Hugh Bernard Blair

Marie-Anne Vannier

Keywords: creation, identity, becomingness, relation, time, analogia relationis

Reflections on Otherness as a Theologian of the Cross: People and Disability

L'expérience de vie des personnes handicapées a été largement absente du débat théologique jusqu'à tout récemment. Certains auteurs sur le handicap ont eu tendance à adopter une lecture normative et ont abordé le handicap sous l'optique de la performativité. La théologie du handicap elle-même s'est souvent concentrée sur les moyens d'articuler la différence entre une population (supposée) apte et une population handicapée et sur la formulation de moyens potentiels pour améliorer « l'inclusion » et « l'accueil » de ceux d'entre nous qui sont handicapés. Cette étude a abordé la question sous l'optique de l'altérité, le handicap étant présenté comme un attribut de ce qui fait de nous tous des êtres humains. L'étude a engagé une conversation entre le texte biblique de la création dans Genèse 1 et une compréhension de l'altérité. J'ai soutenu qu'une théologie plus authentique du handicap est rendue possible par la reconnaissance de l'universalité de l'expérience humaine, dans laquelle le handicap joue également un rôle. La création est lue à travers le prisme de l'analogia relationis de Bonhoeffer. L'étude insiste sur l'interconnexion de toute la création et discute du handicap/de l'altérité en fonction de sa contribution à l'établissement de relations harmonieuses, constructives et utiles. Mots-clés : création, identité, devenir, relation, temps, analogia relationis.

Statement of Copyright

The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published in any format, including electronic, without the author's prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately.

v DEDICATION I wouldn't be the person I am without the love and dedication of my parents. Thanks to their hard work and support I was able to have a university education. It was they who first taught me the love of the creator God and they who showed me the importance of caring for each other, no matter our differences, our likes or dislikes. Throughout everything in life, I had to "box clever" and show that I could always rise above the noise of distraction that came from whatever the source and maintain my focus in prayer to that gentle, caring Creator who gives us everything we need so that we may live well. This work is dedicated to them and to the rest of my family and friends who have encouraged me constantly during the writing of this project. Thank you.

EPIGRAPH

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it … and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." So we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?" Hebrews 13: 1-2, 5-6.

Finally, I would like to thank the Saskatoon Theological Union and the University of Saskatchewan for their support and especially for kindly affording me access to their library facilities, without which it would have been difficult to bring this project to fruition.

INTRODUCTION

In his work on otherness Zizioulas painfully reminds us of the reality that the cultural demands of today result in our relations with the other being frequently built on grounds of fear. [START_REF] Zizioulas | Communion and Otherness : Further Studies in Personhood and the Church[END_REF] Further, Zizioulas insists that this fear can grow into a "pathological" fear of all otherness. 2 Our fear of the other, and hence of otherness, is only assuaged on condition that we somehow are able to negotiate an understanding that is able to articulate that the other may reflect something of self. This, however, is put into question in the case of people with disabilities since, ostensibly, in that particular other there is a condition that might distance them even more from our idea of self. Zizioulas' assertion is evidenced in research which shows that we tend to express feelings of discomfort, and/or anxiety and fear when it comes to our perceptions of people with disabilities. [START_REF] Babik | Factors Affecting the Perception of Disability: A Developmental Perspective[END_REF] The fear of the disabled other can become a stigma where that aspect of otherness is ignored or rejected. It is not clear how we may articulate disability as something that unites the other with self so that this fear of the disabled other can be assuaged. This study argues that one possible way out of this impasse might be found if we were able to accept that disability is an integral part of the human condition, and that human experience is built on fragility and vulnerability. We might then be able to recognize that disability is a circumstance that comes to each of us.

Such an assumption is one, therefore, that this study seeks to embrace in its reflections on otherness and people with disabilities.

The reflections in this study seek to follow the pathway of the theologian of the Cross, saying things as they are, drawing on Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, avoiding any risk of reflecting on otherness in general and on the otherness of people with disabilities from the point of view of the "soul in exile", i.e. the paradigm that suggests that remedying the ills of this world is achievable simply through our knowing and that this new knowledge we seek will allow us to find the straight path upon which we may walk in a new-found oneness as individuals in God's creation. 4 A paradigm such as this would offer compassion or pity as a means of dealing with the otherness of people with disabilities who are considered as examples of the diversity of creation and of how things go wrong due to the innate imperfections inherited from Adam. 5 This reading gives rise to some of the models used to describe people with disabilities (it is interpreted as a tragedy, as a source of charity and pity and so on). 6 Luther reminds us that supposing that through our theology we are able to glimpse into the invisible things of God means that we elevate the theologian to such a height that s/he sees Christ's cross on our path of glory and understands it not so much in terms of our implicit responsibility in its construction but rather as a means of its serving to make up for our failures along the path to glory that we foolishly map out for ourselves. 7 This study argues, therefore, like Luther, that the invisible things of God remain with God and lie beyond our grasp, since in the Cross we too are crucified with Christ. 8 Drawing further on Luther the study contends that a theologian of the cross is constrained by faith to seek to say things as they are-calling a spade, a spade and, in so doing, s/he avoids the urge to see in creation the invisible truths of God. 9 St Paul reminds us of the foolishness such an endeavor can bring, "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe." 10 The voices of people with disabilities had been largely absent from theological discussion until some writers, initially people with disabilities themselves and not always theologians, endeavored to remedy this and express their own views on God and redemption from the point of view of their own distinct experience. 11 Counter narratives were developed against the conventional themes found in writings on disability-suffering, sinfulness and healing, themes around the human need of compassion and so on. In their place these new voices in disability theology began to re-symbolize the divine in the light of their own realities. They put into question a theological anthropology founded on ideas of perfection and normalcy. God was identified instead as disabled, reflecting the truths of their own lives. In doing so these theologians repudiated a theology that was felt to be repressive and mistaken. 12 Others began to deconstruct and reassess scriptural readings of disability showing them often to be flawed, subject to misinterpretation and a source of offence and harm. 13 Further, issues of access and inclusion of people with disabilities have become central to the preoccupations of many within the church. 14 More recently, other theologians have considered issues of inclusion, while essential, inadequate in appreciating the life experience of those with disabilities. They have offered instead, invigorating discussion of the possibilities of developing what the experience of people with disabilities could offer to a theology of wholeness, which was capable of encompassing all humankind. 15 This study postulates, therefore, that an authentic theology of disability should consider the condition of those of us with disabilities not in terms of what differentiates us from others but rather in terms of the unity of humankind that is presented in Genesis 1. The work reflects on the significance of Genesis 1 for our understanding of humankind's place within creation. It offers a consideration of otherness as a means to constitute a more authoritative understanding of people with disabilities within creation.

Legal frameworks have sought to define disability, but the term covers a wide range of conditions raising questions as to its intrinsic value. 16 By way of example one might question how the life experiences of someone on the autism spectrum or of someone in a wheelchair or someone with dementia may be considered as similar and understood and contained in the one term person with disabilities. Moreover, disability is not always visible and, further, some people officially categorized as having a disability do not consider their own condition as in any way disabling. 17 Since we are taught, first, that God is love and that to know God is to love God and, second, that to love God we must love our neighbor, this study holds that disability theology must anchor itself in an approach which does not view the other in terms of what this other may teach us about our own self (an attitude which may be characterized as incurvatus in se) but rather love the other in terms of what this same other tells us of God, the God who reached out to us in creation and created all that was good for us. 18 Consequently, this study holds that disability theology is better framed in an outward moving fashion transforming an us versus them approach (or rather me versus you) into a focus on the human experience as a whole, i.e. one which also takes fully into account the realities of those with disabilities. A theology discoursed in this manner engages us to seek that Christ that is to be found in the other. Accordingly, this study's focus on otherness through the prism of Genesis 1 and its insistence on the goodness of all creation seeks to reflect on what the experience of people with disabilities may teach us about the God who reaches out to us through creation.

As a theologian of the Cross, saying things as they are, calling a spade a spade, means recognizing simply that humankind is made in the image of God and that otherness is part of that goodness to be found in all creation. Difference, otherness, disability need to be discussed in this light and require to be understood as being, not something that separates us, but rather as that which unites us and creates a bond between us. This study will argue that disability comes to us all even if to different degrees and at different times. Disability is thus understood as merely one more element of the human experience. In short, the otherness of people with disabilities is characterized in this study, therefore, not in terms of difference but rather in terms of how an appreciation of this otherness can illuminate the experience of what it means for all of us to be human. Thesis 21 of the Heidelberg Disputation asserts that "… a theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is" and the aim of this study is to remain firmly within these bounds and to frame the discourse appreciating the otherness of people with disabilities for what it tells all of us about the human experience as creatures of a loving God. 19 18 1 John 4. The term incurvatus in se I borrow from Luther. It is explored more fully in the chapters that follow. 19 Book of Concord, 'Heidelberg Disputation (1518)', Book of Concord <https://bookofconcord.org/sources-andcontext/heidelberg-disputation/>, accessed 09 January 2020 .

Genesis 1 reminds us repeatedly of the goodness of creation. 20 Insisting on the interconnectedness of all creation, it displays a harmony among all God's creatures and creations. Humankind, moreover, has a special quality and is described as being brought into existence through a likeness to God: it is made in God's image. 21 What form this likeness takes has been the subject of debate from the church fathers onwards. 22 Since our understanding of the supreme being is often anchored in the idea that God represents the height of perfection and goodness, it might be inferred therefore that humankind in some way differs from the rest of creation through this likeness to God in this particular aspect.

Further, a likeness to God might persuade some, in consequence, that the aberrant or tarnished or incomplete are inimical to such a status. It is not difficult from this to equate the goodness of creation as described in Genesis 1 and humankind's special quality that sets it apart from the rest of creation in its likeness to God with an anthropological theology centered on a sense of what is ideal. Humankind is good, made in God's image and so, initially at least at the point of creation, pristine and untarnished. The question then is raised as to how we might account for people with disabilities -people who may appear more vulnerable and so more dependent than others, whether their disability is visible or invisible, physical, or intellectual or other. However, if all of what precedes is true, then people with disabilities must surely share in that imago Dei like the rest of humanity and the likeness of God has to be seen within them. Yet throughout history people with disabilities have often been seen as straying from what society understands as normal or beautiful or unblemished 20 Indeed, some writers attribute those mostly majority readings of humankind in terms of a supposed 'perfection' given at creation in Genesis 1 as sharing responsibility for a certain stigmatization of those of us with disabilities, Cf. Cooreman-Guittin, "Vulnérables et forts : à l'image de Dieu ? Quelques implications des théologies du handicap pour l'anthropologie dans nos outils de catéchèse", Lumen Vitae71 (2016/4), 446. Hence, this study's focus on creation in Genesis 1 in chapter 1 of this study. 21 Genesis 1:26. 22 Cf. Middleton, 2005, The Liberating Image : The Imago Dei in Genesis 1, Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan; Peterson, 2016, The Imago Dei as Human Identity : A Theological Interpretation, Penn State University Press, Winona Lake, IN; Robinson, 2011, Understanding the "Imago Dei ", the Thought of Barth, Von Balthasar and Moltmann, Ashgate, Farnham. and untarnished with the result that disability has been equated with a state of sinfulness.

It is difficult in this framework to equate such a state with the goodness that scripture teaches is inherent in all creation and to reconcile this with the likeness of God. Therefore, this study maintains that it is both unjust and wrong to associate disability with sinfulness. This inquiry holds that, upholding a theological anthropology that perceives God as the height of what is normal or perfect and attempting thereby to draw a potential parallel between this and imago Dei, has to be understood in truth, as an effort by the theologian at striving to know God in ways that, as human beings with all our weaknesses, we cannot since this is simply beyond our grasp. 1 John teaches us that knowing God means that we first need understand God as the source of all love. 23 Consequently an understanding of imago Dei as previously outlined proves inadequate. It is the contention of this study that love has to be seen at the heart of imago Dei and that this may provide us with a more fruitful path on which to tread in discourses concerning people with disabilities.

Despite the concerns raised earlier concerning the usefulness of an umbrella term for disability, the literature on disability does indeed tend to either assume the supposed existence of a shared understanding of what the term means or avoids all attempts at providing adequate definitions of this key term. 24 Legislative frameworks, on the other hand, have by their very nature endeavored to provide practical definitions of the term. 25 However, given the wide range of conditions underlying disability and the consequences these have on the physical, cognitive, emotional or other spheres of an individual's existence and the effects these thereby have on the individual's perceived ability or otherwise to act in society, it is not always clear that one, single definition should in any case be appropriate 23 1 John 4:8. 24 Brock, 'What Is Research on Disability? Looking Backward to See Forward', Journal of Disability & Religion, (2021), 1-24. 25 Cornell Law School, '42 U.S. Code § 12102 -Definition of Disability', or even possible. 26 Further, in disability theology the focus has often been directed more at those with physical disabilities at the expense of people with intellectual and cognitive disablements, though this has begun to change somewhat in more recent years. [START_REF] Cf | Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion : A Theology of Disability and Hospitality[END_REF] Disability theology is a relatively recent discipline taking root in part from earlier work in disability studies. 28 While the thrust of disability studies may have been to engage discourse on disability from the viewpoint of equality, civil rights and access, disability theology, from an initial focus on inclusion and issues of access has gone on to embrace the Christian ideals of discipleship, welcome and hospitality. [START_REF] Volpe | Irresponsible Love: Rethinking Intellectual Disability, Humanity and the Church[END_REF] As definition, therefore, this study follows that provided by Swinton since it frames the realm of disability firmly within these Christian precepts , "Disability theology is the attempt by disabled and non-disabled Christians to understand and interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ, God, and humanity against the backdrop of the historical and contemporary experiences of people with disabilities. It has come to refer to a variety of perspectives and methods designed to give voice to the rich and diverse theological meanings of the human experience of disability". [START_REF] Swinton | Who Is the God We Worship?: Theologies of Disability: Challenges and New Possibilities[END_REF] As discussed previously, early work in disability studies tended to focus almost exclusively on issues of equality, equal access, and human rights. [START_REF]Disability Studies: What Is It and What Difference Does It Make?[END_REF] Disability theology took these issues of human rights and expanded them, often influenced by writers in liberation theology. [START_REF] Volpe | Irresponsible Love: Rethinking Intellectual Disability, Humanity and the Church[END_REF] At the same time in church circles the issue of equal access for people with disabilities began to rise to the fore and was often discoursed under the term of inclusion.

This study holds, nonetheless, that inclusion, though both useful and indeed necessary, remains ultimately unsatisfactory in developing a theology of disability. Building on the definition provided by Swinton the study examines disability through the notion of otherness and identity -that which makes us all human.

I review what Genesis 1 can teach us about otherness and in particular what insights the text can give us into the lives of people with disabilities. The study draws on Bonhoeffer's notion of creation as an analogia relationis where the thrust of creation is understood in terms of relationship. Further, since the study maintains that relying on ethical rather than ontological understandings of self allows for a deeper insight into the experience of people with disabilities anchored in that knowing through love expressed in the text previously alluded to from 1 John, I pursue the notion of identity, arguing that imago Dei should be understood, not in terms of who we are, but rather in terms of what must we be. Through creation the divine establishes a bond with humankind where otherwise no relation would exist such that, as a result, the self is then enabled to reach out, in the image of God, to be free for the other. Drawing on Bonhoeffer who shared with the patristics the notion of freedom as being integral to imago Dei, I argue that imago Dei, as thus understood, should be seen in humankind's sense of freedom which is a freedom to rather than a freedom from. 33 This freedom bestows us with a sense of truth in our relation one with the other and allows us to draw close as beings in Christ rather than as beings in Adam (Bonhoeffer). I explore Bonhoeffer's notion of costly grace which manifests itself in this ethical understanding of self in relation with the other. 34 Further, following Bonhoeffer, self is understood in this study 33 Zimmermann, 2019, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christian Humanism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 116. 34 Bonhoeffer, 'The Cost of Discipleship', Macmillan, New York. in a dynamic sense, i.e., changing, ever-growing and evolving such that self becomes understood as a work in progress and unfinished. 35 The study contrasts different understandings of humankind, one where it is seen as the center of existence, where otherness is equated with the boundaries humanity erects to consolidate its monological understanding of self-an inward-looking process, and another where this same process becomes dialogical in nature and self can only be grasped in appreciation of, and with the other. I will argue that the search for identity is a movement that is both outward (towards the other) and inward (towards self) and that this account conforms more adequately with Bonhoeffer's notion of relation seen at the heart of creation and indeed with all of creation itself in all its interconnectedness. Anchoring itself in a perception of identity which becomes feasible only with reference to the other, the study pursues this idea examining it with respect to the concepts of idem and ipse identity as formulated by Ricoeur. 36 Broadening the discussion on identity, the study, grounding itself in the work of Panikkar, then draws a distinction between identity , the who of a person on the one hand (their deepest reality) and identification, the what of a person on the other (their objective reality).37 I argue that a focus on identity, rather than on identification, implies commitment and engagement rather than simple reflection which leads to a consideration of the concepts of orthopraxis and orthodoxy as understood in liberation theology. The study upholds that, for the Christian, the search for Christ cannot be contained only in self (reflection) but has to be found in the face of the other (engagement).

The study subsequently asserts that discussion of otherness must be discoursed in terms of ethics. This is then developed further by pursuing this ethical notion of existence through Levinas's understanding of otherness, which this study argues more closely reflects the Christian understanding of love, where the otherness of the other transcends the notion of self and gifts self with freedom and truth. I argue that trust in God fosters the risk-taking necessary for the letting go of self in the search for the other-a process that Levinas considers a duty. Only then can truth, which is in the gift of the other, be attained. 38 The inquiry invokes the opposition of being in Adam/being in Christ as a means of developing this approach to otherness. 39 This study, therefore, reflects on the soundness of viewing disability through the lens of otherness and offers this hypothesis as a means of establishing an authentic theology of disability. The study holds that a consideration of disability through the lens of otherness more distinctly reflects the interconnectedness of creation and may serve to provide all of us, abled or otherwise, with deeper insights upon truth, upon self and on God. In this way the study reflects on otherness as it is present in the person with disability as the presence of Christ in the world and suggests that ultimately this otherness can provide for self a means of redemption.

The study has three areas of concern: creation, otherness and people and disability.

Each chapter considers each of these in turn and reviews the literature before developing the discussion on the implications this has for this inquiry. The study concludes with remarks both on the significance and on the limitations of the study itself and on the impetus for this research.

38 John 8:32. 39 1 Corinthians 15:22, taken up by Bonhoeffer.

CHAPTER ONE

CREATION

Much has been written about Genesis 1 and what it tells us about creation, each other, about who we are, and about the bonds humankind has with the earth and our environment. 40 Even more essential than this, however, is what this text tells us about our relationship with the creator God. There is a refrain that runs all the way through this first chapter of Genesis-"and God saw that it was good" reminding us, should this ever need to be said, that creation has been brought about by a benevolent God and gifted to us in completeness for our benefit: all that we need is there for us and all that is there is good. The goodness of creation, therefore, has to be viewed as extending to humankind as a whole, including those of us with disabilities. Further, at this moment of reflection for humankind over how we can best fight against the dangers of climate change and help preserve the earth's beauty and resources, it is perhaps timely to be reminded of the inherent fullness and goodness of creation that was gifted to us since the scriptural text in lines 1:28-30 also serves to remind us of our particular duty of care and of our responsibility over all aspects of creation. If waste and damage has been brought about through pollution and overexploitation or indeed through neglect, then blame has to lie at the door of the custodians of creation-ourselves. Genesis 1 thus serves also as a reminder for us of our own pivotal role in the devastation brought into play by climate change and of our duty to resolve it in the interests of all. Equally, and more importantly for the aims of this study, misinterpretations of the text, founded on a supposed idea of perfection, at least at the moment of creation, highlight the importance of a reading of Genesis 1 that is capable of 40 Cf. Westermann, 2004, Genesis, T & T Clark International, London;Moberly, 2009 establishing a newer, more just and authenticate theology of disability where humankind is not broken down into categories based on prejudices built on supposed ideas of autonomy or performativity. Genesis 1 is addressed to humankind as a whole. We are reminded, therefore, of our responsibility to act in our humanness as one. Together with these misinterpretations of the text it has to be recognized that the text itself has generally been put to one side in favor of what are considered more reliable sources. Since the rise of normative readings of the findings of science and their dominance in public discourse from the Enlightenment onwards it is almost as if the mythic nature of the Genesis narrative overruled any potential it might have of allowing for hermeneutical worth compared to what scientific thought has provided us with concerning the nature of humankind. The narrative, quite simply, had become a source of discomfort and needed to be re-interpreted in the light of "knowledge".

(i). The narration of creation in Genesis 1.

Genesis 1 teaches us that humankind is endowed with a special quality in all of creation -that of being made in the likeness of God. The goodness of God's creation is highlighted throughout the narrative. 41 The effect of the repeated affirmation of goodness cannot be underestimated. This has implications, therefore, for our readings of disabilityall creation is imbued with goodness, and this unquestionably, therefore, must include people with disabilities. Humankind receives God's blessing, for "…God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good". 42 There is a care and attention to detail in each act of creation which shows the love of the creator God, the provider. The creator God is father, 41 Apart from the second day with the creation of the firmament where its creation is simply described as "and it was so". 42 Genesis 1:31.

architect, artisan concerned with the what of creation, but in a sense, God is mother too concerned with every detail -the how, a caring creator who has given humankind everything, "… every living thing that moves upon the earth … every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit … to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food". 43 The text's narration of creation is beautiful, and it unfolds meticulously and methodically.

God, the artisan/architect acts through the use of the word. The creative act is called into being with care and love and creation is met with God's satisfaction. From three separations, light from darkness, sky from sea and dry land from the seas, emerge in turn the sun and the moon and hence the days and the seasons. Next, the creatures are formed that will inhabit the seas and the sky, then, on the sixth day of creation, come all the living creatures of the earth and then finally humankind. It is noticeable that the sixth day with the narration of the creation of humankind is replete with details (Genesis 1:24-31). 44 The story of creation crafts a world gifted to humankind. This is a world worthy of God's blessing, for the words of the Creator God affirm that all has been created and provided for and "God saw that it was good". 45 Other creation stories contemporary with Genesis would have the gods create mankind as a necessary retrospective gesture in order to satisfy the needs of the gods themselves -to provide them with food and so on, but the account in Genesis is something quite distinct. 46 Here humankind is portrayed as the very aim of creation itself and is imbued with a special quality-that of being made in the likeness of God. What is understood by being made in God's image, notwithstanding, has become a 43 Genesis 1:28-30. 44 Carson, 1994, New Bible Commentary, 21st Century Edition, Inter-Varsity, Nottingham, 13. 45 Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31. 46 Carson, New Bible Commentary, 21st Century Edition.

fount of disagreement among observers even though it is referenced directly only three times in the Hebrew Bible. 47 1. (ii). Commentators on Genesis 1.

Creation, as was said, is brought into being through the authority of God's word.

Commentators on Genesis often highlight the importance of syntax and of choice of words. Each act of creation is prefaced with let: "let there be light", "let there be a dome", "let the waters … be gathered together", "let the dry land appear", "let there be lights", "let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures", "let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind". 48 There is, however, a syntactical change in the narration of the creation of humankind. A "new solemnity" is introduced. 49 Genesis here uses the first person plural, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness" only to revert back to the third person immediately after, "So God created humankind in his image". 50 The use of the plural is striking, similar to the use in Isaiah, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?". 51 Among scholars the use of the plural here is a matter of debate and there is no clear consensus on why it is used at this point. Some writers, from the days of the early church, have seen here a reference to the Trinity. 52 Others see in the choice of words-"Let us", a form of majestic plural. 53 For Barth, at this point in creation, its climax -the creation of humankind, Genesis enters what he calls a "divine soliloquy" since God, while being one, "… is not for that reason one thing", but is seen rather in the way already portrayed at the very opening of Genesis in 1:2 with its reference to a "wind from God", i.e. God's spirit.54 "Let us make", this study suggests, might be considered as both decision and command at the same time-an injunction which could well have been employed at each step of creation but instead is reserved here for the solemnity of what is a high point-humanity being made "in his image". Barth, however, affirmed that since the early church theologians had rejected the idea that the imago Dei could in any sense be found in humankind's physical manifestation, favoring instead a more spiritual understanding. 55 This meant that the idea or possibility of God's likeness being found in the wholeness of humanity's being had to be put to one side. This reading instead reduced likeness to certain specific attributes or characteristics of the nature of being human. Philo of Alexandria had equated the immateriality of God with his understanding of God's image, i.e., since God is spiritual, humankind's likeness to God needed to be found also in the non-material and spiritual. 56 Moreover, the early church had tended to frame creation through the lens of soteriology. Irenaeus saw clear differences in understanding between the image of God on the one hand and humankind being made too in the likeness of God. [START_REF]Understanding the "Imago Dei ", the Thought of Barth, Von Balthasar and Moltmann. 58 Implicit, however, in this understanding is the possibility of making the wrong choices[END_REF] Imago Dei he associated with humankind's reasoning and free will whereas the likeness of God referred, he believed, to a supernatural quality guided by the power of the Holy Spirit. For him, humankind could not have been created consummate and unblemished since humankind was endowed with the capacity to choose and so it would be humanity's journey through the experience of life, guided by the action of the Holy Spirit, that would lead to God's likeness. 58 He understood both imago Dei and similitudo Dei in terms of spiritual growth. 59 For Ambrose, imago Dei was understood as the soul and for Athanasius it was related to the logos and centered on rationality. 60 Augustine understood the imago Dei in the triune notion of the soul articulated in the concepts of Memoria, Intellectus and Amor. 61 Barth, however, felt that these were speculations rather than faithful readings of the text and he was critical of the manner in which such an important aspect of creation had been debated, "For it is obvious that their authors merely found the concept in the text and then proceeded to pure invention in accordance with the requirements of contemporary anthropology". 62 More recently, observers such as Middleton have observed that the Hebrew for image contains within it the notion of idol and therefore he insists that the notions of embodiment and representation need to be taken into consideration in any study on imago Dei. He notes a pattern in the narrative of creation where function is consistently mentioned: light is separated from darkness to provide day and night; the waters are equally separated from dry land to allow for vegetation and so on. From this he concludes that, if humankind is described as being created in God's image and is also given "dominion" over all that is on earth, then both of these elements taken together should form our understanding of what is meant by imago Dei, "The presence of this background metaphor, along with the explicit syntax of 1:26-28, in the context of the functional, purpose-oriented rhetoric of Genesis 1, leads to the exegetical conclusion that the Imago Dei refers to humanity's office and role as God's earthly delegates, whose terrestrial task is analogous to that of the heavenly court." 63 According to him there should be no question of understanding likeness by breaking down humankind into its parts (body/soul, for example). 64 It is clear, therefore, from the literature that among commentators there is much disagreement on the interpretations to be drawn from the text. As Briggs puts it, "Genesis 1-11 is a candidate for being one of the most widely misunderstood texts in the whole of Scripture". 65 1. (iii). Implications for the study.

A number of key themes emerge from this review of the narrative of creation in Genesis 1. They are of importance in reaching an understanding of the place of those of us with disabilities within God's plan for humankind. Equally, they will guide this study's reflection on the usefulness or otherwise of reflecting on disability through the lens of otherness as a means of bringing about a more authoritative theology of disability. These recurrent themes are: § a harmony of all creatures and all things, § the essential goodness of all, § a constitutive interconnectedness, and § humankind's special quality (being made in the likeness of God).

With respect to this last theme which, as has been discussed, has evoked a variety of understandings, this study holds that the text tells us quite simply that in some way humankind resembles God the creator and that this same humankind has to be seen in its wholeness, its oneness.

64 Ibid. 25. 65 Briggs, "Humans in the Image of God and Other Things Genesis Does Not Make Clear", Journal of Theological Interpretation, 4/1 (2010), 111-26.

These themes from the review of the literature on Genesis 1 need to be reconciled with the issues often evoked in relation to people with disabilities that were alluded to in the introduction to this study: § the other with disabilities who is to be pitied, § the life experience of the person with disabilities viewed as a tragedy, § disability itself often invoked with respect to sinfulness, and § the fear of the disabled other that can lead to their rejection. 66 This study holds that none of the above issues can contain the complexity of the person with disabilities and neither can any of them be reconciled with the notion of creation that this study has described is at work in Genesis 1. Sadly, pity, tragedy and sinfulness can all be assigned to some degree or other to all of humankind. Further, being made in the likeness of God should in any case banish all fear from within us. 67 The person with disabilities, therefore, cannot be relegated to the margins and treated as some sort of outsider. The themes raised in the narration of creation in Genesis 1 point to a God who has reached out to us in creation with benevolence and generosity. There is no benevolence or generosity in ignoring or denying the voice of the disabled other on the basis of a supposed difference or spurious subordinate status This study holds, therefore, that in interpreting humankind's likeness to God in terms of our concerns for one another that in ways that have a focus that is ethical rather than ontological (i.e., framing our critical questions in terms of what I must be rather in terms of who it is that I am) we are more likely to come close to establishing a more authoritative theology of disability which reflects the fullness of the human condition in which the person with disabilities plays an integral part.

66 These issues, stemming from the different ways of reading disability, will be discussed in. more detail in succeeding chapters. 67 Cf. 2 Timothy 1 :7.

Such a posture, it is maintained, reflects more accurately the ethos of relationships established at the heart of creation as expressed in Genesis 1.

1. (iv). Engaging with Creation.

Creation's importance does not seem to be reflected in the church calendar.

Significantly, it is evoked in the first article of the Creed, yet it otherwise appears largely ignored. In recent years it is often evoked in discussions over climate change and ecology in general. In 1989 Patriarch Dimitrios of the Ecumenical Patriarchate signaled a new interest in creation when he declared that the first day of the church year, the Feast of Indiction, be a day of prayer for the celebration and protection of creation. Although the ecological crisis was beginning to cause major concern around the world and attention was being focused more and more on the means needed to remedy the crisis, the Patriarch insisted that this day of creation would have a twofold objective in that, as well as raising awareness of the treasures of creation themselves, it should also be a day of thanksgiving for what he called this "great gift". 68 The Patriarch insisted on humankind's "privileged" position as "partaker of the material and spiritual world". 69 As for the other churches one had to wait. Perhaps it was as a result of the increasing urgency brought about by pollution and the wider climate crisis that churches tended to place the stress much more on humankind's responsibility over the earth through the stewardship granted at creation rather than on any idea of an act of thanksgiving for the act of creation per se. One had to wait until 2008 when the World Council of Churches invited churches to observe a period of prayer and 68 Ecumenical Patriarchate, 'Patriarchal Messages for the Indiction', <https://www.patriarchate.org/-/messageby-h-a-h-ecumenical-patriarch-dimitrios-upon-the-day-of-prayer-for-the-protection-of-creation-01-09-1989->, accessed 18 July 2020 69 Ibid.

reflection through the celebration of what was called a "Time for Creation". 70 The Catholic Church followed suit later in 2015 with the establishment of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. In his prayer for that occasion in 2019 Pope Francis evoked the full impact of Genesis 1:26-27 when he said, "In effect, we have forgotten who we are: creatures made in the image of God … and called to dwell as brothers and sisters in a common home. We were created not to be tyrants, but to be at the heart of a network of life made up of millions of species lovingly joined together for us by our Creator. Now is the time to rediscover our vocation as children of God, brothers and sisters, and stewards of creation. Now is the time to repent, to be converted and to return to our roots. We are beloved creatures of God, who in his goodness calls us to love life and live it in communion with the rest of creation." 71 Interestingly Pope Francis reorients the focus on creation in this declaration clearly on humankind's condition as "children of God", highlighting the need for our conversion to fully assume our vocation as creatures made in the likeness of God. More recently, there has now been introduced a whole "Season of Creation" beginning September 1 st and ending on the feast of St Francis on October 4 th . 72 Again, however, the accent is clearly set more on humankind's responsibilities as custodians of earth's resources rather than on a celebration of the act of creation itself and the consequence of humankind's dual partaking in both the spiritual as well as the material that the Patriarch had referred to. Allowing the ideology and preoccupations of our time (the climate crisis, pollution and so on) to dominate discussion on creation seems to be holding us back from reaching a more rigorous reading of Genesis 73 Indeed, the ethical questions related to our relations one with the other seem thus far to have been largely sidelined and this raises questions concerning our readings of disability. This will be discussed further towards the end of this chapter.

full impact of the narrative of Genesis 1 (i.e., particularly in terms of how it highlights the ethical nature of our relations one with the other) might be explained by our manifest preference for what might be considered as more reliable sources of knowledge which had taken shape from the time of the Enlightenment onwards. 74 It is hardly surprising to witness as a consequence that in neglecting our true nature (i.e., of being made in the likeness of God) humankind can be drawn to develop this pathological fear of the other that Zizioulas referred to, a fear that may become even further entrenched when we encounter disability. 75 Earlier, Bonhoeffer had drawn attention to humankind's self-created detachment and isolation from the rest of creation. For him this was explained by our estrangement from God and from our desire to imagine ourselves as our own gods. He described the dilemma such a set of circumstances can bring upon humankind as an impasse, "… Where the beginning begins there our thinking stops; there it comes to an end". 76 Here Bonhoeffer offers an indictment against modernity's putative superiority in terms of providing us with the knowledge needed to inform our decisions. He insisted that the origin of the dilemma facing humankind was to be found within ourselves, "…because we do not know the world as God's creation and do not accept the dominion we have as God-given but seize hold of it for ourselves… Without God, without their brothers and sisters, human beings lose the earth". 77 This study holds, with Bonhoeffer, that the incompleteness of our reading of creation only serves to compound such a dilemma. This is also a belief that is echoed by Westermann who denounces the church's failure to fully own the message of creation contained in 74 Ironically, however, it could equally be argued that responsibility for the difficulties we now face in the management of the earth's resources might well lie with that same push for accumulation and exploitation that have accompanied the Enlightenment and modernity, and this might explain much of the damage that has been wreaked on the environment. 75 Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness : Further Studies in Personhood and the Church. 76 Bonhoeffer, 1997, Creation and Fall, a Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 25. 77 Ibid. 62. This is illustrative of the subjectivity and egocentricity referenced earlier in this chapter.

scripture. He warns us of what he called the "devastating consequences" that this may cause. 78 His analysis reflects the belief that the church has not assimilated in its completeness the message about creation in Genesis 1. This is something that Pope Francis had alluded to in his address in 2019 when he had called for our conversion and had insisted on the need for humankind's communion one with another and with creation. 79 Westermann also highlights the fact that modernity had rejected scripture as a means of informing behavior and choices in favor of what were considered more reliable sources of information. 80 The review of the text of Genesis 1 in this study has shown that creation is brought into being through the authority of the divine word. It is through the word, therefore, that God chooses to encounter us. "God said" is repeated nine times in Genesis 1 and it is, thus, critical to recognize that the text should be seen as a representation of the voice of God reaching out to us. This is a God who seeks a relation with us all. From this one may deduce that creation in Genesis 1 seeks also to inform and guide us on the substance of the relations humankind should establish one with the other-the notion of "communion" referred to by Pope Francis. 81 This is something that science does not pretend to offer. For these reasons, like Westermann, this study affirms that the narrative of creation in scripture should be viewed as being complementary to the readings of science since its focus lies rather in the nature of the relation the creator God seeks with humankind. 82 78 Westermann, 'Genesis 1-11 a Commentary', 12. 79 Vatican, 'World Day of Prayer for the Day of Creation', 80 Westermann, 'Genesis 1-11 a Commentary', 81 Ibid., 13. 82 This is pursued in the final part of this chapter. 1. (v). Knowledge and the Anthropocene.

It is important for our reflections on otherness and people with disabilities to appreciate the consequences of modernity's reading of creation and how this plays its part in the rhetoric on disability itself. This is even more crucial as this study will affirm that some of the assumptions the church has made concerning people with disabilities have often been influenced by such a reading. The weight and influence of the "knowledge" resulting from the accumulation and solidifying of normative readings of western intellectual thought, are described by Clines as being like a "pyramid". 83 While acknowledging the benefits society has been able to derive from this accumulation of "knowledge", Clines draws to our attention the fact that the construction of pyramids is only possible through a collaborative effort, i.e., involving each and every one of us from whatever discipline or background and, hence, this would also include the church.

Consequently, the knowledge we have about ourselves is a construction of our own making.

We all have and have had a part in the process and this pyramid, if mine, is also yours and so ours. The metaphor of a pyramid appears useful at first sight, since a pyramid appears solid and stable, and this is as one would hope knowledge itself should be. Although climbing to its top may require enormous effort, the view from the pyramidion should offer us with uncalled for prospects. However, what one might discern from such a height would depend on a number of factors, among which is our ability to look as well as to see. 84 Moreover, it is fundamental for our understanding of how this mechanism of knowledge accumulation operates, that we recognize that this metaphorical pyramid of knowledge might have been built on questionable foundations since subjectivity and egocentricity can shield us so convincingly from the truth. Further, scripture informs us that freedom and 83 Clines, On the Way to the Postmodern Old Testament Essays 1967-1998 Volume Ii., 139. 84 Cf. Matthew 13:13. truth are to be found only in God and that knowledge is obtained through love. 85 The result of such a notion of knowledge and of history as proposed in modernity, therefore, might only bring us to that ill-defined place where humankind finds itself stuck in a middle point with a nostalgia not so much for the past but for a future which is yet to come. This study affirms, therefore, that it is humankind's dilemma of being stuck in the middle that has the capacity to shroud us in fear and apprehension. 86 I would argue that this sense of fear is further aggravated today by the depth of the concerns we exhibit about the future of the planet and the impact caused by human activity.

Scientists have named the epoch we are living in the Anthropocene, one where our actions impact critically on the earth's structure and development. 87 The philosopher Todd Dufresne outlines thirteen notable characteristics of the Anthropocene and, for the purposes of this study, of these we may highlight in particular the increasing feelings of angst we experience brought about by a sense of unpredictability to be found in the ties in which we live (one might suppose this was what Bonhoeffer implied when he spoke of our "loss of God/loss of earth"). 88 Together with this is an increasing understanding of our own direct responsibility for the state of the earth. 89 Additionally, of particular interest to this chapter on creation, is that the conditions of anthropocenity Dufresne describes shroud us in a "confrontation with human suffering…on a global scale". 90 In the Anthropocene, according to him, suffering, which was once felt to be endemic mostly in the global South is now felt extensively also in the global North such that this has now become a world of suffering. This study asserts that an insensitivity to humankind's calling as creatures made in the likeness of God as defined in Genesis 1:26 can only add to these notions of suffering (Dufresne) and of fear (Zizioulas). Our failure both to celebrate and to come to terms with, in meaningful ways, what it truly means to be made in the likeness of God, aggravates the emotions aroused by the Anthropocene and our apprehension of the other. Indeed, it can serve as the explanation for these feelings . We are told that humankind is made in the likeness of God, but God bears no image. For the benefit of this study therefore, we may affirm simply that humankind's distinctiveness -our likeness to God must lie somewhere beyond the ontological sphere.. 91 Rather than provide an answer to the question who is it that I am, I suggest it is more useful for the purposes of this inquiry to understand this likeness as giving sense to our notion of being, i.e., providing answers to the questions what must I do and how must I be. 1. (vi). Analogia relationis: relationship at the heart of creation.

As has been discussed, the narrative of Genesis 1 shows the creator God reaching out to us through the word. This is a God whose actions are guided by care and generosity in the provision of all that is needed for humankind to thrive and grow. Scripture teaches us that God is one. 92 Again and again in scripture we are reminded also that God is love, showing that same love for us as is illustrated in the act of creation itself in Genesis 1. 93 This study holds, therefore, that this narrative of creation imbues humankind with a 91 The precise implications of Imago Dei have roused a wide field of interest among commentators, cf., Middleton, The Liberating Image : The Imago Dei in Genesis 1.; Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, a Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3. ; Briggs, 'Humans in the Image of God and Other Things Genesis Does Not Make Clear', Journal of Theological Interpretation, 4/1 (2010), 111-26. ;Robinson, Understanding the "Imago Dei ", the Thought of Barth, Von Balthasar and Moltmann. Due to word count limitations this study restricts itself only to the ethical consequences of the notion. 92 1 Corinthians 8:6, Mark 12:29. 93 Cf. 1 John 4:16, Isaiah 54:10.

oneness that may only become manifest in the love we are able to show one to the other. This is an evaluation that is held by a number of commentators. Moltmann, for example, reminds us that the first questions we should ask about Genesis 1 should not be anthropological in nature but theological. He insists that Genesis 1 tells us about what kind of God it is that seeks us out and creates us in his likeness, "Likeness to God means God's relationship to human beings first of all … The nature of human beings springs from their relationship to God". 94 Similarly, Bonhoeffer understands humankind's likeness to God in the freedom that creation bestows on us. For him this new-found freedom is to be understood originating in the relation that the creator seeks to establish with us and among us-what Bonhoeffer calls an analogia relationis. 95 It is conceived of as not so much a freedom from but rather as a freedom to, i.e., humankind's sense of freedom is not something that we own but more something that binds us one to the other. In this way humankind's likeness to God may be interpreted as bringing into being a link with the divine in the world where the divine would otherwise not be present. Similarly, just as humankind may be understood as being the aim of creation itself, so the whole reason for human existence as a consequence becomes its relation with God. 96 Relationship, it may be argued, lies at the very heart of creation as it is narrated in Genesis 1-the creator God who reaches out to humankind in generosity by gifting us with creation itself and who bestows his blessing upon us inspiring us to behave likewise with the creatures of the earth and with each other. Here, a vision of humankind is presented as one that is undivided but united in love one for the other. In this framework there is no 94 Moltmann, 1985, God in Creation a New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, Fortress Press, Minneapolis 95 Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, a Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3. 96 Westermann, Genesis., 158.

notion of brokenness or difference, and humanity is not aligned according to who we are or in terms of a supposed degree of performativity or autonomy in what we are able or not to do. This inquiry holds, therefore, that the angst and suffering in the Anthropocene that was discussed earlier in this chapter may be brought into existence by the fact that our human condition too often pushes us to assume that in creation dominion is ours. This inquiry holds that this notion of dominion, however, is devoid of an ethical sense since it becomes a dominion we seek to establish over others, over the world, over the whole of creation. 97 This is a dominion that then becomes for us a slavery, but not to each other and for each other but instead a slavery in pursuit only of the world. Bonhoeffer reminded us of the futility of such a position since such a posture cannot gain the world for us. Rather he believed that it would result in our losing the world. 98 In short, this study's reading of Genesis 1 anchors itself in the ethical consequences of humankind being made in the likeness of God. It rejects any notion of worth and value being built on supposed capabilities or performativity which seek to divide or discriminate among us. In doing so it strives to embrace humankind's essential oneness provided by that creator God who seeks us out through love. The study holds that in this manner a more authoritative theology of disability may emerge. The next chapter pursues the notion of the oneness of humankind that is to be found in an understanding of otherness that is guided by this study's reading of creation in Genesis 1.

97 Genesis 1:28. 98 Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, a Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3. 62.

CHAPTER TWO

OTHERNESS

This study argues that, although disability theology shares similarities with the aims of disability studies and although issues of equal rights, inclusion and access are important to the experience of people with disabilities, disability theology nevertheless must move beyond the aims of modernity (as espoused in disability studies) and locate itself firmly within the Christian precepts of discipleship, welcome and hospitality. In order to do so the study pursues the discussion with reflection on otherness. It first considers the inadequacies of modernity to grasp fully the notion of otherness and rejects it in favor of the more Christian precepts of fellowship and communion which I argue are more fruitful in the development of a theology of disability. I then return to review creation through the first chapter of Genesis in order to better reach an understanding of self and other. Here emphasis is laid on the interconnectedness of creation. I lean on Bonhoeffer's reading of creation as an "analogia relationis" and examine what this means for our interpretations of freedom and for our perception of identity. Invoking both Ricoeur and Levinas I pursue this understanding of self and other, evaluating, not so much the ontological consequences of our sense of self and other, but considering it rather in its ethical implications. This leads to a consideration of the meaning of truth for the Christian and a reflection on the importance of engagement and commitment in the treatment of the other.

(i) Understanding modernity.

The grand narrative of the Enlightenment, anchored in an assertive rationalism, left little room for questioning or doubt. The question "who am I" took precedence over "who are you". The certainty and the assuredness that the grand narrative had conferred on "I" was to overrun all notions of "you". An implication of this egocentric focus was that colonialism, slavery, exploitation of people and of resources, racism and other ills could be validated in pursuit of the certainty of this "I". Armour considers modernity essentially as a narrative which places "… man at the center surrounded by his "others," a network of mirrors that reflect man back to himself thus securing his boundaries". 99 Moreover, when this understanding of self (Armour's "man") is then shared, disseminated, and amplified by its adoption by a group or institution, its force is magnified immeasurably. 100 This inward-looking conviction and assuredness, it could be argued, was to manifest itself in its most extreme form in the holocaust and more recently in the acts of genocide in Rwanda and elsewhere-an obscene and perverse travesty of rationalism where the other is denied all humanity and reduced to mere nothingness. Postulating an answer to the question of identity-"who am I?" brings with it inevitably the fixing of boundaries and, although one might argue that without boundaries order may cease to exist, the matter of the impact of such boundaries on considerations of the other needs first to be addressed if the claims of modernity are to have any value.

To examine these claims, this study argues with Bauman that Western civilization may be construed like a rampart against a series of contrasts where modernity is seen to override a succession of fallacies or illusions. 101 Passion, sentiment, empathy are dismissed as being inferior and non-rational. They are then consigned to the realms of the imagination and artistic creation. By implication, Genesis 1 and its narrative of creation would also find 99 Armour, 'Theology in Modernity's Wake', Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 74/1 (2006). 100 Here, for example, one might interrogate the aims of church institutions on the question of disability where it is at times almost exclusively discoursed in terms of access and inclusion. This is a theme which will be discussed more fully later. 101 Bauman, 1989, Modernity and the Holocaust, Polity Press, Cambridge.

itself rejected, therefore, as a form of inferior sources of knowledge. Modernity is presented as a struggle against untruths. It becomes a, "… holy battle of humanity against barbarism, reason against ignorance, objectivity against prejudice, progress against degeneration, truth against superstition, science against magic, rationality against passion." 102This "holy battle", however, poses a range of dilemmas. Identity-forming and its delineation of boundaries runs the risk of generating a propensity to classify and categorize people and things. At a stroke, the oneness and interconnectedness of humankind outlined in Genesis 1 is abandoned. Further, the dynamic of modernity brings with it a permanent dissatisfaction with the status quo. Its quest for categorization and its narrative of boundary formation is not unchanging. It is transgressive, rather, since it tends to seek at the same time to move beyond the very boundaries it has conceived and drawn up and to move towards a new order. 103 In this brave new world, risk and precarity together with the angst and unease that these engender are integral to its building blocks. Possibilities for "self" in this world abound but the "other" in this same world is understood more as rival, as competitor, or enemy. This is a world that denies all sense of communion and shuns all relationships that are uninterested and formed only out of concern for the other as equal.

In this framework the other becomes an obstacle or a nuisance, either to be ignored or feared or to be eliminated, all in the pursuit of progress, betterment or self-aggrandizement.

This inquiry holds that refusing to see the face of the other becomes an active facilitator in the process of modernity. As a result, one may conclude, ironically, that the many wellintentioned social innovations today in the welfare state such as housing and unemployment benefits, community outreach measures towards the disenfranchised in 102 Ibid. 96. society-the homeless, the asylum seeker and so on, through their delineating of boundaries, categorization and creation of thresholds -through their very terminology even, succeed by their very existence in further alienating the other from the rest of society, "When the welfare state defined what was marginal it also defined itself. Through defining "them", the outline of who "we" were became all the clearer". 104 The root of this paradox may well lie in the fact that the catalyst for such social innovations lies not in recognizing the other as social agent per se but rather in our own ethical difficulties and challenges in the face of deprivation, dirt, disease and dispossession. These difficulties are characterized by a guilt which is not fully assumed but rather transmuted into an expression of social concern. However, this study asserts that an understanding of humankind in its oneness and goodness as outlined in Genesis 1, where the other is appreciated as equal would eliminate all feelings of guilt and with it the need for such measures of mitigation. In short, the difficulty for humankind lies within an ultimate inconsistency that it is precisely through an understanding of our own limits and boundaries that we are better able to see the face of the other who shares these same limits. This study argues that the reading of creation in Genesis 1 allows us to appreciate these boundaries in our understanding of identity and view them not as finite, indissoluble, end points in themselves which serve to separate and divide but rather to consider them as bridges and tools for dialog and consensus building which lead to a more constructive and positive existence in God's creation for the benefit of all. 105 104 Ibid. 231. 105 Cf. Volf, 1996, Exclusion and Embrace, a Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, Abingon Press, Nashville, TN.

(ii). The view of humankind in Genesis 1.

This study argued earlier that creation came into place by the authority of the word of the creator God who reached out to us. However, this study argues that the nature of God's reaching out to us has to be understood in terms that are dialogical rather than monological, since in creation there is also a call to action-a duty of care both of the earth and its resources and of each other. 106 107 Relationship, it was argued, has to be seen at the heart of creation and, for dialog to exist, this presupposes a willingness to bond upon which our humanity may be founded. In this reading of creation relationship becomes fundamental to the notion of otherness. Modernity would have us focus inward and consign the other to the periphery, but Genesis 1, in contrast, affirms that if the very essence of our nature is to be found in the bond that unites us through creation with that God who reaches out to us, then, as a result, our relations with one another-looking into the face of the other and recognizing in them the imprint of imago Dei, has to be built upon notions of communion, harmony and fellowship. It is argued that this is the posture humankind is asked to assume so that our path through this world might resemble that "walk in the light" that scripture speaks of. 108 Duality seems missing in the portrait of modernity that this study has thus far drawn.

Similarly, modernity's push to drive humankind ever inward, evading the gaze of the other, forces on humankind an approach that is incurvatus in se where we engage in a futile search for truth and salvation. 109 This approach denies the interconnectedness of human existence and our dependence one on the other. In doing so we hide ourselves from truth and deprive 106 Genesis 1:26-28. 107 Cf. Schwanke, in Kolb et al., 2014, The Oxford ourselves of the benefits truth can bring. Bonhoeffer had warned us that such an attitude inevitably leads only to a sense of desolation and despair, "… All who countenance that they need only to come to themselves, in order to be in God, are doomed to hideous disillusion in the experience of being-, persisting-, and ending-up-turned-in-uponthemselves utterly -the experience of utmost loneliness in its tormenting desolation and sterility." 110Similarly, modernity operates in such a way that freedom is conceived of as a jealous possession, one that has to be guarded and sheltered from the other. Modernity's reading of freedom is one-dimensional in nature. 111 This is a freedom that we fool ourselves into believing we fully own, master and possess. The reading of freedom in Genesis 1, however, is multi-dimensional and is characterized rather as a means towards truth through the binding of self to the other.

The narrative of creation in Genesis 1 displays a harmony of togetherness and cooperation where its features, coming from a oneness, are separated in order to better work together: light and darkness, water and dry land and so on. This reading of creation displays a harmony of interconnectedness. 112 This interconnectedness suggests a search for identity (a separating and binding) which takes the form of a molding of boundaries, delineating where self ends and other begins. Boundaries here are not dismissive of the other but rather become suggestive of that other. The movement in Genesis 1 is both inwards and outwards and is integral to this harmonious interplay. Self and other appear complementary, necessary even, where this search for identity is understood in its movement towards the other and not away from the other. It is the process of separating and binding at the heart of the narrative that highlights the nature of this search for identity. 110 Bonhoeffer, Wolf, and Noble, 1962, Act and Being, Collins, London, 42. 111 Volf describes how the mechanism of identity forming in Genesis 1operates, "… The account of creation as "separating-and-binding" rather than simply "separating" suggests that "identity" includes connection, difference, heterogeneity. The human self is formed not through a simple rejection of the other-through a binary logic of opposition and negation-but through a complex process of "taking in" and "keeping out." We are who we are not because we are separate from the others who are next to us, but because we are both separate and connected, both distinct and related; the boundaries that mark our identities are both barriers and bridges." 113This study holds therefore, with Volf, that Genesis 1 depicts difference as integral to an understanding of identity. Consequently, any theology that considers the person with disabilities exclusively in terms of their difference and not in terms of how they may contribute to our understanding of God's plan for each one of us has to be deemed inadequate. The disabled other, in this study's reading of Genesis 1, contains notions of truth that are essential for all of humankind. For Alexander, modernity is Janus-like, unfavorable, espousing notions of advancement and progress while at the same time bringing in its wake evil and destruction. 114 The search for identity in this scheme of things is a movement that is towards self and away from the other. It thus proves itself inadequate in the assumptions it makes about humanity. This inadequacy fails to provide us with answers to the problems that confront us. In short, it serves to divide us rather than bring us closer together. While the notion of the march of modernity might help in our understanding of, for example, how it was that slavery was ultimately abolished or how empires fell or how science can bring about the most formidable benefits for human health and wellbeing, this inquiry maintains that it nonetheless remains deficient at the same time in explaining how racism, nationalism, or the development of weapons capable of annihilating all life on earth could swiftly come into being and occupy their place. 115 Understandings of the otherness of people with disabilities in terms of their difference, e.g., in terms only of their performativity or supposed capacity for autonomy, cannot therefore lead to the establishment of a theology of disability that is capable of embracing the realities of creation as it is outlined in scripture.

(iii). The weaknesses of the Grand Narrative.

Modernity's shortcomings in helping us explain, understand and interpret the particulars of human existence and the developments in world history became most expressly manifest in the wake of the horrors of the holocaust. Humankind's capacity for destruction and evil had shown its face with all the force of its malevolence. The depth of depravity and wickedness that was witnessed was perhaps too much for us to bear, too much to internalize and apprehend. Modernity, the grand narrative, appeared to provide us with little support. Armour views modernity as a system or "network" of mirrors where events and otherness are grasped only through reflection back on self. 116 Such mirrors allow for glances, glimpses but not for seeing in the sense of apprehending. 117 Reflection, thought, in this framework is always directed inward, therefore, where it is believed solutions may be found. This is a process, however, that is far from the multi-dimensional vision of our existence in the world that is outlined in Genesis 1.

At the horrors of the holocaust modernity remained mute. It was at a loss to characterize the events that had taken place, on the one hand, and was incapable of learning 115 Ibid. 149. 116 Armour, 'Theology in Modernity"s Wake', Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 74/1 (2006), 7-15. 117 1 Corinthians 13:12.

the lessons needed in order to move forward on the other. As humankind floundered in shock and horror, it could only, as always, display a propensity to look ever inward for potential ways out of the abyss in which the world found itself. 118 This "network of mirrors" decided that a potential way out could be found by the scapegoating of the other. This other was anyone who challenged the precepts of the order in place. e.g., the communists in the McCarthy era, minorities of differing types -racial, ethnic and so on. Modernity was now destabilized, and it reacted by pushing backwards to the values and principles of an imagined period where a more stable and secure sense of order was believed to have reigned. Humankind's place in the world appeared ever more unsure and these feelings of insecurity pushed society increasingly towards a search for identity as a means of restoring some semblance of security and orientation if not also as a means of shelter. The grand narrative was now faced with an internal contradiction since any refuge in a search for identity necessarily involved the fixing of boundaries and limits between self and other. In doing so, however, the grand narrative's claims to universality would be put into question since it would come face to face with the rights of the other and with otherness itself. 119 2. (iv). Identity. Identity evokes at the same time ideas of similarity, distinctiveness and difference.

However, this study's ethical understanding of identity in Genesis 1 implies that humankind's search for identity involves both delineating the boundaries between self and the other while recognizing in parallel the uniqueness and worth of that same other.

118 A characterization of the stance that is incurvatus in se that was discussed earlier. 119 Treanor, 2006, Aspects of Alterity, Levinas, Marcel, and the Contemporary Debate, Fordham University Press, New York, 2.

Notions of identity are complex and multi-layered and appear rooted in time and space. 120 Indeed, the narrative of creation in Genesis 1 has time as the creator's first act. All the other acts of creation seem dependent on this first act. The writer of this study is not the same person today compared to that person twenty or thirty years earlier. As well as these ethical considerations, one must recognize, therefore that identity includes both the idea that I am, yet in some ways also the notion that I am not. Further, this study's reflection on identity must also take into account the interconnectedness of creation that is highlighted in Genesis 1. This means that it must go beyond mere considerations of the boundaries and limits that humankind fixes for itself and, as has been shown, the network of mirrors of the grand narrative are clearly inadequate for that purpose. Ricoeur is of particular use to this study's reflections in what his work may offer us in terms of incorporating both the ethical considerations of identity and, as shall be seen, that notion of time that was previously referred to. Ricoeur views the dilemma humankind is faced with when dealing with the complexities of identity as "a privileged … confrontation". 121 His choice of words, privileged and confrontation, emphasizes both the moral aspect of the issue and the depth of the difficulties we face.

Ricoeur sets forth the discussion by first distinguishing between the notions of sameness in an individual and an individual's selfhood. 122 Taking up the particularities of humankind's temporal positioning he strives to provide a way out of this "confrontation".

It is one which he sees as existing between, "… on one side, identity as sameness (Latin idem, German Gleichheit, French mêmeté) Although today there are features of my identity that remain the same as they were many years beforehand, there are others that are in the process of evolving and changing. 124 Ricoeur designates the elements that are unchanging as "idem identity". 125 These features are articulated in answer to the question what rather than who. "Idem identity" can be understood in this sense as reflecting elements related to character. 126 In contrast, he understands selfhood, "ipse identity," in a totally distinct manner from character, "There is, in fact, another model of permanence in time besides that of character. It is that of keeping one's word in faithfulness to the word that has been given. I see in this keeping the emblematic figure of an identity which is the polar opposite of that depicted by the emblematic figure of character. Keeping one's word expresses a selfconstancy which cannot be inscribed, as character was, within the dimension of something in general but solely within the dimension of "who?" 127 The otherness of the other delineates the boundaries of self and ipse identity encompasses an ethical consideration of identity since "keeping one's word" can, in substance, be reduced to the idea of a promise that is made to another. 128 Otherness, thus understood, is embodied in morality. 129 For Ricoeur this concept lies at the core of the sense of identity and the contrast between ipse and idem identity eliminates any possibility of ambiguity or equivocation. Gleichheit, mêmeté, sameness differ radically from Selbstheit, ipséité or selfhood. The interest of Ricoeur for this discussion on identity, therefore, lies in the fact that the ethical notion he introduces forces the debate on identity away from a compulsive focus on self, incurvatus in se, outwards to meet with the other. Since "…otherness is thus constitutive of selfhood" humankind's essential humanness, therefore, becomes manifest fully only extra nos, i.e., 124 This chapter returns later to discuss more fully the importance of time in our relationships one with the other. 125 Ricoeur, Oneself as Another. 116. 126 Cabestan, 'Qui Suis-Je ? Identité-Ipse, Identité-Idem Et Identité Narrative', Le Philosophoire, 43/1 (2015), 151-60. 127 Ricoeur, Oneself as Another. 128 Ibid. 123. 129 Henriksen, 'Thematizing Otherness', Studia Theologica -Nordic Journal of Theology, 64/2 (2010), 153-76.

outward, towards the other. 130 His distinction between idem and ipse identity comes close to reflecting that wholeness of humankind that is outlined in Genesis 1. The interconnectedness of creation sits comfortably with such an understanding of self. Indeed, a true understanding of self can only be obtained in relation with the other, "La parole donnée l'est en effet toujours à autrui, et c'est bien cet engagement vis-à-vis d'autrui qui me place dans la position du sujet responsable et m'oblige à tenir parole. Ainsi, '"est en répondant à la promesse faite à autrui que le soi se maintient, révélant ainsi le rôle clé de la médiation de l'altérité pour l'ipséité. " 131 132 This study holds that any reading of identity that fails to reference the other denies the identity of our birthright as set out in Genesis 1 and is , therefore, meaningless. Identity has to be seen to involve both self and other. Ricoeur reminds us of what is at stake, "It is that quest which each of us is pursuing, the quest for the respect of our neighbor which is essential to the consolidation of our personal existence. For we exist to a degree by virtue of the recognition we receive from others, who give us our value, who approve or disapprove of us, and who reflect the image of our own worth. The constitution of a human subject is a mutual act by way of opinion, appreciation, and recognition. Others give meaning to me by throwing back to me the trembling image of myself." 133 131 "The word is in fact always given to the other and it is precisely this commitment to the other which puts one in a position of responsibility and makes one keep one's word. Thus, it is by responding to the promise made to the other that the self can be sustained thereby revealing the key role that selfhood plays in the mediation of otherness," my translation. Abettan, 'Ricoeur Ou Le Prix De L'ipse', Archives de Philosophie, 79/2 (2016), 345-61. 132 Cf. Rimbaud, who, when writing to his teacher, had pushed the frontier of self and otherness to the extreme. His identity is to be found elsewhere since he affirms, "... Je est un autre", Rimbaud, 2005,Rimbaud, Complete Works, Selected Letters, a Bilingual Edition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 133 Ricoeur, '"The Image of God" and the Epic of Man', CrossCurrents, 11/1 (1961), 37-50. 43.

(v)

. Understanding self and the other: Ricoeur and Levinas.

Modernity and the grand narrative have conferred upon humankind an absolutism of self. The agency of the other, when recognized and assumed, is not autonomous per se but relies rather on the toleration of this same self who sees in the other what it is capable or incapable of affirming about itself. In contrast with this vision of modernity, the "mutuality" Ricoeur makes reference to in the previous citation goes far beyond such an understanding.

It hinges on the notion of promise with respect to the other. This is for him the essence of what makes us human. Ethics supplants ontology as our primary concern. As discussed earlier the merciless events of the Holocaust and the acts of genocide witnessed since the Second World War have weakened the assumptions of a grand narrative that are premised on self alone. Such events cannot be understood without taking into account an authentic appreciation of otherness. Like Ricoeur Levinas articulates a similar reflection. He formulates the concept of l'autrui which overrides the notion of self. The absolutism of self, witnessed in modernity, is rejected in Levinas. For him it is otherness that is absolute and not self. Treanor describes the mechanism of Levinas' thought, "… In Levinas's thought, otherness is either absolute or it is, ultimately, not other at all… Otherness requires nothing less than absolute separation. That which is merely other relative to something else inevitably the self-is no longer really other. Thus, "relative otherness" is an oxymoron insofar as that which is relative to the self is no longer really other than, or foreign to, the self. Otherness relative to me is other on my terms, not its own." 134 The absoluteness of otherness reflects scripture's imperative of unconditional love of our neighbor. Such an imperative requires that we cannot be seen to love God if we turn our backs on our neighbor, "Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen." 135Ricoeur's promise becomes in Levinas a responsibility, a duty even, towards the other without which and without whom the self cannot prosper or endure. Levinas characterizes this duty in this manner -it is one, "… that did not ask the consent, that came into me traumatically, from beneath all re-memorable present, anarchically, without beginning. That came without being offered as a choice, came as election where my contingent humanity becomes identity and unicity, through the impossibility of escaping from election. Duty imposed beyond the limits of being and its annihilation, beyond death, putting being in its resources and deficit." 136 For Levinas truth is to be found in our acceptance of the other. He considers all else as falsehood and delusion. Levinas elaborates the notion of face in life's interplay with the other. It is humankind's acceptance of face that gifts us with truth, i.e., the otherness of the other transcends the very notion of self. The boundaries that identity confers on self are boundaries that are necessarily shared by the other and thus the encounter one with the other implies that before we speak it is the other who must speak to us. 137 The significance of this is that the otherness we think we may perceive in our other is even other than what we can possibly conceive of. This notion offers us an avenue of opportunities in articulating a theology of disability. All too often the person with disabilities is denied, on the one hand, both agency as an individual and the potential, on the other hand, for providing the rest of us with an opening into understanding the great mysteries of our existence as unique 135 1 John 4:20. 136 Levinas, 2003, Humanism of the Other, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 7. 137 Critchley, 2004, The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 97.

creatures each made in the likeness of God and as partakers together through fellowship and communion of the goodness of creation. 138 139 In this discussion of the otherness of the other the writer of this study is drawn to two events in his own life which caused much pause for thought and which may serve to illustrate the force of Levinas' arguments. Firstly, memory is drawn back to that young student years ago in Mexico eating alone in a restaurant sitting next to a window and looking out at the hungry eyes of the groups of young children forming outside, glaring in with envy as that student struggled to eat while trying to avoid their glance. The discomfort their eyes provoked did not lessen after leaving the restaurant later that evening. Instead, there was a compulsion to do something, anything to assuage a powerful sense of guilt. As a result, when going home and coming across the outstretched hands of a begging mother sitting on the sidewalk with her baby on her lap it was clear something needed done. Having gone into a store to buy some food for the woman which was then offered to her the woman looked the student in the eye, took the food and then threw it back forcefully. Her reaction filled that student with dismay and consternation, and it took some time to fully appreciate what had happened. The gesture had only served to remind the woman of her own inability to feed her children. If she had been given some money instead she would have been able to feed her children as she wanted. What she needed from that person was money. The gesture of that student was born out of guilt that could not fully appreciate her otherness. Secondly, I give as an illustration of the importance of recognizing the complete 138 I refer here to portrayals of the experience of people with disabilities where they are essentially talked about or where we are reminded of the necessity of their "inclusion" rather than representations where we attempt to reach inside their lives, giving them voice in the sense that Levinas understands here so that their experience may enrich our own and help bring us all closer to the kingdom. 139 In this regard, this chapter earlier considered the influence of time on our understandings of identity. It will reflect more fully on our perception of time and consider later, for example, how our reflections on time may be influenced by notions of time from the life experience of those of us with disabilities.

otherness of the other an event that happened not long ago when the writer of this study was driving back from a shopping trip in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia home to a small town in France just on the other side of the border. While driving through a tunnel on the highway the writer witnessed refugees risking their lives by walking through the darkened tunnel in their attempt to cross the border and so avoid the possibility of being stopped by the police. The incident was interpreted as being centered on issues of safety whereas for them what was at stake was their very survival in their search for a safe haven.

Their otherness was truly other to the driver in that car. More was required than to be merely concerned with their safety on the road in order to wholly assume that "duty" postulated by Levinas.

L'autrui in Levinas is the symbol of the interconnectedness that this study illustrated was at work in creation . It is argued that, together with the necessity of Ricoeur's notion of promise and the sense of duty advanced by Levinas, an appreciation of otherness and hence a move towards an end to the apprehensions and angst we feel in today's world referred to previously, may be attained more profitably when there exists both a willing cognizance of and a disposal towards empathy which are both constitutive of our becomingness, i.e., a recognition of our being in via, on the way.140 2. (vi). Freedom, trust and the other.

The relationship with God articulated by Levinas has to be founded on trust. The Christian is reminded in scripture that "we walk by faith, not by sight" such that, as a result, by placing trust in God s/he is able to erect a foil against all the unknowns in the risk-taking that is inevitably brought into play by the letting go of self in the search of the other. 141 Only then does truth become attainable to self since this lies uniquely in the domain of the other. With truth comes freedom, a freedom that Bonhoeffer, as was discussed in the previous chapter, had affirmed was present in the image of God to be found in the other. 142 It is the other, accordingly, who endows us with truth and freedom. Further, this freedom is multi-dimensional in nature since it is a freedom that liberates us from self-enslavement -a freedom from, to embrace a freedom to through Christian truth which is to be found in the love of the other. 143 Just as this study argues with Bonhoeffer that relationship is at the heart of Creation, -a Creation brought into being by a God reaching out to us in an analogia relationisso the notion of freedom becomes inconceivable without the relationship of self to the other. It is this freedom that confesses our own helplessness, trusting in the faithfulness of God. This is the kind of freedom that Paul taught, "For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all". 144 Likewise, Luther, referring to Paul in 1 Corinthians, had already set out the paradox and mystery contained in the understanding of freedom for the Christian. He set it firmly within the bonds of fellowship and love to and for the other, "The Christian individual is a completely free lord of all, subject to none. The Christian individual is a completely dutiful servant of all, subject to all." 145 Self cannot be conceived of with any authenticity nor understood or fulfilled even, without first seeking the bond with the other. This is an undertaking which Creation confers on us and that trust in a faithful God enhances and makes real.

Seeing the other for Levinas, i.e., a willingness precisely to reach for that bond that unites us through Creation, is a requisite -a duty. It is not a matter of choice. The gifts of truth and freedom for the Christian can only be attained in aspiring to and precipitating that fellowship with the other that our becomingness insists upon. The children at the restaurant window referred to earlier in this chapter and the refugees risking their lives by walking in a darkened highway tunnel speak through their vulnerability. This vulnerability is an ethical concern and requires justice before freedom and truth can possibly take shape.

The assumption of Levinas' notion of face allows the self to negotiate ways through this vulnerability with honesty and fairness to reach these ends. Matthew reminds us that for us to see clearly, we must first remove the log that sits within our own eyes. 146 We are called to be a Christ to the other, for only then can we truly see and only then can justice be brought into play allowing in consequence the bonds of human fellowship to flourish.

Further, if our becomingness means that self-need also be clothed in that vulnerability that is in the other, we know as Christians that "…power is made perfect in weakness". 147 To see the other, and more importantly to see that other that is yet to be seen, requires an emptying of self. 148 On a number of occasions in the synoptic Gospels Jesus asks his disciples "Who do you say that I am?" 149 When Peter answers, "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God" he is able to do so through love of the other, his Savior. Panikkar insists that our reflection on 146 Matthew 7:1-5. 147 2 Corinthians 12:9. 148 Seeing the other requires also that the self is open to welcoming the otherness that speaks and acts with true agency (and hence not necessarily the otherness we believe we see but the otherness that allows itself to manifest itself in front of us in its own terms) in the sense that Matthew teaches here. 149 Cf. Mark 8:27-29, Matthew 16:13-16, Luke 9:18-20.

(vii). The essence of self.

This study holds, importantly, that the nature of self has to be recognized as multidimensional. Self cannot be viewed as being singular since inside each of us there can be seen to exist a number of selves, sometimes each at variance one with the other-a public/private self, a work self, a known/unknown self and so on. In addition to this multidimensional quality there exists what may be called self's dynamic quality which is made manifest in our encounters with the other. As humankind matures or grows people can and do change and self, therefore, evolves. This facet of self was singled out by Bonhoeffer who situates this dynamic growth in terms of its ethical consequences, "The person does not exist timelessly; a person is not static, but dynamic. The person exists always and only in ethical responsibility; the person is re-created again and again in the perpetual flux of life. Any other concept of person fragments the fullness of life of the concrete person". 153 154 Nowadays we are invited to create online selves on social media and project them into cyberspace with carefully chosen unembodied avatars. These devised selves take up their positions within a community comprised of a myriad of other virtual selves which are given a form of existence in an electronic universe, i.e., a virtual reality. We create projected visions of ourselves and of our families on social media showing a representation of self which reflects above all the self that we want the world to see. In some measure one might argue that the strategy governing these mirrors of self-creation and self-imaginings that we create today are renderings of reality similar to the preoccupations of the post-World War surrealists. One is tempted to compare them with the work of Magritte, for example. His 153 Bonhoeffer, 'Sanctorum Communio: A Dogmatic Enquiry into the Sociology of the Church.',48. 154 Often in the literature the terms self and person (personhood) and individual are used interchangeably. Although undoubtedly there may exist important nuances between the words, for the purposes of this study, Bonhoeffer's use of person is understood to be synonymous with self. Cf. Harris, 'Concepts of Individual, Self, and Person in Description and Analysis', American Anthropologist, 91/3 (1989), 599-612.

painting Ceci n'est pas une Pipe sought to demonstrate the emptiness of the suffocating force of rationalism in the society of his time. 155 In like manner, we too react to the stifling pressures of our world and design depictions of self which we feel are proper for this virtual world. However, despite our desires and projections of self we need recognize that representation and truth are not necessarily friends to be found inextricably woven one with the other. This study maintains that humankind's constant questioning, our never ending, yet ultimately futile longing for solace, secure in a self-proclaimed rational certainty of knowing, denies a fundamental truth of the human condition i.e., that of our complete unknowingness. 156 The narration of creation in Genesis 1 clearly demonstrates that in this process humankind becomes taker and not giver. 157 The theologian of the cross is invited to speak of things as they are so that, therefore, we need recognize the futility in any idea that self may be self-conceived or created. Our conception of self must acknowledge the fundamental state of our unknowingness. Further it needs also to recognize the interconnectedness in creation and the requirement to embrace the other in our appreciation of self since ultimately it is only the other who is able to provide meaning to the notion of self . 158 An authentic theology of disability, therefore, needs to have at its core the oneness of our creation and our dependence one on the other so that both truth and freedom can be within our grasp. 155 The distinction drawn by Panikkar between identity and identification that this chapter touched upon earlier brings with it implications for behavior and thought. This means, most notably, a concern with action and engagement rather than with mere reflection. A similar concern had been adopted by liberation theology which had sought to question the church's over-attention to thought to the detriment of action. 159 Gutiérrez, leaning somewhat on Schillebeeckx, argued that there had existed in the church until now a predominance of what he called orthodoxy. This, he felt, needed to change. He called for the primacy of orthodoxy to be replaced instead with a more overt and distinct attention paid to orthopraxis, an engagement with the world and all that this entails. He explains his argument thus, "It is evident that thought is also necessary for action. But the Church has for centuries devoted its attention to formulating truths and meanwhile did almost nothing to better the world. In other words, the Church focused on orthodoxy and left orthopraxis in the hands of non-members and nonbelievers." 160 Gutiérrez felt the church needed to show more active engagement with the world and with the problems people faced. Although he described what he felt had been an imbalance in the church's response he did not frame the relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxis as an antithesis. Rather, he characterized the interplay between them as being circular, each 159 Gutiérrez, 1988, A Theology of Liberation : History, Politics, and Salvation, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y. 160 Ibid. 8.

feeding into the other. The Second Vatican Council had already painted a picture of a world that had reached a new juncture, one that had brought with it also a whole raft of new problems. Gaudium et Spes had encouraged the church to go beyond what it called mere "theological principles" and embrace the findings and advances brought by the secular sciences to redress these problems thereby bringing about progress for humankind so that "… the faithful may be brought to a more adequate and mature life of faith". 161 Gutiérrez had considered this as an invitation for action -his understanding of orthopraxis. Levinas, too, believed that a fusion of practice and theory was necessary, since God, he argued, was to be found in action, i.e., in the verb, and not merely in the noun itself. 162 Humankind, for Levinas, by acting in face of the other is able to attain a sort of transcendence in this world.

The incarnation for the Christian has rendered God's transcendence historical by bringing Jesus Christ into the world around us. God is both man and God and to find the Christ in self one must first seek Christ in the other. The invitation to action espoused by Gutiérrez through engagement and commitment to the other is to be understood accordingly as an effective means towards finding that Christ that is lacking in self. The incarnation has turned humankind's concern from one that is directed inwards, incurvatus in se, to one that is focused outwards, extra nos. Through the Word, the Christian is turned towards the other in a new sociality -a new fellowship, one with the other. The posture that results is one where God's transcendence takes on meaning for us every day in all aspects of our lives together in this world. Green helps to explain the workings of the 161 Vatican, 'Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: Gaudium Et Spes ', <http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html>, accessed 13 February 2020. 162 mechanism of this new sociality, "… The phenomenology of transcendence in sociality is that Christ, present as person in the other, encounters me in the Word; the Word questions my existence by asking me about my love for the neighbor. [...] The present Christ encounters the self whose false social existence is within a solidarity of isolated selves, each being a cor curvum in se, heart turned in upon itself (Luther). His Word of judgment and grace liberates the egocentric self for the love of the neighbor, thus creating the mutuality of freedom and love for one another in the community of the new humanity." 163 Briefly, engagement with the other means recognizing what might be called our smallness in the face of God. Irenaeus had echoed this in insisting on the nature of humankind's becomingness and our call to growth as Christians. 164 In this understanding the eschaton draws us away from self and out into the world towards the other such that the Christian may be construed as being forever on a journey, endlessly "on the way". 165 Our growth, the terms of our becomingness, however, is not made feasible by our defining it by ourselves alone but rather it is to be found instead in that analogia relationis offered to us through Christ, Emmanuel -that same Christ we must seek in the other. This is the mature life of faith that Gaudium et Spes directed us towards and is the bond between orthodoxy and orthopraxis. 166 Establishing that bond with people with disabilities becomes for us, therefore, not just a desirable statement of intent, but becomes in effect a necessary precondition of our becomingness. The Christian is invited by revelation to share in that same cross of Christ in the fullness of the world. Hebrews reminds us that the path to Christ means that we "… go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured". 167 The "new humanity" that Green had referred to implies that we are urged to let go of self and search for the Christ that is to be found in the other. People with disabilities bear the face of Christ and must be viewed, therefore, as key to our growth, our becomingness. This study argues that without them we remain incomplete, and our immaturity ( i.e., in the sense of Irenaeus) is emboldened. Measures we undertake to come close to them and allow their identity to be unfolded to us, as they intend it, will thus serve to bring us closer to Christ.

(ix). Being in Adam / being in Christ.

Despite the mutuality of self that is postulated in Genesis 1 we are at times drawn by the choices and decisions we make to deny this in an attempt to make sense of the world by looking ever inward. This reflects a characteristic duality of our humanness described by Bonhoeffer in terms of our both being in Adam yet being in Christ. 168 The Adam in us pushes us inwardly to create a world of our own This is a world that is made to respond to our own needs and desires. It is a world, moreover, that we believe we possess entirely and have total dominion over denying thereby any mandate to the other. The other becomes exclusively a tool for our own gratification assuming the role of a passive spectator of no particular interest or worth, except when this other might be considered as giving something to our advantage and becoming, as a result, something exploitable. In this world of Adam meaningful relations are inconceivable since Adam must be seen to prevail above and beyond everyone and everything else. It is a world that loses all hint of authenticity.

Here the other is characterized by difference and divergence from self, rendering the other necessarily less deserving of attention or care. This is a world, in short, of pure fabrication and idle fantasy. This world bears only an illusion of a promise kept, i.e., like that given by the serpent. It is a world that, as a result, lives without life. Bonhoeffer describes how exactly the process operates, "There can at this point be no more doubt that the serpent was right in the promise it had made. The Creator confirms the truth of that promise: Humankind has become like one of us. It is sicut deus.

Humankind has got what it wants; it has itself become creator, source of life, fountainhead of the knowledge of good and evil. It is alone by itself, it lives out of its own resources, it no longer needs any others, it is the lord of its own world, even though that does mean now that it is the solitary lord and despot of its own mute, violated, silenced, dead, ego-world." 169 Relations in the world of Adam are unidirectional, leading ultimately to isolation, loneliness, and despair. In this world any movement away from self is considered an aberration which is capable only of putting in place an obstacle to our plans and desires. It is a blot or blemish which must be shunned at all costs.

As will be developed in the next chapter, the manner in which people with disabilities are discoursed often takes place within the parameters of this world of Adam.

They are frequently depicted in terms of their difference or divergence from a supposedthough sometimes never stated, norm. A win-win result in this scheme of things is iteration and is always impossible. It is not a stratagem and any benefit from it is one-sided and must always be partial. The disabled other in this world, therefore, becomes problematic, a mistake, an imperfection and is, at best, to be pitied and at worst to be ignored. Thus, while humankind is both individual and collective, constituted by both I and we, the sin brought by Adam may be understood as having weakened the bonds of the collective. As a result, guilt fosters within our humanness an inward-looking posturing -incurvatus in se, such that, as a result, our shared humanity is cast aside in favor of what each, blinded by sin, considers 169 Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, a Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3.

her/his own uniqueness or what s/he believes makes the "I" so distinct and therefore so critical. 170 In the incarnation God had reaffirmed the bond that had first been established through creation by sending his only Son to us. In so doing God's otherness had paradoxically assumed an even greater otherness, since God was God and also Man, for Christ had come to restore our humanity. The scandal that has become our inheritance, however, lies in the fact that rather than accept the outreached hand of the divine other that Christ had offered humankind, the Adam in us chose rejection as response. It was this rejection which ultimately led to the nailing of the Son of God to the Cross to die.

(x). Struggling against struggling.

For Christians the reality of the Cross is that we both see it and also deeply experience it. It is something that we live every day of our lives. Being in Adam means that suffering has become for us something that is now innate and integral to our condition.

Striving to deny this and searching for a means of escape we pretend otherwise, assiduously seeking out schemes that allow us to shelter in the delusion that suffering, and guilt are somehow travesties that can be blotted out so as to render our lives more acceptable and agreeable. Such suffering allows sentiments of difference to fester so that they then solidify into something inevitable. This then leads to feelings of an increased emptiness and an entrenched solitude. Without faith, our suffering breeds even greater suffering that is capable of steering us to the depths of despair. Being in Christ, however, means that by the Cross we live in the full knowledge of redemption through faith, "For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 171 Being in Christ means acknowledging the face of Christ in the suffering other such that a new fellowship may be allowed to take shape. This is a fellowship in which community, hospitality and a true sharing comes into being, erasing all sentiment of difference, divergence or disparity. In the Heidelberg Disputation Luther wrote that we must first humble ourselves and recognize the weakness of our condition. We must then concede, he believed, that in placing our trust entirely in our own abilities we condemn ourselves to further damnation and despair. In contrast, he insisted that it is only in acknowledging the weakness in our becomingness that humankind may be raised up through Christ, "Ganz gewiss muss ein Mensch an sich selbst verzweifeln, um für den Empfang der Gnade Christi bereitet zu werden." 172 This study holds that when humankind assumes this posture of being in Christ redemption replaces despair and becomes real for us. When humankind fully recognizes the worth of the life experience of the other and the breadth of their suffering, one that through the cross brings pain to each of us, then the barriers of hardship, poverty and oppression that surround us can be abolished. This is an illustration of what Gutiérrez understood when he categorized the relation between orthodoxy and orthopraxis as being essentially circular in nature-one leading continually towards the other. In a similar fashion, Luther, in his sermon on the Magnificat (1521), had drawn attention to the need for us first to fully clothe ourselves in all our despair and suffering in order to be prepared for the work of God,

"You must needs feel the pinch of poverty in the midst of your hunger, and learn by experience what hunger and poverty are, with no provision on hand and no help in yourself or any other man, but

172 "It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ", Reiner, 'Die Heidelberger Disputation', Reformationstage <http://reformationstage.erkwb.ch/assets/download/2018-01-heidelberger-disputation.pdf>, accessed 18 November 2020 in God only; so that the work may be God's alone, and impossible to be done by any other. You must not only think and speak of a low estate, but actually come to be in a low estate, and caught in it, without any human aid, so that God alone may do the work. Or, if it should not come to such a pass, you must at least desire it and not shrink from it." 173 Sobrino, together with Gutiérrez, echoed Luther's sentiments when he wrote that "…the only suffering that has meaning is the suffering for the sake of struggling against suffering".174 Being in Christ enables us to see that Christ that is in the other. The vocation we assume is that proposed by Sobrino of struggling against struggling. It is a disposition that freely accepts and assumes the notion that it is only through the other that we are led to truth and freedom.

By our being in Christ an end is brought about to our sense of despair and deceit, since sharing in the suffering of Christ on the cross means seeking the face of Christ which is to be found in the other. Being in Christ is that knowing through love that allows this study to affirm that otherness ultimately is for self the means of redemption.

The next and final chapter concerns itself with the realities of people with disabilities and the possibility of the emergence of an authentic theology of disability.

CHAPTER THREE PEOPLE AND DISABILITY

What one is to understand by the term disability is up for discussion. 175 Among the top collocates for the term disability in the British National Corpus one finds impairment, handicap, discrimination and ageing showing how the term is most often discoursed, i.e. as something that is inimical to well-being and that invariably requires alleviation and mitigation. 176 Narratives of disability are constructed in two ways: they reflect systems of knowledge that are either imposed by the environmental and societal conditions in which we live, i.e. they are external to the individuals concerned, thus depriving them of agency and voice, or are internally constituted becoming outward projections of those directly concerned.

These projections stem from the experiential encounters of people with disabilities with

what is perceived commonly as a largely menacing and powerful force, i.e., a world full of others who consider themselves different and very often more standard -more normal. The term disability is problematic. Being described as dis-abled does not, for example, signify any relative homogeneity among people with disabilities in ways that other labels attached to specific groups might do-terms such as being wealthy or deprived or intelligent or disadvantaged, for instance. An individual might well be classified as a person with disabilities in employment law for example, yet that same person might not consider herself or himself dis-abled in any way. Further, one might not be characterized legally as being disabled yet at the same time suffer from pain and/or impediments that may critically impinge on day-to-day life and affect individual wellbeing. 175 Riddle, 'Defining Disability: Metaphysical Not Political', Med Health Care Philos, 16/3 (Aug 2013), 377-84. 176 Grue, 2015, Disability and Discourse Analysis, Ashgate, Burlington, VT, 2.

Disability encompasses a wide range of features that may be visible or invisible, declared or undeclared and more or less limiting. In grammatical terms the prefix dis is designated as a negative prefix in that it generally signifies taking something away or reversing something.177 Consequently, to be disabled has to be understood as meaning that semantically one has become lessened or diminished. Such an interpretation, however, can give rise to stigmatization and/or discrimination. As a result, the area of study has largely been dominated by the politico-juridical field and the design and passing of legislation with the specific aim of providing equality of access if not of equality of treatment.178 However, as has been argued, the field of disability is widely heterogeneous. An older person with Alzheimer's disease, for example, and a young child with learning difficulties might share absolutely nothing in common, apart from the label disabled that an act of law or other people invoke to describe them. Moreover, apart from an act of law, the status of being disabled can be imposed by others or by oneself. Even the most abled among us can allow ourselves to become dis-abled through prejudice, narrowness of ambition or ignorance as well as through the experience and accidents of life itself. Shyness, social or ethnic origin or illness can also place barriers in the way of individual advancement and so lay down limits on the horizons of individual wellbeing. Disability, in short, is generally discoursed as being fundamentally alien. Yet, one might argue that each one of us in the journey through life will at times share in that condition, temporarily or permanently, as a result of the effects of ageing or of accidents or of other factors. Understood in this way, disability could even be considered a common, uniting characteristic of what it means to be human.

It would then be appreciated as an "open minority" into which each of us is once called. 179 In short, far from being something alien, this would recognize that at some point each of us becomes disabled and, in doing so, we would be implicitly acknowledging that a fundamental trait of able-bodiedness is its very impermanence. 180 This chapter discusses how the issue of disability is articulated outside the camp, in theology and inside the Church. It first considers the manner in which the term disability is often discoursed. Leaning on Bonhoeffer, the chapter discusses how disability is lived in the environment of the church before examining how it is treated in scripture, with a special focus on issues of sinfulness and healing. Grounding itself in the fundamental theology of O'Collins, the chapter examines different aspects of the human condition and contrasts this with attempts that have been made in disability theology to re-symbolize the divine by encompassing the experience of those of us with disabilities. The chapter re-asserts the importance of a theology of disability which reflects the nature of humankind in its oneness as it is outlined in Genesis 1 and reflects on the usefulness of considering humankind through a lens of limits.

(i). Discoursing disability.

The discourse on disability is challenging and troublesome. The academy grapples with disability with some difficulty and tends to avoid the issue wherever possible. A critic might suggest that this results from the fact that it considers the subject matter through a prism of complete and utter otherness, thereby denying any claim it may have to universalism. This attitude endures even in the face of evidence to the contrary. 181 Together with this some writers on disability maintain that the social alienation imposed on people with disabilities requires that only the opinions of those directly concerned-people with disabilities themselves -can be of any value to contributions in the field, "Every book on disability must begin with an explanation of the author's right to speak about the topic, referencing either one's own disability or that of a close relative or friend. Disability is not the only discourse with such demands. Can a man write a book about feminism, or claim to be a feminist? And since the fundamental problem of disability is paternalism … it makes sense that the emerging disability movement wants to speak for itself." 182While it is indeed true that some of the most ground-breaking contributions in disability theology have been made by researchers who themselves have disabilities-Eiesland to name one, or by others who have family members with disabilities -such a point of view remains difficult to defend. Indeed, one could argue that it might be precisely as a result of opinions such as these that the academy steers clear of the issue as Bolt had claimed. This inquiry holds that disability should be viewed as part of that otherness that makes us all human that is described in Genesis 1.

The discourse on disability is rendered even more problematic by the inadequacies of the term disability itself which this study has already referred to. Further, by nature of our innate condition, vulnerability may be viewed as being fundamental to the nature of what makes us all human such that we need recognize that each of us is at times challenged (disabled?) in our imperfect state. As a result, the difference, therefore, between each of us may be articulated more accurately in terms of degree -some of us are more challenged than others, be it physically, cognitively or whatever. Moreover, the trajectory of life's journey brings with it the risk that at any one time an individual may be hit by events that can render one even more vulnerable than one was before. Likewise, those challenged to a higher degree than others may not either be "diagnosed" or, even so, may choose or be forced by circumstance, not to make the fact known externally to any formal extent at all such that their disabled status remains hidden and/or unspoken. Additionally, the question of disability routinely tends to promote discussion on a range of ancillary sub-texts such as inclusion, accessibility, discrimination, fairness, and equal rights. At the same time, in contrast, other issues affecting the person with disabilities such as relationality, wellbeing, freedom, agency, participation are often neglected or overridden. There are grounds to argue that agency is not infrequently assumed by others such that the voice of the disabled other remains silent. She is one who does not speak but rather is spoken at or spoken about.

One might infer as a result that that which disables tends to lie with the we rather than with the I, i.e., what disables me is you.

(ii). Models of disability

Models of disability were briefly referred to in the introduction. This inquiry considers now in more detail some of the principal paradigms influencing the discourse.

Their influence is wide-ranging, affecting not only the discourse on disability itself but also the framing of any potential theology of disability. In terms of the person with disabilities such models tend to be framed externally or inwardly and each vantage point encompasses some that may be considered as affirmative or inimical to a greater or lesser degree. 183 The model which tends to dominate is the medical model. This is a model whose origin is external to the person with disabilities. It interprets disability as essentially a problem centered on specific individuals and one that necessitates special measures and therapeutics. 183 Swinton, 'Who Is the God We Worship?: Theologies of Disability: Challenges and New Possibilities', (2010), 273-307.

The top collocates of disability previously mentioned feature heavily in this model and its instruments tend to focus on health care and the pharmaceutical, medical, and institutional sectors. Here the person with disabilities is the designated problem. This model generates a discourse of external expertise which confines the person with disabilities to the role of a passive responder. Voice and agency are effectively removed, placing the person with disabilities within an authoritarian orbit where the person is talked at rather than talked with.

Associated with the medical model is one where disability is considered as a tragedy that is inflicted upon the person. The person with disabilities in this model is seen as someone who should be pitied and treated with compassion and with charity. One variant of this paradigm, rooted in certain religious circles, interprets disability as a consequence of sinful action-a sort of condition of blame meted out by God in retaliation against sinful behavior.

Yet another variant would consider disability as a blight on humankind and something therefore that should be avoided at all costs. This model manifests itself for example in the desire to promote testing of the unborn and the abortion of disabled foetuses. Another model takes shape in the silence and vacuum that surrounds the entire question of disability, e.g., § parents who prefer not to mention or even hide all knowledge of a child with disabilities, § the academy which avoids the issue where possible, § those who have invisible disabilities but choose or feel obliged by circumstance to keep them hidden from others for whatever reason, or § the ambivalence of the world of politics in, on the one hand drawing up legislation on improving access yet, on the other hand, preferring to look the other way and maintain silence when it comes to, for example, providing adequate educational provision for young people with ASD, autism spectrum disorder.

Acting in a similar fashion, there is the economic model which views disability as a constraint on the economy. In this model the person with disabilities is considered both as a strain on productivity and as a source of unnecessary additional costs.

In contrast to these rather negative paradigms there are, however, readings which view the person with disabilities from the standpoint of an active member of society. These readings often borrow from liberation discourses where people with disabilities are understood as oppressed individuals. The stance these readings advocate is a more radical solution which requires the coming into being of total social and political change. Simply put, in direct contrast to the paradigm that sees the person with disabilities as the problem, these models move the focus externally from the person with disabilities towards the world and the social conditions that seek to influence the discourses on disability. In these readings the person with disabilities reaffirms that it is not the other who is disabled, rather it is the other who has responsibility for disabling me. The tools in this paradigm target societal changes aimed at heightening and improving participation in society by those with disabilities. These readings are often closely linked to discourses on civil rights since they appear on the surface to reflect similar concerns. Such developments have given rise to legislation in several countries defining the rights of people with disabilities. It is noteworthy, though, that there exists a fundamental difference, however, in the way society deals with the two issues of civil rights and of disability. It is difficult to imagine, for example, accepting an individual's civil rights to non-discrimination being modulated in terms of whether it is reasonable or not as it is in much disability legislation. 184 One could be cynical and conclude that this is almost like saying you mustn't discriminate against people with disabilities unless, that is, if it proves too difficult for you not to. In like manner, the 184 I refer here to the type of language used in legislation, cf. "reasonable accommodation", such as in the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) Act.

minority model considers people with disabilities like other minority groups in society and seeks to demystify the life experience of people with disabilities and portray them as yet another example of human variation and of the diversity among humankind. This model advocates both an increased awareness of the need to respect the human rights of people with disabilities and also champions their individual empowerment as a means forward. Models such as these do tend at the same time, however, to veer away from issues of the day-to-day difficulties, or of the pain and suffering which can sometimes be of particular concern to the lives of those with disabilities, leaving any consideration of these matters to one side and preferring to construe them rather as attributes that are common to all members of the human family.

(iii) Disability and the church: preamble. 185

The medical model of disability has prompted governments to introduce a number of measures -from legislation aimed at improving access for people with disabilities to at other times measures against discrimination. The church has largely been influenced by this model and, often as a direct result of legislative obligations, has sought itself to remove the physical and other barriers that get in the way of participation in church services for people with disabilities. However, questions of the provision of ramps, adequate seating arrangements within the sanctuary and so on may appear in the eyes of some rather secondary issues. 186 In this sense, the way the church handles the issue of people with disabilities by prioritizing as a response almost exclusively the issues of access and so-called inclusion might, invoking the words of Bonhoeffer, be interpreted more as avenues of cheap grace. 187 I argue that issues of access and inclusion seem to be the pivots on which the church's response is largely built and as a result, the questions such as how people with disabilities might also be capable of paying an important and necessary contribution to the life of the church through liturgical expression, for example, or to the development of theological understanding and so on are more commonly left unexplored and ignored. 188 189 This study holds that the key question that theology asks of us in terms of otherness is how we are able or not to embrace our common brokenness, which is crucial to our becoming human, since I argue it is only through a comprehensive appraisal of what this means that we may be led to truth and freedom. Acknowledging and integrating our shared brokenness becomes the path that allows us to see Christ in that other which defines us all. With respect to people with disabilities, therefore, we are required to ask of ourselves how the harmony of interconnectedness at play in creation is to be understood in that otherness which shows itself in them and how this may then influence the quality of our relationships one with the other and with God.

Self and other, as argued previously, define themselves mutually and both are complementary and necessary. Costly grace (Bonhoeffer) requires of us that we render ourselves vulnerable in the face of our intrinsic brokenness if we are to live as disciples of the kingdom which as Christians we are called to. Bonhoeffer maintained that this is the 187 Bonhoeffer, 'The Cost of Discipleship', 188 Cf. Paul's injunctions in 1 Corinthians 1. 189 In their paper on the importance of joy as a theological concept (the command in Philippians 4:4) and its application in a theology of disability, van Ommen and Land identify four characteristics essential for the existence of a true sense of joy: opportunity, relationship, happiness and welcome. As costly grace, one might suggest, as a starting point ,these four criteria as measures of the ways the church might be able to demonstrate its capacity of that love for all-a love that recognizes the gift that each of us brings to the table, in terms of who we each are and not in terms of our performativity or otherwise, (Van Ommen, 'A Practical-Theological Phenomenology of Joy: Learning from L'arche', Journal of Disability & Religion, 24/3 (2020/07/02 2020), 281-99.).

grace that is needed in order to allow each of us to truly live the gospel. For that reason, he characterized it as a "… pearl of great price". 190 A theologian of the cross must accept to be buffeted by the wind of things as they are. That theologian has to willingly accept being jolted into seeing things the way they are and not the way that s/he thinks they are or ought to be.191 That theologian views the primacy and autonomy of reason alone as the sure path to sinfulness and disillusion, for the story of the cross is not a story of our telling but one in which we actively participate. Wingren is helpful here, stressing that, in the last analysis, humankind must accept that it is God who creates and humankind who is made or rather who becomes (Irenaeus), "That which God the eternal through Christ is perfect in itself, but the man who receives it and incorporates it into himself is imperfect and presents to man in the process of growth. Whatever man may be given, and however high and holy may be everything that the Church bestows on him, yet anything that man takes into himself is eo ipso limited and finite-man is "on the way," not at his destined goal ". 192 As this study has already shown, seeing things as they are is recognizing that a fundamental necessity of our becoming human is our open acceptance that we are always takers and not givers (Tillich). This study holds that in accepting this we confess that we cannot claim to understand why it is that we are made the way we are since, in any case, God lies hidden so deeply and proves hard for us to find. Paradoxically, however, it is expressly in the scandal of the cross that we may meet God. 193 The story of the cross is that of a loving God who sends his only Son to suffer and die at the hands of humankind as a result of the narratives of glory and falsehood that we fabricate for ourselves concerning what we understand as our true nature and our place in creation. By "letting God be God" and by embracing and accepting the way things are, we are led in our brokenness closer to the comfort of the arms of the creator God. 194 Saying things as they are is recognizing the interconnectedness of creation and acknowledging its goodness. 195 Creation, as was affirmed earlier, emerges from a separation and a binding, which forges a oneness in humankind centered on fellowship and this sense of fellowship conceives of barriers and difference as bridges not obstacles. 196 Understandings of self are therefore futile without reference to the other (Levinas).

Otherness, in short, is constitutive of self. Such awareness sets a challenge for the church and a theology of disability. It requires us to seek to move away from a defensive and descriptive approach (relying almost exclusively on dominant taxonomies built on ideas of performativity and a supposed autonomy-welcome, inclusion) and instead reach beyond and see things as they are, pursuing that truth that is hidden in the Christ that is in the otherin the case of this study, in the person with disabilities.

The medical model of disability views the person with disabilities almost entirely as an object in need of healing and special attention and this, together with the charity model, have had the greatest influence in the church. While it is undoubtedly true that the measures brought into place by these models have brought about marked improvements in the life of some people with disabilities, this study argues that agency for this is assumed by others, i.e., the agency of the person with disabilities is in effect overridden by the "non-disabled" other. It is s/he who assumes the posture of one who professes to know more about what is needed as a result of what they consider to be deficiencies, flaws or incapacities in more vulnerable, perhaps less fortunate individuals. 197 Legislators assume the mantle of the great protector seeking to put in place reasonable accommodations to provide, where possible, for the putative loss of capacity suffered by some. 198 The church takes the lead from the legislator with attempts to improve access and incorporate systems and procedures designed at enhancing participation by those with disabilities. In spite of this, however, this study asserts that it is not unreasonable to conclude that church can often be characterized as being far from a safe place for people with disabilities. Church liturgies themselves, for example, can lead to a sense of even greater exclusion. Inviting the congregation to "please stand" or "bow your head for God's blessing", for example, leave to one side those with mobility issues and ignore those who rely on sign language interpreters. 199 In like manner some interpretations of scripture have regrettably sought to assign feelings of shame on people with disabilities, clouding them in stigmatization, associating disability with sinfulness and rejection and feelings of blame. 200 Discipleship in Christ means, however, that we are called to engage with, touch and feel the bodies of the other and be in communion and fellowship with them. 201 Yet, as this study now will show, research seems to indicate that church often remains an environment that is considered as hostile and unwelcoming for those of us with disabilities. This is far from the ideals of fellowship that we are asked as Christians to adopt in our relations with one another.

198 US Department of Justice, 'Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as Amended', Information and Technical Assistance on the Americans with Disabilioties Act <https://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.htm>, accessed 20 May 2021 . 199 Some churches do try to amend the language used in worship to include all members of the congregation. However, amending the invitation from "please stand" to "please stand where able", which is something one often hears at church in an attempt to sound more inclusive, could well be interpreted, I would maintain, as being even more ableist (emphasizing the fact that if one does not stand one is not "able"). An invitation such as "you may stand" might be a more apt alternative. I would suggest that, in any case, what is needed is for churches to review their liturgies in light of the experience of people with disabilities. People with disabilities should be invited to actively contribute to such a review so that all may indeed feel welcome. 200 The issue of disability in scripture is discussed in more detail later in this chapter. 201 John 20:27.

(iv)

. Disability and the church: review of available data.

In the latest statistics available it is estimated that up to one in four Americans (26%) is disabled. 202 The figure may well be an underestimate since the title of the website from which these statistics are drawn tells a story in itself in that it claims that "Disability Impacts All of Us". 203 Having a family member who is disabled-parent, partner, child, sibling, can cause considerable disruption to the entire family unit as well as a significant amount of stress and worry, not to mention the additional economic burdens that disability often brings with it. The result is that one individual's disability comes then to be shared inevitably in some forms by others. On a positive note, though, of some significance is the fact that the statistics show that when respondents are questioned, they insist that the idea of church remains a source of positivity for people with disabilities. Indeed, the benefits of regular attendance at church for people with disabilities are widely recognized. 204 When asked, 65% of people with disabilities view matters of faith as being "very important", yet despite this their attendance at church remains much less regular than those people with no disabilities. 205 This may well be due to a number of practical considerations, for example provision of adequate transport can often prove to be an issue for those with disabilities as well as the additional problems they are frequently faced with related to access. Worse than this though, some people with disabilities may feel that they are not afforded a wide welcome to the church community and this can affect their attendance at church.

According to the evidence it would appear that their experience of a welcoming community differs greatly from the experience of the paralyzed man in scripture brought before Jesus. 206 People with disabilities and their families may decide to self-exclude themselves from worship due to the fact that from experience they have been made to see themselves as a burden on others. Further, this set of affairs has even more significant consequences, since the data appears to show a clear correlation between an improved sense of wellbeing among people with disabilities and their attendance at church. 207 Studies show that church going and/or religiosity have a positive effect on a range of conditions and this impacts people in a number of different ways, from a reduction in fear and anxiety to ensuring lower rates in depression among church goers. 208 Nonetheless the church's apparently at times unwelcoming disposition towards those with disabilities appears manifest, "...only 10 percent of congregations report offering some form of care for people with disabilities". 209 Moreover, this failure in outreach goes beyond the Christian church since studies also show that the same phenomenon occurs in other religious communities. The following harrowing comment from a Muslim believer with disabilities, taken from a disability rights lobbying group website, attests to the often-unsurmountable obstacles facing any believer with disabilities, "… The physical barriers preventing me from entering mosques pushed me into the arms of the progressive Muslim movement, where I was met with even more ableism. At the first meeting … the elevator up to the prayer space was broken, and I was made to physically crawl up a flight of steps … They then proceeded to be disgusted when I nearly threw up and implied that I was being unreasonable for expecting them … to host an event that wheelchair users could reasonably attend. The difference between the Mosques and the progressive Muslim org, however, is that the org was a nonprofit with more than 15 employees. They were legally bound to the ADA. It took me going over the heads of the organizers, straight to the org president, and showing them the law for anything to get done. I am not welcome there again, and I never 206 Mark 2:1-12. 207 Whitehead, 'Religion and Disability : Variation in Religious Service Attendance Rates for Children with Chronic Health Conditions', Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 57/2 (2018), 377-95. 208 Abbots, 'Is going to church good or bad for you? Denomination, attendance and mental health of children in West Scotland ', Social Science and Medicine, 53/3 (2004), 645-56. 209 Whitehead, 'Religion and Disability : Variation in Religious Service Attendance Rates for Children with Chronic Health Conditions', Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 57/2 (2018), 377-95.

will be. But I made them move. That's been the story, over and over again. I fight. I bite. I throw the law and my protected rights at people where I can, and publicly shame lack of access where I can't, but it always ends the same. The looks of exhaustion when I enter the room, after. The question, always, "Why are you making this so difficult?" " 210Most of the research carried out in this area focusses particularly on participation by adults with disabilities. More recently, however, researchers on disability have begun to concern themselves with the participation of young people and children in the church, both in worship and more widely in other church activities. Evidence from this research seems to suggest that children with the most chronic health conditions are precisely those least likely to attend church or participate in church activities. 211 This is particularly noticeable in children with difficulties in the area of social interaction such as those on the autism spectrum. 212 Importantly, the numbers actually concerned by this condition may be considerably higher than those recorded in the data under study, since access to a health professional who is able to provide a diagnosis and advice on this condition is presently severely limited for most people and, therefore, many cases are frequently undiagnosed.

Parents of children with these conditions may well have made the decision that church just was not the place for them and so have never ventured to go there. The outlook in this area is mostly discouraging as ongoing research seems to indicate, regrettably, that the number of children diagnosed with these conditions is most likely to grow even more in the near future. 213 In contrast with what has gone before, however, this study affirms that an authoritative theology of disability would argue that the diagnosis of all humankind is already available for the church to make use of so that each and every individual is invited warmly to pass the doors of the church. Such a theology would maintain that this diagnosis is to be found first in the message of the Gospel itself and indeed from the moment of creation, "… God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." 214 This theological diagnosis is of deep concern too in the field of pre-natal screening. Normative readings of what constitutes worth in today's society would persuade us that an unborn child exhibiting certain "clinical" conditions constitutes something problematic and of concern for the rest of society such that decisions of termination are suggested or even prescribed. 215 The message, accordingly, for the church is clear. Since this study has argued that self requires the face of the other for any notion of freedom and truth to exist-an understanding of the oneness of humankind that is portrayed in Genesis 1, any move that denies a welcome to those of us with disabilities, intentionally or unintentionally, would move all of us further from a sense of authentic truth and freedom. I would argue, therefore, that there can be neither explanation nor exculpation for such behavior, since our birthright of oneness given in creation requires our accepting that it is by embracing those of us with disabilities that we may draw ourselves closer to God. The reality is, however, that church is often perceived as an unwelcoming place for people with disabilities and for families with children with disabilities. Not only are people with disabilities faced with a lack in the provision of support, but often there is no effort made by church authorities to involve these constituent members of the congregation in ways to improve the church's sense of welcome, as Ault et 214 Genesis 1:31. al. demonstrate, "… Almost one third of parents reported having changed their place of worship because their child had not been included or welcomed; almost half had refrained from participating; more than half had kept their sons or daughters from participating in a religious activity because of a lack of support; and more than half had been expected to stay with their sons or daughters in order for participation to occur. Finally, more than half of parents reported they had never been asked about the best way to include their sons or daughters in religious activities." 216 Any change in this would require conversion by all of us and by the church.

However, even more critical to the argument of this study than this discussion on the data available concerning attendance at church of people with disabilities, are the consequences of this state of affairs on the strength of faith and personal convictions of people with disabilities. In a recent study carried out in the area of disability and the church the research concerned itself with the wider issues of understandings of "spirituality" among people with disabilities. 217 Hodge and Reynolds focused in their study on what they called the notion of "spirituality" which they defined as people's "relationship with God". 218 Included in their study were much wider questions related to aspects such as prayer, confidence in the existence of God, belief in the bible as the word of God and experiences which involved either turning towards belief in God or alternatively turning away from such beliefs. 219 The researchers found that children with emotional, communicational or more chronic difficulties appeared to be excluded from any place within the sanctuary or from church activities, "Across several waves of a nationally representative survey of children, those with autism spectrum disorders, developmental 216 delays, learning disabilities, depression, anxiety, speech problems, and conduct disorders are consistently more likely to never attend religious services. Religious organizations are yet another sector of social life within which these children and, perhaps, their families struggle to integrate." 220 As a result, they found that people with emotional or cognitive disabilities were over five times more likely to turn away from belief in religion than other people with disabilities. This situation in turn can have a spiral effect on the parents of these children and other family members in terms of their own attitudes to church and indeed on their ideas on faith and on their personal convictions about God. 221 In short then, this study has argued that there is wide evidence to support the idea that the church has come to be seen in the experience of many people with disabilities as an unwelcome and inaccessible place. This is far from the idea of a community of discipleship and warmth where the message of the gospel is lived in the breath of each person present. For many people with disabilities the church is become, in the words of Nancy Eiesland "a city on a hill", both inhospitable and intimidating. 222 Eiesland vividly describes her own experience of the Eucharist at church where, rather than the sacrament instilling within her a feeling a sense of unity and completeness, she felt at times more a sense of brokenness and disunity in the manner in which she as a disabled person was "invited" to the table, "I have been part of several congregations whose practice of receiving Eucharist includes filing to the front of the sanctuary and kneeling at the communion rail. Often, because I am either in a wheelchair or using crutches, an usher informs me that I need not go forward for the Eucharist. Instead, I am offered the sacrament at my seat after everyone else has been served. The congregation is trying to accommodate my presence in the service. They are undoubtedly trying to be conscientious and inclusive in their own way. But in effect, they are transforming Eucharist from a corporate experience to a solitary one for me, from a sacralization of Christ's broken body to a stigmatization of my disabled body … the Eucharist, which should be the ultimate sacrament of unity of believers, is a ritual of exclusion and degradation. Access to this celebration of the body is restricted because of architectural barriers, ritual practices, demeaning body aesthetics, unreflective speech, and bodily reactions. The Eucharist becomes a dreaded and humiliating remembrance that in the church we are trespassers in an able-bodied dominion." 223 Her experience of church becomes stigmatizing in her very essence. Communion and fellowship seem lost in her depiction here.

There are two final important points to be made concerning the church and disability. The first is the fact that the research available also seem to show that decisions affecting people with disabilities are what might be called top-down decisions made by church communities for the most part to deal primarily with questions of access or exclusion, most probably undertaken as a result of the legal obligations all public places face under certain legislation on disability. There is little evidence yet available concerning efforts that go beyond this, for example where the church actively seeks to consult people with disabilities so that their welcome in church may be informed by their own life experiences. Further, there is scarce information available on how seminaries and theological colleges treat the issue of disability in the training they offer to lay members of the church and to future leaders in ministry. 224 On a more positive note, however, there has been a swathe of initiatives recently from a wide number of different churches concerning the specific needs of people with disabilities. 225 Some churches have even introduced training and leadership programs at the level of the parish to try to "… make the shift from a posture of exclusion to a practice of embrace" but, although encouraging, this tends to be a minority approach. 226 The second, final point to highlight concerning disability and the church is that this study argues that welcoming people with disabilities in church means not just that access to buildings is appropriate or that those of us with disabilities feel the warmth of the church's embrace at Sunday worship. This also requires the church to show a sincere willingness to share in the life experiences of people with disabilities. This means that hospitality and fellowship need to go well beyond a weekly encounter on a Sunday. Many people with disabilities live in quite precarious positions due to the financial situations in which they find themselves. 227 Often, they are isolated because of their condition and are unemployed and remain dependent entirely on government aid to survive and on the help and care of others just to get by from day to day. Embracing the other who is disabled means appreciating the realities of their existence and reaching out in hospitality to them where they are. The legislator's normative descriptors of rights (access and adjustments) and obligations (non-discrimination) cannot bring about by themselves an authentic understanding of fellowship and community. Scripture shows us that discipleship is not brought into being by decree but rather by the love that we show for one another. 228 3. (v). Scripture and disability.

It is, therefore, a source of deep regret that church is perceived as being far from a welcoming place for those of us with disabilities. On occasion even the very words of scripture can sound hurtful and threatening. For a person with disabilities or a family member, or a parent of a child with disabilities it is hard not to imagine the feelings of utter distress, upset and offense at some of the texts in the Bible. Bible class for some represents a step too far. In his study of the Hebrew Bible Olyan makes these points abundantly clear as he describes the strategies of the biblical authors, "Binary discourses are deployed to devalue disabled persons and, in some cases, restrict their social intercourse and their cultic opportunities, by casting them as "defective," profaning of holiness, cursed, shamed, hated, polluting, and implicitly -ugly. A second, and exceedingly common, strategy marshaled by our authors is the association of disabled categories of persons such as the blind and the deaf with other stigmatized and socially marginal types such as the poor, the widow, the fatherless, the alien, and, in the case of persons with non-"defective" disabilities, those cast as "defective"; with devalued personal characteristics such as weakness, vulnerability, dependence, ineffectuality, ignorance, and bad judgment". 229 Olyan's list is exhaustive. However, it must be noted that the reasons the biblical authors designed such strategies are indeed complex. They may be interpreted in a number of different ways such that it would be wrong of us to assume at this stage that the biblical authors consistently and deliberately intended to stigmatize disability as something that is abhorrent or as a source of sin and shame simply for the sake of it. This is not the case.

The association of disability with sin is frequent, cf. Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 5:9 and 28:20-48. Skin disease in particular is often portrayed as being brought about by sin. This is referenced multiple times in the Hebrew Bible. One might attempt to explain this by the fact that the figure of the scarred and defaced individual that seem to populate some biblical passages is just a mere reflection of the types that one would often encounter in every day ancient street scenes. It is widely recognized in any case that in those times disease and disfigurement were rife and part of everyday life and, hence, were something to be avoided at all costs. Disfigurement becomes to be understood as a visible sign of YHWH's condemnation and displeasure. Leviticus seems to spare no detail on how disfigured individuals should be treated. It is a particularly difficult text to deal with and poses serious questions for our understanding of disability. Belser, as both scholar and as a person with disabilities, affirms her outright discomfort with this text. This is a discomfort, I suggest, that in today's world that we would all tend to share, "I cannot read the prophet's words without flinching. The theological claim that God is father and master has long been used to sanction social inequality: to prop up patriarchy, to undergird centuries of slaveholding. There is violence here that must not pass unspoken. As a scholar, I recognize an ethical imperative to uncover these connections, to invite our critical reflection on the way religious texts have structured our human practices of power. Note how the hierarchies of the present are projected onto the heavens. Observe how neatly the biblical obsession with perfect bodies reinforces the notion of perfect service, how honor demands deference and obedience to authority." 230 It is important to note however that the fact that, on the one hand, the priestly sources in Leviticus treat disfigurement in some detail and how it should be diagnosed and dealt with and the non-priestly sources on the other hand appear throughout to associate disfigurement with sin, it would be wrong, nevertheless, as Baden and Moss have shown, to conclude that the priestly sources are in agreement with the non-priestly authors on the 230 Belser, 'Priestly Aesthetics: Disability and Bodily Difference in Leviticus 21', Interpretation, 73/4 (2019), 355-66.

etiology of disfigurement. 231 The authors point to a tendency among some biblical scholars to, perhaps unknowingly, side with a religious/medical view of disability in scripture that seeks always to associate disability with sin rather than conclude that there could in fact be other interpretations and explanations which would provide evidence of a real pluralism at play in the Hebrew bible. Although YHWH is occasionally portrayed as both the defender and healer of those with disabilities (Cf. Psalm 146, Isaiah 56) it is, nevertheless, not in doubt that disfigurement and hence disability exists at the will of YHWH. Nonetheless, since we learn in Genesis 1:27 that we are all made in the image of God, this study has argued that disability should be interpreted merely as another element of our common humanity. 232 Moses' disability, for example, is illustrative of that vulnerability in humankind that we all share. It was a disability that shook his confidence and prompted him to want to step back yet he is reminded powerfully, however, that YHWH is there always to guide him, "Then the Lord said to him, "Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak." 233 Humankind is indeed made in the image of God, but brokenness is part of the human experience and with this brokenness comes disability. When interpreted in this fashion readings of disability in the Hebrew bible may be considered as a sort of foil to the power and will of YHWH reminding us of our weaknesses and dependance on God for all things. For Raphael disability has an indispensable role in the Hebrew Bible, "… God's power 231 Baden and Moss, 'The Origin and Interpretation of Ṡāraʿat in Leviticus 13-14', Journal of Biblical Literature, 130/4 (2011), 643-62. 232 How this apparent paradox (image of God/disability) may be understood will be developed later in this chapter. 233 Exodus 4:11-12.

depends, for its representation, on the disabled human figures". 234 Whether one agrees or doesn't with Raphael that God's power is dependent on the disability of others, it is apparent, nonetheless, that in scripture the distinction between humankind and God is certainly rendered unequivocal when humankind is represented by a character with disabilities, especially if this disability manifests itself through disfigurement.

In contrast with skin disease, however, deafness is treated quite differently in Leviticus 21. It is totally absent from the list of traits disbarring priests from approaching the altar. Deafness might be seen as an invisible disability which might allow us to conclude that the author's understandings of purity were based on what the eye could see and for that reason, therefore, these readings of purity were in fact at times more closely allied to conceptions of aesthetic beauty than anything else. The closeness to YHWH of the priest at the altar, meant that the priest for his very survival had to be without stain or blemish of any kind. Implicit in this understanding therefore is that disability becomes equated with ugliness.

Like Moses, Paul too lamented a weakness, a thorn in the flesh which he prayed again and again to be rid of. His disability, however, made him conscious of the fact that it is precisely in our weakness that we may find strength. 235 Commentators have wrestled with the meaning of what Paul meant by his thorn in the flesh. For some, from the Reformers and onwards, Paul was referring here to his struggle against temptation. Moss and Schipper, however, point to a growing consensus among contemporary researchers (although much earlier Irenaeus had reached a similar understanding) that Paul was most probably referring to some kind of illness involving seizures, a form of epilepsy perhaps. 236 In any case, the underlying message from Paul is clear: in our human nature we must recognize that we are born of weakness. Rather than bemoan the particularities of such a state Paul believed we should, through weakness but yet in faith, take stock of the gifts bestowed on us, since " … for whenever I am weak, then I am strong". 237 Another example of the strength through weakness motif in Paul is when he loses his sight. It is only then that he becomes able to see God. 238 The social aspects in paradigms of disability referred to earlier advocate the need for empowerment and agency for people with disabilities. They also reject and condemn any portrayal of people with disabilities which views them through a prism of charity stemming from the idea of a supposed tragedy that disability has brought into play.

Paul's argument here fits clearly with this understanding. Paul also reminds us to leave behind the temptation of the existence of any false rationality and embrace both a just understanding of the human state which is given to us in creation and a faith that is made bold by the message of the cross. He points out in 1 Corinthians that this is all we need, "… Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? … God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong". 239 The leitmotiv of sinfulness and embodiment that runs throughout the New Testament is used for different ends. At times the many tales of healing in the Gospels often tell us much more about the author of the healing rather than the individual being healed and as such they bear witness to Christ's divine authority. Occasionally embodiment is used as a focus on community and fellowship. 240 On other occasions the link between comes about because they are suddenly confronted with the reality of the other. They become aware that identity is not to be found in externalities (as this study has already argued). John demonstrates here that identity is rather found in our relation with the other. I suggest that it is their initial failure to recognize this that instigates the social confusion brought about by the man's healing. In John's narrative Jesus is noticeably absent for quite some time after the man's healing. This is perhaps the longest absence in all of John's Gospel. What is left for us to witness in this pericope is a community left in doubt over the values and belief systems it had until now held dear. The crowd is left seemingly unsure any more of who the man is. Ultimately, in order to try to put an end to the confusion they feel over the identity of this other , they are compelled to drive the man out. By rejecting him and blotting the man out and pretending nothing had happened they had expected to reestablish a sense of normality. Crucially, it is precisely when the man is driven out that Jesus re-enters the story. The narrative suggests that Jesus' return is prompted by the man's rejection: he, the other, has been driven out. The irony we are made to observe in John's narrative of the protagonists' seeing without knowing or seeing without understanding is striking.

Even the man whose sight has been restored shows confusion about what has happened to him as he struggles to recall the identity of his healer. His healer he says was "... the man called Jesus". 242 The passage warns us of the dangers of seeing without vision. This is a path that is of no use to us and that leads only to disarray. The Gospel passage emphasizes that recognizing that the light of the world ("the man called Jesus") stands before them requires faith, not eyes.

When in church the congregation sings "I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see" that same church congregation must know that this seeing that the church sings of 242 John 9:11.

is about something much greater and more powerful than our eyes can give us.243 John's narrative stresses that seeing is not knowing and also that healing is not something that requires the restoration of something that was lost. If the church is unable to learn this lesson and preach this word, then it is more than understandable that the person with disabilities sitting in the church pews might feel disenfranchised and threatened by the representations of healing or disability preached there. This study holds that living in discipleship and worshipping together in community means that we fully embrace the joy that the other brings. In doing so we are confessing that love which binds us together through the gifts of creation and the workings of the spirit-a love that comes from a caring God who seeks our wellbeing always.

This study has shown that, while the treatment of disability in scripture remains problematic, when disability is read through the lens of Genesis 1 our interpretations of its significance and our conclusions about what disability reveals in terms of the human condition change greatly. An authentic theology of disability might see in the life experience of those of us with disabilities examples that all of us may learn from of what it means to be human in God's world. For example, people with disabilities are often seen in the world as people who often need to depend on others. This is often viewed by the rest of us as something that is challenging, reductive of our notions of autonomy and requiring adjustment and organization. However, when we all recognize that the human condition means that from our very beginnings in the wombs of our mothers our very existence is dependent on others and that, likewise, when we leave this world, we often need to rely on others due to the onset of illness or, as a result of the ageing process, then, our view of people with disabilities changes. 244 In this light the other with disabilities simply points us to an important aspect of the becomingness of all humankind, i.e., our total reliance on each other. Further, people with disabilities, due to their condition, are often seen to need the support of others. They are often aided by carers, but this very word brings us back to the sense of Genesis 1:28. Care, hospitality, fellowship, and mutuality are key themes throughout scripture, "For we are God's servants, working together". 245 This inquiry argues, therefore, that an authentic theology of disability serves to remind us of our mission in this life and of who we are: one for another and with God.

(vi) The human condition.

Thus far in this study reference has been made to a number of traits that characterize our humanness. Self has been conceived of in relation with the other since this inquiry holds that the pathway to freedom and truth is made possible only through this other.

Humankind has been portrayed in its oneness, illustrative of the interconnectedness of creation itself. Human existence has seen to display an inherent vulnerability which has been referred to variously as a brokenness which itself is viewed as constitutive of humankind's state of becomingness. The study has affirmed that an authentic theology of disability becomes possible when it is grounded in these notions which arise from our reading of Genesis 1. The study turns now to a more nuanced reflection on the nature of the human condition expanding on some of these notions. The consideration is influenced by the fundamental theology of O'Collins since it is believed he may offer us a way forward 244 Melcher, The Bible and Disability, a Commentary. 245 1 Corinthians 3:9.

in interpreting the human condition in terms that reflect the notion of self and other outlined earlier in this study. 246 O'Collins saw a change in the evolution of theology in its understanding of revelation. For him, whereas revelation once was viewed from the point of view of a major concern on what is revealed -what he calls the "propositional" option, revelation has begun to be considered today more in terms of the who of revelation and it is the inter-personal nature of the encounter with the divine that is now prioritized. 247 This encounter reflects the action of that same God who sought us out through creation. The particular interest of O'Collins is that Bonhoeffer's notion of the analogia relationis at work in creation becomes for him a continuous, dynamic process. God still reaches out to us. Moreover, God chooses to meet us wherever we are, even in the midst of sin and ugliness as well as in experiences of the utmost beauty or in moments of pure imagination and in displays of virtue, "… in the history of the Old and New Testament and in our situation today, God communicates his saving self-revelation through an indefinitely wide range of experiences … God's purposes can be served by all kinds of means-from the remarkable language of Second Isaiah to the dull words of some preacher in the twentyfirst century. Family life, political episodes, religious worship, aesthetic experiences, and other human realities can all shape the medium through which God's saving word comes to us". 248 Humankind's encounter with God is seen as all-embracing, one which we are all called to enjoy equally, since as created beings, from conception to birth, we share in the oneness of the human condition. O'Collins sees in the vulnerability of the human condition a suffering through experience that brings with it a timeless questioning. Inquiry and interrogation are in this light understood as an integral part of our being. Experience, therefore, becomes for humankind an opening, a bridge leading to a possible transcendence. For these reasons the experience of the other with disabilities is essential for all of us and needs to be considered as being both integral and crucial in this process.

Allied to these notions, however, O'Collins draws our focus beyond the concrete and tangible realities of history in recognizing that the human condition encompasses both the material and the spiritual. He draws our attention to the essentially symbolic nature attached to human acts. 249 O'Collins understands humankind as a creature that is always symbolic.

However, what matters to O'Collins is the revelatory power of the symbol which he interprets as "… something or someone perceptible that … represents dynamically something or someone else, especially something invisible or abstract. The "something perceptible" could be a story we hear, a group of people we see united for prayer, a body we touch, the perfume we smell, or the wine we taste. Our five senses constantly take in the symbolic reality that surrounds us. Whatever they may be, symbols always reveal, represent … what is symbolized. A letter, a portrait, or the tombstone of my deceased mother symbolizes her, mediating and realizing for me her presence". 250 He sees in symbols an important role in revelation. His exegesis of scripture leads him to identify symbols throughout. In this study's analysis of disability in scripture, for example, one might single out the figure of the leper, the blind, the lame and so on i.e., those bearing some form of disability as examples of such symbols. Indeed, each and every aspect of creation, O'Collins believes, has the potential to unmask God's purpose to us in revelation.

Symbols become the principal instruments of God's revelation such that he views the divine 249 Ibid. 40. 250 Ibid., 40.

theology, saw the need for the re-symbolization of the divine in ways that she believed better reflected her experiences as a woman with disabilities. She denounced representations of the divine that had been shrouded in a theological enquiry that always seemed to view"… able-bodied experience as the theological norm".252 Her ground-breaking work uncovered a representation of God which until then had lain hidden, i.e., the notion of a "disabled God". 253 The distinctive and powerful interest of symbols to Eiesland was to be seen in their emancipatory force. For her, they were both transformative and liberating and had the capacity to mold attitudes and frame potentialities for our being.254 Symbols are transformative, but Eiesland's vision of a disabled God is much more than this. Her disabled God is a deliberate re-symbolization, i.e., she takes common representations of the divine and transforms the symbol unannounced into something quite deliberate and, in so doing, aspires to reclaim voice and agency for people with disabilities. The re-symbolization she brought about sought first to transform traditional views of Christ on the Cross from one whose suffering was principally considered as righteous and noble to something which is quite distinct, i.e., this disabled God is a suffering and incarnate God that bears all the pains and injustices of the forgotten and oppressed. Secondly, this re-symbolization, she believed, was capable of precipitating conversion both for people with disabilities but also for the church as a whole. The image is a forceful one as she explains here, "… The theological implications of the disabled God resist the notion of power as absolute control over human-divine affairs. For people with disabilities who have grasped divine healing as the only liberatory image the traditional church has offered, relinquishing belief in an all-powerful God who could heal, if He would, is painful. Yet, who is this God whose attention we cannot get, whose inability to respond to our pain causes still more pain? This God is surely not Emmanuel-God for us." 255 For Eiesland the God, who is with us and for us on the Cross is first and foremost a survivor.

Eiesland considered her theology as both necessary for a more accurate understanding of people with disabilities and at the same time as liberatory for all of us. Her thinking is grounded in human embodiment. She developed a theology that willingly embraces every aspect of the human body. In her process of doing theology, she took the visual realities of people with disabilities and placed them boldly in the eyes of the creator God in ways that Leviticus 21 had sought to erase. She believed that symbols had the capacity to be transformative of both social status and of the manner in which our relation with God is conceived. Her search for a fresh symbol is interesting in how it may help uncover ways in which the creator God is revealed to us. It must be asserted in passing, however, that what writers understand by the use of the term revelation often depends on the use its author wishes to lend it. In some documents from the Second Vatican Council, for example, revelation becomes interchangeable with salvation as can be seen in this example from Dei Verbum, "…Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends and lives among them so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation". 256 Tillich saw revelation as a term that was frequently misused. 257 He rejected the common notion that revelation may be understood as some kind of "… divine information about divine matters" that is then received and recorded in scripture. 258 Instead he offered an understanding that was anchored in the realities of human experience, "Revelation is first of all the experience in which an ultimate concern grasps the human mind and creates a community in which this concern expresses itself in symbols , of action, imagination and thought. Wherever such a revelatory experience occurs, both faith and reason are renewed. Their internal and mutual conflicts are conquered, and estrangement is replaced by reconciliation … It is an event in which the ultimate becomes manifest in an ultimate concern, shaking and transforming the given situation in religion and culture. In such an experience no conflict between faith and reason is possible; for it is man's total structure as a rational being which is grasped and changed by the revelatory manifestation of an ultimate concern." 259 This is rather the way in which Eiesland conceives of the symbol of a disabled God. 260 This is the disabled God who displays his open wounds when he appears to the disciples after the resurrection. Eiesland charges her symbol of the disabled God with transformative qualities. For her the wounded, risen Christ becomes revelatory of a discipleship in which the person with disabilities can not only be understood and valued per se but this is also a discipleship in which that same person with disabilities is seen to play a key role for all of humankind in bringing about that reconciliation that Tillich referred to. With this vision the person with disabilities abandons the margins of society where they had been confined by the rest of us and integrates and assumes that wholeness in which they were made in creation. For Tillich revelation occurs when the human condition is seized with an "ultimate 257 Tillich, Dynamics of Faith. 258 Ibid. 78. 259 Ibid. 78-79. 260 There is, however, in Eiesland's work a theological anthropomorphism that at times can be unsettling. This point will be discussed later in this chapter. Cf., Swinton, 'Who Is the God We Worship?: Theologies of Disability: Challenges and New Possibilities', ( concern", which experience then enlightens both reason and faith. 261 It is relational, a personal encounter with the divine, effecting change both inside us and around us.

Eiesland's ultimate concern meant that revelation for her would take on a surprising form: this was not the God she was expecting, "I saw God in a sip-puff wheelchair, that is the chair used mostly by paraplegics enabling them to maneuver by blowing and sucking on a straw-like device. Not an omnipotent, self-sufficient God … I beheld God as a survivor, unpitying and forthright. I recognized the incarnate Christ in the image of those judged "not feasible", "unemployable", with "questioning quality of life". Here was God for me." 262This study argues, however, that her vision of the disabled God reflects more her own hardships primarily as a person with physical disabilities. How this symbol can be revelatory and transformative of the experience of people with other kinds of disability is not quite clear. 263 Neither is it clear how the symbol of God, a God for all humankind, as a disabled God might similarly speak to the experience of persons who do not consider themselves to have disabilities. Similarly, an encounter with the divine should necessarily reflect the harmony of the workings of the interrelationships that were established through creation.

It should also serve to draw all of humankind together and unite rather than to separate and divide. A weakness in Eiesland's symbol of a disabled God lies in the way that, for some of us, such a symbol might speak more to notions of difference and to what may serve to divide us rather than bring us together and as such the idea of a disabled God appears antithetical to the understanding of creation developed in this study. Even with these reservations her work remains important for a theology of disability since her conception of a godhead that is itself disabled remains powerful in the manner in which it subverts any suggestion of sinfulness in human disability. It thus allows for a more positive vision of human experience to take root that gives value and significance to the lives of people with disabilities.

Eiesland's book relates case studies that she had carried out with persons with disabilities and in one of them a friend of a woman with disabilities asks the woman a question: had she ever wondered why God should choose her to live with multiple sclerosis.

The answer the woman with MS gives is telling, "… the only response I [she]can think of is "Why not?" ". 264 The woman's answer may not be typical, but it is an answer that evokes the simple reality of that person's life experience as she sees it, i.e., one in which disability has a part to play like every other aspect of her existence. Such an answer (why not) is often given by people in similar though quite different circumstances, e.g., people born in families where neglect or addiction is a part of their daily life, children born with hereditary diseases, people whose whole lives have been affected by tragedies of one sort or other. Whatever the realities of human experience it seems that there is a propensity for the individual simply just to want to "get on with things". However, living with disability can provoke all sorts of additional questions for those concerned. These questions may relate to the simple practicalities of everyday life such as transport and mobility or issues of pain management or of finance and so on. In another work on disability theology, Gillibrand sets his reflection on disability and the church through the lens of his own family and their dealing with their son who was diagnosed as an individual with disabilities on the autism spectrum. 265 Gillibrand is an Anglican priest, and he movingly relates the biography of his son Adam from birth to the present detailing the additional challenges the situation posed to Adam himself and to his parents. In response to the question "why us?" Gillibrand reaches a similar 264 Eiesland, The Disabled God : Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. 265 Gillibrand, 'Disabled Church, Disabled Society : The Implications of Autism for Philosophy, Theology and Politics', (London Jessica Kingsley 2010).

conclusion as the woman with MS. That answer, why not, he believes, is straightforward and stems somewhat from the imperfection and inadequacy of language in describing the human condition. This study would argue also that this is an answer that the theologian of the cross might offer, saying things as they are, deciding ultimately to "let God be God."266 267

(viii). Limits

This study has shown the difficulties associated with the use of the word disability as an umbrella term which can claim to have any real coherent meaning capable of constituting an overarching consensus. Likewise, I have outlined the inadequacies of some of the models used to articulate the whole issue of disability. For example, I argued that one of a number of difficulties associated with one of the more dominant models of disability, the medical model, is its entire focus on embodiment and impairment to the neglect of all the other characteristics of what it is that makes us all human. This brings into play as a result a poverty of language and of thinking since such a perspective disregards the person that is the other, choosing instead to focus exclusively on what is believed to be disfunctions or deficiencies. Articulations of disability were further shown to be inadequate due to the fact that some so-called disabilities are not even visible to the naked eye. Further, this study highlighted the importance of recognizing that a condition that some might consider as a disability is often considered by the individual concerned as simply a basic constituent part of the makeup of their everyday life which contributes meaningfully to the originality of their own individual culture and being. An example of this is to be found within the Deaf community. In his History of the Deaf Lane describes society's efforts at suppressing what he believes is a minority language and culture through the medicalization of the attributes of Deaf people. Lane views Deafness as a language group like any other. According to him, this is a language group that has been singled out for annihilation by the forces of a majority that view it with suspicion and consider it as a problem, "On the face of it, people are quite afraid of human diversity and look to their social institutions to limit or eradicate it… The history of relations between the society of hearing-speaking people and the community of deaf-signing people is an excellent case study in the motives and means at work when fear of diversity leads majorities to oppress minorities. The attempt to force assimilation, to claim biological insufficiency when assimilation fails, to indoctrinate minority children in majority values through the schools-all this and much more will be familiar to readers interested in the predicament of other minority communities." 268For him the history of the Deaf is a history steeped in prejudice.

Similarly, someone on the autism spectrum or an individual suffering from a chronic health condition may not show any visible sign at all of their condition to a passing spectator or in church to another member of the congregation. The patent inadequacies of the manner in which disability is discoursed lead this study to suggest rather that membership of the community of the disabled should be considered as something that is open to humankind as a whole. Disability is a part of the human condition and therefore concerns all of us. In reality, however, the designation disabled is generally proffered by one group to describe the condition of others, e.g., by those who consider themselves as non-disabledthose in the medical profession, those drafting legal texts and so on, to refer to a wide range of conditions. However, in so doing a significant minority within society is brought into being. In this sense the notion of disability resembles Panikkar's understanding of identification rather than identity which this study treated earlier. We design the term disability such that first and foremost it describes people in terms of what they are rather than in terms of who they are. Moreover, this study maintains that understandings of the body must go beyond the mere physical since discernment is constituted in a number of different ways and is built on the ethereal as well as on reality and experience. The speech synthesizer that gave voice to the physicist Stephen Hawking's thoughts or the sip-puff wheelchair described by Eiesland or even the car that takes me on my day-to-day activities can be understood as extensions of the body that concretely impact on existence in a truly meaningful way. As such they also may convey meaning about who I am just as well as the limbs I have or my face or whatever. It is this study's contention, therefore, that the inadequacies one encounters in the rhetoric of disability are reflections of the brokenness of the human condition. This causes us a dilemma whose force is such that it is capable of ensnaring discourse on disability into false discussions around needs and wants rather than on dwelling on the implications of that which is essential for us, namely, on the interconnectedness given to us in creation and on the need to see in the face of the other a liberating sense of truth and freedom . Similarly, just as the medical model falsely treats the person with disabilities as the problem and considers people principally in terms of their impairments, the social model, while having as its foundation the notion that the body cannot be given any meaning without taking into consideration the society around it, avoids at the same time the sheer depth of the difficulties-chronic pain and suffering, that are often brought on as a result of conditions of disability. 269 In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul, reminds us, among other things, that our understanding of the body should go beyond viewing it merely as the sum of its parts. Highlighting difference by focusing only on distinctive parts is not capable of strengthening mutual understanding or of giving shape to an abiding sense of communion among humankind. Likewise, this inquiry holds that ignoring the role of the constituent parts of the corporeal and focusing only on an imprecise notion of functionality and performativity results in an understanding of consciousness that remains incomplete.

Nikkel reminds us that while the parts are equally necessary to the whole, they convey to the whole something other "…the whole is different… That is, the self-organizing whole has new properties that the parts individually do not possess". 270 This study argues, therefore, that it is the other, not in terms of their performativity or functionality but rather in terms of the fullness of their entire being, that warrants our attention and recognition. This does not imply, however, that corporeal or emotive or expressive (or other) factors should in any way be neglected or ignored in our pursuit of consciousness. On the contrary, the person with disabilities requires recognition in the completeness of their being.

Moreover, the incarnation itself compels us to reflect on the significance of the body. Embodiment is often one of the key poles on which disability theology is formulated. 271 Eiesland's is a prime example of such an approach. She articulates her reading of the disabled God on scripture. She sees the symbol of the disabled God in John's narration of the risen Christ appearing to the disciples with the wounds from the passion intact, wounds which become the signs Thomas needs for his belief in the risen lord. 272 For Eiesland the risen Christ becomes manifest in his disability. However useful this may be in symbolizing a God that shares in our vulnerabilities, the Easter message for the Christian is not a narrative about one historic event: it is an event that changes everything for us. It humankind. 273 The risen Christ's wounds may allow Thomas with his weakness and sense of doubt to see beyond them so that he can fully comprehend the message of Easter but I would argue with Bonhoeffer that this event is not so much the story of a disabled God that manifests his presence but rather that of the truly divine whose path took him to unite himself with us, so that he died and rose from the dead and who through the resurrection eradicates the emptiness of our existence, "… Easter is not an immanent-that is, an inner-worldlyevent, but a transcendent event that is something above and beyond the world, an intervention of God from eternity, by virtue of which God declares his commitment to his Holy One and awakens him from death. Easter is not about immortality but about resurrection from a death that is a real death with all its frightfulness and horrors, resurrection from a death of the body and the soul, of the whole person, resurrection by the power of God's mighty act. This is the Easter message." 274As has been argued, readings of disability that would set people with disabilities apart from the rest of humankind by focusing on what essentially is perceived to be what makes them different from the rest of us, are unhelpful foundations on which to establish a theology of disability. This study holds that the spirit of revelation flows more easily through humankind when humankind is understood as one body, where truth and freedom come into play in the dialog between self and other. The life experiences of people with disabilities are essential, therefore, for this to take place and more persuasive readings on disability must recognize in the other with disabilities an element which unites us rather than divides us. This study maintains, therefore, that disability serves to remind all of us of our limits. 275 The term limits simply states an indisputable fact about the nature of humankind. It does not divide us into groups, nor does it serve as something that differentiates some of us from others in the same way that the term disability does. Limits are common to each and every one of us and the intricacies of our existence are often couched in terms of our limits. Addressing our limits, therefore, may be considered as one possible path forward in unifying the discourse on the realities that make us human in ways that discussions on disability does not. Creamer, for example, offers a discussion of limits as a recourse against the often absolutist repercussions that she believes the use of the term disability commonly evokes, "The term "disability," as it is commonly used, is an absolute category without levels or thresholds. One is either disabled or not. From this perspective, "one cannot be a little disabled any more than one can be a little pregnant." " 276Each of us has limits to what we can tolerate in terms of our workload, concentration, patience, or experience of pain. Indeed, we have limits to just about every aspect of our being. In effect, this inquiry holds that limits may be understood as an essential factor in what makes us all human. Being made in the likeness of God implies that in certain essential ways we are not like God. Humankind's inherent limits are one of those ways. Discourses on our limits facilitate the possibility of articulating an ethic in our dealings with each other.

A theology of disability that embraces our limits provides a stable area of common ground between all of humankind, independent of the particular status of each person's individual embodiment. 277 While the term disability tends to highlight faculties that are lacking, a focus on limits that is understood as something that provides us with boundaries, conveys, on the other hand, to all of us the quality of an equal and undivided agency. Humankind is not 276 Ibid., 6. 277 Ibid. 32.

a finished product, and it would be wrong equally to consider the human body as being in any sense complete or finished. 278 This is where our limits come into play.

Yet, a discourse on limits might be considered today by some as a countercurrent since society, through the power and influence of the media and the means of information, would urge us to reject any idea that there are limits to our ambition, or to our potential for change and growth, or to our increasing prosperity, or indeed to anything we seek to do or seek to be. Limits are quite simply banished from any discussion today of the reality of what it is that makes us human. A focus on limits is equated often with ideas of submission and defeatism and is thought to lead inevitably only backwards. Today's society would have us shy away from the notion of a possibility of encroaching limits that come to litter our paths with often insurmountable obstacles. It proposes instead the view of challenges ahead that are capable always of being overcome, i.e., provided that we show the necessary courage and strength to bring this about. Whereas, an acceptance of limits might suggest disruption, cutoff points and negativity, the rhetoric of challenges evokes for today's mind notions of goal setting and the addressing of problems and their eradication. Challenges, it is believed, are to be surmounted by the individual in displays of power, mastery and control.

Modernity's desire to deny our limits, however, raises the question as to how the person with disabilities can be understood and appreciated in any meaningful way in such a framework. These readings seek to place humankind beyond the realms of history and stress the power of the individual over and above that of the social. Further, they fail to take into account the full nature of our vulnerabilities and thereby offer us scant opportunity to assume the mantle of our becomingness that is both indicative of and 278 Sigurdson, Heavenly Bodies : Incarnation, the Gaze, and Embodiment in Christian Theology.

necessary for our redemption. In short, to equate humankind with the pursuit of individualism in a self-deluding quest for an ephemeral autonomy negates an essential quality of our existence. Humankind, fundamentally, is as diverse in its sameness as it is in its otherness, and each of us depends on the other for the realization of who we are. An authentic theology of disability must reflect the fact that selfhood, as this study has maintained, may only be understood in terms of our relation with the other and therefore, in the articulations of this authoritative theology of disability, false notions of a supposed autonomy or spurious capacity for performativity must be rejected. Self cannot be articulated without reference to the other. Hauerwas reminds us that we each depend for our very existence on the other, "… Dependency, not autonomy, is one of the ontological characteristics of our lives". 279 This study holds that the fallacy of an unbridled individualism that would seek to marginalize the other is reduced to nothing when humankind embraces the freedom and truth which the other bestows on us. Accepting the reality of our limits is thus viewed as a means to this end.

(ix). Potential insights of an authentic theology of disability.

This study, too, has its limits. Word count means that the breadth of its reflections are restricted. However, in concluding this chapter on otherness, there are two areas where this inquiry would suggest that an authentic theology of disability as prescribed might offer us opportunities and insights in ways that otherwise might have been ignored had the experiences of the disabled other been interpreted only in terms of their difference. These 279 Hauerwas, 2008, Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary : Conversations between a Radical Democrat and a Christian, Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, 317.

two areas are the notions of time and of loss as perceived in the life experience of the disabled other.

When one lives with a disability one is made immediately aware of the time that everything takes. Daily events seem to require much more organization and often take much more time. For some disability can be equated with a slowing down. This study has noted the importance of human experience and has sought to relate it in terms of our encounter with the divine. It has also discussed the importance of interpretation that is required so that this experience may be understood in ways that may help us on our journey through this life. It appears self-evident, in this light, that in order for this interpretation of experience to mature and take shape this makes demands on us in terms of time. The experience of the disabled other has much, therefore, to teach us all about time. Time is a provider of perspective, and this requires distance and reflection as well as action. The French aphorism "il faut donner du temps, au temps" -time needs time, expresses this idea well.

For most of us in today's world we focus principally on one aspect of time, momentum, implying action. People with disabilities, however, generally understand that time contains within it both a notion of movement but also one of slowness. This study holds that such a notion of time facilitates that possibility of the interpretation of experience which O'Collins alluded to. Swinton calls this notion of time in people with disabilities as "God's time" and explains it thus, "… If our comparator is the high-speed, progressive, efficient, and self-sufficient body that Standard Average European Time demands, the disabled body can look only inadequate, deficient, slow, handicapped, abnormal … However, if the benchmark is the three-mile-an hour God-a God who moves slowly and for whom the transformation of creation is a long and timefull process-things look quite different. Viewed in this way, the slowness of disability is seen to be much closer to the slowness of God than is the speed that is demanded from modern societies. The apparent abnormality may well not lie in those who are forced to slow down. The great cultural mistake that certain forms of disability draw to our attention is the assumption that speed and its equation with the effective use of time is in any way "normal" for those who perceive themselves as God's creatures." 280 Further, this study has described earlier the conditions and causes of angst and suffering that are often seen to inhabit modernity and the Anthropocene. I would suggest that much of that is brought about by inadequate perceptions of time. Conceiving of time as a slowness, rather than as momentum, as Swinton suggests would allow for new possibilities. The Second Epistle of Peter reminds us of the nature of "God's time", "… with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you". 281 Such a notion of time, it is argued, is more conducive to the channeling of patience and the instilling in us of a sense of peacefulness, all of which are capable of erasing any feeling of angst and suffering. It is part of that stance that the Christian is called to adopt -that "letting God be God" that was referred to earlier. 282 In this understanding we do not impose our desires and ambitions on time but instead we allow time to confer on us its rewards.

Moreover, we need also recognize that this is an outlook that is not always one of choice since, as Swinton reminds us, in creation the Sabbath is given to us as a command. The Sabbath should not be lived and experienced simply as a day of rest that is just a good idea or advice from a caring God to humankind rather in the way a life coach might advocate the need for a break time so as to avoid the risk of burnout. Instead, God commands us to rest. We are told to slow down. Through the incarnation we experience God's breaking into history and Christ's coming among us has profoundly changed the mono-dimensional notion of time. Our perception of time is become something quite other. Indeed, the Christ event is better understood when our perception of time itself is radically changed. 283 As well as different understandings of time, disability can bring with it for some distinct feelings, fears even, of loss-loss of what one once had or the anticipated loss of an inevitable diminishing of autonomy or control. However, this is not the case for a high number of people with disabilities since for many, disability is simply perceived of as part of everyday reality in the sense of what one never had in the first place one cannot ever have lost. Much of the anxiety and suffering that this study argued was inherent to modernity is constructed over feelings of loss or of potential loss. Worries about an uncertain future for the individual, for society as a whole or indeed for the planet can inflame the growth of a perceived anxiety. The ageing process which faces all of us can also fill many with a sense of loss which can be a source of concern. Without the assurance that living patiently in the now of "God's time" can give us, we risk shrouding ourselves in anxiety and suffering brought on by regret over what might be or what might have been. Paul, speaking of himself, in contrast, warns us that a sense of anxiety brought about by feelings of loss is a futile exercise since the incarnation has changed everything for us. Loss in the light of the incarnation is perceived as an opening to salvation, "Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ". 284 In this understanding a sense of loss is pointless since it relates to nothing of any value.. For Paul there is no value to be found in dwelling on any sense of loss. He dismisses it as rubbish.

In stark contrast to clouding the question of disability in terms of loss is the recognition that disability often brings with it a heightened attitude of adaptiveness and creativity in the person with disabilities. For the person with disabilities the practicalities of their situation are sensed often as the routine and habitual occurrences of daily life as it presents itself to them. It is this, it is argued, that generates their heightened creativity and adaptiveness. Further, for many people with disabilities everyday life is often always lived in immediate fellowship with others since in many cases the other is capable of providing that support and assistance that can ease the practicalities of their particular situation. In this they remind each of us of our interconnectedness, since hospitality and a common fellowship are the bonds that unite humankind. Fellowship and hospitality is the birthright given to us in baptism. Saying things as they are means acknowledging too that the experience of people with disabilities, provided that it is afforded equality of treatment, voice and worth, can through their otherness provide that meaning to self that humankind seeks, since mutuality, as this study has argued, is at the root of self. 285 In short, this study holds that reflections on people with disabilities by means of a theology that fully takes account of our limits, may draw us evermore extra nos towards recognizing the face of Christ that is to be found in the other within the world in which we strive to live. 285 Ricoeur, ' "The Image of God" and the Epic of Man', CrossCurrents, 11/1 (1961), 37.50.

CONCLUSION

This study has presented the literature on people with disabilities as sharing a number of identifiable characteristics such as: § considering people with disabilities in terms of the distinctiveness of their condition, § framing the discourse within a mechanism of perceived injustice, § articulating the discussion by setting one group of people apart from another, § offering compassion as a projected response, and § insisting on the need to develop inclusion and welcome.

It has been argued that the term disability itself is employed to cover a wide-ranging and often confusing range of circumstances. As such, readings of disability are shown often to appear anchored deeply within a vision of modernity which assumes the existence of a supposed autonomy of the individual thus betraying an unambiguous bias towards performativity. Disability is discoursed almost exclusively in terms of what the person with disabilities is not able to do or can no longer carry out in an independent manner and the agency of the individuals directly concerned by disability is rarely embraced in the writing. 286 Disability features widely in scripture and this study has outlined how in recent years attempts have been made to reinterpret scriptural texts leading to more broad discussions on how people with disabilities are understood and treated by the church.

Similarly, this study has maintained throughout that a theology of disability that is discoursed primarily in the terms outlined in the literature or developed specifically to satisfy the supposed the needs of people with disabilities, e.g., by re-symbolizing a notion 286 More recently attempts have been made to remedy this, cf. Gillibrand, 'Disabled Church, Disabled Society : The Implications of Autism for Philosophy, Theology and Politics' ; Clifton, Crippled Grace : Disability, Virtue Ethics, and the Good Life.

of the divine as a "disabled God", lacks the universality necessary of an authentic theology capable of addressing the essential questions regarding the realities of humankind's existence in this world and our redemption in the kingdom. Such a theology is considered in this study as inauthentic since it assumes the divisions and separateness that readings of modernity impose on the lives of people with disabilities. The study holds that such a vision goes against the reading of creation depicted in Genesis 1. Following the path of the theologian of the cross this study has affirmed that human experience is built on fragility and vulnerability and that disability should be considered as something that comes to affect all of humankind at some point in our lives. This study has reflected on the realities of the experience of people with disabilities within a more universalist framework rather than treating the issue as something that divides and separates humankind in terms of capacity for performativity. It has engaged in an exploration of disability from the viewpoint of what has been argued as humankind's intrinsic otherness. Otherness is proposed in this study as a constituent feature of the story of creation and is reflected upon with respect to the contribution it brings to harmony, mutuality and complementarity in the world and not in terms of any putative source of contrast, difference or detachment among humankind. This study affirms a notion of otherness that is considered as necessary to our fundamental notion of identity and of self.

Viewing disability through the lens of otherness and engaging a conversation between otherness and creation as portrayed in Genesis 1 has allowed the study to propose a more authentic theology of disability. It is more authentic since this study affirms that it reflects the harmony and interconnectedness of all creation. This is an otherness that evokes none of the fear that Zizioulas warned of, and which was referred to in the introduction to this work. It is an otherness that sees the other-in the case in point, the person with disabilities, as the presence of Christ in the world. This understanding of otherness interprets imago Dei, not from the perspective of a particular condition of our being human or in terms of a distinctive attribute that humankind may possess, but rather in terms of a function of our humanness. To say things as they are, this interprets imago Dei as what being human is all about. Creation is interpreted both as an event and also as a process in which our humanness is presented with opportunities for growth. This is a humanness that is conceived not as a finished state but in terms of its potential for growth, i.e., its becomingness.

Creation is considered in this study as having at its core the search for bonds one with the other just as the Creator first reached out to us to establish that relation that gave us imago Dei. In this manner, such a reading erases all notions of performativity, proficiency or aptitude from the rhetoric of disability so that persons with disability are discoursed in terms of their own humanness and becomingness. This reading of creation and of otherness offers us the scope of an authoritative enquiry into the life experiences of those with disabilities so that fresher means of expression can be found that encompass the realities of humankind as a whole. As potential avenues for further reflection, this study has proposed the scrutiny of issues related to our conceptions of time and loss. Contemporary speculation and interrogation over issues such as time and loss, if left unanswered and addressed with satisfaction, can habitually become fertile ground for the development of anxiety and lead to feelings of acute vulnerability for many. The experiences and living realities of people with disabilities on such matters may reveal truths to all of humankind that otherwise might have lain hidden. Truth and freedom for all of us can then be seen to be within reach in our authentic engagement one with the other.

Significance of the study.

This study has suggested that one of the weaknesses of the church's approach to people with disabilities is that often the church has integrated into its own thinking certain of the precepts of modernity concerning the entire issue of disability. This presupposes a perceived normative status of autonomy and performativity around which discussions on disability take place. Consequently, discourse on people with disabilities, often stemming from obligations driven by the legislator, tends to center on matters such as access and inclusion leaving to one side other more central issues such as how the lived experience of people with disabilities might inform theology on the fundamental questions facing all of humankind concerning ways of being in Christ. A succession of models of ways of understanding disability have been considered. However, there is a need to recognize that these models are often deeply rooted in the subjective, cultural and socio-political viewpoints of the proponents. They vary in the visions they proffer of disability, from a consideration which is essentially framed as a medical issue to others in which people with disabilities are seen from the viewpoint of an aggressively oppressed minority. Theology has taken up the claims made by such readings in diverse ways. Eiesland, for example, in a reaction to what she believed was a distinct bias against those with disabilities, sought to re-symbolize a visualization of God in ways that integrated the experience of those with disabilities, rendering this vision more acceptable to what she considered as an oppressed minority group within the church and within society as a whole. 287 While effective in eradicating the association with sinfulness, which is often used as an implied sub-text in discussions of disability, her symbol, nonetheless, is inadequate in addressing the universalities of human existence. Despite this, Eiesland remains, however, a key source for on length, the strength of this study's reading could have been tested by more detailed and profound interpretations of the other as conceived of by Levinas and other writers such as, for example, Lacan. Similarly, the concept of otherness itself could have been expanded beyond the concerns of people with disabilities to include, for example, the life experiences of women or of the LGBTQI community or even the implications of comparable readings of otherness in terms of ecumenical and interreligious dialog. Finally, a sound theology of disability could be further strengthened by pursuing the concept of grace and how this may be articulated within the field of disability.

Final thoughts.

The impetus for this study came from the personal experience of the author. This is the case for many commentators on the subject. This study has shown that the church often approaches the matter from the point of view of the necessity of developing an inclusive and welcoming approach. However, while no doubt generous and in some ways helpful, when this intended approach is reflected upon in the light of the gospel it appears almost like a self-evident truism. As someone who has struggled throughout life on the autism spectrum constantly having to accommodate the feelings of others and adjust to them rather than make my own sensibilities become known, the question of a study of people with disabilities through a lens of otherness appeared a natural and fitting way to examine the issue. Otherness is advanced in this study as a means of bridging the divide that often keeps people apart. It is a tragedy that in a world which is often described today as becoming smaller and smaller and where the means of communication are capable of reaching so many and so swiftly that the interconnectedness given to us in creation seems lost. For this reason, this study holds that otherness need not be approached defensively or with apprehension. Rather, it is argued that otherness be seen as a potential path to discovery, creativity and enrichment. In this way an authentic way of being in God may be lived by all of humankind.

  Cf. Alexander, 2013, The Dark Side of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge. 112 Cf. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, a Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.

130

  White, 'In Sympathy and Imagination: The Theological Import of Paul Ricoeur's Agnosticism', Literature and Theology,27/2 (2013), 183-95.

  2.(viii). The nature of orthodoxy and orthopraxis.As has already been discussed, disability theology had often appealed to liberation theology in what this could bring to its consideration of what was perceived as mechanisms of oppression being operated against those of us with disabilities. This study now reaches out again to liberation theology but in terms of what this theology can bring us in terms of our understanding of engagement and commitment to the other.

  Root, 'Practical Theology as Social Ethical Action in Christian Ministry: Implications from Emmanuel Levinas and Dietrich Bonhoeffer', International Journal of Practical Theology, 10/1 (2006), 53-75.

  215 Cf. Reynolds, 'Down's Syndrome Screening Is Unethical: Views of Today's Research Ethics Committees', J Clin Pathol, 56/4 (Apr 2003), 268-70.

  Ault, Collins, and Carter, 'Congregational Participation and Supports for Children and Adults with Disabilities: Parent Perceptions', Intellect Dev Disabil, 51/1 (Feb 2013), 48-61. 217 Hodge, 'Spirituality among People with Disabilities: A Nationally Representative Study of Spiritual and Religious Profiles', Health Soc Work, 44/2 (May 1 2019), 75-86. 218 Ibid. 219 Ibid.

  goes beyond history and brings into being the beginning of a new history for all of270 Nikkel, 2010, Radical Embodiment, James Clarke and Co, Cambridge, 102.271 Creamer, Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities.3. 272 John 20.

  1:26-27. 73 Earlier in this chapter, this study raised the possibility that our inattention to the

	70 World Council of Churches, 'Minute on Global Warming and Climate Change', World Council of Churches
	<https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/minute-on-global-warming-and-climate-change>,
	accessed 03 February 2021
	71 Vatican, 'World Day of Prayer for the Day of Creation', Vatican
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	francesco_20190901_messaggio-giornata-cura-creato.html>, accessed 18 July 2020
	72 Cf. Lutheran World Federation, 'Season of Creation', <https://www.lutheranworld.org/content/season-of-
	creation>, accessed 30 June 2020

  on the other, identity as selfhood(Latin ipse, German Selbstheit, French ipséité." 123

120

Cf.

Glas, 'Idem, Ipse, and

Loss of the Self.', Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 10/4 (2003), 347-52. 121 Ricoeur, Oneself as Another. 122 Ibid. 115. 123 Ibid. 116.

  Los Angeles County Museum of Art,'Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images', Los Angeles County Museum of Art <https://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/magritte-and-contemporary-art-treachery-images>, accessed 18 December 2020 156 1 Corinthians 13:9-12. 157 Cf. Tillich, 1958, Dynamics of Faith, Harper & Row, New York, 105. 158 Cf. Bonhoeffer in Elliston, 2016, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Ethical Self, Christology, Ethics, and Formation, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN.

I borrow the term exiled soul fromRicoeur, 1969,The Symbolism of Evil, Beacon Press, Boston.

i.e., diverse, certainly, but equal nonetheless in the eyes of God and worthy of inclusion, therefore, at all times and in all places, particularly in the church.

Such models are described more fully in Chapter 3.

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Book of Concord, 'Heidelberg Disputation 1518', Book of Concord <https://bookofconcord.org/otherresources/sources-and-context/heidelberg-disputation/>, accessed 09 January 2020 (Theses 22 & 23). Cf., Romans 1:20.

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Cornell Law School, '42 U.S. Code § 12102 -Definition of Disability', Legal Information Institute <https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12102>, accessed 18 July 2021

Cf. The debate concerning Deafness as a cultural phenomenon, for example.

Brock suggests, moreover, that there is a prejudice inherent in modernism that more recent studies in science, by their very nature, have to be considered as accurate and correct such that assumptions of this type

Bonhoeffer, 'Sanctorum Communio: A Dogmatic Enquiry into the Sociology of the Church.', Collins, London, 48.

Ricoeur, 1992, Oneself as Another, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Panikkar, 'A Christophany for Our Times', Theology Digest, 39 (1992), 4.

Barth, Bromiley, and Torrance, Church Dogmatics Volume Iii Part I., T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 183. Some might suggest, however, that the climax is to be found not in the creation of humankind but rather in the day of rest that follows.

Alexander, The Dark Side of Modernity..

Treanor, Aspects of Alterity, Levinas, Marcel, and the Contemporary Debate.

[START_REF] Wingren | Man and the Incarnation[END_REF], Man and the Incarnation, Wipf and Stock, Eugene, Oregon.

2 Corinthians 5:7.

John 8:32.

Cf. the discussion on freedom in the previous chapter.

1 Corinthians 9:19.

Wengert, 2016, The Freedom of a Christian 1520, Fortress Press, Minneapolois, 10.

Elliston, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Ethical Self, Christology, Ethics, and Formation. 65.

Elliston, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Ethical Self, Christology, Ethics, and Formation.

1 Corinthians 1:18.

Bible Explore, 'Works of Martin Luther, the Magnificat', Godrules.Net <http://www.godrules.net/library/luther/NEW1luther_c5.htm>, accessed 29 November 2020

[START_REF] Sobrino | Jesus the Liberator[END_REF], Jesus the Liberator, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 241.

'Cambridge Dictionary', Cambridge Dictionary Grammar <https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/prefixes>, accessed 21 November 2020

Cf. "The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities", "The Americans with Disabilities Act" or the "European Accessibility Act".

[START_REF] Creamer | Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities[END_REF], Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 18.

Eiesland, The Disabled God : Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.

[START_REF] Bolt | Disability, Avoidance and the Academy : Challenging Resistance[END_REF], Disability, Avoidance and the Academy : Challenging Resistance, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxford.

[START_REF] Clifton | Crippled Grace : Disability, Virtue Ethics, and the Good Life[END_REF], Crippled Grace : Disability, Virtue Ethics, and the Good Life, Baylor University Press, Waco, TX, 3.

While there are differences in the way individual denominations treat the issue of disability, the study has synthesized these approaches into what may be considered general tendencies in the manner of treatment by most churches. Church, here, is used in this general sense.

This point is discussed later in this chapter.

Bonhoeffer, 'The Cost of Discipleship', Macmillan, New York, 45.

Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross.

Wingren, Man and the Incarnation.

Paulson, 'Luther's Outlaw God: Volume 2 Hidden in the Cross',

Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross.

Genesis 1:31.

Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, a Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.

Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion : A Theology of Disability and Hospitality.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Disability Impacts All of Us <https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html>, accessed 2 December 2020 .

Ibid.

Cf., Whitehead, 'Religion and Disability: Variation in Religious Service Attendance Rates for Children with Chronic Health Conditions', (

Eiesland, 'Encountering the Disabled God', PMLA, 120/2 (2005), 584-86. p 584.

Olyan, 2008, Disability in the Hebrew Bible : Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 121.

Raphael, 2008, Biblical Corpora : Representations of Disability in Hebrew Biblical Literature, T & T Clark International, London ; New York, 132.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

Moss, 2011, Disability Studies and Biblical Literature, Palgrave Macmillan New York, 173.

2 Corinthians 12:10.

Acts 9:8-19.

1 Corinthians 1:20,[START_REF] Cf | Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion : A Theology of Disability and Hospitality[END_REF]

Cf. 1 Corinthians 12.

Amazing Grace, 779. Evangelical Lutheran Church of America,2006, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Fortress Press, Minneapolis MN.

O'Collins, 2011, Rethinking Fundamental Theology : Toward a New Fundamental Theology, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Ibid..

Ibid. 77.

O'Collins, 2011, Rethinking Fundamental Theology : Toward a New Fundamental Theology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 41.

Eiesland, The Disabled God : Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid. 104-105.

Vatican, 'Dei Verbum', Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation <http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html>, accessed 02 March 2022. (My italics).

Tillich, Dynamics of Faith. 78

Eiesland, The Disabled God : Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.

I refer here to the experience of people with cognitive disabilities or dementia, for example.

Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross.

Gillibrand, 'Disabled Church, Disabled Society : The Implications of Autism for Philosophy, Theology and Politics'.

Lane, 'When the Mind Hears a History of the Deaf', (New York: Random House, 2010).

[START_REF] Sigurdson | Heavenly Bodies : Incarnation, The Gaze, And Embodiment In Christian Theology[END_REF], Heavenly Bodies : Incarnation, the Gaze, and Embodiment in Christian Theology, Eerdmans Grand Rapids, MI, 273.

Davies, 2014, Theology of Transformation : Faith, Freedom, and the Christian Act, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 250.

Bonhoeffer, 2012, God Is on the Cross, Reflection on Lent and Easter, Westminster John Knox, Louisville KY, 105.

Creamer, Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities.Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Swinton, 'Becoming Friends of Time',

2 Peter 3:8-9.

Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross.

Eiesland, The Disabled God : Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

Acknowledgements

I would like to offer my appreciation for the guidance of my thesis director. I would also like to thank most sincerely Professor Rev Dr Gordon Jensen of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada whose wisdom, kindness and courtesy followed me throughout the writing of this thesis.

God has to concern itself with notions of identity rather than with identification as Peter, through the action of the Spirit and through love, is able to show here. 150 The name on a passport may allow someone to know one's name (one's identification), but it tells no one anything about who and what it is that one is -one's fundamental reality (identity). This is a crucial distinction at a time when society today seems obsessed with the accumulation of so-called facts, categorization and information. Such preoccupations, this study maintains, stem for the most part from our desire for labelling, i.e., identification, to the neglect of identity.

As a result, the information obtained remains open to question with accusations being raised as to its authenticity. 151 The accumulation of facts (identification) does nothing for the progress of humankind unless in so doing they are capable of educating, giving worth and promoting justice and change. To become a Christ for the other means that when we see the face of the other, we need see what the other freely declares before us rather than what we think or want to see in that other. Just as Levinas insists that engaging with the otherhis principle of face, must be expressed in terms of a duty, so too Panikkar, in his distinction between identity and identification, insists in the absolute engagement towards the other that is required of the Christian, "If a present-day reflection on Christ has to adhere to its subject matter, it has to speak about Christ and cannot be limited to an exegesis of texts. It has to refer to the identity of Christ and not be satisfied with his identification." 152 Engagement to the other is paramount: it demands precedence over choice and design in humankind's becomingness. 150 Panikkar, 'A Christophany for our times', Theology Digest, 39 (1992), 3-21. 151 Cf. The notion of what is called today "fake news". 152 Panikkar, 'A Christophany for our times', Theology Digest, 39 (1992), 3-21. disability and sin is deliberately broken as is seen in the Gospel of John chapter 9. Here the question of the link between disability and sinfulness is raised by the disciples. The disability in question is blindness and it is the disciples who ask Jesus if the sin originated in the blind man's parents or in the blind man himself. With their question the disciples are most probably only echoing after all something that most of their contemporaries might themselves be asking. However, Jesus, in reply, firmly refutes any such link, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him". 241 This answer reflects the narrative of Genesis, which, as argued, teaches that all creation, as it is given and as it is received, is good. Further, it also suggest to us that there is purpose in all things and that, being all made in the likeness of God, our traits and features, strengths and perceived weaknesses give witness to God's goodness and his reaching out to us.

The pericope of the blind man in John raises another issue related to people with disabilities, i.e., the existence or not of our willingness to see beyond disability so that we may encounter true fellowship with the other. The contemporary, social and cultural reality of the day-to-day existence of John's blind man is that, in the eyes of the other, the man is not only associated with sinfulness, but this blindness/sinfulness has also inevitably thrust him into chronic economic hardship caused by his condition such that he bears a second role in the eyes of the other, that of a beggar. He is not simply excluded from society, therefore, as a result of the implied sinfulness brought on by his disability but also as a result of the poverty this brings. In John's narrative the community around him erupts into confusion when John describes the man's healing. The confusion of the other is motivated by the fact that through this healing the man's identity has now been put into question. He is no longer blind and so no longer a beggar. This study holds that the crowd's confusion 241 John 9:3.

as "… God the symbolizer". 251 Experience becomes the theater in which "God the symbolizer" is able to draw near.

O'Collins demonstrates that experience is the prism through which we search for the answers to our questionings. In this light the experience of the other with disabilities whose everyday life is filled with additional challenges becomes essential for us all in our encounter with the divine. Further, O'Collins invites us to accept that interpretation which accompanies experience, be it insightful, erroneous or life-changing, creates impact and has the capacity to bring about change. This may in turn provoke action, hesitation, re-thinking, or self-doubt, all of which may lead to yet further experiences. Yet, in accepting our imperfect nature, we must acknowledge that there will always exist a tension between what we think we know and what our experience appears to tell us. Experience contains both subjective and objective elements within it and humankind's ability to interpret experience is not immediate and can be time consuming. Importantly, moreover, as social beings, we must be willing to accept that the experience of the other (in the case under discussion, the disabled other) may be vital for that divine encounter to take place. Hence, any failure to recognize the significance of the other for our understanding of our condition in the world only succeeds in distancing us further from revelation.

(vii). The symbol of a "disabled God".

Writers in disability theology have taken up the idea of symbols as a means of divine revelation that O'Collins referred to. Nancy Eiesland, a pioneer in the field of disability the theologian of disability and her work has advanced a whole range of increased research on the issue. Since Eiesland other commentators have sought to construct theological dialog on more pervasive ground that embraces the universality of human experience. As previously discussed, Creamer, for example, has suggested a focus on considering disability from a viewpoint of our limits and Reynolds has in turn focalized on our vulnerabilities as God's creatures. 288 This study has reflected on people with disabilities, not from the vantage point of what is seen as an often-oppressed minority group, but in terms of the universality of human experience. The question of people with disabilities has been framed from the viewpoint of otherness and the study has engaged a conversation between people with disabilities and the text of Genesis 1 on creation where the scriptural text places an unambiguous emphasis on the goodness of creation and on the essential harmony and complementarity of existence. This reading offers support for those like Creamer and Reynolds who uphold the need for a theology of disability which goes beyond notions of access and inclusion to embrace all aspects of the lived experience of people with disabilities especially concerning issues of communion, hospitality and discipleship. In particular this study urges such a theology to embrace the vision of relationship, which it is argued, with Bonhoeffer, lies at the heart of creation itself. Finally, the study contends that the face of Christ is to be found in the other and that, therefore by fully embracing otherness, commanding pathways for redemption may be set in motion for all humankind. 288 Creamer, Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities.; Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion : A Theology of Disability and Hospitality.

Limitations of the study.

While this study has addressed the issue of people with disabilities through a prism of otherness, a field I believe to be relatively unexplored as yet, it cannot claim in itself to have come close to establishing firm ground on which any definitive theology of disability may in some measure be constituted. Rather the study is merely suggestive of ways to proceed in research on people with disabilities that fully embraces the nature of humankind's inherent becomingness. The precise nature of the interplay between self and the other that this study held as being the tool that creation provides us with necessary for the establishment of authentic truth and freedom, needs to be further explored. In particular, the forces that act within the bond that is formed as a result of this fertile interaction might be explored with respect to the potential establishment in this process of a nexus of constructive and affirmative power which is capable of restoring both dignity and recognition to our perception of fellowship. From this we might be able to derive insights and concrete lessons from the realities experienced by those with disabilities such that ways of being in the world can be improved for all. Likewise, the study might serve as a starting point for pursuing the concept of otherness and the role of disability within this by exploring the nature of power as defined in terms of Paul's understanding of it in 2 Corinthians. 289 The supposed weaknesses believed to reside in the other's imagined capacity (or lack of) of expression, of participation, of witness even, might be examined from the viewpoint of this Pauline conception of power that sees strength "made perfect in weakness".

Constraints on word count obviously meant that the study had to restrict its primary and secondary sources. Other readings of creation could have been pursued and a focus could have been developed which was not restricted only to Genesis 1. Without the constraints