Is There a Blessing in Being Vulnerable?
Painting: Christ Embracing Saint Bernard, Francesc Ribalta (1625 - 1627)
Vulnerability is weaved into the human experience. We are delicate beings constituted of flesh and sinew, sustained by networks of blood and gravity that can stop in an instant through forces beyond our control. We are confronted daily by mortality, by our weaknesses, by our flaws. To be human is to live in constant risk, an existence that can seem like a curse. The Christian Faith would argue otherwise, however. In this essay, I posit that vulnerability is in fact a great blessing that is a key feature of human creaturely existence. Drawing from Theological Anthropology, I begin with the fundamental premise that humans are defined primarily by their relationship with God the Creator. [1] As beings created by God and put on this earth to love Him, [2] any articulation of humanity must draw back to this foundational purpose. Vulnerability is no different, and I will present that the various manifestations of vulnerability guide a relationship of love for God.
Our weakness points to God’s strength, prompting us to surrender to Him who we were created to be in union with.
To outline what human creaturely existence is, the human must be understood as relational, defined not in isolation but through the lens of relationships. [3] The most important of these is that with God, [4] wherein the notion of createdness is key. Christian Revelation outlines that everything existing on earth owes its presence to God, the Creator. [5] Creation is a fundamental building block of salvation, [6] and man, who is capable of knowing his creator, [7] has an ultimate purpose of a covenant with God, built on love and service. [8] If our very existence depends on a power greater than we can comprehend, it follows that our life cannot be understood apart from that dependence.
Human life is a movement towards God, and the whole fibre of our being, every miniscule feature he has allowed in us, can be understood to be for this end. It is within this frame that I place human vulnerability: God has allowed vulnerability as part of His plan for us to find Him. By viewing vulnerability as something that draws us closer to God who is the core of our existence, its reality as a blessing becomes clear.
‘Human vulnerability’ can be articulated along three lines:
Mortality and Temporality
The Risk of Sin
The Helpless Inability to Reconcile the Consequences of Sin through Human Effort.
Underpinning this is the narrative of dependence, which is what human vulnerability reveals to us: we are fundamentally reliant on someone who can do what we cannot. [9] It is this reliance stemming from our vulnerability that directs our gaze towards God, a significant basis of the relationship that defines human creaturely existence.
Human Vulnerability in Temporality and Mortality is a Blessing as it Points Us Toward the Eternal and Infinite God for Whom We Live.
Scripture is brimming with accounts of human mortality — “Man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow”. [10] “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes”. [11] To be human is to be insubstantial as air, constantly facing briefness on earth. This vulnerability of death is not something to be rejected, however. Scripture depicts mortality as something God facing, to be embraced. Psalm 39 implores “Lord, let me know how fleeting my life is”. [12] Psalm 90 states, “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom”. [13]
Why does the Psalmist Crave a Recognition of Vulnerability?
It is because to do so allows for the acquisition of virtue and draws to a deeper recognition of God. Such themes of recognising God’s strength through human weakness are echoed in common forms of worship. The hymn “Abide With Me” by Henry Lyte writes: “change and decay in all around I see/ O Thou who changest not abide with me.” [14] Human life is vulnerable in how we are all susceptible to change: but in recognising decay, we become aware of He who changest not, He who is not mortal like we are: we grow to recognise and comprehend the infinity and eternity foundational to who God is. In this way, human vulnerability, that is, our constant proximity to death, our persistent subjection to decay, is an immense blessing because it allows us to comprehend the immensity of God’s infinity, and our desire for it. In recognising what He can give us through what we lack, we seek Him more deeply, as is our purpose as created beings.
Vulnerability Does Not Just Manifest in Our Temporality and Mortality.
Even with a desire for God awakened, we remain vulnerable in how we fall readily to sin, and are thus constantly being exposed to separation from Him who we desire. [15] As Scripture says, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” [16] The nature of human vulnerability is grounded in the story of Creation, where The Fall, Adam’s first sin, colours the whole of human existence. [17] Though created by God and built to desire Him, we initiate separation when we turn away. This unchanging state of division [18] reflects our vulnerability, in that we are always at risk of sin, of falling into temptation, and fall indeed we do. Sin is inevitable, but more than that, it is not something that we can free ourselves from — it is so beyond our power that attempting to do so drives us into sorrow. [19] This aspect of human vulnerability appears the most senseless: not only are we bound by The Fall to be vulnerable to sin, we are rendered even more helpless with the realisation that we cannot free ourselves from it.
Painting: Saint Catherine of Siena in Prayer, Cristofano Allori (1610)
Vulnerability is a Blessing as it Shows Us How Much God Can Do For Us, Unveiling the Deep Beauty of His Saving Power.
The perspective of sorrow and despair, while immediately intuitive, falters, however, when one reflects on the profound reality of God’s salvation and our destiny of relocation, [20] which necessitates vulnerability and thus dependence on our part to have value — vulnerability is a blessing as it shows us how much God can do for us, unveiling the deep beauty of His saving power. Separation is a state we are subject to, but it is a finite state that ends because of Christ. [21] “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”, [22] and the triumph of Christ over sin is a greater blessing than what was lost in the fall.[23]
The More Vulnerable We Are, The More God Can Do For Us Through Grace.
This is evident in the figure of Christ, who is there for the weak, the poor and vulnerable. As He says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician”. [24] For Christ’s coming to have significance, we must need Him and must thus be vulnerable to sin. We are dependent on someone beyond us who can save us, [25] in a way that is empowering and beautiful rather than demeaning. God’s saving grace becomes all the more profound when set against our helplessness: He saves us when no one else can, when we fail to save ourselves. It is only in a deep weakness that we can comprehend that strength comes from Him, an immense blessing that acts as an invitation for greater surrender.
The more we are weak, the more we recognise our need for God, and the more we love Him and open ourselves to forgiveness from Him. “He who is forgiven little, loves little”, [26] and in this way, the necessity of our risk of sin is shown to be key to the foundational relationship of love for God. Set against our broader narrative of salvation and union with God, the beauty of this core tenet of human existence is evinced: it is truly a blessing to be vulnerable as it compels us to welcome dependence, moving us closer to God, who waits with his embrace of salvation.
The Story of Christianity is a Story of Vulnerability and Protection, of Weakness and Strength.
Radical and counterintuitive, the call for a deeper relationship with God is a call for dependence and surrender, one which loves and craves vulnerability rather than attempting a flimsy independence that detracts from who we as created humans were born to love. As the Lord said to Saint Paul, “my power is made perfect in weakness”, [27] and in many ways, vulnerability is the greatest gift He has given to us, key to our human creaturely existence.
[1] Christoph Schwoebel, “Human Being as Relational Being. 12 Theses for a Christian Anthropology,” in Persons, Divine and Human, ed.Christoph Schwoebel and Colin Gunton (T.&T. Clark, 1999), 141, Talis.
[2] Geoffrey Chapman, Catechism of The Catholic Church (Vatican Press, 1994),1.
[3] Schwoebel, “Human Being as Relational,”141.
[4] Schwoebel, “Human Being as Relational”.
[5] Chapman, Catechism, 338.
[6] Chapman, Catechism 280.
[7] Chapman, Catechism, 356.
[8] Chapman, Catechism 357.
[9] Christoph Schwoebel, “Changing Places: Understanding Sin in Relation to a Graceful God,” in Sin, Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, ed. David Marshall and Lucinda Mosher (Georgetown University Press, 2016), 30.
[10] Psalm 144:4. All Scriptural references are taken from the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition.
[11] James 4:14.
[12] Psalm 39:4.
[13] Psalm 90:12.
[14] Accessed in The Divine Office: Hymns for Night Prayer.
[15] Schwoebel, “Changing Places,” 24.
[16] Matthew 26:41.
[17] Chapman, Catechism, 390.
[18] Schwoebel, “Changing Places,” 30.
[19] Schwoebel, “Changing Places,” 30.
[20] Schwoebel, “Changing Places,” 29.
[21] Schwoebel, “Changing Places,” 29.
[22] Romans 5:20.
[23] Chapman, Catechism, 420.
[24] Matthew 9:12.
[25] Schwoebel, “Changing Places,” 30.
[26] Luke 7:47.
[27] 2 Corinthians 12:9.
Bibliography
Chapman, Geoffrey. Catechism of The Catholic Church. Vatican Press, 1994.
Schwoebel, Christoph. “Human Beings as Relational Being. 12 Theses for a Christian Anthropology.” In Persons, Divine and Human, edited by Christoph Schwoebel and Colin Gunton. T.&T. Clark, 1999.
Schwoebel, Christoph. “Changing Places: Understanding Sin in Relation to a Graceful God.” In Sin, Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, edited by David Marshall and Lucinda Mosher. Georgetown University Press, 2016.
