Mortal Gods: Ernest Becker and Fundamental Theology by Sally A. Kenel
By Thomas Bergen | August 14, 2021
Ernest Becker’s interdisciplinary work has caught the attention of psychologists, but less so theologians. Sally A. Kenel teaches in the theology department at St. John’s University on Staten Island, and in Mortal Gods, Kenel highlights the theological aspects of Becker’s work. Using the theological method of correlation, her purpose is twofold: 1) to demonstrate how Becker’s work meets David Tracy’s definition of fundamental theology and 2) to critique Becker’s limited engagement with Christianity via Kierkegaard and to demonstrate that Becker’s observations about human nature might also be correlated with biblical texts on death.
In chapter one entitled “Method and Scope,” Kenel justifies her adoption of Tracy’s definition of fundamental theology which considers human experience as disclosive of religious truth. This approach to theology sees the theological task as a disciplined, critical engagement with tradition and the contemporary situation that can be done by believer and unbeliever alike. For both Tracy and Becker, the experience of creaturely limitations is central to human experience and pivotal in directing humans God-ward. Christian theology has engaged with the discipline of philosophy (e.g. Aquinas’ use of Aristotle or Rahner’s use of Heidegger); Kenel believes that it ought to engage with the discipline of anthropology as well.
Chapter two introduces readers to Becker, covering familiar ground for those already familiar with Becker’s biography. Chapters three to six examine Becker’s understanding of how the limitation of mortality influences human behavior on the psychological, social, and religious level. On the psychological level, humans are caught in the tension between the ideal and the real and must negotiate an identity between the self and the body; on the societal level between sociality and alienation; and on the religious level between autonomy and creatureliness. In each case, the heroic negotiation involves living in a way that acknowledges how human existence is touched by both mortal and immortal dimensions.
In chapter seven Kenel tries to show how Becker’s insight of a rightly balanced heroic human existence can be correlated with Soren Kierkegaard’s account of the knight of faith and Paul Tillich’s account of New Being. Kenel states: “Becker delighted in the fact that the Christian anthropologies of Tillich and Kierkegaard supported and confirmed the religious dimension of mortality which his psychological and sociological investigations revealed.” Having made her case that Becker’s work represents a fundamental theology, Kenel ends this chapter with a critique of Becker’s limited engagement of Christianity via Kierkegaard.
This critique paves the way for Kenel’s objectives in chapters nine and ten. First, Kenel thematizes the biblical material on death under the headings of 1) biological death, 2) alienating death, 3) death as aggressor, and 4) death as vanquished adversary (chapter nine is entitled “The Biblical Dimensions of Mortality”.) Next, Kenel correlates these biblical dimensions of death with Becker’s work (chapter ten is entitled “A Revised Correlation”.) Kenel concludes, “The scriptural passages dealing with death can be viewed as corresponding to Becker’s analysis of the ideal and the real … [They] promote the recognition of Jesus as the paradigm of the heroic person… Jesus demonstrates what it means to be a mortal god.”
Kenel’s book was published in 1988. Should the fact that theologians have heretofore paid scant attention to Kenel, or Becker for that matter, be taken as evidence that disconfirms Kenel’s thesis? Probably. Kenel’s ambitious project to commend Becker as a fellow theologian will likely only be convincing to those who already share Kenel’s theological method. As she herself admits, Becker never developed a theological vision despite his hope to merge a scientific and religious perspective. And as other reviewers of Kenel’s work have noted, her attempts to pick up the slack are expressed in tones more apologetic than critical of Becker.
To this reviewer, it seemed that Kenel was too eager to correlate Becker’s ideas with the scriptural ideas of death that she so ably outlines. Chapters two to six stand alone as an excellent introduction to Becker’s work and Chapter nine stands alone as an excellent thematization of scriptural references to death; however, Kenel’s defense of her theological method is undeveloped, and most theologians have not crossed the bridge that Kenel has attempted to build between Becker’s work and theology. I was disappointed to come to this conclusion because I share Kenel’s desire to see theologians engage with Becker’s work.
Nevertheless, Becker’s name has not completely died out in theological circles. For example, in 2020 J. Todd Billings integrated aspects of Becker’s work into The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live. It remains to be seen how future theologians or biblical scholars might engage with Becker. Whether because of Kenel’s work or in spite of it, Becker may still catch the attention of Christian theologians who find his insights into what makes people act the way they do illuminating.
Thomas Bergen is a sessional instructor at Pacific Life Bible College in Surrey BC and a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He discovered Ernest Becker in seminary and has been exploring Becker’s contributions to biblical and theological conversations ever since.