Participatory Metaphysics and Creation out of God
Christian tradition has uniformly both (1) rejected Aristotle’s eternity of matter and (2) insisted on creation ex nihilo rather than creation from pre-existing matter. Differences remained, however, on how exactly to understand the creator-creature relationship. Two streams of thought emerged within Christian tradition. One emerged from Augustine, which held on to Aristotelian prime matter as substratum, as a result of which creation ex nihilo over time became an instrument in defending the autonomy or independence of creation in relation to God. The other, which emerged via Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius, and especially Maximus the Confessor, held that creation is not only ex nihilo but also ex deo (ἐκ θεοῦ). Here, ex nihilo teaching served not to shore up the independence of creation but rather to limit it: it served as an anti-materialist argument and (in some forms) relied upon immaterialism.
We need both the notion of creation ex deo and Cappadocian immaterialism to sustain a genuinely participatory metaphysic. The Augustinian-Thomist approach relies unduly upon an Aristotelian-Plotinian view of matter. We should resist using creation ex nihilo to shore up the modern notion of nature as independent from God. The Christian teaching of creation ex nihilo opposes primarily the Greek—and especially Aristotelian—belief in the eternity of matter.
Thank you Fr. For I have actually have been meditating on this very issue for a while, especially in some posts here where I was arguing, or trying to, a very similar point. There is in Aquinas an attempt to account properly for creation but his reliance on Aristotle renders him speaking of what is essentially an eternal substrate (prime matter) without offering an explanation for its existence. Ultimately, I wonder if in part this isn’t partly just a problem inherent to a metaphysics that doesn’t start from an apophatic stance which acknowledges that God is, in himself, beyond being. This allows Maximus to call Being itself an eternal work of God and separate eternal works from temporal one’s—even if they are read as an act in two modes as Jordan Daniel Wood does—I wonder if without this framing of things, essentially one which acknowledges the essence energies distinction, if we don’t end up with the impossibility of true deification and Theosis. The more we become God the more we seem to lose our self or essence and end in pantheism.
I just finished the paper attached in this post: "Participatory Metaphysics and Creation Out of God" from the Heythrop Journal. To anyone reading this who hasn't read the paper, stop and go read it! It is both clear and concise in tackling an issue of great importance to Christian theology.
Prof. Boersma, I am completely in agreement with your assessment of the problems of western philosophical theology (though I think the problem can be identified at least as early as Anselm) and heartily endorse the theology of participation you outline in the paper. As I was reading, a few questions came up for me:
1) how would you characterize the impacts of this metaphysics for the doctrine of the Incarnation? As you point out in the piece, this kind of theo-monism was essential to Cappadocian thought on the subject, but I can imagine some worrying that a theology of participation might somehow damage the specialness or uniqueness of Christ as *the* Incarnation. I have my own thoughts on this (Christ as the "first fruits", God being "all in all", "God became human that humans might become God", etc.), but I wonder how you would respond to such concerns.
2) do you see your metaphysical position here having implications in the "infernalist" vs. universalist debate? It seems to me that one could argue that, to the extent that any existence at all requires existence within the energies of God, that any Hell-state would have to be temporary and provisional, since otherwise God would be committing to eternally causing-to-be a state which God Godself would, presumably, prefer did not exist. I hasten to add that I do not think that your metaphysics would imply no Hell-state whatsoever (since such a view would have impossible difficulties in navigating the Gospels) but only that such a Hell-state would have to be understood as non-eternal, as well as remedial in character, rather than punitive. But I wonder what you think on this—this seems an issue on which reasonable and faithful people could disagree.
3) I was struck by the way Plotinus understood matter as a privation that was even evil. I have to admit that the Enneads remain on my shelf, unread (and indeed unopened until I looked through the sections you cited in the paper!). But I find Plotinus's understanding of matter in deep tension with the basically monist account of reality that he offers. Did he not perceive his view of matter (well, at least, "sensible" matter) as a sore thumb, introducing at least the appearance of a kind of dualism in his thought?
Thanks for an excellent paper.