METAPHYSICS OF DIVINE PARTICIPATION
PUBLICATION | MAY 2025 | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Participation has been central to the story of Western philosophy and theology for at least two millennia. It has been employed to conceptualise the relationship between God and creation, between universals and particulars, and between the One and the many. This Element approaches the concept systematically to acquire an appreciation of its breadth and depth under four fundamental themes: creation and the divine ideas, incarnation and salvation, being and multiplicity, and the human activities of naming, knowing and making. In doing so it examines some of the key thinkers in the participatory tradition, including Augustine, Irenaeus, Aquinas and Nicholas of Cusa. Readers will be introduced to the key contours and manifestations of participatory metaphysics, and its role in Christianity's self-articulation. Together, these considerations will demonstrate how the metaphysics of participation has shaped the Christian tradition.
PURCHASE & ACCESS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 The Metaphysics of Divine Participation
Participation in Context
Defining Participation
Participation's History
2 Creation, the Divine Ideas, and the Origins of Participation
The Divine Ideas
The Hebrew Bible
Plato and Philo
Augustine
Creation as Revelation
3 Being and Becoming in God through Incarnation and Salvation
Irenaeus of Lyons
Being and Becoming
Divine Economy
Humans in the Participatory Economy: Image and Likeness
Incarnation and Recapitulation
Balthasar and Participatory Drama
4 Participatory Being in Existence, Multiplicity and Analogy
Aquinas on Participation
The Elements of Participation
Existence and Participation
Continuous Creation
Multiplicity
Analogy
Przywara and the Analogy of Being
5 Participatory Knowing, Naming and Creating
Nicholas of Cusa
Naming
Knowing
Making
Artistic Making
Romanticism and Participatory Making