EXCLUSION & EMBRACE | BOOK REVIEW

Reviewed by Thomas Scarborough.

Miroslav Volf begins the preface to his book Exclusion & Embrace with a question that he was once asked by J ¼rgen Moltmann, “But can you embrace a cetnik?” – that is, a Serbian fighter who has committed atrocities. To do so, argues Volf, would be a scandal – but it is the scandal of the cross.

Exclusion & Embrace is an inspired treatment of the paradox between justice and grace, in particular as it applies in the social context. Perhaps the theme of the book could be summarised as follows (my words), “Is it just to forgive the perpetrators of social injustice?” Attendant on this question is how perpetrators and victims may “embrace” one another.

The centrepiece of the book is a detailed exegesis of the parable of the Prodigal Son – specifically a reading of this story “at the social level”. In fact “the whole book,” writes Volf, “is but an attempt to draw out its social significance.”

WHAT IS THE THRUST OF THE BOOK?

The thrust of the book is that where oppression, injustice, and violence exist, leading to social exclusion, there should always be room for embrace. This, however, raises the question as to how one may justify embrace in view of “the practice of evil” – particularly as one bears in mind the violence suffered by its victims.

Volf answers that not to embrace offenders would be the greater injustice. The reason for this is that “putting it in the most general idea of justice – suum cuique – what is due to each person is to seek their good.” That is, the highest form of justice would be the complete restoration of a situation from every point of view.

However, this is not humanly possible – for a number of reasons. In particular, it is virtually impossible to place a value on loss, so as to make adequate restitution possible; memory remains, and cannot be erased; and history can not be unravelled. Healing, therefore, “can ultimately take place only together with the creation of ‘all things new'” – that is, through a supernatural, eschatological event.

It is not possible to redeem the past “through thinking”. “No thought can think away and no action undo” the suffering caused through injustice. That is, any attempt to rationalise the suffering of injustice is futile.

The only way to redeem the past is through “the nontheoretical act of nonremembering […] in the arms of God”, and this will occur only “when we reach the other side”. However, the vision of this “final redemption” reaches into our present experience, “provided we do not forget, as long as the Messiah has not come in glory, for the sake of the victims”.

WHERE IS THE INTERFACE BETWEN JUST AND UNJUST JUSTICE?

“Provided we do not forget.” This raises the question as to what bearing such remembering has on the present, with regard to the perpetrators of social injustice.

Volf makes a crucial dictinction between just and “unjust justice”. Unjust justice is justitia, which “equalises and abstracts”. No justice that “calculates in fixed proportions” can be just. We cannot discover a “perfect replica” of justice to match the situation, nor could we, even then, set ourselves free from a present which is “built on past violence and deception”. The only true justice is “justice transcended”.

Nonetheless, Volf states that “unjust justice is […] indispensable for satisfying the demands of love in an unjust world. It must be pursued relentlessly”. That is, justitia must be pursued without pause, “for the sake of the oppressed”.

What does this mean in the context of “embrace”? It means, states Volf, that “if you are ultimately after justice, you must ultimately be after embrace”. “Actions against injustice must be situated in the framework of the will to embrace the unjust”. That is, one should continually be ready for embrace, even as one pursues justice.

Where does this leave us with regard to detail? It would appear to leave us precisely here – with vague, broad brushstrokes. There is an absence of application, and an absence of worked examples, which leaves the gaps to the imagination of the reader in large measure.

Further, on this topic, Volf fails to tackle critical issues in regard to justice. He appears to believe in a world in which justitia itself, ultimately, is uncorrupted. He appears to believe in a humanity which is not driven deeper into injustice as it hides its evil from justitia. In short, he holds assumptions about justitia which may not be tenable in large parts of the world.

WHAT IS VOLF’S VIEW OF SIN?

The most powerful aspect of the book is arguably Volf’s treatment of sin – a theme which he returns to repeatedly. What makes his argument most interesting is that he draws convincingly both on Biblical metaphor and postmodern philosophy to drive home the point. He states that “every attempt to escape noninnocence”, and “every ascription of guilt and innocence” is “ensnared by noninnocence”.

He states, “This, I think, is what the doctrine of original sin teaches”, namely that even our righteous acts serve perversely to condemn us, for the reason that “every construction of innocence and guilt partakes in the corruption of the one undertaking the construction.” Therefore “both the guilty and the innocent” are guilty, and may perpetuate social enmity.

From a social perspective, we should not overlook that “our very selves have been shaped by the climate of evil in which we live”. We should “demask as inescapably sinful the world constructed around excluive moral polarities” – that is, the tendency to believe that “our side” is just, pure, innocent, true, and good. These are polarities which give rise to “the mendacious spirit of a community, a people, which determines public opinion” and may be “channeled toward an inhumane and godless project”.

With this in mind, does the ubiquity of sin imply that the victims of injustice are as guilty as the perpetrators?

Volf replies that “the perpetrators are the sinners and the victims are the sinned against, their noninnocence notwithstanding”. It does not follow that “all sins are equal”. On what basis, therefore, would one would distinguish between unqualified “sin” on the one hand, and sin which is “not equal” on the other? Besides a generic disavowal of violence, Volf does not enter into this. Sins are simply “manifestly not equal”. This, unfortunately, would appear to be an argument which is manifestly not grounded.

SYNTHESIS

Having visited Volf’s homeland during the war, this book has a vivid interest for me.

One of the major failings of the book, I feel, is typical of American theology. It is the problem sometimes referred to as the (theological)

“excluded middle”. Volf refers to “the certainty of God’s judgement at the end of history” as “the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it”. In adopting this position, he casts God’s justice to the end of time, and makes it distant to the present, with no immediacy of appropriation.

This dualism raises its head in various arenas of the book. His alternatives are “the reign of God” on the one hand, or to “seek inspiration […] in the image of the Rider on the white horse” on the other. God is not presented as “an ever present help”, as the Bible portrays Him. Rather, He is merely the application of justice in the present, or an eschatological vision. Small wonder, therefore, that in Volf’s view, carrying on in the face of violence from day to day “is a task more difficult than Sisyphus’s”.

On the one hand, the book is saturated with theological and philosophical observations of great interest, with intriguing observations of social disintegration from an insider, and with zestful writing, so that I would not have wanted to miss it.

On the other hand, there is far too much in Volf that is tentative, and far too much that is questionable by reason of its incompleteness. The subtitle of the book suggested it – this is merely an “exploration”. When all has been said, Volf has a lot of depth on the surface, yet deep down he is shallow.

CITATION OF REFERENCE

Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion & Embrace. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1996. ISBN 0-687-00282-6. Publisher Price U.S.$24.