The Glory of God is Humanity Fully Alive: Exploring Eastern Orthodoxy as a resource for human ...

384 Pages·2013·2.22 MB·English

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Bates, Dana (2013) The glory of God is humanity fully alive: exploring Eastern Orthodoxy as a
resource for human development in conversation with the capability approach. PhD thesis,
Middlesex University. [Thesis]
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‘The Glory of God is Humanity Fully Alive: Exploring Eastern Orthodoxy as a resource
for human development in conversation with the capability approach’

Dana Bates
OCMS, Ph.D

Abstract
This dissertation argues that Eastern Orthodox theology is a framework for multidimensional
social change or improvement and can inform, and be informed by the multi-disciplinary social
science field of development studies. This claim will be examined by analyzing the Trinitarian
theology of the Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae in relation to the writings of Nobel
Economist Amartya Sen and his ‘capability approach’.

The argument begins by justifying EO’s interaction with development studies based on her
anthropological optimism. Critical is that supernatural revelation stands very close to and builds
on natural revelation. A Trinitarian theological anthropology then provides a rationale for, and
integration of, three key concepts in the social sciences: agency, solidarity, and structures.
This analytical framework is then used to assess the challenges of post-Communist contexts,
where most Orthodox live. The Communist downfall, it is argued, involved a failure to
incorporate each of these dimensions in human development. This analysis then serves to test
the adequacy of, and reveal weaknesses in, Amartya Sen’s freedom-focused social evaluation
framework known as the capability approach.

The dissertation proceeds with examining Orthodox salvation as movement from Being, to Well-
being, to Eternal-being where Well-being is, notably, the exercise of agency to develop the
potentials given in Being. Agency is not individualistic, but is structured into the virtues of
solidarity and incorporates the related notion of phronesis (practical reason). The virtue tradition
is then postulated as a promising link between theology and development studies. The virtue
tradition is analyzed in its classical background, modern human development, as well as both
Protestantism and Catholicism to facilitate a comparison with Eastern Orthodoxy. This analysis
shows that Orthodoxy offers a theological framework for human development in that she gives
priority of practical reason to contemplation, makes virtually no separation between grace and
nature, and provides a relevant method for synergizing salvation history with action on behalf of
human development.

‘The Glory of God is Humanity Fully Alive: Exploring Eastern
Orthodoxy as a resource for human development in conversation with
the capability approach’

by

Dana Bates
B.A. (Gordon College)
M-Div (Gordon-Conwell)

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the University of Middlesex

May 22, 2013

Oxford Centre for Mission Studies

DECLARATION
This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being
concunently submitted in candidature for any degree.
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(Candidate)
Date /' )o
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STATEMENT
1
This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction
services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote.
Other sources are acknowledged by midnotes or footnotes giving explicit references. A
bibliography is appended.
Signed (Candidate)
frr* //'Z,:t
Date ,j
STATEMENT 2
I hereby give consent for my thesis, if approved, to be available for photocopying by the British
Library and for Inter-Library Loan, for open access to the Electronic Theses Online Service
(EthoS) linked to the British Library, and for the title and summary to be made available to
outside or ganizations.
/)
/h-o,
Signed (Candidate)
Date
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis was envisioned, obviously in a much more primitive state, at the Capabilities
Conference in Pavia Italy, September 2004. There I first saw the basic connection
between the image-likeness (Eastern Orthodoxy) and capability-functioning (capabilities
approach) distinction that sparked this study. It was also there that I met one of my
supervisors, Severine Deneulin, who has not only been a fantastic academic advisor, but a
wonderful friend and support. I also want to thank Roland Hoksbergen of Calvin for his
encouragement over the years, as well as my supervisor for Staniloae, Silviu Rogobete.
Thanks are due to Young Life for allowing me to pursue this, as well as Northwestern (and
especially Dave Nonnemacher’s work along with Doug Carlson) and other colleges such
as Calvin (and especially Jeff Bouman there) and Gordon who have sent their students to
our Romania semester abroad, trusting that I would finish this project. I would also like to
thank the many volunteers who have worked in various capacities with our organization,
but especially the semester-abroad program administrators: Janelle Vandergrift, Daniel
Heffner, Kadie Becker, and Alice McFarlane. I would also like to thank the SG
Foundation and Patricia Beville for funding the first and final years of this research.
Thanks are also due to OCMS and the staff there for their support.
This PhD was built largely on late evenings, weekends, and vacation-time at the beach.
Thanks and deep gratitude are due especially to my wonderful wife Brandi, daughter
Briana and son Gabriel for their sacrifices and patience as this process endured much
longer than any of us hoped. I promise to make up for it in the next few years by taking
many real vacations together.
Heartfelt thanks are also due to my colleagues at New Horizons, especially those that have
been the long-term pillars, Diana Certan, Maria Neagu, and Ilie Popescu. The leadership
team has kept me from a lot of busy-work and demonstrated remarkable independence of
judgement and leadership, without which this research simply would not have been
possible. This has been such a gift to me personally, and to our family life, and is the
actual lived theology of “Bearing one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ”.
I hope and pray this investment in academic research will advance the youth development
we all believe so strongly in.

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Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................. III
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................................................. VI
1. INTRODUCTION: EASTERN ORTHODOXY AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES ................................. 1
2. JUSTIFYING THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN EO AND DS (METHODOLOGY) .................................. 17
2.1 EO Natural Theology ...................................................................................................... 17
2.2 God as Supreme Reason and Person ............................................................................... 26
2.3 Recovering “nature” in the Trinity and bridging with the social sciences ...................... 30
2.4 Development Studies: “Change for the Better”.............................................................. 37
2.5 Transcending Liberalism (and Communitarianism) ........................................................ 42
3. THE DIALOGUE IN CONTEXT: THEOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES ................................. 51
3.1 Background Considerations ............................................................................................ 51
3.2 The Marxist Precedent .................................................................................................... 62
3.2.1 Liberation Theology .............................................................................................. 63
3.2.2 Marxist inspired Communism ............................................................................... 66
3.2.3 Marxist Structuralism ............................................................................................ 72
3.3 The Communist Catastrophe ........................................................................................... 79
4. THE CAPABILITY APPROACH OF AMARTYA SEN .................................................................... 87
4.1 Equality of What? ............................................................................................................ 87
4.2 Communism and the relevance of the CA ..................................................................... 100
4.3 Beyond Individual Freedoms: a Trinitarian imaging of human development .............. 104
4.3.1 Agency (Person) .................................................................................................. 105
4.3.2 Solidarity (Communion) ..................................................................................... 108
4.3.3 Structures (Nature) .............................................................................................. 113
4.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 124
5. INCARNATION AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................ 127
5.1 Theosis: deification as ‘humanification’ ...................................................................... 128
5.2 Change for the Better: Image to Likeness .................................................................... 129
5.3 Maximus’s Triadic Movement ...................................................................................... 134
5.3.1 Being (Existence) ................................................................................................ 136
5.3.2 Well-being (Good Existence) .............................................................................. 146
5.3.3 Eternal-being (Eternal Existence) ....................................................................... 159
6. THE VIRTUES AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ......................................................................... 169
6.1 Is there a distinctive virtue tradition? ............................................................................ 169
6.2 Homeric, Platonic and Stoic virtues .............................................................................. 172
6.3 Aristotle: practical and contemplative reason .............................................................. 177
6.4 MacIntyre, feminist concerns, and his shift from narrative to nature ............................ 187
6.5 Virtues (almost) in Sen’s Capability Approach............................................................. 193
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6.6 Nussbaum’s derivation of her list and the CSV (positive psychology) ......................... 201
7. THE VIRTUES IN WESTERN THEOLOGY ................................................................................ 211
7.1 Heroism and Human Development ............................................................................... 212
7.2 Protestantism’s difficulty with the virtues ..................................................................... 216
7.3 A Protestant Retrieval: Stanley Hauerwas .................................................................... 224
7.4 Catholicism .................................................................................................................... 232
7.4.1 Vatican II and the decline of neo-scholasticism .................................................. 233
7.4.2 Virtues in Catholic Theology .............................................................................. 236
7.4.3 Maritain and Catholic Social Teaching ............................................................... 240
8. META-ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR ORTHODOX VIRTUES ............................................... 255
8.1 A phronetic science of human development ................................................................. 256
8.2 No natural-supernatural separation ................................................................................ 259
8.3 Practical Reason prior to Contemplative ....................................................................... 264
8.4 Staniloae’s Three Stages ................................................................................................ 267
8.4.1 Practical Reasoning or phronesis (First stage of spiritual ascent) ....................... 268
8.4.2 Natural Contemplation (Second stage of spiritual ascent) .................................. 275
8.4.3 Theological Contemplation (Third phase of spiritual ascent): ............................ 280
8.5 Practical Reasoning in the Capability Approach ........................................................... 282
9. ORTHODOX VIRTUES, SYNERGY, & SALVATION HISTORY .................................................. 291
9.1 Select Orthodox virtues ................................................................................................. 291
9.2 Agape: communitarian (ecclesial) and cosmopolitan ................................................... 298
9.3 Synergy: the general formula for the working of God in the world .............................. 309
9.3.1 Horizontal Synergy ............................................................................................. 310
9.3.2 Vertical Synergy .................................................................................................. 315
9.3.3 Salvation History and Human Development ....................................................... 320
10. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 333
11. GLOSSARY OF TERMS ........................................................................................................... 347
12. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRIMARY SOURCES: NUSSBAUM, SEN, AND STANILOAE ...................... 351
13. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................... 353

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