The past century has seen marked revival of academic interest in sacramental ontology, both in protestant and Catholic traditions. One sees this in the Catholic tradition in three distinct events: the emergence of nouvelle theologie in the 1920s, the transformation of Vatican II, and Pope Benedict XVI’s condemnation of Catholic “dehellenization.” Likewise, the protestant tradition has witnessed renewed interest in sacramental theology in the expansion of the Anglican church, the waning of historical-critical hermeneutics, and the search for a theology beyond postmodernism. In this paper, I provide a working definition of sacramental ontology, a cursory history, and note the recent revival of its key tenets. I then turn my attention to rival versions of the theory, comparing its analogical and participatory articulations. After defending the participatory account, I argue that rightly understood, sacramental ontology returns to a pre-modern existentialism which offers an account of individuation as divine participation and grounds one’s identity in the image of God, rather than in an ontological essence.
Broadly speaking, sacramental ontology is a return to a pre-modern belief that there exists something mysterious or holy in the world other than simple matter. While one could imagine a sacramental ontology outside of the Christian tradition, because of the Christian emphasis on sacraments, the term typically indicates a claim that the sacramental existence is in some way part of God, a sign or symbol representing God, or a being’s participation in God. Accounts are careful to avoid both pantheism and materialism. Pantheism is the claim that creation is ontologically identical to God, while materialism is the claim that the universe is ontologically distinct and unrelated to anything divine or supernatural. Articulations of sacramental accounts vary, but fall into three categories: Neo-Platonic participatory relational ontology, Thomistic-Aristotelian analogy of being, or analogia entis, and Eastern Orthodox panentheism. This essay focuses on the distinctions between participatory relational ontology and the analogia entis, as panentheism requires an ontological unity between God and creation beyond mere sacrament or analogy. Advocates of the anaglogia entis argue for some sort of dualism, in which spiritual and material substances conjoin to create a sacramental essence. On this account, God is in and above creation. Advocates of a participatory metaphysic, however, typically argue against accounts of personal essence and instead claim a Christian-Neo-Platonism in which material substances merely participate in the form of God.
Sacramental ontology is, however, necessarily impossible to define, since its definition requires explaining what is necessarily mysterious. The Latin sacramentum, derives from the Greek mysterion (μυστήριον), from which comes both “sacrament” and “mystery.” In common usage the former typically refers to the manifestation or revelation of the latter. The mystery is revealed in the sacrament.[1] That which is sacramental is thus, necessarily mysterious, and that which is mysterious is necessarily indefinable. Attempts to define what is sacramental rob it of its very mystery. Further, attempts to articulate a sacramental ontology are likewise contradictory. Ontologies attempt to present accounts of what is. They typically reduce concepts of being to their minimal parts and analyze the relations between these parts. The merit of a rigorous ontology rests in its simplicity and explanatory power. Thus, a proper sacramental ontology would be one which simply explains mystery, and an explained mystery is no longer sacramental. For this reason, many have rejected the title, instead referring to a sacramental theology or a sacramental metaphysic.[2] Others prefer to address similar topics under the terms of hierarchy, participation, theocentric rhythm, or trinitarian cosmology. For clarity I retain the use of “sacramental ontology” to distinguish it from sacramental theology, which emphasizes Biblical support for and application of divine interaction on earth, or more vague attempts at a sacramental metaphysic or worldview which neglect concerns of being.
The difficulties in nomenclature reflect the difficulties of the discipline, or lack of discipline itself. Sacramental theology, the study of the sacraments of the Christian churches, their corresponding doctrine and ecclesiology, and their historical reception, belongs clearly to the domain of theologians.[3] Contemporary ontology, however, and contemporary metaphysics generally, demands analysis of philosophical perspectives extending beyond the bounds of the Christian tradition. Therefore, sacramental ontology finds itself in a rift between disciplines, a rift perhaps instantiated by the decline of a sacramental metaphysic itself.
Two Perspectives of Sacramentality
Much of the difficulty in defining sacramental ontology lies in the relative newness of any alternative. In the very broadest terms, sacramental ontology is merely a denial of naturalistic materialism. For most of history, defending the existence of non-material things seemed unnecessary. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle rejected the material and immanent monist theories of the presocratic philosophers and ushered in 2,000 years of metaphysical ontology.[4] For modern readers, however, understanding sacramental ontology requires rejecting the binary distinction of material and non-material and instead simply discussing what is, and how it relates to the divine. Until the late middle-ages, people assumed that the world was sacramental; it was mysterious. For the pre-modern thinker, this “mystery” refers to the obvious realities beyond those which are perceptible to the senses.[5] This mystery is not a mystery to be solved, but rather something at which to marvel. Importantly, this mystery is not beyond reality, but is part of reality. Material things do not merely point to the mystery like words point to things in the world; they are not mere signs or symbols. Rather, material things share some part of the mystery. There is something about the material thing that is like the mystical reality which is beyond the material. The unwavering bifurcation between physical and mystical realities is relatively new. To understand this divide, one must return to Plato and Aristotle, and their competing metaphysics.
Like everything, sacramental ontology begins with Plato. In his theory of the forms, Plato argues for the basic claims of sacramental ontology: that matter is not all there is, that the invisible is greater and more real than the physical, that physical things share a likeness of invisible things, and that physical things can become more or less like their invisible form.[6] However, from its inception Plato’s metaphysical theory faced scrutiny. Many have argued that Plato fails to articulate the connection between physical things and the invisible realms. While Plato holds that physical things resemble or participate in the forms, he does not articulate to what extent physical things share, possess, or participate in the forms, or how this interaction works. Moreover, Plato does not explain how physical people can know non-physical and transcendent forms.[7] Plato seems to articulate a theory of only and exactly two things, being and ideas, and these two cannot interact. Consequently, Plato cannot articulate accounts of the unity of the body and soul, the causes of motion and rest, or explain why matter participates in the form it does.[8] Unsurprisingly, this problem has puzzled idealists ever since. It is this problem that sacramental ontology attempts to answer.
Attempting to address Plato’s oversight, Aristotle rejects Plato’s concept of the forms. Rather than depicting two separate realities, eternal forms and physical material, Aristotle suggests that the physical and the immaterial interact on the same realm. On Aristotle’s account, all things are composites of matter and form. He suggests that forms are not above and beyond the world, but rather are present within each substance. Forms are individual to each substance and instill essence to matter.[9] Where Plato focused on a thing’s being and participation, Aristotle focuses on its substance and essence. While this solves Plato’s problem, it raises its own challenges. If forms are not above and beyond the individual, it is difficult make comparisons among things or categorize that which is similar. Do all men have their own form of male-ness or do they share a part of the form of maleness? For Plato, forms are beyond and universal; for Aristotle they are immanent and individual. Plato cannot explain how things are different; Aristotle cannot explain how they are similar.[10]
Augustinian Participation
While Plato’s theories drew strong criticism, most notably from Aristotle, through the apostle Paul, Plotinus, Augustine, and Aquinas, the Christian tradition relied on the metaphysical framework of Plato’s forms. Many have critiqued Christianity for being too Platonic and have attempted to articulate more Aristotelian conceptions out of the Christian metaphysic.[11] The relationship between Hellenistic philosophy and Christianity has seen debate since the Church’s inception. This is evident in the divide between the Jewish thinker Philo (20 BC – AD 50), who argues for a philosophical allegorical read of the Old Testament and Tertullian (160-220), who famously asks “what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”[12] However, most patristic fathers came to accept philosophy as means of assisting the Christian faith and pursuing understanding.[13] This was solidified by the theology of the Nicene Fathers and the council of 325. Considering the writings of Paul and John the Evangelist, the theology of the Church fathers, especially Justin, Clement, Origin, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine, could not ignore the Platonism evident within the New Testament. Thus, they sought to articulate a metaphysic that utilized and perfected that of Plato.
The Christianization of Platonism, or rather, Neo-Platonism occurs most famously through Augustine of Hippo. Augustine comes to Plato through the writings of the Neo-Platonist, Plotinus. He describes Plotinus as “Plato, born again.”[14] He adapts from Plotinus, over Plato, the conviction that the various Platonic forms are various articulations or perceptions of the One.[15] Notably, the One is the source of existence, from which all things come and thus, are like. Augustine further associates the One, or God, with both the unity of divine essence but also material existences. Unlike Aristotle’s distant first mover, God both creates and sustains all beings.[16] In his anti-Manichean writings, Augustine draws on Plotinus to develop an account of participation. He argues for both the infinite supremacy of God, foreshadowing Anselm’s ontological argument, as well as for the immanence of God to particulars because of his creation ex-nihilo. Existing outside of time, as the cause of all reality, and as pure act, Augustine depicts God as eternally creating and sustaining creation.[17] Further, Augustine’s emphasis on creation ex-nihilo, God freely creates out of nothing but himself, and thus, creation is like God in existence and participates in his likeness as he images God.
Augustine’s account of participation emphasizes man’s likeness to the trinity and his being as image of God. He argues that all forms find their likeness in God himself, and the various forms are various expression of Goodness, while that which is evil is an absence or disorder of Goodness. Like a prism reflecting different colors from one white light, creation images different displays of God’s goodness. For instance, a horse expresses the form of strength, while a dog expresses the form of loyalty. Both, however, are expressions of something found in God’s character, which is goodness. Likewise, the dog who is disloyal does not express the form of a defect, but merely fails to express loyalty in the right way.[18] Augustine’s emphasis on the ordering of the loves, rather than on proper essence or substance, reveals his priority of relationality over substance. He does not argue for a constituent ontology, nor for a hylomorphism like Aristotle.[19] Rather, he articulates the existence of basic parts such as the soul, matter, the will, the love, etc. and emphasizes the proper ordering of relations between these parts, and that ordering occurs through participation with the divine.[20] For Augustine, words like “essence” or “identity” refer to a thing’s relation to the divine, rather than a property intrinsic to the being.[21] His ontology focuses on the existence of created things ex nihilo, which necessarily share likeness to God, and the proper ordering of those things in relation to God.
Notably, while Augustine argues for a likeness to God in material things, his emphasis on the fall demands a great disparity between God and matter. His description of the Fall is that of a disordering.[22] The fall does not affect “being” itself, but the way in which being relates to God and itself. If I am right, and Augustine’s ontology is relational, the Fall does not remove or add constituents to being things, but disorders the relation between their being, and the cause of that being. Erich Przywara describes Augustine’s sacramental theology as “night.” Creation has existence or being, as it did at creation, but does not properly participate in the light which sustains and gives distinction to its being. The fall has disordered our loves. Existence remains, but the participation lies in the shadows.[23] This is not to say that without the Fall creation would be exactly like God in essence, extension, and character, but that it would be like God in proportion to its being: God, who is pure being freely causes all else to share in the nature of being[24] Creation ex nihilo means that all being bears resemblance to God’s being; yet the Fall means creation does not resemble God in the ways it should.
Augustine attempts to refute in Plato that which was unbiblical, while preserving what was true. Notably, his commitment to trinitarian theology rejects the Platonic notion of a single absolute monad presiding over various divine forms. Rather, Father, Son, and Spirit were consubstantial and united above all creation. Further since God created ex-nihilo, he rejects the notion that material things were inherently evil, and instead insists that God interacts with and imparts a spiritual reality to material things.[25]
By Augustine’s death in 430, Christianity was securely sacramental in a participatory way.[26] Augustine’s synthesis of Christian and Neo-Platonic thought results in a sacramental ontology emphasizing the likeness of existence itself with God. Drawing on Plotinus, he focuses on a being’s participation with the One. Being from God, beings are like God in existence and they grow in likeness God as they bear the Image. Their dissimilarity results from their status as dependent beings as well as the disorder of relations caused by the Fall. Beings are not hylomorphic, but rather attain essence through participation. Thus, one can grow in likeness to God in a liner process from creation to union with God, though on earth, this is only a shadow of true eternal participation.[27]
Thomistic Analogy
Many have claimed that the decline of neo-platonic Christianity hinges on Aquinas and his introduction of Aristotelian physics with Christian doctrine.[28] While I cannot claim authority to speak to Aquinas’s neo-platonic commitments, there is considerable evidence that Aquinas writes in refutation of Aristotelian philosophy, which had already begun reshaping theology in the centuries prior.[29] Adrian Pabst, for instance, suggests that the decline of neo-platonic Christian metaphysics begins with Islamic Philosophers Avicenna and Al-Farabi. He notes that the Arabic translation of Aristotle’s work in the 9th century sparked renewed interest in the relationship between religion and philosophy. Avicenna and Al-Farabi argued for Aristotelian logic and essentialism, which began a mathematical distinction of the sciences and a logical ordering of substances and essences. Instead of viewing metaphysics as a mysterious relation of beings, philosophers were once more analyzing individual substances, and categorizing by constituents and essences.[30] Such a metaphysic tends to focus on a being’s ontology, its essence and constituents rather than its relation to other things.
Even a cursory read of Aquinas reveals that Thomas does not ignore Platonic-Participation for sake of ontology. Rather, he begins the summa Theologica with a synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics, claiming that God is pure act: his essence is existence itself.[31] Aquinas attempts to reconcile the helpful distinctions of Aristotle with Plato’s sacramental metaphysic. In his metaphysics Aquinas holds that grace perfects nature. A clear example is of this is his hylomorphism, that a thing is a joint-self, composed of matter and soul, but also that the soul itself is configured by some greater form, presumably a form couched in the essence and existence of God.[32] Importantly, for Aquinas, a thing’s essence precedes its existence. It is essence which causes a thing to exist as that particular thing and not something else. This is contrary to the Platonic notion that a being takes its essence by participation in a form.[33] Still, some have critiqued Aquinas for overemphasizing ontology and paying insignificant attention to man’s relation to God in salvation history.[34] His philosophical metaphysics in the Summa preserve an Augustinian account of simplicity and an Aristotelian account of man. God is simple and transcendent; man is finite and rational.[35]
Aquinas then must answer the problem of how humans identify that which is physical and that which is metaphysical. How can finite humans identify anything like the infinite? Crucially, Aquinas notes that knowledge of God’s essence is beyond human capabilities.[36] Because humans are natural creatures, their natural knowledge (scientia) begins from senses, and thus can only see the effects and likenesses of God through metaphor.[37] Here Aquinas cites Pseudo-Dionysius, noting “we cannot be enlightened by the divine rays except that they be hidden within the covering of many sacred vails.”[38] Since mankind’s faculties are limited to sensory understanding, it is fitting that man’s knowledge of God is reduced to this limitation. This argument, however, is but a practical concession. To claim that one’s limitations necessitate metaphor does not suggest that metaphor is satisfactory means of knowing God, only that it is a fitting means of such knowledge. Furthermore, as Aquinas is clear that God’s essence is not fragmented or shared, one cannot presume that something of the essence of God exists within created beings as a constituent.[39] Rather, there exists in metaphor only a likeness, expressed through analogy.[40] In this he articulates an Aristotelean ontology while retaining a sense of Platonic participation.
Aquinas’s account of participation centers on analogy. As noted above, “analogy” had no metaphysical implications in most Greek philosophy. Prior to Aristotle, the term merely signified a similar mathematical relation, such as “2 is to 4 as 3 is to 6” (a:b::c:d).[41] Aristotle broadened the use of analogy beyond mathematics, speaking metaphorically where the relations between real objects were analogous, noting in the Poetics that, “a cup is in relation to Dionysus what a shield is to Ares. The cup may then be called the shield of Ares.”[42] Aristotle, however, also suggests a use of analogy beyond comparing similar relationships. In the metaphysics, he speaks of a connection of being as a kind of analogy. He claims that, “everything which is healthy is related to health, one thing in the sense that it produces it, another in the sense that it is a symptom of health.[43] On this type of analogy, the health of a person is the primary factor but which other senses of healthy are derived in regards to particulars like food, medicine, or fitness. Here Aristotle does not just express a causal relation, or teleology, among particulars. Rather, he identifies a relation between particulars and the universal which grounds their analogy. There is both a relation between objects of health, and between the particular object and health itself. However, like much of Aristotle, the profundity of this distinction of analogy went largely unnoticed until the middle ages.
It was Thomas who, in his commentary on the metaphysics articulates these two types of analogy: that two things can be similar in their relation to a third thing (like food and fitness to health) or in their relation to two other things (like Dionysus’s cup and Ares shield).[44] This first kind of analogy, a pros hen, analogy, becomes crucial for Thomas in the Summa, notably, in his discussion of the names of God. Thomas attributes human perfections, such as “goodness” and “wisdom,” to God in an analogy. God is not literally equal to these human (and inadequate) conceptions, but they share a relation to God in that they attempt to describe a perfection.[45] However, this analogy of names is careful not to assign any quantitative similarity between terms “goodness” or “wisdom” and God. Even when humans conceptualize qualitative perfections, their conception is marred by limited imagination and tendencies to inaccurately anthropomorphize God. Thus, Aquinas here does not make a true analogy of being, but only of the names themselves. One might critique that this is nothing but nominalism. Thomas is merely saying that man has wrong and ungrounded names for things he associates with good, and the identification itself is sufficient grounding for the analogy.
Thomas does not limit his analogies to mere names. His in the Summa he also draws analogies describing the relation between the being of God and the being of creation. This is a legitimate ontological relation between the physical and the divine. It is an analogy of being, or analogia Entis. In the summa, Thomas argues that man can be considered like God. Like Augustine, he notes that creation, being the effect of God, must bear some resemblance to God, the first cause. Of course, God is not material, or confined to any constituent characteristics which man might share. However, Thomas notes that man may be like God “according to some sort of analogy; as existence is common to all. “In this way all created things, so far as they are beings, are like God as the first and universal principal of all being.”[46] Just as food and fitness share in an analogy of health, all created things share in an analogy of being. As an effect of God, creation is neither foreign to God, nor part of God himself. Thomas, like Augustine is careful to avoid pantheism and theopanism. Because God is not material, nor divisible, he is not part of material things. Likewise, because creation is finite and disparate, it is not part of God. He notes that “it may be admitted that creatures are in some sense like God, it must nowise be admitted that God is like creatures; because, as Dionysus says ‘A mutual likeness may be found between things of the same order, but not between a cause and that which is caused.”[47] For any similarity between God and creation, there must exist a greater dissimilarity.[48]
One can see how Aquinas’s synthesis of Aristotelian and Platonic thought results in a sacramental ontology emphasizing the likeness of one’s essence with God. Refuting Islamic philosophers, Aquinas rejects a distinction between ontology and theology. He focuses on God as the first mover which gives essence to creation. Being from God, this essence is like God in an analogous way. However, since God is simple and infinite, any similarity with a finite things necessitates a greater dissimilarity. Creation, composed of matter and form, is necessarily limited in likeness to God, its sacramentality is in established at creation and is unchangeable except for distinct acts of God.[49]
Existence vs. Essence
Thus far I have attempted to trace the distinctions between a participatory and an analogical sacramental ontology. I have argued that following Plato and Plotinus, Augustine articulates a relational ontology in which things are like God in the how they participate in the divine image by properly relation to God and others. Aquinas on the other hand draws an analogy between the essence of created being and the essence of God. Both ground their sacramentalogy in God’s creation ex nihilo, since that which comes from God must be like God. Likewise, both articulate a divide between God and man, with Augustine focusing on the disorder of the Fall, and Aquinas focusing on the limitations of the material substance of creation. These differences stem from differences in Augustine’s relational ontology and Aquinas’s constituent ontology. It is to this difference I now turn. I argue that Aquinas’s constituent ontology cannot make sense of the nature of God in reality or address the problem of the one and the many in a meaningful way.
As we have seen, sacramental ontology attempts to understand the real interaction between creation and the divine. Aquinas draws clear connection to God through the analogia entis: the property of being is necessarily analogous to God because God is pure being. However, this does not make sense of how constituent properties can be said to be more or less like God. The problem is twofold, first because Aquinas is clear that one cannot understand what God is like, second because Thomas’s account of individuation is inscribed into the very structure of being.
If, man is incapable of knowing the Divine Essence, how might he identify its likeness in the analogia entis? Since man cannot know the essence of God, such analogies, demand a function beyond speculative intellect. If Thomas believes man can identify something about a creature that is like God, he would need to allow for man to have knowledge of what God is like in more than an analogous way. It is illogical to say that something is like God because it is analogous to God. The analogia entis can claim that an object’s being is like God because God is being, but any characteristics beyond existence have no grounding outside of divine revelation.
Aquinas inherits his second problem from Aristotle. Claiming that a being’s form is intrinsic to itself, Aquinas cannot say that any two beings are like one another for ontological reasons. He cannot identify what, other than being, is like God. His analogy of names fails here as well. While one can attribute to God, in an analogous, way synonyms for perfection, one cannot attribute the same things to a creature. If when one calls God “beautiful” or “wise” all he are saying is that God is supreme in a sort of way, he cannot say a sunset is supreme in a sort of way, but to a lesser extent. Everything is supreme to a lesser extent; because that is what it is to exist as creation. Aquinas cannot say how something is like God, just that it is as God is. Furthermore, in how a thing is uniquely like God, Aquinas notes that “Each being possesses its act of existing and its individuation in accordance with the same factor.”[50] God’s pure act of being accounts for both the unity of each thing and the hierarchical chain of being. God’s act is both the first cause and the sustaining efficient cause sustaining all things.[51] In this sense, nothing has its existence or essence in itself, but exists as dependent of God’s simple existence and essence.
Thomas’s hylomorphism articulates a being of matter which is dependent on its form (which is the act of matter) to bring it into being. The essence of these composite things is neither form, nor matter, alone.[52] It is the essence of the whole being which distinguishes it from other things and it is God that causes being, it is God that causes essence. One cannot discern this like-God from that like-God, only that God is the cause of all being.
For this reason, one must shift from the Thomistic emphasis on essence and return to considering participation as the grounds for considering that which is like God. The Analogia intis securely grounds hylomorphic composites as sharing a likeness to God, but limits each thing to participation in its own form. If, however, matter exists independent of a corresponding hylomorphic form it can share in the likeness of God on the basis of its existence, prior to its essence. Rather, a relational ontology grounds the essence of a particular in its relations. That which exists actualizes its potential essence in its relation to various aspect of God, perceived as various forms.[53] Existence bears likeness to God through the analogia entis, while essence bears likeness to God in relation. If existence precedes essence, essence is not something had or not had in a static and binary way, but something participated in and grown in as one grows in relation to the God.
A typical rejection to such relation ontology is that without constituent parts, two beings are indiscernible or identical. Such an objection is raised by Max Black, stating if, for every property F, object x has F; if and only if object y has F, then x is identical to y.[54] Black conceives of a world in which only two spheres exist, which possess the same properties and relations. Black’s world, however, is not sacramental. No two things can bear the same relation to God. They are not discerned by their properties, but by their participation in God. Black’s spheres raise a legitimate objection to relational ontology, but only if one assumes there exists no constant object to which a thing relates. In this sense, he begs the question in favor of metaphysical naturalism.
A thing’s identity and likeness then are not determined by their properties, but by their relation to a given form, in this case, a characteristic of God. However, this raises a further concern: if one’s essence is not intrinsic to the oneself, nor a constituent property, how does a being maintain identity through change in relations? If one’s identity, X is contingent on relation Y, then any change in relations is a change of identity. If, however, God is pure and eternal act, then a thing’s essence could endure in the mind of God. As eternal act, God is present to all time.[55] He is aware of the individual’s relation to himself throughout time. One’s entire relation through time is immediate to God as a whole, and such relation cannot change. Thus, the above objection might be reformulated “if one’s identity X is contingent on relation Y [at time A], then any change in relation is a change of identity.” But X’s identity is not contingent on Y [at time A], but rather on Y as known to God in eternity, what we might call [time E]. Being in the mind of God, Y [at time E] cannot change, and thus, neither can identity X. God’s pure act of creation both sustains a thing’s existence, but also identity. Identity as humans understand it then, is not true identity, but rather identity-in-progress. It is a temporal illusion of an already complete whole self. Man and God have different perspectives of time, and consequently, identity.
In sacramental time, the individual is present to God who is present to their past and future self, and thus, the individual is present to God as sinner and as their fully redeemed self. In this sense, identity itself is sacramental. It is not a static constituent, nor an emergent property dependent on a things matter or form. Rather, it is defined by one’s proper relations and sustained in the mind of God. Such sacramental identity is a composite of an eternity of relations, which endures beyond time. One’s experience of relations is present, but one’s essence is present to the eternal mind of God. While existence is temporal and particular relations occur at particular times, one’s relations to God transcends the current time.
Such a chronology has been suggested by Elenore Stump and Norman Kretzmann.[56] Theories of sacramental time might take a similar approach. In their article “Eternity,” they argue for the eternality of God, while maintaining God’s ability to exist simultaneously with temporal objects. Borrowing from Boethius, they define God’s eternality similarly to Augustine, as “the complete possession all at once of illimitable life.”[57] Boethius insists that God’s eternal existence is without limitation or change, but is one everlasting instant. Boethius is clear to say any given instant has boundless duration in God, as God exists all at once and is always.[58] In this, he borrows from Augustine’s claims that God is all at once creating all times. This contradictory atemporal eternal instant is not incompatible with temporal notions of time as finite and progressive, but rather, meant to suggest two separate modes of real existence: eternal and temporal, it is the interaction between these times that we call “sacramental.”[59]
Everything temporal is present to itself, and God is eternally present. Still, God remains present to temporal instance without sacrificing his eternality. Stump and Kretzmann get at this through the concept of ET-simultaneity. Holding that eternity and time are both real and distinct modes of existence, suggest a means of simultaneity that appears relative to the observer. They compare this relativity to Eistein’s Theory of Relativity. The comparison ultimately fails for many reasons, perhaps the most important of which being that Einstein’s relativity demands no privileged observer. This is not true of God’s interaction with time. God is privileged in his knowledge of simultaneity, even those that occur in time. He does know what actually is simultaneous.
Despite its drawbacks, the perspective-oriented nature of ET-simultaneity answers many typical issues of God’s eternality. ET simultaneity suggests that God can be simultaneous to two temporal instances which are not simultaneous to each other. From the temporal perspective, the events may be not simultaneous, but God is present to each. In this way, God is the privileged observer, because he knows both the temporal non-simultaneity of the events, and the ET simultaneity he shares with them. It is only the temporal perspective that suggests that time separates the reality of events. Stump and Kretzmann affirm this claiming “contrary to our familiar but superficial impression, temporal duration is only apparent duration.”[60] God, in his privileged eternal perspective sees things as simultaneous and eternal, and also as they appear to man in physical time, but man, in a temporal perspective only sees things in a finite perspective.
Yves Congar, suggest that sacramental time literally means that past, present, and future coincide in the pure act of God.[61] Thus, participation in God is not bound by temporal duration. Rather, by participating in God’s act, one participates in the timelessness of the spirit, who transcends temporal limits. One who is present with God might also be present with those in other times. Abraham and Isaac for instance, are sacramentally present at the crucifixion. Though not literally at the crucifixion, because they participate in a similar form as Christ, they participate in that event through the spirit.[62]
In a similar way, one might argue that at baptism, the baptized sacramentally participate in the death, they are spiritually present to the work of Christ, and participate in the act of God. By participation in the similar likeness of God, they image the dying and resurrecting Christ.
Likewise, in the eucharist, believers are sacramentally present with the Jews in Egypt, Jesus in the upper room, and the resurrected Christ in heaven. Being spiritually present to the spirit, outside of time, the believer’s is not bound to temporal time. Congar argues that these particular events, those which are normally called “sacraments” are unique not in character, but in participation. Any act of participation, in which one resembles Christ’s act (and thus his essence) is distinctly sacramental in that one relates to God in a way like Christ relates to God. Even “normal” actions prescriptive to humanity, such as work, relationship, or eating and drinking, are sacramental because they are proper to humanity as Christ is human. By living the human life well in the incarnation, Christ makes normal human life sacramental because properly ordered human actions relate to God as Christ related to God.[63]
In the acts properly called sacraments, however, the believer participates in God in a way that is uniquely connected to specific acts of Christ’s redemption. In Baptism, one participates to God in death and new life. In the Eucharist one participates in the Passover, the Lord’s supper, and the wedding feast of heaven. These particular sacraments are not mere remembrances of Christ’s work, but acts in which one relates to God with Christ. In these actions, Christ is distinctly present in his role as redeemer. In these actions one really does die and rise with Christ; one really does feast with Christ in heaven. In these actions one is distinctly present to the Christ through the Spirit.
Conclusion
In this paper I have focused on the differences between analogia entis and participatory relation to God. Drawing on Plato and Aristotle respectively, Augustine and Aquinas present theories of how material things are like God. Augustine presents a relational ontology in which things are like God in their existence, and grow in their participation in the form of God. Aquinas presents a constituent ontology in which things are like God in their essence as hylomorphic composites. Aquinas cannot, however, distinguish how things are like God in any way other than by their property of being. Participatory accounts, however, suggest that a thing’s essence grows into likeness of God as it relates to God. Thus, one’s essence is not a constituent part, but rather a series of relations held together in the mind of God. The model for these proper relations is Christ, who perfectly imaged the form of God. Humans thus participate in God when they image Christ and this occurs sacramentally across time. As one images Christ, they are sacramentally present to Christ’s redemptive work through the Holy Spirit. I have attempted to show how sacramental ontology necessitates returns to a pre-modern existentialism which offers an account of individuation as divine participation and grounds one’s identity in the image of God, rather than in an ontological essence.
[1] Hans Boersma and Mathew Levering, The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 1. [2] Adrian Pabst, Metaphysics, the Creation of Hierarchy, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2012), 24. [3] Hans Boresma and Mathew Levering, The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015), 3. [4] Pabst 8. [5] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans press, 2011), 21. [6] Ibid. [7] Pabst. 3. [8] Pabst 64. [9] Ibid. [10] Ibid. [11] This is perhaps most apparent in the late scholastics, Scotus, Ockham, and Burdian Notably, Scotus’ emphasis on haecceities as independent of God’s act, Ockham’s emphasis on the ideas and his abandonment of universals previews David Hume’s theories of causality and phenomenology in general. Likewise, Buridan’s emphasis on meaning and linguistic reference structures foreshadow Nietzsche’s philological philosophy, Wittgenstein’s logic, and the analytic movement as a whole. See Adrian Pabst, Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmands Press, 2012), 280-300. [12] Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum, in The Anti-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Robertson, James Donaldson, and Arthur Cleveland Coxe (New Tork: Cosimo, 2007), vol 3: Latin Christianity, 246. [13] See A. H. Armstrong and R. A. Markus, Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy (London: Darton Press, 1960). [14] Augustine, Against the Academicians in Cassicaiacum Dialogues vol. 1 trans. Michael P. Foley, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), III, xviii, 41. [15] R. O’Connell, Saint Augustine’s Platonism (Villanova, Villanova University Press, 1984). [16] Augustine, On the Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill. (New York: New City Press, 2015), XIV.iv.15. [17] Confessions VII, xi, 17; XII.vii.7; XII, xv, 20; XIII, xi, 12. [18] Ibid. VII.xvii.23; On the Trinity, XIV, iii, 13. [19] By constituent ontology I refer to the notion that essences have all their characteristics or properties as dependent parts. This is distinct from a bundle theory in which an essence is a collection of properties. Rather Thomistic constituent ontology is mereological in that an essence is composed of form and matter, and that essence then possesses constituent and relational properties which do not effect the nature of one’s essence. [20] Augustine, On Order, trans. Silvano Burruso, (South Bend: Saint Augustine’s Press, 1974), II, xi, 33-35. [21] Augustine, The Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick, (Oxford: Oxford University Press., 1998), XIV, 22. [22] Augustine, Sermons on the New Testament, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 6, ed. Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), 47, 14, 23. [23] Erich Przywara, Analogia Entis: Metaphysics: Original Structure and Universal Rhythm, trans. John R. Betz and David Bently Hart, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), 518. [24] Augustine, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, trans. Boniface Ramsey, (New York: New City Press, 2008. IV, 5, 69. [25] Pabst, 60-64. [26] Boersma, 63. [27] Sacramental theologians emphasize the effects of grace, especially through the sacraments of the church, on creation, which make them more like God. Man, however, can do nothing to make himself more like God. Attaining his telos of likeness to and union with God is an act of grace. [28] See, for instance, John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000). [29] See Mark D. Jordan, Ordering Wisdoms: The Hierarchy of Philosophical Discourses in Aquinas. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986). [30] Ibid 213. [31] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-I q.1, a.1. [32] Hylomorphists claim that every object is a compound of matter and from. Such compounds cannot be broken down into smaller parts and retain their existence or essence. For Thomas, the human soul is the form which shapes matter, and the soul is previously shaped by God. [33] Elenore Stump, "Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and Materialism without Reductionism" Faith and Philosophy. V.21, I.4. 514. [34] See Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: Crossroad, 1998). See also, Hans Urs von Bathasar, theologik, Vol. 2: Wahreit Gottes. (Einseideln: Johannes Verlag, 1985). 128f. [35] Summa Theologica I, q.3, a.7; I-II, q.57, a.2. [36] Summa Theologica I, q.12, a.11. [37] Ibid [38] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.9. [39] Summa Theologica I, q.3, a.8. [40] Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.10 [41] Przywara, 31. [42] Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Malcolm Heath, (London: Penguin Books, 1996), 1457b16f. [43] Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. John H McMahon (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991), IV, 1, 1003a32. [44] Thomas Aquinas. Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, trans John P. Rowan (Notre Dame: Dumb Ox Books, 1961), 317 [45] Summa Theologica I-I q.13. [46] Summa Theologica I-I, q.4, a.3. [47] Ibid. [48] Note that for Augustine the divide between God and man hinges on the Fall, not the ontology of creation. For Augustine that which exists can eventually be united to God in proper relation. For Thomas the divide is intrinsic in the constituents of created things. One’s material substance requires the resurrection into an entirely spiritual body to be united to God. [49] Sacramental theologians emphasize the effects of grace, especially through the sacraments of the church, on creation, which makes man more like God. Man, however, can do nothing to make himself more like God. Attaining his telos of likeness to and union with God is an act of grace. [50] Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, trans. Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), q1, ad 2m. [51] Thomas Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. Anlom C Pegis (South Bend: University of Norte Dame Press, 1975), I.28 [52] Thomas Aquinas, The Soul, trans. John Patrick Rowan, (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1949), q.1, a.1. [53] Pabst 49. [54] Max Black, “The Identity of Indiscernibles”, Mind, 1952, V.61: 153–64. [55] John 8:58, “Jesus declared, before Abraham was, ‘I am’” (ESV). [56] Elenore Stump and Norman Kretzmann. (1981). “Eternity,” Journal of Philosophy 78: 429-458. Reprinted in The Concept of God, edited by Thomas V. Morris. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987: 219-252. [57] Elenore Stump and Norman Kretzmann. (1992). “Eternity, Awareness, and Action,” Faith and Philosophy 9: 463-482. 431. [58] Ibid 432. [59] Ibid 432. [60] Stump and Kretzmann, “Eternity” 444. [61] Yves Congar, L’Eglise: De Saint Augustin a l’epoque moderne, Historie des dogmes, no 3, (Paris: Cerf, 1970), 153. [62] Ibid. 99. [63] See Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 2:14.
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