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Durham E-Theses Suering, Tragedy, Vulnerability: A Triangulated Examination of the DivineHuman Relationship in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Rowan Williams, and Sarah Coakley CHA, BORAM How to cite: CHA, BORAM (2019) Suering, Tragedy, Vulnerability: A Triangulated Examination of the DivineHuman Relationship in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Rowan Williams, and Sarah Coakley, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13372/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Abstract Suffering, Tragedy, Vulnerability A Triangulated Examination of the Divine–Human Relationship in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Rowan Williams, and Sarah Coakley Boram Cha The present thesis puts the trinitarianism, christology, and anthropology of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s kenotic theology, Rowan Williams’s tragic theology, and Sarah Coakley’s ascetic theology into critical and triangulated conversation: in order to argue that suffering and death is ontologized at the same level as love and life in God in the kenotic trinitarianism of Balthasar; that the tragic is given an ontological value in the tragic imagination of Williams; and that vulnerability is essentialized in the ascetic spirituality of Coakley. I will argue that, on the whole, their arguments tend to put a positive light on the darkness of suffering as that which proves to be christologically meaningful, and portray the divine–human relationship competitively in a shared proclivity for emphasizing Jesus’s cry of dereliction on the cross (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”). A concern that moves the tripartite chapters forwards is to examine how these three respected thinkers are inclined more or less to conceive the divine–human encounter and the God–world relation competitively, and to show how that unfortunate conception serves to sacralize suffering, tragedy, and vulnerability in their accounts of divine–human relationship. In this context, I will consent to Coakley’s critique that the classical understanding of non-competitive divine–human relation is undermined in Balthasar’s kenotic theo-dramatics; and I will argue that although a non- competitive account is formally affirmed and espoused by Williams as well as Coakley, it is effectively operative neither in Williams’s tragic imagination nor in Coakley’s kneeling practice. What a non-competitive account of divine–human relations means is gradually fleshed out, with recurrent references to Kathryn Tanner, over the course of the thesis. It is given fuller expression in the final chapter’s examination of the coincidence of divine–human goodness implied in the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, albeit without intending to delve into specialist knowledge. Suffering, Tragedy, Vulnerability A Triangulated Examination of the Divine–Human Relationship in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Rowan Williams, and Sarah Coakley Boram Cha Thesis submitted to the University of Durham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Research conducted in the Department of Theology and Religion 2019 Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Kenosis and Suffering in the Kenotic Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar 6 Introduction: The Event of Love in God as Balthasar’s Middle Way 6 The Threefold Movement of the Theo-Dramatic Kenosis of God 10 Trinitarian Kenosis: The Procession of the Son 11 Redemptive Kenosis: The Mission of the Son 13 Creative Kenosis: The Creation of the World 17 The God–World Relation in Theo-Drama 18 Divine Immutability and Scripture 18 The Contrast between Divine Transcendence and Immanence 21 Kenosis, Otherness, and Competition: Balthasar, Williams, and Coakley 23 The Suffering and Death of Christ in the Trinity 30 Suffering and Death Latent and Implicit in God 30 Christ Suffering “Passibly” in the Divine Nature 36 Visualizing Eternal Suffering and Death of God: “The Lamb Slain” 40 “The Lamb Slain” as a Pivotal Johannine Image 40 The Twofold “Johannine” Image 41 The Revelation of John: Slain “before the Foundation of the World” 42 The Gospel of John: Kenotic Paradox of Mission Christology 43 The Temporal Wound of Christ and the Eternal Wound in the Trinity 51 Sin and Evil in Relation to God: Balthasar, Williams, and Coakley 55 Locating Sin and Evil in God: The “Real” Relation of the World to God 55 Explaining Sin and Evil: A Theodicean Approach 59 Finding Divine Meaning in Every Suffering 62 Chapter 2. Tragedy and Dereliction in the Tragic Theology of Rowan Williams 67 Introduction: Williams and the Tragic 67 Johannine Tragic Irony and the Petrine Pattern of Growth 72 Tragic Irony in the Gospel of John 72 Tragic Irony as Misrecognition and Rejection 75 The Petrine Pattern of Growth from Failure to Renewal 77 Complicity and Mourning in Time: Donald MacKinnon and Gillian Rose 82 Not Wiping Away but Weeping Endlessly 89 Johannine Comic Irony and the Un-Petrine Pattern of Growth 91 Comic Irony as Recognition and Reception 91 The Un-Petrine Pattern of Growth: Mary Magdalene and the Beloved Disciple 93 Ontologizing the Tragic 97 The Cry of Dereliction and Self-Dispossession 103 The Paradox of Dereliction and Intimacy in the Gospel of John 105 Unfaded Love and Unbroken Unity in the Gospel of John 109 The Cry of Dereliction in the Divine Identity 113 The Freudian Projection of Self-Interest onto God 116 The Triune Metaphysics of Self-Dispossession and the Human Ethics of Self-Dispossession 118 The Eternal Deflections of Divine Desire as Divine Self-Dispossession 126 Chapter 3. Vulnerability and Competition in the Ascetic Theology of Sarah Coakley 129 Introduction: Situating Coakley’s Idea of Vulnerability 130 In Comparison with Judith Butler 130 In the Context of Balthasar and Feminism 133 The Paradox of Human Vulnerability and Divine Omnipotence/Empowerment 137 The Prioritization and Fertilization of Human Vulnerability to God 137 The Priority and Efficacy of the Divine Gift in Philippians 2: John Barclay on Pauline Divine Gift 141 The Competition between Divine Coerciveness and Human Vulnerability 145 The Non-Competitive Relation of Divine and Created Goodness: A Preliminary Reflection 151 Created Dependence on God as Ascetic Vulnerability to God 153 The Departure from Creation ex nihilo towards the Cry of Dereliction 154 Ascetic Cruciformity to the Suffering of Christ in Romans 8 157 Created Dependence on God: From the View of Creation ex nihilo 162 Creation ex nihilo and Scripture 163 The Non-Competition and Goodness of Divine Gift and the Gratitude of Human Reception 164 Dependence as Vulnerability or Union: Interpretations of John of the Cross 169 Dependence as Vulnerability in Darkness: Coakley and Williams 169 Dependence as Union with the Creator: David Burrell 174 Conclusion 182 Bibliography 185 Statement of copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published in any format, including electronic and the Internet, without the author’s prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately. Acknowledgement “Placing his hand on mine, smiling at me in such a way that I was reassured, he led me in, into those mysteries.” I am indebted to many for their support and assistance in writing the present doctoral thesis. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my Doktormutter, Professor Karen Kilby, Bede Chair in Catholic Theology, for her academic guidance, pastoral counselling, and practical advice, without which I could not perhaps get through seemingly impenetrable crises and traps. She has shepherded me into the world of the academic community and taken me new heights in such a way that I was reassured. She not only showed a great interest in my dissertation on Hans Urs von Balthasar but has also encouraged me to broaden it into a triangulated conversation with Rowan Williams and Sarah Coakley and inspired me to deepen it with a particular perspective of suffering. And she also led me to apply for Durham Catholic Studies Scholarship in the second and third years of my doctoral research, during which I thankfully relieved from a huge burden by the Catherine McAuley and Mary Ward Scholarships from Durham Centre for Catholic Studies. I am also thankful to Mark McIntosh and Simon Oliver, the former and the present Van Mildert Professors of Divinity. They have fostered me with profound depths of theological contemplation and liturgical exegesis from pulpits of Durham Cathedral and brightened every winter season with a generous endowment of Barry Scholarship in Divinity. Particular thanks are due to the retired and present Anglican Bishops of Seoul, respectively, Paul Kim who encouraged me to embark on a doctoral study abroad, and Peter Lee who has heartened me to complete it. And the Diocesan Education Fund that they have supplied me with has enabled me to gain access to a variety of resource necessary for my research. I am much obliged to Revd Dr Jeremiah Guen Seok Yang who has upheld me throughout from the time of Anglican ordinand in Seoul and until the moment I have completed doctoral research in Durham. He has not only nurtured me with profound theological insights and knowledge but also shown me an example of practising virtue with courtesy.
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