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A History of the Concept of God A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF GOD A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF GOD A PROCESS APPROACH DANIEL A. DOMBROWSKI Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2016 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production, Ryan Morris Marketing, Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Dombrowski, Daniel A. A history of the concept of God : a process approach / Daniel A. Dombrowski. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-5937-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4384-5938-7 (e-book) 1. God—History of doctrines. I. Title. BT98.D566 2016 211.09—dc23 2015008207 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Introduction 1 Part 1. Classical Theism 9 1. Philo (30 bce–50 ce) 11 2. St. Augustine (354–430) 21 3. St. Anselm (1033–1109) 25 4. Al Ghazzali (1058–1111) 35 5. Maimonides (1135–1204) 39 6. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) 43 7. Rene Descartes (1596–1650) 61 8. Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) 65 9. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) 75 Part 2. Ancient Greek Theism 85 10. Plato (427–347 bce): Omnipresence 87 11. Plato (427–347 bce): Against Omnipotence 101 12. Aristotle (384–322 bce) 109 13. Plotinus (205–270 ce) 121 v vi Contents Part 3. Neoclassical or Process Theism 129 14. Faustus Socinus (1539–1604) 133 15. Friedrich von Schelling (1775–1854) 137 16. Gustav Fechner (1801–1887) 141 17. Charles Sanders Peirce(1839–1914) 149 18. Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908) 157 19. Nicholas Berdyaev (1874–1948) 161 20. Mohammed Iqbal (1877–1938) 173 21. Martin Buber (1878–1965) 177 22. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) 181 Part 4. Henri Bergson and 191 Alfred North Whitehead 23. Henri Bergson (1859–1941) 193 24. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947): 213 Up to Process and Reality 25. Alfred North Whitehead: 235 Appraisal and Works after Process and Reality Bibliography 259 Index 271 Introduction Literary critics are much more likely than philosophers, theologians, or religious studies scholars to talk about “genre” or a particular type of writing that admits of many different instances. No one objects when a new novel is written or when a new murder mystery appears. A rich genre has appeared relatively recently in philosophy of religion, system- atic theology, or religious studies that is worthy of note and that admits of several additional instantiations: the history of God. At least three works illustrate the type of writing I have in mind. First is the New York Times bestseller by Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (1993). This book was followed by the richly illustrated and sprawling work by John Bowker, God: A Brief History (2002), and the concise work by Paul Capetz also titled God: A Brief History (2003), where the subtitle makes much more sense. I love all three works, but for quite different reasons, as I will show. Much more needs to be said in this genre however. Some books appear to be in this genre, but are not. One book, The Evolution of God, appears to be in it, but it deals only tangentially with the his- tory of the concept of God and is more concerned with the evolution of religious belief and the question of why people have believed in God at all (see Wright 2009). The present work makes a scholarly contribution in this genre from the perspective of neoclassical or process theism. Although the authors of the above works mention process thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Daniel Day Williams, and John Cobb, there is no explicit treatment of the history of the concept of God as interpreted by process thinkers. In 1 2 A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF GOD fact, although all three authors tantalize the reader by implying some sort of admiration for neoclassical or process theism, they nonetheless interpret the history of the concept of God in ways that are very much at odds with neoclassical or process theism. That is, despite the consid- erable strengths of these three books, they are all overly influenced by the tradition of classical theism. This book is an attempt to supplement the works of Armstrong, Bowker, and Capetz from a neoclassical or process point of view. The book deals primarily with the concept of God and not neces- sarily with the existence of God. When I do discuss the existence of God, it is to illuminate some aspect of the concept of God. The hope is that the subject matter of the book will be of interest to those who are curious about this concept, whether they be theist, agnostic, or atheist. A sense of urgency lies behind this book. As I see things, philosoph- ical theism is at a crisis stage wherein two competing forces are at work: continued defenses of classical or traditional theism (described in detail in part 1) that are, on my interpretation, doomed to failure, on the one hand, and equally unpersuasive defenses of religious skepticism, whether atheistic or agnostic, on the other. Neoclassical or process theists try to drive a wedge between these two forces and are thereby likely to receive ire from both sides. Classical theists tend to be intel- lectual conservatives who are distrustful of any neoclassical or process innovation in the concept of God and religious skeptics tend to view neoclassical or process theism as a warmed over leftover from a bygone era. Although it will sound hyperbolic to religious skeptics to put the issue in the following manner, I think that Hartshorne does not in the least exaggerate when he claims that: “The theistic question . is not one more question, even the most important one. It is, on the fun- damental level, and when all its implications are taken into account, the sole question” (Hartshorne 1962, 131). Or again, “philosophy’s most important function . is to clarify the religious question” (Hartshorne 1965, 24). In due course I will try to deliver on these promissory notes. This book resists both of the types of opposition mentioned and indicates the historical roots of the contemporary impasse. To put my thesis succinctly, if philosophical theism is to have a viable future (which is by no means guaranteed given the popularity of both the old and the new atheisms), it must retrace its steps in the past to see where it went wrong. If this judgment also seems hyperbolic, it is nonetheless Introduction 3 important to note that Whitehead shared it decades ago, and he is reported to have said that the classical concept of God that has histor- ically supported Christianity (as well as Judaism and Islam) is “one of the great disasters of the human race” (Whitehead 2001, 171). One could have legitimately expected so much more from it. To cite just one preliminary example, if God is truly omnipotent, as classical theists in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) attest, then there is no avoiding the conclusion that a mother who gives birth to an infant with an intensely painful deformity can be told (or, more accurately, should be told) that such a tragedy is either sent by, or at least permitted by, God. We can do better, I think. Indeed, we have to do better if philosophical theism is to flourish in that thinking people increasingly notice that the emperor of classical theism has no clothes. The history offered herein is obviously not intended to be compre- hensive so as to cover everything that has been said about the concept of God. Like Armstrong, Bowker, and Capetz, I offer a selective history, but my principles of selection differ from theirs. The major tension in the book involves the similarities and differences between classical theism and neoclassical or process theism. These three authors tend to assume that the legacy of the ancient Greeks for philosophical theism is the idea that, because God is (by definition) perfect, God could not change because to change would indicate a need to transition out of a less than perfect condition. Granted, this caricature of the influence of Greek philosophy on philosophical theism captures part of the story that I will tell, but this story is much more complex than has been told to date. Whitehead is famous for his quip that “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of foot- notes to Plato” (Whitehead [1929] 1978, 39). In no area is this claim more accurate than in the concept of God. A key part of this book is Plato’s role in inadvertently influencing both classical theism and its neoclas- sical or process alternative in all three Abrahamic religions; hence the present history of the concept of God is broadly ecumenical. Part 1, “Classical Theism,” details exactly what I mean by “classical theism” as it developed chronologically in nine philosophers in various periods in the histories of the Abrahamic religions. Part 2, “Ancient Greek Philosophy,” retraces the first part so as to examine three ancient Greek philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, to show the historical 4 A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT OF GOD origins of both the insights and the mistakes of classical theists.
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