290 Dialog: A Journal of Theology • Volume 56, Number 3 • Fall 2017 • September

Outside the Theme

Reception of Analogy of Being in

Contemporary Eastern Orthodox
Theology
By Oleg Davydov
Abstract: This article examines the relationship between the analogy of being (which is a fundamental
principle of Catholic theology and metaphysics) and the most significant contemporary Eastern Ortho-
dox theologians. This question of analogy touches upon the fundamental theological problem of the
conceptualization of the relationship between God and creation. Even though there is no analogy in
Eastern Orthodox theology, it has two polar positions regarding Western analogy of being—pro and con.

Key Terms: analogy of being, Eastern Orthodox theology, ontology, creation

Renewal of Interest in Analogia
Entis
The turbulent and changing intellectual atmosphere
of our times opens opportunities for the realization
of certain theological ways of thinking, ways that
were disregarded during previous centuries. The ex-
istential human needs of understanding our own
faith rise again, seeking out the treasures of the
fruitful theological traditions of the past. In this
article, I demonstrate that one significant example
of this trend is the renewal of theological interest
in the issue of the analogy of being (analogia entis).
In the Christian metaphysical tradition of the
Middle Ages, which was rooted in the theology of
the church fathers, the analogy of being is under-
stood as the ambivalent correlation between the acts
of creaturely beings and the transcendent infinity of
God’s being. Properly understood, the analogy of
being gives one reason to believe that individual
creaturely existence is good, true, and beautiful.
Consequently, the analogy of being consists of two
sides that include relationships between the Cre-
ator and creation on the metaphysical level—thus
becoming an area of interest for both theology and
philosophy.
It is a well-known fact that the early modern sec-
ular rebellion against theology destroyed the domi-
nance of Christian theological tradition in favor of
mechanistic and positivistic philosophies. However,
this did not happen by itself, and the source of the
distortion of the Christian tradition is a result of

Oleg B. Davydov, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow in Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russia. His current research project is about the
development of modern Eastern Orthodox philosophical theology.


C 2017 Wiley Periodicals and Dialog, Inc.
 Reception of Analogy of Being in Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Theology • Oleg Davydov
the rise of theological and philosophical nominal-
ism, which took shape during the scholastic debates
of the late Middle Ages.
The goal of nominalists was the criticism of the
scholastic principle of the analogy of being as an
ontological principle of the relationship between
the world and God: “When John Duns Scotus es-
chewed the analogy of being in favor of univoc-
ity, the natural theology he championed failed to
preserve the ontological difference between Creator
and creation defended by both Eastern and West-
ern Church Fathers and scholastics.”1 As a result
of the transformation of these complex theological
and philosophical landscapes, the importance of the
analogy of being has been lost.
Characteristically, the twentieth century was a
time of revival of theological interest in the analogy
of being. Some Catholic theologians attempted to
overcome the divide between grace and nature, as
was posited by Vatican I doctrine in the nineteenth
century. They wanted to present a view that divine
grace and creaturely nature cannot be understood as
two separate orders, but rather intrinsically belong
to each other.
One example of this rebirth of interest was the
famous discussion between Karl Barth and Erich
Przywara about the analogy of being and its role in
theology.2 Przywara built his own concept of the
interpretation of the classical formula of the anal-
ogy of being, made in the Fourth Lateran Council
of 1215: “One cannot note any similarity between
Creator and creature, however great, without be-
ing compelled to observe an ever greater dissim-
ilarity between them.”3 Przywara famously named
the analogy of being as a fundamental Catholic
form of thought based on the conceptualization of
the Fourth Lateran Council. But for Przywara, this
analogy constitutes not only theological thought,
but also an analogical structure existing in the
depths of every philosophy.
The analogy of being is designed to preserve the
correct mode of a relationship between God and
creation against all theological or philosophical at-
tempts to conflate them in ontological unity, or
radically sunder one from the other. In fact, ac-
cording the concept of the analogy of being, all
creatures are directed to God, in whom they fully
participate. On the contrary, God stays absolute;
291
that is, God is transcendent, existing beyond any
definition or concept. In other words, the analogy
of being is attempting to find a third way beyond
both—a united Creator and a creation under the
univocal notion of being, and the understanding
that there is no point in comparing them.
However, in the clamor of intensive Western the-
ological debates about the question of the analogy
of being, there is no place for the third position—a
position that could offer a new view of this signif-
icant problem. Therefore, here I introduce two op-
posing theological perspectives regarding this anal-
ogy, both of which exist in contemporary Orthodox
theology.
David Bradshaw
The original view of the problem of the connection
to the analogy of being was given by American Or-
thodox theologian David Bradshaw. Outlining his
views on the teaching of Aquinas, Bradshaw, echo-
ing most Orthodox criticisms, says that the analogy
of being reduces the apophatic language of Diony-
sus to a merely semantic method of theological
language.4 He constructed his own critical argu-
ment against the analogy of being as a classical one
for the Palamite Eastern Orthodox essence/energy
distinction in God, which is understood as more
reliable than the Thomistic analogy of being for
theology.
The next difficulty that Bradshaw saw with the
analogy of being is that it is influenced by Greek
metaphysics, and the understanding that the rela-
tionship between Creator and creature is similar to
the platonic relationship between ideas and mate-
rial. The positive aspect of Bradshaw’s interpretation
of the analogy of being is that it includes the idea
of ontological participation. Bradshaw writes: “This
participation is not static relation, in the meaning
of Plato, but dynamic process or synergy.”5 Thus,
we can see how a dynamic rethinking of the partic-
ipative relationship between Creator and creation,
that is, the structure of the analogy of being prin-
ciple, can narrow the gap between Catholic and
Orthodox understandings.
292 Dialog: A Journal of Theology • Volume 56, Number 3 • Fall 2017 • September

John Romanides known Orthodox scholar, Christos Yannaras. A dis-

tinctive feature of Yannaras is how he enters an
open dialogue with the main foci of modern phi-
losophy. He draws a distinction between the mod-
Different critical interpretations of the analogy in-
ern understanding of the human as an autonomous
form contemporary Greek Orthodox scholar John
individual and the Orthodox understanding of the
Romanides, who expresses a sharp critique of the
person as a relational entity. Yannaras finds the on-
principle of the analogy of being. He touches upon
tological basis for such an understanding in the
the problem of the analogy of being in his book
Palamite difference between divine essence and di-
The Ancestral Sin, where he rejects the analogy of be-
vine energy.
ing together with the analogy of faith as a Western
Yannaras uses a personalist interpretation of hu-
distortion of tradition.6
man existence against the essentialization and ob-
In an earlier publication about the Catholic
jectification of the essence, which he finds in the
analogy of being principle, he concluded that:
scholastic analogy of being. Yannaras thinks that
“There is no similarity between God and creations.
knowledge of God is not a result of one’s own
And, since there is no similarity, it means that
intellectual or rational thought, but an existential
there is no similarity between the created and
event of participation in grace: “Thus beings, as a
the uncreated.”7 This position is based upon a
result of divine will that is active outside divine
distinction between Western theology, which has
‘essence,’ do not have any absolute reference to the
been strongly influenced by Greek philosophical
divine ‘essence’ itself, and for that reason knowl-
metaphysics, and Eastern Orthodoxy, which is
edge of God is impossible on the basis of the anal-
free of this negative influence. Romanides thinks
ogy of being (analogia entis).”9 Thus, the analogical
that Western theology from Augustine until
way of knowing God is fully closed for Yannaras,
today is dangerously mixed with philosophy. This
because human beings are only passive recipients
possibility did not emerge in the East because the
of the divine message about God. This is another
Greek fathers stressed that there is no similarity
variant of extreme theological agnosticism arising
or correlation between creations and Creator, an
from a bad interpretation of the well-intentioned
aspect of the analogy of being.
effort to protect the essence of the transcendence
Symptomatically, Romanides is positive about
of God.
the nominalist revolt against the Thomistic analogy
Yannaras develops his critique of the analogy in
of being and presents William Occam as an impor-
a more detailed manner in his later book titled Per-
tant figure: “He launched a general attack against
son and Eros. A personalist approach to the analogy
Plato’s archetypes; in other words, against the Uni-
of being can illuminate its philosophical character,
versalia of Platonic tradition, with very power-
which cannot be accepted in theology: “Scholastic
ful arguments and almost abolished the preceding
analogy ignores the personalist existence of God,
Platonic supporters of Western tradition, thus insti-
the Trinity of the divine persons, the personalist
gating a severe crisis in Western Theology.”8 Thus,
way of being of the divine essence.”10 Analogical
we can see how the anti-analogical rhetoric of Or-
ways of thinking are a way to relate the human
thodox theologians reiterated nominalist polemical
person to the person of God, and this path is
ideas with no originality.
strictly existential, not formal or universalistic, as
in scholastic rationalism. Only personalist other-
ness is the true otherness for Yannaras, but the
Christos Yannaras “ever greater” of the Lateran formula of analogy
is only the otherness of things, that is, not clear
otherness but: “It is obvious that in this formula
One of the most profound theologians who gives unlikeness does not relate to the personal mode
much attention to the analogy of being is well- of existence of otherness: unlikeness coexists with
 Reception of Analogy of Being in Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Theology • Oleg Davydov
similar in quantitative comparison to the measured
values objectified.”11
Obviously, Yannaras opposes the method of
comparable analogue of dissimilar similarity, sug-
gesting that Western theology is Aristotelian,
whereas Eastern is Platonic. However, such a one-
sided interpretation does not correspond to the real-
ity of the analogy as a principle of being. For exam-
ple, Przywara indicates that the theological analogy
of being is understood only as a first step, and the
second is an aspiration to the absolute transcendent
God.
John Zizioulas
If Yannaras gives a personalist interpretation of
the analogy, it was developed further by John D.
Zizioulas. The starting point of Zizioulas’s theology,
as with that of most Orthodox theologians, is the
ontology of personhood, which opposes the scholas-
tic ontology of essence. In the theological system
of Zizioulas, the concept of the person plays a cen-
tral role, because a person “has unique referential
potential in that it can span both domains—it con-
stitutes a primordial ontological and thus semantic
bridge between the theological and anthropologi-
cal spheres.”12 The ontology of the person is a
form of expression of the differences between the
persons of the divine Trinity, which is not a sum
of relational individuals but pure communion, and
expresses the relational nature of the human be-
ing, which can truly exist only in the form of
person.
Accordingly, the supreme principle of this on-
tology becomes absolute otherness, which is de-
signed to replace the metaphysical immanence of
the Western tradition. Theological ontology con-
nects with personalist ontology, which, unlike the
philosophical ontology of substance, provides space
for authentic distinctions on the basis of an abso-
lute otherness of Creator toward the creature. Ac-
cordingly, the apophatic method of speech about
God, who is beyond being, may be supplemented
by the cataphatic question of creation that is close
to God.
293
I claim that the relational ontology of Zizioulas
intersects with the analogy of being. In his book,
Being Communion: Studies in Personhood and the
Church, Zizioulas claims that Western theology and
philosophy lose the meaning of personhood because
of their over-identification with substance, that is,
essentialization. The negative result of this was that
the West lost the meaning of personhood and
being.
In opposition to this loss, Eastern Orthodoxy
has retained its understanding of the absolute
relational nature of persons, which is not con-
nected to a static ontology of substance. Thus
we can call this interpretation of personal being
a “relational analogy.” For Zizioulas, “to be” is
paradoxically identified with “to be relational.”13 If
Zizioulas wanted to exchange the static substantial
ontology of the West for the relational, analogical
tradition of the East, he could give his own inter-
pretation of the relationship. It works because the
concept of the analogy of being describes nothing
but relationships, which belong to the existential
nature of created beings and exist only in relation
to God. Thus, following Barth, Zizioulas uses
dynamic analogical relations instead of a static
understanding of the analogy of being, which, as
he claimed, can be more useful for contemporary
theological goals.
Nikolaos Ludovikos
Another Greek Orthodox theologian, Nikolaos
Ludovikos, discusses the analogy of being in com-
parison with ideas from one of the most influential
church fathers, Maximus the Confessor. In Ortho-
dox theology, the question of the analogy of being
finds parallels in the question of the participation
of creatures in the Creator. Ludovikos demonstrates
that for Maximus the foundation of the relation-
ship between God and the world is dialogical, but
for Thomas it is emanational. Analogy in Max-
imus, Areopagite, and Palmas is the expression of
dialogical relationships or a synergetic participation
between creation and Creator.
294 Dialog: A Journal of Theology • Volume 56, Number 3 • Fall 2017 • September

This Orthodox theology “refuses any kind of an David Bentley Hart

ontological analogy between God and creation ex-
cept for the analogy between the divine logos of a
being and a possibility of participational response
Now I describe a unique approach to the analogy
to it.”14 Thus, analogy for Ludovikos is not a pas-
of being among Orthodox scholars, that of David
sive structure, but a dynamic relationship of grace-
Bentley Hart. Hart gives the most positive and sub-
filled participation of creatures in divine nature.
lime interpretation of the analogy among all Or-
The main purpose of this analogy is synergistic di-
thodox scholars. He personally has done much to
alogical reciprocity, in which beings come into a
revitalize analogical discourse in contemporary the-
community between themselves and God.
ology. Thus, we can describe the theological project
Speaking about the Thomistic understanding of
that he develops in his book Beauty of Infinite: The
the analogy of being, Ludovikos notes that this
Aesthetics of the Christian Truth as a great Orthodox
refers not to divine energies, but to divine essence.
meditation about the analogy of being.16
In this ontological disposition, the creation de-
Hart brilliantly uses an Eastern Orthodox tradi-
pends upon a Creator as its efficient and exem-
tion, specifically the theology of Gregory of Nyssa
plary cause. Also, creatures become only a passive
and his conception of the infinite self-overcoming
reflection of divine grace. However, if we think
of creatures on their way to God, to develop an
about God in ontological terms as cause and effect,
analogy of being in a critical dialogue with the most
or as the higher source of all beings, we do not
influential examples of modern secular philosophies.
understand true participatory relationships, which
Like his closest colleague in the radical ortho-
constitute the analogy. By contrast, the Orthodox
doxy movement, John Milbank, Hart participates
vision saves possibilities for the efficacy and free-
in an ambitious project to revive analogical meta-
dom of created beings, which is needed for true
physics against univocal thoughts on being. Hart
synergetic participation and answers no divine call:
also includes in his project the ideas of some
“The fact that we cannot define (or confine) cre-
Roman Catholic theologians like Przywara. Hart
ativeness as the static essence, does not mean that
started a revival of the classic interpretation of the
it consists of an undifferentiated reflection of God’s
analogia entis of the Fourth Lateran Council against
grace.”15
a neo-Thomistic understanding of it.
Our main ontological problem born from this
Like Hart, in his theological project, Milbank
view is that created nature is a passive reflection of
tries to update the analogy of being by pointing out
divine being without active participation and dia-
that as opposed to univocal interpretation, which
logue with God. Creation in the analogy of being
is not a rationally justified allegation so much as
becomes just a passive replication of God’s essence.
an existential choice or volitional decision, the ax-
In the Thomistic perspective, synergetic participa-
iomatic assumption based on the belief that there
tion of creatures in the divine is impossible simply
cannot be harmonious mediation between identity
because that would be the participation of crea-
and difference. “Philosophically speaking, univocity
tures in divine essence itself. In fact, said Ludovicos,
is only one possible reading of the ontological dif-
there is a deep abyss between creature and Creator,
ference between Being and beings. It represents an
or between natural and supernatural, that we find
existential orientation more than does any conclu-
in the Thomistic “passive” version of the analogy
sive mode of argument.”17
of being.
Hart provides a perspective diametrically op-
In sum, the analogy for Ludovikos is not a pas-
posed to most Orthodox theologians’ understanding
sive reflection of divine grace in passive creatures,
of the analogy of being. Thus, if Yannaras criticized
like in Thomas, but a dialogue with the partici-
the principle of the analogy for the essentialization
pation of two active sides—Creator and creations,
and dissolution of existential differences in the final
which needs an actual response to the divine call
identity of the essence of God, Hart goes further:
from this side of creation.
 Reception of Analogy of Being in Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Theology • Oleg Davydov
“The analogy of being does not analogize God and
creatures under the more general category of being,
but is the analogization of being in the difference
between God and creatures; it is as subversive of the
notion of a general and univocal category of being
as of the equally ‘totalizing’ notion of ontological
equivocity.”18 Thus, from Hart’s point of view, it
is possible to criticize Yannaras himself for an in-
correct notion of the relationship between Creator
and creations and the essentialization of personalist
equivocity.
However, although Hart uses the term analogy
of being, he uses it not only in a repetitive manner,
but also creatively changes its normally strict defini-
tion for his own theological needs. Deeply involved
in the philosophical debate with secular philoso-
phy, Hart uses the principle of analogy to show
infinite transcendence against the totality, follow-
ing the French philosopher Emanuel Levinas and
his famous distinction. Accordingly, the analogy of
being is the only way to save the real differences
between created things, because it relied on the infi-
nite distance between the Creator and the creature,
since the similarity is overcome by a never greater
dissimilarity.
This is a highly fruitful theological alternative
to a wide swath of thought in the contemporary
theology of God—not in terms of ontological dif-
ferentiation of all creatures including humans, but
in existential or anthropological terms. In this mo-
ment we can see the similarity between Hart and
Barth, whose rebellion against the “domestication”
of the divine is well known.
Beings in Being
For his own theological goals, Hart has developed
a dynamic view of analogy as a language of partic-
ipation of creatures in the Creator, or, philosoph-
ically speaking, beings in Being. This idea is im-
portant because Hart’s goal not only is theological,
but also critical of philosophical styles of thinking
about God, especially of Heidegger’s identification
of theology with metaphysics. Hart also rejects the
identification of analogy of being with “natural the-
ology,” because it is the last presupposed unbending
295
analogy between beings and Being, that is, univocal
being.
Analogy for Hart is not a static structure of
reality or a hierarchy of beings in the “neopla-
tonic” fashion, but rather the permanent movement
of “assimilation” of creatures toward the Creator—
preserving the “ever greater” dissimilitude. Any
similitude between creation and Creator includes
ever greater dissimilitude, and this infinite distance
or difference makes all beings exist. Everything in
its own difference manifests the reality of God in all
God’s plentitude without the idolatrous reduction
of God to creature: “It is the simple, infinite move-
ment of analogy that constitutes everything that is
as a being, oscillating between essence and exis-
tence and receiving both from beyond itself that
makes everything already participating in the re-
turn of the gift, the offering of all things by the
Spirit up into Father’s plenitude of being, to the
Son.”19
Obviously, between Hart and Barth there also
is a greater dissimilarity, localized strictly in the
question of analogy. Barth famously described anal-
ogy as the “intervention of Antichrist,” a tool of
the sinful human mind, which damaged the purity
of early biblical Christianity and reduced God to
philosophical categories. For this reason, Barth re-
jects any intervention of philosophy in theology or
any kind of natural theology, because theology for
Barth is a matter of grace alone. For Hart, contrary
to this, the analogy of being is the manifestation of
creatures participating in the Divine, which is the
only thing that can harmonize human reason and
grace. Thus, the rejection of analogy is a rejection
of understanding the act of creation—like rejecting
grace and love.
Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
Hart directs his criticism in the opposite direc-
tion: the rejection of analogy can be qualified as
the fall of authentic Christian understanding of
being. Analogy of being for Hart is not only a
fundamental form of Christian thought as it was
for Przywara, but it also is a necessary Christian
point of view on being and beings, history and
296 Dialog: A Journal of Theology • Volume 56, Number 3 • Fall 2017 • September
salvation. The analogy consists of a trinitarian
structure within dynamic relations between the ab-
solute transcendence of the immanent Trinity and
the absolute immanence of the economic Trinity,
which overcomes any dialectical or identical meta-
physics of being.20 If so, when creatures participate
in the Divine they take part in the infinite dy-
namic of truth, beauty, and goodness, which are
the transcendentals (general concepts) of God.
God’s “ Incomprehensible
Darkness”
The main aim of this article was to give an
overview of how contemporary Orthodox theolo-
gians think about the analogy of being. Almost all
of the aforementioned theological figures of East-
ern Orthodoxy are engaged in a continuous process
of rethinking the traditional Christian metaphysics
and relationships between God and creatures. As I
demonstrated, the main path of contemporary East-
ern Orthodox theology remains mostly polemical in
response to Roman Catholic and Protestant theolo-
gies. Most Eastern Orthodox theologians criticize
analogy as a misinterpretation of the early church
fathers’ theological tradition. Nevertheless, despite
all the misunderstandings and pervasive interpreta-
tions explored here, analyzing these critiques has
a positive result for theology, because the struggle
between different views always is a reasonable way
to develop theoretical and practical developments
of the Christian tradition.
Among Orthodox theologians, however, there is
one who has made clear his intent to use the prin-
ciple of the analogy of being in his own theological
projects—David Bentley Hart. Obviously, for Hart,
God is not a higher intra-mundane being or only
an omnipotent monarch, but absolutely transcen-
dent of all created beings and at once the source
of all being, which cannot have ordinary relations
with created beings: “If being is not susceptible to
the interval of the analogy (even though it is an
interval of ever greater unlikeness), then God and
creation exist in reciprocal real relation to one an-
other, which means an extrinsic relation between
two mutually delimiting objects.”21
However, interpretations of analogy differ among
theologians, each giving his or her own understand-
ing of this important theological theme. Contrary
to the fears of Orthodox theologians that analogy
establishes equality between creation and the Cre-
ator, the Lateran formulation of analogy includes
“ever greater dissimilarity,” which brings a positive
community to its limits in order to preserve the
“incomprehensible darkness” of God in Godself,
who is beyond any analogy. All structure of the
Lateran formulation of the analogy of being have
intended to include concrete and positive declara-
tions about God with the infinite context of nega-
tive theology.
Ecumenical Open-Mindedness
Despite many differences and struggles, all theolo-
gians must respond to the same challenges that
arise as a consequence of secular modernity. All
theologians must harmonize the particular tradition
to which they are committed with an ecumenical
open-mindedness, that is, participating in the reso-
lution of all Christian problems. The East can learn
from the West about how to conceptualize the the-
ological experience, but the West can learn from the
East about how to retrieve theological metaphysics
from the ancient fathers of the church.
Theological dialogue between different traditions
on such important themes—like analogy of being
and the participation of creation in God—will con-
tinue, and this will be fruitful and useful for both
sides. Continued interaction between theologians
creates a sphere for common development in di-
alogical relations. In fact, all of our traditions have
the shared task of working together for the re-
newal of theology in ways that give answers to
the questions of our unstable epoch. If we con-
sider that all of humanity, including every indi-
vidual human being, is created in the image of
God, it means that the relations of the analogy of
being are real for us. Also, we believe that theolog-
ical dialogues between our various confessions will
 Reception of Analogy of Being in Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Theology • Oleg Davydov
continue to resolve common problems and open
new horizons of understanding between our com-
mon heritages.
Endnotes
1. Adrian Pabst, “Wisdom and the Art of Politics,” in Encounter
between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy: Transfiguring the World
through the Word, eds. Adrian Pabst and Christoph Schneider (Farnham,
U.K.: Ashgate, 2009), 115.
2. Niels Christian Nielsen, The Debate between Karl Barth and Erich
Przywara: A New Evaluation of Protestant and Roman Catholic Differences
(The Rice Institute Pamphlet) 40, no. 1 (1953): 24-46.
3. Erich Przywara, Analogia Entis: Metaphysics—Original Structure and
Universal Rhythm, trans. John R. Betz and David B. Hart (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Eerdmans, 2014), 355.
4. David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division
of Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
5. Ibid., 328.
6. John S. Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, trans. George S. Gabriel
(Ridgewood, New Jersey: Zephyr Publications, 2002).
7. John S. Romanides, Patristic Theology (Thessaloniki, Greece:
Parakatatheke Publications, 2004), 129.
297
8. Ibid., 131.
9. Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God: Hei-
degger and the Areopagite (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 178.
10. Christos Yannaras, Person and Eros (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross
Orthodox Press, 2007), 131.
11. Ibid., 232.
12. Alan J. Torrance, Persons in Communion: Trinitarian Description
and Human Participation (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2010), 121.
13. John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and
the Church (New York: St. Vladimir Seminary, 1997), 82.
14. Nikolaos A. Ludovikos, Eucharistic Ontology: Maximus the Con-
fessor’s Eschatological Ontology of Being as Dialogical Reciprocity (Brookline,
Mass.: Holy Cross. 2010), 218.
15. Ibid., 226.
16. David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of the
Christian Truth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2004).
17. John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason
(Cambridge, U.K.: Blackwell, 1990), 50.
18. David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, 241-242.
19. Ibid., 245.
20. David Bentley Hart, “The Destiny of Christian Metaphysics:
Reflections on the Analogia Entis,” in The Analogy of Being: Invention of
the Antichrist or Wisdom of God?, ed. T.J. White (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans, 2010), 395-410.
21. Ibid., 398.