Eric D. Perl

The dissertation examines Maximus' doctrine of participation philosophically as the solution to the metaphysical problem of the One and the many, the relation between the world and its ground. The theory is briefly studied in Parmenides, Plato, and Plotinus, and at greater length in Proclus. It culminates in Pseudo-Dionysius' antinomic doctrine of participation as total identity and difference between God and the world , and of creation as the self-impartation and self-creation of God and the deification of the world. Gregory of Nyssa's idea of creation as participation embodies similar ontological principles. ;Maximus understands participation, in both creation and deification, in the same way, and adopts the Neoplatonic pattern of procession and reversion. His theory of "logoi" expresses the same metaphysics. Through neo-Chalcedonian Christology he understands the incarnation of the Word and the deification of his human nature in the same terms, as mutually implicative identity and difference between God and the creature. Thus participation, that is, creation and deification, is seen as the mystery of Christ. "Always and in all the Word of God and God wills to effect the mystery of his embodiment." ;But the world can be both other than and identical with God, and so be, only by its own choice to participate in him. The alternative is the fall, which is therefore a fall toward non-being. Since the creature's choice is necessary for its being, it is self-created, and this is not inconsistent, but rather mutually implicative, with its being created by God. This is comparable to the Neoplatonic doctrine of self-constituted beings, which also derive from their causes. ;Participation is thus realized only in Christ, and the world can exist only by being his body in a "realized eschatology." This takes place in the Church and the Liturgy, where the world becomes the Body of Christ. Here the world is created and deified by the joint activities of God and man in the person of the incarnate Word

St. Augustine’s tremendous influence on Western thought continues to provide scholars from all fields with fresh insights and new connections to the philosophical and theological questions posed by modernity. The twenty essays collected here attempt not only to discuss perennial problems as found in Augustine—human willing, the nature of time, sin and free will, the soul’s relationship to the body—but also bring Augustine’s mind to bear on many post-Patristic concerns such as the alliance between theology and philosophy, linguistic analysis, the insights of various ethical systems, as well as the fundamental tenets of modern liberal thought.