Feminist Eschatology

Embodied Futures

Emily Pennington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780367881566
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317135692
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Many feminist theologians have made timely and valuable contributions to rethinking the eschaton by framing it as cyclical and by embracing endings as they are experienced by present relational, fluid, and sensuous bodies. However, any sense of eschatological finality or ultimacy has either been rejected or ignored. Feminist Eschatology seeks to think differently about Christian eschatology in light of contributions from feminist theologians, noting the numerous and varied critiques they have made of traditional models. These critiques are identified as being directed towards three key claims: eschatology is understood to be actuated by a domineering God, populated by masculinised beings, and disassociated from present lives. Using a form of strategic feminism, wherein traits associated with female bodies, and some women's experiences of their bodies, are used to rethink the end-time of the eschaton, this book contributes to the meaning and significance of both bodies and eschatology.

1 Feminist theology and eschatology

Introduction

Eschatology has thus far been outlined as containing both problems and possibilities in relation to perceptions of women’s experiences of embodiment. The possibilities I will attempt to fulfil in Chapters Two, Three, and Four are informed by feminist theologians’ appraisals and women’s present experiences of their bodies. The need for such affirmations arises out of feminist theologians’ expositions of the patriarchal devaluation of characteristics and experiences associated with women’s bodies. Traditional constructions of the eschatological future are deemed, by many feminist theologians, to concretise such devaluation. This chapter, then, assesses both the problems and responses that feminist theologians have exposed and proposed. In order to do this I will evaluate feminist theological perspectives on the process, content, and time of eschatology. These categorisations encapsulate some central themes in feminist readings of traditional understandings of eschatology; namely power and relationality, change and death, and the relationship of the future to the present. Moreover, constructions of the process underpin models of the content and assumptions about the time; problems in the latter two aspects are drawn out of problems identified in the former. Thus the most substantial exploration is directed toward discussions concerning the process of realising the eschaton. The purpose of my explorations here is to underpin, inform, and locate my subsequent constructions.

For each of these three themes I will firstly outline the problems as perceived and exposed by feminist theologians. This is undertaken with an awareness that certain traditional constructions may unintentionally be problematic for women. Yet, as Fiorenza writes, “all theology, willingly or not, is by definition always engaged for or against the oppressed” (1995, p.6). Vuola adds to this that whilst many may claim that theology has not denied full humanity to women, a careful study of the tradition’s history reveals that “women (and other Others) have been defined as less or different from the authentic imago dei that only (free) men normatively present” (2002, p.116). Willingly or not, then, traditional eschatology has largely been engaged in theorising against women’s lives and bodies. Thus my concern for this chapter, and indeed for this book, is not with whether the feminist theological critiques of traditional views are correct or accurate. More pertinent is how these views have been received by feminist theologians and the legacy left by such interpretations. It is this that the feminist theologians in this chapter are often critiquing, and similarly, it is this to which I respond. This chapter, then, aims to explore feminist theological approaches to eschatology by attending to both critiques and reconstructions of traditional notions of eschatology. In so doing, I seek to uncover the problematic elements that my own eschatological model must avoid or rethink, and also to discover some perspectives that hold potential to help develop a new understanding of the eschatological future.

Process: Eschatology and omnipotence

The first major theme to be explored here is a consideration of traditional constructions of the process of eschatology. Essentially, this pertains to how the end is deemed to be brought about and what type of God may do this. The theologians included here all engage with different formulations of this process; most prominently, though, their attention is directed toward traditional Christian understandings of the eschatological process as one of rescue or conquest. What will become clear is that feminist readings of traditional models of the eschatological process highlight how this underpins traditional understandings of both the content and the time of the eschaton; hence their primacy in this assessment. The thinkers I will engage with share a concern that traditional theological models of the actuation of the eschaton rest on the construction of God as omnipotent. Connected to this are concerns surrounding the presentation of God as omniscient, impassible, incorporeal, and immutable. Feminist perceptions of the problems with these constructions will thus be explored here, as will their responses.

Problem: Eschatology is realised by God alone

The first problem that feminist theologians have identified with the eschatological process is that it constructs divine power as omnipotence, understood as power which is exerted over creation in a unilateral expression of dominance. Feminist theological and philosophical explorations of divine omnipotence are often informed by the work of process philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Hartshorne in particular helps us to see the relevance of the doctrine of divine omnipotence to eschatology, as he writes that “the omnipotence of God has been valued as a guarantee of the victory of good over evil” (2001, p.109). This battle between good and evil is often constructed as a cosmic and spiritual battle, and one which will culminate in the apocalyptic end-time. Assessing the omnipotence of God from an eschatological perspective is thus appropriate, for such a God infers an eschatology of conquests and crusades, and eschatology in its traditional constructions relies on such a God. Given my focus, though, the thinkers who are most relevant here are those whose assessments of omnipotence are consistently and explicitly undertaken in relation to both feminist theology and the process of actuating the eschaton; contributions offered by Carol Christ, Catherine Keller, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Grace Jantzen are arguably the most extensive and relevant. It should be noted that Keller also offers a significant and substantial challenge to creatio ex nihilo in her book The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (2003), which upholds many of the critiques made in other similar works and also adds to them a model of creation from the depths of an ever-existent chaos (2003, p.19). This “creation from the depths” is helpful in considering an eschatology “from the depths”, and is much akin to Jürgen Moltmann’s model of an eschatological divine–creation interpenetration (2004, p.158), which will be utilised in Chapter Two.

Christ’s interrogation of omnipotence, most evident in her 2003 work She Who Changes: Re-Imagining the Divine in the World, makes reference to the future, but is primarily concerned with challenging and reconfiguring gendered constructions of divine power. Christ has dedicated a vast amount of her work to challenging the Christian tradition’s preservation and promotion of a doctrine of divine omnipotence. Her recent article entitled “Goddess with Us: Is a Relational God Powerful Enough?” (2013) indicates the enduring relevance of the discussion. Most significant, though, as noted, is Christ’s 2003 work She Who Changes. In this text, Christ expresses both sensitivity to the desire for an omnipotent God and a substantial challenge to such a God. Christ acknowledges that “we want to believe that there is some time when good will be rewarded and evil will be punished”; a time when all things will be made well (2003, p.37). Christ suggests that such a desire is, however, a type of psychological anaesthetic, which, though comforting, ultimately thwarts freedom and relationality (2003, p.37; p.40). Relationality cannot co-exist with an omnipotent God, Christ contends, because such a God is too far removed from and disregarding of creation (2003, p. 86). Christ suggests that this connotes a God who cares little for creation, and as such is a God with whom we would be wary, if not incapable, of forming relationships.

In line with this, Christ infers that an omnipotent God is one whose perfection is defined by non-relationality, and, she contends, this frames our own perfection as becoming “as independent of relationships as possible” (2003, p.35). She further writes that the traditional image of God is one who is “related to none”. Christ notes that process philosophy asks “how [this God] could possibly become an object of worship” (2003, p.86), and she adds to this that such a God cannot possibly care for creation; thus she enquires, “Why should we care about him?” (2003, p.86). For Christ, then, models of divine omnipotence imply that the future is one in which we will become perfect by becoming non-relational.

This seems a legitimate critique: if God holds all power, then creation is bound to dependence and obedience, neither of which forms acceptable bases for healthy relationships. This is further problematised by the observation that, in addition to the unfeasibility of creation relating to an omnipotent God, an omnipotent God on account of “his” very omnipotence cannot be a relational God. Jantzen notes the sentiment within the Christian tradition that “most of our sensations are too trivial to apply to God” (1984, p.82), with Porter attributing such notions to the dualistic separation of transcendence and human existence which, she writes “has kept God apart from the ordinary, earthly, everyday matters of life” (2013, pp.98–99). Experiences of relationality are thus paralleled with triviality and removed from divinity, perhaps, Christ posits, on account of their concurrent parallel with women (2003, p.92). In such a construction, God is relationally and existentially superior to creation, ultimately transcending the trivialities of personhood framed particularly in terms traditionally associated with women.

Brock, in her 1995 text Journeys by Heart, helps to advance Christ’s exploration of power and relationality. She writes that when power is viewed as something to be possessed by an individual, then relational or “connecting” power and vulnerability “will be seen as threats to, rather than enhancements of selves” (1995, p.33). Jantzen takes this critique further and implies that underpinning all of these assumptions concerning divine power and knowledge is a doctrine of divine incorporeality (1984, p.28). Whereas problems with omnipotence and omniscience emerge as most explicit in the critiques of the eschatological process, we must also interrogate inferences made in the tradition to divine incorporeality. As Jantzen later writes, “It is the disembodied nature of the (nevertheless masculine!) divine which has served as the lynchpin of the western masculinist symbolic” (Jantzen, 1998, p.269). Christ (2003, p.47) adds weight to this contention, and writes that:

In traditional western thinking, change is given an exclusively negative evaluation. […] Since the body is the location of death and decay, the human body and all bodies were found lacking.

Thus it has been deemed inappropriate to speak of an embodied God, as to do so would be to assign the transience and limitations of death and decay to God’s being. This is an issue that concerns feminist theologians in particular because, as Christ notes, “Women have been the scapegoats in much traditional thinking about change and the body” (2003, p.48), with women’s bodies becoming the location of the vilification of the material. In such a construction, God’s knowledge of and relationships with creation do not require, and are even hindered by, corporeality and materiality: this only perpetuates the idea that femininity is incompatible with, and even jeopardises, divinity.

Jantzen claims that such a view is inconsistent. She writes that “it would be mistaken to suppose that being disembodied would be complete freedom from limitation”, as that which exists without a body is unable to partake in embodied activities. An incorporeal being, Jantzen argues, “could not climb trees, sniff roses, or embrace friends”, and such a being is therefore, according to Jantzen, limited (1984, p.106). Thus, to claim that God can only know all there is to know by existing without a body is illogical, as embodied experience and knowledge remains exterior and unintelligible to such a being. To then claim that we can relate to such a being only compounds the problem. Jantzen concurs, arguing that “the notion that an invisible entity, in no way perceivable by the senses, is more accessible to knowledge than a material object of which we can have sense data sounds foreign to our ears” (1984, p.34). The contention made here is that bodies are integral to the lived experiences of creation, thus to suggest that God is disembodied yet somehow capable of knowing and relating to creation is unfeasible. Incorporeality, then, rooted in and supporting God’s omnipotence and omniscience, is exposed by Jantzen as inappropriate, incomprehensible, and ultimately impossible to assign to a God who properly appreciates and experiences relationships with creation.

Feminist theologians have also noted that the traditional presentation of God’s omnipotent control over and knowledge of the future thwarts creaturely freedom. Indeed, Carol Christ implies that a controlled future is always an already determined future. She writes that “it makes sense to say that God knows the future only if it is also assumed that God creates it in every detail” (2003, p.39). An omnipotent God is thus always, for Christ, an omniscient God. Christ’s major contention with this is that it ultimately and totally compromises human freedom; she writes that “in this case, there is again no room for human freedom” (2003, p.39). Jantzen concurs with Christ and writes that a future which is already actual and known in God “raises enormous questions about the possibility of genuine human freedom and creativity”, for our choices and their results emerge as strictly predestined (1984, pp.53–54). Creativity and novelty are understood by Jantzen, then, to be thwarted by a God who always already knows their inspiration and intention. In response to such contestations, Christ claims that the reality and necessity of human freedom cannot but mean that the future is unknown to God: “Because individuals really are free, the future of the world cannot be known, not even by Goddess/God” (2003, p.195). Christ uses Charles Hartshorne’s “zero policy” to interrogate divine power, deducing that if God holds all power, then creation holds none (2013); similarly, if God holds all knowledge, then creation holds none, and, accordingly, creation thus has no freedom, meaning that God possesses all freedom. In order for creation to have freedom, in Christ’s understanding, neither God’s power nor God’s knowledge can be absolute; as such, God cannot feasibly control or know the future. This means that the future is undetermined; hence the resistance amongst many feminist theologians in attempting to speak in any definite manner about the nature of the future.

Keller’s critique, as articulated in “Why Apocalypse, Now?” mostly focuses on the suggestion that eschatology offers a “final solution”, to be realised by God alone (1992, pp.187–8). Similar to Christ, the crux of Keller’s critique rests on assumptions made in the tradition pertaining to God’s control over the process of actualising the eschaton. Keller’s contributions are invaluable to my own, as will become clear; most significant here, though, is her book Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World (1996a), and her articles “Why Apocalypse, Now?” (1992) and “Power Lines” (1995). In these offerings, Keller makes the connection between omnipotence and the future more explicit, as she draws parallels between omnipotence and the reliance on divinely actuated final solutions. This is said to be problematic for two reasons: God is imaged as holding all of the power to effect the eschaton, and this power is very often framed as being exercised in a partisan fashion. When God’s eschatological power is framed as partisan, as favouring a select group of people who will ultimately inherit the Kingdom or be saved in the end, then the oppression of one group by another, more powerful one is given divine credence. Indeed, Keller notes that the classical, patriarchal God “carries with it the central image of liberation as something accomplished by a ‘Holy Warrior’” who ultimately separates the evil from the good in the “endtime mythos of the final solution” (1992, pp.187–8). Jantzen adds weight to this critique, noting that “in the century [of] Auschwitz we should in any case view the very idea of ‘final solutions’ with grave suspicion” (1998, p.221). The critique we can discern from these perspectives is that the eschatological separation of people into “good” and “evil”, or “saved” and “damned”, by the “Holy Warrior” God, whose power for creation is partisan and is thus measured by exerting power over another group of people, legitimises the violent actions of those who believe themselves to be members of the favoured group against those constructed as wicked and wanting. Whilst one group may perceive God’s power as benevolent, then, eschatology is charged here with ignoring the other perspective, from which such power is experienced as oppressive.¹

Keller has further noted that in addition to traditional models of eschatology relying on an omnipotent God, such a God actually requires eschatology. Charting the development of eschatological thought, Keller notes that, initially, eschatology did not refer to a “final divine intervention” but rather to “a historical transformation, when right relations reign once more, labor is not exploited, and people ripen like their grapevines” (1996b, p.86). However, in the books of Isaiah and Daniel, Keller detects a shift from this “historical transformation” to a transformation of history wherein God will fulfil God’s promises by finally ending “history itself” (1996b, p.86). Keller attributes this change in thought to a sense of disappointment, which helps to explain her critique of omnipotence. She argues that disappointment in God would be perceived as a failure of God were God not “hedged around by all sorts of untestable eschatological promises” (1995, p.198). By deferring the fulfilment of God’s promises to a future-time, theology has “disguised” God’s failures (Keller, 1995, p.190) by appealing to a divine plan or intention which will finally overcome all pain and suffering. Theology is thus accused of moulding eschatology into a panic-room for God, so that when God does not act, when God’s power is seemingly absent, God is protected. Christ supports Keller’s case, writing that “any God who could have stopped the holocaust should have done it” (2003, p.97). A God who holds the power to realise the eschatological cessation of pain and suffering, but does not fully exercise this power now, is stripped of eschatological protection by Christ and Keller and exposed as one who either controls th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Feminist theology and eschatology
• 2 A relational process
• 3 A changing content
• 4 A tactile time
• Conclusion
• Index