The Burden of Election and Modern Individualism: Toward a Ratzingerian Critique

This work brings together biblical, philosophical, and cultural studies to develop a relational ontology of election, imbued with theological and anthropological insights capable of critiquing modern individualism, understood as the sequestering of the self from God, from others, and eventually from oneself. This individualism crystalizes out of the progressive instrumentalization of reason and the rejection of faith couched in the devolution process in the history of modern philosophy, beginning from Descartes’ cogito through the Enlightenment movement to Nietzsche’s Übermensch to the now in vogue moral and cultural relativism. Contrary to the individualistic vision of reality, this dissertation, while asserting the unrejectability of faith and performing a rehabilitation of faith and reason, culture and freedom, proposes a rediscovery of authentic humanism rooted in “otherness.” It builds upon core principles from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s theology, namely, the dialogical nature of creation and the imago Dei, pro-existence, vicarious representation, and the Christological foundation of being, and upon the biblical stories of election, analyzed under the themes of primogeniture, filiation, and vicarious representativeness of belovedness. These themes are engaged in dialogue with Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Gary Anderson, and Jon Levenson, among others. The central argument made here is as follows: The dialogical nature of the human being is owed to the primordial elective will of God which precedes creation – “I chose you before the creation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). Our usage of this text rejects John Calvin’s double predestination but centers the “choosing” on Christ, the Beloved Son of the Father, the true elect, whose radical solidarity with the human race ultimately becomes an existence pro nobis, even unto death on the Cross, hence his vicarious bearing of our reprobation. Therefore, he is both firstborn of creation and firstborn from the dead, through whom we are chosen and created, chosen and redeemed. There emerge herein four stages of election: the primordial elective will of God; election at creation; the manifestation of election in salvation history, from Adam and Eve to Abraham to Israel and her identity as a prophetic promise of universal salvation, which is realized in Christ; and the eschatological fulfilment of election. In these stages are likewise discerned three dimensions of election: election as an act of God, election as a state resulting from the latter and objectively coinciding with our being created in imago Dei, and election as a response to the latter two, that which is demanded of the human being, who can truly be spoken of as “person” only in terms of relationship with God, not as a solitary “I” but as a fellow “I”, a co-existent. Thus, the true meaning of humanity is found not in solipsistic existence but in vicarious pro-existence; hence, the insolvency of the modern culture of individualism. Traditional African cultural tenets of communitarian personalism are in the end proposed as a universalizable alternative that approximates more closely to the Christian humanism and biblical metaphysics of election developed in this work.