Divine Enjoyment: A Theology of Passion and Exuberance
Elaine Padilla
Abstract
This book makes the case for a God of enjoyment who passionately suffers and yearns because of love, and permeably intermingles with the cosmos, loving intensely, and becoming like a divine silhouette of so “good a lover” that grotesquely incarnates the many, even if appearing improper. The thematic development invites the reader to journey through paths of excess of the intemperate kind initially drawn from the insights of St. Thomas Aquinas on the ecstatic love of God, and encountered in the erotic poetry of mystics like St. Teresa de Avila, whose delectable arrows provide an opening for pas ... More
This book makes the case for a God of enjoyment who passionately suffers and yearns because of love, and permeably intermingles with the cosmos, loving intensely, and becoming like a divine silhouette of so “good a lover” that grotesquely incarnates the many, even if appearing improper. The thematic development invites the reader to journey through paths of excess of the intemperate kind initially drawn from the insights of St. Thomas Aquinas on the ecstatic love of God, and encountered in the erotic poetry of mystics like St. Teresa de Avila, whose delectable arrows provide an opening for passage and divine transfiguration of God in the manifold shapes of the cosmos. Comfortably locating itself in postmodern and process theological and philosophical discourse, and culminating with hospitable images of banqueting, fiesta, and the carnival, drawn mainly from the work of assorted Spanish and Latin American thinkers, the book progressively grants a flesh of pain mixed with joy to God’s affect.
Keywords:
passion,
enjoyment,
suffering,
yearning,
permeability,
intensity,
impropriety,
carnival,
fiesta,
love,
God
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780823263561 |
| Published to Fordham Scholarship Online: September 2015 |
DOI:10.5422/fordham/9780823263561.001.0001 |
