The Eucharist before Nature and Culture

Abstract

This article examines the claim by Bruno Latour that the modern division between the realms of nature and culture is in collapse. Following Latour, the division of nature and culture is located within a “modern constitution” which also includes the bracketing of God and a non‐theological ontology. Technology is examined as a means of overcoming the chaotic collapse of the dualism of nature and culture. Particular reference is made to the work of Donna Haraway. However, it is argued that technology, in being mimetic, is not able to re‐configure the relationship between nature and culture. Instead, through a comparison of the theologies of John Calvin and St. Thomas Aquinas, nature and culture are seen to be reconfigured in a non‐mimetic understanding of the Eucharist in which the natural and cultural elements of the Church's liturgy reach their telos through participation in the divine life.