The Potential of Nothingness

From this understanding of the possibility of self-realisation within faithful relationship with the divine, this chapter turns to consider connections between existentialist understandings of selfhood and the Christian tradition of kenosis. In both kenosis and existentialist ontology there is a comparable privileging of nothingness. However, feminist critiques of ethical encouragements towards kenosis must be taken seriously to highlight the damaging impact of this teaching on women’s selfhood. As a corrective, the connection to existentialist ontology in this chapter offers a possibility for redeeming kenosis as a practice of correcting objectification by turning towards nothingness and using this nothingness as a space for self-realisation. Connections to understandings of nothingness within te ao Māori are also considered to strengthen this theological view as it is grounded in the whenua (land) of Aotearoa.