On Thinking the Human: Resolutions of Difficult Notions

Rating:
Summary: From Philosophical Theology to Theological Philosophy
Review: This is without doubt the most stimulating book I have read in months. Lutheran Theologian, Robert Jenson offers an amazing discussion of crucial issues in philosophy, death consciousness, freedom, reality, wickedness and love. These issues have been enschrined in western (and eastern) philosophy for centuries as some of the cental questions of human existence. Jenson revisits these issues to examine what it might mean to "think the human" from a distinctly Christian theological perspective. For Jenson this means that in order for us to properly think about what it means to be human, we must immediately look beyond the human to the Trinue God who is the creator and ground of all created being.

Thus, Jenson begins to engage all of his topics from a decidedly trintarian point of view. Through a trintarian understanding of death grounded in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are able to understand and think about death. Death is not seen merely as the loss of consiciousness (how could one really contemplate nonbeing anyway?), but rather as a reality that does not impede conscious participation in the triune life of God. The death and resurrection of Christ teaches us that our cessation in death is not the last word, but is rather woven by the power of God into the communion of the trinitarian life.

Jenson's comments on consicousness are similarly focused. Over-against the Cartesian understanding of consciousness as an indubitable foundation for all knowledge, Jenson shows how consiousness only makes sense when understood as participation in the intersubjective conscionsness of the Trinity. This understanding of consciousness-in-community by extension leads to the affirmation that our participation in the church, the archtypal form of created community is likewise constitutive for consciousness.

Jenson then moves on to discuss the much-debated topic of free will. Again, Jenson's understanding of the Trinitarian relationships of the Father, Son and Spirit as freedom-in-community allow him to overcome the usual free choice vs. determinism debates. As Jenson understands the matter, freedom consists in life-in -communion as typifiied in the Trinity. As such, conventional understandings of freedom as the ability to be the tyrant of our own desires is rejected for communion with God and others which is true freedom. As Jenson says, "What we do not need and cannot have and should not want is "the" free will - unless by that we simply mean God." (p. 45).

Jensn then moves to engage the question of how we know reality. He then goes on to argue that knowing and loving cannot be seperated, and therefore to know reality we must know it in an intersubjective encounter of love. This again flows from the Trinity, which is the true and ultimate reality. Thus, since in the Trinity the three persons exist together in a harmonious community of intersubjective relationality, the only true way to apprehend reality is to to be touched by it through love. To attempt to understand reality in a disinterested or "objective" fashion is thus a temporary tactic that has no real promise at best and a sinful objectification and violation of the 'other' at worst. Thus, as Jenson says, "We grasp reality when we are lovingly touched by it." (p. 58).

Jenson then goes on to look at the concept of wickedness. He observes essentially that wickedness emerges at the intersections between different communities wherein the proper end of human community (participation in the Trinitarian communion) is violated. While created communities should not conflcit with one another, given God's creational intent for humanity, because of sin such conflicts occur and thus the infliction of death and nothingness occurs. This is the essence of wickedness, pure negation and absence. Wickedness is the denial and loss of the communion to which humans are called by the triune God.

Finally, Jenson looks at the concept of love. He notes how love is both to give and to desire. How this strange combination is to be reconciled and the possibility for love to actually occur between persons is the crucial issue. Jenson shows how relationships tend to fall short of the "I-Thou" relationality to which they aspire. The two persons tend to objectify one another and strive for "hegemony." The answer to this as Jenson points out is a "Thrid Party" who liberates the other two persons to love one another. This Third Party becomes the "agent" of the "I-Thou" relationship and thus desire and gift do not overturn one another and the "I-Thou" relationship is maintained in a "sociality of harmonious difference" (as Milbank was put it). This is, of course the contribution of the Christian doctrine of the Spirit in the Trinity. The Spirit is the "Third Party" who frees the Father and Son to love one another by being the agent of their love. This in turn answers the question of how humans can truly love one anther. For it is the Spirit who constitutes the church and frees alienated people to love one another.

This insight on the role of the Spirit in the Trinity is the best and most cogent explation that I have ever read anywhere. One question that Jeson does not pick up on that I find curious is if we can extend this idea of the "I-Thou" relationship completed by the "Third Party." Could it not also be argued that the three persons all assume the "Third Party" position at different points in relation to each other? Could we say not only that the Spirit liberates the Father and Son to love one another, but that the Son liberates the Father and the Spirit in relation to one another to work in perichoretic harmony as perhaps evidenced in Christ's asking the Father to send the Spirit to his disciples? Could we not also concieve that the Father in like manner liberates the Spirit and the Son to relate to one another in perichoretic harmony as evidenced by the Father's sending of the Spirit to uphold and establish the Son in his incarnation.

In brief, I wonder if we can use Jenson's brilliant understanding of the "Third Party" to construct a model wherein not only the Spirit but the Father and Son also mediate the relationship of the other persons of the Trinity. Thus the Spirit mediates the love of the Father and Son, the Son mediates the love of the Father and the Spirit and the Father mediates the love of the Spirit and the Son. This, I think is a more perichoretic model and maintians the full equality and divinity of the three persons more effectively. And, Jenson I think has opened the door to just such an understanding of the Trinity.

As I said above, I found this to be the most stimulating book I have encountered in some time. I highly recommend it.