Materializing Salvation: Toward an Eco-Things Theology of Ta Panta
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article centers on Jürgen Moltmann’s pneumatological understanding of creation and engages in critical dialogue with new materialism—specifically Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action and Bruno Latour’s political ecology, both of which emphasize the agency and activity of matter itself—in order to reconstruct an eco-things theology that illuminates the process by which ta panta (τὰ πάντα, ‘all things’) in Colossians undergoes what is here called ‘materializing salvation.’ The long history of matter’s exclusion within the theological tradition reached its culmination in modern theology’s otherworldly soteriology, which effectively relegated matter to the margins of the salvific drama. Today, rapid technological development and the deepening climate crisis call for a renewed theological recognition of the significance of matter and things, particularly in confronting the discourses that separate technology from ecology. Moltmann’s pneumatological ontology provides rich resources for responding to this call. By connecting Moltmann’s doctrine of creation with Paul’s ta panta (Col. 1:15–20) and the ‘groaning creation’ (Rom. 8:19–23), this article argues that ‘materializing salvation’ names the transformation of already-entangled relations toward the reconciliation and liberation of all things through the mutual indwelling of divine, human, and nonhuman agency. Entanglement as such is therefore not identified with salvation; entangled relations may also become exploitative, extractive, and death-dealing. Through this reconstruction, I propose an eco-things theology as a theology of materializing salvation.
Source: Religions
DOI: 10.3390/rel17101158
Author: Un Hey Kim
Institution: Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,172
OpenAlex ID: W7215804152