Divine Enjoyment

Elaine Padilla is Assistant Professor of Constructive Theology at New York Theological Seminary. Her theological analysis constructively interweaves current philosophical discourse with Christianity, Latin American and Latino/a religious thought, mysticism, ecology, and gender. She is the author of Divine Enjoyment: A Theology of Passion and Exuberance (Fordham University Press, 2015) and coeditor of a three- volume project with Peter C. Phan, Theology and Migration in World Christianity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013–15).

"Elaine Padilla's book offers a breath of fresh air into a theological discourse that often dwells on suffering and survival, ignoring our desire and attempts to achieve enjoyment. Her theology of enjoyment emphasizes reciprocal and communal relations between God and God's creation. Padilla's poetic, erotic, and aesthetic approach expands theological language about the sacred and offers an alternative metaphysics infused with passion and pleasure." -- -Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado University of Miami "Brimming with laughter, subversion, and fiesta, Divine Enjoyment leads us with utter grace in a new theological dance. Attentive to the open wounds of human suffering precisely as open ends of a boundless passion, Elaine Padilla has with stunning lucidity and erudition opened a cosmos of erotic splendor, enjoyed by a God of utter permeability and care. Here-with the most sensitive polyamory-Aquinas, Whitehead, Maduro, Marion, and Althaus Reid form with her a carnivalesque ensemble, inviting philosophical theology to its own most vibrant becoming." -- -Catherine Keller author of The Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement (forthcoming) "Padilla's constructive proposal of a theology of a passionate and exuberant God- the God of eros, desire, compassion, suffering, love, and self-transformation- will resonate deeply with contemporary readers of diverse religious persuasions. The book is a highly erudite and breathtakingly creative synthesis of classical theological works. It transforms and enriches our understanding of who God is in a way totally unexpected. It is no doubt one of the best books on God by the younger American theologians." -- -Peter Phan Georgetown University

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Pain: Groans and Birth Pangs of the Divine Enjoyment 2. Yearning: Traces of the Divine Erotic Existence in the Cosmos 3. Permeability: The Open Wounds of the Lovers' Flesh 4. Intensity: Passionate Becomings of the Divine Complex 5. Impropriety: Incarnations of Carnivalesque Passion and Open-Ended Boundaries Notes Selected Bibliography Index