face of the deep: a theology of becomingby catherine keller

Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming by Catherine KellerReview by: Douglas SturmSoundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 87, No. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 2004), pp. 236-241Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41179079 .

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236 SOUNDINGS Renfroe, Sturm, Ross-Bryant

gencies as permanent features of social systems" (235). Here, Ruggiero's argument seems quite relevant as it calls to mind problems with defining such contentious terms as terror, terrorist, and terrorism in current political debates. Indeed, Ruggiero's work nicely illustrates how literature can enhance our understanding of other disciplines as well as contemporary political is- sues. I only wish Ruggiero had the time and space to go even further in questioning these definitional and conceptual frameworks and to marshal additional literary texts (Dickens's Bleak House comes to mind for its treatment of disease, squalor, and state sanctioned delinquency) in the effort.

Alicia Mischa Renfroe University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Catherine Keller Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming London and New York: Routledge, 2003

Despite its reputation in some circles, the field of contemporary theology is abuzz with innovative musings over the most critical questions of our age. Even though traditionalist and orthodox voices are far from mute, they are now enjoined by a cacophony of discordant perspectives, each bringing to the fo- rum a highly compelling way of considering those questions, sometimes accusing inherited patterns of thought and practice with narrow-mindedness, if not outright oppression. Intriguingly, these discordant perspectives provide startlingly new angles on the very traditions the traditionalists pretend to preserve, al- lowing us to see our own histories afresh.

More importantly, these perspectives expose fundamental frac- tures and fissures within the structures of ¿he modern world that, if ignored, threaten to bring the grand adventure of life in which we are engaged to its utter ruination. That is the intended import of such movements as liberation theology, Korean theology, Black theology, Latino theology, theology of ecology, and the like, over the past forty years.



Readings for St. Breáis 237

Catherine Keller must be counted among that lot, with her dis- tinctively polyphonic voice composed of themes and tonalities taken especially from feminist, poststructuralist, and process thought. Keller, a professor of constructive theology at Drew Uni- versity, is, on the negative side of her vocation, struggling against the constrictions of all kinds of "dominology," theological and political, that suppress the full creativity of life in the name of some higher authority. On its affirmative side, she would pro- mote the liberation of our radically differing energies as we engage severally, yet in our connectedness, in a never-ending process of forming and reforming the future.

Given her agenda, Keller's theological texts are provocative and prickly, as she stretches our minds in directions that we may not have considered seriously but that just might enable us to transform our ways of thinking and living. Her latest book, Face of the Deep, seems, at first glance, to have a minute focus. As such, it might be construed as simply a commentary on a single verse of scripture that, in itself, is but a subordinate clause of the opening sentence of the book of Genesis, a sentence announcing the creative work of the divine: "[T]he earth was a formless void (tohu va bohu), darkness was on the face of the deep {tehom), and the spirit of God (ruach Elohim) vibrating on the face of the waters . . . ." But, as Keller explores that mysterious clause given its critical placement in holy writ, her reflections lead her toward the construction of a capacious proposal centered on the singular motif of depth (tehom) - embracing a tehomic hermeneutic, a tehomic theology, even, if only by connotation and suggestion, a tehomic praxis.

In developing the setting of her problematic, Keller distin- guishes two meanings of creation as rendered in the Jewish and Christian traditions: the more familiar creatio ex nihilo and the less familiar creatio ex profundis. The former is the credo of a logocentric theology; the latter is the counterproposal of a tehomic theology. Both theologies must grapple with the logic of that second verse of Genesis which assumes "something" that precedes the creative action of the divine. But what, exactly, is that "something"? How does it function in creation? What is its implication, if any, for the way we approach our common life in this day and age?




A logocentric theology, if it does not simply gloss over the verse, treats the reference as some kind of negativity - perhaps sheer chaos - that must be utterly squelched for creation's sake. A tehomic theology, in contrast, approaches that "something" as a welcome repository of unrealized possibilities, each one a can- didate for future actualization, even as they may be more or less incompatible with each other or frightening in their import.

Keller finds evidences within the scriptures of both these ver- sions of the "faceless void" (tehom) associated at times with the figure of Leviathan, the mythical monster of the seas. So, in Psalm 74, God must crush the heads of Leviathan for the sake of the earth: without conquest, no creation. The Leviathan is a sym- bol of non-being at odds with the divine intention. In Psalm 104, on the other hand, the Leviathan is not a monster to be slain; it is rather a feature of the waters, something to be cherished as con- tributing to the playful and pluriform grandeur of the creative process, albeit a "something" whose contours might be enlivened through refinement as life goes on its way.

However, where the scriptural text is, if you will, open-textured on this question, theologians in the early church, distressed with the deviance of heretical developments, determined one way as the only way: creatio ex nihilo. That doctrine alone, they pro- nounced, preserves the omnipotence of God; that doctrine alone supports Christian monotheism; that doctrine alone is orthodox; and, Keller ruminates, that doctrine alone is not without its gen- der bias, sustaining the supremacy of the masculine principle within the church with its propensity to favor order over chaos, unity over difference, dominance over possibility.

Yet, Keller is careful to note, not all church fathers were in full agreement on this question. Augustine's Confessions, for instance, betrays a sensitivity to that "something/nothing" of Genesis 1.2 that God addresses in the creative act. At least in this text, Augus- tine seems more "tehomophilic" than other church fathers and, therefore, more appreciative of the feminine principle (associated, Keller conjectures, with his highly influential mother, Monica) .

In the neo-orthodoxy of modern times, Keller, while sympa- thetic to Karl Barth's concern for relationalism, is critical of his version of the patristic insistence on the omnipotence of God. To Barth, the will of God is by itself sufficient for creation, sur-



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mounting the perils of nothingness and standing in judgment on the evils of this world that threaten its undoing. Of course, where the early church fathers were struggling against heretical movements within the church in the formation of their credo, modern neo-orthodox theologians were recoiling against the juggernaut of a fanatical fascism whose fury seemed limitless.

Over against the prevailing proclivity of Christian theology to favor the theme of creatio ex nihilo, Keller assumes her constructive task: to shape the beginnings of a radical alternative, a tehomic hermeneutic and a tehomic theology. Her opening gambit in the former aspect of her task (a tehomic hermeneutic) is to insist that the second verse of Genesis is not just to be inter- preted; it itself invites a certain mode of interpretation. It sug- gests, that is, a "dialogical hermeneutic." Even as God acts not by sheer fiat but in respectful relation to the "face of the deep," so we are not to dictate the meaning of texts before us through a preconceived mind set. Rather, interpreter and text are joined together in a process of co-generativity working toward the construction of new meanings. From this angle, Keller proceeds to a creative interpretation of two texts, one scriptural (the book of Job) and the other literary (Herman Melville's Moby Dick); in both of these texts, the seas and the Leviathan who dwells therein occupy a prominent place, reminiscent of the waters pre- ceding creation in Genesis. Appropriately, the fecundity of Kel- ler's ponderings on these haunting texts matches that which she attributes to the seas themselves, ranging from symbological reflections and questions about theodicy to obiter dicta about the whaling industry and homoeroticism.

About one-third of Keller's book, however, is given to the second aspect of her constructive task: a sketch of her tehomic theology, a theology of becoming in which panentheism occupies pride of place. In her rendering, God is not a transcendent being, a "wholly other" who resides in some higher realm, dictating what shall be, much like a commander-in-chief. Rather, God is intimately engaged in the world, with the world, for the world. God and world are inextricably interrelated and interdependent. They are engaged, each with the other, in a continuous creative struggle - sometimes together, sometimes in tension, but each responsive to happenings at hand.




In comprehending the sense of the opening passages of Gene- sis, Keller would therefore have us distinguish between an "origin" and a "beginning." The stories in those opening passages are not about some absolute origin of the universe, a Big Bang initiated by divine power. Rather, they are about our day-to-day lives in which, with every decision, we confront a new beginning, the formation of a new tomorrow. In each decision, God's life, in a way, is as much at stake as our own. Goďs destiny and ours are intertwined, even if God's determination is ever more trustwor- thy than our own. The stories of creation have to do not with the origin of the universe, but with the beginning of each new event in the continuing history of the world.

In this continuing interactive process, we are constantly in the presence of the unknown, the ineffable, the unpredictable, the darkness of the earth. That darkness or depth resides in the na- ture of a never-ending creative process in which we must constantly reassess who we are, where we are, and what is to be done. But that darkness is not a frightful abyss. It is a presence that, with its risks and uncertainties, is the crux of our freedom to be- gin again. In effect, in our comings and goings, we rely on a divine matrix that is always with us, but we are the ones responsible for the direction we shall assume for ourselves and for the world. The dwelling of God is, therefore, not in some place beyond and above us. It is in our midst. It does not dictate what we shall be or what we shall do, but urges us to engage together in the work at hand. Keller thus writes of a "democracy of becoming" as the implication of the biblical understanding of creation.

As nearly as can be told, at least by inference from this text, Keller's intent in constructing this tehomic theology of becoming is not to leave her reflections on a more abstract level of theology - though even that has its attraction and manifests a direction which, while not absent from other strong voices over the past several decades, stands over against more popular forms of God- talk. Instead, her intent, I would conjecture, is to make a difference in our common life. It is to point us toward a "tehomic praxis" (my term, not hers), if you will. Scattered liberally throughout text is a subtext consisting of various asides, cracks, comments, stage whispers giving the readers more than a subtle hint of the political orientation she considers appropriate to her theological perspective. Capitalism, colonialism, homophobia,



Readings for St. Brevis 241

racism, anthropocentrism and androcentrism, religious exclusiv- ism all come under her judgment. At times, she seems to bring the predominant tendencies of Western civilization as a whole to task for their strangulating effects. She would favor, it seems, a "politics of heterogeneity," maybe some kind of "social democracy." However, these are all but hints of the kind of praxis en- tailed in her theology of becoming, a praxis whose structural delineations remain undeveloped. To be sure, one text cannot do all things for all people. Yet, the task of formulating a tehomic praxis is not alien to, nor should it be separate from, that of pro- moting a tehomic theology. At this point in our history, it might be argued that it is in fact a matter of highest priority.

Keller's fundamental insights in this text are worthy of wide- spread consideration, certainly by those within the circle of the Abrahamic religions, and perhaps even by those outside it as well. Unfortunately, however, its style will deter that prospect. Sometimes abstruse and obscure, sometimes playful and poetic, always serious, the text assumes a special kind of reader. It is eru- dite in its scholarly references; it is multilingual in its allusions; its language is often more suggestive than direct. Such a style has its place. Keller may have designed this text for a limited audience with the background and patience to work with it, but its message deserves to be heeded by the many, not only by the few. None- theless, I commend its close reading for an angle on theological explorations much needed during a time of turmoil and trouble in our common lives.

Douglas Sturm Bucknell University



face of the deep: a theology of becomingby catherine keller

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