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The Disenchantment of Salvation: Part 2, From Ontology to Consequence

The Disenchantment of Salvation: Part 2, From Ontology to Consequence

Section titled “The Disenchantment of Salvation: Part 2, From Ontology to Consequence”

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  • “Participatory metaphysics” is a theological term used to describe the Christian notion that God holds all things together and permeates all things. All existence is held in being by God, and humanity can deepen that union. Material life can “participate” in the life of God, merging the human and the divine spheres of existence. Salvation looks here like Jesus in his transfiguration. Salvation via divine participation and union is described as theosis, deification, or divinization.
  • when the material world becomes disenchanted “goodness” exists not in the world but in our minds, in our reactions to the world. Goodness shifts from being objective to subjective, from being ontological to phenomenological.
  • When “goodness” shifts toward the psychological and subjective salvation becomes less about uniting with the good than receiving something we subjectively register as good. We shift from divine union to consequence, from ontology to reward. Basically, what is “good” about salvation is heaven. Heaven is “good” not as mystical union with God but as a reward that I would enjoy and be happy with. Notice here how “goodness” exists as our psychological response to salvation.
  • Basically, the demise of a participatory metaphysics in the West shifted thoughts about salvation toward consequentialism, “good” and “bad” registering as “reward” or “punishment.” In a thoroughly disenchanted cosmos, stripped of any moral texture, the only “good” I can receive from God is in some future consequence and reward, a heaven in the afterlife. This metaphysical shift in the West, the loss of a participatory metaphysics, fueled the rise of atonement theories which turned away from divine union to reward and punishment, goodness as consequence. Salvation was reduced to “going to heaven.”