Abstract

Awareness of boundary, both physical and mental, is seen as the beginning of perception. In any account of the world, therefore, boundary must be a ubiquitous component. In sharp contrast, accounts of God within the Christian tradition commonly have proceeded by the affirmation that God is above and beyond boundary as infinite, timeless, and simple. To overcome this “problem of transcendence,” of how such a God can relate to such a world, an eight-term grammar of boundary is developed to demonstrate how God as Trinity can properly be held to be without boundary yet constitute the ground of a bounded world. This leads to a way of granting theological significance to the origin and development of life. Life is seen to exist in dynamic, intentional relationships between context (“outside”) and intext (“inside”) across permeable boundaries through which an exchange of resources and information takes place for the sake of self-continuation. Comprehending life's distinctive utilization of boundary in terms of the grammar developed here enables life to be seen not only as a vestige of the Trinity but also, precisely because of this, as a sign and parable of redemption