Aphorisms

Event (pure experience) → Response (disclosure)

Every divine revelation is simultaneously a human disclosure. (Luke 2:34)

Definitions vs Designations: Definitions classify, while designations situate a be-ings place within a web of relations. 

• A definition places something within a category.
• A designation places it within a relationship.

A rock by definition is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals making up the Earth's crust. But the designation assigned to a rock determines its place in a web of relations. A rock can be a chair, an altar, a paperweight, a weapon. The full scope of what a thing is, is barely even touched by its definition. What a thing is, is not exhausted in knowing what it is made of. What a think can be is limited only by its potential designations.

A be-ing is not defined by what it is made of, nor merely by the territory it inhabits, but by what is happening through its participation in a network of relations.

In the rite of the communion Jesus's Declarative speech-act "this is my body. This is my blood" transforms the bread and wine within the context of the meal. Further, the re-enactment of this ceremony is a continuing participation in that same event. "The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed took bread . . . etc." The its substance is not changed, it is transformed because it is brought into a new web of relationships.

Substance Ontology is concerned with the Definition of things - "What is it?"

Event Ontology is concerned with the Designation of things - "what is happening here?"

Bread is not a thing composed of discrete substances, it is a thing that emerges from series of layered events. The object we call bread is not composed of discrete substances, it the emergent property of a layered pattern of events. Bread is not a thing that is just there, Bread is what's happening.