for understanding the status of creation as creation, which impacts one’s
knowledge of every facet of reality.
This continual participation of creation in the Creator deems all realms
sacred, and restores depth to all areas of creation. In other words, par-
ticipation eliminates the secular/sacred divide, and the lack of an auton-
omous sphere deems all spaces sacred. 18 Further, creation receives its
meaning and telos from that which exceeds itself. These dual aspects of
participatory creation affi rm the material, for the material is the location
of the transcendent. Thus, RO is offering a counter-ontology to the mod-
ern secularism stemming from Scotus’s univocity that devalues material
creation through fl attening transcendence into immanence. Through par-
ticipation, the material becomes the location of God’s sacramental pres-
ence. Due to this participation, which nourishes creation with existence
and life, nature is always at all points the recipient of God’s grace, who is
the power and the signifi cance to be. 19
P ENTECOSTALISM, KNOWLEDGE, AND THE WORLD:
TOWARD THE BODY
James K.A. Smith argues that Pentecostalism shares much in common
with RO. 20 His development of a Pentecostal epistemology and ontol-
ogy is an example of his ecumenical, constructive project of a radically
orthodox Pentecostalism. Smith’s Pentecostal epistemology relativizes
the priority of ratiocination and broadens the mode of knowledge to
include embodied, affective knowledge. His en-spirited ontology is an
extension of participatory ontology that shares the theme of union of
transcendence and immanence. Analysis of Smith’s epistemology and
ontology will result in the emergence of a Pentecostalism that has always
affi rmed embodiment.
The distinctive of Pentecostalism is its holistic spirituality that inte-
grates cognition with affections. 21 According to D. William Faupel, early
Pentecostals made “consistent complaint... [of] ‘the dry rot of ortho-
doxy.’” 22 Pentecostals are experientially oriented people who desire to
encounter Jesus through the Holy Spirit. 23 However, Pentecostals are not
anti-rational. Rather, they ascribe to a different type of rationality.
Smith’s Pentecostal epistemology takes seriously Pentecostal spiritu-
ality’s emphasis on embodiment. For Smith, embodiment acts as “the
basis for a rational, intellectual engagement with and interpretation of the
world.” 24 Casting aside modern rationalism as reductive, Smith articulates
124 Y. SHIN