From Him and Through Him and to Him: A Dogmatic Account of Participation in God

Abstract

In this dissertation, I offer a constructive account of participation in God, drawing specifically from Thomas Aquinas and the Reformed orthodox. Such a conception of participation, I argue, is ontologically grounded grammar for communicating creation’s relation to and imitation of God. Chapter 1 offers my theological method as well as a survey of recent scholarship on the topic. Chapter 2 orients the reader historically by providing a brief overview of participation’s historical use. In doing so, I demonstrate that the grammar maintains a broadly shared conceptual core to speak about creation’s relation to God as receiving in part what God is simply. Chapter 3 lays a framework for my argument by putting forth a doctrine of God as ipsum esse. To do so, I bring together a constellation of exegetical-dogmatic doctrines: God as simple, actus purus, a se, and the corollary doctrine, creation ex nihilo. Chapter 4 moves to creaturely metaphysics as a corollary of a classical doctrine of God. Because God is identical with his essence, existence, and perfections; because he possesses all possible perfections maximally; and because he depends upon nothing else for his own being, I conclude that for creation to come into being, God must gratuitously and continuously grant it to have analogically what he is essentially. Chapter 5 furthers this argument by outlining creation according to divine ideas, which is to say that God creates according to his wisdom. The result, I argue, is that God is the exemplar of creation, granting not arbitrary likeness but an analogous similitude to the created order according to creaturely forms. Chapter 6 turns to Christ more specifically to consider how his procession from the Father serves as the principle and exemplar of creation. I conclude in chapter 7 by summarizing my work, addressing objections, and detailing how my retrieval of participation differs from other projects that may suffer from ambiguity and excess.