This session considers a range of political freedoms in relation to God's reception of human gifts, Iraenaeus's Christology, Nyssa's antislavery thought, and Gutierrez's liberation theology.
Can God receive a gift from humanity?
That humanity receives grace and salvation from God is a statement not likely to cause dissensus in most theological circles. The more open question is whether we could say that God receives something as well in a more mutual two-sided relationship. The distinction is not whether God’s free gift of grace comes with an obligation for return, but instead whether God can receive a transformational gift from humanity.
In conversation with Kathryn Tanner’s work on incarnation and the free gift of grace—“incarnate for our salvation to everlasting life”—I will argue that recognizing God as a generous giver of gifts who chooses to enter into relationship with humanity should include the acknowledgement that God opens Godself to vulnerability through Christ in order to also receive from us.
Irenaeus of Lyon is a promising conversation partner for Christian theologians seeking a politics of justice, human flourishing, and the promotion of the common good, in contrast to fascistic models of domination, unchecked power, and the demonization of difference. Christian-valenced authoritarianism relies on assumptions about God, human society, and power that align more closely with Irenaeus’ depiction of the Antichrist than the complex model of Christian politics set forth in Adversus haereses and the Epideixis. Central to this model are particular assertions of divine sovereignty, the human vocation to rule, and the paradigmatic kingship of Christ. While Irenaeus has no neat answers for contemporary Christian political concerns, the heart of his political vision remains relevant today: a theo-centric, Christologically-rich politics that fosters socio-political coherence, diversity, and stability, along with practical care for the marginalized and vulnerable, without undermining individual human freedom.
Freedom’s centrality in Gregory of Nyssa’s theological anthropology and understanding of the divine image has long been recognized. The soul, he writes in De hominis, is “without master (ἀδέσποτον),” “self-governing (αὐτεξούσιον),” and “ruled autocratically by its own will.” Unsurprisingly, then, interpretations of Gregory’s famous critique of slavery have focused on his judgment of slavery’s violation of the freedom and dignity proper to all human creatures. Less attention has been paid to another set of arguments Gregory deploys, which critique slavery as a feeble and misguided effort to seek permanence through unjust power and acquisition. Enslaving denies the freedom of others, but it also denies our own finitude. This paper explores the connections between these arguments, offering a constructive account of freedom as realized not in transcending the limitations of finitude but in inhabiting them otherwise, through accepting human littleness as the primary resource for the freedom of divine likeness.
Following An Yountae’s insights on the necessary inclusion of Latin American Liberation Theology in current discourses on decoloniality, this presentation explores to what extent the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez might be understood as decolonial in its trajectory. By tracing Gutiérrez's accounts of liberation (its three levels) and providence (how God intervenes and acts in the world), this presentation investigates how decolonial reconstitutions of theological knowing arise in his work.