Divine Participation Research Articles

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) and Nature’s Divine Participation: Reverence for the One and the Many in the Scientific and Poetic Imagination

This paper considers the influence of Platonism and Neoplatonism on the British Romantic poet and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) and how they informed his reverence for nature. Coleridge did not see this reverence as merely personal but sought to call an increasingly materialist and industrializing England back to a Platonic social imagination that would better revere the created world. First, I will establish the influence of Platonic and Neoplatonic thought on his philosophical system. Second, I will show how the relationship between Platonic philosophy and scientific pursuit is worked out in Coleridge’s “Essays on Method”, wherein he attempts to synthesize Plato with Frances Bacon and poetry with science and proposes a scientific method that reverences all of creation in its individuality and participation within a spiritual whole. Third, I will briefly explore two of Coleridge’s most famous poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel, as both show the destructive potential of a lack of reverence for the mysterious natural order. These poems may be read as case studies, experimental worlds where refusal to recognize nature’s order and participation with the divine results in the coming apart of those worlds and the self’s relation to them.

The Concept of Sacramental Goods: Addressing Veblen's Critique of Liturgy

Liturgy invites participants to partake in spiritual goods that are also economic commodities. This article explores the liturgical significance of these commodities through the lens of Veblenian thought. Thorstein Veblen argues that consumption of positional or inherently limited goods signifies predatory status, and that liturgy similarly uses such resources to depict God as a predator. Addressing Veblen's analysis of liturgy, Paul's explanation of the eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11 suggests that the goods of liturgy are the antitheses of positional goods, insofar as they attain their highest goodness when shared equitably. Such “sacramental goods” provide a means for viewing divine participation not only in the liturgy, but also in the broader economy. Selected implications follow, including a need to orient the aesthetics of the liturgy toward shared rather than limited goodness, and cautious employment of consumerist emblems in liturgical settings.

Staging Contemplation: Participatory Theology in Middle English Prose, Verse, and Drama

Staging Contemplation: Participatory Theology in Middle English Prose, Verse, and Drama

Representation as indwelling: Contextualizing Michael Psellos’empsychos grapheacross artistic, liturgical, and literary theory

Through terms that articulate the arts as the results of divine possession or inspiration, the writings of Byzantine thinkers repeatedly expressed the manner in which representation was believed to operate as a form of divine indwelling occurring beyond the skill and originality of the artist, writer, or performer. Beyond ideas of naturalism or style, the literary, visual, and performance arts arose through the event of divine participation. The goal of this article is to contextualize the concept ofempsychos graphe, as articulated by Michael Psellos, within a longer and broader history of similar concepts across literary, liturgical, and artistic thought.

Christosis: Engaging Paul's Soteriology with His Patristic Interpreters by Ben C. Blackwell

Reviewed by: Christosis: Engaging Paul's Soteriology with His Patristic Interpreters by Ben C. Blackwell L. Ann Jervis ben c. blackwell, Christosis: Engaging Paul's Soteriology with His Patristic Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). Pp. xxxi + 312. Paper $40. This clear and elegant study (first published as Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria [WUNT 2/314; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011]) advances the current discussion of theōsis in Paul (Stephen Finlan, "Second Peter's Notion of Divine Participation," in Theōsis: Deification in Christian Theology [ed. [End Page 326] Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov; Princeton Theological Monograph Series 156; Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2006] 32-50; idem, "Can We Speak of Theōsis in Paul?," in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions [ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffry A. Wittung; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008] 68-80; M. David Litwa, "2 Corinthians 3:18 and Its Implications for Theōsis," Journal of Theological Interpretation 2 [2008] 117-33; idem, We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul's Soteriology [BZNW 187; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012]; Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001]; idem, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul's Narrative Soteriology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009]). Blackwell's specific interest is theōsis in Paul's soteriology/eschatology, in particular what the author calls "the anthropological experience of salvation" (p. 251). B. chooses to look at the matter from the vantage point of Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria, both of whose views on soteriology he determines can be characterized as "deification." B.'s interaction with Irenaeus and Cyril clarifies that they approach deification as ontological transformation including incorruption and sanctification. Such deification does not, however, do away with the Creator–creature distinction. By means of God's Spirit, believers become like God through grace while their essence remains creaturely. B. terms this "attributive" as opposed to "essential" deification. With wisdom gained from this patristic study, B. examines Paul's soteriology on the basis of four questions: (1) What is the anthropological shape of Paul's soteriology? (2) When do these soteriological changes occur? (3) How do these soteriological changes of the human condition come about? And (4) how does this transformation of the human condition relate to creation? Blackwell's skill at finding apt heuristic categories allows for his patient exegesis of Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 3–5, along with Colossians 2, Galatians 3–4, 1 Corinthians 15, and Philippians 2–3, to be both illuminating and straightforward. For example, he makes a distinction between the intra- and interpersonal effects of soteriology and further divides the intrapersonal into noetic, moral, and somatic. Such careful organizing of Pauline ideas results in clear conclusions. For instance, on the basis of his claim that Paul has a fundamental temporal duality—the present and future ages—B. concludes that Paul's soterio-logical understanding is that in the present age believers experience moral enablement and noetic enlightenment "in a somatic context of suffering" (p. 242). The consummation of Paul's soteriology is somatic resurrection—incorruption. The primary organizing principle that B. identifies in Paul's soteriology is conformation with the death and life of Christ—the life of Christ being Christ's risen, glorified life. At present, believers know Christ's death and life in bodies that are corruptible and so suffer; the future for believers is what Christ knows now—incorruptible life in the glory of God. This life will be a participation in the divine life but will not obliterate the distinction between God and those who participate in God. Blackwell chooses the term christosis over theōsis for various reasons, among which is that he reads Paul's soteriology as "christo-telic in nature" (p. 245). God's purpose is, through the Spirit, to transform humanity into the image of Christ. God's project in Christ is not to recover what Adam and Eve lost but to transcend the original creation—to allow Christ's own glorious existence to be shared by humanity in a transformed, nonhuman creation fitting for such heavenly existence. [End Page...

Narrating Violence, Narrating Self: Exodus and Collective Identity in Early Rabbinic Literature

Narrating Violence, Narrating Self: Exodus and Collective Identity in Early Rabbinic Literature

Cicero’s Theology and the Concept of Fate

Abstract This article examines Cicero’s discussion of theology in the context of providing Rome with philosophical writings. I argue that in his treatises de natura deorum, de divinatione and de fato, Cicero conceptualized a traditional, idealized version of Roman theology under the premise that religio and cultus deorum are indispensable for a moral society as it is outlined in de re publica and de legibus. In continually stressing active divine participation in the lives of men, Cicero underlines the importance of goodwill between the divine and human spheres which finds expression in cultus deorum. As concepts such as Stoic fate run counter to the belief that the gods can be ritually influenced by prayer or ritual, the gods can neither be identified with fate itself nor be subject to it. Cicero rather stresses free will in all contexts to uphold the moral society, both human and divine.

Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt – By Stephen J. Davis

Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt – By Stephen J. Davis

'A Relational Theology that Isn't Relational Enough': A Response to God and World in the Old Testament

AbstractFretheim explores the biblical theme of creation through the lenses of the divine-human relationship. God leaves space for human co-creation, though sometimes at the expense of God's own participation. In considering how best to balance human and divine participation in creation, I consider three areas; the role of the spirit of God in creation, the role of Torah as an expression of relationship with both God and neighbor, and the problem of God in the book of Job.

Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt. By Stephen J. Davis. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. xviii + 371 pp. $130.00 cloth.

Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt. By Stephen J. Davis. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. xviii + 371 pp. $130.00 cloth.

Book Review: Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt

Book Review: Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt

Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt (review)

Reviewed by: Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt David Brakke Stephen J. Davis. Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt. Oxford Early Christian Studies Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008 Pp. xvii + 371. $130.00. Summarizing the benefits of the incarnation of the Word, Athanasius of Alexandria famously wrote, “He became human in order that we might become divine” (On the Incarnation 54). Stephen J. Davis’s outstanding Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt explores how Coptic Christians have appropriated, explained, defended, and performed the Christology that they inherited from Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria. Davis not only provides a clear and interesting account of Coptic Christology from its origins into Late Antiquity and the Copto-Arabic “Golden Age” of the high Middle Ages, but also models an inter-disciplinary approach to historical theology, one that combines analysis of high theological discourse with study of ritual, art, and clothing. The result is a complex study of Coptic spirituality in different historical and social contexts. Davis describes the book as a series of case studies organized around three themes: “(1) the interpretation of biblical texts and patristic authorities, (2) the production of apologetical literature in the context of theological controversy, and (3) worship and other ritual activities that functioned as privileged venues for christological communication and performance” (viii). A substantial introduction traces the development of christological ideas, especially concerning the role of the body, in Alexandria from early thinkers such as Basilides and Valentinus, through Clement and Origen, to the principal authorities for later Copts, Athanasius and Cyril. This chapter provides the basis for the book’s theme of interpretation of the early Fathers, but it also contributes to the other themes by examining how Athanasius and Cyril articulated their Christologies in conflict with alternative views and how Cyril presented the Eucharist as the principal site for human participation in the divine incarnation. Parts I and II examine Coptic Late Antiquity, with chapters on the writings of Shenoute of Atripe, Coptic Eucharistic liturgies, pilgrimage and the cult of the saints, and images on textiles and church buildings. Shenoute and the liturgies adapted and cited earlier authoritative theologians and texts in new polemical contexts. Along with the practices of pilgrimage and iconic representations of Christ and the saints, they articulated and performed a participation in the divine life made available in the incarnation, in which remembrance and imitation of the saints and worship practices (prayer, Eucharist, pilgrimage) were central. Especially in the chapters on pilgrimage, the cult of the saints, and images, Davis argues that the link between divine incarnation and human deification that Athanasius succinctly stated functioned not merely as an idea for Coptic clergy like Shenoute to elaborate and defend, but became incarnate itself, so to speak, in the embodied practice of Coptic Christians. Davis supports his hypotheses about the christologically performative nature of, for example, tunics embroidered [End Page 155] with religious images with theoretical perspectives drawn from ritual studies and performance theory. Part III turns to Copto-Arabic sources, with chapters on the tenth-century writings of Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and literature from the Coptic Church’s theological renaissance of the thirteenth century. Sāwīrus The Precious Pearl provided a florilegium of biblical and patristic quotations that served as a basis for later christological reflection, and his own constructive work responded to the Muslim context in which Copts lived and tied Christology to liturgical aind social practices. Authors such as Bishop Būlus al-Būshī of Old Cairo and texts like the Awlād al-‘Assāl creatively appropriated the patristic heritage, now often read through the lens of earlier Arabic Christian authors. Lacking the kind of material that he has for Coptic Late Antiquity, Davis here must be somewhat more tentative in linking theology and religious practice, but examination of a late thirteenth or early fourteenth-century icon from the Church of St. Marcurius at Dayr Abū Sayfayn alongside a homily of Būlus once again demonstrates the fruitful nature of Davis’s integrative approach. The book concludes with a...

Science as Goad and Guide for Theology

Abstract: The influence of science (including science‐based technology) on theology is discussed here within the framework of two assumptions. First, the basic purpose of theology is to serve the mission of the church. In today's world this means that theology must take science seriously in the ways in which it equips the church to do its work. Second, the theology which is most adequate for this purpose is a version of the theology of the cross which emphasizes the concept of divine kenosis. Within this framework, science can be seen as a goad to theology in several areas. Concerns about the environment encourage an ecological emphasis in theology. The interpretation of biblical creation texts is influenced by our knowledge of cosmic and biological history. Awareness of the scientific limitations of some biblical texts encourages us to consider the kenotic character of the inspiration of scripture. Evolution through natural selection seems to demand the kind of divine participation in the sufferings of the world to which a theology of the cross points, and human evolution in particular has implications for theological anthropology. Finally, the ability of science to explain phenomena in the world without reference to God needs to be taken into account when we speak of God's action in the world. These and other topics should be given adequate attention in Christian education at all levels and in preaching, pastoral care and public advocacy by the church.