Theology
Posted Friday, November 30, 2007
Any Question Whatever
by Pamela Cooper-White
At the Lutheran Seminary at Philadelphia, we have an annual tradition, hearkening back to the Middle Ages, called a “Quodlibet.” The word literally means “whatever.” The entire community is invited to come together and pose any theological question whatever to that year’s “Quodlibetal professor.” The following week, the professor comes back and delivers an address in which answers to those questions are interwoven in a confession of faith. Last year, our wonderful colleague Fred Borsch was on the hot seat. This year, it was my turn—a daunting task!
This article will share one brief reflection from that day: All theology, and especially pastoral theology, begins with the pain and brokenness of the human condition (and indeed, all creation). In my most recent book, Many Voices: Pastoral Psychotherapy in Relational and Theological Perspective, I described the following characteristics of human persons: Human beings are good, yet vulnerable; embodied; both alike and unique; intrinsically relational; multiple; mutable; loved, and therefore loving beings. I am particularly interested in the idea of multiplicity—that as “selves” in the world, we are not as unified as we like to think. Our thoughts, actions, feelings, and even physical states shift and change in relation to different people with whom we relate, and the different contexts in which we find ourselves at any given time. Contemporary psychological theories have proposed quite sophisticated ways in which our internal life, including unconscious motives, desires, and old relationships going back to childhood, consists of a wide variety of versions of ourselves, particularly as we have unconsciously internalized or absorbed others who have influenced us over the many years since our birth. We wake up, and conduct our day hour by hour in different moods, governed by different memories and associations, depending on the people we are with, and the feelings that are triggered by any particular surrounding. We behave somewhat differently when we are at work, at home, or at play. Different “sides of ourselves,” with different levels of maturity, come to the fore, depending on whether we are at ease, or under stress.
I believe that we should cultivate a greater appreciation for all the parts of ourselves. Can we begin to imagine that God loves even the parts of ourselves that we have rejected, or suppressed from awareness? It seems to me that the more we can come to know and befriend—or at least accept—the many aspects of our own complex personalities, especially the parts of ourselves we most dislike or try to disavow, the more we can be open toward other people in all their complexity. By recognizing and loving all the parts of our own complicated selves, we are less likely to dump our “stuff” onto others. By being able to refrain from such projections, we are more able to relinquish the need to control, subdue, or even punish those we see as “Other.” We can begin perhaps to glimpse the other as God sees both ourselves and everyone—as beloved, in all our messy complexity. Trusting in this love of God that “passeth all understanding” is the beginning of genuine Christian listening and honest speech.
Pamela Cooper-White is a priest in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. She has authored four books, including Many Voices: Pastoral Psychotherapy and Theology in Relational Perspective (Fortress, 2006), Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling (Fortress, 2004), and The Cry of Tamar: Violence Against Women and the Church’s Response (Fortress, 1995). This summer she will be moving to Atlanta to take a new call as Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care and Counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA.