"The Heresy Of Theism"

The discussion among the peasant theologians in the passage from The Gospel in Solentiname that I posted yesterday reminded me of the criticism of "classical theism" by Elizabeth A. Johnson.  A lot of atheists would be shocked by that critique, which is hardly limited to her, because all they know of God is contained in that range of ideas, that vocabulary for talking about God.   I have a feeling any criticism of it by religious people would either be incomprehensible to almost all atheists, from what is taken to be on high and down to the even more mindless repetition of that in Youtube-blog comment thread level.   I'am going to give you the critique as given in She Who Is:  The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse.  It will take a couple of days, if not more.  I'm having a particularly busy morning so I won't have time to comment on it, she gives more than enough to think about.

Classical Theism

It has not been just any concept of God that has come under particular and sustained fire since the beginning of the modern era, but that configuration of elements identified in the term philosophical or classical theism.   In a general sense the term theism refers to the concept of God developed by medieval and early modern theology in close contact with classical metaphysics.  It signifies the understanding that there is God (contrary to atheism),  that God is one (contrary to polytheism), and that the one God is not to be identified with the world (contrary to pantheism).   As it developed in the course of medieval reflection and especially as it was systematized in both Protestant and Catholic theology done in the rational spirit of the Enlightenment, theism takes on a precise coloring.  It signifies the so-called natural knowledge of God arrived at primarily through philosophical inference, or that idea of God which separates the one God from knowledge of God's Trinity, places consideration of this one God first, and views this God alone as "himself" apart from any kenosis, incarnation, self-communication in grace, or other self-involving activity in the world. 

Theism in this specific sense views God as the Supreme Being who made all things and who rules all things.  Although architect and governor of the world, it is essential to God's deity that "he" (the theistic god is always referred to in male terms) be essentially unrelated to this world and unaffected by what happens in it so as to remain independent from and unaffected by what happens in tit so as to remain independent from it.  This view therefore excels at stressing divine transcendence, although divine immanence tends to slip from view.  The perfections of the theistic God are developed in contrast to the finitude of creatures, leading to speech about God the creator who is "infinite, self-existent, incorporeal, real, eternal, immutable, impassible, simple, perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent,"  in the descriptive list drawn up by H. P. Owens.

The theistic God is modeled on the pattern of an earthly absolute monarch , a metaphor so prevalent that most often it is simply taken for granted.  As a king rules over his subjects, so God the Lord has dominion over his creatures, a view which, in Sallie McFague's analysis, is intrinsically hierarchical whether the divine reign be accomplished through dominance or benevolence.  Theoretically, theism adheres to the assertion that the mystery of God is beyond all images and conceptualizations.  Yet the history of theology shows how in practice theism has reified God, reducing infinite mystery to an independently existing Supreme Being alongside other beings, a solitary, transcendent power who together with the world can be thought to form a larger whole.  In Herbert Vorgrimler's summary, partially borrowed from the seventeenth-century thinker who first coined this word, theism ias a "conviction of the existence of an absolute, world-transcendent, personal God, who made the world from nothing and permanently sustains it, and who enjoys all those attributes of infinity, almightty power, perfection and so on, about which there was unanimity in Judaism, Christendom and Islam from the Middle Ages onward."

Theism's Demise

With the slow but inexorable breakup of the classical and neoclassical world, theism has found critics on many fronts.  Nineteenth - and twentieth-century forms of atheism repudiate it as an alienating projection of human consciousness, an opium that deadens the pain of social and economic oppression, an illusion motivated by wish-fulfillment, or a hypothesis unnecessary for scientific investigation.  Protest against the occurrence of radical suffering in history, particularly of the innocent, also leads thinkers to reject the theistic God.  A God who could put an end to such misery but instead "allows" it for whatever reason appears orally intolerable.   As the voice of the poor and violently suppressed come to speech, the theistic idea of God is criticized for its supposed neutrality, so easily weighted toward a divine mandate for passivity, obedience, and submission and so often co-opted to sustain unjust civil and ecclesiastical rule.  Interreligious diallogue with the living traditions of the East raises the question of the naive anthropomorphism associated with much of the language about the theistic God and, by making known the paths of Eastern mysticism, offers a profound corrective. 

Heidegger's judgment on the end product of classical theism now echoes from thinkers of diverse theological perspectives:  "Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god.  Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god."   Walter Ksaper even speaks of "the heresy of theism," meaning the nontrinitarian notion of an impersonal God who stands over against the world as imperial ruler and judge.  In retrospect to the insufficiencies of classical theism, a goodly number of theologians have been seeking other ways of speaking about God.  These theological efforts are leading to discourse about, in Anne Carr's felicitous summary, the liberating God, the incarnational God, the relational God, the suffering God, the God who is future and the unknown,  hidden God of mystery.  So profound are these changes and deviations from the classical approach that it is not uncommon for theologians engaged in their development to proclaim that a "revolution" in the idea of God is occurring in our day.