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THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRovINCE OF ST. JosEPB Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XIV APRIL, 1951 No. 9l THE DOCTRINE OF GOD IN PERSONALISM I T HEISM has an obvious significance for any philosophical system which claims to uphold the intrinsic value of finite persons. Historically, the Christian' teaching on the inestimable value of the human person has been closely linked with the theistic conception of God, through the doctrine of man's final end. Personal immortality, and the existence of a personal, Infinite God have been the foci around which Christian thought on this matter has revolved. The notion of God as creative and provident, with the consequent concept of man's personal destiny, was decisive in the formulation of a Christian Personalism. A decisive advance was thereby accomplished on the Greek conception of man and the universe. The necessitarianism of Greek metaphysics, and the lack of a doctrine of creation, prevented the Greeks from ever formulating a comprehensive philosophical explanation of 161 16~ JOHN A. CREAVEN the world and man, and rendered impossible the task of building up a religious world-view which could be validated by philosophic principles. " When Greek philosophy came to an end," says Gilson, " what was sorely needed for progress in natural theology was progress in metaphysics." 1 And, as Gilson remarks, when such progress was made by the fourth century, A. D., it was made wholly and decisively under the influence of the Christian religion. It is but natural, therefore, that the many systems recently competing for favor under the rather elastic title of "Personalism " have, for the greater part, a strongly theistic flavor. Such systems unanimously find in the person the ultimate unit of reality. and agree on giving a primary placeĀ· 1)o the doctrine of personality. But the lesson of history is that any attempt to found the value of the human person independently of any relation to a transcendent, personal God is doomed to failure. No true Personalist can, then, afford to neglect the claims of Theism and natural theology to a place in his ..system. Hence the strongly theistic flavor of most forms of Personalism, indicating that they are in this matter, though often unconsciously, the heirs of the Christian tradition. One can scarcely fail to notice the insistence with which the problem of God returns in the successive issues of The Personalist.2 This theistic bias has been strengthened through the strong influence that has been exercised, historically, on Personalism by the current of thought known as "Personal Idealism." s The group o1 British philosophers who were protagonists of this doctrine represent a vigorous reaction, within idealism, against the Absolutism and monism of German Hegelianism. Combating the pantheistic 1 E. Gilson, God and Phuosophy, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1941, p. 87. "Published by the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. 8 R. Metz regards this school as a part of the Neo-ldealist movement (Cf. A Hundred Years of British Philosophy, pp. 880-898). Among the typical representatives of the school he lists A. S. Pringle-Pattison, J. Seth, W. R. Sorley, and H. Rashdall. While their general positions present many similarities, there is no rigid, systematic unity; their writings represent a general attempt often not very original, to strike a compromise between Absolutism and extreme pluralism. Cf. infra for an evaluation of their attempt. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD IN PERSONALISM 168 tendency of Hegel, they defended the personal character of God, and the individual value of the human person. Hegelian panlogism had rendered impossible even a modified pluralism, by its merging of human and divine consciousness in an unique, universal Self. The personal idealists strove to establish the value of :finite personality, by restoring it to the epistemological setting in which it had been envisaged by Kant.4 Such attempts served as a wholesome reaction against the Hegelian Absolutism and the Neo-Hegelianism of Bradley, Bosanquet and Green. Still, the general positions reached were often' unsatisfactory from the theistic standpoint.5 And, in so far as they purported to safeguard :finite personality, their doctrines . were fr_equently, from the metaphysical...

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