The Cerulean Soul

A Relational Theology of Depression

Peter J. Bellini

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781481310932
• eBook ISBN: 9781481310956
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Psychiatry & Mental Health

Depression is difficult to define. It is commonly described as a chemical imbalance, a subjective experience of despondency, or even a semiotic construct. The various theories of depression--biochemical, psychological, cultural--often reflect one's philosophical anthropology. How one defines the human person is telling in how one defines mental disorder. Philosophy and the sciences tend to offer reductive explanations of what it means to be human, and such approaches rarely consider that we may be spiritual beings and so fail to entertain a theological approach.

Peter J. Bellini invites us to reimagine the person in light of the image of God in Christ, the divine enfleshed in human weakness. The Cerulean Soul responds to real challenges in the sciences and philosophy and offers a relational theological anthropology shaped by a cruciform framework that assumes and affirms human contingency, limitation, and fallenness. With reference to Christ's incarnation, Bellini reveals how depression is inexorably tied to our relationship with God as his created beings: original, fallen, and renewed. Despondency serves as a biosocial and spiritual marker for our human weakness, brokenness, and spiritual struggle for meaning and wholeness. Further, it is a call to grow, to be restored, and to be made holy in the image of God in Christ. What emerges is a therapeia of the imago for depression that fills the gaps in our present attempts to determine the malady's etiology and treatment.

Taking the missio Dei of union with the risen Christ as its goal, The Cerulean Soul opens up the perennial problem of human despondency to an eschatological trajectory of hope and peace, redemption and transformation, given freely in Christ through the healing and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Christoformity, informed by the subversive kingdom of God, gives new form to all persons, "abled" and "disabled."

PART I

Introduction to Melancholia

1

Introduction

Eric

Eric (not his real name) lived in the inner city. He came from a basically good and functional home. Eric always felt he was somewhat different from the other kids. He just did not seem to fit in, and he knew it. He spent much time alone, and the rest of his time seeking attention by acting up at home and at school. He found that other kids who were getting in trouble at school, for one reason or another, would give him the most attention. So he gravitated toward them and did what they did. He soon followed them and got in trouble at school and at home as they did. Early in elementary school, teachers began to track that he had learning disabilities. He was tested. An individualized education program (IEP) was put in place.

Eric had a family history of depression, OCD, and mood disorder on both sides of the family. The family suspected Eric had experienced some trauma as a child, but they could not figure out what, where, when, how, or by whom. They took him to a child psychologist to be evaluated. The diagnoses changed over the years—ADD, ADHD, bipolar, depression-anxiety, mood disorder, and so on. I am not sure whether they really ever knew exactly the correct diagnosis. He was treated with various psychiatric meds that were recommended at the time. Sometimes he felt better. Sometimes he felt worse. He went through frequent suicidal seasons.

I know Eric because I was his friend. As a pastor, I became a mentor to him. Eric wanted to know what was wrong with him and why he was not better after medication and therapy. He wanted to know why he was different. He wanted to know why God “made him this way.” He wanted to know why he was bullied and beaten up in school even though he did everything the tough kids wanted him to do. The doctors told him he had a “chemical imbalance” and meds would help (a medical analysis). But his problem was not merely about chemicals. It was also about getting picked on and beaten up (a social analysis). The therapist gave him sound counsel and strategies, but he could not focus to process what he was hearing, and what he processed he could not remember or retain. His real problem was that the world around him was too fast, too complicated, insensitive, exclusive, painful, and not friendly. He could not keep up and be one of the “normal” kids.

Yes, there were mental disorders present. Yes, there were diagnoses and meds prescribed. Yes, there was counseling. Yes, there were IEPs and accommodations related to the Americans with Disabilities Act. But that was not all. There was more. Much more, and that is what this book is all about—more. Diagnoses, meds, counseling, accommodations . . . what we call a medical model and a social model of explanation and treatment were all given. But there was more. Much more. There was a boy. And above all, there was God. It would be God who would make all of the difference in that boy’s life. I was blessed to be a part of his growth in God throughout his life. The meds, the counseling, and the accommodations helped, at times, and other times they did not seem to make much of a difference, especially when he wanted to end his life, which was frequently.

I was present in Eric’s life, in all seasons, like a father, a mentor . . . a friend. In season and out of season, I shared God in Christ. When he was up and down, and when he could not take any more and had a plan to end it all, I was a friend who was there. I was there when he loved me. I was there when he hated me. Always accessible. Yes, I shared Christ. I spoke Christ. I “did” Christ (to the best of my ability). He shared his pain and doubt. He spoke of his faith and hope. The journey never seemed easy. At times he wanted out, and other times I wanted out. But above all I was present and open to him as Christ had been with me. I embraced Eric as Christ embraced me. That was my sanctification and Eric’s. This book is about being in relation with God, directly and through others. It is about being made holy by God’s love and God’s love alone. Eric can speak for himself, but this work reflects in part what I have learned from him.

Medical and social models, as well as other models, offer much, but we cannot leave out the divine. The theological must be present, as it was with Eric. All persons with disabilities or disorders and those without are relational beings created and capable to receive and give the holy love of God in their own unique way. That is what a theological perspective has to offer. This work attempts to do that. There are hard and deep questions to ask in the mental health field. I ask some of them and go to the root to try to answer them as thoroughly as I know how. The writing is unabashedly highly philosophical, theological, and technical because it is attempting to do the hard work and heavy lifting of laying the foundation for well-thought-out theology that deals with a very serious subject that often involves life or death. The subject matter ultimately is people (not disorders), people with psychiatric disabilities, and their humanity. This work seeks to lay a firm academic, theological foundation for other academics and professionals who educate those who care for persons like Eric or who directly care for persons like Eric. I desire that our work may be steadily grounded in God, who desires to work through us.

Felix Melancholia?

O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem.

[O blessed sin (literally, happy fault) which received as its reward so great and so good a redeemer.]

Holy Saturday Latin Mass

O goodness infinite, goodness immense!

That all this good of evil shall produce,

And evil turn to good; more wonderful

Than that which by creation first brought forth

Light out of darkness! Full of doubt I stand;

Whether I should repent me now of sin

By me done and occasioned, or rejoice

Much more, that much more good thereof shall spring,

To God more glory, more good will to men

From God, and over wrath grace shall abound.

Paradise Lost 12.461–478

Is depression a blessing, curse, neither, or both? Is depression some type of felix melancholia? Many of us are familiar with the theological term felix culpa. Felix culpa, meaning “happy fall,” is the term in medieval theodicy used to speak of original or first sin in light of the incarnation and the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. The understanding is that although the fall was a tragedy, it became a blessing because God came in the flesh to die on the cross for our restoration.1 As Paul puts it in Romans 5:20, “Where sin abounds grace abounds more.” The notion of felix culpa, proposed by such theologians as Augustine and Aquinas, attempts to reconcile the notions of freedom, sin, providence, and redemption in Roman Catholic theodicy. In the Enchiridion Augustine declares, “For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.”2 Aquinas claims, “God allows evils to happen in order to bring a greater good therefrom.”3 God exists. Mental disorders exist. Why does God allow them, or why cannot God prevent them? Felix melancholia or happy (blessed) melancholy (depression) means that mental disorders, regardless of their etiology, whether they are attributed by some to God, the devil, the fall, an imperfect world, sin, poor choices, natural responses, part of the evolutionary process, social systems, genetics, neurochemistry, cognitive distortions, or any other source, can be part of God’s overall redemption plan to bring forth eschatologically the new creation. Although this work wrestles with etiology, it is more interested in healing and wholeness. Does God embrace persons with mental disorders and incorporate them and their ailments into the larger story of salvation? Does any suggestion of “needing salvation” perhaps imply the harmful notion that we are somehow defective, insufficient, or inadequate? These are questions to be examined.

Traditional Christian theology has proclaimed that Christ has assumed our human condition that we may partake of the saving grace of God. Every person, regardless of state or condition, including mental disorders, is invited to the banquet table to partake of the kingdom of God. Though we all express difference and distinction in our beliefs, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, race, ability/disability, and socioeconomic background, as Galatians 3:28 implies, we all equally need the grace and salvation found in Jesus Christ. The grace of God touches each of us in our unique place and development and empowers us on our journey to wholeness and holiness. None of us are in a special class in this regard. We are all undone by sin and need salvation! As Hans Reinders has claimed, “One way or another, any view of disability as a special condition is to be criticized for being dependent on patterns of exclusion. Whether God has blessed you or punished you, in both cases you are set aside from his other creatures about whom such verdicts usually are not communicated. That is what is wrong with such views.”4 In this sense, the cult of normativity is undermined and the dichotomies of blessed and cursed, sinner and saint, abled and disabled, and ordered and disorder are supplanted.5 We are all in need of God’s grace, and no one is excluded. And the good news is all are freely given God’s grace!

In the incarnation, God took our weakness and brokenness onto himself that he might restore humanity and the cosmos to God’s eternal intention. The resurrection of Jesus Christ offers cosmic transfiguration to a disfigured world. No state is too far removed from God’s redemption. The proposition of felix melancholia plays off of the term felix culpa, but it is not substituting melancholia for culpa. If it did, melancholia would be a type of culpa. No, melancholia is not a type of culpa per se but connected to felix. Blessed depression. Together, culpa and melancholia make the term paradoxical. The comparison of melancholia with culpa is analogical, as culpa is usually not seen as a blessing, and neither is melancholia. And even in Christ, melancholia is not a blessing, but neither can melancholia prevent blessing. Felix melancholia denotes the possibility of blessing even in depression, because in Christ, God’s saving power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Human weakness and constitutional poverty are not disqualifiers to struggles, benefits, or blessings as they often are in this world. Rather, they are receptors for the benefits and blessings of the kingdom of God extended by the grace of God. Neither are mental disorders or any condition markers that distinguish a “special” class of people based on our “ability” or lack of ability. Both conditions are measured in divine light and not our own judgment. We are not romanticizing or minimizing suffering in this life. The point is there is eschatological restoration found in Christ. In Christ, not only can human constitutional weakness and even the fall be a blessing, but also mental disorder, melancholia, can be a blessing because of the reality of resurrection and the emergence of a new creation. The driving premise of this work is that no human condition is marginalized or excluded from salvation. At the cross, human weakness becomes blessed because God also has become broken flesh that is blessed and offered for the life of the world as displayed at the eucharistic table of divine fellowship. All are invited to sit at the table and partake!

Melancholia and Theology

This work is interdisciplinary in scope. Although it engages scientific and medical sources, it is primarily a philosophical and theological exploration that is historical and systematic in its approach. One would expect a work that theologically investigates the phenomenon of melancholia to define the term in all of its technical aspects. Accordingly, I use melancholia in various senses. First, I use it symbolically to address the entire species of depressive-anxiety disorders. A general use of the term provides facility for discourse, as we attempt to define also the various specific iterations of melancholia across time. Chapter 2 attempts this daunting task. However, it is essential to remember that although we would like a convenient, manageable, simple, uniform, and treatable definition, melancholia is a complex, pluriform, and multivalent phenomenon that is quite elusive to nail down, especially in terms of etiology and definition.6 In fact, currently there is no one ultimate identifiable cause of melancholia, nor is there one unified theory that encompasses and connects all of the various explanations, from evolutionary to genetic to neurochemical to cognitive behavioral to psychosocial and so on.

To acknowledge the complexity of this phenomenon is not to ignore or reduce the significance of causation or avoid defining the malady. I will explore various theological efforts to identify causation. I will offer multiple hypotheses at both the popular and academic levels of interpretation, though none will ultimately satisfy any desire for a tidy, complete explanation. Historically, the Christian church has been known to attribute melancholia to God, the devil, the fall, an imperfect world, individual sin, and psychological causes. It is too easy to simply dismiss any or all of these or to accept blindly any or all of these explanations. Each case and its circumstances are unique, and at best causation may be partly re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I. Introduction to Melancholia
• Part II. Theological Anthropology
• Part III. Etiology of Mental Disorder: The Theological Types
• Part IV. A Trinitarian Theology of Melancholia
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index