THETOUC OF TRANSCENDENCE A Postcolonial Theology of God MAYRA RIVERA Westminster John Knox Press LOUISVILLE • LONDON CHAPTER 1 Introduction od is transcendent!' Most theologians would agree with this state­ Gment, but what do we mean by it? At first glance, the answer seems obvious. "Transcendent" signifies that which is beyond normal physical experience, apart, above, unlimited by materiality. "Divine transcen­ dence" thus indicates God's aloftness, separation, independence, and immateriality-in short, his super/iority. These associations are indeed the most common for the term "transcendence" and the reason it has acquired the reputation of being a tool of patriarchal and imperial self­ legitimation. For decades, progressive theologians have objected to the validation of hierarchical rule that attends such a concept of the deity. Theologians have also been concerned about the ways in which allusions to transcendence tend to orient religious life away from the pursuit of social.transformation, promoting instead the individualistic aspiration to attain a positive otherworldly existence. When claimed as the basis of a superior, unquestionable knowledge owned by some, on the other hand, transcendence has often served to legitimize decidedly ungodly actions. Feminist theologians have further challenged the image of the separate immaterial God for its collusion with the subordination of women and the devastation of creation, choosing instead to emphasize the "imma­ nence" of God. While most theologies do not reject divine transcendence, the numerous suspicions about the term have not been dispelled. These well-known critiques of the notion of transcendence should not be ignored. Yet I find myself drawn to a different approach. Instead of focusing on the hierarchical and separatist images with which tran­ scendence is laden, and thus implicitly admitting them as normative, I 2 THE TOUCH OF TRANSCENDENCE INTRODUCTION 3 want to delve into an ancient intuition that lies hidden beneath these It may thus be conceived as an elaboration of Irenaeus's familiar defini­ battered images. Wary, and a bit weary, of the usual formulations for tion: "Gloria Dei vivens homo" (the glory of God is the human being fully transcendence-beyond being, beyond time, beyond creation, beyond alive). 3 This metaphor of"glory" will lure forward this entire book. What materiality-I have opted instead to being with the simple assertion that does it mean to encounter the "glory of God" in another human being? God is irreducibly Other, always beyond our grasp. But not beyond our How does it affect our conceptions of the human person and of relations touch. How we might imagine this otherness is not what this study pre­ across differences? What images of God's transcendence are conducive to sumes, but the vision the book strives to develop. This book seeks to stir relations that promote the fullness of life for all creatures? up conventional certainties and enable different understandings of The book begins by engaging the explicitly theological discourses of "transcendence" to emerge. It hopes, ultimately, to remobilize the pas­ "radical orthodoxy" theologians John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, sion and the wisdom of a Christian love for the inappropriable divine and liberation theologian Ignacio Ellacurla. The theological insights that Other as theological resources for rethinking our relationship with arise from those engagements are then developed through a series of human others. 1 readings of the philosophical works of Emmanuel Levinas and Enrique The Touch of Transcendence offers a vision of transcendence within Dussel, the feminist contributions of Luce Irigaray, and postcolonial creation and between creatures: a relational transcendence. In order to texts by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. If this work's constructive theolog­ liberate the potential of the notion of transcendence for reconceiving ical proposal unfolds from the interaction with multiple nontheological interhuman relations, we must resist its pervasive associations with texts it is partly because the cosmology that it espouses affirms the theo­ otherworldliness. It is crucial to bring transcendence in contact with the logical significance of human relations as much as the ethical import of concrete realities of our world-where we encounter and "touch upon" theology. Its interdisciplinary approach is also a necessity dictated by the one another. "Touching upon," as feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray subject matter. The notion of transcendence has always been as much defines it, means a "touching which respects the other," that never aims philosophical as theological, bearing the traces of one discipline when it at appropriating or capturing.2 The book's title intends to highlight the appears in the other. intimacy of transcendence-a transcendence in the flesh of others whom The present engagement honors the glory of the otherness to which we touch, but may never fully grasp. transcendence testifies, even as the book seeks to release its potential for The aim of this work is theological. I seek to offer a constructive for­ promoting ethical relations. This study therefore works constructively at mulation of divine transcendence in the conviction that Christianity has the interstices between theology and theoretical discourses about the important resources for envisioning ethical relationships between human ethics of difference, where notions of transcendence and interhuman beings. Our images of the divine Other shape our constructions of otherness interweave. Although they represent different academic disci­ human otherness. An apparent structural relation exists between imagin­ itlines, all of the discourses explored in this study share the conviction ing our relation to the human Other and to God as wholly Other: God that notions of radical alterity are crucial for ethics. Through my inter­ can be perceived as an extreme instance of interhuman difference. Yet I action with them, I hope to show how alternative understandings of will further assert that the relation between human and divine otherness interhuman difference can lead to a theological reconstruction of the goes beyond the structural. Theologically God's transcendence is insepa­ idea of divine transcendence, one that can resist patriarchal and imperi­ rable from theological anthropology-that is, from theological notions of alist assumptions while affirming not only the irreducible difference of what a human being is and, as a consequence, of the meaning of inter­ God from all creatures, but the differences among creatures as well. human differences. I ground in Christian theology my affirmation that This inquiry is thus a variation on liberation and feminist engage­ the cosmos, and thus human beings, are rooted in the divine. Indeed, the ments with the doctrine of God. Like liberation theologies, including cosmos is inconceivable devoid of the divine life force. Moreover, it is feminist ones, this book places the concern for right relations with other always and only within creation that the divine Other is encountered. human beings at the center of the doctrinal discussion, refusing the dis­ Although moving toward a theological cosmology, this work focuses on junction between theology and ethics. It also builds upon feminist the­ the ways in which transcendence is encountered among human creatures. ologies' meticulous analysis of the correlation between prevalent images 4 THE TOUCH OF TRANSCENDENCE INTRODUCTION 5 of divine transcendence and patriarchal ideals. This theology shares tionship between God and creation highlights that detachment in terms feminist awareness of the power of doctrine to shape communities and that reveal the tensions with the vision espoused in this work. Jesus direct their praxis; it assents to Elizabeth Johnson's sharp refrain: "The intersects the plane of created existence "vertically, from above." Even 4 symbol of God functions." And because the symbol functions, this work that intersection is hesitant. "In the resurrection the new world of the strives to offer not only a critique of the dominant imaginary, but also an Holy Spirit touches the old world of the flesh, but touches it as a tangent alternative vision that may nurture ethical action. This vision incarnates touches a circle, that is, without touching it." 8 as a cosmology inspired by that feminist genre where theology becomes In this touch, which does not quite touch, God remains "detached" self-consciously metaphorical in its attempt to "convert" the imaginary. 5 while effecting the "dissolution of [human] distinction." Human solidar­ It nevertheless differs from those remarkable feminist contributions in ity is based on the assumption that the glory of God is lacking in each that, rather than concentrating on the link between the embodiment of and every one of us, and thus "all distinctions between men are seen to creatures and the immanence of God, it emphasizes the inextricability of be trivial." 9 We may sympathize with Barth's critiques of hierarchies of God's transcendence and the transcendence of the human Other. his times, but the dissolution of distinction has revealed itself to be a fraught strategy that confuses homogeneity with solidarity. This work THE WHOLLY OTHER argues that divine transcendence does not need to dissolve or even sub­ ordinate created differences. Indeed a relational transcendence touches In contemporary Christian theology, the idea of transcendence is associ­ creatures, embracing their irreducible differences.