Risus Paschalis: Book Review: Laughter

Risus Paschalis

Book Review:
Laughter: A Theological Reflection
by Kuschel
(Translated from the German via machine)

Laughter: A Theological Reflection is a fine weaving of literature, biblical scholarship, and Christian theology. Like Kuschel's earlier work, "Ich schaffe Finsternis und Unheil": Ist Gott verantwortlich für das Übel co_authored with W. Gross, this is a thorough and imaginative study. In response to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, it draws on philosophic, theological, and literary traditions and, then, reaches a theological conclusion.

Part One surveys the philosophic tradition, which problematizes laughter. For Homer, "... the laughter of the gods knows no compassion for the weak, no mercy for the afflicted, no sparing of the innocent, no solidarity with the victims.... rings out over the battlefield with its piles of corpses" (6_7). For Plato, laughter is a mixture of anxiety and pleasure, a Schadenfreude. Ethically, therefore, laughter is to be avoided and "`persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed'" (15). For Aristotle, on the other hand, laughter cannot be condemned because it is a natural characteristic of human beings; but, it should only be used to refresh and relax, as well as to confound opponents (21_22). Noting that Eco's book revolves around the lost second half of Aristotle's Poetics which dealt with laughter, Kuschel points out that, "if the poetics of postmodernity is a poetics of play ...then this poetics corresponds to an aesthetic of laughter: laughter at the fact that one is free from all binding ties, values, and norms ... If nothing is binding any more and everything is fluid, if the `as if' reigns, then in fact laughter can be a congenial expression of this poetics" (36_7).

Part Two begins with the Christian condemnation of laughter and the praising of weeping in Augustine, Chrysostom ("Christ never laughed"), and other church fathers as well as in the monastic tradition: "weeping alone unites with God, while laughter leads a person away from God" (47). Kuschel, then, returns to the biblical texts. Humans laugh. Sarah and Abraham see the discrepancy between their bodily capacities and God's promise of seed and laugh "the laughing doubt of God." They are not punished; rather, God proceeds with his plan and laughs with the doubters (52). God also laughs a "laugh of partisanship and superiority" at the wicked, as in Psalms. Further, God laughs an "enigmatic, arbitrarily uncanny" laugh at the suffering of Job (62). There is also the human laughter of the fool.

Part Three deals with the Christian sources. The apocryphal and gnostic gospels depict Mary laughing, and Jesus, and others too.

And there is the "messianic jubilation," the joy and healing of the Christian message, including God's acceptance of sinners. This leads to the first of Kuschel's three theological theses which he begins with a kind of talmudic a fortiori argument: "Could the one of whom his opponents asserted that he was a `glutton and winebibber,' a `friend of tax collectors and sinners,' have made laughter a tabu? That is inconceivable.... Instead of any ambiguous laughter of God, the New Testament knows God's joy, a joy which must necessarily express itself in laughter, but one to which laughter is not alien" (74_5).[3] "The provocative joy, the kingdom of God theology which extends frontiers and breaks tabus, manifests itself in the way in which Jesus uses grotesque imagery ... bold parables ... disarming answers ... radical paradoxes ... perplexing beatitudes" (77). This theme of messianic laughter and joy formed the core of the risus paschalis, the Easter laughter, which was a German preaching tradition that allowed the telling of even off_color jokes and stories on Easter as a way of rejoicing in the triumph over death that Easter embodies (84_7). Kuschel concludes by noting that Jesus was also laughed at, which gave birth to the tradition of the Christian as the fool of God.

Kuschel concludes Part Three by reviewing his first thesis: "... the foundation of Christian existence is the new joy made possible in the `event of Jesus Christ' in and to God and the world, a joy which need not always express itself in laughter, but which becomes concrete in laughter.... has the character of liberated and redeemed joy which breaks down barriers and brings integration.... especially in the interests of those who are marginalized and excluded ... It is laughter in trust that God's laughter is ... a laughter of boundless goodness and joy in his creation and creatures..." (92_3).

Part Four addresses Kuschel's second thesis: "For Christians whose laughter stems from the spirit of joy and happiness, and who feel particularly committed to the despised and outcast, there are limits to laughter; they have an ethical commitment to refuse to laugh...." (122). Noting that laughter and jokes had made it easier for Germans to go to war and to gas Jews in concentration camps, Kuschel, writing in German as a Catholic theologian at Tübingen, concludes: "A Christian theology of laughter protests above all against a laughter from above; at the cost of those who in any case are weak, exploited and socially despised; laughter at the expense of human dignity; laughter as a kind of further delimitation and declassification" (124). "Laughter and ethical self_restraint belong indissolubly together for Christians" (93).

Finally, Kuschel argues, "... a Christian theology of laughter ... will also speak out against the absolutizing of laughter, as happens in Umberto Eco's novel ..." (127). For "it is impossible for the believer, the Christian, to remain permanently in the aesthetic sphere ...to leave decisions open, to replay the game ad infinitum, to keep exchanging the masks and roles for new ones and continually enjoying ... Rather, believers feel challenged to a basic decision about their life and death, an ultimate seriousness and an infinite wager: discipleship of Christ, and thus trust in the God who has shown himself in Jesus Christ" (131).

As an outsider to Christian tradition but, nonetheless a sympathetic reader thereof, I concur with Kuschel's three theses:

First, God certainly does have a sense of humor. God laughs with us and we with God, in faith and in loving trust. Jewish tradition has long recognized this. I think, though, that I would argue that laughter is part of the image of God in which we are created, using Aristotle's theory of human nature and Heschel's biblical_rabbinic theology of the divine pathos. (One might also reason from common sense: Can any two beings in a covenantal relationship get along for an extended period without laughter?) For me, the musical rendition of the gospel stories in Godspell captured very well the Christian message of love and humor.

Second, laughter surely must be subordinate to the ethical. We cannot really be free to laugh at the oppression of others.

And third, laughter must surely be within the framework of meaning and values, even if that implies a logocentric system. The evils of logocentric hierarchicalism, patriarchalism, etc. are legion; they need to be corrected. But one should not throw out the baby with the bathwater.[4] Religion still has the ability, especially in its prophetic and spiritual dimensions, to invest all of life __ even laughter – with meaning, love, and justice.

* Appeared in Cross Currents (Summer: 1995) 243-9.