A Theology of Alterity: Levinas, von Balthasar, and Trinitarian Praxis

Six. Trinitarian Praxis

210 SIX Trinitarian Praxis At the very moment where everything seems lost, everything is possible . The evocative condition of alterity defines a praxis of being for the Other so that the impossible might be breached. Where praxis takes us toward a quest to encounter Jesus the Christ in the face of the Other, we have discovered something Trinitarian about our existence : the passivity and openness of self-giving love. The true beauty and good truth of God’s glory in personal encounter, drawing us onward to travel through the limits of human understanding, equips us with a new understanding. We learn that suffering, humiliation, and persecution break open a theo-logic of Christ’s kenotic personhood . Such self-giving love for us is a Trinitarian praxis, and it follows that a theology of alterity signifies an encounter with Christ and with the Other in Christ. There is often confusion and ambiguity in Levinas’s style of thought. There are also so many various interpretations of Levinas’s thinking, creating some intellectual vertigo and making things more complex. Yet Levinas’s writings help to attach sense and meaning to theology to the point of becoming a “guide to life” or a dramatic commentary on the degree to which humanity is an image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26–27).1 In the Levinasian comedy of realizing how guilty and responsible we are before the Other, we uncover the tragedy of being too late to respond to the destitution, misery, and loneliness on the face of the poor one. If the human person resembles God’s image, then, for Levinas, the image seems to fade when selfinterest takes over. However, the more the self or subject responds with a heart toward others, the more its image takes on the goodness Trinitarian Praxis 211 and truth of God. And so the subject remains not just an image of God, but further, hypostatically, acts otherwise through being-forthe -Other. To this degree, to resemble God reflects a journey of growing more and more into the likeness of God, responsible for everything and everyone. Such Trinitarian praxis or ethical transcendence will seem almost hyperbolic in the way that it reflects the difficult condition of radical alterity. But the progress of the journey is eternal. There are no limits to responsibility and love. Such thinking can hopefully evoke a passion or an ethical melancholy affecting us before all consciousness. Where philosophy and theology not only forge insight and reflection, but also attach sense and meaning in the world of emotions, there can be much value to be gained. The value here lies in passivity, ethical melancholy, vulnerability, and weakness. In times of hardship, melancholy, and stress, the self can feel the end of the world has arrived (Mark 13:24–25). However, taking a stance otherwise and inverting this feeling into a sense of passion allows for the potential to respond with prayer and desire to wait on for the good. We may call this grace or the inward word of God working in the soul. Where the self becomes pensive and prayerful in response to its sadness, a feeling of melancholy, vigilance, and even spontaneity may develop and inspire the self to respond in new ways beyond “violence, hate and disdain” (EI 89). In other words, imagining the world otherwise signifies the possibility for melancholy and vigilance to unite with ethics. As a result, something merciful and good may come to mind such as prayer and compassion (substitution for others). Even a little ethical melancholy, or a little good—like an “After you, Sir!” or the benediction of “Hello!”—could be enough to produce a change of heart and a hope for the promise of peace and justice (89). In the way that Levinas’s philosophy can be a guide to life, it can perhaps begin to penetrate the center of the self’s being, producing a spontaneous passion of ethical melancholy and ethical vigilance. A way to approach Levinas’s writings is to encounter it not solely within the totality of knowledge, but as a site of passion, vulnerability, vigilance, and melancholy. In this site we may envision a Trinitarian 212 A Theology of Alterity praxis of holiness, “An original ethical event which would also be first theology” (IR 182). Addressing the underlying ethical principle of the Bible, Levinas writes: “Holiness thus shows itself as an irreducible possibility of the human...