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Becker's Anthropology: The Shape of Finitude

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Jane Kopas
Jane Kopas*
Affiliation:
University of Scranton
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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 consideration—self-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.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Spring 1982 , pp. 23 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1982

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References

1 Keen, Sam, “The Heroics of Everyday Life: A Theorist of Death Confronts His Own End,” Psychology Today 7/11 (April 1974), p. 71.Google Scholar

2 Becker, Ernest, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man, 2nd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1971), p. viii.Google Scholar

3 Becker, Ernest, The Denial of Death (New York: Free Press, 1973), pp. 93–124.Google Scholar

4 Becker, Ernest, The Revolution in Psychiatry: The New Understanding of Man (New York: Free Press, 1967), p. 44Google Scholar; Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 66.

5 Becker, Ernest, Escape From Evil (New York: Free Press, 1975), pp. 148–51.Google Scholar

6 Becker, Ernest, Beyond Alienation: A Philosophy of Education for the Crisis of Democracy (New York: Braziller, 1968), p. 101.Google Scholar

7 Becker, , Beyond Alienation, p. 153.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., pp. 259-60; Denial of Death, p. 161; Birth and Death of Meaning, pp. 56-57.

9 Becker, , Denial of Death, p. 107.Google Scholar

10 Becker, , Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 198.Google Scholar

11 Becker, , Beyond Alienation, pp. 227–36.Google Scholar

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.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 90.

15 Becker, , Escape from Evil, p. 81.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., p. 4. Scimecca, Joseph, “Cultural Hero-Systems and Religious Beliefs: The Ideal-Real Social Science of Ernest Becker,” Review of Religious Research 21 (Fall 1979), pp. 62–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 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.

17 Becker, , Escape from Evil, p. 117.Google Scholar

18 Becker, , Denial of Death, pp. 24, 178.Google Scholar

19 Becker, , Escape from Evil, p. 163.Google Scholar

20 Becker, , Birth and Death of Meaning, pp. 181–82.Google Scholar

21 Davis, Charles makes an important observation in Body as Spirit (New York: Seabury, 1976), pp. 30–31Google Scholar, when he identifies as pre-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.

22 Becker, , Escape from Evil, p. 163.Google Scholar

23 Becker, , Denial of Death, p. 160.Google Scholar “Christianity took creature consciousness—the thing man most wanted to deny—and 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.

24 Ibid., pp. 89, 90, 107, 124, 279; Escape from Evil, pp. 1, 94, 147, 151, 163.

25 Two useful critiques of Becker which include reference to this idea are Evans', Donald review of The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil in Religious Studies Review 5/1 (January 1979), pp. 25–34Google Scholar and Bianchi's, Eugene “Death and Transcendence in Ernest Becker,” Religion in Life 46 (Winter 1977), pp. 460–75.Google Scholar 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.

26 Becker, , Birth and Death of Meaning, p. 196Google Scholar; Denial of Death, pp. 67-124.

27 Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology, I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), p. 252.Google Scholar One attempt to use Becker's analysis for theological purposes may be found in Hartz, Gary W., “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.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 The most readily available sources for this information, since Becker did not relate his personal experiences in his works, are Keen's interview and Bates, Harvey, “Letters from Ernest,” Christian Century 94/8 (March 9, 1977), pp. 217–27.Google Scholar

29 Keen, p. 78. It is here that Becker admits his “Apollonian” bias and his wariness regarding religious experience.

30 Becker, , Denial of Death, p. 259.Google Scholar