Any hierarchical structure is inherently a power
structure, and any power structure inexorably transforms distinctions into
dualisms.
Sexual stereotypes provide an obvious example. There are physical differences between men
and women, but, in one of his Epistles, Paul insists that, in a form of life
centered in Jesus, these differences do not matter. ("In Christ Jesus, there is neither male
nor female,...") Throughout
history, however, the strand in the Catholic tradition which envisions a
hierarchically structured natural order has transformed these differences into
a pernicious dualism which effectively subjects females to males. For a particularly outrageous example, see
Aquinas on the subject. And today, see
the violence which permeates life in an institution in which members of the
Hierarchy use their position of power to prohibit discussion of the possibility
of ordaining women to the priesthood.
(Addendum:
Aquinas baptized Aristotle’s hierarchically structured metaphysical
system as the philosophical framework for a systematic theology which
impregnated ecclesiology and ethics with a juridical structure. Today, that structure is glaringly apparent
in the argument that, in the Church, no woman can occupy a position in which she would exercise
jurisdiction over ordained males. It is
more insidiously present in members of the Catholic Hierarchy like Archbishop
Burke who act as though they were divinely commissioned to enforce a legalistic
interpretation of Canon Law.)
A more insidious example can be found in the role
played by Augustine’s harsh doctrine of original sin in the meta-narrative that
frames theologies of transcendence. As
later reflections will emphasize, this meta-narrative implies that the eternal
Word would not have become incarnate if Adam had not sinned. As its starting point, it accepts Augustine’s
violent misreading of the story of Adam and Eve as a history which reports that
Adam’s transgression of Yahweh’s prohibition against moral discourse completely
severed a natural relationship between Creator and creation and left Adam and
his offspring inescapably corrupt. For
centuries, this doctrine has been used to argue that ecclesiastical and civil authorities
were divinely ordained to control "fallen human beings". (This is only one of the pernicious
consequences of the dualism enshrined in the doctrine of the Fall from grace.)
My rejection of Augustine’s misreading is based on a
reading of the same story through a code implicit in Ong’s delineation of the
transition from orality to literacy as the foundation of culture in ancient Greece and ancient Israel . It respects details in the story which
Augustine ignores. Thus, in the story,
Yahweh’s prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil imposes a power structure on his involvement with Adam. In effect, Yahweh insists on being the sole
arbiter of good and evil. In the next
significant detail in the story, Yahweh is puzzled by Adam’s loneliness. To remedy the situation, he institutes a
limited sharing of power. He retains
power over moral discourse, but endows Adam with power over animals. Once again, he is puzzled, since Adam is
still lonely. This time, he forms Eve. On her part, Eve realizes that loneliness is
inevitable in relationships governed by a power-structure. As the text notes, she sees the fruits of the
tree as a conferral of wisdom. Implicitly,
she realizes that human discourse is moral discourse and that grounding moral
discourse in a metaphor of power and judgment stifles the longing and aborts
the quest for deepening person-to-person involvements.
In Christian
Ethics: An Ethics of Intimacy, I
insist that this story provided a literary framework for the metaphors of the prophets
who insisted that God’s moral will spoke in and through the cries of the
oppressed, marginalized, silenced and outcast, not through Laws given in
theophanies. I also show that my reading
of this story is fully compatible with the incarnational theology encoded in
the Prologue of John. In this theology,
the eternal Word is central to the intimate life shared by the three Persons in
the Trinity, to the act of creation, to human history and to the lives of
unique individuals. The Incarnation,
then, is not a response to a Fall defined by Augustine’s doctrine of original
sin. Rather, the Word became fully human while remaining fully God because this
is the only way that even God could share fully in our lives.
Note well: An
incarnational theology voices a passionate rejection of hierarchically
structured theologies of transcendence.
By extension, it replaces the power-structure of such theologies with a
narrative-structure which invites all human beings to co-author the full story
of the Incarnate Word.
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