Abstract
The point of departure for this study is a curious turn of phrase found twice in Paul’s letters: “I no longer [verb] but [subject plus verb] in me” (see Gal 2:19–20 and Rom 7:15–18, 20). The “I” that seems to be replaced here by some other indwelling agent goes on to appear as the subject of active verbs (see especially Gal 2:20). For Eastman, this hints at “a pattern of talking about persons in which the self is never on its own but always socially and cosmically constructed in relationship to external realities that operate internally as well” (8). So the first, heuristic question to be pursued here is this: “Is the person foundationally, essentially a bounded, discrete being who exists primarily in the form of self-relation, such that self-relation mediates and grounds other-relation? Or is the person primarily constituted in a relational exchange, such that other-relation mediates and grounds the person’s self-relation?” (23; emphasis added). Second, what categories of personhood does Paul himself actually deploy? And finally, how might Paul be a fruitful conversation partner in contemporary discussions of personhood?
Chapters 1–3 address the first question (“What is a person anyway?”) from several angles. Chapter 1 interacts with the Stoic conception of the self as articulated by Paul’s younger contemporary, the philosopher Epictetus. Chapter 2 offers a fascinating tour of contemporary work in philosophy of mind and in neuroscience—especially as elaborated by philosopher Shaun Gallagher and experimental psychologist Vasudevi Reddy—concerning the constitution of the self. According to this research, the individual “does not exist in isolation but is always in relationships that in some way are crucial to personal identity” (76). Might Paul have affinities with this perspective? Chapter 3 gives some preliminary reasons for thinking so, sketching Paul’s use of “body” and “flesh” as terms for human embeddedness in the physical world and in social relationships.
Chapters 4–6 give extended exegetical attention to the second question above (“What does Paul actually assume about the person?”). Chapter 4 studies the famously difficult narrative of the conflicted self in Romans 7, finding that the self “participates in a larger cosmos with hostile powers,” that this participation is “corporeal and constitutive of the self,” and that the self is thus “shaped in its totality in relation to that dominating and indwelling power” (124). The resulting “I” is thoroughly intersubjective, and “participates in and is temporally constituted in relationship to cosmic powers.” Chapter 4 ends on the thought that if the self is structured in other-relationship, then its liberation from hostile powers and its health will require a new relational matrix supplied by divine action. Chapter 5 reads the “Christ hymn” of Phil 2:6–11 as a Pauline account of the formation of this new matrix. According to E., the hymn sets forth a narrative in which Christ imitates humanity: Christ plays the role of Adam, making the part of “Adamic humanity” fully his own and playing this role to the bitterest end of death on a cross. Thereby, Christ somehow implants his person in—“im-personates”—the Adamic humanity previously held hostage by sin and death. The “somehow” of the previous sentence is explicated with reference to the findings of Reddy in the field of experimental psychology. In studies of human development, being imitated (as a baby is when its mother reflects back to the child the faces it makes) seems to elicit intimacy with the imitator and a tendency to reciprocate with imitation of the other’s person. Something similar, argues E., occurs between Christ and humanity. Finally, chapter 6 tackles the question of what it might mean when Paul claims, in Galatians 2, to be crucified with and indwelt by Christ—and just so also to live with Christ. E.’s answer is that, read from the perspective of a decentered self, Paul is saying that he is mediated to himself by and in a world of relations, and since Christ has changed this world, he (Paul) lives in simultaneous continuity and rupture from his past self. Finally, in a brief conclusion, E. sketches some of the contributions that Paul might make to conceptualizing persons theologically and caring for them pastorally.
It was often unclear to me what all the comparisons and partial agreements among so many different voices (e.g., those of Paul and Epictetus, of popular practices of the body in the ancient world, of Bultmann and Käsemann, and of contemporary theorists like Gallagher and Reddy—to cite only examples mentioned in chapter 3) were all supposed to add up to. And there are omissions that struck me as peculiar: for example, there is practically no mention of rites and sacraments in the formation of persons, though Paul himself seems to have thought they could be constitutive of a person’s identity (Gal 3:27). Nevertheless, this is a fascinating and immensely suggestive study, which begs for engagement from systematicians, ethicists, and other exegetes.