The book’s conclusions show how already in Cappadocian theology there is a true ontological revolution, which makes it possible to recognize in their thought a true Christian philosophy that has its center in the metaphysical reinterpretation of relations, a step that can prove extremely useful even in the current context characterized by postmodern thought. In fact, the Cappadocians developed an authentic Trinitarian ontology, which is such insofar as it is relational, since it introduces the relation into the immanence of the divine substance and reinterprets the world and history in the light of this novelty.

Here we show how Christian revelation changed the concept of the Logos that the Cappadocian Fathers recognized in the very immanence of the divine, unique and eternal substance, reinterpreting it, with Gregory of Nyssa, in a relational sense. But this also implied the need to recognize the will in the very immanence of God, distinguishing the processions of the second and third divine Persons. The metaphysical framework is so characterized by two distinct ontologies separated by a boundless gap, since the first, which coincides with the Trinity, is eternal and infinite, while the second, that is, the created world, is finite and has a beginning in time.

Here the historical and systematic path proposed in the book is presented, starting from the tragic dimension of Greek thought, which failed to fully resolve the tension between the one and the many. The need to develop an ontology of relations is traced back to the very exegesis of Scripture by the Fathers.

The chapter constitutes a fundamental step in the proposed itinerary because it shows how Trinitarian revelation prompted a rethinking of divine attributes, recognizing a deeper sense of ontological unity precisely in a substance internally characterized by immanent processions, expressed at Nicaea with the derivative formulas in the Symbol. The Spirit, whose divinity is defended by the Cappadocians, who are protagonists of the path that led to the first Council of Constantinople, makes it possible to reread the issue of attributes through the formula “Life from Life.” Thus, God reveals himself to be one precisely because He is triune and not one despite being triune.

The final chapter shows how this novelty at the level of theory of knowledge resolves an aporia in Greek metaphysical thought at the epistemological level. Science, in fact, was considered relational by Aristotle, whereas the first principle and thought itself could not be so. The Trinitarian revelation thus allowed the Cappadocians, in their response to Eunomius, to anticipate some of the results of modern logic, in particular Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, by showing that epistemology can only be effective when it is open.

The chapter shows the crisis of the Greek logos due to the necessary dimension that characterizes Greek metaphysics, in which the world and the first principle are connected by a sequence of decreasing ontological degrees, in which every element, including the first and the last, are finite and eternal.

This is the central chapter that shows how the philosophical path traced in Chapter 5 intersects with the theological one. The Fathers, starting with Clement and Origen in Alexandria, cannot ignore that the very names of the divine Persons are relative. This gives rise to a development that with the Cappadocians takes on the characteristics of a veritable ontological revolution, whereby schesis, that is, relation, is introduced into the divine substance itself, as the foundation of the relativity of the Logos.

The consequences of the ontological revolution presented are extremely relevant to the theory of knowledge. In fact, if the first principle is relational, knowledge in relation is no longer inferior, as in the Greek doxa, but is the only way to access the properly personal dimension, that is, the depth of being itself. This makes it possible to highlight theologically the connection between apophaticism and worship.

Here, the history of the philosophical concept of relation is reconstructed from Aristotle, with his definitions of pros ti, to the commentaries of Plotinus and Prophyry, with the introduction of schesis as the foundation of the relative, passing through the discussions of the Stoics and of the Skeptics, in particular of Sextus Empiricus and Alexander of Aphrodisias.