Infinite Art: The Problem of 'Making' for a Christian Metaphysics
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis is a philosophical exposition of ‘making’ in the Christian tradition. I argue that a defensible Christian metaphysics stands or falls with the coherence of its understanding of the existential modalities of producers and products and the cognitive structure of productive knowledge or ‘know-how’. I initially frame my project as a response to Martin Heidegger’s influential critique (even upon Christian theologians) of the doctrine of creation from nothing as a ‘productionist metaphysics’ which naïvely reduces the being of all entities to the ontological status of artefacts, predetermined in advance in the sovereign intellect of their ‘maker’ and so dispossessed of their own spontaneity and possibility. Because Heidegger’s critique is rooted in his general suspicion of Platonism, which also traces origination to artisanal shaping, I continue my study by analysing the original, defining discussions of poiēsis and technē in the works of Plato and Aristotle. I argue that while it is true that both Plato and Aristotle can be interpreted as defending an ‘intellectualist legend’ about making, portraying production as an instrumental procedure for exerting intellectual control over disorderly phenomena, Plato especially is shown to be more sensitive to the ambiguities surrounding the dēmiourgos, technē, and the relationship between orders of being and becoming. Significantly, Aristotle, who more obviously thinks the artist simply realises a preceding concept in his mind, lacks an account of productive metaphysical origins, suggesting that Heidegger’s assumption of the link between an intellectualist origin of art and a productionist account of reality is not so evident after all. I then seek to draw out how the fusion of Platonic ‘productionism’ and Aristotelian ‘intellectualism’ in Middle Platonic thought impacted the evolution of the Deus Artifex concept in patristic and medieval Christian thought. Among the Church Fathers, tensions emerge over the question of G…
abstract: This thesis is a philosophical exposition of ‘making’ in the Christian tradition. I argue that a defensible Christian metaphysics stands or falls with the coherence of its understanding of the existential modalities of producers and products and the cognitive structure of productive knowledge or ‘know-how’. I initially frame my project as a response to Martin Heidegger’s influential critique (even upon Christian theologians) of the doctrine of creation from nothing as a ‘productionist metaphysics’ which naïvely reduces the being of all entities to the ontological status of artefacts, predetermined in advance in the sovereign intellect of their ‘maker’ and so dispossessed of their own spontaneity and possibility. Because Heidegger’s critique is rooted in his general suspicion of Platonism, which also traces origination to artisanal shaping, I continue my study by analysing the original, defining discussions of poiēsis and technē in the works of Plato and Aristotle. I argue that while it is true that both Plato and Aristotle can be interpreted as defending an ‘intellectualist legend’ about making, portraying production as an instrumental procedure for exerting intellectual control over disorderly phenomena, Plato especially is shown to be more sensitive to the ambiguities surrounding the dēmiourgos, technē, and the relationship between orders of being and becoming. Significantly, Aristotle, who more obviously thinks the artist simply realises a preceding concept in his mind, lacks an account of productive metaphysical origins, suggesting that Heidegger’s assumption of the link between an intellectualist origin of art and a productionist account of reality is not so evident after all. I then seek to draw out how the fusion of Platonic ‘productionism’ and Aristotelian ‘intellectualism’ in Middle Platonic thought impacted the evolution of the Deus Artifex concept in patristic and medieval Christian thought. Among the Church Fathers, tensions emerge over the question of G…
author: Toussaint, Steven
language: eng
keywords: Christian metaphysics, Nicholas of Cusa, Martin Heidegger, Poiesis, Creation
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/86ffa2f7-3162-4ae5-9dd9-d71ca69f0da6/download
license: http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved
date published: 2024-07-30
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:33:05Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.116175