Pantheistic versus Participatory Christologies: A Critical Analysis of Richard Rohr’s Universal Christ in Light of Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on John

This essay will present Richard Rohr’s central claims about Jesus Christ and the presence of God in creation and then consider them in light of Aquinas’s teachings with particular attention to his Commentary on John. This essay attempts to show that Rohr’s claims are incomplete and ultimately misguided and that Aquinas’s participatory account of creation and the Incarnation allows him to cultivate an awareness of God’s presence in all of creation while also maintaining the salvific uniqueness of the Incarnation.