Part IV - PARTICIPATION

Summary

Participation in God runs through truth (logic), glory (aesthetics), life (anthropology) and goodness (ethics).

We share in his truth by faith, reason (ch. 7) and the world of prophetic images (ch. 8). We achieve beauty in the light of his glory (ch. 9). We share in his life by the breath and enlivening spirit which he gives (ch. 10). We participate in his goodness by loving those who wrong us (ch. 11).

The word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through his immeasurable love, became what we are, that he might bring us to be even what heis himself.

(5 pref.)

Into this paradise of life, the lord has introduced those who obey his preaching, ‘summing up in himself all things in heaven and earth’;but the things in heaven are spiritual, while those on earth are of the human order. Therefore these things he summed up in himself, by uniting man to the spirit and causing the spirit to dwell in man, by himself becoming the head of the spirit and giving the spirit to be head of man. For it is by this spirit we see, hear and speak.

(5.20.2)