Edith Stein - A Modern Traditional

‘[Love] is entirely turned towards God, but the created spirit embraces also itself in knowledge, bliss and self-acceptance. The surrender to God is at the same time surrender to one’s own self as loved by God and to the whole of creation.’ (Edith Stein)

Edith Stein around 1920

The International Association for the Study of the Philosophy of Edith Stein (IASPES) recently met in Vienna and Heiligenkreuz for an international conference with the theme of Edith Steins Challenge to Contemporary Anthropology. It opened with references to Edith Stein’s anthropology that go against the grain of what is commonly accepted in contemporary discourse on the human person: according to Stein, who gave much thought to the question of gender, men have a natural vocation to exercise dominion over the world, while women’s vocation lies in companionship and motherhood, both of which can be purely spiritual but will often find expression in marriage and childbirth. As Stein’s ‘anthropology of difference’ was further described, women are entrusted with all that is good and beautiful in the human being and, by implication, with fighting evil. Nature has predisposed them towards dealing with humans and concerning themselves more with the bigger whole, while men are more oriented towards things, and lose their humanity more easily (Zyzak).

In light of these views, which may resonate with everyday experience but which are nonetheless scientifically tenuous and politically taboo, it may seem hard to see where Stein could even begin to enter into a conversation with contemporary anthropology. However, as subsequent papers made manifest, Stein’s anthropology is more subtle and complex than this first, provocative glimpse might suggest.

As the above remarks may already suggest, Stein holds on to a notion of human nature or ‘essence’. However, she does not understand this in terms of identical characteristics displayed by all individuals of a species. As one conference paper argued, her combination of traditional and phenomenological accounts of essence much rather leads her to understand human essence in terms of ‘a myriad of overlapping potencies’, only ‘some of which are temporally unfolded in actual being’ (Gricoski). One implication of this is that, according to Stein, a woman’s vocation cannot for instance be reduced to that of (biological or spiritual) motherhood. Indeed, for each woman this natural vocation may not only unfold very differently but may also play a relatively more or less central role, alongside other more pronounced aspects of her essence.

This view is related also to another aspect of Stein’s thought, her interest in the person’s development as an individual. Here, too, Stein challenges modern thought without dismissing it tout court. She rejects the idea that we bestow value on the world and can thus autonomously create ourselves. According to Stein, value is much rather intrinsic to existence, including our own. Our individuality, which she characterises as something deeply mysterious, fully emerges where we enter into relation with what is given, where we receive this, let it resonate within us, respond to it and, in the process, allow it to shape us. Through such an encounter, wherein reality reveals its intrinsic value, we come to recognise our own value, and discover our self as loved by the source of all value, God. Stein’s path to individuality, then, is one of surrender, discovery and, above all, relationship with world, God and self. Our individual essence is revealed and handed to us, through an encounter with what lies outside of us.

Edith Stein, late 1941/early 1942

This leads us back to the question of gender. Stein acknowledges that it is difficult to separate between those aspects of our gendered existence which are an innate part of our essence and those which are culturally imposed. This is all the more the case as the potencies which belong to our essence are ‘temporally unfolded’ precisely—and only—through our relationship with the external world (Gricoski). By virtue of such modest acknowledgements, and by embedding our humanity in a productive tension of relationship and individuality, of surrender and transcendence, of what is given and what is in the process of becoming, Stein’s anthropology may take us some way towards challenging the ‘either-or’s that Christian and postmodern discussions of the human person sometimes seem to present us with. For, Stein does not simply turn away from traditional Christian concepts such as human essence, surrender to the other, or a vocation specific to our gender. Yet by approaching these concepts both from a traditionally Thomistic and a phenomenological perspective, she nuances them in a way that might convince even the modern skeptic.

The Tree of Life: lifeless human superiority or life embracing growth?

By Tom Uytterhoeven

Research is an intellectual adventure, or so they say. In this blog post I would like to report on a recent episode in my personal adventure, in which I lost the safety of a trusted assumption, and experienced the thrill of discovering new ideas, without yet knowing where these ideas will bring me.

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One of the theological metaphors that inspired my research into the theological relevance of evolutionary studies of religion, is that of kinship. Philip Hefner uses this metaphor in his book The Human Factor (1993) to express the close relationship between humanity and the rest of the global ecological community, a relationship he believes religion could and should make us more aware of. Until recently I was convinced this metaphor remedied a problematic interpretation of another metaphor used to capture the essence of Darwinism: the Tree of Life. Now, I have my doubts.

From tree and human superiority...

It started as a sketch in a notebook, drawn around 1837. What gave the picture of a Tree of Life, when it appeared in the first edition of the Origin of Species, an enduring appeal is that by using only a few lines, Darwin seemed to capture the essence of his ideas. Following the tree from its roots to its top, one can see the tree’s branches and twigs as species, emerging and flourishing until they faced extinction, along the way giving birth to other species. Moreover, the Tree of Life shows us that all life forms on Earth are related. Despite their apparent diversity in appearance, they all share the same roots.

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Although it is interesting to see, for instance, how others before Darwin developed ‘Tree of Life’ schemata to indicate the interconnectedness of life, and how it is related to the Great Chain of Being, I want to focus here on one feature of the 'Tree of Life' metaphor which limits its metaphorical power, or, rather, which allows the metaphor to guide our thinking into an anthropocentric trap: as all trees do, a Tree of Life grows. Growth is easily associated with going upwards, in the direction of the sunlight shining down on the branches and twigs of the tree. And this, in turn, implies that the higher branches are the newest, the freshest, the greenest, in sum, the best branches of the tree. This becomes apparent in quite a few later variants on Darwin’s original sketch, in which the human species is placed on top of the tree.

Even in modern models, the human species is still often placed in a special corner. These anthropocentric depictions of Darwin’s Tree of Life are remarkable, since there is no scientific basis to give humanity an exceptional status. For as we know, there is no goal, no direction to natural selection and there is no meaning in evolution other than the survival of life, in whatever form.

... to circle and kinship?

Some current models of the Tree of Life avoid this explicit anthropocentrism by turning the phylogenetic tree into a circle. Species are placed on the circle according to their genetic relationship to each other. The closer together two species are situated in the model, the more genetic material they share. This seems to steer us away from anthropocentric interpretations of evolutionary history and to help us recognize our shared ancestry with other species. A good example of the latter is Nancy Howell’s article 'The Importance of Being Chimp'. Howell emphasizes the close genetic relationship with primates and identifies five topics which she believes theological anthropology should focus on: (1) culture-nature dualism, (2) continuity and discontinuity between humanity and other species, (3) using humanity as a measure for evaluating animal abilities, (4) the definition of personhood, and (5) morality and sin.

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Far from criticizing her proposals, or similar ones, like Hefner's, that work with the same basic kinship metaphor, I nevertheless wonder whether this exchange of a tree reaching for the sky with a circle focusing on relations within allows us to take enough distance from the idea that the human species finds itself superior at the top of the tree, closest to the sun.

Destabilizing suggestions from anthropology: from lifeless to life embracing growth

For me, this question presented itself while reading Beyond Nature and Culture, a book by Philippe Descola (2013). Descola identifies four different types of perceiving the relation between humanity and nature: analogical, animistic, totemistic, and naturalistic. It would take us too far to discuss each type in depth, but it suffices here to know that they result from different combinations of perceived continuity and discontinuity between humans and nature (plants, animals, inanimate nature). What, to me at least, is both most interesting and most disturbing - in the sense of challenging my own assumptions -, is the fact that Descola refers to these types as four different ontologies, and, even more, sees naturalism - the ontology we are accustomed to - as only a recent and geographically limited one.

Reading his analysis resulted in questioning the rigid border between ‘the natural’ and ‘the cultural’, and made me aware how this boundary is easily taken to represent a qualitative leap from the former to the latter that places the human species as the species with culture again at the top. The assumption of such a border and leap is a consequence of how particular ontological axioms restrict our view rather than a consequence of taking empirical facts into account. Reading Descola, I also started wondering whether Hefner’s kinship metaphor, which in turn builds on a non-anthropocentric interpretation of the Tree of Life metaphor (see the circular model above), might be sufficient to express the close intertwinement of humanity with nature - and vice versa. Maybe we need other metaphors to express what it means to be aware of the evolutionary history of the human species, including its membership of the global ecological community.

However, reading Tim Ingold's article 'On the Distinction between Evolution and History' I came across his concept of ‘growth’ that differs radically from the rather abstract understanding that informs our usual reading of the Darwinian Tree of life and even that of the circle models of kinship. He writes:

If human beings on the one hand, and plants and animals on the other, can be regarded alternately as components of each others’ environments, then we can no longer think of the former as inhabiting a social world of their own, over and above the world of nature in which the lives of all other living things are contained. Rather, both humans and the animals and plants on which they depend for a livelihood must be regarded as fellow participants in the same world. And the forms that all these creatures take are neither given in advance nor imposed from above, but emerge within the relational contexts of this mutual involvement. In short, human beings do not, in their productive activity, transform the world; instead they play their part, alongside beings of other kinds, in the world’s transformation of itself. It is to this process of self-transformation that I refer by the concept of growth.

When reading this, it appealed to me because of its parallels with the evolutionary concept of ecological niche construction, which also stresses the multiple feedback relations between all living and non-living elements of the ecological web. What seems still missing in the latter, is this perception of life as a process of self-transformation of the world, or as the growth of the world. 

It will take more research and (self-)reflection to discover the possibilities and limits of this concept of growth for theological anthropology. But it seems to suggest that, minimally, we learn to see the Tree of Life differently. Not as lines indicating an upward movement towards a top position but through a focus on that which grows in a growing world: the tree as a whole, alive in a living reality. Perhaps the following two pictures, the first an artistic interpretation of ‘the tree of life’, the other a Christian meditation on Easter, clarify somewhat what I think this could mean.                                

Reflections on God and Deep History

Last month a new museum opened its doors in France. It exhibits a rather peculiar collection of art, since all of its works are copies. A team of artists and scientists devoted all their effort to produce meticulously resemblances of the originals. These originals were made as early as 35000 years ago, in a cave we now know as the Chauvet Cave named after one of its discoverers. Soon after its discovery, it was decided to close the cave from the public to protect the fragile, unique pieces of art it had shielded for so long from decay.

When visiting the cave, even if only online, one cannot but be in awe for what our ancestors, in the harsh conditions in which they lived their short lives, were able to create. We enter a world very different from ours when we engage with paintings of large animals, abstract shapes or mysterious figures. But even if we were to be able to enter a prehistoric mind, the cave world would still be a peculiar world, distinct in nature from the world outside. It would represent a symbolic world, with as many complex layers of meaning as we find in, for example, the Sistine Chapel. Can we do more than merely entering this symbolic world physically? Can we somehow grasp something of the original astonishment of life from which this art emerged?

The ability to create and use symbols is, according to Terrence Deacon, a distinctive feature of the human species. The debate about whether we should see the relation between humanity and the natural world as 'continuity' or 'discontinuity' is beyond the scope of this blog post, although it is a highly interesting one. One could for instance question whether thinking in terms of species-specificity is really helpful in thinking about what it means to be human. Does species-thinking imply a dichotomy between ‘the human’ and ‘nature’? Instead of taking up questions like these, this blogpost will briefly discuss another aspect of the notion that we are a symbolic species, namely the question of whether we can somehow see a connection between us, modern humans, and the prehistoric artists who gave us the Chauvet paintings.

Jan-Olav Henriksen argues that theology should review its concepts from the perspective of 'deep history', or, briefly, from the perspective of the evolutionary origins of our species. Taking this perspective leads, according to Henriksen, to the question of 'where to draw the line':

"(…), how are we to understand the fate of all those living beings who lived prior to Christ, and who were part of the earlier stages of human history - including the stages before there was anything like "organized" or assembled and traditioned religion?" (Henriksen 2014, 861) Henriksen agrees with Deacon's analysis on the importance of the capacity of symbols, making the observation that "Symbols may change lives and make history." (Henriksen 2014, 863)

But he is reluctant to see this capacity as necessary for the communication between God and human beings. That would lead, he thinks, to the unwarranted conclusion that for instance people with autism spectrum disorder are not in relation with God, in other words, that these people are on the wrong side of the line. What Henriksen argues for, is a gradual approach. God calls all living beings, he suggests, and "all living beings are able to relate to God on the basis of their given capacities - in different modes, manners, and ways." (Henriksen 2014, 864) Although much more can be said on the theme of inclusiveness and on capacity-thinking, Henriksen’s approach seems to allow for a more inclusive view on salvation history.

There is a wonderful story in the Bible that might suggest Henriksen's proposals are worth further consideration. The closing pericope of Matthew 14, 22-31, reads as follows:

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

There is much to say about this story, but of particular relevance here is that we see is how Christ always awaits us right at the point where we think we cannot go further, to reach out and catch us. As Henriksen holds, "there is no need to draw any "lines" that exclude part of creation from this work." (Henriksen 2014, 869)

Might this help us emphatize with the people who lived in the symbolic world of the Chauvet cave? These are the people to which Denis Edwards refers, when he writes:

"(…) we can think of our ancient forbears coming to self-consciousness in a world that was already a world of grace. Of course it would also have been a world of danger and fear. Our ancestors must have come to consciousness in a world that was extremely threatening. Perhaps their rituals and myths can be seen both as a way of taming the terrors of life and as an attempt to give expression to the experience of a grace."

This suggests divine grace to be enfolding human evolution, from the very beginning. Darwin once said, about his theory of evolution, that: "There is grandeur in this view of life". Could we, from a theological perspective, say that: “There is mercy in this view of the deep history of the relation between God and creation, between God and humanity”?

Call for papers: Re-Imagining Human

Anthropos Research Group is co-organizing the 17th Biennial Conference for the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture. It will take place at the Faculties of Theology and Arts, KU Leuven, 18-20 September 2014.

In 2014 we remember the beginning of the Great War, emblematic of the catastrophes that scattered every humanist illusion in the twentieth century. Our conference will take up the challenge of retrieving a sense of humanity. Re-Imagining Human wants to invite every participant to rethink the meaning of whatever ‘human’ might be. The omission of the definite article means exactly this: no ‘the’, no definition, no containment.

Contemporary culture and theory seem to be moving in two directions. One response is an embrace of the human condition as radical finitude and vulnerability. In literature and the arts, this finds expression, for example, in new forms of requiem and vanitas motifs. A multitude of voices from gender theory, post-colonialism, trauma studies, disability studies and theological anthropology are critical of the Modern view of ‘human’ for its denial of corporality, materiality and historicity, which are markers of human frailty and mortality.

A second trend aims at transcending our human limits. Both “high literature” (e.g., C.S. Lewis, Michel Tournier, David Mitchell, etc.) and popular culture (films, graphic novels, etc.) are crowded with golems, zombies, cyborgs, vampires, and other sub-human or super-human creatures. This imagination resonates partly with bio-medical dreams of a post-humanist future. Will technology realize ancient religious visions of human perfection? Or is it feeding phantasms that endanger our very being? Another challenge is the emergence of disciplines like genomics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology: will the human mystery finally be deciphered?

Both the recognition of vulnerability and the search for transcendence are often motivated by a commitment to the humane. Re-imagining human, between the defective and the heroic (or in German, Mängelwesen and Übermensch), provokes key terms of religious anthropologies – creation and fall, contingency and the absolute, kenosis and resurrection, sin and redemption, damnation and grace, etc.

The conference theme is Re-Imagining Human.The organization welcomes paper proposals by April 30, 2014. See conference site.