Vulnerability as the Ground of Self-Determination in Gregory of Nyssa

This chapter explores the relationship between vulnerability, or weakness, and self-determination in Gregory’s anthropology. In both On the Soul and the Resurrection and On the Making of Humankind, Gregory envisages human vulnerability as allowing us to ascend further than we otherwise would have, and gain strength and power we otherwise would not have had. This corresponds to an emphasis on self-determination in his political thought: we are created self-determining, so slavery is unnatural. These ideas initially imply that vulnerability is ultimately to be jettisoned in favour of strength. However, it is more complicated than that. It can be jettisoned in the wrong way, and human ascent and realization of self-determination can occur in the wrong way; slavery represents not only the slave’s vulnerability, but the master’s improper power. Gregory implies that vulnerability and self-determination need to be mutually informing, held in a fruitful tension.