What are the differences between classical theism and theistic personalism? Brian Davies offers the featured helpful list in his An Introduction to Philosophy of Religion. More on the Substack: chroniclesofst...
There's no grey area? Dr. Leftow, for example, apparently holds to Divine Timelessness but is not, strictly speaking, a Classical Theist. Mullins has gone on at length that the differences may be overstated (if CT is not taken to be synonyms with Thomism) and claims that his (Mullins) picture is closer to the Biblical Portrayal of God. I imagine there are shades of gradation between the two definitions Dr. Davies gives.
There definitely is gray area and people who hold beliefs about God that would fall between how Davies divides things up - you mention Leftow, who’s a good example. Nevertheless, this is a decent list which generally maps the terrain even if it doesn’t capture all the nuances.
@@PhilosophyforthePeople aye bro everytime I ask a christian what books do they recommend for refuting atheism and non-christian religions some atheist comes and wants to be a pick me and wanting to debate and I'm like bruh what does that pertain to of what I ask 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 atheists need to go exist already
If you are referring to "God is active in all that happens", I believe this is in reference to an active Mover, not that God actively wills all that happens. I.e., the Classical theist position says the existence of matter and motion depends on God at each moment, like how a moving gear requires a person moving the handle-- motion stops when the person stops. Whereas theistic personalism might put God at the front of a line of dominoes (so to speak), knocking over the first one, but not actively pushing each and every domino in the set.
@@KnuttyEntertainmentMy understandment of it is that God doesn't merely create the universe, but qctively sustains it. It's the difference between independent movement vs propelled movement. If you throw a chair in space, the chair will fly forever, but if you are pushing a chair on the ground, the chair stops when you stop moving it. Personalistic theism believes the first is happening, while classic theism believes the second is happening.
@@oggolbat7932 These are good analogies, but I was approaching the idea from a different angle. Because of the doctrines of divine simplicity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and predestination, we can comfortably say (from the perspective of classical theistic philosophy) that God actively wills everything that happens. As shortsighted and conflicted beings, we can often will one thing without desiring its natural consequence. Part of us wants to eat cake, but another part of us doesn’t want to get fat. We want to get paid, but don’t want to go to work. We often want to pick up one side of the coin while leaving the other side on the ground. God is not like this, he is not a conflicted being. He either wills something, or he wills that it not. He sees the whole coin at all times and views both sides equally. He looks upon the slaughtering of livestock the same way he looks upon feeding the hungry. He doesn’t say “well it was nice that we saved them from starving, but regrettable that we had to kill the cow to do it.” To him the two actions are inseparably intertwined. And because God created everything knowing exactly what would happen, how he could have changed things, and is also actively involved in the world everywhere all at once, then everything that happens is perfectly consistent with God’s will. If he didn’t like something, then that thing would be going against God’s will, and because God is has the ability to stop it, then he would be going against his own will by not stopping it. He’d be a house divided against himself. All the evil in the world must be actively motivated by God. If he didn’t want it, it wouldn’t happen, or else he wouldn’t be God (according to classical theism). It’s not the case that God dislikes sin but allows it because he likes free will even more. God can’t have that kind of “have your eat cake and eat it too” mentality. He likes sin, Satan, and suffering just as much as he likes service, saints, and smiles. He likes making people into monsters who are only monsters because he wanted them to be that way, just so that he can send them to hell because he wants to torture them for all eternity, because he likes it. If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t do it. And if he didn’t, then there wouldn’t be evil. Now technically God is also dispassionate. He doesn’t truly like or want anything because he doesn’t have emotion, because that would mean that God is a changeable being. Things just happen because God arbitrarily wills it to happen solely because he wills it. There’s no good or bad, there’s just what God happens to will and not will. That also means God is ultimately powerless, because everything is predetermined and automatic. What’s going to happen is going to happen and God can’t change anything or do anything about it because God can’t defy God and it’s all already done. And that’s why I’m not a classical theist.
Theistic Personalism seems like a big step in the right direction, though as a Latter-day Saint I would say that we are all gods, the children of the One God, that God organizes out of pre-existing matter, and that God is material, just to make sure we’re being 100% heretical here.
Theists personalism is exactly the wrong step, no one who understand classicalism could ever be an atheists, personalism makes god just another creature among creatures just super strong
@@oneluv66 No, classical theism is absurd. A spaceless, timeless, immaterial God without body, parts, or passions is a really good description of the concept of nothing. There’s nothing in our reality that suggests such a conclusion, or could even approach being evidence for it. I care about what’s true and coherent. If God is just the best creature among creatures, I’m fine with that, doesn’t make him any less lovely to me. If God has to be uber transcendent a la the ontological argument in order to be good enough to worship, then what is it that makes something more or less worthy of worship beyond “my dad can beat up your dad?” Look, my God is so much bigger and transcendent than yours, worship him instead. Now to be fair, there are also logical reasoning to suggest an infinite regress is absurd, but if only our only two options can both be seen as absurd, then it’s a leap of faith either way. Either the universe always existed, or it came out of nothing. Neither is very satisfying.
@@KnuttyEntertainmentjust because humans can't comprehend it doesn't mean that it is nothing. I wouldn't expect humans to be able to comprehend God. It would be like a fork trying to understand itself.
@@aisthpaoitht This goes against scripture which says that we can clearly understand the Godhead through observation of the reality around us (Romans 1:19-20). So the trinity, this concept that doesn’t correspond to any aspect of rational reality and is beyond human comprehension, is disqualified by scripture. Now even if we grant the idea that the nature of God is beyond us mere mortals, the trinity still doesn’t hold up. Pay close attention. There is a very important difference between something being beyond our comprehension because it is beyond our capacity, versus being incomprehensible because it goes against rationality. I can’t comprehend the 4th dimension because it’s beyond my capacity, but I can still approach it by extrapolating from the principles of the first three dimensions using math and logic (which is in line with Romans 1:19-20). However, a married bachelor is incomprehensible for an entirely different reason. I fully understand the component parts of marriage and bachelors, I just can’t reconcile the contradiction because it goes against rationality. There is nothing wrong with saying that God is beyond us in the first sense. I have no problem with someone claiming God is a 4th dimensional being. But God cannot be incomprehensible in the second sense because God is the fountainhead of rationality, if he, the source of logic, were to embody the illogical, he would be a God of confusion and a house divided against itself, which cannot stand. (Matthew 12:25, 1 Cor. 14:33) Ultimately, I’ve found people will cop out and appeal to what Aquinas said: it’s a mystery beyond human comprehension, and that you cannot say what God is, only what he isn’t. But again, this excuse just doesn’t work. If the problem is a logical contradiction as foundational as saying 3=1, then it does nothing to respond “well God doesn’t operate off the rules of simple arithmetic, he’s using complex calculus that we can’t comprehend.” Not realizing the point that if can’t even justify the most foundational things, then there are no grounds upon which to build complex calculus in the first place. If God cannot be comprehended in the 1st dimension, how do you expect to fix that by adding on more dimensions? And I DO expect humans to be able to comprehend God. We are made in his image, he has revealed himself to us, taught us how we ought to live, and desires to make us the children of God, if-despite all of this-God in all his power cannot prepare a way for us to comprehend the most foundational of teachings: the nature of the very thing we are striving towards, then that is an impotent God who could accomplish nothing with us in this life.
@@KnuttyEntertainmentWe understand the foundations and the basics of God which includes the Trinity but we do not and never will be able to grasp the completeness of the divine essence as the church fathers have taught and as the Athanasian creed states on the trinity. We can only speculate and theorise upon the principles God has given us
