A Review of “A Constructive Theology of Intellectual Disability: Human Being as Mutuality and Response”

Abstract

In A Constructive Theology of Intellectual Disability, Molly C. Haslam seeks to develop an understanding of human being that includes individuals with profound disabilities in an attempt to weaken what she sees as a bias toward rationality and promote the well being of individuals with profound disabilities. Haslam critiques the theological anthropologies of Gordon Kaufman (1995) and George Lindbeck (1984) and their privileging of rationality, since both claim the ability to use symbolism as essential to human being, thus precluding those with profound disabilities from full humanity. Haslam also evaluates the concept of human being as the imago Dei looking at both Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of human reason as the image of God and John Calvin’s understanding of our obedience to God as mirroring the image of God. Haslam finds in both a persistent emphasis on rationality that devalues individuals with profound disabilities and claims that our concept of human being should not be based on such an intrinsic capacity. Instead, Haslam begins with Martin Buber’s (1958) realm of the “in between” and argues that we should base our concept of human being in relationality. According to Haslam, the shift from capacity to relationality provides a concept of human being that is no longer discriminatory of individuals with profound intellectual disabilities. Haslam sees her method as both revisionist—in her correlation of the experience of individuals with profound disability in society with the traditional Christian understanding of human being—and as liberationist—in that she sides with individuals with profound intellectual disabilities and recognizes their marginalization. Haslam acknowledges that, because individuals with profound intellectual disabilities are unable to participate in dialog or maintain the speaking center, she has had to rely on nonsymbolic communication through observation in constructing her model. As the basis of her observations, Haslam presents the nonsymbolic communication of Chan, an individual she has constructed based on years of experience as a physical therapist working with individuals with profound disabilities Although she is aware of the danger of projecting her own idea onto the nonsymbolic communication of an individual with profound disabilities,