has he emptied himself, since he seems to retain his divinity while assuming humanity? And what does kenotic Christology say about humanity – both Christ’s human nature and our own? That we are empty, if emptiness is “the likeness of men”? Or that we should empty ourselves, perhaps, to follow Christ’s example? Of what can we empty ourselves, and how? And what are we to make of the idea of a vulnerable God, the paradox perhaps most substantially at the heart of the “tangled questions of power and submission” with which the modern Christian, not to mention the Christian feminist, must engage? From the myriad interpretations of keno¯sis that have emerged in Church history, Coakley argues for its definition as Christ’s “choosing never to have certain (false and worldly) forms of power.”19 If Christ’s apparently paradoxical vulnerability and anxiety on the cross is not understood to be an aberration in the story but the “primary narrative,” and this vulnerability is ascribed to his humanity as a virtue instead of a condescension, then divine power can relate to the human power concurring in the incarnated Christ in a “non-bullying,” non-obliterating way that Coakley argues leaves room for empowerment in submission to God.20 Christ’s divine power is expressed in the choice, which also serves to reject these worldly powers and thus normatively outline an ideal of humanity as “self-effacing” but strong, “a strength made perfect in weakness,” as she quotes from 2 Corinthians.21 Christ’s vulnerability no longer represents a denigration of human vulnerability of which to be ashamed, and divine power now appears to relate to the human power concurring in the incarnated Christ in a “non-bullying,” nonobliterating way.22 Thus “a traditional gender stereotype begins to crumble,” Coakley argues, as weakness, vulnerability, and anxiety are all reformulated as

18 Phil 2:5–7, quoted from the RSV in Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 5. Emphasis added; Greek quoted originally in Coakley’s citation. 19 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 11. 20 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 25, 31. 21 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 31. 22 Ibid.

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“normatively human,” exemplified by Christ, instead of embarrassingly human, and necessary to avoid, minimize, or escape.23 Coakley thus seeks to reformulate power, vulnerability, and submission in this understanding of keno¯sis. Domination and oppression perpetrated by human beings can appear by its lights as pretensions to the divine “wrongly grasped,” while divine power has been reinterpreted as a “gentle,” “nonobliterating” force that relates to humanity without seeking to control it.24 Submission to this divine force can thus be distinguished from submission to “false and worldly” powers, and so may have a different role, as we will see in a moment, in a feminist project of personal empowerment, among other struggles. Vulnerability has been substantially redefined as well, as the “normatively human” narrative of Jesus Christ, instead of an embarrassment either to some conception of human sovereignty or to divine nature.25 Coakley suggests that her interpretation of keno¯sis actually leaves room for empowerment in submission to God, the opportunity “to hold vulnerability and personal empowerment together” through a practice of contemplative prayer developed on its example.26 Coakley defines this “‘spiritual’ extension of Christic keno¯sis” according to Christ’s “normatively human” choice “never to have certain (false and worldly) forms of power” as “a regular and willed practice of ceding and responding to the divine… ‘internalized’ over time” in contemplative prayer.27 It is through this practice, she argues, that Christian feminists can “avoid emulating the very forms of ‘worldly’ power we criticize in ‘masculinism’” – precisely by emulating the keno¯sis criticized by many feminists.28 And it is in this practice, then, that God’s “non-obliterating” force can empower the Christian who has submitted, bringing vulnerability and personal empowerment together as Coakley argues it can. Coakley describes this practice as an “act of silent waiting on the divine in prayer,” in which “we can only be properly ‘empowered’…if we cease to set the agenda, if we ‘make space’ for God to be God.”29 In this way, it requires the cultivation of vulnerability on Christ’s example in two directions, both by relinquishing dominative, worldly powers and by developing an “emptiness,” in Coakley’s language, “for God to be God.”30 The Christian “choos[es] to ‘make space’ in this way,” she suggests, “practic[ing] the ‘presence of God.’”31 One makes room, then, instead of trying to get to the other side of an undetermined, unknown space, and one makes room for a relationship that 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 25. Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 31. Ibid. Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 5. Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 34. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 35.

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will be characterized by presence – when God becomes present – instead of care, violence, or any particular action at all that would close the space, or even fully, definitively, define it. Instead of seeking the other’s response, opening oneself in order to receive it, the Christian opens him- or herself in order to create a space in which he or she might have a relation with God, though not a relation that will fill the space or close it. Rather, the Christian must create the space for God to be God, in Coakley’s analysis, but the non-obliterating power of God will not fill the space such that the Christian cannot be a Christian – in relation with God, and thus present with God, instead of wholly subsumed by God’s power or overwhelmed in God’s love. In this way, “this special ‘selfemptying is not a negation of self,” as some feminist critics of keno¯sis would have it, nor an invitation for God to negate the self, “but the place of the self ’s transformation and expansion into God”: an expansion that one cannot force or assertively determine, but must make the space for, actively, and continue to cultivate.32 I want to suggest that the transformative potential of Coakley’s argument for Cavarero’s discussion of vulnerability emerges from this account of contemplative prayer and the relation with God for which it ‘makes space.’ This relation might be understood as an extreme extrapolation of the asymmetrical relations from which Cavarero seek to derive “imperatives to respond” to vulnerability. In the asymmetrical relations Cavarero describes, one side was radically exposed to the other, unable to help or defend him- or herself let alone assert him- or herself against the other. This asymmetry was understood to subvert the paradigm of symmetry in encounters between sovereign subjects, and then to generate the imperative to respond to the vulnerable, in care, because there is no possibility of a null response. The relation to God in contemplative prayer presents a kind of asymmetry as well – and certainly a rebuke to any assumption of symmetry – in God’s infinite power in relation to the Christian’s finitude. The Christian’s life, body, and soul are utterly at stake in these practices, as he or she seeks to cultivate vulnerability within the most radically asymmetric relation, between a person and God. Even more than in infancy, there is no question of advantage or defense in this position. But like in infancy, the asymmetry casts certain assumptions about the disadvantage of vulnerability in a different light. There is no chance of realizing the other’s vulnerability before he or she strikes, nor does it make sense to say that one’s radical vulnerability in this position “demands” anything of the other, though it demands much of the Christian, who must have faith that God will emerge into it to be present with him or her. But in this way, the extremity of the asymmetry makes it impossible to define a similar “demand” as in scenes of maternal care, and, moreover, the Christian cultivates submission in this relation that should keep him or her from trying thus to “set the agenda.” Importantly, this does not define a 32 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 36.

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stagnant encounter in place of the activity of response, in which the parties are merely present, or merely, stagnantly, waiting for God’s presence. Rather, God acts in the relation by empowering the Christian, and the Christian is acting, constantly and often strenuously, to cultivate his or her susceptibility in and to the relation itself. This is not complacent waiting but active development, maintenance, and deepening of indeterminacy, in which relationships continue precisely because the Christian “ceases to set the agenda,” and continuously practices that ceasing. And from a feminist perspective, as Coakley argues, these relationships should continue, because God is similarly not trying to control what occurs, and may thus empower without dominating, and love without obliterating. On these points, Coakley’s reconceptualization of vulnerability through kenotic spiritual practice might recommend a reconceptualization of vulnerability in secular ethical and political thought as well, one that recovers the significance of its indeterminacy and its use, through this understanding, to motivate anticipatory action without trying to over-determine the future, and what promise it holds. The conception of vulnerability that we have seen in Cavarero seeks a response to vulnerability that aims to reduce the susceptibility to wounding, without a consideration of other developments to which one might be susceptible, and which might be worth the risk of leaving oneself open. The caregiver responds to vulnerability by realizing it in care, ending the exposure of the vulnerable by covering it over in soothing, protective, nonviolent strokes. But the emphasis on response in this model prematurely ends the relationship, in this sense, reducing an ongoing relation and its persistent vulnerabilities to an opportunity to respond, seeking to reduce the susceptibility to wounding, in turn, by concluding at least one encounter in which one might have been wounded with a different, nonviolent outcome. In contrast, in Coakley’s account, as the Christian cultivates his or her vulnerability to God, he or she does not seek a response to vulnerability that closes the condition in any way, whether in protection, care, or anything else. The Christian enters into relation with God, or makes him- or herself open to that relation, as an ongoing relationship, which Coakley defines specifically in terms of indeterminacy and continuous vulnerability : an openness to what may be to come, to whatever God may bring in and with God’s presence, instead of an effort to control one’s conditions by “grasping” to secure them, particularly through sovereign power. In order to develop and continue a relationship with God, Coakley suggests, the Christian must practice vulnerability, persistently relinquishing any will to foreclose the condition and thus avoid its more fearsome determinations. The Christian opens him- or herself to significant risks in this practice, as Christ opened himself to the wounds sustained on the cross. One may relinquish false and worldly powers oneself, but others may not have done the same, and their powers may be wielded against the one who has relinquished

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one’s own. However, these risks can and should be sustained, Coakley seems to suggest (but is remarkably soft-spoken, or sparsely interested, in this point), into the ultimate and glorious relation with God, to which Christians must cultivate their susceptibility even at the cost of substantial worldly susceptibilities. Put another way, Coakley is arguing for the cultivation of susceptibility to the presence of a loving God even if one effect of this effort is the retention, or the increase, of the susceptibility to worldly wounding.33

Proposals From here, then, I want to suggest that we can discern both an important reframing of the secular recovery of vulnerability that we have considered in Cavarero and a difficulty that Coakley might do well to address more fully than she has thus far in her work on keno¯sis and contemplative prayer. First, Coakley’s account of cultivating one’s susceptibilities toward empowering relation suggests that Cavarero’s model of vulnerability “demanding” response not only bears the problematic potential of domination in care, but also the foreclosure of more promising possibilities in the continuation of vulnerability. Not all relations will control or “obliterate,” Coakley suggests, and such non-obliterating relations might be sought toward greater development and fulfillment. However, a “non-obliterating” relation, if Coakley is right, will be marked by the continuation of vulnerability within it, not by caring control over the vulnerable, however well-intentioned. Thus we might see the problem of domination in care by this light as a problem of “obliterating” precisely the vulnerability that makes relations possible, filling and closing the “space” in which one might be present with the other, ending the story prematurely instead of allowing the “narrative gap,” as Coakley describes it, in which relations can proceed.34 However, this “narrative gap” might be filled in many ways before and even during God’s presence within it. Others may take it as an opportunity to harm, exploit, or dominate, taking advantage of our cultivated openness and emptiness instead of being present with us, toward the promise of the continuation of the story. These less promising and more devastating possibilities of the cultivation of susceptibility deserve greater consideration than they receive in Coakley’s work, both for a Christian theological account and any ethics that seeks to take Coakley’s work seriously. While she admits the difficulty of the practice of contemplation quite freely, she hardly describes the potential for its worldly exploitation, and whether that potential can or should become a part of the practice itself. Of course, in a practice developed 33 I am indebted to Stephen Bush for this phrasing. 34 Coakley, Powers and Submissions, 39.

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from the example of a vulnerable God who suffers mortal wounds by “false and worldly powers,” worldly threats are hardly missing from view. But Coakley says surprisingly little about how the Christian practitioner should understand these threats to his or her own vulnerable, worldly self – an omission that seems particularly problematic in light of feminist concerns about worldly oppression, violence, and domination. Conversely, considering the promise of an indeterminate vulnerability in conversation with Christian thought suggests certain limitations and dangers in the concept of vulnerability outside of religious thought. In Coakley’s account, it is a matter of faith, often strenuously developed and held, that vulnerability will be determined in God’s empowering love and grace. “Waiting” for God’s determination of vulnerability is thus a rightly promising endeavor, worth pursuing actively and concertedly despite its worldly risks (though it would still be helpful to hear more from Coakley about how to contend with them). But there is no such faith for the unfaithful or the nonbeliever, and no faith of this particular kind for the non-Christian. Is living in indeterminacy a dangerous distraction, in these conditions, from the work of trying to determine the future for the better, or at least prevent its worst realizations? What promise is there, without God, to make indeterminacy “promising”? Is indeterminacy perhaps necessary to help resist domination in care, as I have suggested, but still a danger to be minimized wherever possible? In response, I want to suggest that the discussion of Christ’s “selfemptying” indicates a different kind of emptiness in a secular concept of vulnerability : the emptiness of any particular promise for the future, or any particular expectation of a better outcome than the wounds to which it etymologically refers. Vulnerability is scary, dangerous, and makes no guarantees, even where we might work and hope for a better outcome than the wounds it anticipates. In a secular context, it must not be valorized in any way that glosses over these potentials, as I fear the promises of caring response sometimes allow. But the extension of vulnerability in indeterminacy, into the future, is still significantly promising in ethical and political thought without any particular promise of a good end, or action to realize an acceptable end, such as care. This ‘empty’ promise can motivate ongoing, improving activity, even if that activity cannot ensure a good outcome. Vulnerability, in this sense, presents a paradigmatic form of ethical imperative, significantly indeterminate compared to Cavarero’s imperative to respond with care: if we know that we are susceptible to harm of some kind, we should try to prevent, reduce, or mitigate the realization of that susceptibility, whatever that might mean, and thus we must also negotiate what we mean by these aims. Insofar as we recognize our susceptibilities, we can begin to anticipate their realization, to negotiate how we want to cultivate the “space” for their arrival, and thus make something of the wait, even something that mitigates the potential horror and devastation in what we are waiting for. It is

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in this period of waiting – a period of activity, without the quietism that “waiting” so often implies – that we might find the opportunity to remake our lives as we want them to be, to find possibility, community, and opportunity before our susceptibilities are realized, through the successive realization of vulnerabilities and opening of new ones in the space of vulnerability itself. Contra Cavarero, then, we might see from Coakley that acting to determine vulnerability and an irresponsibly complacent, damaging “waiting” in vulnerability are not the only options. Christian practices of cultivating and sustaining vulnerability to God offer a substantial example of a productive, active practice of “waiting” for what is to come that can inform secular ethical and political practices as well. Thus Coakley’s account not only encourages a reframing of the concepts of power and vulnerability, it also offers a conception of alternative practices to pursue by their own lights.

Marina Berzins McCoy

Wounded Gods and Wounded Men in Homer’s Iliad

In this paper, I examine contrasts between the wounds of gods and the wounds of mortals in the Iliad in order to consider how these contrasts might also serve as a backdrop for understanding the relationship between divinity and vulnerability in the New Testament. In my earlier work, Wounded Heroes, I explored the contrast between the wounds of gods and men. Here, I’ll begin with some contrasts from that book and then expand further to look at other instances of vulnerability in the Iliad. I will focus on the earlier Greek context, which separates the vulnerability of mortals from the wounds of Olympian gods. Then I offer a few brief remarks on how these categories might be useful for interpreting the question of vulnerability in the New Testament context, which was, of course, partially informed by the larger Greek context. I argue that the Greek difficulty with conceiving of God as vulnerable is not limited to a Platonic philosophical view, but is much more pervasive, extending even to the Olympian gods – even though these pantheistic gods are more like human beings than the Platonic conception. Homer, too, argues for a certain sense in which the gods are not fully vulnerable, in human-like ways, on account of their divine nature. At the same time, in the Iliad, we see the idea that invulnerability is not what is “best”. This means that it may be conceptually necessary to separate “best” or “ideal” from that which is invulnerable, not subject to harm, unaffected, or wholly self-sufficient. In certain respects, the human experience of suffering is, for Homer, also ennobling and the source of other human goods. Thus the Homeric concept is distinct from the Platonic philosophical concept of god as invulnerable, and provides some possibilities for the reconciliation of vulnerability with virtue. If vulnerability is compatible with what is good, then perhaps the goodness of God in the Christian context is not an obstacle to the possibility of divine suffering in ways that the Platonically influenced tradition has sometimes supposed. Particularly in light of the Christian idea of the incarnation, in which the human state is itself ennobled by God’s participation in it, human vulnerability becomes the locus for the possibility of love and community. I define vulnerability as the “capacity to be wounded,” relying on the root of the English term “vulnerability”: vulnus, or wound, as its basis. We, as human beings, are capable of being wounded: physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Such wounding is experienced by individuals as well as political

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communities, in which ruptures take many forms: a wounding of shared identity, the deaths or exile of members, or political divisions and differences that seem to irreconcilably divide the community. Yet a wound is not only a locus of injury. A wound is also an opening. To be vulnerable is also to be open: either to choose, by an act of the will, to remain open to others, or sometimes involuntarily to be opened up. Although such an opening may be fearful or painful, this opening is also the very source of the possibility of connection that closure cannot allow. Remaining closed does not allow for connection. Self-sufficiency as an ethical ideal, as we see in Aristotle, might make possible my own happiness, but only if that happiness were to depend upon nothing outside of myself, or as few external elements outside of my own control as possible (N. Ethics 1097b; 1178a-b). However, if our nature is not to be self-sufficient, but interdependent, then the very possibility of happiness requires openness to others: an openness that may be creative, or that may lead to wounding. Perhaps even more surprisingly, such openness can also lead to both: a wounding that in itself later becomes creative, in which the wound becomes the very ground for the possibility of the emergence of something new. To use Christian language for a moment, the “grain of wheat that must fall to the ground and die to create new life” (John 12:24) communicates an idea of vulnerability in which I am most interested. To be capable of being wounded means to adopt an ethical attitude of openness, to remain in a stance that leaves oneself exposed rather than fully protected. It means to risk being harmed, to be willing to feel the effects of having been harmed, and even, to know the reality of likewise being an agent of harm. At times an open stance can itself be sufficient for creative connections and the emergence of new life. But I want to argue for an even stronger thesis and say that the Iliad goes further, showing, paradoxically, at times that wounding itself creates certain possibilities, possibilities that are not present only from an open and vulnerable stance alone. I do not wish to claim that wounds in themselves are good. After all, one does not want to promote the suffering of others or, worse, promote masochism or Messiah complexes. Vulnerability is good, but of course, to suffer is not in itself already a good. The ideal situation would, of course, be a vulnerability that never leads to suffering, one in which mutual openness within a community is always met with compassion and the community’s selfknowledge of the balanced interdependence of its members. Of course, I would still want to maintain that we ought always to strive for justice, virtue, and to avoid harming others or self. But I would like to go a step further on this point than I explicitly articulated in my book and argue that it is not only within this stance of openness that human friendship and political community are created, but also in the very encounter with the wound itself. It is not intrinsically good to harm or to suffer harm, but in a world in which harm and mortality are real, in which suffering happens – often as a contingent fact – the

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“meeting of the wound” offers the possibility for human interconnection and becoming turned outward for the good of others. I examine three dimensions of vulnerability in Homer’s Iliad: (a) Homer’s emphasis on human embodiedness; (b) the temporal nature of human life; and (c) how the meeting of the wound can become an occasion for choosing to turn the locus of one’s own concerns outward, toward others, and away from oneself. The Homeric account only allows this sort of connection through vulnerability for mortals. The Homeric tradition marks a divide between how the gods experience woundedness and how mortal human beings do so. Strictly speaking, the gods are vulnerable in that they can experience physical wounds. But the gods’ wounds are never experienced as threats to their own mortality, and they are almost always instantaneously healed in the Homeric account. Neither do such wounds contribute either to the building of political community, or to the expression of love for others. In this sense, the Greek gods are not vulnerable in the same ways as human beings, nor does their limited experience of vulnerability lead to the possibility of other personal and social goods. First, let us begin with Homer’s treatment of physical wounding. The vulnerability of the Olympian gods to wounding might come as a surprise to those of us who are familiar with the Christian tradition and its reliance upon the idea that God is perfect, and therefore unchanging and never subject to change or corruption. This idea of the perfection of God arises within the Platonic Greek philosophical tradition. Although the concept is not as fully developed as it will be in later thinkers, in Plato’s Republic, Socrates argues that the gods cannot be said to be the cause of any evil, but only of the good (Rep. 380c–381d). The argument is that the gods are the “best” and what is best does not change, since this would mean that a being that did change would either go from better to worse, or from worse to better, and therefore at some point in the process of change, God would no longer be the “best.” Socrates never argues for the perfection of the gods in a strong sense that differentiates the way in which they “are” as beings whose manner of existence is qualitatively different from the existence of particular beings, for example, as causa sui or as an unmoved mover. Nonetheless, the claim is significant in that Plato departs from a polytheistic tradition that mostly did not pretend to claim that the gods were good or only the cause of goodness. In the Iliad, the gods take sides in the human war, and not for deeply moral reasons so much as ones of personal preference or even whim. Nonetheless, even in the Iliad, there is a separation between the way in which the differential treatments of the wounding of gods and of men reflect deeper differences in understanding what it means for each to be embodied. In the Iliad, both Aphrodite and Ares are wounded in battle as a result of the actions of human beings, and they are quite vocal in their complaints.1 1 Portions of this talk are drawn from my book, Wounded Heroes, chapter one. The examples of

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Diomedes wounds Aphrodite, but while she experiences pain, Homer’s narrative voice is careful to emphasize that this wounding in no way touches her divine and immortal nature: …the spear tore the skin driven clean on through the immortal robe (!lbqos_ou di± p]pkou) that the very Graces had woven for her carefully over the palm’s base; and blood immortal (%lbqotom ûila) flowed from the goddess, ichor, that which runs in the veins of the blessed divinities; since these eat no food, nor do they drink of the shining wine, and therefore they have no blood and are called immortal. She gave a great shriek and let fall her son she was carrying… (V. 336–343).2

Although Aphrodite bleeds, she bleeds ichor, not blood, and the loss of this blood-like substance in no way affects her immortal state. She does not eat food or drink wine. Food in the Iliad is representative of change and also both life and mortality. Later in Book Eleven, Apollo remarks to Poseidon: Shaker of the earth, you would have me be as one without prudence if I am to fight even you for the sake of insignificant mortals, who are as leaves are, and now flourish and grow warm with life, and feed on what the ground gives, but then again fade away and are dead (XI.462–466).

Mortals depend on the growing of crops, and must eat new food anew each day if they are to survive. They are dependent on the seasons of growth, harvest, and decay. While Socrates in the Republic argues for the unchanging nature of the gods on the basis of an abstract ideal – the notion of god as what is best – Homer’s account is not grounded in an abstract concept. Instead, the Greek gods’ identity arise from a narrative tradition in which the gods’ stories include many moments that intersect with human history ; their identities as gods are thus grounded in part in the narrative events that constitute their histories. Still, Homer offers something like the beginning of a causal account for why the gods do not suffer harm in the same way as human beings. Human beings are dependent for their nourishment on that which grows, is harvested, and dies in a cyclical way. We are a product of the material substances on which we depend in the natural word: our material substance, our blood, is constituted by the food that we consume. We are inescapably part of the natural cycle of life and death, as are other creatures, but because the gods do not partake of these life cycles of plant and animal food, their substance remains untouched. Here Homer is not offering a scientific account, but rather a mythologized Aphrodite and Menelaos are from the book, with the rest being new examples that further develop themes begun in the book. I have also developed further the thesis begun in the book. See M.B. McCoy, Wounded Heroes: Vulnerability as a Virtue in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2013), 2–16. 2 Translations of the Iliad are from Homer, The Iliad, trans. Stanley Lombardo (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Press, 1997).

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account of what differentiates the gods from human beings. Due to our connection to and dependence upon the natural world, human beings belong to the world of growth and decay in a way that the gods do not. In Book Eighteen, the description of Achilles’ shield ends by portraying the ploughing of a field, in which the men who plough the field must turn back at the end of each row, and make a new start on fresh ground: “And as these making their turn would reach the end-strip of the field, a man would come up to them at this point and hand them a flagon of honey-sweet wine, and the would turn again to the furrows in their haste to come again to the end-strip of the deep field. The earth darkened behind them and looked like earth that has been ploughed, although it is gold” (XVIII. 544–549). Homer’s language here emphasizes the continual change and movement of time as each ploughman traverses the earth, ploughs it, pauses for a drink, and then must move forward again to work in a new place. Human beings are engaged in a constant process of turning, then moving forward again, where this turning is a representation not only of agricultural practice and human dependency on the ground, but also of dependency in a world that constantly changes. One’s work gives rise to harvest, but then one must proceed again in like fashion the next year. This turning over of land, and moving from row to row, and the even further “turning” of the seasons emphasizes the continual movement of the human person through a life that does not allow stopping for very long, and that requires moving with all of that which moves and changes around us. Aphrodite does not depend on these transient movements of agriculture. Yet she remains within “herself” and her own immediate concerns in a way that mortals in the Iliad mostly do not – with the exception of Achilles for a time.3 When Aphrodite is injured, she drops her own son, Aineais and demands that the other gods give her wounds attention. She physically feels pain and is upset that she has been injured by mortals, and indeed by the Greeks, whom she opposes in the war. Aphrodite tries to use this wound to further her own cause of supporting the Trojans, if only the other gods will share in her sense of offense. Yet none do. Other goddesses mock Aphrodite and joke that she perhaps cut her hand on a pin on an Achaian woman’s dress, after begging a new woman to fall in love with another favored Trojan, as did Helen with Paris (V. 420–425). They laugh at her lack of control of her passion in loving mortals, and her lack of courage. Zeus tells Aphrodite to simply bear with the wound and to return to Mount Olympos rather than becoming overly involved in the affairs of mortal men: “Have patience, my child, and endure it, though you be saddened. For many of us who have our homes on Olympos endure things from men, when ourselves we inflict hard pain on each other” (V. 382–383). The gods may experience pain, but their lives are not fundamentally changed by their experience of pain. They always return to a 3 For an account of Achilles as an example of struggle and resolution of vulnerability, see McCoy, Wounded Heroes, 17–35.

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place of stasis. And indeed, Homer describes Aphrodite as simply passing her hand over her own wound, and healing herself in one singular movement. Her wound does not become an occasion for engaging more deeply in community or in care of others. Homer presents the wounds of men quite differently. First, Homer is careful to describe the embodiment of the wounded and dead. He describes in great detail the death of each individual warrior, never en masse as in the manner of much contemporary journalism – as in, “today, 22 people were killed in a bombing attack” – but always with regard to the individual identity of the person and the specific nature of his injury, often graphically detailing where the weapon entered the body and then using additional metaphors that link the injury to the natural world, as a locus of both life and death, growth and destruction. For example, when Teukros kills Gorgythion, one of Priam’s sons, the poet emphasizes the chance nature of his death. Teukros had intended to kill Hector, but missed. Yet Gorgythion still dies. The poet describes what ensues as follows: “Gorgythion, the blameless, hit in the chest by an arrow ; Gorgythion whose mother was lovely Kastianeira, Priam’s bride from Aisyme, with the form of a goddess. He bent drooping his head to one side, as a garden poppy bends beneath the weight of its yield and the rains of springtime; so his head bent slack to one side beneath the helm’s weight.” (VIII. 304–308) Here the person who dies is named, and his naming is closely connected to his relationships to others (wife, father, mother, son); a physical description is given that details his bodily position and the physicality of death; and a natural simile allows the listener to connect the death more generally to a pattern of life and death shared by all that exists in the natural world. To take another example, the deaths of the twin brothers Orsilochos and Krethon begin with the poet’s description of their families, their father Diokles, their grandfather Ortilochos, who was “lord over many,” and their place of origin, Phere. Homer locates these men’s deaths in the context of not only their own lives, but also the lives of others who preceded them. Their lives come to be in a world that pre-exists them. Homer gives details of these brothers’ beginning just as they are arriving at the end of their lives. Their voyage to Troy is described as praiseworthy, since they win honor for Agamemnon and Menelaos, although they do not survive to see the victory themselves. And finally their death is described. Homer uses the moment of their deaths as an occasion to provide a compressed narrative that starts before their births, names their being born, notes their excellence as warriors and their virtue, describes their death, and tells how their deaths are significant beyond the span of their own lives. This verbal compression of their lives into a relatively short space further stylistically emphasizes the brevity of their lives. Again, the poet uses natural similes to describe their wounds and death when Aineias kills them: “These, as two lions in the high places of the mountains, had been raised by their mother in the dark of the deep forest,

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lions which as they prey upon the cattle and fat sheep, lay waste the steadings where there are men, until they also fall and are killed in the cutting bronze in the men’s hands; such were these two who beaten under the hands of Aineias crashed to the ground as if they were two pine trees” (V. 554–560). Again, we see the poet’s reliance upon natural images. Here the poet quickly uses two metaphors, one immediately after the other : the noble and powerful lions that suddenly are transformed into being like two felled pine trees. Homer emphasizes the tenuousness of all life: the lion that seems strong and deadly, until slaughtered; the pine tree that is cut down for the use of men; the poppy which dies simply because its nature as a flower is to fade, wither and to die. The poetic voice allows us to re-imagine ourselves as both akin to the rest of the natural world and yet distinct from it in being the cause of so much destruction. On the one hand, we share far more in common than we admit with the frailty of flower, tree, and animal. Later on, in Book Six, Glaukos will say, “As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity. The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning. So one generation of men will grow while another dies” (VI.146–150). On the other hand, the cause of so much of this destruction – whether the tree felled to build a wagon or the lion killed to protect a homestead – is also the violence of human beings. Orsilochos and Krethon are both like lions but they are also like the men who will kill lions and other creatures without hesitation. We are not only those who suffer wounds, but also those who cause the wounding of other persons. The description of wounding of Menelaos also provides an occasion to understand more deeply wounding as a source of greater interconnectedness, and provides a contrast to the wounding of Aphrodite. When Menelaos is injured by Pandaros, the color of his blood is described as a “cloud of dark blood.” Menelaos’ blood drips down his thighs and legs to his ankles, again emphasizing his bodily nature. This blood is not mere ichor, but genuine blood, and for a moment, it seems to both Menelaos and to his brother, Agamemnon, that the risk of death is real. Agamemnon is engaged in the wounds of Menelaos in a way that no god or goddess cares for those of Aphrodite. Homer writes: Agamemnon the lord of men was taken with shuddering fear (N_cgsem) as he saw how from the cut (¡teik/r) the dark blood trickled downward, and Menelaos the warlike himself shuddered in terror (N_cgsem); but when he saw the binding strings and the hooked barbs outside the wound, his spirit was gathered again back into him (IV. 148–152).

Agamemnon immediately admits the possibility that he himself is somehow the cause of this wounding: “Dear brother, it was your death I sealed in the oaths of friendship, setting you alone before the Achaians to fight with the Trojans” (IV. 155–156). Agamemnon promises that if Menelaos dies, he will fight for success in the war, lest his brother’s death become meaningless, but he

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adds, “But I shall suffer a terrible grief (üwor) for you, Menelaos, if you die and fill out the destiny of your lifetime” (IV.169–170). Agamemnon is utterly concerned for his brother’s well-being and for the good of the larger community of Greeks, willingly questioning whether his own deficiency has somehow led them to this point. Remarkably, Menelaos’s first concern is not for his own wound, but for his brother. He tells his brother that his war belt deflected the arrow from the spot that could have done more harm, and that he will not die. Agamemnon then sends for the doctor Machaon to come and act as healer. For each brother, the wound becomes an occasion for the expression of mutual love and concern, and leads each to forget his own egoistic concerns in favor of the good of the other. This experience of woundedness and suffering also deepens the interconnectedness of both familial relationships and those in the wider political community. Human wounding, unlike the divine, in its noblest moments, is an occasion to turn outward rather than inward. Vulnerability, and not virtue and strength alone, can potentially become the occasion for becoming other centered rather than self-centered. Menelaos and Agamemnon’s recognition that their histories and the narrative meaning and significance of their lives are intertwined makes this turning outward possible. In some ways, the meaning of Menelaos’ wound does not “belong” to himself alone, but also to his brother and to the Greeks. Homer also presents the mortality of human beings as that which allows for the possibility of meaningful narrative about our lives. The immortal Olympian gods lack the teleology and meaningful narrative that human beings in the Iliad possess. Aphrodite’s wound has no real meaning, other than as an event that simply “happens,” because the wound is simply one more event in an endless string of events that never cease. Paradoxically, the “end” of human life in death also allows for the possibility of telling a story about the meaningfulness of that life, a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Time relentlessly moves forward, and often the Trojans and Greeks alike are caught in the turmoil and contingency of temporal events. And yet, it is precisely in a full participation in the temporal that narrative can take place and the meaning of suffering and death can be made. As Paul Ricoeur argues, life as it is lived simply “happens,” but it is in the construction and the development of narratives about what happens that we develop meaning out of those manifold experiences.4 Some experiences fade from view, while others are magnified, as we tell and re-tell these stories throughout our lives. The meaning of an event when one is eighteen years old very likely has a vastly different meaning when looked upon when one is forty-five. We know that part of the power of therapy, whether cognitive therapy or psychoanalysis, is that the very practice of storytelling and changing and re-telling the story, is 4 P. Ricoeur, “Life in Quest of Narrative”, in D. Wood (ed.), On Paul Ricoeur : Narrative and Interpretation (Routledge: 1991), 20–33.

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part of the trauma healing process. Homer’s Iliad begins with, “Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’s son Achilleus, and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians” (I.1–2). The epic poem’s first word is meinos “rage.” How can one possibly sing about pain and rage? Because one must, if the pain is to take on new meaning. Homer does not stop with physical wounds. He also demonstrates a parallel phenomenon in the anticipation and expectation of death, those who share in anxiety and fear over death are drawn together around the concern over the existential wounding that the anticipation of death may bring. When Andromache and Hector converse before Hector goes off into battle, each confronts the possibility of Hector’s death. In their interaction, we see a kind of anticipatory grief that draws Hector and Andromache together in their last moments together. Andromache desires to protect Hector, both for his own sake and for her own. Indeed, his good as her husband and her own good cannot be distinguished. Andromache reminds Hector that her entire family was killed by Achilles. She says: “for me it would be far better to sink into the earth when I have lost you, for there is no other consolation for me after you have gone to your destiny…. Hector, thus you are father to me, and my honored mother, you are my brother, and you it is who are my young husband” (VI. 410–412; 429–430). Hector’s response is not to assure his young wife that he will survive, or that all shall be well, or to display his strength, but rather to delve even more deeply into the reality of their vulnerable state. His concern is for Andromache more than for himself, and he, like her, also notes the manner in which their wellbeing is intertwined. Hector begins by saying that he cannot act in a cowardly way when others fight, and that while he knows in a prescient moment that Troy will eventually fall, what troubles him even more than the pain that the Trojans in general will experience is “the thought of you, when some bronze-armored Achaian leads you off, taking away your day of liberty in tears; and in Argos you must work at the loom of another, and carry water from the spring Messeis or Hyperia” (VI. 454–457). Hector kisses his son and offers him a blessing, and the poet reports that all who saw Hector leave “mourned him while he was living still” (VI. 500–501), for they did not believe that he would return home again. Here, the vulnerability of the body is connected to the psychological vulnerability of love, especially familial love. When Hector lifts up his son to bless and to kiss him, we cannot forget that the body that dies is also the same one that gives and sustains life. Life and death are interconnected. Hector’s kiss is as much a blessing as are his words. This affectionate kiss from father to son is not only the meeting of two persons’ bodies, but also the meeting of life and death, and a love that stems from an explicit recognition that both life and death are present on Hector’s part. The poetry emphasizes the physical dimensions of Hector’s body and reminds us of the body as the locus of the potential for new life and the inevitability of death. Hector admits to Andromache that he does not believe that Troy will stand for long, and yet he

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remains willing to be exposed. He is exposed not only in his willingness to go and to fight alongside his fellow citizens, but also in his willingness to encounter the emotional fragility that face both his wife and his son. When Hector removes the helmet from his head, because it is scaring his little boy, he is quite literally “taking his armor off.” Here, we see that Hector and Andromache shared vulnerability in their experience of anticipatory grief makes possible a movement away from self and toward other. We see in the Iliad the real shortcomings of gods who are invulnerable and the goods that vulnerability makes possible even in the midst of suffering. Last, I turn to look very briefly at the Gospels in light of this discussion of Homer. Here, my aim is not to do the robust work of Biblical scholarship or theology on the question of Jesus’ vulnerability. Instead, I simply point to some thematic continuities between Homer and the Gospels in their concern with the meaning of Jesus’ vulnerability. The Gospel accounts have parallel concerns about (1) embodiment, (2) temporality, and (3) the possibility of wounding as the locus of a movement toward love and community. Moreover, insofar as the concerns of the Gospels are shaped in part by their surrounding Greek cultural and intellectual context, the larger arc of Greek concerns about divine and human vulnerability may be at work here – and not only Platonic and neo-Platonic influences about divine perfection and unchangeability. While I do not claim any direct causal connection between Homer and the concerns of the Gospel authors, I hope at least to have shown that the Greek concern with whether and how the gods can be vulnerable is not limited to Plato and to neo-Platonic authors alone. Many theologians have already helpfully drawn a contrast between the neo-Platonic view of God as perfect and unchanging, and the Hebraic understanding of God as responsive to human beings; for example, a god who is angry and then relents, or who establishes covenants with human beings – in short, a god who acts in human history.5 But as I have argued, in Homer there is already a separation between the divine and the human with respect to the experience of the meaning of vulnerability. Thus the question as to how Gospel authors thought about Jesus’ suffering and death is subject to a wider array of concerns than the Platonic concern with gods as unchanging and incorruptible. Even a changeable and corruptible god, as is the case the Homeric pantheistic gods, might be seen as protected from aspects of vulnerability. Yet this is not the case with Jesus. Jesus is vulnerable. The Nicene Creed asserts that he suffered, died, and was buried. Yet the Gospel authors show that the earliest disciples struggled to make sense of Jesus’s identity : was he a prophet, or a healer? A wise teacher? Or, as both Peter and Martha testify, the Messiah, the Christos? Was Jesus man or god, or somehow, both? By the time of the Council of Nicea, Christians will affirm that Jesus is both god and man, but the earlier Gospel authors are still attempting to make sense of how one who is embodied and who suffers can 5 See, e. g., A. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).

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also be the Messiah or divine. In their development of meaning of the identity of Jesus in light of his suffering, the Gospel authors address similar themes: embodiment, temporality, and understanding wounds as an occasion for love. The Gospels treat Jesus as embodied. We see this concern with embodiment both in the attention that Luke gives to the birth of Jesus, and in all four gospel’s accounts of Jesus as one who eats with others, and in Jesus’ capacity to suffer bodily injury and death. Most notably, of course, the Passion accounts give considerable detail about Jesus’ vulnerability. For example, a woman anoints Jesus’ feet with perfumed oil shortly before the Passion, emphasizing his bodily nature (Matt 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9; John 12:1–8). Jesus prays in the Garden at Gethsemane and experiences considerable sorrow and distress (Matt 26:37–38; Mark 14: 32–39; Luke 22:41–44). He is scourged, stripped, mocked, and crucified. Jesus cries out during his crucifixion (Mark 15:34; Mark 15:37). His body’s removal from the cross and being laid in a tomb (Mark 15: 42–47; Matt 27:57–60; Luke 23:50–56; John 19:38–42). The carnal nature of Jesus’ suffering and death is vividly displayed. But even beforehand, in the descriptions of the life of Jesus, Jesus’s friends struggle with the relationship between Jesus as Messiah and his embodiedness and “fleshiness.” For example, the disciples are deeply unsettled when Jesus tells them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, and some leave him altogether as a result (John 6:52–58; John 6:66). Peter is initially unable to accept that Jesus will suffer, when Jesus tells him that he must suffer and die, even though – and perhaps because – he has affirmed him as the Christ (Matt 16:21–23). The synoptic gospels are careful to emphasize a man who not only performs miracles, for example, multiplying loaves of bread for others, but also who himself eats with others (e. g., John 6:1–15; Mark. 2:15–16; Matt 9:10–11). The proto-Gospels in Luke describe Jesus’ first cradle as a manger or trough (phatne), evoking Eucharistic imagery (Luke 2:7). Jesus spends the last night with his friends eating the Passover meal. John’s gospel, more theologically, brings together logos and flesh, the carnality of Jesus with the divinity of the creative word (John 1:14). Similarly, the Gospels are careful to include a temporal account of the life of Jesus. Jesus lives as a temporal being, with a birth, a ministry, and a death – a beginning, a middle, and an end – that is variously captured by the different Gospel accounts that seek to find the meaning of Jesus’s life and death with attention to its temporality. Each gospel situates Jesus in human history, either with respect to prophetic fulfillment, genealogies, or by situating Jesus into the larger narrative of creation (as in the opening to the Gospel according to John). Luke’s birth narrative is the most striking in this respect. In Luke’s gospel, both Mary’s Fiat and the lengthy accounts of the participation of others such as Zechariah and Elizabeth, or Anna and Simon, emphasize that Jesus’s participation in history is one of reception as well as action. He is received into a world as a result of Mary’s decision, and received by others who welcome him into the Jewish community in his infancy. His Incarnation depends upon

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human assent in a way that focuses our attention on the real presence of the divine in human history.6 Luke emphasizes that Jesus is from Nazareth, born under the reign of Herod, a Jew living in Palestine under Roman occupation: a man who lives in history and who is affected by time and historical situatedness (Luke 1:5; Luke 2:1–2; Luke 3:1). In this respect, the Gospel accounts of the Incarnation are distant from the Greek gods who walk the earth and act in the world of mortals but are neither born nor die and are not received into the world as a result of any human action. The Gospels also treat Jesus’ wounds as both itself a sacrificial act of love and also as an occasion for demonstrations of love from the Cross, as in Jesus’s “last seven words.” Across all four Gospel accounts, we find Jesus acting with love in the midst of his own suffering, whether saying “forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34); articulating faith through a Psalm of lament (Mark 15:34; Matt 27:46); giving Mary to John and John to Mary (John 19:26); assuring thieves of their entry into Paradise (Luke 23:43); or demonstrating self-surrender to the Father (John 19:30). Jesus continues to love from the cross, in the moment of wounding and suffering, and not only after his healing. Thus, Jesus treats his own vulnerability as an opportunity to love. Last, let me briefly speak about the meeting of Jesus and Thomas, where Thomas’ doubt is met by an invitation to touch the Jesus’ wounds: “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving but believing” (John 20:27). Although the passage emphasizes faith without direct sight, I think we can also see an idea that informs the much later Caravaggio painting, Doubting Thomas. There, Jesus is portrayed as inviting Thomas to touch his wounds, and we see his exposed, healed but still quite visceral, wound there on the left of the painting. In the upper right hand corner, however, Caravaggio painted Thomas’ garments with the fabric hanging such that there is almost the same exact shape to Thomas’ shirt as in Jesus’s wound. The pictorial suggestion is that the healed wounds of Jesus are in some ways healing for the wounded Thomas, who is, like the other disciples, traumatized by the events of the Passion. But it is Jesus, in both his humanity and his divinity, who is healing as we see repeated patterns of healing and then being missioned in other resurrection accounts (as with Mary at the tomb, or the disciples being sent out to act in the world after having stayed hidden in the upper room). Again, although in Homer we see Menelaos and Agamemnon or Andromache and Hector meet one another’s wounds, such a meeting is impossible – and perhaps even thought to be unnecessary – for the Greek Olympian gods, or between gods and men. The Gospels put together the divinely transformed Christ with the

6 As Ratzinger writes, “Without the freely given assent of Mary, God cannot become man.” J. Ratzinger, God is Near Us (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 19.

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wounded Christ, in a way that transcends divisions between divinity and vulnerability in Homer. I’ve taken a brief venture into the Gospels, but let me conclude with a point about Homer. We learn from Homer the great value placed upon being human, despite its limits – whether those limits are found in moral life, in life’s brevity and apparent contingency, or in the intertwining of love and grief. Thetis regrets the birth of her son Achilles, when she remarks: “Your birth was bitterness. Why did I raise you? If only you could sit by your ships, untroubled, not weeping, since indeed your lifetime is to be short, of no length…To a bad destiny I bore you in my chambers” (I.414–418). The Greek gods rue human mortality. Yet the voice of Thetis is not the voice of Homer. Instead we might find it again in the Muse’s invocation to sing about humanity, an affirmation that to be human, even with all of its frailties, gives us gifts that no Olympian god could ever know.

Mikkel Gabriel Christoffersen1

Vulnerability and Risk

Introduction The term vulnerability holds great promise as an anthropological bridging concept between theology and other academic disciplines. The term vulnerability captures a deep sense of human finitude and fragility that resonates well with many key commitments in Christian theology. The concept of vulnerability is closely related to that of risk. Both concepts draw attention to the uncertainty and insecurity of future events.2 However, while vulnerability describes a present condition that allows for future hurt, risk, by way of contrast, signifies the anticipation of that hurt. Risk relates to future hazardous events that are uncertain in that they may or may not occur. If the hazardous event does occur, then harm is caused to the vulnerable entities at stake. Vulnerability, then, is the susceptibility to hurt; therefore, risk presupposes vulnerability. For, only if something is perceived as vulnerable to a foreseeable hurt, does it makes sense to anticipate that hurt as risk. The close connection between vulnerability and risk is very germane to unfolding a more complex and nuanced concept of vulnerability. This unfolding will be mediated through a reading and discussion of risk sociology. In 1986, Ulrich Beck published the book Risikogesellschaft (Risk Society), establishing “risk society” as a “diagnostic term for society.”3 Capturing the imaginations of scholars and journalists alike, the term “risk society” intensified an already on-going involvement with the concept of risk in different strands of research, not least within sociology. Even though the main strands of risk sociology do not explicitly address the concept of vulnerability, this chapter argues that risk sociology implicitly draws attention to key aspects of vulnerability. I claim that these aspects are central for an interdisciplinary discourse on vulnerability that seeks to include the personal sphere of human life, but also to reach beyond it, moving into the social and natural spheres. 1 Mikkel Gabriel Christoffersen’s PhD-scholarship is funded by the Changing Disasters project within the University of Copenhagen’s 2016 program for excellent interdisciplinary research. 2 It is worth observing that the German term Unsicherheit covers both “insecurity” and “uncertainty”. 3 M.P. Sørensen/A. Christiansen, Ulrich Beck: An Introduction to the Theory of Second Modernity and the Risk Society (London: Routledge, 2012), 13.

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Specifically, this chapter combines insights from risk sociology in order to expand upon three domains of vulnerability that I suggest should be kept distinct: a) the macro-level of “disaster vulnerability,” that is, vulnerability to hazards with very high uninsurable impact; b) the meso-level of vulnerability to hazards that are insurable; and, c) the micro-level of vulnerability involved in personal risk-taking. Each of these three levels gives rise to theological considerations that follow, limit, or expand the sociological theories of risk. These three domains constitute the three main sections of this chapter. The risk sociology explored in this chapter is composed of a number of different strands,4 among which are the following: 1) A “risk society” branch, which focuses on the dynamics of risk society, where politics is determined by the anticipation of those environmental hazards that are side-effects of industrialization;5 2) a Foucault-inspired “governmentalist” approach, which investigates the societal effects of calculable risks in areas like medicine and insurance;6 3) an “edgework” perspective, which investigates the social dynamics of voluntary high-risk activities like extreme sports;7 4) a “cultural approach” to risk, originating in Douglas and Wildavsky’s Risk and Culture, which explores how cultural preferences and convictions determine the selection of risks.8 Instead of keeping these strands apart,9 I propose to 4 This follows the overview given in J.O. Zinn, “Introduction: The Contribution of Sociology to the Discourse on Risk and Uncertainty”, in J.O. Zinn (ed.), Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty : An Introduction (Malden, MA./Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell, 2008), 15–16. A fifth, “systems theoretical” perspective from Luhmann investigates risk as self-induced harm through its distinction from danger–N. Luhmann, Soziologie des Risikos (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991) and N. Luhmann, “Risiko und Gefahr”, in Konstruktivistische Perspektiven: Soziologische Aufklärung V (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990), 131–69. Since Niels Henrik Gregersen and Günter Thomas both reflect on key insights of Luhmann in their theologies of risk, this chapter limits itself to surveying the remaining sociological theories of risk, in particular N.H. Gregersen, “Faith in a World of Risks: A Trinitarian Theology of Risk-Taking”, in E.M. Wiberg Pedersen/H. Lam/ Peter Lodberg (ed.), For All People – Global Theologies in Contexts: Essays in Honor of Viggo Mortensen (Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans, 2002), 214–33; N.H. Gregersen, “Risk and Religion: Toward a Theology of Risk Taking”, Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 38, no. 2 (June 2003): 355–76; and G. Thomas, “Das Kreuz Jesu Christi als Risiko der Inkarnation”, in G. Thomas/A. Schüle (ed.) Gegenwart des lebendigen Christus (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2007), 151–79. 5 See U. Beck, Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986) and U. Beck, Weltrisikogesellschaft: Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Sicherheit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2007). 6 An English edition of Foucault’s main article on “governmentality” appeared in G. Burchell/C. Gordon/P. Miller (ed.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (University of Chicago Press, 1991) along with investigations of insurance and risk. 7 S. Lyng, “Edgework: A Social Psychological Analysis of Voluntary Risk Taking”, American Journal of Sociology 95, no. 4 (January 1990): 851–86. 8 M. Douglas/A. Wildavsky, Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1983). See also: J. Adams, Risk (London/New York: Routledge, 2006). 9 These sociological risk theories depend on quite varied ontological and epistemological presuppositions. Scholars often placed them on a scale going between materialism and construc-

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combine their insights, and thereby nourish a more differentiated notion of vulnerability. In addition to the sociological risk theories mentioned, I also include a strand of “disaster research,” whose academic discourse has been dominated by a vulnerability paradigm since the early 1980s. I shall begin my discussion by exploring this research and the vulnerability paradigm upon which it draws.

Disaster Vulnerability An important work in the vulnerability paradigm of disaster research is At Risk from 1994 (second edition 2004) written by disaster scholars Ben Wisner, Piers Blaikie, Terry Cannon, and Ian Davis. The purpose of this book is to correct the “conventional” view of disasters, a view that locates the causes of disasters primarily in overwhelming natural hazards like tsunamis and earthquakes.10 Reshaping this conventional view, the vulnerability approach locates the condition of possibility for disasters in the social sphere rather than merely in the natural sphere. The central insight is this: only if vulnerable people live where the natural hazard hits does the hazard result in a disaster. Consequently, At Risk analyses the social structures that make populations vulnerable to different kinds of natural hazards. To ensure the normative edge – that disaster research should aim at reducing the loss of human lives – Wisner et al. define “vulnerability” as a trait of human beings and not of things. Vulnerability can then be thought of as follows, “The characteristics of a person or group and their situation that influence their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the tivism, see Ortwin Renn, “Concepts of Risk: A Classification”, in S. Krimsky/D. Golding, Social Theories of Risk (Westport, CT.: Praeger, 1992), 53–79; D. Lupton, Risk (Key Ideas) (London: Routledge, 1999), 17–35; N.J. Fox, “Postmodern Reflections on ‘Risk’, ‘Hazards’ and Life Choices”, in D. Lupton (ed.), Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 12–33; J.O. Zinn, “A Comparison of Sociological Theorizing on Risk and Uncertainty”, in J.O. Zinn, Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty : An Introduction (Malden, MA./Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell, 2008), 172–180. My position aligns with that of Niels Henrik Gregersen who argues that: “Risks are neither purely objective events nor purely subjective events; they belong to the objective-relational features of existence. Risks appear in the dangerous zone of contact between physical events and social routines,” Gregersen, “Risk and Religion”, 359. 10 The conventional view of disasters should not be confused with the former paradigm of disaster research, called the “dominant” paradigm, which was influenced by military funding and organisational theory. For a swift overview of disaster research history, see N.H. Gregersen, “Theology and Disaster Studies: From ‘Acts of God’ to Divine Presence”, in M. Thanning Vendelø/O. Rubin/R. Dahlberg (ed.), Disaster Research: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives, Routledge Humanitarian Series (London/New York: Routledge, 2015), 34–48.

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impact of a natural hazard.”11 With this definition, the concept of vulnerability encompasses a threatened group of persons’ ability not only to “withstand” the shock and to “bounce back” from the effects of the shock, but also their ability to “bounce forward” towards a new, more positive state.12 Moreover, “disaster risk” constitutes, … a compound function of the natural hazard and the number of people, characterized by their varying degrees of vulnerability to that specific hazard, who occupy the space and time of exposure to the hazard event.13

In other words, a “disaster” occurs when a natural hazard hits a group of people vulnerable to that hazard. From this observation, Wisner et al. construct what they call a “pseudo-equation”: disaster risk = hazard x vulnerability.14 As a result, disasters should be viewed as a hybrid of natural substrates and cultural conditions. The resulting analytical interest of this vulnerability paradigm concerns the social sphere more than the natural – the vulnerability paradigm offers analyses of the causes, both proximate and ultimate, of the vulnerability of populations. Rather than focusing only on the immediate natural cause of a disaster, Wisner et al. investigate what is unsafe in the given social conditions and their social root causes.15 The purpose of a deep analysis of the causes of disaster is to better understand what needs to be adjusted in the social order so as to reduce the frequency and severity of disasters. The influential theory of the risk society, launched by Ulrich Beck in 1986, focused on another set of macro-level hazards, which I, for the purposes of this chapter, call “risk society hazards.”16 These are man-made hazards, such as

11 B. Wisner et al., At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability, and Disasters (London/New York: Routledge, 22004) 11, general italics omitted. 12 These three abilities connect to the term “resilience”. R. Dahlberg et al., “Resilience in Disaster Research: Three Versions”, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 32, no. 1–2 (3 April 2015): 46. Even though the At Risk authors include what is meant by “resilience” in their concept of vulnerability, the concept of resilience goes further in highlighting human abilities and actions in the face of disasters, while the term vulnerability focuses on disabilities and passivity. Wisner et al. are aware of this problem, At Risk, 14. 13 Wisner et al., At Risk, 49. 14 Ibid. 15 The authors call their theoretical model the “pressure and release” model, Wisner et al., At Risk, 87. This term is not particularly clear. The most obvious interpretation would be to think of vulnerability factors as building up a kind of pressure, which a given hazard then releases violently in causing a disaster. However, the authors meant something else by this term. In short, while “pressure” signifies how both vulnerability and natural hazard build up disaster pressure (Wisner et al., At Risk, 50) like the two handles of the nutcracker cracking a nut, “release” denotes that disaster pressure can be released through reduction of vulnerability. The advantage of their view is that it focuses on solutions to the disaster pressure, albeit only on the side of the vulnerability. 16 Beck simply calls these hazards “risks”, which has resulted in some conceptual confusion, since

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nuclear meltdowns, pollution, pesticides, and the forms of extreme weather that derive from anthropogenic climate change. All of these hazards are unintentional by-products of the industrial society, which increased material welfare considerably, especially in the Western world. Vulnerability to risk society hazards compares in size and importance to the vulnerability of natural hazards, but risk society hazards differ from natural hazards, not only in relation to their anthropogenic origin, but also by virtue of their “limitlessness.” Ulrich Beck argues that, although natural hazards can be catastrophic to the population they hit, they are principally limited in time and space. In contrast, risk society hazards create disasters that are continuous and on-going. To illustrate, one might think of the whims of the wind, which ultimately decided which areas became contaminated by the radioactive emissions from the Chernobyl power plant.17 One might think of climate change, created in one part of the world, dramatically changing the weather in another.18 Moreover, one might think of air and water pollution seeping into even the earthquake-secure homes of wealthy CEOs. No one is completely immune to the larger effects of such hazards. Therefore, risk society disasters transcend the immediacy of the accident, not only in space, but also across time. For, often, the injury appears far later than the action, and the causes can often only be understood in hindsight.19 The limitlessness of risk society hazards renders it impossible to handle such hazards satisfactorily through insurance. Insurance offers financial compensation for a definite hazard that is covered in an insurance policy. But since risk society hazards are limitless, too often they cannot be clearly defined.20 Moreover, insurance rests on the willingness of the insurance taker to accept the inherent gap between compensation and hardship.21 But, as the governmentalist insurance scholar FranÅois Ewald argues, risk society hazards are irreparable and severe enough to make compensation unacceptable for insurers, even if they could be insured against.22

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Beck also suggests that risk is the societal anticipation of these hazards. Society is a risk society to the degree that the anticipation of risk society hazards becomes decisive for politics. Beck, Risikogesellschaft, 9. M. Northcott, A Political Theology of Climate Change (Grand Rapids, MI.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014), 8. F. Ewald, “The Return of Descartes’s Malicious Demon: An Outline of a Philosophy of Precaution”, in T. Baker/J. Simon (ed.), Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility (University of Chicago Press, 2002), 288. That disaster causes often appear more clearly in hindsight should keep the vulnerability approach to natural disaster from its moralistic tendency of assigning responsibility and blame to those instigating the root causes – at least in such cases where those disasters are not in fact readily foreseeable, caused by corporate incompetence, or financial corner-cutting, and so on. Beck, Weltrisikogesellschaft, 61,103–4. F. Ewald, “Insurance and Risk”, in G. Burchell/C. Gordon/P. Miller (ed.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, (University of Chicago, 1991), 204. Ewald, “The Return”, 289.

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A theological consideration of such uninsurable disaster vulnerability should support the ethical principle, “Avoid any (real) risk of catastrophe at any (ordinary) cost.”23 A risk management model that calculates risk simply as a matter of “hazard times probability” fails when it comes to such disaster vulnerability. The probability of natural or risk society hazards may be small, but if they occur, the resulting damage may be unimaginably serious and, indeed, irreversible.24 So, even though disaster vulnerability is ambiguous – for, decreasing vulnerability to one hazard may increase vulnerability to another – disaster research does recommend adjustments to the social order that would decrease overall vulnerability. However, theologian Kristine Culp comes to a very different conclusion regarding such disasters. In Culp’s reading of disaster literature the suggestion is made that, in fact, “Damage and loss have a force of inevitability.”25 Indeed, Culp’s “narrative of the seeming inevitability of risk and damage” leads her to conclude that susceptibility to damaging change must be regarded, simply, as a “basic feature of human existence.”26 I suggest Culp’s conclusion involves an unwarranted level of resignation in the face of disaster vulnerability. A different approach, also relevant for theological consideration, should be the precautionary principle (for example, after the Fukushima accident of 2011, German theologian Wolfgang Huber argued vocally that the precautionary principle should apply in cases of disaster vulnerability).27 Of course, the precautionary principle cannot become a universally overriding principle; as Douglas and Wildavsky argued, certain irreversible goods may exist that we can only reach if we take risks.28 So, not every venture can be, or should be, avoided on the basis of taking precautions. The section on personal risks will return to this question of goods and risk-taking, but, for present purposes, I conclude, with Huber, “This kind of debate has nothing to do with the principle itself but only with its reasonable application.”29 The precautionary principle is a crucial guiding idea; and even though it cannot always be taken as the ultimate consideration in determining

23 N. Rescher, Risk: A Philosophical Introduction to the Theory of Risk Evaluation and Management (Lanham, MD.: University Press of America, 1983), 73, italics omitted. 24 Nassim Taleb even argues that negligible risks and the events that we do not know about, what he calls, capitalised, “Black Swans”, are those that have the most important impact on human lives. His advice is to increase exposure to the positive Black Swans, while decreasing exposure to the negative, N.N. Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (London: Penguin, 2 2010). 25 K.A. Culp, Vulnerability and Glory: A Theological Account (Louisville, KY.: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 93. 26 Culp, Vulnerability, 94. 27 W. Huber, “After Fukushima: The Precautionary Principle Revisited”, Verbum et Ecclesia 33, no. 2 (August 2012): 6. See also Gregersen, “Faith”, 232. 28 Douglas/Wildavsky, Risk and Culture, 28. 29 Huber, “After Fukushima”, 6.

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whether risky actions should be taken, it is nevertheless a principle that should be prioritised when considering risks at the macro-scale.

Insurance and Vulnerability While risk society hazards, as mentioned, are notoriously uninsurable, an increasing number of other hazards have become insurable. FranÅois Ewald shows how insurance uses the “technology” of risk to insure for a whole range of hazards, decreasing vulnerability to the financial consequences of loss. Risk, understood as a technology, aggregates classes of hazards and calculates their probabilities. On this basis, insurance agents offer contracts with premiums to policyholders.30 As a result, insurance transforms hazards that people previously would have perceived as “blows of fortune,”31 into objects for financial compensation. The result of insurance is a significant decrease in financial vulnerability with respect to the hazards covered. The class of possible insurance hazards share one characteristic (beyond the acceptability of the compensation and the determinability of the destruction discussed in the last section), namely that insurance hazards must be calculable. It must be possible to calculate the probability and impact of the hazards on an aggregate level. Consequently, insurance performs the technology of risk on populations, not on individuals. To Ewald, this collectivity of risk results in an abstract, but effective form of solidarity. Since all members of a given population are equally victims and agents of risk, insurance institutes solidarity between the members of that population. Ewald even suggests – and this reveals Ewald’s Foucauldian background – that such insurance solidarity refrains from socializing the population into certain behaviors as does other communities. Ewald writes, The family has its rules, the trade union its internal regulations. These mutualities place one, moralize one, educate one, form one’s conscience. Insurance mutualities are different: they leave the person free.32 30 Not all insurance relationships are voluntary and demand wealth to cover the premiums. Some insurance relationships function involuntarily through citizenship. The distribution of voluntary and involuntary insurances varies from state to state, but, in general, Western state development has offered an increase in the level of insurance, regarding not only the percentage of the population and the range of risks, but also the degree of compensation (T. Baker, “Liability and Insurance after September 11: Embracing Risk Meets the Precautionary Principle”, Geneva Papers on Risk & Insurance – Issues & Practice 27, no. 3 (July 2002): 350). 31 Ewald, “Insurance and Risk”, 200. This quote shows that only Ewald’s concept of risk can be characterised as “strong constructivism” (see Lupton 1999, 28), not his ontology. Ewald does presuppose a hazardous world that leads people to either resignation or reaction. 32 Ewald, “Insurance and Risk”, 204.

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That insurance can support solidarity without demanding behavioral restrictions may be true, but such functionality is susceptible to the drive towards personal optimization of finances in at least two ways. First, insurance suppliers, whether private or public, can take measures to reduce spending by creating safer environments and reducing the insurance taker’s risky behavior. Such preventive measures involve interfering with the lives of the clients, demanding or urging certain behaviors.33 Second, the use of risk classifications may prompt the population members that fall into low-risk categories to break the solidarity and form smaller populations with lower premiums.34 For the solidarity to remain intact, such tendencies require regulation. For those who are insured, insurance changes the perception of the insured hardships. In the words of legal scholars Tom Baker and Jonathan Simon, a “risk beyond insurance is experienced in a very different way than a risk that is insured.”35 Insurance reduces anxiety and worry regarding the future, thus increasing risk-willingness for the good of society.36 The Nordic flexicurity model is based on that very insight. If a government offers a proper insurance against unemployment, workers accept lower compensation as terms for employee termination, thus creating more flexibility for the companies.37 Of course, risk-willingness that arises from insurance can also increase their susceptibility to the dangers that have been insured against–people may commit “moral hazards” by reducing their alertness and responsibility with respect to their own actions and choices.38 But insurance also provides a moral opportunity for helping others. Political scholar Deborah Stone argues: 33 Other Foucault-inspired authors use the governmentality approach to clarify the consequences of preventive measures (e. g. in medicine). Robert Castel discusses the consequences of the medical sectors’ increased use of general risk factors to determine dangerousness rather than using individual assessments, R. Castel, “From Dangerousness to Risk”, in G. Burchell/C. Gordon/P. Miller (ed.) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (University of Chicago Press, 1991), 281–198. 34 This may occur both in the private sector and in independence movements of rich regions. In fact, Baker and Simons argue that our culture moves in that direction: “Private pensions, annuities, and life insurance are engaged in an historic shift of investment risk from broad pools (the class structure of risk spreading through insurance) to individual (middle-class) consumers and employees in return for the possibility of greater return”, T. Baker/J. Simon, “Embracing Risk”, in T. Baker/J. Simon (ed.), Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility (University of Chicago Press, 2002), 4. However, not everyone concurs with this assessment. For example, Michael Powers uses social justice arguments to counter such a cultural development, M.R. Powers, Acts of God and Man: Ruminations on Risk and Insurance (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2011), 146. 35 Baker/Simon, “Embracing Risk”, 12. 36 Ewald, “Insurance and Risk”, 208. 37 G.T. Svendsen, Trust (Aarhus University Press, 2014), 47–48. 38 T. Baker, “Risk, Insurance, and the Social Construction of Responsibiliy”, in T. Baker/J. Simon (ed.), Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility (University of Chicago Press, 2002), 43. Powers terms such insurance negligence “morale hazard” to di-

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To participate in a risk-pooling scheme is to agree to tax yourself not only for your own benefit should you incur a loss, but also for the benefit of others who might suffer from loss when you do not.39

Even though one is still vulnerable to hardship, at least one’s financial vulnerability is reduced, which increases the ability of the victim to regain his or her foothold in life. This ability transforms one’s relationship to hardship, “so that, even in misfortune, one retains responsibility for one’s affairs by possessing the means to repair its effects.”40 In other words, insurance empowers the individual to recover from a hurt. A theological consideration of insurance can also lend its voice to such an approval of the insurance system, especially if insurance develops aspects of solidarity rather than dismantling them. In 1875, Charles H. Spurgeon even saw in life insurance a possibility of fulfilling the New Testament demand of not thinking about tomorrow, Now I know how to practice Christ’s command for ‘taking no thought for the morrow.’ I pay the policy money once a year and take no further thought about it, for I have no occasion to do so now, having obeyed the very spirit and letter of Christ’s command.41

This connection between insurance and lack of anxiety worked as an argument to sway a Christian community from a view of divine providence that banishes the development of providential social systems. However, suggesting that insurance is incapable of removing all human worries about the future clearly overburdens the system of insurance. Therefore, it is surprising that Ewald concludes his discussion of insurance on the following high note: Ewald argues that insurance “liberates human beings from fear”42 in a way comparable with religion. Insurance liberates human beings to a life of confident and risk-willing action. The liberating force of the insurance system therefore results in a minor revolution in philosophical anthropology. As Ewald puts it: All man’s relations with himself or herself, with others and with the world are overturned. With insurance and its philosophy, one enters a universe where the ills

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stinguish it from the “moral hazard” of setting fire to one’s house if the insurance price is higher than the market price, Powers, Acts of God and Man, 137. D. Stone, “Beyond Moral Hazard: Insurance as Moral Opportunity”, in T. Baker/J. Simon (ed.), Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility (University of Chicago Press, 2002), 53. Ewald, “Insurance and Risk”, 207. Quoted in M.A. Tracy, “Insurance and Theology : The Background and the Issues”, Journal of Risk & Insurance 33, no. 1 (March 1966): 89 with a reference to Address of the Presbyterian Annuity and Life Insurance Company, Philadelphia, 1875, 10; I have found the same quote in the Spurgeon’s sermon, “To-morrow” from August 25, 1856, http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/ 0094.php, accessed Nov 14, 2016. Ewald, “Insurance and Risk”, 208.

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that befall us lose their old providential meaning: a world without God, a laicized world where ‘society’ becomes the general arbiter answerable for the causes of our destiny.43

For Ewald, insurance shifts the responsibility for hurt from God to society. Theology must agree with Ewald that religion – some forms of religion – can liberate human beings from fear to act in society. Within Protestant Christianity, Lutheranism has always argued that faith in God results in freedom for the inner person, which liberates persons to act in service for one’s neighbor like a good tree bears good fruits.44 But a theological consideration must also place a proper limit on similar claims from insurance. It is rather presumptuous to suggest that the system of insurance itself places the human being in a world without God, where society takes over the religious promises of redemption from fear. Suggesting that insurance entirely removes human worries reduces the human being to homo economicus. Ewald turns money into the ultimate concern of human beings.45 But, as the Beatles once sang: “money can’t buy me love;” nor can it buy me final redemption. Human beings concern themselves with other things – and more ultimate things – than money. Consider, for example, having one’s house burned to the ground. One receives money from fire insurance to rebuild the house, but all of one’s belongings have been incinerated. So, one is left without the things – the pictures, gifts, heirlooms – that constitute important parts of one’s history. Human identity is historical. Since one of the ways in which human persons remember their history is through memorabilia, they are thereby vulnerable to crises of identity if they lose all the objects that create such powerful links to their history. In the case of fire hazards, this insight becomes a lived reality against which insurance cannot prevent one from being potentially hurt. It merely offers financial compensation and nothing more.46

43 Ibid. 44 M. Luther, “Epistola Lutheriana ad Leonem Decimum summum pontificem. Tractatus de libertate christiana / Brief Luthers an Papst Leo X: Abhandlung über die christliche Freiheit”, in J. Schilling (ed.), Christusglaube und Rechtfertigung, Lateinisch-deutsche Studienausgabe, II (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006), 153. 45 P. Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 13. 46 Moreover, Ewald elsewhere realises that risk society hazards place an upper limit on insurance. He also promotes the precautionary principle in the realm of risk society hazards, Ewald, “The Return of Descartes’s Malicious Demon”, 282–97. But since this principle cannot—and should not—be applied in all cases, risk society hazards leave human beings with significant anxiety, as Ulrich Beck realised, Beck, Risikogesellschaft, 66.

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Personal Risk and Vulnerability The sociological theories of risk considered so far have highlighted the macrodomain of disaster vulnerability and the possibility of reducing financial vulnerability to meso-level calculable hazards through insurance. But risk sociology is less able to grasp the micro-level of personal risk where vulnerability can be tragic rather than disastrous, and wherein insurance meets its lower limit. Insurance does not cover the risk of being refused by one’s only love,47 or the risk of losing oneself to a bourgeois or aesthetic life, for example.48 However, another sociological theory of risk that relates to the logic of personal risk-taking remains to be reviewed. Stephen Lyng’s term “edgework” classifies a set of high-risk voluntary risk-taking activities like extreme sports, high-risk occupations, and perhaps even criminal activities. Edgework activities include voluntary exposure to threats, even mortal threats: “The archetypical edgework experience is one in which the individual’s failure to meet the challenge at hand will result in death or, at the very least, debilitating injury.”49 A successful edgework activity is one where the “edgeworker” gets as close to the critical edge as possible without falling off it. Importantly, the responsibility for survival lies with no one but the edgeworker him- or herself, and the edgeworker perceives a high degree of self-realization in performing the given activity. Characteristically, edgeworkers “view instances of people dying or being seriously injured in risk-taking endeavors as evidence that these individuals lacked the core survival skill of a genuine edgeworker,”50 primarily the ability to stay in mental control without being overcome by fear.51 Edgeworkers place themselves in highly vulnerable positions,52 but they struggle to avoid realizing their own vulnerability because fearing their vulnerability makes them more vulnerable. A theological consideration of “edgework” can acknowledge how such activities draw attention to the positive aspects of risk-taking. So far, the concept of risk has been related mostly to those risks that should be avoided.

47 W.H. Vanstone, Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977), 51–52. 48 This is the topic of S. Kierkegaard, Part I: Either/Or, Kierkegaard’s Writing, III (Princeton University Press, 2013). 49 Lyng, “Edgework”, 857. 50 S. Lyng, “Edgework, Risk, and Uncertainty”, in J.O. Zinn (ed.), Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty : An Introduction (Malden, MA./Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell, 2008), 119. 51 Lyng, “Edgework”, 859. Therefore, edgeworkers refrain from gambling because its intrinsic element of luck leaves them without control, Lyng, “Edgework”, 862. 52 According to Lyng, edgeworkers rely heavily on chance for their success, even though they do not admit it, Lyng, “Edgework”, 872.

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But risk-taking is sometimes necessary, and this is so beyond the notion of edgework, which is a rather extreme case. First, embracing risk is necessary because ours is a world where all decision-making entails risk. Proposing marriage to one’s partner entails the risk of being rejected. Equally, not proposing to one’s partner involves the danger of being forsaken for a more plucky individual. In that sense, no possibility of avoiding risk exists. Rephrasing Kierkegaard’s famous dictum, one may claim: “Propose, and you will regret it. Do not propose, you will also regret it. Propose or do not propose, you will regret it either way.”53 Risk aversion makes life safer, but also boring. And, if taken to an extreme degree, it makes life impossible since every decision involves risk. In contrast, risk willingness makes life exciting but unsafe and, if taken to an extreme degree, dangerous. Second, embracing risk is necessary because running a risk often increases the probability of attaining certain benefits that would not have been available to the more risk averse. Being headhunted for one’s dream job is possible, but handing in a job application increases the probability of getting the job significantly! Of course, handing in the job application also increases the risk of being rejected. Gregersen captures this insight well: “There are important goods that can be obtained only by accepting certain risks, but by taking a risk we also run the risk of vulnerability to being harmed.”54 Indeed, exposing oneself to harm may be the only way of reaching this or that goal in life. In such instances, vulnerability must be accepted for a higher purpose. In the context of social change, feminist theologian Sharon Welch55 expands on the notion that some goods can only be acquired through vulnerable exposure. Unlike edgeworkers, who place themselves in highly uncertain situations, taking exclusive personal responsibility for their survival (and, therefore, having no focus on their vulnerability), Welch argues for an “ethic of risk” that actively accepts vulnerability in community, and argues for “an engagement with the world that accepts risk, ambiguity, and imperfection.”56 Welch also opposes an “ethic of control” that construes responsibility57 as

53 S. Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 38. Not even insurance is risk free for the insurance taker. When considering taking out insurance, one runs a risk whether one chooses to take out insurance or not. Systems theorist Niklas Luhmann argues: “If one takes out insurance, one is financially secure in a damage event. But then one carries the risk of having taking out insurance for naught if no damage event occurs. Deciding against taking out insurance means running the opposite risk”, N. Luhmann, “Das Risiko der Versicherung gegen Gefahren”, Soziale Welt 47, no. 3 (1 January 1996): 273, my translation. 54 Gregersen, “Risk and Religion”, 361. 55 A shorter version of this paper’s engagement with Welch appears in my forthcoming article, M. Christoffersen, “Risk, Danger, and Trust: Refining the Relational Theory of Risk”, Journal of Risk Research, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2017.1301538. 56 S. Welch, A Feminist Ethic of Risk (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 22000), 30. 57 “Prospective responsibility” as taking responsible action for the future can be meaningfully

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the ability to ensure the implementation of one’s goal with certainty. Such an ethic implies that one has the power to enforce a process according to one’s own plans. Welch argues that an ethic of control is problematic on two counts. First, if the implementation process involves other human beings, the concentration of power implied in its concept of responsibility relies on a morally problematic imbalance of power.58 Second, if one lacks the power to control the process of implementation, one may as well do nothing and despair.59 In relation to her American context, Welch argues that despair is the primary hindrance of middle class contribution to social change. Instead, Welch advances a third understanding of responsibility, one she calls an “ethic of risk.” According to this ethic, “[r]esponsible action [means] the creation of a matrix in which further actions are possible, the creation of the conditions of possibility for desired changes.”60 Instead of requiring that a job be done by one individual only, responsible action encourages the individual to take risks in creating conditions that can further more action, also by others, into the future. This entails acting, even if the odds of prevailing are next to nothing. Welch writes: “The fundamental risk constitutive of this ethic is the decision to care and to act although there are no guarantees of success.”61 From a theological point of view, the personal motivation for endorsing an ethic of risk cannot rest on creation theology alone. Niels Henrik Gregersen bases risk willingness on a creation theology where the very nature of the world itself ensures a risk-taking attitude. As Gregersen put it: The gift of life demands a risk-taking attitude, even to the point of losing one’s life for the benefit of others … the world is created by the benevolent God in such a manner that it invites a risk-taking attitude, and rewards it in a long-term perspective.62

The rewards of risk-taking apply to the aggregate level of human community, which benefits from an overall willingness to explore and develop. But the created world – even with the system of insurance – cannot ensure a reward for every individual risk-taker. Instead, I argue, an individual ethic of risk rests on the resurrection promise and hope of eschatological new life. Jesus is the paradigm of the individual who follows an ethic of risk,63 but finally loses to the world. As Gregersen rightly put

58 59 60 61 62 63

distinguished from “retrospective responsibility” that takes responsibility for one’s actions in the past, be that for praise or blame, Huber, “After Fukushima”, 1. Welch, A Feminist Ethic of Risk, 17. Ibid., 40. Ibid., 46. Ibid., 68. Gregersen, “Faith”, 226. K. Baker-Fletcher, “God with Us in the Dust”, in S. Day/P. Lakeland (ed.), Constructive Theology : A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes with CD-ROM (Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 2004), 189.

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it, Jesus died as “the icon of a loser”64 in terms of evolution (Jesus had no offspring), of society (Jesus was humiliated as an outlaw), and of religion (Jesus died in the experience of God-abandonment). Had the crucifixion been the last word, the genre, so to speak, of Jesus’ life would have been that of a tragedy (since Jesus’ life claims to represent the deepest level of human reality, I would claim that the tragedy itself could not even serve a cathartic function). Yet, the resurrection means that the Holy Spirit restores the life that Jesus lost prematurely. Jesus loses to the world, but the Holy Spirit of new creation saves Jesus’ life to become a transformed part of the consummated world.65 The Christian tradition affirms that the resurrection of Jesus is the first fruit of a general resurrection to new life (1 Cor. 15:13–23) – and this must be so for successful and failed risk-takers alike.

Conclusion This chapter has surveyed a range of sociological theories of risk, utilizing them to investigate the concepts of vulnerability and risk in three domains: the macro-level of vulnerability to disastrous hazards, the meso-level of vulnerability to insurable hazards, and the personal level, where vulnerability also arises from life-enhancing risk-taking. Discussing these three domains has shown the importance of a differentiated sense of vulnerability. Kristine Culp’s understanding of vulnerability as “susceptibility to being changed, for good and for ill”,66 a condition that should not be overcome,67 applies well to the realm of personal risk, where some goods are only attainable through vulnerable exposure to harm. But this is not sufficient to provide a rich and well-differentiated account of other important kinds of vulnerability and risk. Risk sociology has revealed two other levels of vulnerability in which theology should endorse the struggle to limit vulnerability. First, insurance in solidarity reduces the financial vulnerability to middle-range calculable hazards, thus empowering people to reorient their lives. Second, the precautionary principle should guide the realm of disaster vulnerability to natural hazards and risk society hazards, thus decreasing vulnerability for those at risk. In conclusion, this chapter offered a differentiated sense of human vulnerability that might be valuable for theologians to pursue to create further interdisciplinary bridges. 64 N.H. Gregersen, “The Cross of Christ in an Evolutionary World”, Dialog: A Journal of Theology 40, no. 3 (September 2001): 203. 65 Thomas, “Das Kreuz Jesu Christi”, 178. 66 Culp, Vulnerability and Glory, 2. 67 Ibid., 94.

Authors

Silas W. Allard, Associate Director and Harold J. Berman Fellow, Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Emory University. Pamela Sue Anderson †, was Professor of Modern European Philosophy of Religion, Regent’s Park College University of Oxford. Dean Bell, Provost, Vice President, and Professor of History at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, Chicago. Anna F. Bialek, Assistant Professor at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, Washington University in St. Louis. Andrea Bieler, Professor of Practical Theology, University of Basel. Mikkel Gabriel Christoffersen, PhD-Fellow in Systematic Theology, Changing Disasters, UCph Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Copenhagen. Kristine A. Culp, Dean of the Disciples Divinity House, and Associate Professor of Theology, The Divinity School, The University of Chicago. Martha Albertson Fineman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Director of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, and Director of the Vulnerability and Human Condition Initiative, Emory University. Michael S. Hogue, Professor of Theology, Meadville Lombard Theological School, Chicago. Stephen Lakkis, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Tainan Theological College and Seminary, and Director of the Center for Public Theology Taiwan. Charles Mathewes, Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

258

Authors

Marina B. McCoy, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. Antje Miksch, Lecturer of Health Promotion at Heidelberg University of Education. Andreas Schüle, Professor of Old Testament, University of Leipzig. William Schweiker, Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics, The Divinity School, The University of Chicago. Heike Springhart, Dean of Theologisches Studienhaus Heidelberg and Lecturer (Privatdozentin) in Systematic Theology, University of Heidelberg. Günter Thomas, Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Bochum and Research Associate at the Faculty of Theology, University of Stellenbosch.

Index

Abraham Catalano, Rabbi 99 Achilles’ shield 233 affectivity 42, 72 f., 76, 79, 81 Agamemnon 234–236, 240 agency 28, 63 f., 71, 75, 78, 118, 166, 175, 177, 179, 189, 199 Akhnai, oven of 94 f. almightiness 37 f., 40 anthropocene 123, 166 anthropological realism 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 29, 33, 85, 87, 92, 139 anthropology 7 f., 13 f., 16–21, 23–25, 35, 42, 66, 71, 74, 83, 87, 109, 139, 251 anticipation 52, 217, 221, 237, 243 f., 247 anxiety 17, 22, 71, 120, 186, 222, 237, 250–252 Aphrodite 231–236 Aquinas, Thomas 54, 63, 113, 116 f., 171 Aristotle 111, 114, 116 f., 173, 230 asymmetry 151, 218–220, 224 Augustine 65, 110–112, 119, 169–171, 176, 179 f. authority 68, 95, 138 f., 180, 199 autonomy 18, 30, 40, 72, 79, 117, 165, 179, 188 f., 192, 198, 215, 221 Barth, Karl 40, 54, 117 f., 120 beauty 82, 85–87 Beck, Ulrich 61, 127 f., 198, 243 f., 246 f., 252 behavior 30, 75, 95, 99, 104, 114, 120,

126 f., 146, 156, 173, 187, 207 f., 218, 249 f. body, being a 17–19, 26–28, 31, 33, 35, 38, 48, 63, 72–79, 84–87, 136 f., 143, 168, 170, 176, 182, 207, 213 f., 224, 234, 237, 239 body, having a 17–19, 26–28, 31, 33, 35, 38, 48, 63, 72–79, 84–87, 136 f., 143, 168, 170, 176, 182, 207, 213 f., 224, 234, 237, 239 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 39 f. burden 166, 190, 201 f., 210, 213 f. Butler, Judith 17, 19, 22, 44, 71, 154, 161 f., 168, 182 care 7 f., 29 f., 33, 44–47, 53, 65, 67, 73, 76, 79 f., 82, 110, 147–152, 154–161, 187, 193, 199, 201 f., 208 f., 214, 216–220, 224–227, 234 f., 255 Cavarero, Adriana 216–221, 224–228 China 69, 144 Christology 15, 19, 39, 52, 170, 222 church 31, 33, 35, 38, 40, 48, 50, 52, 62, 65 f., 68, 111 f., 145, 157, 167, 170–172, 174–178, 180–183, 197–199, 222 Coakley, Sarah 179, 217, 220–228 communication 13, 21, 24, 29, 43, 53 compassion 37 f., 43, 45, 47–49, 52 f., 56 f., 82, 121, 185, 188, 190, 198, 230 confession 29, 100, 178 f. coping 61, 105, 211, 213 f. corruption 69, 90, 145, 231 cosmos 66, 70, 112 f., 115–117, 120 counterworld 132, 134

260

Index

covenant 67, 93, 95, 98, 238 creation 15, 19, 24 f., 30, 35, 37, 44 f., 47–52, 55 f., 61, 66, 78, 81 f., 87, 89–92, 96 f., 104, 120, 139, 165, 169 f., 180 f., 191, 193, 199, 239, 255 Creativity 19, 41, 43 f., 47, 49, 51, 55 f., 66, 68, 79 f., 82, 125–127, 177 creatureliness 80, 140, 169 f. Cross 15, 27, 32, 35–37, 39 f., 44–50, 53, 56, 62, 64, 167, 170, 222, 225, 239 f., 256 death 17, 20, 24, 26–28, 36 f., 43, 46–49, 52 f., 55 f., 60, 64, 67, 76, 82 f., 86, 97–100, 102, 118, 170, 192, 212, 218, 230, 232, 234–239, 253 dehumanization 141 democracy 123 f., 129, 132–134, 144 dependency 13, 17, 27, 29 f., 41, 76, 147, 151, 185, 190, 211, 215 f., 233 disability 17, 31, 140 f., 147, 150, 193, 213 disaster 36 f., 41, 45, 59–65, 69, 79, 91, 93, 97, 101–105, 111, 128 f., 208, 243–248, 253, 256 f. discrimination 17, 187, 191, 193 f., 201, 211 disease 7, 13–15, 17–19, 26–28, 30, 62, 99 f., 119, 135, 207, 209–211, 214 domination 153, 179, 197, 219 f., 223, 226 f. earthquakes 97–99, 245 edgework 244, 253 f. Ein Sof 96 embodiment 18, 72 f., 75, 105, 140, 192, 234, 238 f. empathy 28, 81 f., 162, 186 f. empowerment 133, 137, 179, 210, 214, 222 f. emptiness 222 f., 226 f. endoxa 111 f. environment 24, 43, 52, 64, 66–69, 72 f.,

104, 111, 119, 130, 165, 173, 210, 212, 250 equality 29 f., 41, 43, 187 f., 190 f., 198 f., 209, 216, 222 eschatology 15, 169 f., 195 ethics 7, 13, 20, 29, 42 f., 71 f., 76, 104, 107, 109–116, 119–121, 144, 147 f., 151–162, 177, 179, 207, 215 f., 218, 226, 230, 258 ethics of care 147 f., 151 f., 154–156, 159–161, 215–217, 219 ethics of citizenship 181 ethics of control 254 ethics of risk 254 eudaimonia 114 Ewald, FranÅois 247, 249–252 experience 14–17, 23, 26 f., 29, 42, 45, 51 f., 55, 63, 72–74, 76–79, 81, 85, 87 f., 91, 93, 97, 106, 127, 135 f., 147, 150 f., 153, 160, 168 f., 175, 186, 193, 195–197, 212 f., 219–221, 229, 231–233, 236–239, 253, 256 faith 29 f., 32, 35 f., 50, 62, 138, 145, 170, 176, 188, 197, 217, 221, 224, 227, 240, 244, 248, 252, 255 fear 41, 71, 75, 120 f., 142, 148, 213, 218, 227, 235, 237, 251–253 feminism 43, 131, 153, 158, 191, 221, 257 finitude 24 f., 27, 29, 85, 92, 140, 178, 224, 243 flesh 37, 48, 51, 72, 82 f., 86–91, 140, 239 flood 51 f., 89–91, 95, 97, 101–103 forgiveness 148 f., 152–158, 160, 177 future 14, 51 f., 66, 79, 88, 102 f., 106, 111 f., 120 f., 134, 141, 147, 177, 208 f., 212, 225, 227, 243, 250 f., 254 f. Gerona 98 f. Gilligan, Carol 148, 155, 159–161, 216 Gilson, Erinn 20, 42, 71 f., 76, 215

261

Index glory 15, 59, 62–64, 66–70, 88 f., 92, 96, 169 f., 176, 248, 256 God 13, 15, 19, 21, 24 f., 27, 29, 31 f., 35–42, 44–57, 62, 64–70, 73, 80–82, 85 f., 88–100, 104, 106, 115–120, 138–144, 157, 166, 169–172, 176 f., 179–182, 196, 212, 217, 221–229, 231 f., 235, 238, 240 f., 245, 250–252, 255 f. gods, ancient Greek 83, 86, 114 f., 229, 231–233, 236, 238, 240 f. gratitude 8, 175 Habermas, Jürgen 143 health 7 f., 13, 17, 20, 23, 28 f., 61 f., 69, 71, 73, 187, 190, 198–202, 207–214 health promotion 208, 210, 258 Hector 85 f., 234, 237 f., 240 Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm 36, 44, 71, 178 Helwys, Thomas 52, 137–139, 141 Hobbes, Thomas 181, 217 f. homo oeconomicus 252 hope 35 f., 45, 48, 50, 55, 57, 59, 102, 110 f., 119, 136 f., 142, 144, 146, 149, 165 f., 195, 202, 216, 227, 238, 255 hospitals 62, 100, 198 f. human condition 7, 14, 17 f., 21, 24 f., 27 f., 43, 80, 87, 99, 180, 185, 187, 190–192, 197, 257 humanism 14, 25, 35, 111 f. humanity 8, 16–19, 25, 27, 29–33, 44, 49, 56, 86, 111, 128, 170 f., 175 f., 180 f., 187, 193, 222 f., 235, 240 f. humility 175, 196 Hurricane Katrina 59–61, 69, 128 illness 29, 45, 65, 105, 135, 192 f., 207, 210–212, 214 imperfection 83 f., 87–89, 92, 254 incarnation 27, 32, 39, 44–48, 53, 56, 82, 222, 229, 239 f. inclination 51, 144, 218 f. incompleteness 83, 87, 89, 92

indeterminacy 173, 215–217, 221, 225, 227 inequality 30, 114 f., 185–187, 190, 208 f., 215 infancy 221, 224, 239 institutions 8, 68, 78, 105, 133, 167, 173–175, 185–189, 191–194, 196–200, 203, 209 insurance 125, 189 f., 202, 244, 247, 249–256 interpretation, rabbinic 16 f., 32, 40, 48 f., 67, 74, 78, 95–97, 104 f., 109, 116–118, 120 f., 124, 167, 169, 221–223, 236, 246 intimacy 74 f., 79, 147–149, 153–155, 157 f. invisibility 142, 178 Irenaeus 64, 169, 171 Italy 99 James I 138 f. Jesus 21, 27 f., 31 f., 35, 37, 44–53, 55 f., 65, 67, 93, 118, 121, 170, 177, 223, 238–240, 255 f. Job 98, 141 f., 214, 254 f. Jonas, Hans 15, 40, 115, 120 Judaism, early modern 93, 96 f. Juspa, Shammash of Worms 101–103 justice 38, 47, 49, 51, 67, 81 f., 112, 115–117, 131 f., 139, 141 f., 144, 146–161, 176, 179, 189 f., 192, 199, 202, 230 Kant, Immanuel

51, 110, 114

liberty 187, 189 f., 192, 194, 237 love 14, 16–18, 23 f., 28 f., 31–33, 35–37, 41–43, 45–50, 52–56, 62, 65, 67, 73, 75, 80–82, 110, 117, 120 f., 147–150, 152, 157 f., 162, 168, 174, 176, 185, 196 f., 216 f., 224 f., 227, 229, 231, 233, 236–241, 252 f. Luhmann, Niklas 43, 113, 244, 254 Luria, Isaac 96

262

Index

Luther, Martin 15, 29, 32, 40, 59, 61–63, 65, 67 f., 119 f., 169, 176, 179, 252 maternal 150, 218 f., 224 Menelaos 232, 234–236, 240 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 72, 76 f. mind 45, 50, 54, 82, 85, 110, 114 f., 117, 123 f., 131, 151, 156, 207, 214 mindfulness 214 model 37 f., 45, 51, 53 f., 71, 80, 104, 137, 179, 188, 208, 210 f., 217, 225 f., 246, 248, 250 moral hazard 250 f. mortality 15, 85, 97, 192, 211, 230–232, 236, 241 Moses ben Nahman (Nahmanides) 96 Moses Maimonides 93 narrative 27, 31, 37, 43, 45, 50–52, 59 f., 67, 83 f., 87, 89 f., 92 f., 101, 103 f., 132, 143, 165, 196 f., 220, 222 f., 226, 232, 234, 236, 239, 248 Neckar River 102 New Creation 19, 31, 52 f., 256 Niebuhr, Reinhold 64, 112 f., 119, 144 oppression 72, 79, 110, 136 f., 140 f., 155, 158, 197, 221, 223, 227 Padua 99 pain 19, 27, 44, 46, 52, 63, 65, 70, 74, 77, 81 f., 92, 113 f., 153, 207, 210, 214, 232 f., 237 panarchy 124–127, 129, 131, 134 panentheism 50, 55 passing the peace 178 passion 32, 35, 44 f., 50, 56 f., 81, 147, 174, 233, 239 f. passivity 56, 75, 80, 121, 219, 246 paternalism 137, 219 pathogenic 105, 207 f., 210 f., 214 pathos 75, 78 f., 142, 165 patriarchy 156 f. patterns of life 112, 127

phenomenology 72, 148, 162 Philo of Alexandria 38 plague 59, 61–63, 65, 67, 97, 99 f. Plato 110, 113, 115 f., 231, 238 Plessner, Helmuth 18, 74 Pliny 98 political theology 13 f., 32, 123, 132 f., 165–168, 171–174, 177 f., 181–183, 247 politics 7, 13, 20, 30, 43, 52, 61, 71, 105, 114, 123, 128, 132, 134, 143, 145, 147–150, 152, 154–163, 165, 167 f., 170, 172, 174, 177, 185 f., 191, 196, 198, 211, 215 f., 218 f., 244, 247, 257 populism 7, 13 potential 16, 25 f., 29, 40, 43 f., 50, 59, 67, 72 f., 78 f., 97, 105, 125 f., 128 f., 150, 153, 171, 178, 189, 197–200, 210, 215, 217, 220, 224, 226 f., 237 power 18 f., 22, 24 f., 29–32, 35, 37–41, 43, 45, 47, 49–54, 56 f., 60, 62–64, 66, 68, 71 f., 81, 89 f., 94 f., 97–99, 109, 111, 114 f., 117–121, 127, 130–133, 135–145, 153, 157, 161 f., 165 f., 175, 179–182, 187, 190, 193 f., 197, 217–219, 221–228, 236, 247, 250 f., 255 prayer 13, 79, 100, 104, 220 f., 223 f., 226 precarity 128 f., 182 precautionary principle 248 f., 252, 256 private 125, 154–161, 180, 189 f., 192, 199, 250 process philosophy 55, 123 protology 169 public 52, 61–63, 65–67, 70, 150, 153–155, 157–161, 178, 181–183, 189, 192, 194, 198 f., 208 f., 250, 257 quality of life

209

recognition 31, 40, 53, 61, 75, 80, 110, 162, 165 f., 172, 176, 178, 181 f., 186–189, 191–193, 195, 207, 236 f.

Index religious exercise 195, 199 f., 202 f. religious institution 113, 193 f., 197–200 religious narrative 194–197 religious naturalism, American 123 res cogitans 76 res extensa 76 resilience 7, 13, 20, 22 f., 41, 51, 57, 59, 63 f., 69 f., 104–106, 123–127, 132, 134, 193–195, 197 f., 200–203, 211, 214, 246 resistance 22, 39, 45, 50, 56, 63 f., 87, 89, 105, 143, 145, 172, 211 f., 221 resources 15, 64, 105, 125, 131, 167, 181 f., 188 f., 193, 195, 199–201, 209–214, 219 responsibility 26, 31 f., 66, 115, 121, 145, 152, 166, 177, 179, 185, 187–194, 198, 201, 220, 247, 250–255 responsive state 185, 187, 191, 194–201 restorative justice 79, 147–149, 153–156, 160 resurrection 19, 31, 35 f., 40, 44, 47–53, 55–57, 67, 170, 240, 255 f. Rhine River 102 Ricoeur, Paul 44, 113, 236 risk 7, 17 f., 23 f., 26–28, 31 f., 37, 41–49, 53, 56, 59–61, 67, 69, 73, 80–82, 84, 104 f., 126–129, 136, 140, 196, 207 f., 210, 214, 221, 225–227, 230, 235, 243–251, 253–256 risk management 61, 69, 248 risk society 61, 128, 243 f., 246–249, 252, 256 risk sociology 243 f., 253, 256 sacrifice 37, 46, 49, 62–64, 86, 149, 174 salutogenic 207 f., 210–212 Schadenfreude 137, 142 f., 145 f. Schleiermacher, Friedrich 54 self 27, 29 f., 37, 42 f., 45, 47, 49, 53–55, 66 f., 71, 74–77, 80–82, 88, 90, 104, 112–117, 119 f., 123, 126, 134, 136, 143, 145, 147, 157 f., 165, 168 f., 173 f.,

263

177–179, 183, 186, 211–214, 217 f., 221 f., 224, 227, 229 f., 236, 238, 240, 244, 253 sense of coherence 212 f. shame 19 f., 28 f., 32, 60, 78, 110, 148, 156, 170, 216 Shekhinah 96 Siegfried (myth) 20, 43 sin 15, 19, 25, 29, 46 f., 56, 63, 88, 90, 93, 95–101, 104, 119 f., 144, 169, 176, 178 f. social imaginaries 112, 175 social injustice 135, 137, 141 f., 172 social justice 116, 132, 161, 172, 177, 185 f., 190 f., 195, 203, 210, 250 society 17, 60 f., 94, 103, 111–120, 131, 142–144, 151, 175 f., 185–189, 191–193, 197–201, 203, 209, 243, 247, 250, 252, 256 solidarity 81, 123, 132 f., 166, 172, 178, 181, 192, 249–251, 256 Sölle, Dorothee 15, 21 soul 17, 31, 62, 113, 115, 118, 137–141, 224 Spinoza 115 f. Spirit 8, 13, 17, 21, 31, 35, 48–53, 56 f., 64, 66, 89, 235, 251 stoic 20, 43 f., 50, 110, 113 f. stress 104, 106, 126, 135, 149, 207, 210–214 subjectivity, relational 43, 168, 177, 179, 219 subjectivity, sovereign 43, 168, 177, 179, 216 f., 219 suffering 15, 17 f., 24, 30, 32, 35–42, 45 f., 49–57, 62–64, 66, 81 f., 88, 91–93, 104, 118, 121, 135, 142, 158, 171, 176 f., 186, 188, 209, 229 f., 236, 238–240 Sunflower Movement 144 f. susceptibility 19, 21–23, 26, 31, 59, 64–67, 104 f., 169, 181, 215, 217, 225–227, 243, 248, 250 system 7 f., 30, 43, 60 f., 68, 91 f., 115, 120, 123–132, 137, 140 f., 143–145,

264

Index

167, 172, 174, 185, 187–190, 192, 198, 208, 211, 214, 244, 246, 251 f., 254 f. Taiwan 8, 135, 144 f., 257 Talmud 94 terrorism 61, 143 theologia crucis 15 theopolitics 123, 129, 132 time 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 27–33, 36, 40–43, 49, 51, 54, 59 f., 64, 66, 68, 72 f., 75–77, 80, 84–86, 90, 97–99, 101–105, 109 f., 113, 115, 120, 124, 126 f., 129, 132 f., 138, 141, 148, 150, 155 f., 161, 166, 169, 171, 173 f., 176, 180, 186, 189 f., 193, 195, 199, 210, 212, 215, 217, 219 f., 223, 229 f., 233, 236, 238, 240, 246–248 transformation 17, 19, 21 f., 26, 31, 40, 42, 47 f., 50 f., 53, 59, 63–70, 81, 121, 132, 146, 161, 166, 174, 176, 178, 180, 221, 224 trauma 7, 13–15, 22, 28, 62 f., 70, 79, 211, 214, 237 Trinity 15, 56, 81, 217, 221 f. Tzimtzum (contraction) 96 utilitarianism

148–151

value 7, 14, 17, 19, 23–26, 32 f., 89, 114 f., 127, 129–131, 141, 147, 153, 155, 174, 182, 185, 187–190, 197, 199, 209, 214, 241 victimization 15, 43, 46, 48 f., 154 violence 7, 13 f., 17 f., 26 f., 35, 37, 40, 44–51, 53, 55 f., 61, 71, 89–91, 140, 143, 147–149, 153 f., 158, 160–162, 182, 216–220, 224, 227, 235 vitality 13, 16, 19, 21 f., 24 f., 33 vulnerability 7–9, 13–33, 35–38, 40–49, 51–57, 59 f., 63–73, 75–81, 84–95, 97, 99 f., 103–106, 109–117, 119, 121, 123–129, 131–133, 135–137, 139–153, 156–158, 160–162, 165–172, 175–177, 179, 181–183, 185, 187, 190–198,

200–203, 207–209, 211–233, 236–241, 243–249, 251, 253 f., 256 f. – asymmetric vulnerability 76, 219, 224 – divine vulnerability 19, 28, 32, 35 f., 44, 46, 53–57, 73, 80 f., 93, 97, 104 – ethical vulnerability 7, 147–154, 159–162 – fundamental vulnerability 17, 21, 23, 72 f., 79, 135, 173 – health-related vulnerability 208, 210, 214 – modes of vulnerability 110, 112 f., 116 – ontological vulnerability 17 f., 25, 33, 42, 53, 127–129, 135 f., 161, 215 – phenomena of vulnerability 14, 16, 25 f., 72 f., 78, 167 – political vulnerability 145 – scale of vulnerability 136 – situated vulnerability 18 f., 23–26, 28–30, 71–73, 78 f. – susceptibility to being changed 59, 64, 69 f., 256 – transitive vulnerability 81 vulnerability analysis 187, 195–197, 200, 202 f. Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative 191 f. vulnerable subject 30, 41, 43, 72 f., 79, 191 f., 195 f., 198 f., 201, 220 weakness 17, 23, 38–41, 63, 67, 83, 85, 120 f., 127, 147, 150, 222 Welch, Sharon 254 f. well-being 61 f., 65 f., 151, 188, 192, 209–214, 236 Whitehead, Alfred North 52, 123 f., 131, 208 wholeness 87, 207 Worms 65, 101, 103 wounds 18, 20, 32, 35, 37, 63, 81, 141 f., 153, 158, 168, 170, 225, 227, 229–235, 237, 239 f.