only.21 21 I should note that Rorty would add within the concept of sufficiency, the call to solidarity with those who suffer.
22 22 Plato, Philebus, accessed April 20, 2020, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1744, 278.
23 23 Plato, Gorgias, accessed April 20, 2020, http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html.
24 24 The biblical virtue of kenosis drives the authentic pluralistic theologian.
25 25 William McDonald, “Søren Kierkegaard,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Winter 2017), accessed February 4, 2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/kierkegaard, accessed 4 Feb 2020.
26 26 William James, The Will to Believe, a lecture first published in The New World Vol. 5 (1896): 327–347.
27 27 Alannis Morisette has a lot to answer for.
28 28 Kierkegaard The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841), 326.
29 29 Kierkegaard The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841), 262ff.
30 30 The absence of the subject as origin and context of all knowledge claims is a glaring and regrettable omission in our current scientific, philosophical and theological discourses; a point well made in Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson’s discussion of “the blind spot.” See: https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the-neglect-of-lived-experience, last accessed May 2020.
31 31 Some readers may feel I am ducking the really significant philosophical issue. A thorough discussion and defense of a pragmatic approach to religious truth is, of course, far beyond the scope of this paper. However I suggest that the worry about getting at the Truth of religion is, to my mind, a holdover of an anachronistic epistemology as well as theologically unsustainable. The latter due to the commitment to divine transcendence at the heart of Semitic religion (which I discussed above) and the former the result of having ceded the rules of engagement while in the process of defending against the (now dubious) claims of nineteenth-century and twentieth-century positivism and scientism.
32 32 Hendrik Vroom, “Syncretism and Dialogue: A Philosophical Analysis,” in Dialogue and Syncretism: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. J.D. Gort, H. Vroom, R. Fernhout, and A. Wessels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 26.
33 33 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (New York: Routledge, 1966), 45.
34 34 Rosalind Shaw and Charles Stuart in the introduction to their edited collection, Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis (London: Routledge, 1994), 3–6.
35 35 Of course many Biblical sources could be used here, not least the extended banquet story of Luke 14 and 15.
36 36 Some may aver that I have not considered certain kinds of thorny problems which may arise from pluralistic theology, namely that its practice may require us to endorse and recombine views, practices, and structures from which we are rightfully repelled. This is a difficult question and well beyond the scope of this essay. I have considered it in the context of the “reluctant dialogian,” that is, a person who not only rejects interreligious dialogue but considers us an enemy and means us harm. See “The Dialogue Party: Dialogue, Hybridity and the Reluctant Other,” in Theology and the Religions: A Dialogue, ed. Vigo Mortensen (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Erdmann’s), 235–248.
2 Is It Possible for the Eternal Word to Be Made Manifest in a Person with Down’s Syndrome?
Ian S. Markham
RESEARCH LEVEL 1
Editors’ Introduction
This is a deliberately provocative article. The idea is simple: Could Jesus – the Incarnate Word – be someone else? Instead of being a first-century, Jewish male, could Jesus have been a first-century person with Down’s Syndrome? Now the question – could Jesus been something other than male? – has circulated in the scholarly literature. Feminist theologians have asked whether the Incarnate Word could have been a woman? This essay takes a familiar question and poses the question in a new way. The focus is on the question of the omniscience of Jesus.
The Christian claim is that Eternal Word became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. It was a first-century Jew who became the definitive disclosure of God to humanity and the ultimate identification of God with humanity. In this essay, I wish to reflect on a conceptual question underpinning the Incarnation.1 What do we expect from an Incarnation? Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, has explicit self-knowledge of his status and in Hindu theology his beauty is a central characteristic of his divinity.2 Does the Incarnation require that the Eternal Word be a person who is exceptionally beautiful? Did God have other options beyond Jesus and what in Jesus is essential to the Incarnation and what is contingent? Was it possible for the Eternal Word to be expressed in a woman or in a person with special needs? The case that brings many of these questions together is a person with Down’s Syndrome. Is it possible for the Eternal Word to be made manifest in a person with Down’s Syndrome?
Down’s is a genetic condition, where a person has a full or partial additional copy of chromosome 21. The consequences are a lower IQ (often as much as half), certain distinctive characteristics (which include smaller stature and an upward slant to the eyes), and a disposition which is often humble, warm, and full of gratitude. A person with Down’s could easily reflect many of the most important features of God; for example, they can be very loving. But what about the other attributes of God – could God be disclosed in a person who is genetically unable to have a high IQ?
This essay will begin by thinking through the link between Christology and intelligence. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the Incarnate Word must be extremely intelligent – indeed omniscient. We will look at the traditional reasons for linking Christology with omniscience. Then we will consider and develop a distinction between “wisdom” and “omniscience” and suggest that the Wisdom of God does not require nor entail omniscience, nor even above average intelligence. This will lead us to two conclusions; the first
