Disability Studies and Theology

This essay aims to show why it is important to ask questions about the way Christians raise the question of disability. The central, animating concern has to do with metaphysically thin and philosophically problematic understandings of disability and the way that concept is inflected within contemporary Catholic moral discourse in the areas of biomedical ethics and social theorizing. The essay has three parts. First, through the lens of Gaudium et spes, the author discusses the source of our contemporary questions about disability and related themes. Second, the author surveys overlapping ways of framing the concept disability, as formulated within biomedical ethics, American jurisprudence, the social critique from disability studies, and the sociopolitical subversion of the biomedical outlook from critical disability theorists. Third, given those contemporary frames and in conversation with Fides et ratio, the author sketches some preliminary considerations relevant to a faithfully Christian and distinctively Catholic account of disability. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 20.2 (Summer 2020): 277–310.

У роботі заторкнуто проблемні питання, котрі є суміжними між Біблійними науками
та студіями неповносправності; проаналізовано основні сучасні моделі
неповносправності (медична, соціальна, культурна) та їх відношення до окремих
біблійних текстів; випрацювано основні принципи, на основі яких аналізується
ставлення біблійних авторів до осіб з інвалідністю.

До найбільш контроверсійних питань, які були оглядово розглянуті в цій
роботі, належить дефініція поняття «образ і подоба Божа»; ретрибуційна теологія та
її вираження у Біблії; проблема (не)свідомої дискримінації та стигматизації через
зведення особи з неповносправністю до обʼєкта жалості чи надмірної опіки; та
спосіб входження людей з особливостями у розвитку до есхатологічного Царства
Божого.

This article explores the burgeoning interest in biblical studies in the use of the Bible in music, as a
medium and as an ever fresh way of expounding and expressing the stories and sentiments of the
Bible. It looks at some recent scholarship on the Bible and music and then goes on to look closely
at a sample book, that of Ecclesiastes, to see which texts have been used as inspiration for musical
expression and in what ways that has evolved in ever fresh historical and cultural contexts. It is seen
that particular themes such as time (Eccl 3:1-8), the fate of humans and animals (Eccl 3:9-14) and
that of ‘vanity’ (the repeated refrain of the book) have been of particular interest to librettists and
composers.

In this paper, I argue for a proper theology of down syndrome informed via personal narrative. I first argue that all life be seen as a gift. Second, I show the danger in a parenting philosophy in which arbitrary limits are set. Third, I show a common biblical theme in which God consistently calls those with disabilities. Fourth, I show that those with Down syndrome are more likely to achieve Eudamonia than those without. And finally, I suggest that, within Christianity, we ought to expect those with disabilities to possess spiritual gifts in excess, and therefore, a change may be due in the way the church views those with disabilities as only recipients of grace.

Aquinas remarks with some regularity on persons afflicted with the condition amentia, which is variously and inconsistently interpreted (in translation) as “imbeciles,” “fools,” “madmen,” “lunatics,” “the demented,” or “the insane.” The amentes are persons who lack the use of reason in a profound and debilitating way; and, as I will show, the fact that we are sometimes found in this state informs Aquinas’s analysis of human nature and, in particular, Aquinas’s teaching on the good wrought by Christ for the members of his body. My purpose in this article is to explore what Aquinas has to say about the happiness of persons who are baptized and confirmed by the Church, and who have what neuropsychologists would describe as a profound cognitive impairment. The guiding question is this: Thinking with Aquinas, how do we account for the natural and supernatural happiness of those of us who lack the use of reason?

The discussion is divided into five parts. I begin (part I) by locating those who “lack the use of reason” within the theological infrastructure of Aquinas’s moral psychology and I identify the main problematic. With respect to that problematic, the principal conceptual resources provided by Aquinas are then outlined and two challenges are identified (part II). The first challenge is methodological, concerning the speculative import of the sacramental life of the Church. Francisco de Vitoria’s ‘Relectio de eo ad quod tenetur homo veniens ad usum rationis’ (1534) highlights for us (part III) a constellation of judgments relevant to interpreting Aquinas on these themes. The second challenge is to show the continuity between Aquinas’s account of the human being and his practical remarks on those who lack the use of reason. Specifically, given the various ways that, and degrees to which, the human being can lack the use of reason, I trace (part IV) Aquinas’s analysis of the power and operation of intellect, focusing on the intellectual acts which can be impaired and, concurrently, the intellectual acts which cannot be impaired in a living human being. I conclude (part V) with a description of the path of contemplative happiness that, on Aquinas’s terms, remains open for baptized persons who, like the amentes, suffer an involuntary alienation from bodily sense and who, thereby, utterly lack the use of reason.

Although almost completely ignored, Aquinas’s account of persons with severe intellectual disabilities is key to his understanding of human persons and their salvation. Aquinas extensively addresses questions of human impairment, and for Aquinas physical and mental impairment are not nearly as important as moral or spiritual impairment. Contrary to those who focus on Aquinas’s account of rationality and suppose he thinks that a person must exercise rationality in order to be moral and in the image of God, Aquinas’s view is that persons with severe mental impairments have a distinct spiritual advantage, due to the impeccability of the gift of wisdom given them in their baptism.

One of the most powerful claims of disability theology is that the rejection of persons with disabilities somehow correlates with a rejection of God. This ‘correlative rejection’ is, however, frequently just stated rather than explored in detail, something this article therefore seeks to remedy by examining one example of the correlative rejection that draws together the ethical concerns of theologians writing on intellectual disability with Meister Eckhart’s teaching on the human relationship with God. Here, the correlative rejection is exposed as an inevitable result of the narrow emphasis on autonomy and rationality in human self-perception which shape the habituated, even ritualised ways that we try to know persons with intellectual disabilities and God. By contrast, truly knowing and relating to persons with intellectual disabilities, God, and finally also ourselves, relies on a reconciliation with the dependence, vulnerability, and non-rational forms of exchange that a narrow attachment to autonomy and rationality seems directly to occlude. The correlative rejection thus signals both a practical and epistemological problem which results from how we view ourselves and how we subsequently relate to and try to know others, the harmful effects of which are both ethical and spiritual.