"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.
I'll have more to say about that in the next post, but for this post I want to highlight the location and nature of "the good" in a participatory metaphysics in contrast to modern Western materialism.
Specifically, in a participatory metaphysics "the good" is an ontological reality, God's presence in all things. Thus, salvation is seeking and uniting with this good. And, obviously, this view of reality is very enchanted given that the material world is suffused with spiritual life.
But with the rise of disenchantment in the West we began to perceive material reality as just that, raw material, material devoid of any spiritual vitality or moral grain. "Goodness" was no longer an ontological reality existing independently and prior to human consciousness. "Goodness" became a subjective, interior phenomenon. In a disenchanted cosmos, material reality cannot be good or bad. It's just neutral "stuff." But material reality can impinge upon my subjective consciousness, and my consciousness can call certain states of affairs "good" or "bad." Eating chocolate is "good" to me. Cutting my finger is "bad."
Summarizing, 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.
What does this have to do with salvation? This, I think. 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."
