| The Enlightenment and modernity saw a reduction of aesthetics and axiology to otiose forms of subjectivism. This epistemological shift precipitated a corresponding ontological "deflation," resulting in the apotheosis of naturalism and the "death" of God.;Hence, the methodology of this study is two-pronged. First, I argue for a renewed understanding of affective epistemology. To that end I conduct extensive surveys regarding the status of affective epistemology in the disciplines of science, philosophy, and theology. Contra the "Traditional View" that affectivity is the enemy of salience, I show that each discipline holds that affectivity, in fact, "leads" intelligence.;Second, I ask: what kind of ontology would stand as a warrant for affective epistemology? Here I take a cue from N. Berdyaev that the weakness of western metaphysics is that it is not eschatologically informed. Drawing upon interlocutors such as H-G Gadamer, W. Pannenberg, H-U von Balthasar, and Maximus the Confessor, I investigate several themes that are chiastic intersections for epistemology, ontology, and eschatology; e.g., "anticipation" (anticipatio; Vorgriff); the relationship between beauty and "the Good"; ancient and modern holos-meron ("whole-part") ontologies, and "anarchy" (anarche). The latter trope holds that the ontological source of beauty, goodness, truth, and unity is not to be found protologically, in the "beginning" (arche); but rather in the "end." The Eschatan is a "future" and a "whole" that communicates itself anticipatorially to the present and to its "parts.".;Thus, in terms of my first research goal: the "futurity" of beauty and virtue, understood as anarchically anticipatorial, grant us a working "epistemo-logic." In terms of my second research goal: "onto-logic" (as "anarcheo-logic" and "eschato-logic") is ultimately "theo-logic." Together, the two yield an essentially Chalcedonian metaphysics of the Theological Sublime.;In conclusion: nothing, least of all ourselves, is essentially what it is, or was---but rather what it shall be. Implications follow here, in realms as diverse as anthropology, apologetics, ethics, and ecology. For not only existentially, but also ontologically, "agape alone joins all created things with God and with each other" (Maximus). |
