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Theism: Views
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Theism, against each of the views described above, affirms both the existence of a transcendent God and that that God is involved in Creation. It comes in different forms: monotheism insists that there is only one God; polytheism holds that there are many; henotheism agrees with polytheism that there are many gods but pays special homage to one of them.
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Griffin maintains that it lies at the heart of process theism's answer to the problem of evil that God's power is exerted on individuals rather than aggregates (Griffin 1991, 104). Theists of a more traditional bent may view this as an indication of the inadequacy of process metaphysics, for there is no provision for a run-of-the-mill coercive power in its concept of God. The idea that persuasion plus coercion is a greater form of power than persuasion alone ignores... a significant difference between God and the creatures. Every person has the power of persuasion and coercion (in their ordinary senses), but neither of these powers involves a violation of the laws of nature. In order to attribute both forms of power to God requires that God have the power to violate the laws of nature. That may not seem unreasonable since God, as traditionally conceived, acts miraculously in ways that break or suspend the laws of nature.
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A third sense of theism is that God is not an abstract concept nor even a concrete manifestation of some depersonalized idea. In this sense, the concept of God does take on personhood, though this is not to suggest that in all forms of this view God has interactions with persons. Despite the fact that such a God is an individual object (rather than a compilation of objects), he is not the equivalent of the Judeo Christian concept. Normally, such a concept of God sees him in some way as finite. Two examples will illustrate this sense of theism.
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The question of the metaphysical relation of God and creativity is a watershed between process theism and more traditional forms of theism. Process philosophy, modifying a statement from Plato's Sophist (247e), affirms that the most concrete real beings — in Whitehead's language, actual entities — are characterized by the power to act and to be acted upon (Plato says real beings act or are acted upon). In process metaphysics no actual entity is wholly determined by the activity of another; or phrased positively, every actual entity retains some power of self-determination... minimal or slight it may be. According to this view, to have power in relation to others is to have power in relation to other entities with some degree of power. This is process philosophy's doctrine of universal creativity. Hartshorne says, “To be is to create” (Hartshorne 1970, 1, 272).
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Neotheism is a form of theism, and should not be ranked as a heresy. Nevertheless, it is a significant doctrinal departure from the traditional theism underlying historic orthodoxy. As such, it deserves careful analysis. Granting what neotheists believe about God, neotheism is inconsistent. Moreover, it is an unnecessary aberration: the classical theistic view of God can be logically derived from the premises of neotheism, and the central desire of neotheists for an interactive God is possible without giving up the classical theistic view of God. These are just some of the problems with neotheism that are readily apparent.
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A narrower concept of theism sees God ... as depersonalized and as the ultimate reference point, but gives God some kind of concrete manifestation. Nevertheless, the God of such theistic views is entirely immanent.
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