God: A Guide for the Perplexed by Keith Ward

A review of a book I read recently. I am not a philosopher or theologian so I often find abstract ideas of this kind hard to grasp, though I do my best.


This is a survey of Western ideas about God, from a Christian perspective but not tied to Christian concepts. Jesus, for example, is mentioned only fleetingly. The main thesis is that the classical view of God is one of a Spirit, absolute in being, which also ties in with modern philosophical and theological ideas of God. It seems at times to fly close to the idea that there is no God as such, but the concept is overwhelmingly affirmed in the concluding chapter, which posits 7 main strands of thought about God: the powers of being, something beyond speech, the perfect good, the self existent creator, the self realising spirit, the ultimate goodness of being and the personal ground of being.
The centre of the book seems to be a survey of Hegel in particular. The author ties in Hegel’s idea of the dialectical process of history with a view of a creator as being tied into, though in some way distinct from, his creation. The creator does not create of necessity but in order to increase the amount of good and of knowledge he can have, As part of this he needs rational agents. They will cause evil. There is also some "natural evil" which people are going to have to deal with, if there is to be freedom and the eventual success of a kind of permanent, worthwhile goodness. Thus God is absolved of blame for evil, and will in the final realisation of the dialectic, sublate or redeem all evil into the final triumph of good. Belief in God is therefore a belief, not in a being or person, but in the possibility and meaning of the triumph of good (this comes from a summary of various other thinkers).
It is also important for the author to dispose of commonly held views of God: that he is omnipotent or omniscient, and so on. God does not deal in logical impossibililty nor in foretelling the future, but (in a twist of the ontological argument) in knowing more than any other being (real or imagined) could possibly ever know. God is therefore ascribed only a greater, not an infinite power. Hence the problem of evil is partially (though maybe not convincingly) resolved.
In the process the book occasionally diverts in poetic methods of expression. There are descriptions of the soul becoming a part of the Godhead, or of the souls of people being reunited in the later triumph of good over suffering (pace Polkinghorne’s idea of the purely sacramental universe). There are descriptions of looking into the darkness between stars or of being unable to speak of what we see or dimly perceive.
Another theme then is the inexpressibility of Godhead. Which is why we talk in imperfect analogies about God (as a person) which lead us down the path of error (the idea of omnipotence is really also a kind of analogy).
Unfortunately this does relegate Jesus somewhat, and the fleeting description of the Trinity does him not many favours at all, as an expression of a part of God, rather than God actually made flesh. The more difficult elements of the incarnation are sidestepped. This is presumably to focus on a question which could unite the largest majority of people: whether the universe was created, by a being, which itself is pure, actualised, perfect, being, and which is involved in though not running like toys the creation, which suffers and which hopes, like us, for the victory of good. He is sure it will happen, but has no privileged view of the future universe. He is simply good, his existence is, maybe necessary, ours I think, ultimately, contingent. We are not compelled into being but are an attempt to create an increase of good and increase of potential of good. This is where the author likes to dispose of the ideas of omniscience: at times it is confusing to read that no increase of good can increase God’s perfection and then that we are created to do just that. Perhaps it is that we can increase God’s self knowledge.
This idea of an ultimately mutable God is the one that could resolve the tensions in philosophy (the author's claim rather than mine) and that, he claims, is well in tune with classical views of God; just not the ones that most of us were brought up with.

POSTSCRIPT: I read, some time ago, John Polkinghorne's book Belief in God in an Age of Science, and there were many things that struck me. He attempts to resolve the problem of God's actions in the world as being a sort of information input; but I find that very hard to understand so I keep having to re-read the chapter. He is determined to place his theology on a level in tune with his academic discipline, particle physics; hence he accepts the total destruction of matter in the end of the universe (heat death or big crunch) but retains the hope of resuurection through a kind of divine memory of the universe: hence the "world to come" is an act of divine new creation - a "totally sacramental universe", mentioned above, which consists of the saved old universe, matter delivered from transience and decay. This concept, exciting but a little bizarre to the non-physicist (and presumably to the non-believer too), is a part of a wider theory of the universe and creator as both beings that are "becoming" - the divine spirit grows and learns with its creation and sees all from all parts of that growing, becoming creation. "Omniscience is self-limited by God in the creation of an open world of becoming." I am well aware of the debt such views owe to existentialist philosophy, but he doesn't really acknowledge that in depth. Hence both these books present a divine spirit much more vulnerable than that of traditional Christian doctrine; immutability; omniscience; omnipotence as we have come to understand the concepts make way for something more organic but no less divine because creative in an infinitely improvised way. Polkinghorne mentions, in passing, the idea of a universe created by an evil God - something similar is part of the novel Dante's Equation by Jane Jensen.