Why Rousseau?

The Swiss-French philosophe and political thinker of the Enlightenment era, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778 is an influential figure who stands at the beginning of the historical trajectory of the autonomous self. In terms of the concept of the modern self, Charles Taylor states that Rousseau is a ‘crucial influence’ for all the thinkers he reviews in Sources of the Self (1989). Rousseau is the ‘starting point’ of the shift in which modern culture turns to ‘deeper inwardness’ and ‘radical autonomy’.⁶ Rousseau’s belief that ‘individual sincerity’ is the key to answering life questions started the ‘post-Enlightenment individualist agenda of self-determining self-construction’, which has lasted until today.⁷ His persevering advocation of individual sentiment inspired his successors, the Romantics, in whose thoughts institutional authority and Christian morality were replaced (according to Taylor) by personal preference and ecstatic aesthetics.⁸ Moreover, although Rousseau wrote in the eighteenth century, many of his ideas are more attuned to the modern age than are those of his contemporaries.⁹

This part of the article argues for two things: first, that the assumption of an autonomous self underlies virtually all of Rousseau’s works and determines his treatment of politics and education;¹⁰ second, that with this anthropological axiom, Rousseau inevitably falls into a dilemma of losing freedom or living lonely. Moreover, this dilemma explains the difficulty the teenager in our scenario faces, and that requires a resolution.

The State of Nature and the Goodness of Humanity

The state of nature is Rousseau’s speculated realisation of human autonomy. In this state, people depend only on things in the natural world but not on other people and thus are free from inequality.¹¹ In his On the Origins of Human Inequality (1755), Rousseau states that the ‘savage man’ is simply satisfied with the resources from the rivers and trees, where he finds food and a place to sleep.¹² He is subjected to ‘few passions and sufficient unto himself’ and is a stranger to war and social connection.¹³ No class or other forms of inequality exist here; as Rousseau later mentioned in Emile (1762), ‘nature makes neither the prince, the rich man, nor the nobleman’.¹⁴ It is worth noting that Rousseau extends this understanding of human life in nature to the nature of humanity, stating that the natural man ‘lives for himself’ since ‘he is the unit, the whole’.¹⁵ Karl Barth noted that the concept of nature in eighteenth-century Europe is ‘humanized,’ in which nature ‘has been put to rights and formed in accordance with man’s sensibility’.¹⁶ This concept of nature in Rousseau’s thought subsequently became ‘very simply man himself.’¹⁷ For Rousseau, the goodness of nature is reflected in the goodness of the ‘human heart’ where ‘there is no original sin’.¹⁸ And when one lives according to one’s own heart, one is living according to the goodness of nature. This belief in people as autonomous entities in their natural condition provides an anthropological foundation that contrasts with the Christian tradition in terms of morality. For Christianity, human nature is damaged and thus requires an external divine force to rescue it. Carl Trueman makes a comparison between the Confessions of Augustine and the Confessions of Rousseau.¹⁹ Young Augustine, motivated by the enjoyment of sin, stole the pears and wasted them. Young Rousseau, however, motivated by sympathy, stole the asparagus to help M. Verrat. It is debated whether Rousseau recalls this story with Augustine’s work in mind.²⁰ Yet the significance of morality is that the environment plays a passive role in Augustine’s version; it merely provides the opportunity for original sin to function. However, in Rousseau’s Confessions (1782), his first encounter with stealing stemmed from the desire of a pure, innocent heart to help others. It was later that the deformed working environment depraved Rousseau, so he learned to commit the crime of stealing from his employer’s house.²¹ In contrast with Augustine, who longs to be saved by God from his sinful nature, Rousseau pursues the ‘sacred voice of nature’ as the ‘divine spark within us’ that keeps us from selfish and worldly influence.²² This natural goodness for Rousseau was claimed, as Paul Avis puts it, through ‘introspection’.²³ The present section has shown that the ideal way of living in Rousseau’s thought is a person who fully retains and performs in accord with their inner autonomous nature. Consequently, there is no space for human inequality, no temptation to sin, and no need for external salvific forces in his vision of the state of nature.

The Fall

So, does Rousseau not have the concept of a fall into sin? He has one implicitly, but he attributes the fall to the state of civil society, rather than to spiritual forces. Rousseau often adopts the concept of freedom to express the self-sufficiency of human nature in relation to social interaction.²⁴ At the beginning of his The Social Contract (1762), the famous phrase ‘man was born free’ is followed by ‘and everywhere he is in chains’.²⁵ This statement implies the omnipresent power of a master-slave relationship in society. The original founder of civil society was the one who ‘enclosed a piece of land [and] thought of saying, “This is mine”’.²⁶ Obtaining private property leads first to a dependency among people, then mastery.²⁷ Eventually, this authority becomes authoritarianism as the final stage of an unequal society.²⁸ Even the arts, sciences, and other human products are tools used by society to enslave humankind.²⁹ Moreover, Rousseau’s critique of mastery is not only about economic and class asymmetry. One loses the freedom of nature once living according to an alien will. This is true for the privileged as well as for the oppressed.³⁰ Thus, ‘[c]ivilized man is born and dies a slave’.³¹ To sum up, freedom of nature is taken away by society; people, both rich and poor, are no longer living for themselves but for the will of others. The state of nature is an idealised past, yet one to which it is impossible to return.³²

The Objectives of Education and Politics

Based on Rousseau’s understanding of human nature and depravity, his treatment of education and politics will now be addressed in order to introduce his dilemma, which will be presented in the next section. Although Rousseau has nostalgic feelings for nature, he does not advocate for anarchism. Based on his anthropological assumption, in terms of education, Rousseau aims to raise a child into a ‘man’ who lives according to his true nature and not in accord with fallen society.³³ Rousseau’s fictionalised character Emile ‘thinks not of others but of himself … he is alone in the midst of human society, he depends on himself alone’.³⁴ In terms of community life, Rousseau’s social theory aims to realise people’s autonomy by finding a form of association in which one will ‘obey himself alone’ and ‘remain as free as before’.³⁵ In this society, man can ‘think only his own thoughts’.³⁶ The concept of thinking one’s own thoughts appears in both Emile and The Social Contract as the goal of education and politics. Its meaning is clearer if we recall that Rousseau considers the loss of freedom to mean having one’s will imposed upon by others, as in the Letters from the Mountain (1764), where he states that liberty ‘consists less in doing what you want than in not being subject to the will of another; it consists further in not subjecting another’s will to our own’.³⁷ In short, an ideal education or social system results in the respect and protection of the individual’s autonomy. In practice, that means that one’s will would not be subordinated to that of others, nor theirs to one’s own.

Rousseau suggests some practical means to achieve such an ideal. For example, the pedagogy of Émile is conducted not by delivering information but by stimulating his curiosity. The tutor raises questions to provoke Émile to search for answers by himself. Although sometimes Émile does ask questions, the tutor’s answers aim to trigger further curiosity rather than to satisfy it.³⁸ Moreover, the tutor appears in front of Émile as a companion rather than an authority. When Émile was learning the skill of carpentry, the tutor learned with him.³⁹ Obviously, for the sake of maintaining the autonomous gift of nature, Rousseau resists imposing external values on Émile, otherwise Émile would learn to rely on alien authority and would be ‘a mere plaything of other people’s thoughts’.⁴⁰ The tutor must not give precepts since ‘only one’s autonomous discoveries are to be trusted’.⁴¹

However, Émile’s independence is only apparent. To protect and nourish the natural character of children, Rousseau states that ‘[f]rom the outset raise a wall round your child’s soul’.⁴² For example, the tutor controlled the environment, so when Émile got lost in a forest, it was a lesson for him to use stars to find the way home. Émile could run barefoot since the sharp glass on the ground had been checked and removed by the tutor.⁴³ Moreover, the tutor internalises his own will in Émile, so ‘no doubt he ought only to do what he wants, but he ought to want to do nothing but what you want him to do. He should never take a step you have not foreseen, nor utter a word you could not foretell’.⁴⁴ He is thinking his own thoughts, but they are from the tutor. Here, we see a controlling figure as the ‘minister of nature’ who only speaks nature’s voice rather than his own.⁴⁵ Since this figure fully represents nature, others can surrender their wills to this figure without losing their freedom. A similar case can be seen in La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), where the miserable Saint-Preux, who is tortured by his memory of young love, seeks help from M. Wolmar. The latter arranges the situations, forcing Saint-Preux to face himself, and eventually to be liberated from delusion.⁴⁶ In terms of social theory, the society composed of individuals in contract functions by laws, which are made according to the general will. Although the specific content of this general will is unclear in Rousseau’s theory, its supreme power is unquestionable.⁴⁷ Because the general will reflects the common good and the will of all, it exists to preserve freedom within society and possesses an authority that transcends all. Those who contravene it may be legally compelled to adhere to it, thereby being ‘forced to be free’.⁴⁸ Again, as in his educational theory, we see a robust controlling force that aims to protect individual freedom. Rousseau even states, in some earlier versions of The Social Contract, that this protection under contract is better than the state of nature.⁴⁹

This point leads us to see the paradox in Rousseau’s ideas, which has often brought him criticism. On the one hand, his championship of the innate nature and freedom of individuals is attractive, while on the other, his employment of a highly controlling method to ensure that one’s will remains undisturbed by others is questionable.⁵⁰ The question is whether this kind of subjective independence is true freedom. Is the ‘appearance of freedom’ fake freedom?⁵¹

The Dilemma of Rousseau

This section explores the dilemma arising from Rousseau’s assumption of human autonomy: the tension between surrendering one’s will and sacrificing freedom, or retaining one’s will while suffering from isolation. The section begins by addressing the former, building on the previous section’s concluding query. Is Émile’s subjective independence freedom? For the later Rousseau, the answer was negative. The way Rousseau describes Émile’s freedom (as described in the previous section) has a parallel in Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues (1780), a work of his late years and published posthumously.⁵² The difference is that in the latter work Rousseau talks about his miserable destiny, surrounded by imagined enemies and he himself ‘can neither say a word, nor take a step, nor lift a finger unless they know it and want it’.⁵³ As seen above, the ‘appearance of freedom’ for Émile was advocated, yet the late Rousseau, who ‘appears to be free’, is a slave.⁵⁴ Émile failed as a thought experiment. According to Rousseau’s expectations, Émile should grow up to maturity; however, his reliance on his tutor precludes him from achieving true independence. In Émile et Sophie (1783), as Émile fails to develop an independent sense of self, his marriage ultimately disintegrates in the absence of his tutor’s guidance.⁵⁵

As a church member, Leo in the opening story is concerned about this: he is afraid of losing his sense of self and freedom when conforming his will to that of the adults. He knows that even when adults grant him choices, these options are pre-filtered. Entrusting oneself to others for a subjective sense of freedom seems not genuine freedom. This may explain why Rousseau himself did not choose this path in life. He entrusted himself neither to a life tutor, nor to an omnipotent figure like M. Wolmar, nor to a group of friends. Instead, he opted for the other side of the dilemma: refusing to surrender his will to anyone, and consequently facing loneliness. In his later years, he led a tumultuous life marked by governmental persecution. Despite David Hume aiding his escape to Britain, Rousseau suspected betrayal. He severed ties with the philosophes who contributed to the Encyclopédie such as Diderot and he had no friends. Childless, as he had placed all five of his offspring in the Paris foundling hospital, and estranged from the beloved Madame de Warens, he was plagued by psychological torment.⁵⁶ Rousseau maintained his early critique of human civilisation, science, art, and academia, refusing to yield his will to anyone. Since he successfully distanced himself from all of these, he never experienced a true sense of belonging.

Should our young church member emulate Rousseau by not surrendering his will to anyone while maintaining a sceptical stance towards the adults in the church, he would struggle to find his own voice amidst a cacophony of voices, trusting none. He would experience the pervasive loneliness among contemporary youth in the church, appearing free and independent, yet internally isolated.⁵⁷ Eventually, he would try to find deep relationships outside the church or even outside Christianity. Rousseau’s personal dilemma typifies the quandary faced in the age of autonomy. Operating under the premise of the self as an autonomous entity, one is confined to either surrendering one’s will at the expense of freedom, or retaining will but enduring isolation. Rousseau’s philosophy exemplifies the former, while his life illustrates the latter.

In the following section, John Zizioulas’s theology will be employed to confront the dilemma of the autonomous self as delineated by Rousseau. I will demonstrate how Zizioulas transcends this dilemma by reconceptualising the foundation of the human person, elucidating pathways to attain freedom through relationships within an ecclesial framework, yet without sacrificing one’s otherness.

The Concept of Person in Light of the Trinitarian Personhood

The following two sections intend to justify the first argument – the relevance of Zizioulas’ theological anthropology. In his influential work on ecclesiology, Being as Communion (1985), Zizioulas states that ‘historically as well as existentially the concept of the person is indissolubly bound up with theology’.⁶¹ Citing the contribution of the fourth-century Cappadocian Fathers, in whose doctrine of the Trinity the hypostasis, the basic mode of existence, is no longer identified with substance but with the person, Zizioulas argues that the person is no longer an adjunct of being or substance.⁶² Rather, the person is the ‘constitutive element’ of beings.⁶³ The substance of God never exists in a ‘naked state’ without the hypostasis. Instead, the divine substance ‘is consequently the being of God only because it has these three modes of existence’.⁶⁴ Zizioulas considers the divine persons as three modes of existence and the Father as the cause of the generation of the Son and of the procession of the Spirit. The first person transcends the ontological necessity of substance by being God as Father, freely begetting the Son and bringing forth the Spirit while being conditioned by them.⁶⁵ This demonstrates the ontological freedom of God. Zizioulas refers to the ‘ecstatic character’ of God, whose ‘being is identical with an act of communion’.⁶⁶ God is Trinity ‘not because the divine nature is ecstatic but because the Father as a person freely wills this communion’.⁶⁷ Moreover, in this trinitarian communion, there is absolute otherness between the three persons, yet they cannot be conceived apart from each other.⁶⁸

How does this feature about God relate to mankind? Zizioulas believes that because God’s freedom is grounded ‘not in His nature but in His personal existence’, there is hope for human beings, who do not share God’s nature, nevertheless to become truly free persons.⁶⁹ God as communion is seen as the model for human personhood and for the Church.⁷⁰ Therefore, the concept of person or hypostasis is essentially theological and ontological in terms of anthropology. Theologically, it is inconceivable without understanding it through the hypostasis of the divine persons. Ontologically, it is the decisive definition of the very being of humans. It is not that I first have a substantial self and then seek relationships with others, but I am who I am through relationships.

The first distinction between Zizioulas and Rousseau emerges here: whereas Rousseau posits that individuals exist autonomously before developing relationships (so Émile aims to become a ‘man’ before entering society), Zizioulas contends that human ‘identit[ies] emerge only in relation to other beings’.⁷¹ We do not first exist as an isolated self and then seek relations, but are recognised through our relations and ‘defined through otherness’.⁷² The argument will turn back to this comparison later with more elaboration of Zizioulas’s theology in the next section.

This section will now consider the theology of creation and fall in Zizioulas’s thought in dialogue with Rousseau’s concept of nature and fall. Rousseau’s dilemma will then be addressed, based on this dialogue. For Zizioulas, the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo implies that God creates the world out of nothing as a free act.⁷³ The ecstatic character or love of God results in the creation of the world in order that it may have communion with God.⁷⁴ In his Communion and Otherness (2006), Zizioulas further unpacked the anthropological implication of creatio ex nihilo, stating that God calls Adam into a relationship. This invitation across the absolute distinction between the Creator and the creature grants Adam otherness from God. By responding with a ‘yes’ to God’s invitation, Adam affirms being other than God in an ontological sense.⁷⁵ It is worth noting that Zizioulas emphasises that this call cannot be launched ‘automatically’ in the sense of human ‘self-affirmation or self-existence’, but can only be initiated by God.⁷⁶ Although this is an ontological call, it does have a practical consequence, which is ‘to exist in the way God exists’.⁷⁷ Since God lives in perichoresis (the dynamic circumincession of the divine persons) and creates the world for communion in an ecstatic act, we, as the images of God, by living the ecstatic way God lives, live out our ‘true nature’ according to God’s design.⁷⁸

Here, we observe another distinct divergence between Rousseau and Zizioulas. For Rousseau, human nature is meant to remain autonomous, which seems to have an isolating effect, whereas Zizioulas contends that true human nature is realised by participating in communion according to the divine design. Human beings derive their existence and otherness from God. The Fall represents a situation where humans elevate themselves as the ultimate reference of existence, thereby rejecting communion with both God and others. In this context, one falls from being a ‘person’ to becoming an ‘individual.’⁷⁹ Zizioulas borrows this distinction between person and individual from the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev.⁸⁰ ‘Personhood’ signifies an otherness that exists in communion; a person enjoys ‘freedom simply to be yourself’—yet not freedom from others, but freedom for others.⁸¹ Conversely, the fallen individual becomes ‘an entity independent ontologically from other human beings’.⁸² He further posits that remaining within the confines of ontological necessity results in death for the individual.⁸³ According to Zizioulas, eternal death is the outcome of isolating oneself from others, as corroborated by the teachings of the Desert Fathers.⁸⁴ Since the individualism engendered by the Fall is an ontological issue, it transcends mere moral rectification and requires a ‘new birth’, providing a segue into Zizioulas’s ecclesiology.⁸⁵

Both Rousseau and Zizioulas regard the freedom inherent in nature as the act of being oneself. However, for Rousseau, this freedom signifies an existence uninfluenced by the considerations of others. Conversely, Zizioulas’s theology of creation posits that human nature is intrinsically designed in and for communion. Concerning the notion of a fall, Rousseau interprets it as an external intrusion on one’s will, while Zizioulas, in contrast, views the fall as the egocentric reorientation whereby one perceives oneself as the ultimate point of existence.

Here, Rousseau’s dilemma, which presupposes humans as isolated and autonomous, choosing whether and when to engage with others, offers our young man a false choice between allowing external wills to intrude upon him or remaining in isolation. Zizioulas challenges this privileging of self over otherness in his critique of Western ‘consciousness-centred philosophy’. He traces the lineage from Augustine’s embrace of Plato, through the Cartesian influence on modern philosophy, to the psychological turn towards the self in the works of Sigmund Freud as examples of fallen individualism that considers the self as ‘thinking its own thoughts’.⁸⁶ Zizioulas states that such an ‘autonomous self’ problematically blurs ontological distinctions between humans and animals, both endowed with functional consciousness.⁸⁷ Zizioulas reveals this dilemma to be illusory by asserting that human ontology is fundamentally relational. The created self can never be understood as a naked substance without the mode of existence, that is, in communion with others. ‘It is the other and our relationship with [them] that gives us our identity, our otherness, making us “who we are,” that is, persons.’⁸⁸

A Communion Ecclesiology

This section substantiates the second argument, positing that Zizioulas’s ecclesiology, grounded in trinitarian personhood, offers solutions to contemporary church issues of losing freedom or being lonely and feeling alienated. Initially, I explicate Zizioulas’s treatment of the concept of new birth within the ecclesial context. Unlike Rousseau, for whom the transition of human beings from natural status to societal status does not entail a foundational change (as the natural goodness remains),⁸⁹ Zizioulas situates the Fall within an ontological framework that necessitates rebirth. Baptism effects an ontological transformation in personhood. Believers begin to participate in the holy communion of the triune God.⁹⁰ This communion finds its tangible expression in the Church, where the previous and fatal ‘biological hypostasis’ is supplanted by ‘the hypostasis of ecclesial existence’.⁹¹ ‘Ecclesial being is bound to the very being of God.’⁹² An individual becomes a person through membership of the church, by taking on God’s relational way of being as an ‘image of God’.⁹³

For Zizioulas, salvific transformation coincides with ecclesial belonging. It is within the local church that the baptised person encounters the ‘whole Christ’, manifested in the Eucharist. And communion within the local church has intrinsic value in terms of the communion of saints. Unlike the Roman Catholic tendency to understand each local church as part a member of a universal entity, Zizioulas views each local congregation as a ‘Catholic Church’ or ‘whole church’ by virtue of the presence of the whole Christ.⁹⁴ Consequently, the experience of new birth in the local church gains full significance through communion with God and the universal ecclesial body.

As in Rousseau’s ideal society, Zizioulas’s vision of communion comprises free persons and serves to enhance their freedom.⁹⁵ However, unlike Rousseau, who aims to preserve individual autonomy, Zizioulas’s ecclesial framework encourages persons to ‘love everyone and everything that exists’.⁹⁶ Being informed by the ecstatic character of trinitarian personhood, the human ecclesial hypostasis willingly ‘break[s] one’s will’ with a ‘free submission to the will of another’.⁹⁷ To love others, we must submit our will. Our young Leo may avoid the problem of loneliness and alienation if he responds to the invitation. But, does he lose his identity within the church? The answer is both affirmative and negative.

In the affirmative sense, upon entering communion, what one relinquishes is the illusion of individual autonomy—the naïve belief that the self is entirely self-governing, impervious to external influences at both ontological and experiential levels. Such illusions dissipate upon joining the church. Thus, when Leo decides to commit to ecclesial communion, what is shed is his individualistic self. Moreover, it is not only the youth who might harbour presupposed notions of autonomy; elders within the church may share similar presuppositions. If the adults within the church operate under an anthropology akin to Rousseau’s, the outcome manifests as a struggle over whose will should prevail, the youth’s or theirs. Therefore, both the young person and the adult need to give up the modern anthropological assumption of autonomous selfhood.

As for the negative sense, the church is not only an institution with an authority over Leo that requires him to obey but also a ‘way of being’.⁹⁸ Each divine person within the triune communion is distinct, informing our conviction that the otherness of each human being must be upheld. When both Leo and adults adopt a view of human relations in the church that is informed by trinitarian personhood, they understand that participating in ecclesial relationships does not negate anyone’s identity. Rather, it affirms one’s true personhood through divine communion. Each person is needed and is identified by one’s existence rather than by one’s qualities or capacities.⁹⁹ Leo is not accepted based on performance, appearance, personality or any external conditions; rather, he is accepted simply for who he is. As Matthew 16:25 says, ‘For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’ Self-identity and true freedom are found not in individual autonomy but in the Christian way of life. ‘[T]he person who dies to self in discipleship to Jesus will discover life in this fundamental sense.’ However, ‘those persons who try selfishly to guard their existence … will tragically end up losing the very thing they tried to protect.’¹⁰⁰

Some Critiques of Zizioulas

This section considers some critiques of Zizioulas which are relevant to our discussion. One critique centres on ethics. Paul McPartlan contends that Zizioulas fails to enrich the Orthodox tradition by developing the ethical dimension of ecclesiology despite acknowledging the absence of such a dimension.¹⁰¹ Similarly, Scott MacDougall criticises Zizioulas’s ecclesiology for its lack of a viable ethical framework and its failure to apply the truth of communion to broader social contexts owing to an over-realised eschatology.¹⁰²

In response, it may be said that Zizioulas deliberately refrains from employing the term ‘moral commandment’ as the impetus for Christian practice since he believes that ontological transformation inherently precipitates ethical alterations.¹⁰³ Accordingly, he uses the term ‘consequence’ to delineate actions informed by trinitarian personhood, such as loving others.¹⁰⁴ For Zizioulas, love is actualised within the ecclesial framework, as the church serves to ‘transcend exclusivism’, embracing those previously overlooked.¹⁰⁵ While he may not have outlined systematically how to implement the ethics of his ontological ecclesiology, and may even avoid the term ‘ethics’ to preclude the misconception that virtuous behaviour can be enacted without ontological transformation, he certainly provides ethical direction rooted in trinitarian theology. For example, young Leo and the adults should contemplate their community life and assess whether they have drawn appropriate consequences with regard to their approach to those in the neighbourhood of their church.

Another point of contention pertains to clerical authority and communal life. Miroslav Volf disputes Zizioulas’s undue emphasis on the bishop’s constitutive role in the church, arguing that this focus stems from Zizioulas’s concept of the Father’s monarchy in the Trinity. The Father constitutes the Trinity, while he himself is only conditioned by the Son and the Spirit.¹⁰⁶ Volf contends that this asymmetry between the ‘one’ and ‘many’ manifests itself in ecclesial structures, relegating the laity to passive roles in Eucharistic practices presided over by the bishop.¹⁰⁷

Although Volf’s critique is specifically targeted at the necessity of clergy within the liturgical context, his caution against excessive clerical authority is relevant to other aspects of church life. Is a church member vulnerable in front of an authoritative clergy in respects such as spiritual abuse and sexual misconduct? To examine this critique, returning to a comparison between Rousseau and Zizioulas is beneficial. In the aftermath of his mother’s death following his birth, coupled with his belief that his father left him for financial gain, Rousseau consistently yearned for a parental protector who could both love him and exercise full authority over his will.¹⁰⁸ This quest remained unfulfilled even through his extraordinary relationship with Madame de Warens whom he called ‘mother’. This longing is projected onto the tutor in Émile or M. Wolmar in La Nouvelle Héloïse, yet sadly, such exemplary moral figures did not exist in his life. Consequently, Rousseau continued to isolate himself to avoid those in society who, he believed, sought to control his will without genuinely loving him. What underlines Rousseau’s quest is a dream for ‘family’ on both personal and societal levels.¹⁰⁹ The former centred on Émile’s tutor, and the latter on M. Wolmar, who oversees a community where everyone knows each other, is happy, and is willing to follow him. These self-sufficient and loving figures might well be regarded as his imaginative projection of a god figure.¹¹⁰ Rousseau’s parental image can be seen as a surrogate for God as conceived by Zizioulas and, indeed, the Christian tradition. Zizioulas notes that early Christians employed familial terminologies to describe the church, referring to each other as ‘brothers’ with a common ‘Father’ in heaven.¹¹¹ The relational hierarchy within the triune God informs all human interactions.¹¹² Consequently, ecclesiastical authority diverges from secular institutions; it originates from divine communion and functions within relationships.¹¹³ Zizioulas provides the answer that Rousseau seeks: an authoritative protector who exercises power within the context of love, thus ideally precluding abuse. For Rousseau, religion was centred on ‘nature and the human heart’.¹¹⁴ These two spheres can be interpreted through the lens of individualism. Consequently, Rousseau, seeking a sense of security, unfortunately found himself isolated from the church community and experienced loneliness.

However, practice often falls short of the ideal and problems remain with regard to Zizioulas’s conception of church structure. James Keenan, through an examination of sexual abuse incidents in the Catholic Church, argues that the root issue of abuse is not mere clericalism but a deeper hierarchicalism.¹¹⁵ While Zizioulas’s relational understanding of hierarchy and power may mitigate some manifest forms of abuse, it tacitly accepts existing hierarchies and fails to offer specific institutional safeguards against bishops who abuse their power, disregarding the ecstatic nature of the triune God in these relational hierarchies. As Roger Olson asks, ‘Could not one rather interpret the monarchy of the Father to justify “benevolent despotism”?’¹¹⁶ This weakness in Zizioulas’s ontological ecclesiology would be readily apparent to those who, like Rousseau, are sceptical of all institutions. While Zizioulas distinguishes the church from secular institutions, Rousseau, having experienced sexual misconduct in a Catholic almshouse, includes the church among his objects of critique.¹¹⁷ Being a church member, no matter the specific denominational form of institutional structure, does not immunise anyone from the misuse of authority.