Abstract
This broadly sourced and well-written volume presents a refreshing perspective shaped by a creative intermediation of metaphysics and doctrine. By advancing a theologically guided synthesis of a metaphysics of participation and an affirmation of absolute divine transcendence, the text generates rewarding discussions. Through this constructive contention, the text explores the dependence of the created universe upon transcendent causality, assesses language as a medium of self-critical theological insight, reflects on the continuity of the doctrines of creation and redemption, and proposes a fusion of virtue ethics and the natural law tradition to guide contemporary moral discernment.
The depth of the author’s treatments draws upon enriching, cascading contextualization shaped by his acuity in engaging a variety of distinct methodologies. Early in the text, he signals his acumen in a highly nuanced, differential application of Aristotelian analysis to address the unique features of transcendent causality. While explaining in convincing detail why transcendent causality must exclude a material cause, Davison illumines a movement through three intermediating modes of dependence of the created universe on its creator. He presents a dynamic cosmology originating from a simple, uncreated source (efficient causality), shaped by partaking in an infinite array of divine perfections (exemplary causality), and oriented toward ultimate fulfillment in a goal beyond itself (final causality). Readers familiar with Norris Clark’s and Rudi Te Velde’s analyses of Aquinas’s creative encounter with Aristotelean and Platonic sources will recognize the significance and originality of Davison’s contribution to the ongoing reinterpretation and development of the Thomist tradition.
Many readers will appreciate the author’s careful attention to etymologies and nuances of usage. In discussing a critical extension of the Aristotelian analysis of causality to the divine act of creation ex nihilo, Davison flows with an accomplished teacher’s facility between Latin and English exegesis of technical notions. For instance, by parsing the Latin roots the English notions ‘to have a part of’ and ‘to have a part in’ and discussing the context of their English usage, he effectively elucidates, for students and scholars, the notion of transcendent causality as non-competitive participation (p. 135ff).
Readers attuned to classical rhetoric may notice the subtle influence of filial imitation on Davison’s reconstructive approach to a Platonic notion of participation. After first guiding readers away from the allure of conflating transcendent exemplary causality with formal causality intrinsic to created entities, Davison explores a dynamic cosmology grounded in imitating divine perfections. Without outright dismissing the notion of created natures participating in divine exemplars, he presents evolving participation in divine perfections as a more primordial account. This foundational explanation turns upon a progressive, creative (filial) imitation of a family of divine perfections rather than participation in one or more essential ideas. Davison’s approach allows him to soften the sometimes-hard distinction between the essence and act. In effect, he reminds readers that potency and act are relative terms, where the potency of essence is itself limitation in act (p. 103 ff). The overall result is a passable bridge from classical cosmology to a contemporary notion of cosmogenesis built on a solid but critical retrieval of Platonic categories.
Davison’s surprising but consistent finale draws again on the leitmotif of participation to interweave virtue ethics and the natural law tradition. By identifying the warp and weft of the true, good, and beautiful permeating the whole cloth of creation, he casts the personal excellence espoused by virtue ethics as a self-present manifestation of the social beneficence advanced by the natural law tradition. Self-transcending realism addressing the true advises both approaches to moral self-transcendence. Realism grounded in self-critical desire participating in the transcendentals flags the intermediation of the virtuous integrity of the desiring subject and the subject’s engagement in the common good and divine providence. Excellence in virtue and beneficence in social activity collaborate to locate moral discernment in the cascading relations of natural, social, and religious ecologies. Discernment in Davison’s account is grounded in gifted desire, recognizes gifted natural resources and social opportunities, and advances toward gifted ultimate fruition in a divine project (p. 330).
No less than its ample accomplishment, the potential for nuance and development recommends Davison’s exploration of participation and transcendence to readers. Elaborating on his extensive treatment of participation, he introduces an insightful discussion of the three classical characteristics of beauty. He artfully employs integrity, proportionality, and clarity to elucidate economic interdependence. Yet, he does not raise issues of cultural pluralism and the potential role of aesthetic appreciation as a privileged locus of respectful intercultural exchange. An attentive reader may recognize an opportunity to probe culturally distinct aesthetic sensitivities and their relation to engaging self-transcending projects. Global economic justice and the common good are not monocultural realities. Davison takes readers to the verge of recognizing and celebrating the diversity of cultural meanings that express the inexhaustible good, true and beautiful. Thoughtful readers will surely appreciate Davison’s contribution and take up the challenge to advance their own participation in the project he envisions and resources so well.