Ontological Models of the Divine: Classical Theism vs. Theistic Personalism

Abstract

The article examines two accounts of the divine that are popular in contemporary analytic theology and philosophy of religion: classical theism and theistic personalism, in the context of the discussion of whether it is possible to consider God as a person. The main purpose of the article is to show the difference of ontological models underlying these accounts. The article consists of three main sections. The first discusses some taxonomies of ontological models of the divine in general. It is shown that classical theism and theistic personalism are the two most interesting attempts to conceptualize the nature of theism. The second section analyzes the debate in contemporary analytic theology and philosophy of religion concerning the formula “God is a person”. It is demonstrated that, on the one hand, the acceptance or rejection of this formula is often seen as a watershed between the classical theism and theistic personalism, while, on the other hand, proponents of both positions do not deny that personal properties can be ascribed to God, which raises the problem of distinguishing between these accounts of the divine. The third section offers a solution to this problem in terms of different ontological paradigms within which the positions of classical theism and theistic personalism are formulated. The the main claim of the paper is that theistic personalism seems consider God as one of concrete individuals as opposed to abstract objects, while classical theism regards Him as the supreme being in which there is no real division into substratum and properties, nor any composition of properties. In conclusion, it is shown that in some of its meanings the term “person” applies to God both from the perspective of classical theism and from the perspective of theistic personalism. The suggested distinction between classical theism and theistic personalism is supposed to shed more light on the nature of theism.