“In the modern world, deification is fantasy. In this strikingly original work, theologian David Russell Mosley demonstrates that fantasy is strange and truthful in a way that our bleached modern imagination cannot conceive. As a participation in divine creativity, fantasy is deifying.”
Being Deified: Poetry and Fantasy on the Path to God
Being Deified examines the importance of deification for Christian theology and the role of human creativity. Deification has explanatory force for the major categories of Christian theology: creation, fall, incarnation, theological anthropology, as well as the sacraments. It explains, in part, the why of creation and the what of humanity—God created in order to deify, humanity is created to be deified; the what of the fall—the desire for divinity outside of God’s gifts; the purpose for the incarnation—to deify; and what end the sacraments aid—deification. Essential to deification is human creativity, for humans are created in the image of God, the Creator.
In order to explore this dimension of deification, Being Deified focuses on works of poetry and fantasy, in many ways the pinnacle of human creativity, since both genres cause the making strange of things familiar (language and creation itself) in part to make them better known, particularly as creations of the Creator. Therefore, this volume utilizes the work of fantasy writers and poets in order both to show the importance of fantasy and poetry for theology in general and for their importance in human deification.
- Publisher Fortress Press
- Format Hardcover
- ISBN 9781506410821
- eBook ISBN 9781506410814
- Dimensions 6 x 9
- Pages 296
- Publication Date December 1, 2016
Contents
Deification and Creativity: A Prelude
Stanza I: Poet and Poem: God, Creation, and Humanity
1. Before “In the Beginning” or “In the Beginning God”: The God Who Is Poet and Theo-Poet
2. The Poem Days 1–5: The State for Deification
3. The Poem Day 6: Humanity, the Deified
Stanza II: Pride, Evil, and Distorted Vision
4. The Pride of the Poem: Antideification, Distorted Sight, and Privative Evil
5. Distorted Eyesight and Corrupted Cosmos
Stanza III: The Poet Enters the Poem
6. The Poet Enters the Poem: Incarnation, Deification, and a Restoration of Vision
Stanza IV: Participating in the Poem: Sacraments, Liturgy, and a Restoration of Vision
7. Participating in the Poem: Sacramental Ontology
8. Participating in the Poem and Theo-Poem: Human Creativity and Examples from Poetry and Fantasy
Deification and Creativity: A Postlude
Bibliography
Endorsements
Strikingly original work.
Simon Oliver | Durham University