Monotheism Vs Classical Theism Essay

God is thought about differently by all faiths that believe there is a God. Even within a specific monotheistic faith, its individual followers may each think of God differently. This inconsistency is found within philosophy of religion as different philosophers and authors, many of whom are followers of Christianity, articulate their own thoughts on God. While some of these authors believe in the same general ideas, disagreements arise immediately as their ideas are further examined. From studying different approaches to who or what God is and the divisions of monotheism, and the concept of God, we can begin to understand how different biblical authors view God.

Many monotheistic biblical authors are either classical theists or theistic personalists, two categories of monotheism. Classical theism is what is typically learned in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (Davies 2). Classical theists believe that God is the most supreme being. Theistic personalists, while sharing similar overall ideas with classical theists, seem more

Contrary to how classical theists believe in the distinction between God and humans, theistic personalists believe it’s “important to stress that God is a person” (Davies 10). “That God is a person, yet one without a body, seems the most elementary claim of theism,” says Richard Swinburne (qtd. in Davies 9). As classical theists assert that God cannot be truly fathomed, theistic personalists reject this idea with the belief that, as humans, we can have some grasp as to what God is, because he, too, is human (Davies 7, 10). Finally, theistic personalists believe that God learns history “as history unfolds” (Davies 12). This indicates that, if God is capable of learning, he is capable of change and is not outside of time. Theistic personalism holds true that God is not so far removed from the beings he