Russell on Zizioulas

Writing in the July 2003 issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology , one Edward Russell argues that Zizioulas’s relational anthropology fails, in part, because of an inadequate doctrine of sin. I’m with him there. But then he quotes from Alan Torrance, and summarizes the point by saying that “Zizioulas undervalues our createdness” and in a thorough theological anthropology both “theological and non-theological loci” must be considered, i.e., “not only trinitarian theology and the doctrine of creation, but also ‘non-theological’ factors such as the role of narrative and socio-historical location for personhood.”

To which I can only say, “Say what?” For starters, I reject the notion that narrative and socio-historical location are “outside” theology. For second, I don’t think that this is at all Zizioulas’s problem. As Russell himself points out later in the article, Zizioulas makes a distinction, rather clumsily in my view, between “biological” and “ecclesial” being, and Russell charges him with making “too rigid a distinction” between the two. I agree; but how this cricism is consistent with his earlier criticism that Zizi fails to take createdness into account as an “independent” factor is beyond me. Zizi’s problem is not a failure to factor in non-theological aspects of personhood, but his persistence in a nature-grace dualism that his entire project militates against.