Emergence, Kenosis, and Communal Incarnation
If the view of kenosis proposed in the previous Part is even marginally correct, it has three theologically significant implications. First, if god is love that self-actualizes, then when humans act lovingly they embody, they actualize, they incarnate, what they have received, what has been transferred to them, by that god, by virtue of his creating them. Second, if emergence-based kenotic theology is correct, the act of self-actualization of the divine is inherently tradition- and doctrine-independent. Finally, if our selves are in fact dynamically created in relationships with everyone we encounter, then kenosis is not the unity of divine and human as much as it is the revelation of both, for and through others.
Purposive Dynamics
Emergence is, first and foremost, a scientific and agnostic concept of evolution: “God” (of any form or tradition) is an optional accessory to the scientific endeavor. Theologians using emergence often acknowledge this when they present their particular cases for their particular God and the theological tradition behind It. But I have yet to see a theologian state that agnostic emergence levels the theological playing field and thereby makes all traditions and doctrines the same as the others: optional. Emergence theology, no matter how well a particular approach accommodates a particular religious tradition, is inherently eclectic, requiring humility and healthy doubt in the Truth of a particular creed but not necessarily in its impact on our relationship with divinity.
As soon as one adopts a view that relies upon emergence, one has committed to dynamism in religious sects, religious doctrine, and religious experience, both vertically and horizontally. There is no one True Way, no One True Faith, and no One True God: Protestantism can’t be stacked on top of Catholicism which is stacked on top of Judaism according to Decreasing Truth. Nor can there be an historical uniformity of religious experience: one’s great-grandchildren will not understand the way, experience the faith, or adore exactly the same god that one does today. However, emergence theology does not lead us inexorably down the slippery slope to absolute relativism (we can’t agree on X so there is no truth about anything).
Relativism happens: it is the way of all flesh; truth, justice, god are all ultimately vacuous concepts; eat dessert first. Emergence theology, on the other hand, is based on empirically-credible models of physical and biological system evolution and for its own logical integrity requires disparity and change. The disparity in relativism is a state, how it is. The disparity and dynamism in emergence is a telos – a purpose, goal, or end. Truth in a relativist cosmos simply does not exist so we can never find it; in an emergent cosmos, truth evolves and we have to run to catch up with it. Current directions in emergence science and emergence theology make knowledge a verb.
Convergences
Confluence and convergence may well be what constitutes the true self, that Trinitarian personhood that is not “personal.” As Léon Turner shows in his survey of correspondences between research in embodied cognition and theological anthropology,[1] personhood is embodied and relational: who we are is constituted by our lived experiences with others, in our and their fleshly existences within social, cultural, and semiotic environments. The “social trinity” we saw in Balthasar (and accepted by many others) is reflected in our own persons, where mirror neurons help us incorporate someone else’s perceived actions into our own repertoire of abilities, and a felt sense of selfhood means we have already experienced empathically someone else’s self. Taking it one step further, Michael Spezio suggests that through simulation and empathy, acting within a communal cultural environment, we develop compassion and concern and love. More importantly, that love is not love of someone as object, but rather an other-centric love, a love for their inherent humanity and personhood.[2]
That’s why what we erroneously refer to as the softer emotions, such as caring or love, are in fact extremely hard to achieve and to maintain. When I attend to you and try to really understand you and feel you and, perhaps, aid you, I am making myself anew in your image. What is “self-actualized” in that moment is not some potential in the kernel of a “self” I have carried with me from birth in my soul; it is a relation between you and I, in this moment, whose foundation rests on our collective, communal participation in what it is to be human in the presence of other humans, in an evolving physical and biological and ideate environment.[3] Current directions in theological anthropology and emergence theology make self a verb.
Kenosis: The Burden of For and Through
An emergence-based kenosis theology is deist but not committed to a specific creed. As a result, it strips away doctrines such as salvation and eternal life and forces us to focus on the divine purpose of our lives. This essay has been dominated by the work of Christian theologians, yet as I suggested above, “Christianity” is an optional accessory. One could dispense with Trinitarian theology altogether and yet kenosis from some Creator to the Created would still be a viable explanation for the world we – as ethical, intentional, and loving hominids – inhabit and enspirit.
If we take seriously the notion that the divine has infused the cosmos, then the echoes of kenotic Creation reverberate in everything as the echoes of the Big Bang echo across the cosmos. It does not matter when, where, or how we attend to the divine, give It space in order to receive It. An emergent theology like the ones we have examined here allows divinity – and we know now “divinity” conjoins the Divine and our mundane ‘selves’ – to choose the when, where and how. As Phillip Clayton puts it, “a responsive God is greater, is more fully God, than a dispassionate God-above history” (212).[4] I would add that a pervasively present god, who created an evolving physical universe that includes evolving, inquisitive, and creative humans, is more aware than many of its creatures that there is no one place or language or gesture of devotion.
Yet regardless of the creed or source texts or philosophical embellishments, there must be devotion. This devotion is not to a text, to a creed, to a ritual, or to a tome of position statements about divinity, behavior, and values. It is not to anything.
It is through and for everything, for all things and events are divinity actualized, and our every action is in miniature an act of kenotic Creation.
Put differently: Strip the Son of God from the Son of Man, make Jesus simply a Nazorean human with a unique capacity for expressing his true, divinely inspired self … and the burden of kenosis, the weight of glory, to respectfully invoke C.S. Lewis’ essay, remains the same.
The burden and glory of kenosis is still the same because kenosis is not an explanation for an event; it is not a state; it is a stance, a posture, a leaning forward towards others and giving of one’s self to them. It is to this stance, to this action, one becomes devoted. Kenosis creates a world, a space shared with and for others: Coakley’s contemplative prayer makes a space for the divine Other so that It may work through us, creatively and incarnatedly. Just as the kenotic God created the cosmos and us to actualize Its love, I make a space for you in my own individual experienced world not as God but as I would for god. We attain kenosis by virtue of realizing that our perceived self is not an entity or a state of being, it is a dynamic relationship. Because it is dynamic, because it is self-giving, “I” am nothing except my influence on, my participation in, the world around and in us.
The spirit and motive and intent behind a statement like “I care for you” is not the centrifugal pin point ego of “I am thinking of you” but rather the centripetal desire to reach out to you. It is a matter of impulse, of direction, of emphasis. It brings no reward, buys no absolution, offers no hope of salvation. And should you not care back, or care but someday leave me behind, it is raw, it is difficult. It is supposed to be.
For I am actualized only in giving, to what appears not to be me, a gift – a gift of self, space, and time that I do not possess to offer except in their relinquishing. And in that, in my own puny way, I participate in Creation and in Incarnation, in the joy and the pain of a loving god.
[1] Turner, L. (2013). Individuality in theological anthropology and theories of embodied cognition. Zygon, 48(3), 808-831.
[2] Spezio, M. L. (2013). Social neuroscience and theistic evolution: Intersubjectivity, love, and the social sphere. Zygon, 48(2), 428-438.
[3] De Smedt, J., & De Cruz, H. (2014). The Imago Dei as a work in progress: A perspective from paleoanthropology. Zygon, 49(1), 135-156
[4] Clayton, P. (2001). Panentheist internalism: Living within the presence of the Trinitarian God. Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 40(3), 208-215.