BECKER'S ANTHROPOLOGY: THE SHAPE OF FINITUDE Jane Kopas University of Scranton

ABSTRACT This article examines the anthropoloy of Ernest Becker through the medium of his notion of creatureliness which represents a dominant focus, especially in his later work. Two elements stand out in this considerationself-esteem, which as a motivation disguises creaturehood and makes it bearable, and the fear of death, which is the final confirmation of creaturehood. After examining Becker's treatment of these elements, the article explores several dimensions of a religious view of creatureliness which have not been taken up in order to show that Becker is dealing with finitude rather than creatureliness. A fuller treatment of creatureliness would require an approach that does justice to these dimensions, and, if one wishes as Becker does to demonstrate a convergence between religion and the social sciences, it would require a more coherently developed method of correlation. The article concludes with an examination of the spirituality that emerges for Becker out of his perspective on the human.

Ernest Becker's knowledge of his impending death presented him with a rare opportunity and challengeto put to the test his own theories about human nature. Creaturehood, as finitude, was one of the central themes in his theory, reflecting both his assessment of a dominant characteristic in human nature and a major emphasis in his own spirituality. His view deserves further examination for the insights it may offer to contemporary theologians who are concerned with a revitalization of the concept of creaturehood in theological anthropology and for its illumination of a spirituality strongly influenced by contemporary currents. Becker, who died in 1974 at the age of 49, spent the better part of his academic career working toward the development of what he called a "science of man." In the process of working out his theory, his career suffered the vicissitudes of the scholar in search of a community. After teaching at Syracuse University, he moved to the University of California at Berkeley in 1965. His considerable popularity with students there was not matched by acceptance from his colleagues, and, despite a
Jane Kopas, Ph.D. Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, has taught at the College of Wooster and is presently assistant professor of Theology/Religious Studies at the University of Scranton (Scranton, PA 18510). Her dissertation on the meaning of religion in Whitehead's thought was done under the direction of Bernard Loomer. Papers and articles she has written have dealt with spirtuality/theological anthropology from a processrelational perspective. HORIZONS 9/1 (1982), 23-36

24

HORIZONS

students' petition and the allocation of student government funds to retain him as a visting scholar, Becker took a position in 1967 at San Francisco State teaching social psychology. He finally moved in 1969 to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver where he taught until his death in 1974. During this time his work was steadily shaped by the conviction that an adequate understanding of the human would be attained only through the integration of a variety of disciplines, especially those rooted in the social sciences. Becker's belief in the importance of the social sciences for the articulation of a theory of the human is exemplified in a statement he made shortly before his death in an interview with Sam Keen. Becker stated with a great deal of satisfaction that because he began with science he believed he had accomplished what Paul Tillich had not, namely to show that religion and science converge in their discoveries of the meaning of creatureliness as a fundamental human condition.1 This condition, whose analysis brought Becker through the awareness of earthly creative influences to the brink of an acceptance of a divine Creator, reflects a spiritual attitude that is determined not to be deceived by human securities whether they are protections for fragile self-esteem or assertions of autonomy. It will be useful, therefore, to examine Becker's work to see how he understands creatureliness, whether he has demonstrated a convergence of science and religion on this point, and what contribution his ideas make to contemporary theology and spirituality. I. Becker's Analysis of Creatureliness Though Becker began in the field of anthropology, his analysis of human existence draws from sociological, psychiatric, psychological, and philosophical sources as well. Of all these sources, it appears that his insistent desire to synthesize a "science of man" takes its strongest impetus from psychology, particularly from the questions and issues raised by Freud and the alternatives posed by Rank. As an indication of the centrality of his dialogue with Freud, he notes in the preface to The Birth and Death of Meaning that he has made his peace with Freud and has come to terms with what is vital in Freudian theory.2 But as we see in The Denial of Death, the dialogue has not ended, and Freud has not ceased to provide insights for Becker, or at least to provide a foil for the working out of his own ideas.3 In particular, the notion of creatureliness, which becomes a dominant element in Becker's anthropology, seems to
1 Sam Keen, "The Heroics of Everyday Life: A Theorist of Death Confronts His Own End," Psychology Today 7/11 (April 1974), p. 71. 'Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, 2nd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1971), p. viii. 3 Emest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Free Press, 1973), pp. 93-124.

Kopas: Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude

25

take its inspiration from Freud who is concerned preeminently with the formative influence of others on the development of individuals as well as their resistance to those influences. In spite of the positive debt Becker owes to Rank, the influence of Freud still strongly affects his work and its tonality. The theme of creatureliness is not the main focus of any single work of Becker's, but the idea comes through in indirect ways in a number of his early works and assumes greater prominence in his later works, especially in The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil. The theme of creatureliness, significant by Becker's own admission at the end of his life, can be viewed best for him through two motivating influences. They are self-esteem, which as a motivation disguises and makes creaturehood bearable, and the fear of death, which is the final confirmation of creaturehood. Becker's analysis of self-esteem as the dominant human motive rests upon the universality of human beings' dependence upon society. Having affirmed in one of his earliest works that every individual in every culture must experience the self as a primary locus of value in a world of meaning, Becker carries out this notion in greater detail in The Birth and Death of Meaning where he sees self-esteem as the basic law of human life developed out of human interactions which are the source of meaning.4 In Escape from Evil, where he observes that human beings' anxieties are the consequences of the urge to hold on to the meanings given in one's society, Becker concludes that self-esteem may be so bound up with the motive of avoiding anxiety due to loss of a secure place in the world that it paradoxically can increase conditions of evil in the world.5 The paradox arises from society's promotion of values that enhance self-esteem while at the same time having to defend those values which are fragile and subject to threats. The more dogmatically values are promoted and defended, the more they can contribute to their own demise when their character as social fictions is not recognized. From the earliest stages of an individual's life, self-esteem depends upon others. The mechanism for acquiring self-esteem grows more complex as the ego develops. At first, the child acquires self-esteem or its rudimentary equivalent through physical satisfactions of nourishment and comfort. As the socialization process proceeds, the acquisition of a sense of worth is built through the approval or reinforcing responses of adults who are responsible for the child's survival and development. Through the exchange of symbolic forms of communication, the young individual who is establishing a sense of identity learns all that is required to maintain identity and self-worth in a larger cultural setting.
4 Ernest Becker, The Revolution in Psychiatry: The New Understanding of Man (New York: Free Press, 1967), p. 44; Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 66. 'Ernest Becker, Escape From Evil (New York: Free Press, 1975), pp. 148-51.

26

HORIZONS

The socialization process, then, is essential for humanization and for the establishment of self-esteem. The Enlightenment, according to Becker, discovered the problem of alienation, "the problem of social constraint on human freedom," but it lacked a theory of how society causes alienation.6 It was Freud who gave the clue to the source of alienation when he showed that self-esteem is dependent upon symbolic satisfactions.7 In his various works, Becker repeatedly makes the point that the individual is dependent upon society for meaning, and, therefore, for self-esteem, yet the hero-systems or meanings provided are social fictions. Freedom from the undue influence of society and knowledge of the relativity of society's hero-systems do not come easily. Human beings are strongly conditioned by early training and the world view of their society. Yet, one way or another, human beings in the modern world come to feel uncomfortable and alienated with this molding of character, developing a resistance to imposed meanings as they grow in autonomy. The anxiety that results is a symptom of the Oedipal complex. Becker reinterprets the Oedipal complex as an inevitable accompaniment of the socialization process, rather than as a consequence of sexual tensions. The Oedipal complex for him is the neuroticism that is built into each person by the formative influences in human development. The relativity of the meaning that infuses a person's life is heightened by the realization that one has not chosen the meanings that have been most influential, yet they have become essential to one's self-esteem. In addition, anxiety is created when objects or loci of meaning are threatened.8 The humanization process itself is the source of neurosis. Moving beyond Freud who maintained that moral dependence upon another resulted from the individual's primal sexual dependencies epitomized in the Oedipal complex, Becker holds with Rank that dependency under the Oedipal complex is supported not so much by primal dependency itself as by the continuing refusal to acknowledge creatureliness or the helplessness that is exemplified in the need for others as a source and confirmation of meaning.9 It becomes evident as we uncover the dimensions of Becker's work how compatible with Freud's is his assessment of the salvific functions of knowledge. Having asserted that creaturehood is a fundamental condition of being human as well as a source of human beings' anxiety or neurosis, Becker maintains that the way to attain authentic existence and to avoid the cycle of protecting vested interests and meanings is to become aware of how meanings shape people and how fictional these
e Ernest Becker, Beyond Alienation: A Philosophy of Education for the Crisis of Democracy (New York: Braziller, 1968), p. 101. 7 Becker, Beyond Alienation, p. 153. 8 Ibid., pp. 259-60; Denial of Death,p. 161; Birth and Death of Meaning, pp. 56-57. Becker, Denial of Death, p. 107.

Kopas: Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude

27

cultural creations are. One learns to control one's thought and behavior, or at least to avoid illusion, through the knowledge of critical reason. Thus, the modern hero for Becker is the one who supports contradictions without becoming disillusioned or bitter, the one who recognizes personal and societal defenses and self-deceptions. It is the knowledge of human conditioning that will liberate persons so they do not fall prey to the seductions of self-important in any culture.10 In fact, Becker proposes in Beyond Alienation that this goal should be the focal point of an educational philosophy, that the curriculum should be designed to uncover progressively the individual, social, historical, and theological dimensions of alienation.11 Though Becker seems optimistic about this project and its potential for initiating a true community of freedom, it is not clear where the resources will be found to overcome what he describes as a natural resistance to surrendering defenses of self-esteem. We can only assume that the critical function of rationality represents a preeminent form of knowledge with a certain measure of autonomy. Without denying the value of the critical function of rationality as a form of self-transcendence, one must recognize that it is not the only form of human transcendence or the only one relevant for dealing with creaturehood, though it is the only one apparent in Becker's treatment of self-esteem.12 It should be noted, however, that while Becker is close to Freud in his reliance on this form of knowledge and his suspicion of culture, he goes beyond Freud in accepting the validity of a religious dimension of experience. Becker's conclusion that the individual is "created" and limited through social interactions and the meaning systems they provide is not his last word on creatureliness. He asserts that even the "quintessentially" free person needs others, and, in recognizing the limits of all human endeavors, ultimately needs God to make sense of a free horizon of meaning. It is at this point that Becker distinguishes between scientific creatureliness and religious creatureliness. Scientific creatureliness is exemplified in the kind of assessment Freud made of socialization. It is the human condition of having been created by others and of being reluctant to acknowledge that condition. Religious creatureliness, on the other hand, involves recognizing and accepting these limits along with the final fact of limits, one's own death and the possibility of a transcendent ground of limits.13 In their basic creatureliness, human beings center on their own energies in order to assure victory over life. Once one exposes the
Becker, Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 198. "Becker, Beyond Alienation, pp. 227-36. 12 There is a tendency in recent discussions of the distinctively human to focus on rational aspects of self-transcendence such as the ability to adjust to an expanding horizon of meaning. This emphasis has begun to obscure other kinds of self-transcendence found in conversion, love, and forgiveness. 13 Becker, Denial of Death, p. 124.
10

28

HORIZONS

weakness and emptiness of human efforts, one is forced to reexamine the whole problem of power linkages in order to uncover a real source of creative and operative power. It is here that Becker says one begins to consider creatureliness vis--vis a creator who is first cause of all created things, not merely the second-hand intermediate creators of society, the parents and panoply of cultural heroes.14 But from his description, it appears that the process by which one comes to this realization is primarily a rational rather than experiential one. He does not begin with the individual's apprehension of a creaturely relation to a transcendent power such as may be perceived in religious experience, but instead advances toward it by inference. In addition to the social conditions that promote self-esteem as an evasion of creaturehood, the second major area in which Becker considers creatureliness is the final limit situation of death. Ultimately, awareness of creaturehood reaches its peak in the various forms of the denial of death which are disguised in even the loftiest human achievements. Since the quest for self-esteem is at the same time a quest for power, the denial of death will be demonstrated as the individual seeks to avoid what threatens power and self-esteem. Becker sees the denial of death as an exercise of power consistent with his basic understanding of power. "All power is in essence power to deny mortality."15 For Becker this is the power than humankind is obsessed with, and it expresses itself most generally in the desire to increase oneself. With death the power to increase oneself is clearly at an end. It should be made clear, if it is not already, that Becker is not merely concerned with physical death. Like any significant human experience, the anticipation of death is dominated by concerns of self-esteem. He observes, therefore, that it is not merely death per se that human beings fear, but death with insignificance.16 If power to increase oneself is fundamental, it will call forth expressions of fear as well as of power. The threats to self-esteem which occur in a variety of ways, from daily personal encounters to the disintegration of one's meaning system, find their most vivid exemplification in the individual's confrontation with his or her own death. For Becker, the intensity of response that is generated by the final fear lies at the heart of the evil and violence of which human beings are capable. The atrocities
14 ibid., p. 90. "Becker, Escape from Evil, p. 81. 16 Ibid., p. 4. Joseph Scimecca, "Cultural Hero-Systems and Religious Beliefs: The Ideal-Real Social Science of Ernest Becker," Review of Religious Research 21 (Fall 1979), pp. 62-70, maintains that Becker substituted denial of death for self-esteem as the dominant human motive in order to give a less benign account of evil and to provide a more comprehensive motive. That denial of death is more comprehensive is debatable since it is death with insignificance that human beings fear. Nevertheless, as Becker's interest shifted to take account of the motivation of fear of death, his view of creatureliness took clearer form and was dominated more by negative aspects.

Kopas: Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude

29

that scar human history can only be explained by Becker in terms of a threat strong enough to call into question the individual's source of power and meaning.17 Since human beings as individuals are powerless over death, they look to a meaning system which will point to a transcendent power capable of allaying their fears. Societies are constructed to provide the meaning system that will perform this function, but only religion represents a meaning system that is cosmic and can satisfy the deepest longings of human beings. Religion accomplishes this task by taking individuals out of narrow self-serving frameworks and liberating them for service to larger purposes, while at the same time it offers an opportunity to tame self-protective instincts that lead individuals to act destructively against others. In addition, religion brings individuals into contact with a transcendent power that can redeem their own loss of power in death. Becker admits that he does not get at the actual fear of death as an object of empirical investigation, but he believes his conclusions are valid because repression of what is threatening has been seen to be a normal function in human existence. He repeats the great lesson of Freudian psychology that repression is normal self-protection and creative psychology.18 By exploring repression's forms, one may discover both the fear of life and the fear of death. One need not assume that if the fear of death is not a part of consciousness it is absent, for the fear of death rarely shows its true face. Fear of death, for Becker, must be present behind normal functioning if the individual cares about selfpreservation. Beyond physical self-preservation, both the need to make a name for oneself and the quest for and deification of heroes are signs of the attempt of individuals to deny their ultimate death and to participate vicariously in the immortalization of their values. Having seen the main elements in Becker's view of creatureliness, we may now move toward a closer examination of the notion itself. But before we do that in the next section, it is important to note several problems that arise in relation to Becker's general approach. Becker sees the convergence of religion and science to be in their functions of showing "man his basic creatureliness" and of exposing the illusion that surrounds the denial of the final limits of creatureliness. in death.19 One problem that arises with this functional approach is that it is not based on a full description of the meaning of religion or creatureliness. Religion involves the function he cites, but it must be seen in a larger sense as a way of understanding reality and what is ultimate in one's relation to reality. It has functions other than exposing finitude and in some sense
17

Becker, Escape from Evil, p. 117. "Becker, Denial of Death, pp. 24, 178. 19 Becker, Escape from Evil, p. 163.

30

HORIZONS

transcends functions. Even in treating religion as an ideal hero system, Becker refrains from dealing with a fuller view of religion that includes 20 religious experience or religious tradition. His approach may not preclude experience of a religious dimension, but it does not look to it to elucidate creatureliness, nor does he indicate why he does not. Taking a more comprehensive view of religion might have enabled Becker to take a more comprehensive view of creatureliness, for in a religious context creatureliness is concerned with both positive and negative aspects involved in limits. His functional problem-centered approach tends to minimize positive aspects of limits in both non-religious and religious views. Thus it makes it difficult to discern an adequate point of contact between religious and non-religious views and at the same time to see what are the points of non-convergence.21 Another problem which surfaces in Becker's treatment of scientific and religious creatureliness is the way he describes the movement from one frame of reference to the other. He suggests that one moves to faith in a transcendent Creator by discovering the limits of other creators. But becoming aware of the relative power of second-hand creators, even through careful analysis, may not necessarily lead to belief in a transcendent Creator, though it may bring one closer to such a stance or provide confirmation for the faith one already has. Becker suggests that one arrives at an acceptance of creaturehood by honestly facing all of one's self-deceptions, moving from a sense of wormlikeness to a sense of awe and celebration.22 Using St. Francis of Assisi as a rare example of the new perception attained through religious creatureliness, he attempts to show how one would act with a transformed outlook. But what is needed is a clearer justification of the epistemological framework in which a religiously symbolic perception of reality occurs. Otherwise, fact and value seem to remain at odds, which Becker does not wish to maintain. In other words, the dynamic of the movement Becker seeks to describe is not clear. The shift seems primarily dependent upon a single factor, the individual's letting go of anxiety and repression: "If we were not fear-stricken animals who repressed awareness of ourselves and our world, then we would live in peace and unafraid of death, trusting to the Creator God and celebrating his creation." Facing all of one's selfdeceptions in the manner Becker describes may as easily lead to despair as to faith and to a sense of absolute finitude as to trust in an Infinite Creator. In both his treatment of religious creatureliness and in his
Becker, Birth and Death of Meaning, pp. 181-82. Charles Davis makes an important observation in Body as Spirit (New York: Seabury, 1976), pp. 30-31, when he identifies as re-religious all those feelings that express an awareness of human limits of finitude, thus clarifying that a further integration is necessary for a feeling to reflect a religious dimension. Becker does not distinguish anything like this, but if it is legitimate to speak of a connection between the two kinds of creatureliness, this distinction may help. ^Becker, Escape from EviJ, p. 163.
21 20

Kopas: Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude

31

description of arriving at it Becker has identified some important elements but the problem remains as to what kind of a framework of perception accommodates religious creatureliness and whether the attempt to relate scientific and religious views is not a much more complex and nuanced matter than has been evident so far. While the resolution of these issues is beyond the scope of this article, it is possible to clarify several underlying differences in the creaturely problem Becker is dealing with in order to point toward a more comprehensive exposition of the notion of creatureliness. II. Finitude and CreaturelinessA Critique The adequacy of Becker's view of creatureliness needs to be evaluated on the basis of its ability to illumine human existence and to fill out our understanding of creaturehood by bringing the social scientific perspective and the religious perspective into dialogue with each other. This will require that sufficient attention be given not only to what Becker perceives as their mutual concerns but also to the distinctiveness of the perspectives. Regarding the religious perspective on creatureliness, it is important to observe several qualities peculiar to religious consciousness of creatureliness that are not present in either scientific or philosophical perspectives. To clarify and evaluate Becker's view, it will be useful to examine these qualities by distinguishing between finitude and creatureliness, for although Becker tends to equate finitude and creatureliness, a closer examination of the concepts reveals they are not synonymous. First, finitude is an analytic concept while creatureliness is an analogical concept which involves the naming of an identity. Becker's purpose is evidently analytical, but he uses an analogical term as an integrating expression without attending to its character as a fundamental metaphor of identity. Self-esteem and its frustrations may be dealt with analytically, as can the hero systems which function to provide a kind of identity. But there is a depth of identity in the creator-creature relationship that is not plumbed in analysis. Facing limits and experiencing radical finitude in contemplating one's own death may furnish an inventory of limit situations and partial roles a person plays, but it will not reveal what it means to be a creature who is such by having a particular creator. It does not get at the core identity by which one finds ultimate self-esteem not just by having a hero system but by being a creature. Becker alludes to the discovery of self-esteem in the limit of creaturehood but does not explore its ramifications.23
^Becker, Denial of Death, p. 160. "Christianity took creature consciousnessthe thing man most wanted to denyand made it the very condition for his cosmic heroism/' Becker does not note that it was the condition for cosmic heroism because it was first the condition of a self-esteem that did not have to be earned.

32

HORIZONS

Second, finitude accents limits as limits while creaturehood focuses on the limits inherent in the creator-creature relationship and by implication in other relationships. In almost all of Becker's references to creatureliness, he accents limits as limits and as negative creatureliness as insecurity, as weakness and emptiness, as helplessness, as orientation toward death, as evasion of one's true center, as animal appettion with infinite yearning, as inferiority, as partial knowledge, as insignificance and vulnerability, as self-deceptiveness.24 From a religious perspective, however, creatureliness is not the same thing as human limitation, although it can include the notion of limits as limits or as negative. Above and beyond finitude, to be creature implies a sense of limits that comes from relationality to a creator and to other creatures of the creator (along with the possibility of gratitude for what the relationship gives). In providing a context for viewing relationship as an essential component in the notion of creatureliness, a religious perspective enables one to see the resources as well as the limits in creaturely existence. In bypassing the relationality of creature to creator as a resource within a limit situation, Becker gives us a limited view of creatureliness, weak in positive aspects and lacking the peculiar intensity that comes from recognizing the tension in relationality.25 This is especially apparent when one considers the ways that finitude and creatureliness call forth different responses. To accept finitude, one must accept all personal limits including death; to accept creatureliness one must accept not only personal limits but also dependence upon and responsibility for others. In accepting creatureliness the individual is faced with the additional limit of submitting to the limitations of self and others. Yet this is precisely the condition for self-transcendence or overcoming ego. One transcends self not simply by denying ego but by surrendering to the conditions that create as well as limit ego. Finally, finitude is a negative philosophical concept derived from focusing on a particular aspect of experience while creatureliness is a positive and negative religious symbol which reflects a reconciliation of positive and negative within experience. Awareness of finitude emerges from analysis of the limit conditions of existenceits boundedness, its tentativity, its incompleteness. Awareness of creatureliness arises from the intuition of a sense of relatedness to powers other than one's ownto God, to environment, to culture, to others. Thus creatureliness repreIbid., pp. 89, 90, 107, 124, 279; Escape from Evil, pp. 1, 94, 147, 151, 163. **Two useful critiques of Becker which include reference to this idea are Donald Evans' review of The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil in Religious Studies Review 5/1 (January 1979), pp.25-34 and Eugene Bianchi*s "Death and Transcendence in Ernest Becker," Religion in Life 46 (Winter 1977), pp. 460-75. Interestingly, each of these writers observes a "masculine" bias in Becker which weakens his recognition of certain tensions in relationality. See Evans, p. 32 and Bianchi, p. 472. For Becker's own reflection on the "masculinity" of his thought, see Keen's interview, p. 79.
M

Kopas: Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude

33

sents an integrating symbol, reflecting a state of dependence and interdependence. The dependence is not only a limiting factor. It may also be a positive resource. The complexity of this symbolic situation leads to a choice whereby the creature may be resentful or grateful for the existential condition, but not unaware of the need to come to terms with both the limits and the possibilities of situations. The response will be indicative of an integrative dimension of the individual's self-understanding. It is possible to respond to finitude by resisting limits or striving to overcome them. But one cannot resist creaturehood without denying one's humanity and its source. To strive against finitude may be a valiant human act. To strive against creatureliness is to sin. In summary, these considerations of the differences in approach to creatureliness and finitude show the former to be analogical, relational, and integrative, while the latter is analytical, individualistic, and selective. Because Becker's analysis relies on the qualities characteristic of finitude, his description of the human condition as individualitywithin-finitude in The Birth and Death of Meaning appears more appropriate for his purposes than his treatment of it as creatureliness in The Denial of Death.26 One might ask if this is merely a question of semantics. Should Becker have referred to the human condition of the scientific perspective as finitude and to that of the religious perspective as creatureliness? More careful language would have helped but it is more than a matter of semantics. A distinction would have helped to clarify the grounds on which either dialogue or convergence might occur. Tillich, for one, has offered a means of understanding the relationship: It (creatureliness) answers the question implied in man's finitude and in finitude generally. In giving this answer, it discovers that the meaning of finitude is creatureliness The character of existence is that man asks the question of his finitude without receiving an answer.27 Becker, who is admittedly sympathetic to Tillich's position, might have well followed Tillich's example in adopting a more explicit and developed method of correlation. On finitude he is perceptive and provocative, exposing the dark side of human motives and offering fresh insights into the human condition. On creatureliness he is less effective because he does not deal with resources within finitude or provide a model of symbolic understanding that enables one to discern the rela^Becker, Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 196; Denial of Death, pp. 67-124. "Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 252. One attempt to use Becker's analysis for theological purposes may be found in Gary W. Hartz, "The Denial of Death: Foundation for an Integration of Psychological and Theological Views of Personality," Journal of Psychology and Theology 8/1 (Spring 1980), pp. 53-63.

34

HORIZONS

tionship between scientific and religious modes of understanding. Without such a framework one does not do justice to what is positive in the scientific perception of limits, and one is hard pressed to demonstrate either that the finitude uncovered in the scientific perspective is not the final answer or that the religious solution is not an evasion of rationality. Becker rightly recognizes that the conditions discovered by the two perspectives are not mutually exclusive. But he does not spell out the qualifications involved in dealing with two different modes of understanding and two different sets of assumptions. If the capacity for a creaturely response is present within the experience of finitude, and if the experience of finitude is transformed in a religious view of creaturehood, it is not apparent how this can be dealt with satisfactorily through a functional view of religion. If creaturehood is empty, helpless and self-deceptive, and if faith is trust in ultimate meaning "in spite of" conditions, faith seems radically opposed to reason and God appears as a deus ex machina whose relation to ordinary human powers is not evident. A satisfactory resolution of the matter of convergence must await the clarification of these issues. III. Becker's Spirituality Though Becker's approach to creatureliness leaves some matters unresolved, it did not diminish the intensity of his spirituality or jeopardize his own religious convictions. In fact, his lived response to the human condition as he perceived it provide a good example of what contemporary spiritual response to the scientific awareness of finitude might look like. Becker does not discuss his own religious values or spirituality in his works, but from comments in letters and interviews as well as from ideas we have considered we can discern several elements in his spirituality that were strongly influenced by the problems he faced and his particular orientation toward them.28 His spirituality is expressive of both the social scientific endeavor in which he was engaged and his growing determination to take seriously the alienation and isolation he saw in the world. Becker's spirituality emphasizes the individual rather than the social. Indeed, given the anxiety, inhibition, and alienation that he saw resulting from social interaction and inherited hero systems, he upheld the ideal of standing as an individual critical of authoritarian religion as well as of one's own tendency to be seduced by the authority and security of group involvement. In his suspicion of all consolations that have been achieved without the experience of forlornness, Becker dem^The most readily available sources for this information, since Becker did not relate his personal experiences in his works, are Keen's interview and Harvey Bates, "Letters from Ernest," Christian Century 94/8 (March 9, 1977), pp. 217-27.

Kopas: Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude

35

onstrates a stoic heroism sustained by his belief that meaning is finally recovered only in God.29 Individuals come to this realization by a radical confrontation with their own aloneness and insufficiency. Another element of spirituality reflected in Becker's ideas is a selfcritical attitude that comes not just from the impossibility of grasping and holding on to truth permanently but from the impossibility of establishing oneself as a locus of meaning by one's motivations and self-perceptions. Honesty calls for the continual unmasking of motives and the destruction of illusions of ego and power. Though it is not clearly connected with a psychology or theology of sin, Becker's approach to this kind of introspection parallels the tradition of the spiritual task of cure of soul through the catharsis of self-scrutiny. Becker's description of the ideal hero as one who can face uncertainty and ambiguity without bitterness reveals a third aspect of his spiritualityhis acceptance of the need to face one's false power sources and to live defenselessly with the insecurity that results. Becker's realization that he was living under delegated powers, with idols that he had given power over himself, created an anxiety that was made endurable by the discovery of a new power source in God. His conviction that authenticity required the acceptance of the finitude of knowledge and power led him not to search for a more secure human order or for a mystical or religious experience. It led to a leap of faith. Though Becker's spirituality is austere and demanding, it is not devoid of hope. He cites the birth of his son as an event which turned him from atheism to belief in God. He observes that appreciation of the world as being in God's hands is a joy that overcomes sadness. He admits the inspiration he obtains from reading the psalms in the midst of professional frustrations, his deepening awareness of the need for grace in everything, his rediscovery of his Jewish heritage. But these bright spots are not to be trusted unless one has gone through the depths of the dark night. Anything less suggests a preliminary or false security. One might describe Becker's spirituality as he did himself in terms of William James' sick soul or as one twice-born. In his evaluation of honesty, openness, and searching as the important measures of human stature, he knew he revered a rigorous ideal that was probably not possible or desirable for most people. But it was an urgent and profoundly impressive expression of the values that shaped who he was. Whether his spirituality reflected a religious vision and an interpretation of creatureliness of wide applicability is another question. Though this article has indicated some problems in Becker's treatment of creatureliness, the examination has led not only to a clearer picture of how his treatment is related to his anthropology and spiri tual29 Keen, p. 78. It is here that Becker admits his "Apollonian" bias and his wariness regarding religious experience.

36

HORIZONS

ity but also to the realization that he has highlighted some important issues that need to be taken account of in the formulation of a theology of creaturehood. First, Becker's emphasis on self-esteem as a basic human motivation deserves to be incorporated into a theology of creaturehood. Though he concentrates on social influences, individual protection of self-esteem, and the function of religious heroism, the notion admits of fuller application to religion. Brought into dialogue with the idea of the human imaging of God, it would provide a valuable elucidation of an important aspect of creaturehood. Second, while areas of genuine freedom need to be better illuminated in his work, he has delivered a useful preliminary critique of post-Enlightenment attitudes toward autonomy. He points out a direction in which to explore more fully the place of dependence and interdependence in the transcendence of ego and acceptance of creaturehood. Third, his persistent examination of motives in relation to the maintenance of self-esteem gives us afreshbasis for looking at forms of resistance to creaturely acceptance of God and God's world. Though motive scrutinization can become a self-centered preoccupation, it is an indispensable aspect in the development of a mature spiritual outlook. By framing self-examination in terms of resistance to creaturehood, Becker reintroduces an idea that has been neglected and stimulates exploration of other aspects of creaturely resistance. Above all, Becker presents a challenge to theologians, particularly by the kinds of questions he asks, to deal with a symbol that has become problematic in our time. As his spirituality has shown, creatureliness was not merely an academic issue with Becker but the intersection of intellectual and existential concerns for which he had to find a credible scientific explanation. But even with his solution to that issue he leaves us with an open question: "How does one lean on God and give over everything to Him and still stand on his own feet as a passionate human being?"30 He is asking nothing less than how one can be a creature and a creator at the same time or how one can surrender control without surrendering responsibility. If his thought is dominated by finitude, it is because the answer that resounds is "renounce and renounce again." Becker's last and ultimate opportunity to test his own response in death was a distillation of the response that dominated his life. The answer stands stark in its sincerity. If one wishes to deal with the question in a way that acknowledges Becker's courage in facing it and carries it more deeply into the realm of interpersonal relations, the question needs to be taken up again in a comprehensive treatment of the religious symbol of creatureliness.
^Becker, Denial of Death, p. 259.

^ s
Copyright and Use: As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling, reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a violation of copyright law. This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permission from the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However, for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article. Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specific work for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available, or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s). About ATLAS: The ATLA Serials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the American Theological Library Association.