Beauty is God Being Made: Johannes Eriugena and the Theophanic Beauty of God

Abstract This essay explores the possibility of a thinking beauty before being by engaging with Johannes Eriugena’s creation theology. In it, I consider how his theophanic creation offers a way of thinking beauty before being and how this affects metaphysics, soteriology, and theological aesthetics. Creation is the beauty of God being made and thus beauty is the first transcendental. Creation is the theophanic manifestation of the Divine Nothing which is the Divine Good. As the manifestation of God, this appearing is not neutral but beautiful. Sin rejects theophany and asserts substantial being. Salvation is the unmaking of sin through the attraction back into God which ultimately unmakes us into communion with God.