What does it mean to speak of humans as the image of God when apophatic theology speaks of an infinite God who transcends naming, comprehension, and worldly appearance? Bringing Church Father, Gregory of Nyssa into dialogue with the phenomenologies of Michel Henry, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Louis Chretien, Thomas Breedlove answers this question and explores the importance of embodiment to the doctrine of imago Dei. Divided into three parts, this book investigates humans'' relation to the divine through three successive approaches. The first, in conversation with Merleau-Ponty, analyses the existential and phenomenological aspects of fleshly finitude as the paradigmatic site of the creature''s difference from God. The second takes up Henry''s philosophy of life alongside Gregory''s metaphysics of participation to offer an account of creaturely life in its likeness or identity to divine life. The third, though conversation with Chretien, examines the christological aspects of Gregory''s anthropology in order to find the dynamic synthesis of likeness and difference that determines the nature of human beings as, in some way, reflecting God. In blending 4th century theology with 20th century phenomenology, Breedlove not only showcases the alternative perspectives they can offer each other, but further presents a novel theological anthropology. He argues that imago Dei is not merely one aspect of human identity, but rather precisely what constitutes ''human creatureliness'', as is revealed in the dynamism and groundlessness of the flesh.

Autorentext

Thomas Breedlove is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, USA. He is a researcher on the Global Flourishing Study, a 5-year international study run by the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University and the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, USA.

Inhalt

Introduction

1. Composing the Body
2. The Argument of this Book
3. Soma, Pneuma, and Phainómenon

4. Structure

   Part I: The Givenness of Death: Gregory and Maurice Merleau-Ponty

5. Challenges
6. Purity and Permanence
7. Finitude
   8.The Flesh of the World
8. The Witness of the Body

9. The Pedagogue of Finitude

   Parenthesis 1

10. Methorios

11. Life in Absurdities

    Part II: The Givenness of Life: Gregory and Michel Henry

12. "In short, he becomes God"
13. Participation in Life Itself
14. "The Essence of man"
15. The Duplicity of the World
16. Truth and Lies
17. "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me"

18. The Question of Creation

    Parenthesis 2

19. The One from Heaven

    Part III: The Veil of the Flesh: Gregory and Jean-Louis Chrétien

20. No longer, not yet
21. The Possibility of Revelation
22. Wounded Being
23. The Wound of Desire
24. The Call that Wounds

25. The Wound of the Flesh

    Conclusion

26. "When was it"