From World to God: Resemblance and Complementarity

Abstract

In this paper, I shall consider four approaches to the idea that the world points towards or represents God. I shall argue that the relation of resemblance may not offer the best initial way of expounding this idea, and that the relation of necessary complement may provide the basis of a more useful model. I begin by examining three accounts which draw primarily upon the notion of resemblance in order to explain the sense in which the world represents God. I shall then survey a further approach, which seeks to interpret the idea of resemblance in terms of the more fundamental idea of complementarity.