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A history of the concept of God through the lens of process thought.
Daniel A. Dombrowski explores the history of the concept of God from the perspective of neoclassical, or process, theism. His neoclassical approach assuages the current crisis in philosophical theism, caught between a defense of classical theism and assertions of religious skepticism. Instead, the work offers Charles Hartshorne's notion of a God who always evolves, quite unlike the allegedly perfect figure of more traditional, and increasingly unsatisfactory, accounts. Dombrowski surveys the classical theists and their roots in ancient Greek philosophy before turning to contributions from the sixteenth through twentieth centuries, ultimately discussing twenty-three thinkers. The key figures in this history are Plato, who ironically provided the philosophical basis both for classical and neoclassical concepts, and three great figures in process theism: Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, and Hartshorne. The concept of God has a rich past; this book argues that it can have a rich future as well.
"…a fascinating book." — Reading Religion
Introduction
Part I. Classical Theism 1. Philo (30 bce–50 ce)
2. St. Augustine (354–430)
3. St. Anselm (1033–1109)
4. Al Ghazzali (1058–1111)
5. Maimonides (1135–1204)
6. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)
7. Rene Descartes (1596–1650)
8. Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)
9. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
Part II. Ancient Greek Theism 10. Plato (427–347 bce): Omnipresence
11. Plato (427–347 bce): Against Omnipotence
12. Aristotle (384–322 bce)
13. Plotinus (205–270 ce)
Part III. Neoclassical or Process Theism 14. Faustus Socinus (1539–1604)
15. Friedrich von Schelling (1775–1854)
16. Gustav Fechner (1801–1887)
17. Charles Sanders Peirce(1839–1914)
18. Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908)
19. Nicholas Berdyaev (1874–1948)
20. Mohammed Iqbal (1877–1938)
21. Martin Buber (1878–1965)
22. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955)
Part IV. Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead 23. Henri Bergson (1859–1941)
24. Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947): Up to Process and Reality
25. Alfred North Whitehead: Appraisal and Works after Process and Reality
Bibliography
Index