Creation by Means of Loss and the Paradox of Expenditure—A Contribution of Theology to the Vulnerability Dispositive

Abstract

This article argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a new dispositive of power, the vulnerability dispositive, and it clears up what a power dispositive is. It then explains what theology can contribute to this new dispositive. The paradox of expenditure (creation by means of loss) plays a special role here. Human vulnerability is an unprecedented power in personal and political life, social and cultural life, and not least in religion. It is therefore not surprising that it has become a key concept in international, interdisciplinary research in recent decades. At least since the 1980s, it has resulted in an enormous number of scientific publications in almost all scientific disciplines. For Christian theology, this has particular significance because of the doctrine of the Incarnation: when God becomes human in Jesus Christ, God risks being wounded. Christianity ascribes salvific significance to this path into vulnerability. But what significance does this have for interdisciplinary discourse beyond theology? What can theology contribute to interdisciplinary vulnerability research? The starting point for the following considerations is a specific point in vulnerability discourse: the new dispositive of vulnerability that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. It made vulnerability an important argument in social, political, and religious debates. The vulnerability paradox is particularly important in this context. This paradox holds that strategies designed to protect against certain dangers paradoxically intensify the damage if that damage nevertheless occurs. Theology can supplement this paradox, which is highly destructive, with a paradox that in turn promotes and strengthens life: the expenditure paradox that says that creation can occur by means of loss.

1. Introduction: Vulnerability and Resilience—Vulnerance as La Part Maudite of Research

A few years ago, an interesting impulse for vulnerability research came from political science. Herfried Münkler and Felix Wassermann argue that “Vulnerability is the key concept in the actual security debates and prognosis” (Münkler and Wassermann 2012, p. 77).1 They introduced the German term Vulneranz (English: ‘vulnerance’) into the debates. Accordingly, it is not only crucial for states to recognize where they themselves are vulnerable but also where they are in a position to harm other states and their people and institutions. In terms of political strategy, it is a matter of “defensively recognizing one’s own vulnerability, reducing it as far as possible and protecting it from exploitation by the opponent, i.e., from his vulnerance, but at the same time also offensively exposing the opponent’s vulnerability, increasing it as far as possible, and strategically exploiting it by using one’s own vulnerance” (ibid., p. 82).2 Consequently, ‘vulnerance’ means the readiness and ability to inflict injuries on other people or another state. Münkler and Wasserman state that both—one’s own vulnerabilities and one’s ability to strike one’s enemy—are necessary for a political security rating.

In my own research, I am committed to making the term ‘vulnerance’ fruitful not only for political security issues but for vulnerability research as a whole. The term ‘violence’ is very broad. Vulnerance, on the other hand, refers to specifically human violence. Although this can be calculated in the context of security strategies, it quickly becomes explosive as not only the current wars show. In 1947, the philosopher, scholar of religion, and researcher in the area of violence Georges Bataille wrote about the most extreme form of vulnerance: “Like the Pyramids or the Acropolis, Auschwitz is the fact, the sign of Humankind. From now on, the image of humankind is inseparable from a gas chamber.”3

Although vulnerance is an undeniable fact, it has so far played only a minor role in research on vulnerability and resilience. The focus of resilience research is usually on efforts to reduce vulnerability in order to increase resilience. But aren’t there forms of resilience as well that arise from vulnerance and thus cause great harm to other people (‘vulnerant resilience’)? How do people and their communities deal with the fact that they are not only vulnerable but also vulnerant? How are the two connected? Do people give in to vulnerance, or do they resist it, even if they have to pay a price for that? Vulnerance seems to be what Bataille calls la part maudite (the accursed share), something that is excluded and ostracized for a reason (Bataille 1988b). Who wants to be confronted with one’s own vulnerance?4

This article concerns the relationship between vulnerability, vulnerance, and resilience, especially with regard to the vulnerability dispositive. I understand the term ‘vulnerability’ in the broad sense in which it has become established in interdisciplinary discourse: living beings are vulnerable, but so are systems and structures. Landscapes and computer systems are currently being investigated with respect to their vulnerability. The effects of vulnerability permeate human life as a whole: personal relationships, social dynamics, political structures, cultural practices, religious institutions. Accordingly, to be vulnerable is to be open in a place where that should not initially be conducted because the flow of life can be interrupted or the functioning of the system jeopardized—which, however, can also turn out to be an advantage in retrospect or in the big picture (Keul 2021a, 2f). In terms of power analysis, it is crucial that vulnerability calls for action. Since people usually do not want to be injured or suffer pain, they try to keep their own vulnerabilities low. But vulnerability can also be deliberately increased and used to achieve certain goals. It can be productive of action.

The term ‘resilience’, like the concept of vulnerability, is now used in all scientific disciplines. Its use in the humanities and social sciences is controversial, especially because it is often suspected of serving neoliberal power grabs. Thus, a critical concept of resilience is needed that does not pursue utopian promises of salvation but conducts clear analyses of multiple effects of power. In this article and in my research in general, I follow the differentiated concept of resilience developed by the research group “Resilience in Religion and Spirituality” (University of Bonn, Germany; https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/348851031 accessed on 21 June 2024): “We define resilience as the ability to cope, and/or the dynamic process of adaptively coping, with stress and adversity while maintaining and developing psychological and physical functionality. This process is to be understood as an individual, interpersonal, social and environmental process, both in structural terms and in its situational and flexible contextuality” (Richter and Geiser 2021, p. 20).5 ‘Resilience’ describes the ability to cope successfully, and the process and the result of doing so, with difficult or stressful life circumstances.

Firstly, we describe the field of discourse by examining the vulnerability dispositive that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic (Section 2). In contradiction to the binary coding of vulnerability and resilience (Section 3), both vulnerant resilience (Section 3.1) and the countermovement that resists vulnerance and thus opens up a life-promoting resilience (Section 3.2) are analyzed. We subsequently focus on the vulnerability dispositive (Section 4). On the one hand, this involves the vulnerability paradox, which originates from security research (Section 4.1). On the other hand, it is supplemented by the expenditure paradox, which theology supplies (Section 4.2).

2. Vulnerability as a New Power Dispositive: A Challenge for Christian Theology

The interdisciplinary vulnerability discourse has heterogeneous origins (Keul 2021a, pp. 36–70). Its beginnings lie in the 20th century, in medicine and military studies. In the 1980s, ecology and poverty research in particular made vulnerability a key concept in research. Since then, the term has been taken up and further developed in other sciences. Since the turn of the millennium in particular, the humanities and social sciences have contributed to the vulnerability discourse, highlighting not only the destructive but also the creative power effects of vulnerability. I call this “the humanities and social science turn” in vulnerability discourse.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and vulnerability became a hot topic globally. Globally, that was addressed by various scientists in lectures and articles. For the first time, there was a global discussion not only about injuries but also about vulnerability as a possibility of being injured—and about how to deal with this vulnerability in order to increase resilience and prevent future injuries. The question of vulnerability and resilience thus became a key issue, and all the discussions, arguments, turbulence, and scientific disputes surrounding this global emergency have brought about something new: the COVID-19 pandemic, with human vulnerability at its center, created a new power dispositive. In response to the biological–virological power grab, a biopolitics emerged that made vulnerability a decisive argument in both the personal and the political sphere. A new, globally oppressive reality gave rise to complex dynamics in heated debates at the breakfast table, in an overabundance of journalistic and scientific publications, in administration and legislation, in everyday disputes on political decisions and economic strategies, and in the reformatting of architecture (crematoria in which coffins piled up; hastily erected emergency hospitals and vaccination centers; memorials in cities, churches, and clinics; the mass graves on the “Island of the Dead” in New York—all heterotopias in which the vulnerability of humanity is precariously embodied). A new power dispositive thus emerged that went far beyond the pandemic itself: the dispositive of vulnerability (Keul 2021a, pp. 10–36).

But what is a dispositive? The term comes from the Latin dispositiō and means order, direction, as well as arrangement, command. It can refer to the totality of all persons, means, and processes that are available for the fulfilment of a specific task, i.e., for disposition. Dispositions have to do with material realities and are at the same time phenomena of discourse; they address both the structural and the disciplinary. This is why the French philosopher Michel Foucault was able to mold ‘dispositive of power’ (dispositif de pouvoir) into a key term of his theoretical work and explained it in an interview in 1977: “Ce que j’essaie de repérer sous ce nom, c’est, premièrement, un ensemble résolument hétérogène, comportant des discours, des institutions, des aménagements architecturaux, des décisions réglementaires, des lois, des mesures administratives, des énoncés scientifiques, des propositions philosophiques, morales, philanthropiques, bref: du dit, aussi bien que du non-dit […]. Le dispositif lui-même, c’est le réseau qu’on peut établir entre ces éléments” (Foucault 2001, p. 299).

Even if the dispositive is described as a network (réseau), this does not refer to a fixed variable but a very dynamic one. The network is like a game (comme un jeu) (ibid.) because it also requires chess moves of power that others cannot foresee. Old connections are cut, and new ones established. But anyone who changes one intersection in the network must reckon with unpredictable dynamics at other points. All of the points mentioned by Foucault that characterize a dispositive apply to vulnerability in the COVID-19 pandemic. This applies in particular to our next point: “par dispositif, j’entends une sorte—disons—de formation, qui, à un moment historique donné, a eu pour fonction majeure de répondre á une urgence. Le dispositif a donc une fonction stratégique dominante” (ibid.).

An emergency creates a need for action that cannot be delayed. This is why the vulnerability dispositive was created: it was a response to the emergency of the pandemic. In the dispositive, concrete practices and discourses are used to negotiate what the response to the respective emergency should look like. A dispositive is therefore a dynamic variable and is constituted through confrontation, dispute, conflict, testing, failure, and success of attempted solutions. Of course, vulnerability was already a key concept in scientific discourse before 2020, namely, already since the 1980s at the latest. But it was the virus that created a new power dispositive that has permanently changed the landscape of dispositives.

Once a dispositive is established in society, it quickly spreads to other areas in order to respond to other challenges and emergencies. Meanwhile, vulnerability has become an integral part of particularly heated social debates: on migration and gender, climate change, and the destruction of biodiversity, abortion and sexual violence, abuse of power, and digitalization. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerability can be used to make policy. It is a weighty but dangerous argument in the development and implementation of power strategies. In February 2022, Vladimir Putin justified his war of aggression against Ukraine on the basis of Russia’s vulnerability, which NATO had allegedly increased.6 In social contexts, vulnerability is often used as an argument to attest that certain social groups need protection and support—and thus to reserve resources that are then no longer available to other groups. Vulnerability is at the center of migration forced by climate change and generates policies of solidarity as well as vulnerant practices of isolation with the aim of protecting one’s own supposedly high vulnerability. It generates a flood of laws and administrative measures; places of vulnerability such as life-threatening borders, inhumane refugee and deportation camps; and social turbulence that can bring a democracy to the brink of collapse. It is obvious that how society deals with vulnerability—its own and that of others—is socially controversial. And the debate must be conducted.

• A dispositive is—according to my definition, following Foucault—a dynamic power structure that reacts to an urgent challenge or emergency and shapes the thoughts and actions of people and communities. It steers the perception of the present world as well as future expectations in a certain direction and, under certain circumstances, formats action right into its concrete shape. Its power potential lies in this formatting power.

This formatting creates a special problem in the vulnerability dispositive. The natural and life sciences, which dominated the discourse at the beginning of vulnerability research, had a narrow concept of vulnerability. The concept was understood primarily as referring to something that should be minimized as much as possible; they saw research as an analysis of weak points. However, since the turn to the humanities and social sciences in such research (Keul 2021a, pp. 78–96) around the year 2000, interdisciplinary research has developed a more complex understanding of vulnerability (Butler 2004; Coakley 2002; Fineman and Grear 2013; Gilson 2014; Haker 2020; Janssen 2018; Mackenzie et al. 2014; Montero Orphanopoulos 2022; Stålsett 2023; Thiel 2023; and many others). But the COVID-19 pandemic has once again led to a narrowing of the term in social debates: the new dispositive understands vulnerability exclusively in a negative sense as a weakness to act, passivity, a need for protection, and powerlessness. It does not recognize that vulnerability is a power because it challenges people to act. A central insight of vulnerability research is missing here, i.e., the insight that a distinction must be made between wound and vulnerability, even if the two cannot be separated because they influence each other. Vulnerability is the possibility of being wounded, and because wounds hurt, hinder, or even extinguish life, people try to prevent the feared injury. They become active and turn into agents who react to a perceived vulnerability. Vulnerability therefore has agency potential (Keul 2021b, pp. 85–140).

But if vulnerability is defined unilaterally as a weakness in action, as the vulnerability dispositive defines it, and certain social groups are described as vulnerable, these groups are perceived as weak, passive, needing protection and governance, and perhaps even as pitiable. This problem was pointed out by geographer and educationalist Hans-Joachim Bürkner, who called this phenomenon vulnerabilization. In his groundbreaking study “Vulnerability and Resilience: State of Research and Social Science Research Perspectives” (Bürkner 2010), he introduced the term by asking the question: “What consequences does a politically orchestrated ‘vulnerabilization of the social [dimension of society]’ have for the affected groups?” (Bürkner 2010, p. 36)7 Social identification harbors the risk of stigmatization. The people in this group are only or primarily seen as vulnerable people who cannot act on their own and therefore need the agency of others. This exposes vulnerable groups to the power of paternalization. Protection becomes a power grab that uses vulnerability as an effect of sociopolitical power processes for its own benefit.8

The problem of vulnerabilization shows the power potential that the new vulnerability dispositive is capable of developing. It therefore presents the sciences with a special task. They are challenged to recognize the significance of the new dispositive and its intertwined relationships with other dispositives. The resilience dispositive is particularly important here, as will be explained in the next section. How does the vulnerability dispositive change social power dynamics, and what can the sciences contribute to understanding these dynamics better or changing them? Due to its complexity, this task can only be accomplished in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary way. Multilayered, networked research is required because no single field of science alone can tap into the effects of power, which are as comprehensive and pervasive as new dispositives are.

Dispositives are crucial for any science that does not operate in an ivory tower but wants to be relevant to society. This is because sciences gain social relevance by focusing on those dispositives that fundamentally change societies, lead to conflict, and are controversial in everyday life as well as in global politics. This also applies to Christian theology. It becomes relevant to society when it discovers what it has to say in a current dispositive, develops it, and brings it to bear. It can thus influence the response that a society gives to the respective emergency. No science becomes socially relevant without the current dispositives of power—this applies to sociology just as much as it does to English studies, to architecture just as much as it does to theology. In turn, the vulnerability dispositive opens up a special opportunity for Christian theology, because at its center are the manger and the cross, two places of discourse that are permeated and marked by the interrelationship of vulnerability and vulnerance. What can it contribute to the interdisciplinary discourse on vulnerability?

To discover this, theology must take a closer look at this discourse. I have discussed in detail elsewhere the fact that a special methodology is required here (Keul 2021b, pp. 43–82). Following Michel de Certeau—co-founder of cultural studies, theologian, and researcher into mysticism—I call this methodology ‘heterology’, ‘the science of the other’. Certeau (1986) argues that scientific studies should take an interdisciplinary approach and reflect on issues not in the terms afforded by their own discourse but from in those of other discourses. In particular, he demands that theology not limits itself to ‘theological’ issues. Theology should aim to explore the questions and problems in other sciences, to investigate them, and to consult the theological discourse archives from them. Theology can thus discover new insights in relation to its own traditions and reconstitute itself.

This article follows this heterologous approach. Thus, my starting point is not theological; rather, my considerations are based on non-theological discourses—discourses from social sciences and other fields, and my purpose here is to investigate whether theology has anything to say about what is being discussed there and, if so, what. The questions are thus posed by the other sciences, and only if theology allows the language of other disciplines to ‘surge back’ into its own theological language (ibid., pp. 48–54) can it position itself heterologically and thus gain social relevance.

3. Vulnerability and Resilience in Binary Coding: The Blind Spot of Vulnerance

In current debates, vulnerability research is of particular importance where it is linked to resilience research. It is true that both discourses have developed relatively independently, i.e., in loose connection with each other. But their fields of research overlap because both discourses relate to similar problems. Vulnerability is a crucial category for resilience research because resilience is only needed where there are wounds and vulnerabilities. If one wants to recognize and increase resilience, one needs to know and research specific vulnerabilities. For this reason, the topics ’vulnerability and resilience’ have become established in many areas of research, making them a common conceptual pair.

Resilience is about competences, strategies, and processes for coping with injuries, traumatic experiences, and vulnerabilities.9 “Resilience is a ‘buzzword’ that obviously has its finger on the pulse […]. Situations of radical change generate interest in the question how we can act in such a way as to survive and adapt” (Vogt and Schneider 2016, p. 178). With regard to the conceptual pair ’vulnerability and resilience,’ the intriguing question arises as to how both terms are related. The image of beam scales quickly comes to mind: if the resilience side of the scale goes up, the vulnerability side goes down. The higher the vulnerability, the lower the resilience; the higher the resilience, the lower the vulnerability: “in the literature vulnerability is sometimes conceptualized as the opposite of resilience, in the sense that if vulnerability is reduced, resilience is increased, especially relating to environmental change, risk, and disaster […], but also to urban development” (Deppisch 2017, p. 4). It seems to be a zero-sum game where gain on one side entails loss on the other. The word pair becomes an antonym.

At first sight, this bias might be quite convincing: one can be reduced and the other increased. Consequently, the main point in research is “reducing vulnerability and enhancing resilience” (Cutter 2018, p. 4). One can find this bias time and again in research.10 This has a very important consequence: on the one hand, there is ’vulnerability,’ and that is negative in the sense of ’damaging life’; it means weakness, powerlessness, insecurity, passivity, dependence.11 On the other hand, there is ’resilience,’ a very positive word that means security, strength, creativity, power, capability. And the relation between both sides is a zero-sum game. This is one of the “well-beaten paths” (Bürkner 2010, p. 5) in research that the sociologist Bürkner criticizes. But reality is not that simple. The pandemic has shown particularly clearly that the connection between vulnerability and resilience is non-proportional (Petkovšek and Žalec 2022; Schambeck and Verburg 2023). Psychologist Insa Fooken, for example, has previously pointed out that there are surprising simultaneous manifestations of vulnerability and resilience; she notes “apparently paradoxical connections” (Fooken 2016, p. 16).

I would like to present two points in opposition to the notion of ‘vulnerability and resilience as a zero-sum-game’. The first is that resilience is not always life-enhancing but sometimes very destructive. The second point is that vulnerability is not always destructive but sometimes life-enhancing. The guiding questions here are as follows:

• Is reducing vulnerability the only way to increase resilience? Can increasing resilience also be achieved through vulnerance, so that the term ‘vulnerant resilience’ must be introduced into the discourse? What role does one’s own vulnerability play here and what role does the vulnerability of others play?
• Does increased vulnerability automatically lead to a decline in resilience? Does it always weaken and jeopardize, so that it should be strictly avoided? Or are there forms of vulnerability that increase creativity, strength, and the ability to act? Under what circumstances can strength grow from vulnerability?

3.1. The Destructive Resilience of Terrorists, Dictators, and Other Perpetrators of Vulnerance—Why Resilience as a Magic Word Does Not Work

Resilience research is very important because it supports people, communities, and states in becoming stronger and more resistant to the dangers of life. Resilience even “includes the pledge to react robustly and flexibly in situations of radical change” (Vogt and Schneider 2016, p. 80).12 But criticism has been growing in recent years. Markus Vogt and Martin Schneider point out that resilience seems to be a kind of magic word, almost a salvific one (ibid.). The blind spot is that resilience is often seen in an exclusively positive sense as life-enhancing. Cornelia Richter notes that it is “a term of wellness and wishfulness”; its “neoliberal potential of optimizing is recognized in economics and politics with large interest” (Richter 2017, p. 11)13.

Political scientists who are experts in questions of vulnerance are especially clear in their rejection of an exclusively positive view of resilience. Münkler and Wassermann discuss the problem that the more a state tries to become invulnerable, the more it tends to use violence against other states and perhaps against its own people (see the Trojan software used by governments)—it becomes vulnerant. The scientists criticize the myth of “complete invulnerability from whose cover vulnerance can unfold to its maximum effect” (Münkler and Wassermann 2012, p. 82)14. But an unconditional maximization of security measures leads to inflexibility and self-paralyses. A society does not inevitably become more resilient if it attempts to become invulnerable while using vulnerance against other states. Thus, Münkler and Wassermann suggest that resilience be understood “as an alternative to the goal of invulnerability” instead of vulnerability; “it seems to be more of a complementary term than one that stands over against vulnerability” (ibid., p. 87).15

Political science provides good reasons for my use of the term ‘vulnerant resilience,’ i.e., resilience generated by vulnerance. Víctor M. Mijares analyzes the political system of Venezuela, introducing the term ‘authoritarian resilience’ (autoritäre Resilienz) to describe the survival of Chavismo: “the understanding of resilience is the capacity of authoritarianism to maintain power through the adaptation to a changing environment. Thereby, it has to react to both national and international challenges” (Mijares 2017)16. This is a strong argument. Dictators have to be very assertive, flexible, adaptive, strong—characteristics that are usually assigned to resilience. They use violence that the victims oppose, and so dictators have to work against resistance. They have to be resilient to survive.

The research project ‘Embracing change: Overcoming obstacles and advancing democracy in the European Neighbourhood’17, an International Consortium with the participation of the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, investigates the issue of why democracies in Europe have not grown in recent years but are becoming more fragile, and what can be undertaken to strengthen democratization processes and reverse the trend. Like Mijares, the project also works with the term ‘authoritarian resilience.’ They do this so they can analyze the problem of de-democratization more accurately. Although the term ‘authoritarian resilience’ is not identical to ‘vulnerant resilience’ as one focuses on a form of rule and the other on the question of vulnerance, the problem with authoritarian resilience is its vulnerance.

And there is another group that does not fit into the non-violent understanding of resilience—Islamist or other fundamentalist terrorists who prepare for a suicide attack in training camps. They deliberately endure extremely tough training, can cope with the death of friends and relatives, are not afraid of being separated from their families, can kill others without hesitation, and overcome their fear of death, as their committing suicide in the performance of their mission shows. Sometimes, they undergo a very astonishing personality development: a shy, well-behaved girl turns into an unscrupulous warrior, for example. They endure life crises and increase their ability to act. Criteria that normally belong to the definition of resilience apply here. Terrorists are very resilient, even and especially when they are in a position to commit a suicide attack—in the deceptive hope that they will be lavishly rewarded by God. One has to be strong to commit a suicide attack. This perspective has not yet been discussed in resilience research enough, and innovative academic studies are needed.

The analyses by the philosopher Judith Butler show that there is another, deeper problem about vulnerant resilience. In her reflections on 9/11, she notes: “Certain lives will be highly protected, and the abrogation of their claims to sanctity will be sufficient to mobilize the forces of war” (Butler 2004, p. 32). People feel unsecure, vulnerable, in need of protection, and issue a call to arms. This holds true in many areas of human life: not only people who feel strong but also those who feel highly vulnerable try to overcome this vulnerability by using vulnerance. An actual example concerns the so-called besorgte Bürger (concerned citizens) in Germany. Most of these protesters feel very vulnerable: they fear social decline, damage to their lives and German culture—they fear the wound that may come in the future (Keul 2015). It is the political strategy of the right-wing populist groups and parties to inflame this fear. They calculate that a feeling of increased vulnerability will provoke vulnerance more easily. With a view to the national borders that were “more permeable than we thought,” Butler notes: “Our general response is anxiety, rage; a radical desire for security, a shoring-up the borders against what is perceived as alien” (Butler 2004, p. 39; Pistrol 2023). One’s own (real or imaginary) vulnerability becomes an argument for the outbreak of vulnerance against migrants and Muslims. In becoming vulnerant, verbal or physical, people become active, stronger, more capable of action. Self-defense needs and causes resilience. They probably feel better so that their mental health improves. In their vulnerance, the besorgte Bürger become more resilient.

Another important area of vulnerant resilience is vulnerance that results from sexual abuse and cover-ups (Keul 2022). As long as institutions like the Roman Catholic Church and secular institutions like the Odenwaldschule (Butenkemper 2024, pp. 102–18)18 tolerate abuse and actively protect the perpetrators through covering up vulnerance, the vulnerability of the victims (survivors and non-survivors) will increase and their resilience weakened, while at the same time, the resilience of the perpetrators will increase. This is perpetrator resilience generated by vulnerance, namely, by the perpetrators themselves, who are the first to cover up their actions, as well as by the institution. This shows once again that vulnerability and resilience are not simply innate personality traits but are generated in social systems. As long as offenders are protected by the system, their resilience is so high that they can even increase their vulnerance. But if abuse and cover-ups are exposed and publicly accused, which means that the protection of the offender no longer occurs as a matter of course, the vulnerant offender’s resilience rapidly decreases.

Dictators, terrorists, vulnerant citizens, and perpetrators of sexual abuse shift the focus: resilience has potential for vulnerance, which is connected with the other side of the bias about resilience, vulnerability. Perpetrators use vulnerance because they want to decrease their vulnerability. Obviously, vulnerance emerges from vulnerability. One has to focus on this more closely. When one hears the word ‘vulnerable,’ one probably thinks first of all of someone encountering danger. She or he might become a victim of vulnerance and have to be protected. But that is only one side of the coin. The other side shows something else: whoever is or feels vulnerable runs the risk of becoming a perpetrator of vulnerance. Injuries cause pain; they can even be life-threatening. Therefore, people attempt to protect themselves from injuries and to prevent them but often do so by exposing others to their own vulnerability—the innumerable deaths in the Mediterranean Sea clearly testify to this today. The desire to protect oneself (or one’s own family, community, religion, etc.) contains potential for violence: we hurt others so that we ourselves will not be hurt. This is a common strategy for self-protection. In the Christian tradition, this can be called the “Herodian strategy” (Keul 2017, pp. 19–25), named after the king of Judea who—as the Bible tells us (Mt 2: 16–18)—became vulnerant because he was afraid his throne was in danger. This “Herodian strategy” results in defense mechanisms that wound others: others are victimized in a kind of pre-emptive strike.

• The conclusion here is that vulnerability can provoke vulnerance and this ‘vulnerance out of vulnerability’ increases resilience. It is not really desirable to enhance resilience in every case. Who wants to enhance the resilience of vulnerant groups, dictators, and terrorists so that they can become more vulnerant? A person’s resilience can increase the vulnerability of others and thus cause new harm. It is not enough to study vulnerability and resilience. We need research about the whole field of vulnerability, vulnerance and resilience, and all the surprising, contradictory effects of power in this complex field.

Intriguing questions can be raised here. How is vulnerant self-defense connected to resilience? One needs to be strong, to have supporters, shields, and weapons to attack or harm others. Does one’s resilience increase when one hurts others? And under what circumstances? Resilience is not automatically life-enhancing; on the contrary, it can be very destructive. The term loses its false halo and thus needs to be viewed in a different way. And now a second point becomes clear: in research, one cannot focus on ‘vulnerability’ in the singular but on ‘vulnerabilities’ in the plural. There are several different kinds of vulnerabilities—not only those of one person, one group, state, or religion. And there are many effects of power moving between these different kinds of vulnerability.

3.2. Life-Enhancing Resilience out of Vulnerability—Daring Dedication in the Resistance against Vulnerance

Because of the zero-sum game, resilience research pursues primarily the objective of reducing vulnerabilities to increase resilience. The purpose of reducing vulnerability is doubtless justified in many areas. But research on vulnerability often neglects a central aspect. People, states, and religions do not always attempt to prevent injuries to themselves; rather, they are extremely ready to risk vulnerability and to make sacrifices when something sacred to them is at stake. Georges Bataille notes: “The danger of death is not avoided; on the contrary, it is the object of a strong unconscious attraction” (Bataille 2019, p. 119). People are ready to give their own resources to others even if they need these resources urgently for themselves. The best example for that is women bringing children into the world, even though it is very painful and dangerous, and social vulnerability increases throughout the entire length of one’s life. Many parents would even sacrifice their lives if it meant they could save the lives of their children. But there are also fundamentalist religions that incite suicide attacks and ‘holy wars’, even though they lose adherents thereby and run major risks. Sometimes, states open their borders and accept refugees, even though this creates uncertainties of all kinds. Many people all over the world work as volunteers to support marginalized people or to rescue people in danger; they risk being wounded for the welfare of others. Consequently, the notions of ‘victim’ and ‘sacrifice’ are entangled.

Parents make great sacrifices for their beloved children because they are holy to them; and the more they sacrifice for their children, the holier they become. Every sacrifice—in the sense the scholar of religion Bataille intends—involves a victim, but not every victim is a sacrifice. Bataille states the following about sacrifice and Christianity:

“In the etymological sense of the word, sacrifice is nothing other than the production of sacred things. From the very first, it appears that sacred things are constituted by an operation of loss: in particular, the success of Christianity must be explained by the value of the theme of the Son of God’s ignominious crucifixion, which carries human dread to a representation of loss and limitless degradation”.

(Bataille 2019, p. 119)

From this perspective, it is quite odd to think that reducing vulnerability should be the one and only resilience strategy. Living intensely means being active: moving and discovering a new world; opening up and communicating with others; showing commitment to the well-being of others; giving and gaining trust; developing sensitivity to the needs and passions of other people; standing up for each other in the vulnerabilities of life; communicating intensively with or even loving each other requires openness and is not possible without vulnerability. All these activities increase one’s own vulnerability. But who would want to do without the love that gives life a boost and intensity just because it makes one vulnerable? Vulnerability should therefore not be avoided or minimized in every case. It means an openness that makes communication possible in the first place: “[V]ulnerability is defined by openness and, more specifically, to be vulnerable is to be open to being affected and affecting in ways that one cannot control” (Gilson 2014, p. 2).

• Here, the crucial question arises: Does vulnerability always weaken a person or state, group, religion? Or can increasing vulnerability make one stronger? Are there forms of vulnerability that increase resilience? When and under what circumstances does vulnerability make one resilient? The argument concerning ‘authoritarian resilience’ showed that there is a kind of vulnerability that increases resilience by using violence against others. But is there another form of vulnerability that increases resilience not by violence but by sustaining the life of others?

In current debates on migration, the right-wing parties in Europe suggest that if the state increases its own vulnerability, it has already lost. But is that really true? There is no doubt that people can enhance their resilience in protecting themselves from being wounded. Wounds hurt and are a hindrance; they can impair or even threaten life. This is why people do not want to be wounded. Consequently, they try not only to heal wounds they have already suffered but also to minimize their various vulnerabilities. Protecting oneself from wounds and developing various security strategies is a tried and tested strategy for dealing with human vulnerability. Self-protection can be broadly defined and encompass everything that is considered personal, such as one’s own children, culture, or religion. But even basic things such as hoarding food and resources of all kinds are part of the protection against potential vulnerability. Self-protection is an indispensable life strategy, also in terms of housing, energy, food, health, infrastructure, digitalization, and military defenses. Those who do not protect themselves quickly find themselves in mortal danger, such as getting behind the wheel of a car.

Self-protection is often very effective. But it is not the one and only resilience strategy. One can look at resilient people in quite another way. For example, Nelson Mandela is said to have been very resilient (Horn 2017, p. 32). He was willing to risk a lot and to increase his own vulnerability because he pursued the goal of justice, but this risk did not make him weak, powerless, and passive. A weak person cannot resist apartheid in the resolute, constructive, and even successful way that Mandela did. He was very vulnerable and very resilient at the same time. Did his strength grow through his voluntarily taking the risk of being wounded?

Or one can look at an example from the Hebrew Bible: the widow of Zarephath. When the prophet Elijah appears at her home, she has “only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug” (1 Kings 17: 12). She does not have to believe the prophet’s promise that she would receive enough to eat if she helped him—after all, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and she is afraid of starving, along with her son. Nevertheless, she is willing to give Elijah “a morsel of bread.”19 She has to scrimp and save for this hungry stranger and risks a great deal when she uses the pathetic amount of flour she has left over to bake a loaf of bread for someone whose status as a prophet was dubious. But she is not weak in taking this risk. Perhaps she becomes stronger by doing so. To make a sacrifice can have creative, life-opening effects, even for the person making the sacrifice.

• The thesis is as follows. Vulnerability is not always a weakness that diminishes resilience; rather, voluntarily risking vulnerability to support the lives of others can be a sacrifice that reinforces one’s own resilience. This also means that the binary code of ‘vulnerable’ as ‘insecure, in danger, weak, open to attack, powerless, helpless, dependent, lethargic, passive’ versus ‘resilient’ as ‘strong, secure, tough, protected, active, crisis-proof, autonomous, efficient, unassailable’ is broken. One can grow and gather strength in taking risks and making sacrifices.

Astonishingly enough, this point is often ignored within the research of resilience. The reason is probably that this is deeply connected with religion. Sacrifice and dedication are at the heart of religious life, and they are key terms in discourse on religion. This is true in a special sense in Christian theology because here it is central to Christian theology that God became a human being of flesh and blood in Jesus Christ and thereby freely took on the risk of vulnerability—Jesus was born as a helpless baby, and his family had to flee their home country with him to Egypt because of political persecution. Incarnation leads right into the vulnerable lives of people who are exposed to many risks and also to the vulnerance of their fellow human beings. Later, as a preacher and miracle worker, Jesus was openly attacked and, in the end, brutally tortured and killed. Christianity considers the life of this vulnerable migrant a sign of salvation because the incarnation of God—and subsequently the incarnation of Jesus throughout his life; and all people who practice dedication for others—is an act of love and solidarity with people in their vulnerability. Therefore, the love of God is not possible without neighborly love, which is often risky. The fact that Jesus is prepared to risk life and limb for this indissoluble connection—without being forced to do so—characterizes his actions as a practiced incarnation. He puts his vulnerability on the line to open up life—for himself and for others. So, Christianity is characterized by the doctrine of the incarnation precisely because it bestows salvific meaning on the way into the middle of vulnerability. Where people actively stand by each other in the vulnerabilities of their lives, they are acting as humans in the spirit of incarnation.

What significance does this have for the interdisciplinary discourse on vulnerability and resilience? The doctrine of the incarnation focuses attention on ‘voluntarily increasing vulnerability’. That is not self-evident because most debates on resilience are about reducing vulnerability. Here, a new research area opens up. Theology makes clear that the connection of vulnerability and resilience is a Christian theme and at the same time a human challenge. This is true not only when God became flesh, but also when people are also prepared to increase their own vulnerability to protect and foster the lives of other people, cultures, and religions. There are many examples of this in the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible as well.

But why is ‘voluntarily increasing vulnerability’ a theme for humankind? This question points to the other side of vulnerability, the human sense of touchability. Self-defense requires that we build walls, wear armor, carry shields, and even deadly weapons. But love requires us to put all that aside. Clothes can hinder erotic love. We have to open ourselves up because we want to love and be loved. We communicate intensely, to approach one another closely, and share everything. But if we open ourselves up, we become vulnerable. There is nothing that makes us more vulnerable than love. The theologian William Placher emphasizes: “Love means making oneself vulnerable to suffering, looking after another so that one finds oneself in a real reciprocal relation—including all risks” (Placher 1998, p. 240).20

This connection between vulnerability and touchability is not only true in personal love relationships but affects the wide field of responsibility for other humans, especially those who are in trouble or in danger. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas adds this item to the agenda (Czapski 2017, especially pp. 125–28). If one is open to being deeply moved by the affliction of others, prepared for communication with different standpoints, for interaction with strangers, then one is vulnerable at the same time. Vulnerability, openness, and touchability are connected (Gilson 2014). To be human means to be vulnerable in a very deep sense. Newborn children show quite plainly that everybody needs the protection and dedicated attention of others to even stay alive. They need the generous gifts of other human beings. Without dedication, injured people are ruthlessly thrown back upon themselves, and a merciless society develops. By introducing ‘dedication’ and thus the life force of self-giving into studies on vulnerability and resilience, theology counteracts this mercilessness. People can live together in a truly human way only if they are willing to allow themselves to be vulnerable for the sake of affection, respect, appreciation, and love. To take responsibility for orphans, strangers in afflicted circumstances, and the marginalized and the sick means to risk being wounded, a risk that serves life. It is a humanizing process of resistance: it occurs where humanity is at stake.

Georges Bataille found the expression “creation by means of loss” for his definition of poetry: “The term poetry […] can be considered synonymous with expenditure; it in fact signifies, in the most precise way, creation by means of loss” (Bataille 2019, p. 120); in French: “création au moyen de la perte” (Bataille 1970, p. 307). Poetry is about a creative process: in Greek, ‘poiέw’ means to make, to do, to produce, to create; even to create as God’s creative activity (Bauer et al. 1988, p. 1365). Whoever creates in this sense gives something away and releases it so that something new can arise—just as the Sun provides the Earth with an abundance of energy without demanding anything in return. Creation happens by means of loss.

4. The Interdisciplinary Yield for the Vulnerability Dispositive: The Paradoxes of Vulnerability and Expenditure

The view of human vulnerability is revealing for Christian theology. But it also provides an interdisciplinary yield that is relevant for research into the vulnerability dispositive. This can be seen in the vulnerability paradox that security research discovered in the 1990s and is now being supplemented by theology with another: the expenditure paradox.

4.1. The Vulnerability Paradox, a Discovery of Security Research: The More Secure, the More Vulnerable

Self-protection through installing security strategies is essential to the avoidance of being defenselessly exposed to human vulnerability. Security strategies, however, do not always work as desired. They can even cause the opposite of what was intended. Security strategies have their pitfalls, especially in the human sphere where these strategies are particularly comprehensive and sophisticated. This problem has been recognized by security research, which is interested in the vulnerability of infrastructures. It calls this phenomenon the ‘vulnerability paradox,’ which was defined in 1994 as follows: “To the extent that a country is less susceptible to disruption in its supply services, any disruption to the production, distribution, and consumption of supply services has an even greater impact” (Steetskamp and Van Wijk 1994, p. 4).21 What appears to be well protected proves to be particularly vulnerable in the event of disruption of that protection.

The study “Hazards and Vulnerability of Modern Societies” found that a disruption at a crucial point in the power supply could lead to “catastrophic conditions” within 24 h (Petermann et al. 2010, p. 15 and passim). Technical systems for the provision of water and heat, social activities such as mobile phone use, healthcare, and economic processes rely on the reliability of the electricity supply. In such complex systems, a disruption can have an exponential effect. Therefore, under certain circumstances, safeguards themselves produce vulnerability, which is highly precarious in terms of military strategy.

• The vulnerability paradox states that the constantly growing expansion of safety strategies, which is intended to reduce vulnerability and thus avert injuries, leads to an even greater injury if the damage nevertheless occurs, possibly even driving the damage exponentially. The effects of power suddenly no longer run in the intended direction but in the opposite one. The more a society invests in its security, the greater the destruction if the security does not work. This is a paradox: the stronger the security strategies, the greater the vulnerability. The vulnerability paradox destroys humanity’s old dream of becoming invulnerable through protection and security strategies.

The vulnerability paradox occurs in many areas of life. For example, pandemics, i.e., worldwide epidemics, have existed only since globalization paved the way for viruses to spread rapidly around the globe. One can even understand global warming and climate change with its destructive effects as a vulnerability paradox: what should reduce vulnerability is instead enhancing it. And the Roman Catholic Church is an example of how covering up sexual abuse can lead to a vulnerability paradox (Keul 2022). Church leaders wanted to protect their own religious community, their own clergy, often their own careers, and were even prepared to sacrifice children and young people who were under their protection. They safeguarded their own interests and wanted to protect the church and its clericalism from being violated. When abuse and cover-ups were then uncovered—thanks to the courage and will to resist those affected showed—the damage was all the greater. It was not just the abuse, but the vulnerance of the cover-up that turned the church into a wasteland because its credibility was destroyed. To understand the vulnerability paradox, one only needs imagine what would have happened if the abuse had not been covered up but had been consistently punished and persistently penalized. On the one hand, this would have limited the damage to the survivors, and many acts of abuse would have been prevented. On the other hand, the Catholic Church would only have suffered limited damage. Its enormous loss of credibility in recent years was caused by the cover-up of these human rights violations. It increased the destruction caused by the primary perpetrators exponentially. What was supposed to prevent such violations fueled them and continues to fuel them until now.

Cover-ups are a prime example of the vulnerability paradox, because if something is kept out of the public eye by vulnerant means (oppression, discrediting, denial, and shaming of victims; social exclusion; financial damage) but then comes to light anyway, the cover-up reinforces the destructive nature of what was covered up. The Odenwaldschule, supposedly a “beacon of education reform” (Keupp et al. 2019), was forced to close in 2015 after it became public that the former headmaster Gerold Becker had organized a network of abuse and cover-ups. In this case, self-protection became a boomerang because it was intended to hurt others but then turned back on the perpetrators.

4.2. The Expenditure Paradox, a Theological Discovery: The More Vulnerable, the More Resilient

Interestingly, the New Testament already recognizes the vulnerability paradox, even if it does not call it that: “Whoever seeks to save his or her life will lose it” (Luke 17: 33). Those who rely only on self-protection and install one safety device after another may increase their vulnerability and suffer damage as a result. But the Gospel immediately adds another paradox that was previously unknown in vulnerability research outside theology: “[A]nd whoever will lose his or her life shall find it” (ibid.). Those who increase their own vulnerability release resources for life. I call this the expenditure paradox. The biblical passage makes it clear how paradoxical this is. What Luke says here is not always true. We do not always lose life when we try to preserve it—self-protection is a principle of life that leads very quickly to our death if we do not have it; and we do not always gain life through something we lose: the gain does not materialize. But there are cases where Luke’s maxim hits the nail on the head. And these cases are more common than they appear at first glance.

• Hoarding life resources of all kinds and protecting them against external access (from other people, other living beings, forces of nature) is an exceedingly successful life strategy. Just as necessary for the survival of humanity, however, is the strategy that runs counter to safeguarding: self-expenditure. It deliberately increases one’s own vulnerability in the hope that this act will give rise to new life. The expenditure paradox occurs when the deliberate increase in vulnerability, which risks and perhaps even suffers loss, leads to a gain in life. This is a countermovement to ‘vulnerance out of vulnerability’: ’creation by means of loss’.

It is no coincidence that the vulnerability paradox was discovered in the field of security research, which is on the trail of the paradox in its search for vulnerability in security systems. Nor is it a coincidence that the discovery of the expenditure paradox comes from theology (Keul 2021a).22 It is anchored not only in the Bible through Luke 17: 33 and parallel texts but also in Christianity through its doctrine of the incarnation to the theology of the cross. Incarnation plays an important role in the vulnerability discourse of systematic theology (Margull 1974; Sölle 1987, 1990; Placher 1998; Coakley 2002; Keul 2017, 2021b; Ganz 2016).23 In Germany, Hans Jochen Margull pointed out as early as 1974 that vulnerability is crucial in interreligious dialogue because it inevitably leads to wounds: those who want dialogue but shy away from the risk of wounding make dialogue impossible. But wounds happen on both sides: “Everyone is vulnerable, but the decisive factor is whether and to what extent vulnerability can be endured and given meaning” (Margull 1974, p. 411)24. From a Christian perspective, Margull suggested deepening the question of vulnerability in terms of incarnation theology. And he already pointed to the unifying power of wounds when people recognize them in each other and feel connected in their vulnerability. This already hints at the expenditure paradox: to be able to deal creatively with wounds, we need to open up to each other, which is certainly risky but which—through the pain of the wound—leads to a mutual understanding. This understanding can reduce the potential for vulnerance between religions and thus create life. When people know that they are connected in their vulnerability and resist their own vulnerability, wounds open up an opportunity for something new and common to emerge. Wounds connect people with each other.

In today’s natural and life sciences, which conduct vulnerability research as an analysis of weak points and want to close the window of vulnerability as tightly as possible, the expenditure paradox does not occur. This paradox goes beyond the one-sidedly negative definition of vulnerability, which is aimed at passivity. Sarah Coakley therefore speaks of “power in vulnerability” (Coakley 2002, pp. 27 and 65), even if she understands this solely in relation to spirituality as “spiritual kenosis” (ibid., p. 61) (for a contrasting view, see Kreutzer 2011, pp. 445–86). Power through vulnerability does not only arise in spirituality, as the expenditure paradox shows. This paradox is at work in many secular contexts. Here are four examples.

1.

In the environmental and climate movement

On 15 September 1971, a derelict fishing trawler set sail near Vancouver; it had been quickly renamed for this voyage and now bore the proud name Greenpeace (Zelko 2013, pp. 53–78). Only after a long search did the environmental activists find a skipper who was prepared to risk not only his ship but also his own life on this dubious voyage. The voyage was intended to prevent a US nuclear bomb test, which in this new case of David versus Goliath did not succeed. Nevertheless, the search for a skipper willing to take risks and the subsequent voyage on a fragile fishing trawler are legendary for the climate movement because they are significant. Greenpeace wanted to save lives. To this end, the movement was looking for a skipper who was prepared to risk his life. That is a paradox. The driving forces behind it, Bob Hunter and Ben Metcalfe, also risked their lives. The voyage was very tough for the entire crew and was not without casualties and injuries. When they had to give up their goal of preventing the atomic bomb test, they thought they had failed completely. But it was the dramatic scenes that took place on deck, which they reported on the radio, that aroused interest and sympathy among the population. When the crew returned to Vancouver, battered but complete and frustrated by their lack of success, they were surprised by a superb reception in the harbor. Their willingness to risk their own lives on the high seas became the initial spark and gave Greenpeace the boost the organization needed to get off the ground. The US government was forced to end the tests on Amchitka in 1972. Greenpeace grew into one of the world’s largest environmental and species protection movements.

At least since this founding event of Greenpeace, self-expenditure has been a transformation strategy in the environmental and climate movement. Countless people use it specifically to initiate the changes they believe are necessary in politics and the economy. They invest money and time, risk their cozy peace and quiet at home, renounce their low-conflict everyday life, and risk their physical well-being. In the climate movement, for example, they expose themselves to personal hostility, physical assault, and the legal power of court proceedings in “Extinction Rebellion” or in the “Last Generation”. They have to reckon with the anger that is directed at them, or with marginalization at work or in the family context. And yet they persevere because they hope that this self-expenditure will lead to new opportunities for humanity and biodiversity. Even if some future scenarios look bleak, they have already achieved considerable success with their strategy.

2.

In the event of a catastrophe

In humanity, creative self-expenditure plays a special role in the creation of social systems and cultures. Even today, there are countless examples of this. In the suicide and assassination attacks of recent years, people have repeatedly been prepared to risk their own lives in order to support their fellow human beings who have been injured by the perpetrators’ vulnerance and to protect them from further harm. For example, around 350 firefighters lost their lives in the attack on the WTC in New York in 2001, and many more suffered long-term injuries. In the attack in Vienna, Austria, on 2 November 2020, three men ventured directly into the perpetrator’s field of fire so that they could get others out of the line of fire (Keul 2021b, pp. 281–87). They risked their lives to protect the lives of those they did not even know. With the risk they took, they resisted the explosive vulnerance that the assassins unleashed. The situation was similar in the case on 1 December 2020 during a rampage in Trier, Germany, when a man deliberately drove an ATV into pedestrians. The arriving fire brigade found that none of the injured were alone; every injured person already had someone looking after them (ibid.). Disaster research even says that most survivors at the scene of a disaster react ‘selflessly’ and immediately turn to the injured instead of getting themselves to safety (Auf der Heide 2004, pp. 340–80). This was also evident during the flood disasters in Germany—2002 and 2013 in eastern Germany, 2021 in the Ahr valley, and 2024 in Saarland, Bavaria, and Baden-Württemberg: the willingness to help was overwhelming. When people stand by each other in emergencies and disasters, the risk they take is a sign of humanity that resists the possible mercilessness of human coexistence.

3.

In political resistance against autocracies

The willingness for self-expenditure also plays a special role in politics, as in 2020 in the demonstrations in Belarus in favor of democracy and human rights; in 2021 in the demonstrations in Myanmar against the seizure of power by a military dictatorship. It could be seen in 2022 in Iran in demonstrations by people who no longer wanted to tolerate the vulnerance of a fundamentalist religious policy and in 2022 in Russia when people took a stand against the war of aggression against Ukraine. All demonstrators risked an extraordinary amount, including their lives, to bring about a change in politics and society. For Judith Butler and her colleagues, the Gezi protests in Turkey in 2013 provided an opportunity to explore vulnerability in its complex relationship to political resistance. They found that “the deliberate exposure to harm” (Butler et al. 2016, p. 12) was crucial here and that vulnerability was “one of the conditions of the very possibility of resistance” (ibid.). Vulnerability is a driving force in political resistance. The expenditure paradox in turn shows that it is itself an instrument of resistance. People are not interested in being hurt and suffering pain—it is not a matter of dolorism (Neulinger 2018); rather, they accept injury if necessary because they are pursuing a higher goal with their risky behavior, such as justice, freedom, or the enforcement of human rights. It is not yet clear what power effects these acts of resistance will have socially and politically. This looks different in an earlier event: the non-violent protests in the autumn of 1989 in the GDR brought down a totalitarian regime. What happened here was what protesters in violent regimes hope for: that the risk is worth it and the loss of life leads to a gain in life.

4.

In the disclosure of abuse and cover-up

A creative self-expenditure is also evident in the disclosure of sexual, financial, and spiritual abuse and cover-ups. Those people who were hurt by abuse and cover-ups but who then find the courage to make these crimes public take great risks. With disclosure, something paradoxical happens: people whose vulnerability is already increased due to the deep violation through abuse do not rely on self-protection; rather, they consciously increase their vulnerability. Their aim is to put an end to sexual violence and the shameless abuse of power in the cover-up. They resist the vulnerance of institutional security measures. In such cases, the risk of being injured again or even retraumatized is high. But without this act of loss, which sacrifices one’s own security strategies, abuse and cover-ups would continue to dominate the field. Disclosure stops perpetrators and institutions that engaged in such cover-ups. That is a great achievement. It creates humanity.

Self-expenditure is not a panacea. It must be carefully weighed as the loss suffered can be very high and the hoped-for gain is uncertain. The interactions between vulnerability, vulnerance, and self-expenditure are manifold, far from linear, and often contradictory and paradoxical. Self-expenditure can even be very destructive. This is shown by the vulnerant form of self-expenditure in suicide attacks, in which the perpetrators lose their lives but take as many people as possible with them to their deaths. Nevertheless, it is a fact that people are not solely concerned with protecting themselves but take high risks of loss for the sake of life—in climate movements, in disasters, in political resistance against autocracies, in the disclosure of abuse and cover-ups, and in many other cases. In doing so, they set a widely visible sign of humanity that is constitutive for the existence of every society.

5. Conclusions

With the paradox of expenditure, theology makes an important contribution to overcoming the binary coding of vulnerability and resilience. This is particularly important in view of the new vulnerability dispositive, which overlooks the agency potential of vulnerability or suppresses it for strategic reasons. Research needs to correct imbalances in social debates. Theology contributes two decisive perspectives. Firstly, the power effects of vulnerance need to be examined more closely and fed into the conceptualization of vulnerability. Vulnerability is not harmless, because it can become a driver of vulnerance. This is a danger in personal life, but also in social conflicts and political dynamics. This destructive danger must be countered. As long as the vulnerability dispositive suppresses the agency potential that human vulnerability harbors, vulnerance remains hidden. It can then strike all the more easily in the shadow of vulnerability debates, which are conducted too tightly. Secondly, the creative agency potential of vulnerability also needs to be explored more closely. The expenditure paradox, where creation arises through loss, is an important point here. People and their communities can resist vulnerance, especially their own, not only by hoarding resources but by making them available to promote life. That such acts of expenditure can empower people and energize their own lives is not debated enough in society.

In times of transformation, which pose great challenges to societies, research is challenged to correct imbalances in contentious debates. I therefore suggest that vulnerance should not only be included selectively in analyses of vulnerability and resilience but systematically as well. This also applies to acts of self-expenditure, which can be life-enhancing or destructive or have elements of both. We need to consider the vulnerability of all actors and look closely at the multiple power effects of the three variables on each other. It is not enough to focus on ‘vulnerability and resistance’ or ‘vulnerability and resilience’. We need a trivalent analysis. Then, the variables that appear to be so rigid start to move. Vulnerability can be a weakness, of course. But it can also become vulnerant and cause great damage. Or it can develop strength if it utilizes its agency potential in the interests of life. In many cases, resilience is desirable and worthy of support, especially among marginalized groups. But it must not lead to vulnerabilization. And it is time for research to address the vulnerability potential of resilience.

Many questions in this field of research are new. Because they are very complex, they can only be tackled on an interdisciplinary basis. Theology has its own, significant interdisciplinary perspectives to contribute here. One of the most interesting questions is whether and under what circumstances acts of self-expenditure, which deliberately increase one’s own vulnerability, also increase resilience. This also needs to be investigated empirically. There is much to suggest that this is the case because people who become active in resistance (to autocracies, to abuse and cover-ups, to the destructive effects of climate change and disasters of all kinds) can only do so if they become stronger in the act of self-expenditure and grow beyond themselves.

Theology has its own task in this question. The theology of the cross suggests that acts of self- expenditure can promote resilience. The idea that resilience automatically falls when vulnerability increases is simply wrong. The New Testament offers several narratives surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, starting with Mary Magdalene, where people become more resilient by increasing their vulnerability in a risky act (Keul 2021a, pp. 83–200). The disciples of Jesus, who were struck and traumatized by the violence of the cross, found new strength and brought Christianity to life with the power of Pentecost. To deal with Jesus’ crucifixion without becoming resigned and without becoming vulnerant themselves, they needed a life-enhancing resilience. And, like the apostle Paul, they developed this in risky acts of self-expenditure.

How people individually and collectively deal with their vulnerability is a scientifically interesting and socially highly significant question. There is a great danger that vulnerability will grow into vulnerance and that this vulnerance will become explosive. How can we counter this danger? Where does the expenditure paradox help? These questions also constitute a challenge for theology. Is there a power at work in life-enhancing resilience that cannot be produced by people but comes from elsewhere—a power that does not rely on borders, walls, and weapons (2 Cor 12: 9)? How can this ‘other-power’ be qualified both religiously and secularly in pneumatology, for example? In view of the current challenges facing humanity, it is obvious that it is not only theology that needs to deal in a ‘spirited’ fashion with vulnerability in the truest sense of the word; in German, we call this geistreich. Here, the transcendent engraving comes into play that theology is able to bring into the discourses on vulnerability and resilience.