Pygmies and Astomi and Sciopods, Oh My!: Augustine, Disability, and the Resurrection
Benjamin Parks, St. Louis University
It is common at American Christian funerals of people with disability for the minister and/or those gathered to speak of the departed as now existing in a perfect body free from all pain and suffering. While in a sense that is true, such language often turns to describe the heavenly body in ableist terms: the resurrected body is described in a way that reifies a particular understanding of the perfect body. Although such language is often well intended, it can lead to the pitying of the disabled that disability activists have rightly rejected. Worse still, it can fuel eugenic and transhumanist dreams.
Though his soteriology and understanding of the resurrected body is often misunderstood, Augustine of Hippo offers a way of imagining the resurrected body that challenges ableist understandings of what constitutes a properly human body while not disregarding the suffering that can come with a disability. Put more succinctly, Augustine can provide a middle ground for the social and biomedical models of disability. In this paper I will argue that given Augustine’s understanding of creation, beauty, and providence he is able to conceive of there being a wide array of bodily difference in the resurrection, even of bodies that we may think of as “disabled” but without suffering and pain. Moreover, since he allows for there to be such a level of bodily (and cognitive) difference in the resurrection, he also provides a safe guard against using the resurrection to fuel eugenic projects of human perfection.
In order to make my argument, I will engage a number of Augustine’s works including The Confessions, City of God, On Christian Teaching, and select sermons in addition to recent Augustinian scholarship, such as David Meconi’s The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification. Additionally, I will be in conversation with disability studies, specifically Nancy Eiesland’s The Disabled God.
Though his soteriology and understanding of the resurrected body is often misunderstood, Augustine of Hippo offers a way of imagining the resurrected body that challenges ableist understandings of what constitutes a properly human body while not disregarding the suffering that can come with a disability. Put more succinctly, Augustine can provide a middle ground for the social and biomedical models of disability. In this paper I will argue that given Augustine’s understanding of creation, beauty, and providence he is able to conceive of there being a wide array of bodily difference in the resurrection, even of bodies that we may think of as “disabled” but without suffering and pain. Moreover, since he allows for there to be such a level of bodily (and cognitive) difference in the resurrection, he also provides a safe guard against using the resurrection to fuel eugenic projects of human perfection.
In order to make my argument, I will engage a number of Augustine’s works including The Confessions, City of God, On Christian Teaching, and select sermons in addition to recent Augustinian scholarship, such as David Meconi’s The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification. Additionally, I will be in conversation with disability studies, specifically Nancy Eiesland’s The Disabled God.