Editors

Metaphysics is presently experiencing a renaissance in Christian philosophical and theological circles, yet it remains an inherently complex and even fraught concept. The increasing popular engagement with it necessitates the volume outline here. The aim of a Cambridge Companion volume is to take account of a field, but equally it is to conceptualise and advance it. This volume does so by focusing upon metaphysical realism, characterised by its philosophical commitment to an ontology that understands the being of the world as grounded in a reality that transcends it. The tradition of metaphysical realism has provided the heuristic matrix for Christianity to conceptualise the relationship between God and creation throughout its history, shaping the thought of key thinkers and movements, the development of central concepts, and the formulation of its most important doctrines.