The place and meaning of suffering in the theology of Edward Schillebeeckx

grantor: University of St. Michael's CollegeSuffering is a formative factor in the development of the theology of Edward Schillebeeckx. It is not a self-evident theme; creation and salvation are the overriding themes of Schillebeeckx's theological enterprise. Suffering is, however, the pervasive, existential reality amidst which he tries to make the gospel intelligible in the modern world. Suffering is, as it were, a force of constant pressure impacting and molding Schillebeeckx's thought from different angles throughout his theological development. And this makes sense when one considers that Schillebeeckx has spent his life proclaiming God's commitment to human happiness in a world more schooled in suffering than in joy. Though he never develops an explicit theology of suffering, Schillebeeckx demonstrates that salvation can only be imaged and articulated in counterpoint to the concrete reality of suffering. This, in fact, is the essence of the notion of “negative contrast experience” which emerges in his later theology. In other words, Schillebeeckx's method of doing theology corresponds to the essence of his theological message. The dialectic of human suffering and salvation is most identifiable after Schillebeeckx's dramatic shift wherein human experience assumes center stage in his theology. The fundamental elements of this dialectic are, however, present even in Schillebeeckx's earliest work. Thus, the task of this dissertation will engage us in an analysis of how suffering operates as a formative factor throughout the whole of Schillebeeckx's theological development. The dissertation proceeds according to Schillebeeckx's own image of the hermeneutical spiral, showing how his appropriation of material from a variety of disciplines is determined by the dialectic of the gospel of salvation and the human reality of suffering. Schillebeeckx's early formation in the thought of Thomas Aquinas played a significant, if implicit, role in his theological development. In particular, the classical categories of original justice and original sin warrant attention as paradigmatic for Schillebeeckx's later development of negative contrast experience. Ultimately, we see that the reality of suffering illumines the more original reality of grace, born out by the Christian community's witness to God's solidarity with sufferers in a “discipleship of presence.”Ph.D