Proceedings of the Second Symposium of the Dionysius Circle: Beauty and Divine Processions: Synthesizing Dionysius, Thomas Aquinas and their Interpretive Traditions

Dionysius’ account of God’s processions has been interpreted in a range of ways. Thomas Aquinas interprets divine processions as created likenesses of God. The Byzantine tradition interprets them as ἐνέργειαι in God. Neoplatonist readers of Dionysius read them as both divine self-differentiations and activities performed by creatures. Each reading can accommodate some of Dionysius’ claims, but not others. After considering reasons for and against each interpretation, I show how Dionysius’ texts on beauty, which present a phenomenological metaphysics of beauty, provide grounds for synthesizing significant aspects of each. The paper closes with a presentation of that synthesis.