Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist Analysis

209 Pages·1994·12.334 MB·English

by  Paula M. Cooey

Religious Imagination and the Body
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Religious Imagination
and the Body
A Feminist Analysis
PAULA M. GOOEY
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
7994
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Toyko
Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland Madrid
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1994 by Paula M. Cooey
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press,
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cooey, Paula M., 1945-
Religious imagination and the body : a feminist analysis / Paula M. Cooey.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-19-508735-6
1. Body, Human—Religious aspects.
2. Imagination—Religious aspects.
3. Woman (Theology).
4. Feminist theory-
5. Partnoy, Alicia, 1955-
6. Morrison, Toni.
7. Kahlo, Frida.
8. Philosophical theology.
I. Title.
BL604.B64C66 1994 291.2'2—dc20 93-30807
9 8 7 6 5 4 32 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Philip C. Nichols, Jr.
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Preface
This book is a work of philosophical theology. In the preface to Reli-
gion within the Limits of Reason Alone Immanuel Kant coined the
phrase "philosophical theology/' which he proposed as a science
directly related to what he called "biblical theology." He defined the
concerns of biblical theologians as the care of the soul, the establish-
ment of right teaching (therefore, censorship), and, if the theologians
were scholars as well as clergy, the prevention of theological inter-
ference in the cultivation of the other sciences (self-critique). Al-
though a philosophical theologian might draw upon some of the
same materials available to the biblical theologian, the distinguishing
purpose of philosophical theology was critical, constructive, and the-
oretical rather than doctrinal, and the chief criterion of accountability,
human reason, rather than ecclesial or biblical authority. The philo-
sophical theologian thus had responsibility for rendering such con-
cerns for the care of the soul, right doctrine, and theological self-
critique accountable to reason. Exploring theoretical assumptions
within limits set by reason meant for Kant focusing especially on
theological assumptions about the relation between human nature
and religion. He even recommended further that academic instruction
in biblical theology be concluded each term with a series of lectures
on what he called a "purely philosophical theory of religion."1 Kant
submitted the second section or "book" of Religion within the Limits,
his treatment of good and evil as conflicting principles within human
nature, in 1792. This critical analysis was ironically denied permission
for publication by the state's theological censors on the grounds that it
controverted biblical teaching. Nevertheless, the volume in its entirety
was finally published in 1793, though the controversy over Kant's
right as a scholar (rather than a cleric) to publish the work continued
beyond its publication.
viii Preface
Two hundred years later, we have lost much of the anti-
establishment and democratizing power of reason. Reason, far more
narrowly and less morally defined than Kant would have intended,
has itself taken on connotations of the censorial. Reason in the West-
ern present, not unlike revelation in the Western past, has become a
domain of elite interpreters, now primarily academicians, whose
knowledge is so specialized and esoteric that intelligent lay people
have little or no access to knowledge. Defined even more narrowly in
a positivistic, scientific context as technological ratiocination (again in
striking contrast to Kant's view), and abstracted from any historical
context, the exercise of reason has often masked authoritarian ideo-
logical concerns, such that one necessarily comes to regard appeals to
reason as suspicious and to view the authority vested in both reason
and science as troubling and problematic.
Healthy suspicion and skepticism notwithstanding, if one is honest,
these very qualities themselves depend upon the ability to analyze
critically and to articulate publicly to another, in short the ability to
reason. Reason, historicized and understood more generously, is not
only potentially available to almost everyone; it is indispensable to
historical agency, however socially constructed, just as it is necessary
to change for the better—both individual and social betterment.
Though Kant's own assumptions are now as subject to questioning as
those he challenged, his point was, among other objectives, to legiti-
mate questioning as a supreme value in its own right and as an
empowering activity.
In a context of questioning, the phrase "philosophical theology"
continues to be a useful way to describe analysis and critique of
systematic and dogmatic theology in regard to their underlying pre-
suppositions concerning the relation between religious phenomena
and behavior, on the one hand, and what it means to be human, on
the other hand. Furthermore, in this post-modern era, critical analysis
extends to the underlying assumptions involved in the development
of theories of religion as well. And most importantly, because philo-
sophical theology addresses a relation between religion and the hu-
man, what it means to be human itself, particularly the significance of
gender, is subject to scrutiny. In short, nothing escapes critical analy-
sis, or what is now more fashionably called deconstruction. Philo-
sophical theology, understood to include all these tasks, thus becomes
cultural critique and construction. It remains philosophical theology,
nevertheless, insofar as it reflects an approach to culture in general
and religious symbol systems in particular centered by theological
concerns. In contrast to the relation between doctrinal theology and
Preface ix
its theological author, philosophical theology does not depend for its
validity upon whether the philosophical theologian, or more recently,
thealogian, is theistic or atheistic, idealist or materialist, part of a
religious community or solely an academic scholar (still a member of
a community).2 On the contrary, the task of the philosophical theo-
logian partly depends on challenging these very dualisms and their
conceptual content, to begin with.
This book is a work of philosophical theology as I have defined it
here. As such, it is concerned with various presuppositions of reli-
gious symbol systems, religious beliefs, and narratives of transforma-
tional experience. I focus not only upon the authority with which we
invest beliefs and experience, but also upon the theoretical assump-
tions held by theologians, thealogians, artists, and scholars concern-
ing what constitutes experiencing human selves, the worlds in which
they live, and the deities they worship (though less attention is given
explicitly to deities). What distinguishes this book from other books to
date that share similar concerns lies in my approach to these issues.
Taking my cues from Elaine Scarry, who writes in a different aca-
demic field, I approach these issues by raising over and over again the
question of the relation between religious imagination and the body,
most especially, though not exclusively, the "gendered" female
body.3 This approach has been fruitful in my opinion not so much in
terms of finding definitive answers, as in clarifying and re-casting old
questions and forcing new ones.
Ambitious as the scope of this project and its approach may seem, I
have nevertheless limited myself to public (or quasi-public), explicitly
religious contexts. I deal with a range of experience, defined at one
end of the spectrum by narrative and visual imagery, expressed in
religious symbolism, testifying to physical suffering and political vio-
lence, and by narrative positively describing spiritual transformation
in explicitly thealogical and theological terms, at the other end.
Though I allude to other forms of pain and violence briefly, I do not
explicitly address their significance insofar as they may occur in reli-
gious contexts. Scarry herself has done an excellent treatment of the
ritual substantiation of reality through the male human body in con-
texts of war and torture. In addition, though there are scholars in
religious studies who may disagree with Mary Daly's approach and
conclusions, I consider her work on religious sadomasochism as it
affects women's bodies to be ground breaking.4 Yet neither these two
works nor mine addresses one of the most violent arenas of human
life in this country, an arena often shrouded in religious mystification,
the family home. At least as dangerous to women, children, and