A Christian Ontology of the Flesh: Word, Symbol, Performance
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A Christian Ontology of the Flesh: Word, Symbol, Performance Rozelle Bosch Jesus College September 2019 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Declaration of Originality and Statement of Length This thesis is the result of my work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or other University of similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It does not exceed the prescribed word limit for the relevant Degree Committee. This thesis totals 80 500 words in length. 2 A Christian Ontology of the Flesh: Word, Symbol, Performance Rozelle Bosch Maurice Merleau-Ponty responded to the loss of the body in the wake of Western philosophy after Rene Descartes by constructing a phenomenology of perception and an ontology of the flesh. His voice, although decidedly removed from the religious, is constantly brought into theological debate whether it be Judith Butler’s reading of Merleau-Ponty’s early lectures on Malebranche’s sensuous theology, or a reading of his phenomenology for theologies of embodiment by contemporary philosophers of religion. Within Christian theology, the body has experienced its own loss, or so contemporary critics of the Christian flesh suggest when they cast it as that which is either negated or riddled with dualism. In this line of critique, Paul and Augustine become figureheads for the loss of the Christian body. A new reading of Paul, Augustine and others at the hand of recent scholarship may, however, provide a different angle from which to approach the problem of the flesh. By defining the self as one who is informed by the senses, and thereby relationally ordered to created other and divine, perception becomes a new mode of approaching the Christian body. Here the focus is less on the absence of the body than the absence of a theological grammar of perception. Reading perception in relation to the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the Spirit’s union of the self to Christ and of God’s grounding persons in the life of the Trinity, sets the stage for a uniquely embodied expression of divine presence. Here an embodied theology advances the simultaneous holding of form and content, and of the embodied expression of the divine through word, symbol and performance. A new grammar of perception arises, in this instance, which places the body central to the Christian story and which refuses any binary, dualism or negation. 3 Soli Deo Gloria 4 Contents Acknowledgements Declaration of originality and statement of length Chapter 1. Merleau-Ponty and the Loss of the Body in Philosophy 8 Chapter 2. Towards a Positive Account of Pauline Flesh 38 Chapter 3. Athanasius and God Incarnate 59 Chapter 4. Augustine and the Logic of the Word Incarnate 81 Chapter 5. Julian and the Passion 103 Chapter 6. Dante and Performative Words 128 Chapter 7. Synthesising the Body in Theology: Drawing Conclusions 156 Bibliography 187 5 Acknowledgements That this dissertation has moved through the stages of conceptualisation, production, and presentation, is a testament to those friends, family, church -, and academic communities who have supported me along the way. Without the generous funding of Cambridge Trust, it would not have been possible for me to study towards a doctorate at the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge. I am grateful to each officer of the trust who engaged with me in an enthusiastic and encouraging manner. Financially, I also owe a word of gratitude to the Faculty of Divinity and Jesus College who responded to my conferencing, seminar, and travel plans positively. One often takes for granted the extent to which such funding opens the world of academia up to a young theologian. For that, I am thankful. Part of Cambridge culture is the support network that each college and faculty provides for their students. An unmistakable characteristic of Jesus College for me is their friendliness, personality, collegiality, and sportsmanship. To the tutorial office, I want to thank Vanessa Bowman and Louise Hind especially for their communications, their going the extra mile, and their efforts to welcome me in every circumstance. Part of the being a Jesuin, is partaking in Jesus Chapel. To the fellow chapel secretaries and clerks, a word of thanks. A word of thanks to Paul Dominiak for his lively conversations, his ‘pulling’ me into the College’s life, and his guidance throughout my time in Cambridge. The students and staff of the Faculty of Divinity have, likewise, enriched my thinking in innumerable ways. It is impossible for me to thank each student, staff, and lecturer individually, so I offer my thanks to all who contributed to my flourishing at the faculty. To Catherine Pickstock I am immensely grateful. She introduced me to the graduate research group Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network (CIPN) at the Centre for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and served as faculty advisor during my lead-convening years. To the brainchild of CIPN, Clare Foster, I offer my thanks for supporting me in the philosophy and theology themed year we organised. She has taught me the art of interdisciplinarity and the ways in which one can creatively bring a diversity of disciplines around one table. For the opportunities to teach, present, and assist at the Faculty of Divinity, I wish to thank James Gardom, Emma Wild-Wood, Joel Cabrita, Tali Artman-Partock, Daniel Weiss and Andrew 6 Davison. I also then thank those theological associations who have given me the opportunity to participate in and contribute to their forums: the Circle for Concerned African Women Theologians, the Society for the Study of Theology, the Institute for Imagination, Theology and the Arts in St Andrews, the Sutton Trust, the Centre for Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Theology from Below team, the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute, the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, and Wesley House. For those academics who have walked alongside me as friends, thank you to Robert Vosloo, Henry Mbaya, Sinenhlanhla Chisale, Juliana Claassens, Nadia Marais, Nina Muller van Velden, and especially Elna Mouton. I would do a great injustice to all those young theologians who have shaped my thinking were I to list a few. To all, I thank you for your kind encouragement, challenging conversations, and generosity of spirit. To those who have walked with me in a more personal capacity, I offer my thanks here too. I have incurred a tremendous debt to my supervisor, Janet Soskice. Throughout the years of authoring this dissertation, she has opened a world of thought to me that I would not have been exposed to otherwise. I thank her for her constant input, her kindness, and her continued support throughout my writing. It goes without saying that I take responsibility for any shortcomings this thesis may have. To those for whom words evade when wanting to express the depth of my appreciation, admiration, and love: Lauren Maggs, Elizma le Grange, Isabel Van Wyk, Michelle Burt and Annemarie De Kock-Malan, my thanks. And above all, my liefde en dank aan my liefling, ma en pa. Ek dra hierdie tesis op aan julle. 7 Chapter 1 Merleau-Ponty and the Loss of the Body in Philosophy René Descartes’ philosophy of the mind marks the gradual loss of the body in Western philosophy.1 The philosopher’s theorising prioritised the mind with its immaterial nature over the body and its sense-perceptual engagements with the world, thereby approaching knowledge production in binary terms.2 A Cartesian epistemology distinguished between that which may be known with absolute certainty (that of the intellect, reason and will) and that which may be known with a relative or derived certainty (that of the senses, and subjective experience).3 This structuring of knowledge according to objective reason and subjective experience gave the illusion that the self can bracket its sense-perceptual engagements with the world.4 The resultant diminishing role of the subjective and experiential in knowledge production finally lead to the evacuation of the body in philosophy. For the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty, the loss of the body in philosophy needed recovery. By placing the body and its embodied engagements within the world central to his theorising, Merleau-Ponty set the stage for the return of the body to philosophy. Published as Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and Invisible (unfinished), Merleau-Ponty’s theorising developed at the hand of Edmund Husserl’s response to Descartes, and of Jean-Paul Sartre’s response to Husserl.5 Between Husserl and Sartre’s theorising, Merleau-Ponty developed 1 Skirry, Justin. n.d. ‘René Descartes (1596-1650)’. In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Resource. Accessed 15 April 2019. https://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/#H4. 2 Skirry, ‘René Descartes (1596-1650)’. 3 Skirry, ‘René Descartes (1596-1650)’. 4 For, writes Edgar, ‘…we do not realize just how Cartesian we are’., Edgar, Orion. 2016. Things Seen and Unseen. Oregon: Cascade Books., 5. Edgar lists these dualisms as that of ‘mind and body, form and matter, ideal and real, thought and things, freedom and causation, instinct and desire, animal and environment, body and world, telos and genesis, humanity and nature, and so on’.