Toward Accessible Faith & Flourishing: Reconsidering Greek Intellectualism in Western Christian Theology

Abstract

From its inception, the Western theological tradition exhibits a fascination with and appropriation of ancient Greek philosophy. This conceptual intertwining of philosophy and theology, as exemplified by Augustine and Aquinas, privileges rationality in the “natural order” and in the pursuit of virtue and human flourishing. Despite generative insights at the intersection of disability and theology in other aspects, the “enfolding” tendencies of a conceptual framework inherited from Plato and Aristotle relegate people with intellectual disabilities to the margins of human flourishing. Contemporary theologians vary in the extent of their adoption of these norms and ideals related to the natural order and human rationality. The future of disability theology must engage a “pastoral deconstruction” that questions these deep privileging tenants of the Western intellectual tradition if it is to welcome the richly embodied theological contribution of people with intellectual disabilities.

Keywords:

• Intellectual disability
• moral theology
• ethics
• anthropology

“I am likely to be a little bit wiser than he in this very thing:

that whatever I do not know, I do not even suppose I know.”

∼ Socrates (Plato, 1998, p. 70)

In Socrates’ final defense, he does not claim the wisdom of knowing the noble and the good, but of not supposing that he knows the noble and the good. This is the wisdom of humility over hubris; embracing epistemic limits rather than flouting intellectual ability. Socrates makes enemies by bringing their erroneous presuppositions and faulty precepts to light. Is it any wonder that Plato’s Apology ends with the death of Socrates? He puts the ignorance of his interlocutors on full display – the ignorance of claiming to know something that they do not.

Christian theologians, at various times over the past centuries, have exhibited overreaching intellectual idealism. We have followed the hubristic aspirations of Greek thought rather than Socrates’ wisdom of ‘not knowing’ or the example of Christ’s humility. Our rational idealism has cast people with intellectual disabilities as incapable of attaining the highest virtues or full human flourishing. As a cursory sketch, this paper outlines several key principles related to the natural order, virtue, and human flourishing that trace their way from Greek philosophy through the thought of Augustine and Aquinas and into contemporary theological discourse. It identifies the dangers inherent in these co-opted principles and points to potential responses at the intersection of disability and theology. The future of disability theology must interrogate these tendencies to privilege rational capacity in their various expressions. It must question the overestimation of the role of intellectual deliberation in ethical action. It must refuse to uncritically project ableist models of happiness and human flourishing onto others. Finally, it must open ways of being together in community that incorporate and appreciate the theological contribution of people with intellectual disabilities. This paper ends by calling for theologians to engage in the task of pastoral deconstruction – caring, critical engagement in theological and philosophical ethical discourse – to open spaces of accessible flourishing for all people.

It’s (not) all Greek

Connections between Greek philosophy and Christian theology trace a convoluted and contested history. Debates abound regarding the extent of the influence of Greek thought on the Apostle Paul’s writing, as they do with Augustine of Hippo and most other early Christian theologians. Following the translation of Aristotle’s works into Arabic and Latin in the 12th and 13th century, leaders in the Catholic Church censored his works due to his divergence from Christian belief, but Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) instead sought to reconcile Aristotelianism and Christianity (Perry et al., 2008, esp. pp. 261–262).

Questions concerning the general extent to which Greek principles have been incorporated into Christian thought, or the merits of such incorporation, fall outside of the scope of this paper. As a theologian and pastor working with people with intellectual disabilities, however, I believe it is crucial to understand how uncritical preservation of specific tenants of Greek thought has undermined the full flourishing of people with intellectual disabilities.

Is there a natural hierarchy of being?

Tim Stainton’s article, Reason and Value: The Thought of Plato and Aristotle and the Construction of Intellectual Disability (2001) identifies the primary ways that Greek philosophy led to the concept of “intellectual disability” (pp. 452–660). He identifies that, “A core paradigm in the negative construction of intellectual disability in Western society is that human value is directly associated with human reason” (p. 452). Stainton proceeds to examine how reason and value are associated “at the very core of the Western intellectual tradition – in the work of Plato and Aristotle” (p. 452).

In the Timaeus (2014), for example, Plato elaborately describes the mythological creation of the cosmos. Timaeus conveys that God intends his creation to resemble God in God’s intelligence and beauty as much as possible (p. 5). A rational order is imposed onto preexisting matter. This leads to what Stainton calls a kind of “reverse Darwinism,” whereby human beings might be changed into various animals depending on their virtue (2001, p. 453). Men might be changed into women if they “were cowards or led unrighteous lives” (Plato, 2014, p. 86). “Innocent light-minded men” would come back as birds and those who “had no philosophy” and “had ceased to use the courses of the head” would come back as animals closer to the earth (Plato, 2014, p. 87). Finally, those who were the “most entirely senseless and ignorant of all” would come back as “inhabitants of the water” (Plato, 2014, p. 88). The way to progress back “up” this hierarchy of being would be to overcome “by the help of reason the turbulent and irrational mob … and [be] returned to the form of his first and better state” (Plato, 2014, p. 32). At the summit of this hierarchy is said to be “The sensible God who is the image of the intellectual, the greatest, best, fairest, most perfect” (Plato, 2014, p. 88).

The Timaeus is a complex work. It is difficult to interpret what is or is not purely mythological. Regardless, Plato clearly considers the rational principle of the intellect to be the fullest expression of the divine and, as such, the perfection of the human being.

Aristotle identifies a natural hierarchy in a different way, yet similar in its primacy of reason. In Politics, “Aristotle argued that slaves are such by their nature rather than by coercion or convention and that slaves do not possess the capacity for reason but are capable of understanding” (Stainton, 2001, p. 454). Aristotle makes similar arguments in relation to children and women. “The parts of the soul are present in all, but they are present in a different way. The slave is wholly lacking the deliberative element; the female has it but it lacks authority; the child has it but it is incomplete” (Aristotle, 2013, p. 22). Aristotle does not deny the humanity of slaves, women, and children. Yet, due to his beliefs regarding the actualization of reason, he exhibits an explicit “intra-species ranking” (Stainton, 2001, p. 454). ¹

Augustine on the “natural order”

In Disability and the Christian Tradition (2012), Brian Brock outlines two divergent themes related to disability in Augustine’s thought. The dominant theme “stands in a long tradition of conceiving those with physical and mental challenges as residing within a hierarchy of wholeness, at greater or lesser distance from what we take to be human perfection” (p. 66). In contrast, Augustine also demonstrates “a breaking open of Christian perception of other human beings in a manner that seeks to know people beyond their supposed disabilities” (p. 66). Augustine’s writing demonstrates a tension between longstanding Greek presuppositions regarding an initial, “natural,” hierarchy of wholeness, and Christian theological commitments that challenge an easy adoption of this hierarchy.

Brock observes, “Augustine was always very clear that the human body and intellect are intended by God to be complete” (2012, p. 68). Augustine’s sense of what counts as being “complete” combines elements of what is generally observed in the world with Platonic ideas on the expression of “patterns” or the “potential” of the human being. Augustine strongly associates the rational soul with “the essence of the human” (Brock, 2012, p. 71).² As with Aristotle, however, this does not mean that those who fail to actualize their rationality are sub-human. “Structurally, the human soul is rational, even if this rational soul has not been expressed” (Brock, 2012, p. 71).

Augustine’s Christological commitment modifies the image of perfection or completion that arises from Platonism. Christ as the Wisdom or Logos of God reveals the telos of humanity. Physically speaking, then, “No human being can claim to be complete, wholly healthy. At best we see intimations of the perfect human spread through the best of humanity’s diverse traits” (Brock, 2012, p. 69). The resurrection of Christ’s body is the expression of the “perfect norm,” yet this norm is not “generic and uniform” (Brock, 2012, p. 70). Brock suggests that Augustine’s principle of diversity puts him at odds with the contemporary Neoplatonic doctrine of the forms by Augustine’s refusal to call “the female form a departure from the original perfect male form” (2012, pp. 69–70). Similarly, Augustine’s view of diversity contributes to his belief that human beings who vary significantly from the “norm” may have a “strange vocation” (2012, p. 73). People with intellectual disabilities thus have the potential to uniquely reveal God’s glory in a marvelous way.³ Rather than viewing diverse bodies as “monstrous,” Augustine emphasizes that “some impairments are to be understood as divine speech to the world” (Brock, 2012, p. 74). In doing so, Augustine gave the Early Christian practice of refusing to destroy disfigured infants, as was the custom, “a rich theological explanation” (Brock, 2012, p. 74).

Even within Augustine’s beneficial contributions to the conversation of disability and theology, Greek thought and Christological commitments intertwine in complex ways. Where Brock connects Augustine’s belief in the beauty of diversity to Augustine’s Christological commitments, Stainton credits Augustine’s Neoplatonism. Stainton observes, “Augustine is consistent with Plotinus’ neo-Platonist argument for the ‘completeness’ of creation and the necessity of diversity” (Stainton, 2008, p. 490).

The intent here, and in the pages that follow, is not to discredit the contribution of Augustine’s thought for conversations at the intersection of faith and disability. Neither is it to demonstrate that Augustine’s view of human embodiment and diversity is primarily grounded in his Neoplatonic influence rather than in his Christological commitments. Instead, I wish to show that disability theologians must carefully consider the ways in which Greek principles of rationality shape Augustinian theology. This is not a consideration confined to Augustine. The impact of Greek philosophy on the trajectory of Christian thought must be examined for its contribution and liabilities in theology that takes embodiment seriously. Perceptions of the “natural order,” for example, have implications for how disabled and non-disabled bodies are regarded or stigmatized.

While Augustine may assert that life itself is “a good not vitiated by the loss of any of these [bodily] capacities,” he “typically uses a negative vocabulary for impairments to indicate that they are homologous with evil as a depravation of the good” (Brock, 2012, p. 70). Where Augustine refuses to call the female form a departure from an original, perfect male form (Brock, 2012, p. 71), he does not challenge language that refers to the male as the “superior sex” (Augustine, 1998, p. 1062). Where he ascribes all human beings the status of humanity, based on the rational principle, he also claims that those of limited intellect are sometimes “so imbecile that they differ very little from the beasts of the field” (Augustine, 1886, p. 529).

Augustine retains a hierarchical view of the primacy of rationality in the “natural order” as expressed in anthropology and moral psychology. He “not only names rationality as the human capacity separating humans from animals, but suggests that this trait is what makes them superior to animals” (Brock, 2012, p. 71). As Brock (2012) goes on to say, “Augustine wants to say that all human life is valuable, but his basic account of God and humanity problematizes his achieving this aim” (p. 71).

Augustine offers precise views on what is, or is not, a deformity. He states that the resurrected body will, in its diverse forms, reflect the ‘perfect norm’ of Christ’s resurrected body. He then proceeds to opine on the particularities of hair, nails, and body weight in the afterlife: “If hair which has been cut and nails which have been trimmed would constitute a deformity if they were restored to the same places, they will not be restored” (1998, p. 1147). Referring to the gospel of Luke, Augustine argues that the number of hairs will be the same on the resurrected body, but the length may vary. “If an artist has for some reason made a flawed statue, he can recast it and make it beautiful, removing the defect without losing any of the substance … And if a man can do this, what are we to think of the Almighty Artist?” (1998, p. 1148). Augustine does not only opine about whether “deformed” nails or hair will be restored in the resurrection but goes on to reflect on ideal body weight. “Let neither fat persons nor thin ones fear that their appearance at the resurrection will be other than they would have wished it to be if they were here if they could” (1998, p. 1149).

Augustine’s complex commitments and influences here lead to tensions and discrepancies. Why, in some cases, does the composition of the ‘perfect body’ depend upon the dictates of the “Almighty Artist” and in other cases upon the desires of the human being or the Artist’s “statue”? How firmly established is the theology that the Artist made a flawed statue in the first place? Where Aristotle’s reflections on the “natural order” in relation to biology and the rational capacity of slaves and women have been scientifically disproven, Augustine’s musings on the relation of natural “norms” to the resurrected body produce internal logical discrepancies.

In these cases, Augustine would have been better disposed to caution as the better part of wisdom. The mind’s capacity for creative imagination is almost endless. Unfortunately, conjectures on the “proper formation” of the body in relation to disability and rationality have very real consequences for bodies that differ from these projected norms and standards. Creative projections of the afterlife are not victimless crimes.

Aquinas on the “natural order”

There is an order to be found among men themselves; for men of outstanding intelligence naturally take command, while those of who are less intelligent but of more robust physique, seem intended by nature to act as servants; as Aristotle points out in the Politics.

∼ Saint Thomas Aquinas (1959, p. 101)

Thomas Aquinas also accepted a kind of natural order based upon reason. He unsurprisingly follows Aristotle in this regard. Aquinas maintains that there is a “normal” or “natural” functioning of the body in line with Augustine’s natural theology, where disability is a privation of the good. “For Aquinas (as for Augustine), possessing any kind of permanent physical or mental impairment is considered an evil because one is deprived of an ability that humans ‘should’ have by virtue of being part of the human species” (Antus, 2013, p. 249).⁴

However, Miguel Romero contends that, “For Aquinas, the evil suffered in corporeal infirmity does not reduce, destroy, or transform the suffering person’s essential nature into something subhuman, marginally human, or non-human … Corporeal infirmity … does not result in an ‘anthropological minor-league’” (2012, p. 108). As with Augustine and Aristotle, Aquinas still assigns human race membership to those who do not display full exercise of their rational capacity or their body. Elizabeth Antus remarks, “Aquinas maintains that one is considered a full member of the human race by virtue of her rational soul, not her observable exercise of discursive reasoning or agential capacities more broadly” (2013, p. 249).

Aquinas’ theological commitments mirror Augustine’s in other ways, including the belief that the range of human diversity reflects God’s glory. This diversity “communicates the beauty of the created order” (Romero, 2012, p. 106). Aquinas also confirms that one’s ultimate connection to and knowledge of God does not primarily depend on one’s rational ability. “Aquinas takes as his own Augustine’s animated insistence that newborns, the comatose, and profoundly demented persons all reflect the dynamic life of the Trinity—always capable of knowing and loving God” (Romero, 2012, p. 103).

One again encounters a mix of Christian commitments and Greek hierarchical beliefs in Aquinas. The gift of grace is the only means by which one can fully encounter God and, as such, is available to all: “The meritorious knowledge and love of God can be in us only by grace” (Aquinas, 1981, 1.93.9). However, because we can also obtain a kind of knowledge of God by use of the human intellect, Aquinas echoes Augustine that the image of God can be clouded “as almost to amount to nothing” in “those who have not the use of reason” (Aquinas, 1981, 1.93.8).

In adopting a hierarchical natural order where the intellect and full rational expression were among the greatest goods, Augustine and Aquinas were caught in a contrast between the radical equality revealed in Christ’s grace and a defined structure of the good as inherited from Greek thought. As they adopted the Greek privileging of intellectual capacity, Christian theological commitments created inner tensions and conflicts in their writing. Augustine and Aquinas sought to explain and reconcile these tensions rather than going further to question the primacy of the intellect and, indeed, their own intellectual prowess in discerning the intricacies of creation.

Virtue, rational capacity, and human flourishing

The concept of “virtue” does not appeal to men [sic], because they are no longer interested in becoming good. Yet if you tell them that Saint Thomas talks about virtues as “habits of the practical intellect,” they may, perhaps, pay some attention to your words. They are pleased with the thought of anything that would seem to make them clever. It gets them something.

∼ Thomas Merton (1972, p. 104)

The corollary of associating rationality with God, the Good, and a hierarchy of being is that lack of rationality is associated with privation and depravation. According to Plato, ignorance is not only “evil,” but up to three degrees of evil. “Least” evil is that of the “simple-minded,” which involves “sincere ignorance” or “taking things at face value” (Stainton, 2001, p. 455). Worse is the lack of intellectual virtue required to develop temperance, courage, or justice – to be a competent citizen and understand good conduct toward the state, family, or oneself (Stainton, 2001). Finally, the worst degree of evil is reserved for ignorance that is combined with “conceit of [one’s] own wisdom” (Stainton, 2001, p. 455).

Ignorance does not dismiss the possibility of virtuous habits in Platonic thought. One might still acquire these habits through embodied moral education – learning to act as virtue would act. Stainton (2001) writes that for Plato, these “habit virtues” are not equivalent to full virtue; “A truly virtuous person must be able to give an account of why he is choosing to act virtuously and, further, must be able to choose virtue for its own sake rather than for instrumental reasons” (p. 455).

Aristotle further distinguishes between moral virtues and intellectual virtues. Moral virtues include temperance, courage, liberality, and magnificence. Intellectual virtues are those of art or technical skill (tekne), practical reason (phronesis), intelligence or intuition (nous), and wisdom (sophia) (Stainton, 2001, p. 456). Following Plato, Aristotle maintains that the intellect must rule one’s desire and that “human flourishing requires both the moral and the intellectual virtues” (Stainton, 2001, p. 456).

When Aristotle indicates that slaves, women, and children can attain certain moral virtues, it would “seem that virtue does not necessarily require what Aristotle deems as a fully developed rational capacity” (Stainton, 2001, p. 456). However, this kind of virtue does not qualify as “complete virtue of character” (Aristotle, 2013, p. 23). One form of courage, for example, belongs to the ruler and another to the servant, “and similarly with the other virtues” (Aristotle, 2013, p. 23). Following Plato, “although Aristotle acknowledged such things as natural virtue and argued that character virtues can be acquired through habituation and education, these are inferior forms of virtue (Stainton, 2001, p. 457).”⁵

The implications of Aristotle and Plato’s natural hierarchy and the resultant two-tiered categorization of virtues is far-reaching. Intellectual ability in the form of practical reasoning is required to be a fully virtuous or “good” person in Platonic or Aristotelian thought. The exercise of complete virtue is required for the highest degree of happiness and human flourishing. If one lacks the rational capacity to act with “complete” virtue, then, one is also unable to attain a life of full human flourishing.

When is happiness?

Happiness as eudaimonia for Aristotle is not the temporary experience of happiness, but the telos of human existence – full human flourishing. He points to two aspects required to attain eudaimonia. First, the “completeness” of one’s virtue. As has been established, this requires a certain intellectual capacity. Second, the consideration of happiness over the course of one’s “complete” life, as he outlines in the Nicomachean Ethics (2001):

Human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete. But we must add ‘in a complete life’. For as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man [sic] blessed and happy. (p. 943)

Following this logic, Aristotle asserts that one cannot describe children as truly “happy.” He believed that children lack the developed rational capacity required for complete virtue as well as lacking the perspective of a “complete” life. In this way, children are only happy in relation to their future, potential, happiness:

For this reason also a boy [sic] is not happy; for he is not yet capable of such [noble] acts, owing to his age; and boys who are called happy are being congratulated by reason of the hopes we have for them. For there is required, as we said, not only complete goodness and a complete lifetime. (Aristotle, 2001, p. 946)

The primacy of intellectual ability in the conception of a full, complete, life is unsurprising considering Aristotle’s natural hierarchy and his own conception of happiness. He believed that the intellectual or contemplative life is “best and pleasantest” and a good or moral life, even to the exclusion of the emotional life, only happy “in a secondary degree” (Aristotle, 2001, pp. 1105–1106).

Aristotle recognizes the paradox of such a position. When is one positioned to assess happiness? If eudaimonia requires the perspective of a complete lifetime, it would seem to be only be after someone has died that others might assess their happiness (Aristotle, 2001). He attempts to escape this paradox by pointing out that happiness is not as closely related to circumstances as it is to virtuous activities, which dispose people toward happiness in any circumstances. Yet, he still links happiness to these external goods. “He is happy,” then, “who is active in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life” (Aristotle, 2001, pp. 948).

On several levels, Aristotle’s definition of happiness is unattainable except perhaps in an extremely qualified sense. To achieve complete virtue, one must have full exercise of his or her rational capacities and the ability to assess their own intention. Contemporary sociological, psychological, and neurological research demonstrates that this command of one’s rational capabilities is by far the exception, if it is even a human possibility.⁶ If the happiness of a life can only be assessed externally, how much more limited is the knowledge of the person pronouncing the judgment! Even if one allows that a life might be assessed by the person who lives it near its very end, this is a time when one’s rational capacities are almost surely diminished due to a variety of factors. Søren Kierkegaard spoke to this paradox of understanding when he wrote,

It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards. A proposition which, the more it is subjected to careful thought, the more it ends up concluding precisely that life at any given moment cannot really ever be fully understood; exactly because there is no single moment where time stops completely in order for me to take position [to do this]: going backwards. (Kierkegaard 1997, p. 306)

While Aristotle may have developed a robust theory of happiness in relation to virtue and rationality, “happiness” is ever-elusive on its basis. One is never able to obtain the omniscient rationality required to live completely virtuously, nor to understand the totality of one’s life to the extent that one might be judged as truly happy.

The distinction of “a complete life” may be largely lost in a modern conception of happiness – who would describe a child at play as only “potentially happy”? However, Aristotle’s association of intellectual ability and happiness perseveres, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the societal subconscious. The prerequisites of rationality for virtue, and this form of virtue for happiness, mean that people with intellectual disabilities are thought of as underdeveloped moral agents, incapable of full human flourishing. This presumption that intellectual ability and rationality necessarily lead to virtue and flourishing does not hold up under scrutiny. For example, studies indicate that even those who study ethics and morality professionally do not act more ethically or virtually in actual practice (Schwitzgebel & Rust, 2014). Furthermore, as many people with intellectual disabilities or anyone who works in this field could speak to, countless people with intellectual disabilities live lives of flourishing and happiness – often in spite of difficult backgrounds and the systemic challenges of ableism.

Augustine on the virtues and happiness

Built upon Greek hierarchical conceptions of the natural order and the primacy of reason, Augustine compares what is acceptable or even encouraged in children to the possibility of a life spent in what he calls “foolishness.” He observes that in children, talk arising out of limited intellectual capacity may be excused – or even encouraged for the sake of amusement – with the expectation that they will grow out of it. If, however, a father was to know that his child would not grow out of this phase, “he would without doubt think [his child] more to be grieved for than if he were dead” (Augustine, 1887, 41). When intellectual ability is in a state of “potential,” then its exceptional or surprising expression is forgivable or even comical. When this same intellectual ability is likely to never be actualized, however, Augustine implies that that person’s fate could be considered worse than death.⁷

Augustine presents the connection between human reason and happiness in a distinct way. Not merely concerned with earthly knowledge or lifetime, he relates the fulfillment of happiness to heavenly wisdom. Blessedness consists in the knowledge of God as perfect wisdom or truth (Stainton, 2008, p. 489). Stainton (2008) writes, “By associating God with perfect wisdom, Augustine created a functional analogy for the Platonic conception of ethics and virtue, and thus adopted it virtually wholesale” (p. 489).

A tension arises between Greek virtues and Christian theology. Augustine presents the capacity of the mind as equipping the human being for virtues of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice – combining Aristotle’s moral and intellectual virtues. He acknowledges, though, that no one can “adequately describe or imagine the glory of this work of the Almighty” by intellect alone (Augustine, 1998, p. 1161). Indeed, the “capacity to live well and achieve immortal happiness by means of those arts which are called virtues … are given only by the grace of God [emphasis added]” (Augustine, 1998, p. 1161).

The primacy of grace in Augustinian thought means that ultimate happiness, or blessedness, cannot be fully attained through intellectual ability. The English monk Pelagius and his followers argued that human beings could live into a life of goodness simply by the exercise of their free will by the power of their rational capacity. Stainton (2008) surmises that, based on his anthropology inherited from Greek thought, Augustine might be sympathetic to this view. Instead, he vehemently opposed the Pelagians. Augustine’s theological commitment to the power of grace precedes and overrides his attraction to the powers of reason. As Stainton (2008) reflects, “Our reason may allow us to glimpse something of the eternal realm … it alone cannot lead us there” (p. 493). The final “crossing” to salvation cannot be attained through reason, but only by grace and faith.

Augustine’s “hope in the world to come” is a theological commitment that was not available to Aristotle, and contrasts with Aristotle’s views in interesting ways. From one perspective, it permits Augustine to admit that happiness may not be obtainable in the present reality – even within a “complete lifetime.” The virtue of fortitude, or patience in hope, points toward a future happiness, and “it is in hope that we have been made happy” (Augustine, 1998, p. 924). From another perspective, however, it also allows Augustine to maintain the belief that both physical and intellectual disability hinder one’s ability to exercise virtues and experience human flourishing in this life.

Augustine’s theological commitment to grace and faith contrast with his inherited framework of a natural hierarchy. While human beings are equal before God through grace and faith, he believed that society naturally bears out an unequal privilege. Peace is maintained by order and order is the submission of society to the more rational among them (Stainton, 2008, pp. 493–494). Stainton observes that Augustine goes so far as to extoll “the virtues of this ‘natural order’” (2008, p. 493). This results in a two-world bifurcation: The heavenly world of human equality as expressed through grace, faith, and charity, and the natural world where rationality continues to rule as a concrete expression of human value.

Aquinas on the virtues and happiness

Aquinas follows Aristotle’s account of virtues closely, based on the implied natural hierarchy of being. Miguel Romero, in Disability and the Christian Tradition (2012), associates Aquinas’ use of the word amens with people whom would now be considered as having an intellectual disability. “Following Aristotle, Aquinas understands the moral virtues as acquired only by way of bodily faculties. The implications of this are that a person like the amens would not in principle be capable of developing moral virtue because she lacks the use of reason” (Romero, 2012, p. 121).

However, Aquinas follows Augustine’s insistence on the primacy of divine grace, which leads to the category of “supernatural” or “theological” virtues. These virtues of faith, hope, and love are conceived of the ultimate good corresponding to our final end. “Grace,” Aquinas argues, “as it is prior to virtue, has a subject prior to the powers of the soul” (Aquinas, 1981, 1-2.110.4). In this way, divine knowledge and will, and hence divine love, are given by God rather than achieved by the power of human intellect. As Romero (2012) argues, this means that “no organic or operational impairment of the body can ever impair the principle operation and flourishing of the rational soul in its communication with God and imaging of God” (p. 113).

As one might predict, virtue and happiness are linked closely for Aquinas as they were for Aristotle. Yet, in agreement with Augustine, Aquinas makes the distinction between two types of happiness – the imperfect happiness attained in this life and the perfect happiness of the beatific vision. In relation to happiness in this life, Aquinas quotes Aristotle directly, that it is “an operation according to perfect virtue” (Aquinas, 1981, 1-2.4.6). The body is therefore necessary for happiness of this life, “for the happiness of this life consists in an operation of the intellect, either speculative or practical” (Aquinas, 1981, 1-2.4.5). So, where “perfect happiness” and “ultimate flourishing” are not of the body, any sense of proximate flourishing in this life does rely upon the practice of all of the virtues and therefore one’s rational capacity and expression (Romero, 2012, p. 113).

For Aquinas it is through baptism, not through the exercise of the intellect, that one attains divine grace and thus “the ultimate human flourishing called faith, hope, and love” (Romero, 2012, p. 114 c.f. Aquinas, 1981, 3.69.3-4). Here Aquinas does not simply dismiss the need for the body or intellectual functioning but anticipates a time when the body will regain its full “perfection” in the resurrection.

Recalling Augustine’s deliberation on the perfection of the human form in the resurrection, Aquinas insists that, “The proper operation of man as man is to understand; because he thereby surpasses all animals. … The ultimate happiness of man must consist in this operation as properly belonging to him” (Aquinas, 1981, 1.76.1). Therefore, in the resurrection everyone will attain full intellectual capacity:

We must say that perfect disposition of the body is necessary, both antecedently and consequently, for that Happiness which is in all ways perfect. … [Thus,] from the Happiness of the soul [in the beatific vision] there will be an overflow on to the body, so that this too will obtain its perfection. (Aquinas, 1981, 1.76.1)

Where Aristotle’s conception of eudemonia and full human flourishing is practically unattainable due to its requirement of “complete” virtue in the course of a “complete” life, perfect blessedness for Augustine and Aquinas is only obtainable in the eschaton. Where full flourishing requires a degree of intellectual ability for Aristotle, Aquinas and Augustine welcome all human beings into perfect blessedness in the life to come – with the qualification, of course, that the intellect is also perfected.

These distinctions between happiness as experienced “here and now” and as experienced in the eschaton raise questions about the practical impact of these beliefs in our churches and communities today. The ideal of a “perfected” human body and mind remains, as do societal considerations of variance from a norm. Coinciding with this is the projection of the lack of full moral capacity and happiness into the lives of those who are understood to lack “full rational capacity.” Combined, this two-fold approach to considering human happiness now and in the life to come can perpetuate and emphasize the perceived lack of people whom we encounter in our churches and communities today. Rather than being a belief of hope, promising a “perfected” body or mind (according to preconceived notions of what this might entail) often serves to prop up dis-abling conditions for people with disabilities.

Contemporary theological responses

Contemporary theological responses at the intersection of disability and theology are at a crossroad. How do we approach texts such as those found in Augustine and Aquinas – thinkers who have shaped the trajectory of Western theology? Neglecting their complex contribution to these topics is ill-advised. Their writing will continue to shape the theological and pastoral landscape whether we acknowledge its influence or not.

Elizabeth Antus makes a helpful distinction between two ways of engaging these texts, specifically in reference to the authors of chapters of Disability in the Christian Tradition: A Reader (Brock & Swinton, 2012). Theologians can either respond with a discourse of enfolding or expansion. Enfolding postures carry forward the sense of a

normative theological anthropology … connected with the “distinctively human” display of reason. Their main objective, then, is to highlight that disabled persons can still be fully included within these regnant accounts of the human, despite possible assumptions to the contrary. (Antus, 2013, p. 245)

On the contrary, expanding postures “pay special attention to persons with disabilities, impairments, and illnesses first and foremost in order to rethink and expand an account of being human according to categories such as vulnerability, limitation, and (inter-)dependence” (Antus, 2013, p. 246). Antus argues that a discourse of expansion carries the best potential for theology and disability going forward, as enfolding discourses remedy certain problems while retaining others.

While these enfolding discourses may succeed in overcoming the human/subhuman dichotomy that has loomed large as a caricature in interpretations of these [historical] figures, they nevertheless retain a standard of normalcy for theological anthropology against which disabled people, especially intellectually disabled people, fare more poorly than non-intellectually-disabled people. (Antus, 2013, p. 253)

Enfolding techniques may overcome misperceptions of Christian theological figures in respect to their position on the human status of people with disabilities, yet retain what Antus (2013) refers to as a “clear center” and a “clear periphery” of the human ideal (p. 253). She points to Miguel J. Romero’s (2012) “Aquinas on the Corporis Infirmitas: Broken flesh and the grammar of grace” as taking an enfolding approach, arguing that – despite perceptions to the contrary – people with disabilities attain full humanity, even within the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Romero clarifies many misunderstandings of Aquinas’ position on human embodiment, disability, and flourishing without questioning or offering an alternative to the underlying notion that disability is an evil as a “privation of a good that is due” (Romero, 2012, p. 107). In this way, despite arguing against disability as a form of “second class” of humanity, Romero continues to hold that it goes without saying that disability is not God’s best for people.

Aquinas maintains a commonsense view of corporeal infirmity in that the evil suffered by way of blindness will certainly hinder or impair the actualization of one or several potentialities for proximate goods related to the ‘mode’ and ‘species’ of the person afflicted. (Romero, 2012, p. 109)

The question that remains to be asked is whether such “privation” views of disability are or should be “common sense.” What led to this belief or understanding in the first place? I suggest that it is largely due to the import of Greek philosophy and the assumption of a natural hierarchy of being, rather than any mandate of distinctly Christian theology. There are many different views one can take on disability, and perhaps the view that there should be such a thing as “common sense” is part of the problem.

Late author and advocate Judith Snow offers a different vantage point on disability. She suggests that presence and difference are two gifts upon which every other gift is built. Anything that one is or has or does that creates the possibility of meaningful interaction with others can be considered a gift.

Walking is a gift. It offers the possibility of meaningful interaction. Not walking is also a gift – also creating the possibility of meaningful interaction. Speaking is a gift. Not speaking is also a gift. It is a different gift. Seeing and not seeing, hearing and being deaf, behaving in ways people expect and disturbing others… all gifts. They are different with different potentials but all gifts arising from difference. All gifts add to the mosaic of the potential available community. (Pearpoint & Snow, 1998, p. 3)

Variance or difference lends itself to meaningful interaction. Augustine and Aquinas’ insight into a Christological model of perfection, one that subverts insistence on a single human ideal and opens human flourishing beyond typically constructed borders, has great potential to reconstruct embodied difference as gift. However, their adherence to hierarchical structures of order based, in large part, on the primacy of rationality contrasts with this potential.

Antus cautions that even expansion discourses may undermine the giftedness of diversity when distinctions are ignored. Are people with disabilities uniformly “vulnerable” or “dependent” in a way that makes them uniquely gifted? By no means. We must “resist problematic reifications of people with disabilities into ‘the vulnerable’ or ‘icons of vulnerability’ for the rest of humanity” (Antus, 2013, p. 260). These failures to notice nuance may simply lead to a different “hierarchy of being” – one where people with disabilities, perhaps particularly intellectual disabilities, are exemplars. In these narratives, people with disabilities are still considered exempt from complex moral action and the potential for full flourishing.

Taking seriously the theological principle of creative diversity and the equality of “the world to come,” we must learn to humbly appreciate the diverse ways that human virtues and values are made manifest in individuals and their communities. Antus observes that, “A person with Down syndrome embodies vulnerability and agency differently from an academically trained theologian writing about theology and disability” (2013, p. 260). Perhaps admitting that one does not know the way through to an answer or solution in scholarly circles is a witness to vulnerability and one’s need for the communion of saints.

Looking forward: Vibrant theology in aporetic times

“Aporia” indicates the state of doubt or confusion that Socrates generated in his interlocutors, due often to revealing internal logical contradictions. It traces its etymology back to a lack of passage. Socrates uncovers the barriers in thought inherent in his adversaries’ presuppositions. He does not create barriers, per se. Rather, his opponents encounter epistemological limits of which they were previously unaware. They are left with an inability to “think their way through” the obstacles he reveals. The underlying message is that we do not discover true wisdom primarily through the intellectual ability to think through every difficult problem. We find wisdom in recognizing the limits of our thought, in knowing how much we do not know. As a shared human reality, constraints on the powers of thought are not, as such, an impairment– they are simply inherent in the “tool” of cognition.

Among others, Augustine and Aquinas too often fall into Greek hubris over Christian humility concerning the deep mystery at the heart of the human experience. Classical theology has much to offer at the intersection of disability and theology, yet we must be cautious of reliance upon a presumed natural hierarchy of being and an overestimation of intellectual ability in attaining virtue and happiness that is the result of Greek philosophical thought. As such, while people with intellectual disabilities may be considered inheritors of eternal blessedness (once their intellect has been perfected), on earth they continue to be regarded as unable to attain full human flourishing or virtuous action.

Pastoral deconstruction as theology

Neither works of piety nor works of morality nor works of intellect establish unity with God. They follow from this unity, but they do not make it. They even prevent it if you try to reach it through them.

∼ Paul Tillich (1957, p. x)

One of the tasks of disability theologians into the future, then, is what I refer to as pastoral deconstruction. With a heart for the practical reception of people with disabilities and their gifting into Christian community, we must question certain theological presuppositions inherited from classical theology and Greek thought. We must be open to theological gifts that do not come from the exercise of human rationality. What might it look like to open theological space for practicing humble attentiveness to diversely embodied experiences?

Pastoral deconstruction may take place on a theoretical level. C. S. Lewis once observed that “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered” (Lewis, 2006, p. 126). Pastoral deconstruction takes seriously the challenge that bad theology or philosophy presents: real-world effects on people’s lives and experiences. Intentional deconstruction reveals the internal discrepancies in these ethical systems toward a more pastoral and Christ-shaped outcome. Through a journey of aporia, we are opened toward the divine mystery of others’ lives. Rather than assume that a person’s life cannot attain virtue or happiness due to the presence of an intellectual disability, we first encounter one another to discover how goodness or happiness are experienced from each other’s vantage point.

Questioning the easy assumption of intellectual privilege into Christian theology is a first step in this process. Is Aristotle’s interpretation of eudemonia still valid or useful? Why does this view of happiness and virtue, together with its dependence upon rational ability, carry so much weight in the history of Christian theology? We must ironically adopt a Socratic posture of questioning in order to “run into” the barriers in these ways of thinking. We might then look to Christian and Christological priorities to find a better way forward – a way that welcomes everybody into lives of meaningful goodness, contribution, and human flourishing.

Pastoral deconstruction may also take place practically. When Steve makes loud noises in church, we have come to an impasse. Unspoken rules have been called into question. We are caught between a commitment to a space of uninterrupted (perhaps hyper-cognitive) learning and our love for Steve. The way forward here may not be discovered in immediately removing the barrier, either by asking Steve to leave or by saying, “Oh, that’s just Steve.” Either of these outcomes presumes to know Steve and the function of his vocalization intimately. Rather, a journey of humility involves practicing quiet attentiveness with Steve and those who care about him, being open to what these noises mean for him, and what flourishing looks like for him and his community in this context.

Pastoral deconstruction also calls us to acknowledge the barriers and inherent limitations in modes of doing theology on a purely theoretical level. Full-bodied theology must acknowledge intellectual pursuit as only one part of a vast scope of practice and relationships. It must welcome liturgical and multidisciplinary experiences that appreciate the different modes of knowing of people with sensory impairments or diverse intellectual processing. It means being open to an embodied theology that practices faith in community with people with and without intellectual disabilities. In this communion of relational reciprocity, we begin to grasp theological realities that we dare not put to words – encounters with a God who goes beyond words, beyond theology, and beyond the ability of any of us to grasp fully.

Perhaps it is in this way that we will begin to embody and appreciate the diverse range of Christian theological practice, whether or not we comprehend the mysteries therein. Perhaps it is in these communities of faith that we will embrace the fullness of human flourishing – not in the heights of intellectual ascent but through the simple exercise of faithful love.

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8-9 New International Version)

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Funding

This article has been funded by Christian Horizons.

Notes

1 This coincides with Aristotle’s description of man [sic] as “an animal capable of reason” (Stainton, 2001, 453) on the basis of the rational soul, without going so far as to say that human beings are defined by their reason.

2 According to Stainton, “Augustine did not reject earlier classical thought, nor did he diminish the importance of reason in this world. If anything, he adopted the somewhat cruder position on rationality of the later classical period inherited from Cicero and Porphyry … stating on numerous occasions that ‘man is a rational mortal living being’ or, similarly, ‘man is a rational animal’” (Stainton, 2008, p. 488).

3 Brock (2012) reminds us of Christ’s words that a man was born blind “so that the work of God might be displayed” (John 9:3).

4 “A human body is said to be weak when it is disabled or hindered in the execution of its proper action, through some disorder of the body’s parts, so that the humors and members of the human body cease to be subject to its governing and motive power” (ST 1-2.77.3, response as cited in Romero, 2012, p. 101). Also “When a person lacks the good of sight, that person suffers evil – that is to say, the privation of a good that naturally belongs to members of the human species” (Romero, 2012, p. 109).

5 Stainton points to the sixth book of the Nichomachean Ethics to make this point: “We seek something else as that which is good in the strict sense – we seek for the presence of such qualities in another way. For both children and brutes have the natural dispositions to these qualities, but without reason these are evidently hurtful” (2001, p. 1035).

6 This research has now made its way into popular books such as Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, You are Not as Smart as You Think You Are by David McRaney, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, and Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, to name a few.

7 In Augustine, moral deliberation and rationality are linked with respect to the object of one’s ethical action as well as in being subject of ethical action. He understands the command “Thou shalt not kill” to be based on the principle of rationality. “When we read ‘Thou shalt not kill’, we are not to take this commandment as applying … to the non-rational animals which fly, swim, walk or crawl, for these do not share the use of reason with us. It is not given to them to have it in common with us; and, for this reason, by the most just ordinance of their Creator, both their life and death are subject to our needs” (Augustine, 1998, p. 33). Note that his observations here are not based on the expression of rationality, but on the rational principle itself which Augustine deems the property of all human beings. Again, we observe the close connection between ethics, virtue, and rationality. In this instance, it forms the basis for ethical action toward a rational creature, rather than as the expression of reason.