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ABSTRACT
Nancy Eiesland’s, The Disabled God seminally argued that Incarnation and disability are not mutually exclusive. Disability was integral to Christ’s humanity. Others developed the claim that imago Dei lies in relational capacity (shared by all). This paper takes this further, proposing that disability theology enables re-examination of the broader doctrine of Incarnation. This sees ‘The Disabled God’ present at the outset of Christ’s earthly life as a function of taking on humanity, not merely in the wounds of Crucifixion. Aspects of Christian tradition which have been neglected include the understanding that Christ’s assumed humanity is essentially limited and interdependent on others and God – and the implications for disability. I suggest it is precisely the flawed conception of incarnation that sees humans as self-contained that has led to disability being associated with theodicy, with exclusionary consequences. The conclusion examines benefits to faith and Church of rediscovering a healthy Incarnational theology.
Disclosure statement
While being blind colours my personal interest in disability theology, I know of no other relevant interests (financial or otherwise) which may affect the partiality of this work. I have received no financial benefit from any institution in researching or preparing this work and I have no affiliations other than those disclosed above.
Notes
1 Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God: Towards a Liberatory Theology of Disability, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994).
2 Peter A. Comensoli, In God’s Image: Recognising the Profoundly Impaired as Persons, edited by Nigel Zimmerman, (Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 2018); Marius Dorobantu, ‘Cognitive Vulnerability, Artificial Intelligence and the Image of God in Humans’, Journal of Disability and Religion 25 (2021): 27–40.
3 Peter A. Comensoli, In God’s Image, 222.
4 Augustine of Hippo, City of God XIII, 17 and XX, 17 in The City of God against the Pagans, ed. and tr. R.W. Dyson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae tr. English Dominican Fathers, (New York: Ave Maria Press, 1981), 2:2.15.1; 2:2.157.3; Thomas Aquinas, Compendium Theologiae, tr. Cyril Vollert (St Louis: Herder, 1947), 160, 168; Miguel J. Romero, ‘Aquinas on the Corporis Infirmitas: Broken Flesh and the Grammar of Grace,’ in Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader, Brian Brock and John Swinton eds., (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 101–111; Neil Ormerod, Creation, Grace and Redemption, (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2007), 15–16; Amos Yong, Theology and Downs Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity, (Waco: Baylor University, 2009), 176.
5 See e.g. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 3:31.1.3 and, claiming disability as exclusion from being a full Israelite; Nicholas T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 191–192.
6 John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 155–171.
7 See e.g. Lev. 19:2; Gen Rabbah 24:7; Pirkei Avot 1:2, 1:5; Jacob Neusner, ‘Is the God of Judaism Incarnate?’, Religious Studies, 24 (1992): 213–238; Emmanuel Levinas, ‘Dialogue: Self-Consciousness and Proximity of the Neighbour’ in Of God Who Comes to Mind, translated by Bettina Bergo, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998): 137–151, 148.
8 Eliot Wolfson, ‘Judaism and Incarnation: The Imaginal Body of God’, in Christianity in Jewish Terms, edited by Tikvah Frymer-Kensky David Novak, Michael Singer, David Sandmel, (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), 244–247; Daniel Boyarin, Borderlines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004), 113–116; Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, Man, the Image of God: The Creation of Man as Good News (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 107.
9 Karl Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens: Einführung in den Begriff des Christentums (Munich: Verlag Herder, 1984), 217–222.
10 Gerald O’Collins, Incarnation, (New York: Continuum, 2002), 63.
11 Eiesland, The Disabled God, 24; Susan A. Ross, Anthropology: Seeking Light and Beauty. Engaging Theology: Catholic Perspectives, (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2012); Barbara A.B. Patterson, ‘Redeemed Bodies, Fullness of Life’, in Human Disability and the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Life, Nancy L. Eiesland and Don E. Saiers, eds., (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 123–143. Society’s reaction to impairment can and often does, occasion suffering – at least according to the social understanding of disability discussed further below.
12 Justin Glyn, ‘Pied Beauty: The Theological Anthropology of Impairment and Disability in Recent Catholic Theology in the Light of Vatican II’, Heythrop Journal 60 (2019), 571–584.
13 Catechism of the Catholic Church, English Translation. 2nd Edition 1997, n. 2276.
14 1917 Code of Canon Law, c. 984 3°.
15 Signs of this recovery – in which people with disabilities are seen as equal members of the Church first and foremost – can be seen especially in documents issued under Pope Francis’ pontificate – see e.g Francis, Laudato si’, On Caring for our Common Home (2015) 107 AAS 847, n.117 and, especially, in Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Human Friendship (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticano, 2020) n. 98.
16 Pamela Fisher and Dan Goodley, ‘The Linear Medical Model of Disability: Mothers of Disabled Babies Resist with Counter-narratives’, Sociology of Health & Illness, 29 (2007), 66–81.
17 See e.g. David Neville, ‘God’s Presence and Power: Christology, Eschatology and “Theodicy” in Mark’s Crucifixion Narrative’, in Theodicy and Eschatology, ed. Bruce Barber and David Neville, (Hindmarsh: ATF Press, 2005), 20.
18 Deborah Beth Creamer, Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010).
19 Justin Glyn, ‘Pied Beauty,’ 578–9.
20 For a summary and a critical view of the social model, see e.g. Thomas Shakespeare, ‘Social Models of Disability and Other Life Strategies’, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 6 (2004), 1–21. While Shakespeare sees the social model as accentuating the difference between disabled and non-disabled people (at 20), this seems misconstrued. It is precisely society which decides to treat some impairments on a different footing to others – a fact neatly illustrated, for example, by the pandemic which, for example, has allowed accommodations (working from home, home delivery of groceries) denied to some people with impairments for years simply because societies had perforce to extend them to everyone.
21 James Gerard McEvoy, ‘Theology of Childhood: An Essential Element of Christian Anthropology,’ Irish Theological Quarterly 84 (2019), 117–136.
22 See e.g. Amos Yong’s description of the presence of equivalent chromosomal changes to Down’s Syndrome in other animals – Amos Yong, Theology and Downs Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity, (Waco: Baylor University, 2009), 162–165.
23 Of course, this does leave open what can meaningfully be said about the pre-Incarnate nature of the Second Person of the Trinity. For myself, I would suggest that this is impossible to say – what is important is that in assuming humanity, Christ has assumed its limited and contingent nature – including those limits which impairment presents.
24 Judith J. Kovacs, 1 Corinthians Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 206–213.
25 Brian Brock, Disability: Pastoring for Life, Living into the Diversity of Christ’s Body, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), 106.
26 Glyn, ‘Pied Beauty,’ 579.
27 Thomas G. Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay on the Humanity of Christ, (London: T&T Clark, 1993), 103–104.
28 Gregory of Nazianzus, ‘Epistle 51, to Cledonius (First Epistle Against Apollinarius)’ in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol.5, Philip Schaff ed. (originally published 1893, republished New York: Cosimo, 2007), 440.
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Justin Erik Allen Glyn Sj
Justin Erik Allen Glyn Sj, is a New Zealand member of the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and a Catholic priest. He is a practising lawyer in Australia (and has previously practised in South Africa and New Zealand, obtaining a Ph.D in law from the University of Auckland in 2008), is General Counsel to the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus and lectures in canon law at Catholic Theological College in the University of Divinity in Melbourne. He is blind and writes in the areas of law, canon law and disability theology. His Ph.D thesis was in the area of administrative law and international law and was published by Presidium in 2009.