The doctrine of participation in Augustine'stotus Christusecclesiology

Abstract

AbstractAugustine's understanding of the church as part of thetotus Christus– the ‘whole Christ’ – has become an important resource in contemporary theology, offering a robust vision of the church's union with God. Yet a key critique maintains that it threatens to elide the distinction between the perfected Christ and the created church. This article addresses this issue by asking how thetotus Christusdoctrine relates to the doctrine of participation. For Augustine, participation is a metaphysical category that expresses the creature's dependent, non-divine status, its essential being out of nothing. Thetotus Christusdoctrine is most explicitly an exegetical, not metaphysical doctrine. Nevertheless, by putting these two facets of Augustine's thought together, we can see the way in which they mutually reinforce the view that the astonishing claims of unity in thetotus Christusare structured by a larger theological grammar that distinguishes God and creature.