Without Vulnerability, There Is No Love Toward A Cosmo-Theological Beauty of Being Vulnerable By Rev. Parulihan Sipayung, Gereja Kristen Protestan Simalungun (GKPS), Indonesia
Rev. Parulihan Sipayung is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in World Christianity and Intercultural (Mission) at Yonsei University-Global Institute of Theology (GIT), Korea. He is an ordained Pastor at Gereja Kristen Protestan Simalungun (GKPS), Indonesia. He worked as a missionary in Korea from 2016 to 2021. His research interests include the intersection between postcolonial theology, Public/Planetary theology, Asian and African philosophy, Simalungun studies, ecological studies, and indigenous wisdom. He can be contacted at lihan89@yonsei.ac.kr and https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3916-8161
Problems of Vulnerability
I
n the context of postmodern competition, there is an assumption that being an ideal person means being successful, advanced, strong, healthy, winning, and perfect. Vulnerability is often considered weaknesses and needs to be repaired, corrected, restored, and normalised. Vulnerability also refers to a social burden such as the elderly group, the children, the sick, the victims, and the poor.1 Some scholars associate vulnerability with disability. The assumption is: someone is vulnerable because he/she is disabled or his/her status as disabled makes him/her vulnerable. Medically, and this definition also seems to be adopted by the community and the church, disabled or vulnerable are considered as fragile, weak, imperfect, defective, and need medical and social help. This statement needs to be reconsidered. The argument of this article is neither to romanticise nor to idealise the condition of vulnerability but to respect and transform the paradigm about it. This article aims to explore the beauty of vulnerability. It argues that vulnerability is the nature of all creations. It is also the working background of philosophy and theology. Even God chooses to be vulnerable. If so, the vulnerable must have some important philosophical-theological lessons, ‘a cosmic beauty’, that may change the paradigm of the church and society.
Vulnerability: The Essence of Life Vulnerability and fragility are the fundamental essence of life. According to Sturla J. Stlsett, every human being is always vulnerable, he even emphasized “if a human being could be invulnerable, it would be inhuman”.2 Vulnerability comes from the Latin vulnerare which simply means to injure or harm. It illustrates human’s fragility to suffering. For Sturla, vulnerability could be articulated as “the ability to be corporeally, mentally, emotionally, and existentially affected by the presence, being, or acting of another or something other - It means openness, relatedness, mutability, and communicability.”3 In this vulnerable earth, everything that lives will die. Whenever life begins, the shadow of death rushes in. The growth process can also be comprehended as a process of aging, weakening and ending in death. In all living beings there are limitations both in time, being, and becoming. No creature is self-sufficient so that it can live alone. Human life changes rapidly, uncertainly, ambiguously, complex and prone to various unexpected things. Moreover in the current pandemic catastrophe, conditions of illness and death can occur at any time. Even though humans have capability of being resilient, intellectual imperfection, existential limitations, and scope that are bound by space and time create this vulnerability inevitably inescapable.4 So, it is not an exaggeration if I claim vulnerability is the essence of life.
1
Sturla J. Stlsett, “Towards a Political Theology of Vulnerability Anthropological and Theological Propositions.” Political Theology 16 (2015): 467.
2
Sturla J. Stlsett, “Towards a Political Theology of Vulnerability, 467-8.
3
Sturla J. Stlsett, “Towards a Political Theology of Vulnerability, 467.
4
Matthew R. McLennan argues “They are limited in at least three basic ways. First, they are logically limited, since not all human possibilities are compossible (i.e. possible together). Second, my existential possibilities are limited in time because humans are mortal and there are hard limits to human longevity. And finally, they are limited in scope because human lives and endeavours proceed from a place of situatedness, partiality and variously limited and fluctuating capacities.” See, Matthew R. McLennan, Philosophy and Vulnerability: Catherine Breillat, Joan Didion, and Audre Lorde (London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). Kindle chapter 1 - see the first chapter 1-32.
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