Participation in God: A Study in Christian Doctrine and Metaphysics
Cambridge University Press, 6/18/2020
EAN 9781108704045, ISBN10: 1108704042
Paperback, 436 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Few ideas have excited greater interest among theologians in recent decades than the idea of 'participation'. In thinking about creation, it is the notion that everything comes from, and depends upon, God, inviting the language of sharing, or of an exemplar and its images; in thinking about redemption, it points to the restoration of that image, and is expressed in the language of communion with God and with the redeemed community. In this volume, Andrew Davison considers these themes in unprecedented breadth, investigating the fundamental character of participation as it can be applied to a wide range of theological topics. Exploring what it means to know, to love, to do good, and to live together well, he shows how these ideas animate a particular understanding of human life and how we relate to the world around us. His book offers the most comprehensive survey of participation to date, contributing to detailed discussions of these themes among academic theologians.
Part I. Participation and Causation
1. By and from God
efficient causation and God as the origin and agent of creation
2. Causes and the Trinity
'from Him and through Him and to Him are all things'
3. Not out of God
God is not the material cause for creation
4. After God's likeness
formal causation and creaturely characterfulness
5. To and for God
final causation and God as the origin and goal of creation
Part II. The Language of Participation and Language as Participation
6. Characterising participation
7. Analogy
participation in being and language
Part III. Participation and the Theological Story
8. Participation and christology
9. Participation and creaturely action
10. Evil as the failure of participation
11. Redemption I
restoration and union
12. Redemption II
justification, merit and transformation
Part IV. Participation and the Shape of Human Life
13. Truth
knowing and the lucidity of things
14. Beauty
praying and loving
15. Goodness
ethics
Conclusion
participation, relation and common life.