(John is a member of the Social Responsibilities Commission, Anglican Province of Western Australia.>

This dissertation is presented for the Master of Arts in Theology degree of Murdoch University.

Submitted: 2>

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ABSTRACT

This paper explores the relationship between our human experience of disabilities and the God we worship. The names and images we use to relate with God are never value neutral and have the potential for misuse. As patriarchal language for God has subordinated women and women's experiences, so our dominant theological language has also excluded  people with disabilities and their experience of life.

To address such exclusion this paper argues that disability is a normative experience. We all experience only partial autonomy, so we are all in a way are disabled. Human worth is God given and not determined by our individual capacities or abilities. If this is so, then theology needs to work for people with significant disabilities. The doctrine of the imago Dei is seen to work for people with significant disabilities only when it refers to human community, and not when it refers to individual human attributes. Such community is only whole when it includes people with the full range of disabilities. A community's true strength lies in its capacity to incorporate persons with the most disabling conditions.

The capacity of God to exist in solidarity with human weakness and disability provides the evidence for imaging God as disabled. God's relationship to humanity is incarnational, incorporating the reality of human experience, including the normative experience of disability. This is particularly focused in the life and work of Jesus, but is also present in community that acknowledges its own weakness, its own interdependence, its own disability; where the Spirit incarnates the disabled God.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT......................................................................................... 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................... 2

GENERAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.......................................................... 4

Chapter 1 - The Language of God................................................... 5

1.1 Introduction................................................................................ 5

1.2 Speaking Humanly of God............................................................. 5

1.3 Differences in interpretation........................................................... 5

1.4 Anthropocentrism........................................................................ 6

1.4a Anthropomorophism in the Early Church........................................ 6

1.4b Extent of Anthropomorphic Belief.................................................. 7

1.4c The Fall of Anthropomorphic Literalism......................................... 7

1.5 the dominance of androcentrism.................................................... 8

1.5a A Feminist Critique of Androcentrism............................................ 8

1.5b This Feminist Critique and People with Disabilities......................... 9

1.6 Conclusion............................................................................... 10

Chapter 2 - A theological anthropology of disabilty.................................... 11

2.1 Introduction............................................................................... 11

2.1a Carey's Story........................................................................... 11

2.1b Alex's Story............................................................................. 11

2.1c Linda'sStory............................................................................ 11

2.2 Disability and Being Human........................................................ 12

2.2a Disability - What is in a word?.................................................... 12

2.2b TAB's..................................................................................... 12

2.2c David Pailin and Disability as a Normal Part of Human Experience... 12

2.2d Disability and Human Worth...................................................... 13

2.3 The Imago Dei.......................................................................... 14

2.4 People with Disabilities and Community........................................ 15

Community and Salvation................................................................ 16

2.7 Conclusion............................................................................... 16

CHAPTER 3 – The disabled God........................................................... 18

3.1 Introduction............................................................................... 18

3.2 God and suffering – The incarnation of God's love through solidarity with the human condition.    18

3.3 The Disabled God...................................................................... 19

3.3a The God Who Embraces The Experience of Disability.................... 19

3.3b The Risen Christ Who Bears the Signs of His Brokenness - Eiesland 20

3.3c Reflections on Eiesland and Cooper............................................ 21

3.4 Holy Spirit................................................................................. 21

3.4a Moltmann’s Charismatic Community.......................................... 22

3.4b Holy Spirit Manifest in Acts of Mercy............................................. 22

3.4c Holy Spirit – the remover of Fear................................................. 22

3.5 Conclusion............................................................................... 23

4. Conclusion.................................................................................... 24

5. Bibliography................................................................................... 25

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GENERAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I acknowledge and thank Dr Nancy Victorin-Vangerud for her supervisory assistance during the writing of this dissertation.

Chapter 1 - The Language of God.>

God is hidden, no man knoweth his form,

No man has searched out his similitude.

He is hidden to gods and men. He is secret to all his creatures.

No man knoweth a name by which to call him.

His name is hidden. His name is a secret to all his children.

His names are without number.

His names are many; no man knoweth the number thereof.

Old Egyptian Saying[1]>

1.1 Introduction>

The hidden mystery of God and our determined efforts to name that mystery come together in this reflection from Egypt. To name and to understand, to know and be known - these endeavours underpin the work of faith. To know God is at the same time to be known by God, and in being known we come to know who we are. The two tasks linked.

Faced with the mystery of God, the Judaeo-Christian tradition has sought to image God with the use of metaphor. Although metaphors, these images for God were sometimes understood literally. Whether taken literally or metaphorically the source of many of these images is human life and society. It is my proposition that our understanding of what it means to be human informs our understanding of the nature and attributes of God. The ultimate logic of this is that if we have a more rounded and balanced understanding of what it is to be human, then we can also have a deeper understanding of the God who created us, and vice versa.

In this chapter we will explore how our theological anthropology has shaped the language used for God. Firstly, we will look at the nature of our speech for God, paying particular attention to its anthropocentricity. Secondly, we shall examine the history of the literal understanding of these anthropocentric words for God. Thirdly, we will examine a feminist critique of traditional speech for God to demonstrate how a patriarchal anthropology has imaged God using exclusively male images. We will then be able to see how the logic of this critique can facilitate the experiences of people with disabilities providing images for God that will deepen our understanding of God's nature.

1.2 Speaking Humanly of God>

To speak of God is to use human language. This is an obvious statement, but one which contains a useful insight we must heed if we are to grow in our understanding of God. We can do nothing else but use the tools at our disposal to describe the God we experience. Theology is always a human activity; no matter to what degree we consider divine revelation. We describe and disseminate the revelation of God using human language and logic.

They are our words for God, and they differ depending upon which culture shapes our language. They are as different as the people who use them, nuanced by the factors that have shaped our life - gender, relationships, education, values, culture to name a few. We face a multitude of words for God and about God; the meaning and significance of which are sometimes beyond us because of the limitations of our knowledge and experience.

The words we use are not as neutral and as clear as we would like to believe. What we mean by them is not always what other people will take them to mean. Take for example the word 'normal'. In the course of preparing a couple for marriage, I became aware that they were both using this word to mean almost opposite things. For one, the word described what was correct and proper, while for the other it meant what was usual or common. Both thought the other obtuse for sticking with her or his particular meaning. It was only after they had read the variety of definitions for normal in the Oxford Dictionary[2], that I was able to help them see they were both right. They were then able to understand a little of what the other person meant by normal.

1.3 Differences in interpretation >

Theological dialogue is not exempt from such differences of interpretation and understanding, even with words that are in every day use. Take the title for God found in the Lord's Prayer, Father. This simple and straightforward word has its counterparts in every culture and language, and yet the different people using it invest it with different meanings.

Walter Kasper reminds us that the Aramaic Abba, which is taken to be the word used by Jesus, is more closely translated into the more familiar 'Daddy' of contemporary English[3]. However, for years we have been schooled by the long-standing use of the more formal term 'Father'. To suggest replacing it with Daddy or even Dad, raises fears that the dignity of God will be undermined, since it may promote an easy familiarity with God that could be contrary to an appreciation of the transcendence of God. It brings God down to our intimate level.

So where does our insistence on Father come from? The most straightforward answer is - from a strict translation from the Greek, Pater[4] (Pater), which appears in the manuscripts of the gospels of Luke and Matthew. Abba, occurs only once on the lips of Jesus, in Mark 14.36, and twice more in the New Testament, in Romans 8.15 and Galatians 4.6[5]. All three occurrences speak of intimacy. The first, where Jesus prays intensely before his arrest, while the Paul uses Abba in the context of the Spirit bond between the believer and God. These rare examples of Abba, hint at an approach to God that was soon submerged by the Greek form Patros, and with it the intimacy it suggests.

With the rise of dads taking on a more caring role in family life, we might wonder how such a vision of God could be lost so easily. Historically dads have been remote, even stern, authoritarian figures. Although we carry this stereotype too far at times, it does explain how a more formal use of the term father could become popular. Yet father can also be a term of endearment, and does not necessarily denote a formal, aloof figure. For some people it conjures up formal images, while for others it may evoke images of warm familiarity. For people who have experienced their fathers as abusive and violent, Unterman's assurance that "the term 'father' for God represents the ideal by whom every human father is to be judges (Eph. 3.14-15)"[6] may not be enough. Whether named Dad, Daddy, or Father, the images evoked may remain negative.

Our experience of life gives personal meaning the words we use for God. The associations they evoke in us define our understanding of these words as much as do their dictionary definitions. If these associations are powerful enough, then they will over-ride the correct dictionary definition. The pluralism this approach to word use implies suggests that familiar words in the Christian vocabulary can not be approached simplistically with the assumption that everyone knows, or accepts as normative one understanding of their meaning.

The subjective and unconscious power of word association can mean that our language is not simply descriptive, but also prescriptive. The language we use to describe God can also be used to define God, with the associated danger that what we define we may also confine.

The term Father also illustrates another characteristic of our God language. It is anthropocentric in that it sources its image from human life and society; indeed much of it is androcentric, coming from male life and society.[7] A father is a male human being, so when we name God as father, do we imagine God to be masculine? Further more, do we imagine God to be human in form? If not, what characteristics of a paternal being do we attribute to the God we name, Father?

1.4 Anthropocentrism>

Much of traditional language for God is anthropocentric, although images drawn from the inanimate world such as rock, tower and shield are also used. I use Anthropocentric here because it is a generic term that includes the more common term anthropomorphic, as well as the term anthropopathic and those roles ascribed to God that are more commonly ascribed to humans. It is widely used in the Green movement to describe an approach to the environment that puts human beings first at the expense of the rest of creation. It is used he in more value neutral sense, although it does clearly express the degree to which our anthropology resources our language of God.

Anthropomorphism ascribes God with the physical characteristics of the human body and its properties. In the bible God walks in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3.8); appears to Abraham in human form (Gen 18-19), eats and drinks (Gen 18:8), speaks with Moses 'face to face as one speaks to a friend' (Ex 33.11a); and is seen in human form 'they saw the God of Israel under whose feet was something like a pavement of sapphire stone' (Ex 24.10). Anthropomorphic descriptions of God tend to occur in the earlier sources for the Hebrew Scriptures as well as in narrative or prophetic writings, rather than priestly or wisdom materials[8].

Anthropopathism is the endowment of God with the emotional characteristics of the human capacity to relate. Attributes such as love, strength, wisdom, power, jealousy, wrath, and anger, that are the building block of human relationships are seen to find their place in the God who relates with the created word.

Our titles for God, such as - Father, Lord, King, Judge, are not strictly speaking anthropomorphic, because they are more to do with social roles rather than human form or attributes. They are crucial in our understanding of how God relates to humanity and so it is important that they are included in this examination of our language for God.

Although the roles we ascribe to God and the relational attributes of our God are important; historically most focus has been on the correct understanding of biblical anthropomorphism. We shall now look at the literal belief in the anthropomorphic nature of God, and its alternative metaphorical interpretation. We shall then examine how the developed allegorical approach to metaphor has given way to a new literalism with the development of biblical criticism.

1.4a Anthropomorophism in the Early Church[9].

Within the early church, controversy over the literal use of such language was primarily concerned with the anthropomorphic descriptions of God. Opposition to the literal interpretation of this form of language came from those who treated anthropomorphic language as metaphorical. This understanding was to dominate the early church and suppress literal anthropomorphism. This process took place during the first four centuries of the Common Era, and is associated with the rise of neo-Platonic philosophy within the early church.

The literal belief in the anthropomorphic nature of God has nothing to do with the Christological controversies of the third, fourth and fifth centuries. It refers to the form of one God and not to the incarnation in Jesus.

The writings of the early church provide evidence supporting the existence of a literal belief in the anthropomorphic nature of God.[10] Both Origen (185-254) and Augustine (354-430) wrote against a generalised belief in a literal understanding of biblical anthropomorphism. In Origen's commentary on Gen 1.26, he identifies the image of God with the "inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorruptible and immortal,"[11] as opposed to outer bodily form of humans. In Homily III, he acknowledges that not only the Jews but some of their own people "suppose that God should be understood as a man, that is, adorned with human members and human appearance."[12] Augustine before his conversion ridiculed Christianity for its supposed belief in an anthropomorphic God, until hearing Ambrose teach that Catholic doctrine was compatible with the Platonic belief in the incorporeal, immaterial, and Spiritual understanding of God. With this teaching one significant intellectual barrier to his conversion disappeared.[13]

Evidence of a broad anthropomorphic literalism is present in the writings of Theodoret (393-466), and of John Cassian (360-435).[14] Theodoret wrote in his Ecclesiastical History[15] of the heresy of Audaeus, a Syrian who in the fourth century took the Genesis 1.26 passage to indicate that God existed in human form. Audaeus believed that the clergy were too secularised founded a rigorous lay sect that separated off from the Church and became known as the Audiani.[16] Perhaps it was not so much ignorance, but suspicion of the secularised clergy that prompted them embracing such a literal, anthropomorphic view of the Godhead. They represent perhaps the first of the known groups that promoted this particular view.

Cassian wrote of a widespread literal anthropomorphism among the desert monks of Egypt. They strenuously resisted the attempts of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria from 385, to correct this belief that was labelled a heresy. [17] One particular monk, when finally convinced of the intellectual error of his former beliefs was filled with grief when as he tried to offer a prayer of thanks to God, he broke down, groaning "Alas! wretched man I am! they have taken away my God from me, and I have now none to lay hold of, and whom to worship and address I know not."[18].

1.4b Extent of Anthropomorphic Belief

The full extent of anthropomorphic belief within the early church is a matter of dissension. Paulsen (1990)[19] argued for a common or perhaps general belief in the corporeality of God in the first three centuries of the Common Era, but revised this after being challenged by Paffenroth.[20] Paulsen then stated it “was not unusual for Christians in the fourth century in North Africa at least to believe that God had a body which in form resembles those of human beings."[21]

What is clear however is that literal anthropomorphism was considered heretical and contrary to Catholic doctrine by St Ambrose, and Photius  (as reported by Theodoret). Abbot Isaac, quoted by Cassian in his Conferences Ch V, describes it as a “hateful interpretation” and a “heathenish blasphemy.” [22] Clearly, such conceptions of God in bodily form were viewed very seriously as undermining the proper belief in the invisible and unknowable form of God.

1.4c The Fall of Anthropomorphic Literalism

As mentioned earlier, the increasing acceptance of the neo-Platonic worldview by Christian thinkers signalled the demise of literal anthropomorphism. This was preceded within Judaism by Philo of Alexandria (c.20BC-c.AD50). Embracing a dualist spit between the material and immaterial world[23], Philo used allegorical interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures to provide a defence of Judaism that was consonant with Hellenistic Philosophy, particularly the ideals of platonic thought.[24] The inner life of the soul and the mystic experience of the transcendent God become known through his application of the allegorical method. With such an approach to God, there is no room for a material, corporeal God. Hellenised Jews influenced by Philo used allegorical exegesis to purge the Hebrew Scriptures of its anthropomorphic and anthropopathic ideas.[25]

(i) Allegorical Exegesis

The development of metaphorical exegesis fostered the rejection of the literal meaning of such anthropocentric images for God. Philo's approach to the Scriptures influenced Origen and Clement of Alexandria, who development his allegorical exegesis became a trademark of their theological school at Alexandria. Here the theology of the North African Church provided the theological foundation for arguments against the literal anthropomorphism that will later be described by Cassian and Theodoret, and ridiculed by Augustine.

The Alexandrian school of the fourth century continued Origen's interpretation that the Scriptures inform the Spiritual quest of the soul for the ascent to God. An ascent made possible by Christ, the logos, who reveals the way in Scripture.[26]

Allegorical interpretation was not accepted universally, with the school at Antioch favouring a respect for the historical setting which "nourished a deep-seated distrust of Alexandrian allegorism."[27] The influence of Origen's program of Spiritual exegesis is described by Foehlich as central in giving direction to Western biblical interpretation.[28]

Augustine's biblical interpretation included allegory, which he terms "figuration," which addressed the Spiritual goal of reading the Scriptures. He also encouraged investigation into the plain sense of the words. As his influence grew, a fourfold sense of medieval scriptural interpretation solidified - literal, allegorical, tropological (moral) and anagogical

(ii) The Fall and Rise of Literal Interpretation

While the simple literal interpretation of anthropomorphic images of God waned with the rise of the allegorical method, literal interpretation or interest in the plain meaning of the biblical text was to survive. The relative importance of metaphorical and literal interpretation was to ebb and flow during the proceeding centuries of Christian history. I use the term literal here very broadly to include the study the words and texts, their historical context and meaning. Metaphorical interpretation had been concerned with the way the words themselves point to a deeper meaning. The application of the allegorical method to whole passages produced elaborate interpretations.

The interest in the literal meaning of the Scriptures increased during the medieval period as the establishment of universities increased expertise in grammar, logic and dialectic. The rise in doctrinal concerns meant the Scriptures were important for providing material for the correct understanding of doctrine. While Spiritual expertise was not abandoned, the literal study of Scripture became more developed.[29]

The value of knowledge of biblical languages was recognised during the middle ages but regular instruction was not widely available until the sixteenth century. Here expositions that utilised a combination of linguistic, philosophical and historical considerations proliferated. At this time, the usefulness of elaborate allegorical Spiritual exegesis diminished, and literal and historical exposition pursued.[30]

The diversification of biblical interpretation, known now as biblical criticism, is a product of the reformation with its Catholic-Protestant conflict. The centrality of Scripture for the reformers meant they laid great stress on its interpretation. The doctrinal variations resulting from this study match the diversification within the reformed churches. They approached the biblical writings on a number of different levels, exploring authorship, dating, sources, religious environment, form, traditions, editorial history, and canonicity.[31] Within this approach the use of metaphor is just one of a multitude of literary devices to be considered.

At one level it hardly seems accurate to describe current biblical criticism as literal. It does not take the bible literally, but seeks to uncover the real meaning of its words and passages, using the insights gained from the literary methods listed above. With a little stretch of the imagination, this approach matches the complexity of the allegorical methods of the early church. Yet it does not seek after hidden meanings, but seeks rather to honour the complexity of the text, its history and structure, to bridge the gap of time and culture that separates us from the author and original audience.

The transformation of literal into biblical interpretation has given modern scholarship the tool to evaluate critically the traditions of our faith. One area in which this is particularly noticeable is in the feminist critique of the patriarchal nature of traditional Christianity.

1.5 the dominance of androcentrism>

Feminist theology would say that our language for God is not just anthropocentric, but it is almost entirely androcentric[32], that the words and images used exclusively represent male values and male interests as normative. I shall now explore several elements of this feminist critique to illustrate how this androcentric language is at times taken literally. I shall then explore how it utilises metaphors, raised up from biblical and contemporary images, which evoke the female experience of life. This method validates experience to broaden our understanding of the nature of our God. I shall then be in a position to argue that people with disabilities have a similar experience of marginalisation. Metaphors for God can be raise up that similarly validate their experience of life and so further enhance our understanding of the complex nature of God.

1.5a A Feminist Critique of Androcentrism

Elizabeth Johnson, in She who is (1994) describes the consequences of the androcentricity of Christianity as the suppression of the full humanity of women, of children, and of men who do not fit the image of the normative man.[33] She speaks of three tasks for feminist theology.

The first task is the work of deconstruction, that is, the unmasking of the hidden dynamic of domination in the Christian tradition, its language, custom, memory, history to list a few. It asks who benefits from this articulation or arrangement of reality? The second is the task of recovery of ignored, suppressed, or alternative wisdom, the untold stories of women and the possibilities that would build a new reality. Thirdly is the task of reconstruction of a new community, which promotes the full humanity of women.[34]

For Johnson the critique of Speech about God is central to the process of addressing the suppression of the full humanity of women. The three elements of this speech are examined by Johnson are also pertinent to people with disabilities. An examination of them will provide the foundation for chapters two and three of this dissertation. These three elements are its exclusivity, its literalism and its patriarchal nature.

Exclusivity. Here the androcentric nature of prevailing Christian language contrasts with the wealth of biblical and extra-biblical designations for the divine mystery, previously forgotten or marginalised. Female images or metaphors from the natural world are unused and even suspected as being deviant. "To give one outstanding example, liturgical prayer is often directed to the Father, through the Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, with even the latter being masculinised through the use of grammatically male pronouns."[35]

Literalism. Despite the acknowledged mystery of God, in Scripture and in tradition, "the exclusively male symbol of God is spoke in an uncritically literal way." At a deep, subliminal level, the continued and exclusive use of male images for God and the use of the masculine pronoun has led to God becoming identified as male. The discomfort that using female images for God, or referring to God as she, signifies that at a feeling level at least, many people find it more natural to image and talk of God in male terms. [36]

Patriarchal Nature. Johnson argues that the divine images of monarch, absolute ruler, King of Kings, Lord of Lords can be seen as arising out of the ideal of the ruling man in a patriarch society. Moreover, she identifies a dynamic, reciprocal link between the two realms, a kind of circular logic that invests these earthly roles with divine sanction.[37]

This logic is dependent of the dualistic split between God and the mortal world, a split between Spirit and material. Furthermore, it is a split that mirrors the separation between male and female, between reason and emotion, between mind and body, between good and evil. In this dualism God, men, reason, mind and act, are set up in opposition to material, woman, emotion, body, and potency. As God is pure act and good, only images from that side of the dualist equation are suitable to describe God. This excludes images with the feminine. This includes images that speak of dependence, potency, passivity and matter.[38]

The effect of this is that the human (male) reality that points to God is in turn sanctified. As human reason points to the pure rationality of God, so the rationality of God makes reason holy, and as male reason taken as the purest example of reason, so it is the holiest. Quoting Paul Tillich, Johnson writes, "if God is called the 'king,' something is said not only about God but also about the holy character of kinghood."[39]

Johnson concludes that the consequence of exclusive, literal and patriarchal speech about God is deleterious to both human beings and to God.

"In stereotyping and then banning female reality as a suitable metaphor for God, such speech justifies the dominance of men while denigrating the human dignity of women. Simultaneously this discourse reduces the divine mystery to the single, reified metaphor of the ruling man that the symbol itself loses its religious significance and the ability to point to ultimate truth. It becomes a word, an idol."^[40]

By the exclusive and literal application of a limited understanding of what is important in being human, the God so imaged is also limited. Paradoxically, the God who is classically described as transcendent, as being all powerful, all knowing and impassive, has become limited by male imagining that values strength, rationality, freedom and independence, above embodiment, weakness, compassion, and limitation. The very things the incarnation embraces, this patriarchal logic undermines.

1.5b This Feminist Critique and People with Disabilities

The feminist critique outlined above seeks to highlight the exclusion of female experience and images from our theological language. It concludes that such exclusion diminishes not only those excluded but also the very God we seek to worship and understand. As a theology dominated by patriarchal logic accesses only part of human experience, so the literal and exclusive application of patriarchal language for God produces an idol or false image for God.

To incorporate female experiences of life is not enough, if in doing so, it excludes the experiences of men and women with disabilities. The methodology utilised in examining androcentric speech for God is also useful in examining feminist speech for God. As feminist theology has been criticised as being white and middle class,[41] it has also been criticised by women with disabilities as being exclusive. [42]

Elly Elshout writes than many feminist strategies work against the needs and interests of women with disabilities. Complete separation from the patriarchal society as a desirable goal is criticised as being insensitive to the reality of women with disabilities separated from such society by restricted physical access. The benefits of such a strategy are not immediately obvious to them. Similarly, the feminist criticism of the traditional roles of wife and mother ignores the fact that such roles are often denied to women with disabilities who are taught they are asexual beings. Elshout challenges Feminism as being unaware of its own 'ableism'. As a movement, its goal is the enablement, empowerment, and the strengthening of women. As a woman with a disability, she experiences many 'fit' women who are reluctant to admit that women with disabilities embody all they do not want to be. She argues that the patriarchal way of judging by looks, health and productivity is perpetuated by feminists. [43]

In this way, as a methodology of liberation, the feminist critique demonstrates its usefulness in its ability to facilitate self-evaluation. It is a potent tool in the promotion of a theological anthropology that incorporates disability as a normal part of life. From the perspective of people with disabilities, the tasks of deconstruction, recovery and reconstruction outlined above are highly relevant.

Of particular interest in this study is the way language for God can either liberate and empower or diminish and confine different groups of people. By describing the dominant, traditional speech for God as exclusive, literal and patriarchal, Johnson has not just opened a way forward for women, but for people with disabilities. People with disabilities know the power of exclusion, and the isolation of not finding their experiences and images valued in theological language. Images of God that embrace weakness are rarely used. The potential found in the kenotic logic of Philippians 2.5-11 is underutilised as a source for describing the all-powerful God as the one who chooses powerlessness. The power of the physically disabling wounds of the risen Christ to image the Disabled God is identified by Nancy Eiesland as a positive image for people whose bodies are "nonconventional". It reveals that as Jesus embodies true personhood, so "full personhood is fully compatible with the experience of disability."[44]

The literal manner in which the patriarchal images of God are understood and the manner in which they colour what is valued in human society is of critical importance to people with disabilities. The very valuing of what is powerful, what is independent, devalues that which is weak or dependent. The manner by which we theologically extend human powers and abilities when we image God is criticised by Burton Cooper. For Cooper the "the world process means something to the divine life, and contributes to God's eternal life…Insofar as the reality of the disabled participates in God, God can be said to be disabled."[45] To talk of the metaphorically Disabled God is to open ourselves to "a deeper understanding of the nature of God's creative and redemptive love."[46] Such insight is illusive if there exists within human society a logic which values some people more than others, and in doing so establishes a hierarchy of human being, where some are considered more fully human than others.

1.6 Conclusion>

The human character of our speech for God is beyond question; our human experience of life informs the words we use. Our gender, culture, education, social position and ethnic background all combine to shape our particular experience of life, which then shapes the meaning of words at our disposal. Though characteristics of the non-human world are sometimes a source for our language for God, it is normally anthropocentric. In this way, human characteristics are used as we seek to understand the nature of God, indeed "without these or similar modes of expression, any developed exposition of the nature and attributes of God would be impossible."[47]

Our understanding about what is good and valuable in being human informs the selection of these characteristics. Feminist critiques of the traditional language for God illustrate that this selection is not value neutral. These critiques argue that such language is not just anthropocentric but also androcentric in an exclusive, literal and patriarchal way.

In a very real and tangible way, a hidden and denied androcentric literalism has replaced the anthropocentric, and specifically the anthropomorphic literalism of the early centuries of the Common Era. Too sophisticated to believe that God is really human in form, the church has acted as if God was really male, elevating perceived male strengths and sanctifying them in the name of the mysterious divine. This is a case of our language not only describing, but actually defining and confining God.

The way forward is in the recovery of religious metaphor.^[48]  This involves moving beyond the standard and traditionally accepted images for God, to the recovery of lost and bypassed biblical images, as well as the generation of contemporary images. The test of relevance of these images is evident in the way they embrace human experience of the divine. When we consider them as one of many images, as pointers to the divine mystery that is God, they are no longer idolatrous in nature. In this way, we avoid the faults of irrelevance and idolatry that McFague associates with traditional religious metaphors.[49]

When we respect the capacity of religious metaphor to point to the divine mystery of God using biblical and non-biblical images from human experience, we renounce the exclusive use of selected images. Then our exposition and appreciation of the nature and attributes of God will greatly enhanced. This process also resists the dehumanising of groups of people who do not fit the dominant image.

If we consider people with disabilities, it will be apparent that their experience of life has been placed with that of women as less than normal. It is my contention that disability as an experience in life does not belong solely to one subgroup of humanity, but is part of the reality of every human life, male and female, adult and child. It is not a marginal issue, but one central to our very being, central to the quest to be fully human. When considered in this way, what we consider normal and abnormal may well change. In the next chapter, we will explore the ways in which accepting disability as a normal experience in life will change our understanding of where true worth lies. A consequence of this approach will be to see that the image of god is found not in any individual capacity but in human community. This understanding will then provide the basis for exploring the concept of the Disabled God as a metaphor

Chapter 2 - A theological anthropology of disabilty

Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who variest the forms of thy creatures.

On seeing a person with disabilities >

The Hebrew Prayer Book[50]

2.1 Introduction.>

What one person sees as diversity, another can see as difference. Diversity can include oneself in its scope, but difference always separates. By its very nature, the term disability separates and categorises. In this chapter, I will illustrate however, that none of us is a stranger to the essential experience of disability - loss of autonomy. I shall argue, with the assistance of Pailin[51], that to be human is to experience disability, and that the distinction between persons with disabilities and persons without disabilities, is artificial and misleading. I shall present a model of human being that embraces the experience of disability in all its diversity. A model that is based on an understanding that sees the fulfilment of the doctrine of the Imago Dei in life-giving community, and not in any individual human attribute or capacity. The theme of community embraces diversity, and which does not idolise the myth of human perfection.

We begin with the stories of three real people to remind us that while much of this discussion deals with abstract concepts, its beginning and its end is with real people.

2.1a Carey's Story

On 26^th September 1952, June Epstein, gave birth to her second child, a healthy baby boy, soon to be called John Carey. A week after his birth, he became seriously ill with encephalitis, an inflammation of the central nervous system that often causes permanent disability in those who survived. Carey survived, but was slow in his development. Finally, at the age of three he was diagnosed as "Grossly retarded."[52] In her book, Image of the King, Epstein describes her initial denial of that diagnosis, which in time was replaced with thankfulness that her doctor had been straight with her. She describes Carey's erratic and unpredictable behaviour, but also how she took him off drug treatment that made him more manageable, but turned him into a zombie.[53]

June tells Carey's story from his birth through to his seventeenth birthday, where he is living away from home with other young people with disabilities. He will always need adult supervision, and is restless in spite of his daily tranquillisers, he is unable to speak or concentrate, yet he has made a friend and they enjoy each other's company. June concludes this story with the following parable:

On a bitterly cold night in London years ago, some derelict men were huddled around a coffee stall opposite a luxury hotel. Watching expensively dressed people going in and out of the hotel, they began to argue about the unfairness of life, and whether any man were more deserving than another. When the argument became fierce, they appealed to the old paper-seller who had his pitch next to the coffee stall. Taking a handful of coppers from his greasy cap, he held them up one at a time, pointing out that some were new, some worn, some underweight, one even cracked. "But,' said he, 'each one is valid coin of the realm, and everyone bears the image of the King.'[54]

For June, Carey was still very much human despite his disability, he bears the "image of the King", and she would not turn him into a zombie just to make him more manageable.

Carey's story challenges the belief that human being is most properly defined in terms of productivity. In the parable of the coins, human worth is not located in ability or appearance but in the assurance that we are all "minted" by the same creator, that we all bear the image of our King. Genesis 1.26-27, which was so important in the development of literal anthropomorphism now provides us with the means to explore what it really means to be human.

2.1b Alex's Story

Alex was just over one year and one month old when he died. He was born four weeks premature, small for his gestational age, with Down's Syndrome. He spent his life more often in hospital than not. Alex's story was pivotal in the development by Pailin of the thesis that handicap is a human experience that is not restricted to the group of people commonly called handicapped or disabled. To reflect on human disability is to reflect on the problem of suffering and the nature of God, to ask the ultimate question about the meaning of life. The answer to which is conceived in the belief that every human experience is incorporated into the very being of the divine. Clearly this fits into our theme for chapter 3, but as it relates to people and disability it will be discussed here.

2.1c Linda'sStory

The story of a young friend of mine with cerebral palsy is our third story. [55]  While able to walk on her good days, her wheel chair gave her greater mobility and security. One day her pastor's wife stopped her in the main street of the country town by standing in the way of her wheel chair. The woman proceeded to pray for her healing, and when she had finished, pulled her to her feet with the admonition to walk. When my friend collapsed on the footpath, the woman was puzzled because she had said the right words. My friend must have some secret sin or anger against God, that she had not confessed, else she would have been healed! She was blamed for her lack of "healing."

Linda's story is important to our discussion because it raises the question of healing, and the relationship between continued disability and faith.

2.2 Disability and Being Human>

Carey, Alex, and Linda are persons with disabilities and while their personhood is influenced by their medical conditions and the disabilities they generate, they are people first and foremost. Their lives are vastly different from each other, but they all share a loss of autonomy that many people take for granted and expect to last forever. The loss, or more correctly the waxing and waning of autonomy, is however a characteristic of being finite, mortal human beings. Although we may describe people whose autonomy is less pronounced than ours, as persons with disabilities, we cannot treat them as being in any way less human than ourselves. Indeed, our autonomy is not universal or absolute, therefore we can all be considered to be persons with disabilities. Before we explore this concept at greater depth, we need first explore more fully the word disability

2.2a Disability - What is in a word?

Disability as a word is very clear and understandable. The dis informs us that the ability is in some way negated or diminished. The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary defines disability as, " thing or lack that prevents one's doing something; legal disqualification; physical incapacity caused by injury or disease."[56] Disability embraces all the disabling conditions that people can experience. As a word, it is less value-charged that retarded or deformed, and unlike handicap, it does not imply competition.

However, when handicap is applied to people with disabilities is a very negative term. It does not mean the person's handicap allows others to compete or deal with them on a fairer basis. It actually means that a person with a handicap is disadvantaged. Their handicap does not bring them down to a certain level of equality, but signifies basic inequality.

By its very nature and application, it separates persons with disabilities from those without disabilities. It is more often than not used by those who perceive themselves as not having a disability.

2.2b TAB's

At the second biennial conference on Disability and Spirituality, held in Adelaide in 1998, I encountered a new term – TAB or  Temporarily Able-Bodied and is used in the disability movement to refer to people without disabilities. [57] TAB conveys the impermanence of living without disabilities. Not only are many disabilities are acquired during life, many older people in our community experience progressive hearing and sight loss. Cataract operations are common, as is the progressive strengthening of prescription glasses as the years advance. Hearing aids have become a symbol of the aging process, and their use is often resisted by those wishing to deny they are growing older. Other health problems associated with aging include arthritis, dementia and loss in lung and heart function. This does not include serious illness which, when fatal leads to the ultimate disablement of our mortal bodies.

The concept of TAB, is not limited to the aging process however, but also focuses on the potentially disabling effects of head and spinal cord injury and trauma that results in the loss of limbs or organs. Accidental loss of mobility, of sight or hearing capacity, of kidney or lung function, immediately signal the transition from the TAB to the group of people living with disabilities.

However, disability is not limited to our physical body, psychological trauma can have a disabling effect on people's lives. Victims of violent crime, of sexual harassment, of abusive relationships, often experience psychological scarring. An example of such scarring is in the condition of co-dependency where feelings of responsibility are transferred from a person controlled by addiction to members of their family. The development of fear, experienced as growing agoraphobia, is another example of this same process of disablement.

As the concept of temporarily able-bodied people is explored to its ultimate end, it starts to suggest that absence of disability is a very temporary condition. That at least potentially the vast majority of people are at risk of experiencing disability.

Taking disability very broadly, all sorts of impairments are included. Clearly some have a bigger impact on the people involved than others. Total blindness has a greater impact that mild short sightedness; and the pain of advanced arthritis, though disabling is different from total immobility generated by the paralysis of quadriplegia. Similarly, the impact of Carey's encephalitis is different from that of Linda's cerebral palsy.

2.2c David Pailin and Disability as a Normal Part of Human Experience

The temporary and indeed partial nature of able-bodiedness means that the next logical step is to understand disability as a much more central condition of human life. David Pailin took this step as he moved from writing a liberation theology of handicap to a theology of human being that incorporated handicap. Many of the reasons for this relate to the nature of liberation theology and the requirement that those needing liberation speak for themselves. However, the main reason has to do with the process of defining who the persons with handicaps are. Pailin uses the word handicap exclusively in his writing, though I believe its use is virtually synonymous with the use of the term disability in this paper. The word concept of handicap is critical to Pailin's argument so in this section when summarising his argument I shall use handicap as he does.

Pailin adopts a broad approach to handicap and considers every person as having a handicap of some sort, at some time in their lives. Pailin's ultimate reason for abandoning a liberation theology of handicap is that handicap is flawed as a word to use to describe a subset of humanity. It suggests that life is a competition, a proposition Pailin argues is not self-evident. It also requires a standard of human being to measure those who are deemed handicapped. Pailin asks where are we to find such a standard?[58]

The traditional Christian answer is in the person of Jesus, but Pailin finds this unconvincing. In what concrete respects does Jesus act as a standard? Is it his caring for others, his itinerant lifestyle, his miracle working, his dividing of families, is it his not supporting himself and so on? In the manner of the problems identified in the search for the historical Jesus, Pailin argues that "In practise the figure of Jesus drawn from the gospel records is largely made to conform to the understanding of human being entertained by those presenting him as standard."[59] We see this is the way Jesus becomes a Jungian archetype for John Sanford, a person with the ultimate vision of reality for John Powell, and the fulfilment of our existential potential for Jerome Murphy-O'Connor.[60] 

Pailin cautions against the pursuit of such a standard that moves us from our formal profession of Jesus, to the development of a universalised set of material characteristics as a norm for human being. Using the work of Marjorie Suchocki, "In search of Justice: Religious Pluralism from a Feminist Perspective" (1987), Pailin warns that such a norm may "unjustifiably oppress those who are judged not to satisfy the norm and distort the self-understanding of those who do satisfy it by obscuring the particularity of the norm."[61]

If no universal standard is available to judge success or estimate handicap, then the notion of people being in competition with one another to be human is mistaken. For the same reason, there can be no universal way of identifying the meaning of 'handicap'. Arguing from a pluralistic perspective, Pailin suggests that the designation of handicap is a subjective judgement. It indicates that the person so described lacks something important to the describer. They may not share that sense of lack, and who is to say they should? Is it just a case of one group imposing their standards on another? This "may be an act of unjustified imperialism."[62]

When human finitude combines with a pluralist appreciation of human diversity, it is impossible for anyone not to lack something important to everyone else. God alone is infinite, capable of experiencing all things. In this way all people may be considered handicapped, though to varying degrees, some severely, others mildly. The separation of those who are designated handicapped because they lack autonomy is untenable when we consider the whole life of a person. All of us are very dependent and restricted at the beginning of our life. We live because others cared for us. We develop as people because others respond to us. Without this we would not just be limited in our development, we would not survive. The massive dependence that characterised our beginnings is also experienced to varying degrees as we enter old age.

Although much of Pailin's argument for the broad applicability of handicap to people in general depends upon his critique of the word itself, the same position is easily arrived at if the word disabled is used. While disability is often defined by lack of ability, it still manifests itself in a lack of autonomy. This raises the question, who is ever perfectly able in every aspect of her or his life? Many people require reading glasses, and while we may enjoy singing, our ability does not always match our desire. Similarly, there are times in our life when a particular ability has either not been developed or has been diminished in some way. Disability is often used in association with the particular types of disability, whether physical, intellectual, sensorial or emotional and psychological. Again, who of us can ever claim to be without some form of disability?

In saying this we must not overlook the members of our society who experience profound levels of disability. We must take care not to diminish or trivialise the impact and importance of their disability in their experience of life, when we say that we are all in some way disabled. However, the reverse is possible when this we take this position seriously. To view the experience of disability as a normal part of being human can circumvent the segregation of people with more severe disabilities from the rest of humanity. Such a universal understanding of disability can guards against treating people with disabilities as if they are less that human. Those who are considered disabled in a narrow sense can no longer be considered as a deviant subset of humanity, who are somehow less human than those who are considered not affected by disability. The importance of this insight is that any theology of human being that does not work for those who are severely handicapped or disabled it cannot be said to work at all.

2.2d Disability and Human Worth

In the rest of his book, Pailin develops just such a theology. Alex's life, his achievements in blowing bubbles, in standing and in shaking hands, and the suffering endured by him and his parents are the touchstones of authenticity, the test for Pailin's thought and argument. Alex had already disturbed him enough to make him see his understanding of salvation was potentially elitist. In Pailin's process theology, the traditional substitutionary and sacrificial approaches to atonement are revised and the saving activity of God is found in the preservation of what has been experienced and in the inspiration of further expressions of aesthetic value. Alex's life raised the question of what had he contributed that established his worth as a remembered part of the divine reality. Was a person's value determined by what they contributed, and if so were people who were deemed to not make a worthwhile contribution expendable if resources for life are limited? Pailin argues that we are valued by God as we are, not for "what we contribute to God, but because of the value which God bestows on us."[63]

A person's worth is not found in what they can do, or can not do, but in the fact that they are loved in the present. 'Worth is not a quality that belongs to a person in herself or himself; it is a matter of a relationship with another person."[64] But if our worth is found in others loving us, what if we are not loved and have no one who cares about us? We might be considered worthless in those circumstances, but if we are truly loved by God, then we have true worth. The words of the six days of creation where God pronounces it good are echoed in this argument. We do infact have intrinsic worth because the creator God loves us. The extravagant and yet personal nature of God's love means that no matter who we are or what our abilities, God loves and cherishes us in the same way.[65] If value resides intrinsically in the regard of God for each person, then to respond to that love with our own love is to love all whom God loves, to love everyone.[66]

The principle that human worth is bestowed by the God who loves, underpins Pailin's theological anthropology. This anthropology looks at God and human suffering, God's will, the nature and the good news of salvation, the imago Dei and what life after death may mean in a personal sense. These are explored from the perspective of persons with severe intellectual disabilities. Although Pailin's approach is in a sense reductionist, it is also foundational in nature. Pailin seeks to define what is fundamental about being people loved and called by God to live our lives to the best of our ability. As the worth of people with disabilities became a question of the worth of all human beings so too a theological anthropology for people with severe disabilities becomes a theological anthropology for all persons.

I shall now explore this theological anthropology by examining the concepts of the Imago Dei and Salvation.

2.3 The Imago Dei >

In considering the concept that humans are created in the image of God we will look briefly at the different ways this has been understood. There have been three basic approaches to unraveling the mystery of exactly what this image is. The traditionally dominant approach identifies some individual human attribute with this image. The second approach identifies the image in a collective sense with human relationships, while the third identifies it with the relationship between humanity and God. Each of these will be assessed as too their ability to work for people with severe disabilities.

2.3a Imago Dei and individual human Characteristics

Moltmann has described the first approach as characterising the traditional understanding of western Christianity that has resulted in a one-sided anthropology – the dominance of the individual. Starting with the unity of the Trinity, this understanding identifies the image with characteristics of individual persons. For Augustine, the soul, which can image the three-fold nature of God through “self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-love,” is the site of the image of God.[67] For Thomas Aquinas, it is the intellectual capacity of human beings, for this enables them to imitate and resemble God.[68] Moltmann sees the corresponding subjugation of the body and its social relationships as having “far-reaching and tragic consequences.”[69] In this approach, the dichotomy of neo-Platonic thought has located the image in men but not fully in women. [70] The association of the image with the dominion of creation has translated itself into social and environmental domination. Moltmann argues that the image must include the whole of the human person, and not some special part.

Clearly, any approach that locates the image of God in the rational capacity of people will exclude people with intellectual disabilities. Indeed any approach to being human that does not honour bodily existence severely undermines the explicit valuing of creation in the Genesis accounts of creation and the significance of the Incarnation. To see the image applying to the whole person is really the only logical conclusion because of the vast diversity between people. Any identification with a particular attribute risks the exclusion of individuals who do not share that attribute.

2.3b Imago Dei and the Relational Nature of the Trinity

The second approach is identified by Moltmann with the theology of the Greek Fathers that starts with the perichoretic community of the Trinity and identifies the image of God in the way human community can correlate to the community of the Trinity. Here the image is identified with the community of the human family. Gregory of Nazianzus took the family of Adam, Eve and Seth to correspond to the Trinity, and so placed the image in this original nuclear family as the basic cell of every human society.[71]  Moltmann identifies how this model spans time and space. As man and woman, the relationship is spatial, while between parents and child it spans generations. He argues that as the whole human person is included in the image of God, so to true human community, as the community of the sexes and of the generations, is also included in the same designation. In their communities, humans do not merely image the rule of God over creation, but also God’s inner nature. Moltmann sees in this approach a necessary corrective to the first approach because it defines human beings primarily by their social and communal nature and not as self-contained individuals.[72]

The identification of the image of God with the relational characteristics of God contained in the doctrine of the Trinity finds widespread acceptance among many contemporary theologians.[73] Phyllis Trible’s reinterpretation of the two stories of creation has challenged the subordination of women to men, demonstrating rather that both sexes were created simultaneously.[74] This then points to relationships being a defining characteristic of human being. To be human then is not to exist in isolation to others, but in relation to others. The vision of the creation stories is of harmonious relationships between the human person, humankind and the created world, and humankind and God. This harmony is disrupted by the shared failure to observe the divine limits.[75] This vision of creation is a vision of community. 

The transformed understanding of the imago Dei as the imago Trinitas means that true humanity is not exemplified by an individual who lives a life isolated from the rest of humanity, but is found when people live in right relationship with one another. This has important ramifications for people with disabilities, particularly for people with severe intellectual disabilities. Their humanity is not denied because of their disability but affirmed by the manner in which they are included in community and enhance community themselves. I shall return to this after covering the third understanding of the imago Dei that is mentioned at the beginning of this section.

2.3c Imago Dei and the Relationship Between God and Humankind.

The third approach to the imago Dei identifies the image with the relationship between God and humankind. Rather than being located in any one individual or corporate human characteristic it speaks of the role that human kind has to image God to the world. Moltmann speaks of the image being defined by God’s relationship to humanity, rather than the other way around. In this way it is unaffected by sin, ‘the presence of God makes the person undeprivably and inescapably God’s image.’[76] This closely follows Pailin’s understanding that in love God grants worth to all people.

Pailin dismisses the notion that the image can logically be located in any human attribute, preferring to view it as an announcement of the status which belongs to all people as a consequence of God’s all embracing love. He notes how Seth is described as being in the likeness and image of Adam and suggests that this is a statement of familial relationship, and not a physical description. Using Tillich's thesis that a symbol participates in the reality for which it stands, Pailin suggests that something of the holiness of God is imparted to human beings by God's interest in them. [77] "By pointing to the holiness of each person, the doctrine that people are 'in the image of God' thus emphasises the God-given significance that belongs to each human being."[78] Here he is in agreement with Moltmann when he says, “the dignity of human beings is unforgettable, irrelinquishable and indestructible, thanks to the abiding presence of God.”[79] Sin may mar the mirroring of this image, but image is a grace of God, in a sense, the imago Dei is something waiting its full unveiling in the coming kingdom of God. 

These last two approaches are compatible, and indeed the full expression of the imago Dei as grace from God is found in communities that find themselves transformed into the imago Christus. Moltmann describes this as the messianic calling of human beings. The true image of God is not found at the beginning of God’s history with humankind, but at its eschaton, in Christ as the first fruit of the new creation. The manner in which believers are transformed into the likeness of Christ by becoming new human beings means that the likeness is both gift and charge. While the imago Dei denotes a fixed status, it also embraces the processes of sanctification whereby believers in community grow into the fullness of the body of Christ, and so mirror the community of the Trinity in their corporate life. The ways in which people with severe disabilities can be incorporated in this process is the subject of my next section.

2.4 People with Disabilities and Community>

While identification of the imago Dei with individual characteristics leads to the exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities, the vision of human community mirroring the divine community of the Trinity points to their inclusion. For this to happen some of our preconceptions about community need to be reviewed. M. Scott Peck suggests that community is an overused word, much in the same way that fellowship has been overused in the church. In his experience community has been reduced to valueless description of any group of people living together. The full potential of community is realised only when the relationships between people are open, accepting, and nurturing. When this happens then communities become places where people can find the space to truly be themselves, to find healing in their acceptance by others.[80]

This is the type of community that Charles Sherlock describes as God’s love in action. Such community rejects both individualism and collectivism yet honours the dignity of the individual by recognising their contribution to the life of the whole.[81] Mary Hilkert considers the image of God to be reflected most clearly in communities characterised by equality, respect for difference and uniqueness, and mutual love.[82] Moltmann describes socially open companionship between people as the form of life that corresponds to God.[83] As images of what could and should be, the reality of the defacing of God’s image in humanity broken by war, violence, greed, oppression and prejudice make this vision of community an imperative alternative at all levels of human relationships.[84]

If inclusion, respect for diversity, mutual love and openness characterise Trinitarian community, where do people with severe disabilities fit in? Are they objects of divinely inspired charity or are the fully participating members? The former implies they are included out of the goodness of our hearts, while the latter suggests that their presence will contribute to the wholeness of the community. The former is untenable, shortsighted, and it denies the reality that to be human is to know disability in some form. The power of community is in its ability to compensate for the shortcomings of its members so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. People with severe disabilities deserve to be a part of this community because they are loved by God, and who God loves we are called to love. They also belong because they contribute in ways that are not dependent upon their supposed disabilities.

Stanley Hauerwas describes people with disabilities as “the imagination of the community” because they teach those prepared to learn how to care receive the care of people with disabilities. He uses imagination as “a pattern of possibilities fostered within a community by the stories and correlative commitments that make it what it is.’[85] This simply means that people with disabilities move us beyond our comfort zones and confront us with our own finitude and mortality. We are invited to move beyond our unease with our own finitude and mortality, to see them as fellow human beings. In fostering a healthier attitude toward our own humanness we are then enabled to respond to the humanity of people with more severe disabilities. Such community is a place for people the rest of society would prefer did not exist. Their presence challenges our assumptions about our faith. They challenge the primacy of intellectual commitment, and invite the church to reconnect with the experiential nature of faith. Hauerwas argues that the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in church communities reminds us that the faith of the body corporate is more determinative than our personal commitments. This corporate faith carries us when there are gaps in our faith.

The mentally handicapped remind us that their condition is the condition of us all insofar as we are faithful followers of Christ. The church is not a collection of individuals, but a people on a journey who are known by the time they take to help one another along the way.[86]

For Hauerwas, the persons with intellectually disabilities are not in the community because they need help, though like the rest of us, they may need help at times, but rather their presence helps us become community. In the learning how to be with people with intellectual disabilities, we learn to accept the love that each of us needs to sustain a community capable of worshipping God.[87] This is expressed slightly differently by Frances Young, the mother of a son with an intellectual disability and a theologian, when she says that identification with the diverse and yet common experience of life is the beginning of community. She argues that it is the marginalised and afflicted who teach us what true human values are.[88]

Jean Vanier, the founder of the l’Arche communities for people with intellectual disabilities, experiences communities as the places of forgiveness and celebration, and growth and liberation. He reflects that even in community we can never escape our own woundedness, but neither should we try, for it is the source of our wisdom. [89]

Community that embraces disability or weakness can be inspired also by the metaphor of the body as used by Paul for the Church in Corinthians is a powerful image for community. It resists any hierarchy of difference and affirms that the absence of any member weakens the body. Another powerful image of community that embraces people with disabilities is the parable of the Wedding Banquet, where there is room for all. Brett Webb-Mitchell writes that the gift that people with disabling conditions bring by simply being present is the call to love and be loved by others, to liberate and be liberated by others in Christ.[90] Implicit in this reflection is the mutuality attested to in many accounts of community that incorporates people with disabilities.

Community and Salvation

The primary call to live in community is identified by Pailin as the good news of salvation. This good new is that we all belong, that we are all loved by God. The place that this good news is mediated is in the faith communities of the church. It is communicated by saying I love you in word and action. It is seen by facilitating the inclusion of people with disabilities into the life giving rituals of the church. Baptism, Eucharist, and the kiss of peace are powerful ways in which people can know they belong. Their participation in these rites communicates that they are loved by God because the rites are done in God’s name.

Welcoming the participation of people with profound disabilities in corporate life-giving acts of the Church counters the belief that they are somehow holy innocents, who do not need either justification or sanctification.[91] The prevention of access to the sacramental life of the church cannot be justified when we understand the common nature of disability. Given the manner in which Jesus embraced the brokenness which surrounded him and infused it with life we might wonder if the sacramental celebrations that exclude people with disabilities may not be devoid of their most basic meaning.[92] Such participation takes seriously the capacity of the symbolic nature of the liturgy to be accessible in an affective way to people with intellectual disabilities.[93] Access rejuvenates the symbolic nature of knowing, reminding us that sacramental participation requires and open heart more than it requires a minimum standard of cognitive ability.

2.7 Conclusion>

It would be inaccurate to suggest that this chapter presents a fully developed theological anthropology that embraces disability. It does however present a framework of understanding that disability in not a marginal experience in being human, despite it often resulting in marginalisation. It is rather a universal, indeed normal part of being finite mortal beings. The understanding that disability is a normative human experience addresses the marginalising effects of disability in the following ways.

Firstly, the bold statement that to be human is to know disability provides the logical means to break down the fear and prejudice that leads to disability being so marginalising. When confronted by disability we can realise that, in some way, we too know the experience of disability. Such identification, when genuine facilitates the identification with those we consider disabled and engenders solidarity that can then promote community.

The solidarity this proposition suggests means that any exploration of theological anthropology must factor in disability as a central experience of being human. When human worth is God given and universal, all that symbolises worth in broader loses its power to exclude and marginalise. Worth is not beauty, intelligence, power, or prestige. Worth is not located in human capacities, as beneficial as they are, but in the ultimate recognition that a person's worth is a gift from the God who truly loves them. This then forms the basis for the fine human activities of loving, caring, nurturing, and healing. In loving us as we are, God wills us a fullness of life expressed in giving full expression to our individual capacities. For some this may be in the physical, intellectual or cultural spheres of life, for others like Alex it may simply be the act of sitting and blowing bubbles. God's love does not depend upon these activities but may well rejoice in their triumph.

As God is the source of our individual worth, so God is imaged when we live in life giving community. The social nature of the Trinity informs our understanding of the concept of the imago De, as does the risen Christ as the first fruits of the new creation. The social nature of the Trinity locates the fulfillment of the image in the formation and maintenance of human community that is life giving and affirming. Jesus modelled such community as he responded to the needs of broken humanity and shared his love and life with those marginalised by normal society. The absence of any of its members lessens this model of community. Its strength is not to be found in it uniformity, but in its ability to incorporate the vast diversity of humanity. Its wholeness is not determined by the health or wholeness of its individuals, but by its capacity to embrace the basic brokenness of people.

When such understandings of community and personal worth are incorporated into the liturgical and sacramental life of the community of faith, then it becomes imperative for the life of the whole community that persons with more severe disabilities, particularly people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, be enabled to participate fully in the life of that community. Such inclusion is challenging but ultimately transforming. The importance of rational and cognitive ascent to faith is balanced by the affective capacity of understanding mediated in symbolic action. In a way, this encourages loving action to match our loving words.

As such foundational understandings of disability, human worth, and human community have the power to transform how we understand what it means to be human, so they also provides the means to reexamine our understanding of God. If our finest human attributes are not strength, power and independence, but mutual loving, life giving community and interdependence, then perhaps the nature of God may be more fully expressed in these terms. If community that embraces these attributes mirrors the image of God, then maybe it is conceivable to speak of the disabled God. This is the theme of chapter 3.

CHAPTER 3 – The disabled God>

Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God’s perfection?

From the Emmanuel News, June 2000.>

3.1 Introduction>

In this question, addressed to a fundraising dinner for his son’s school in Brooklyn, New York, Shaya’s father expresses not only his anguish at Shaya’s disability, but also at the God who allowed it to happen. In the speech that followed, he suggested that God’s perfection is found in the way people react to Shaya. He goes on to relate the story of how at the end of a close baseball game, Shaya was allowed to bat when the result would decide the game. After missing the first ball with a strike, one of his team members helped him hit the ball. It was not difficult to field, but the pitcher and the other members of the opposing team chose to throw wildly to give him a chance. To the encouragement and cheers of both sides he made the home run. That day, his father said, “those 18 boys reached their level of God’s perfection.”[94]

His question illustrates how the human experience of disability can influence our interpretation of the nature of God and God’s actions. Not everyone comes up with the same answer, although the question is often very similar. How can a loving God allow such suffering? If God is in control how does it happen? These questions tell us as much about how we think of God is as they do about the God who is.

In this chapter we shall examine how for Burton Cooper and Nancy Eiesland, the experience of human disability is mirrored in images of a 'disabled God'. Such a description seems to be a contradiction in terms. It is certainly a contradiction of approaches to God that argue that God must be all-powerful, all knowing, and the perfect embodiment of the finest qualities of humanity.[95] In keeping with the traditions of religious metaphor this chapter seeks to point to a reality about God that is often missed by classical approaches to God that emphasise God's transcendence and impassability.

We shall first briefly outline approaches to the question of human suffering and the God of love, with particular reference to suffering and human disability. We will then look at the grounds for Cooper’s metaphor of the disabled God, and then examine how for Eiesland the risen Christ provides a powerful image for people with physical disabilities. Lastly, we will explore how the Holy Spirit works for human community. First by endowing every person for communal living, secondly by healing our inner fragmentation that leads us to distort community by our fear and insecurity, and thirdly by being incarnate in works of mercy. These three models for Spirit action combine with the images of the disabled God suggested by Cooper and Eiesland to remind us that God's primary mode of revelation and relationality is essentially incarnational.

3.2 God and suffering – The incarnation of God's love through solidarity with the human condition.>

There are a number of approaches to the dilemma of human suffering and the