gift-term

In my gift-ontology, a gift-term is the instituted created outcome of divine giving, the effect-side reality in which novelty, contingency, and history occur. It is the creature as received, with its own integrity, nature, and finite mode. Gift-terms include created beings, created graces, sacramental realities as created signs and instruments, and the created history of the economy. The category is crucial because it prevents two errors at once. It prevents locating newness in God, because gift-terms carry the newness. It prevents deflation, because gift-terms are real effects, not mere descriptions. Gift-terms also preserve the Creator-creature distinction: creatures are not parts of God and not emanations of deity. They are genuinely other, constituted by receiving and participating, under analogy.