Practical theology as social ethical action in Christian ministry: Implications from Emmanuel Levinas and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

International Journal of Practical Theology

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 53-75

  Root, Andrew ^a  

^a Luther Seminary   (United States)

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EID: 60950470478     PISSN: 14306921     EISSN: 16129768     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/IJPT.2006.006     Document Type: Review

References (24)

1. Levinas himself supports this task of melding theory and practice, asserting that on the road of ethical action one confronts the transcendent metaphysical other. "The traditional opposition between theory and practice will disappear before the metaphysical transcendence by which a relation with the absolutely other, or truth, is established, and of which ethics is the royal road . . . . We shall go further, and, at the risk of appearing to confuse theory and practice, deal with both as modes of metaphysical transcendence. " Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, Pittsburgh (Duquesne University Press) 1961, 29. This will be further developed in the remainder of this article.
2. Peter Sedgwick continues this thought nicely: "In the light of this Levinas argues that the individuality of the individual is 'enacted' through enjoyment . . . . The metaphysical Desire for the Other, in other words, is only possible for a being that is already separated from others. Peter Sedgwick, Descartes to Derrida, Maiden, Mass (Blackwell) 2001, 188.
3. "Only a subject that eats can be for-the-other, or can signify. Signification, the-one-for-the-other, has meaning only among beings of flesh and blood. " Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, Pittsburgh (Duquesne University Press) 1981, 74.
4. "To love and to enjoy by eating, drinking, being at home, etc, are activities that have not drawn much attention from Western philosophers. By way of his phenomenology of terrestrial existence in light of an all-embracing hedonism, Levinas shows that our search for happiness is not bad at all but rather a necessary condition of the possibility of the self-possession through which the I acquires its autonomous substantiality. In this still-solitary dimension, the law of life is: Enjoy life as much as possible. " Adriaan Peperzak, To the Other. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, West Lafayette, Ind. (Purdue University Press) 1993, 23.
5. Levinas explains here how enjoyment leads to "being-for-the-other. " He shows that enjoyment itself has passivity about it and it is this passivity that makes true ethical action possible. Without passivity, ethics is turned into a program, hence into totalization. "It is the passivity of being-for-another, which is possible only in the form of giving the very bread I eat. But this one has to first enjoy one's bread, not in order to have the merit of giving it, but in order to give it with one's heart, to give oneself in giving it. Enjoyment is an ineluctable moment of sensibility. " Levinas, Otherwise, 72.
6. Levinas, Totality, 75.
7. "To endure this responsibility, I must, however, be someone: an independent being with an initiative and a concrete existence of its own. What are the conditions for this independence? . . . Human selfhood is due to a specific way of commerce with the surrounding reality: to be an ego means to rise out of the elements and dominate them from an independent perspective, for example by eating or drinking. " Peperzak, To the Other, 23.
8. "It is . . . an asymmetrical relation - I am summoned to a responsibility that is not dependent on reciprocity or equality but on 'looking up' to the other. " David F. Ford, Self and Salvation. Being Transformed, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1999, 37.
9. "How are the selves related in the pluralism which resists totality? The main way is by language, which can relate across the 'abyss of separation' and at the same time confirm the separation. Levinas even says that 'the epiphany of the face is wholly language. ' Language is not first of all about a content to be communicated but is rooted in the orientation to the other, in sincerity and frankness, and in responsibility answerable to the other. " Ford, Self, 37.
10. Ford explains further what Levinas's objections are to theology: "Theology, he says, thematizes or objectifies what it should not; it is mythological, or suggests that there is a divine drama in progress in which people are participants, often unwittingly; it suggests that it is possible to participate directly in or have cognitive or emotional access to the life of God; it finds intrinsic links between human nature and the divine; it tends to confuse creation with causality or to conceptualize creation in ontological terms; it makes ontology absolute, with God as the supreme being and therefore inevitably totalitarian; it argues analogically from the world to God; it signifies God in terms of presence, action, efficacy in the world; above all, its alliance with ontology conspires against doing justice to an ethics which resists the assimilation of the other person to oneself and one's overview, and which finds in the face to face an unsurpassable imperative directness and immediacy. " David F. Ford, On Substitution, in: Facing the Other. The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas, ed. Sean Hand, Richmond Surrey (Cuzon) 1996, 23. Some of Levinas's problems we will be unable to pacify, yet that is not the pursuit of this article. Instead, by taking his critique seriously, I intend to show how his philosophical method is helpful to practical theology.
11. Levinas, Totality, 79.
12. Ray Anderson, A Theology for Ministry, in: Theological Foundations for Ministry, ed. Ray Anderson, Edinburgh (T & T Clark) 1979, 7.
13. John 14:9 and 10:30 (NRSV).
14. Clifford Green states further: "If the proper question of Christology is 'who is Jesus Christ?' this is a question which can only be asked to the Christ who is present. Christology is not concerned with an ideal of Christ nor with the historical influence of Christ, but with the resurrected Christ, the living God, who is really present. Furthermore, Christ is present as person not in isolation but only in relation to persons. " Clifford J. Green, Bonhoeffer. A Theology of Sociality, Grand Rapids (William B. Eerdmanns Publishing, 1999, 209.
15. "The Holy Spirit unites the doing of ministry to the ministry which has already been accomplished in Christ, establishing a reciprocity between dogma and experientially discloses and disciplines. " Anderson, A Theology, 8.
16. "If we see Him alone, we do not see Him at all. If we see Him, we see with and around Him in ever-widening circles His disciples, the people, His enemies and the countless millions who have not yet heard His name. We see Him as theirs, determined by them and for them, belonging to each and every one of them . . . . What emerges in it is a supreme I wholly determined by and to the Thou. " Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. III. 2, Edinburgh (T & T Clark) 1960, 216.
17. "The community does not speak with words alone. It speaks by the very fact of its existence in the world; by its characteristic attitude to world problems; and, moreover and especially, by its silent service to all the handicapped, weak, and needy in the world. It speaks, finally, by the simple fact that it prays for the world. It does all this because this is the purpose of its summons by the Word of God. " Karl Barth, The Place of Theology, in: Theological Foundations for Ministry, ed. Ray Anderson, Edinburgh (T & T Clark) 1979, 44.
18. Practical theology is often understood as interdisciplinary in nature. Clifford Green shows here how Bonhoeffer's work from the start was interdisciplinary. "The interdisciplinary method in Sanctorum Communio, then, is identical with that employed in the next work, Act and Being. Bonhoeffer appreciates and appropriates insights found in non-theological disciplines. But he is perfectly clear and confident about his method as a theologian. The ultimate criterion is the revelation in Christ. This combination of theological confidence, which manifests his indebtedness to Barth, and intellectual openness, which reflects his Berlin upbringing and education, is refreshing indeed in the theological scene of the late 1920 in Germany. " Green, Bonhoeffer, 27.
19. Don S. Browning, A Fundamental Practical Theology. Descriptive and Strategic Proposals, Minneapolis (Fortress Press) 1991, ch. 3.
20. Green, Bonhoeffer, 293.
21. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio. A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church, Minneapolis (Fortress Press) 1963, 74.
22. "Whoever professes to believe in the reality of Jesus Christ, as the revelation of God, must in the same breath profess his faith in both their reality of God and the reality of the world; for in Christ he finds God and the world reconciled . . . . Belonging wholly to Christ, he stands at the same time wholly in the world. " Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ, the Church, and the World, in: Theological Foundations for Ministry, ed. Ray Anderson, Edinburgh (T & T Clark) 1979, 544.
23. "In Christ humanity really is drawn into community with God, just as in Adam humanity fell. And even though in the one Adam there are many adams, yet there is only Christ. For Adam is 'representative human being', but Christ is the Lord of his new humanity. " Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum, 146.
24. Bonhoeffer, Christ, 549.