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On the Formulation of an Adequate Concept of God

Glenn Mason-Riseborough (12/11/1999)

 

1.0 Background

In his paper “Can There Be Alternative Concepts of God?” John Bishop addresses the question of whether the rejection of omniGod[1] necessarily entails the rejection of theism as a whole.  He claims that the prevailing view within the analytic tradition of Philosophy of Religion is that theism virtually by definition alone requires the belief that omniGod exists.  If one accepts this prevailing view, then the atheist’s program is a relatively simple one of arguing that the omniGod concept is not instantiated.  The atheist is not concerned with the potentially more difficult task of arguing against theism as a whole, or each putative God-concept in turn.  Put into serious doubt the belief in omniGod and you have put into serious doubt theism as a whole, or so this prevailing story goes.  Hence, in the philosophical literature there is much effort on the part of the atheists to show the unreasonableness of belief in omniGod.  In essence, Bishop is questioning whether rejecting omniGod alone is sufficient for the atheist’s cause.  He is tackling the question of whether a theist can consistently have an alternative concept of God (other than omniGod).  The philosophical project is thus important for two groups of people:

 

(1)       The atheists who wish to find out if attacking the omniGod theory is sufficient for attacking theism as a whole.

(2)       The theists who wish to maintain their theistic belief despite being convinced by the Argument from Evil.

 

Bishop can be seen as taking a philosophically conservative[2] stance by placing himself in the second group.  He admits to being persuaded by the Argument from Evil, but that he is not yet prepared to give up on his theistic belief.  Neither is he prepared to retreat to a position whereby one believes in omniGod by a faith that is contrary to reason.  On the other hand, he can be seen as religiously radical - he argues against the conservative theistic philosopher by arguing that the omniGod theory cannot be adequately defended.[3]

 

1.1 What is Theism?

At this point it may be useful to pause for a moment to examine what we mean by the word “theism.”  I don’t want to labour the obvious about this, but it seems to me that “theism” is used in many different contexts in opposition to many different ideas.  I think it is useful to establish exactly the context in which we are discussing this term.  I am taking what follows in this section primarily from a chapter entitled “The Concept of God” in Ray Billington’s Understanding Eastern Philosophy.

The term “theism” was initially used in opposition to the term “atheism.”  Atheism, quite simply, is the belief that there is no God.  Thus, we might incontestably say that theism is the belief that God exists.  Bishop seems to be thinking of theism in exactly this way, and as a consequence he approaches his task of examining the concept of a theistic God in terms of this opposition.  From this way of thinking there is, as yet, no restriction on the form of the God-concept within our definition.  The form that a theistic God-concept takes is thus only potentially restricted by logical requirements and the particular religious theistic tradition under which we are working.[4]

However, in addition to this oppositional definition, Billington also identifies two other contexts of theism within the history of religion.  Both of these provide restrictions as to the form that a theistic God-concept must take.  The first is that theism is contrasted with pantheism.  The word pantheism is derived from two Greek words, pan meaning “all” and theos meaning “God.”  Pantheism is thus the belief that all is God, or, in other words, that the Universe and God are one.  The pantheistic God is not a being, but the entirety of the universe itself.  A pantheist is the type of person who looks at the universe and is awed by it.[5]  On his pantheism website, Paul Harrison (1999) states: “we must relate to the universe with humility, awe, reverence, celebration and the search for deeper understanding - in other words, in many of the ways that believers relate to their God.”  This brings to the fore the idea that God, to be God, must be worthy of worship.  It has long been claimed that the theistic God must be worthy of worship, and it could be plausibly argued that this is also the case for the pantheist God.  I will elaborate on the worship worthiness criterion in section 2.1 below.  From this opposition of theism and pantheism we get the important characteristic of the theistic God as one that is distinct from the universe.  It sets up a dualism between God and the universe.  The theistic God is somehow different from the universe, and in some way it is superior.  This superiority is thought of in terms of ontological superiority.  One (common) way of thinking of this ontological superiority is that it will be the type of superiority that a creator has over His creation; God does not depend on anything else for His existence, whereas the universe depends on God for its existence.

The third oppositional definition is one that has developed since the Enlightenment.  This is the view that theism is contrasted with deism.  Deism comes from the Latin word deus, meaning God, and prior to the late 17^th century was used interchangeably with theism.  Deism is the view of religion without revelation.  The deistic God is the non-interventionist God, the absentee God.  It is the Newtonian God - God as the perfect Mathematician and Architect who creates a perfect universe, like a perfect clock, which never needs rewinding.  He then steps back (so to speak) and allows His perfect creation to unfold without his involvement.  He watches on, and even if He ceased to exist His creation could still exist without Him.  The deistic God is completely transcendent whereas the theistic God, in addition to being transcendent creator, must continuously intervene in the universe.  The theistic God may be thought of as the Great Rewinder.  Every moment of existence happens because God is present.  He is there as a continuously necessary presence, and the moment He “steps back” His creation would cease to exist.  In addition, the theistic God potentially allows miracles and supernatural events, in contrast with the mechanised deistic God.  The theistic God is free to intervene through people such as preachers, priests and prophets and, in the case of Christianity, Jesus Christ.  When necessary, He is able to work wonders outside the physical laws.

As I have already said, I think that Bishop is assuming that theism is contrasted with atheism.  This leaves it open for theists to potentially develop radically different concepts of God.  Presumably this type of theist could potentially hold a pantheist God-concept.  As I said above, when we contrast theism with atheism we are merely looking at is the existence or non-existence of God.  We are not yet looking at the form of God.  However, if we instead contrast theism with both pantheism and deism (as Billington suggests), then the type of God-concept available to the theist is more restricted.  The theistic God, by definition alone, must be distinct from the world (contrast to pantheism) yet He must be a creator who continues to be necessary to the running of His creation (contrast to deism).  To distinguish the two definitions of theism above, I will call them unrestricted theism and restricted theism respectively.  If we accept restricted theism then Bishop’s task of discovering alternative concepts of the theist God seems more difficult.  If Bishop wants to argue that one may be a theist and yet hold an alternative concept of God, then, I maintain, he must also show that it is a truly theist concept of God according to my more restricted definition.[6]  It might turn out that the only adequate restricted theistic concept of God is omniGod.  In fact, it may even turn out that restricted theism as a whole is an inconsistent idea, if, as Bishop suggests, the Argument from Evil is convincing.

At this point the wannabe alternative theist may reply in a number of ways.  Firstly, he may argue that I am merely playing with words.  Does it really matter which definition of theism we accept?  After all, it seems clear that in practice we often use these two different definitions of theism in different situations.  I think that this is a fair point to make.  I think what needs to be said here is that we must be clearer about what we are meaning by theism when we use the term.  Of course, definitions alone don’t show that one God-concept is preferable to another God-concept.  What it does show is that maybe the prevailing view within Philosophy of Religion is justified under some definitions of theism.

This leads us on to the second reply to my tightening of the definition of theism.  One who wants to stay within a particular theistic tradition may be forced to say that that theistic tradition is really not a theistic tradition after all (from a restricted theist perspective).  This person will have to say that in the past people were mistaken in their assertion that the religious tradition was a theistic one.  What they put up in replacement will no doubt have to adhere sufficiently to the tradition, but will differ somewhat in interpretation.  What this means for the religious traditions will differ for each particular tradition according to their strictness.  I will address this idea some more when I look at eliminativist responses to theism in Section 2.2 below.

 

1.2 The Approach

Bishop’s approach is not to put up for discussion some specific new concept of God (although Bishop does include as an endnote a candidate alternative concept of God that he thinks has possibilities), but rather to clear the ground and discuss how he thinks the search for alternative concepts of God would best be achieved.  In Section 1 Bishop gives two general requirements that the alternative God-concept must adhere to, to be “an adequate alternative concept of God”.  These are:

 

(i)   The concept must be genuinely distinct from the concept of omniGod.

(ii)  The concept must be acceptable as authentically a concept of God; that is, belief in the existence of a God of a kind the concept specifies must be religiously adequate to the theistic religious tradition, in the sense that it could count at least as one viable expression of that historical tradition.

 

Bishop does not elaborate on these two requirements, and I think that the second, in particular, requires further explanation and clarification.  I make particular note of the fact that Bishop states “religiously adequate to the [emphasis added] theistic religious tradition.”  Which tradition is he referring to?  Does Bishop (1) have a particular theistic tradition in mind, (2) think that the theistic ideas expressed in all cultures can be reduced to a single idea, or (3) merely develop a methodological approach that one might then apply one’s own favourite theistic tradition to.

If it is (1), then Bishop could potentially be charged with ethnocentrism.  It seems fairly obvious that there are many theistic traditions, and each theistic tradition could potentially be divided into possibly conflicting sub-traditions.  For example, the most well known Western/Middle-Eastern theistic traditions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) can easily be sub-divided into their variously many theistic sects/cults/denominations.  In addition, the various Eastern religions also have their specific theistic sects (e.g. Ramanuja within Hinduism and (arguably) Amida (Pure Land) Buddhism), and we may also identify many other smaller theistic religions.

If it is (2), then Bishop could potentially be charged with imperialism.  He would have to develop a compelling story (e.g. Hegelian) to explain the apparent contradictions between the various theistic beliefs.  While I am aware of a number of people today within particular religious groups who wish to develop this line of thought, it is my opinion that this is not a logically feasible option.

If it is (3), then Bishop allows the various theistic traditions to retain their independence and difference.  From this perspective, one opens up the situation to allow theists to develop adequate alternative concepts of God for their favourite tradition only.  In other words, a theist may develop an alternative concept of God that is adequate for religious tradition A, but it is not adequate for religious tradition B.  Accepting this interpretation may give even stronger evidence for Bishop’s claim that one may have a theistic belief without accepting the omniGod theory.  What I mean by this is that while some theistic traditions may be sufficiently rigidly structured to disallow anything but the omniGod concept (and this may be what the prevailing view of Philosophy of Religion focuses on exclusively), other theistic traditions may potentially have radically different concepts of God available to them.  The problem with this view is that we cannot make any definite statements about the substantive content of the God-concept for theism as a whole (except for somewhat arbitrary definitional claims).

In fairness to Bishop, and taking into account the context of his later development of the idea, I think that he is intending position (3).  This is because, although he spends a great deal of the paper (section 12 through 24, of 30 sections) focusing exclusively on Christian theism (specifically the Gospels), he seems to consider the possibility that one may answer the question from outside of Christian theism.  In conversation, he gives the reason for focusing exclusively on Christian theism as (a) it is his own tradition, and (b) it is the tradition that the omniGod theorists focus on predominantly.

 

2.0 Criteria for a God-Concept

Up to this point I have been focusing primarily on the background to this topic.  I have looked at the motivation for developing alternative concepts of God, what we mean by theism, and how best we should approach the task of identifying adequate alternative concepts of God.  What I wish to discuss in this section is the criteria that are necessary for an adequate concept of God.  It is necessary, at least initially, to reiterate much of Bishop’s program that he sets out in his paper.

In Section 4 Bishop discusses the importance of clarifying the criteria for a God-concept.  Firstly, it provides focus and greater efficiency for any survey of concepts of God.  If we are to look at any putative God-concept we need to know if it fulfils all the criteria for being an adequate God-concept.  In fact, it may also help one develop a viable alternative God-concept.  Secondly, by explicitly identifying the criteria we may address the concerns of “omniGod conservatives” (both atheistic and theistic) who will maintain that any significant departure from omniGod will breach the criteria.

 

2.1 What Criteria are Required for an Adequate God-Concept?

Traditionally, one central criterion for a God-concept is that such a God must be worthy of worship.  Worship requires that the object be supremely worthy; that no greater being can be conceived of.  Hence, it is no great leap to presuppose that this being should have the “omni-properties,” and thus lead one to conclude the impossibility of alternative concepts of God.  In Section 5 Bishop addresses the concern of worship-worthiness in a God, but initially sidesteps it, suggesting that one must “dig deeper” for additional criteria of religious adequacy that avoid concluding the impossibility of an alternative God-concept.  He comes back to the worship criterion later in the paper (Section 26) suggesting that we may question the connection between supreme worthiness and a being that holds the omni-properties.  Although it may turn out that an omniGod is the only thing that is worship-worthy, this is not prima facie the case.  One may argue (as Bishop does) that one needs to look at the kind of greatness that is relevant for worship-worthiness.  Firstly, Bishop questions whether greatness for worship-worthiness needs to be metaphysical greatness qua being.  Secondly, even if we grant this, Bishop does not think it needs to be the case that the highest greatness qua being must be held by omniGod.

While there may potentially be many criteria that are required for an adequate God-concept, Bishop sets forth a program to discover the source for criteria.  In Section 6 Bishop proposes a “functionalist” approach.  By this he means that “the concept of God is the concept of something belief in whose existence plays a certain functional role within what might be called the psychological economy of the theist.”  Section 7 elaborates and clarifies this point.  What is meant “is not the proposal that the content of the concept of God be analysed in terms of that which plays a certain functional role specified by a set of theological platitudes.”  Rather, the emphasis is on the functional role of the God-concept itself.  Bishop thus asks three questions:

 

(1) What is that functional role?

(2) Why should that functional role be regarded as a role that needs to be played within theism?

(3) Is it plausible to suppose that belief in anything other than omniGod might be fit to play this role?

 

2.2 Anti-Realist Response

One may deny the functionalist assertion that the belief that God exists needs to play any functional role within theism (addressing question 2).  The idea here is that one may be a theist yet not believe that God exists at all.  In fact, there are people who do just that and call themselves “Christian atheists.”  But isn’t it just contradictory for a person to maintain that s/he is a theist, yet not believe in any God?  Isn’t an atheistic theist just like a round square?  The Christian atheist may reply by maintaining that, in fact, Christianity is not really a theistic religion at all.  Any mention of God is simply a mistake on the part of the Christian.  One example here is the view that Christianity is a precursor to Marxism.  Alternatively, and (according to Bishop) more likely, the Christian atheist will maintain that talk about God is merely a useful fiction.  The God-talk provides a “symbolical, mythological framework within which adherence to certain shared fundamental values can best be affirmed and honoured.”  This is a projectivist or fictionalist form of anti-realism.

There is a connection between the anti-realist idea and worship-worthiness.  This connection is that anti-realist theists may find themselves in the curious position of worshiping a fictional being.  What is more, these anti-realist theists will readily admit that the object of their worship does not really exist.  To me at least, this seems to be an incredibly perverse situation to be in.  Surely, an important criterion of worship is that the object being worshiped actually exists (or, more precisely, is believed to exist).  As I see it, the anti-realist God could be questioned as to its worship-worthiness, and an anti-realist God-concept might fail, for this reason, to be an adequate concept of God.  In conversation, Bishop points out two possible replies to this.  Firstly, we might come up with some new understanding of worship-worthiness that does not require that the object of worship actually exists.  Even though I personally find this implausible, I might suggest that one possible understanding of worship-worthiness is that the process of worshipping itself creates some desired outcome, thus making the (non-existent) object of worship worship-worthy.  Secondly, we might drop worship-worthiness as a criterion of an adequate God-concept, possibly via an ethical critique of worship.  This would indeed be a radical suggestion, given that worship-worthiness has long been considered a central criterion.

In his paper, Bishop does not discuss this potential problem with anti-realist theism discussed above.  Instead he uses the anti-realist doctrine as a means to further his functionalist proposal.  He qualifies his functionalist proposal by saying that “belief in God realistically understood plays a certain functional role for the realist-theist.”  Bishop uses the distinction between realist and anti-realist theism to discover what extra content there is in a realist theistic belief.  He wants to address this in a functionalist manner and asks the question: “what more is a realist belief that God exists supposed to do for you than can be done by anything admissible by the anti-realist-theist, for whom theistic belief amounts to a mythic vehicle for affirming a certain set of values?”

 

2.3 The Answer from Christian Theism

Naturally, this question posed above could easily be answered from within any religious theistic tradition (or at least any tradition within which realist and anti-realist alternatives have emerged), and each tradition may well come up with different solutions.  However, Bishop gives an answer to this question posed above specifically for the case of Christian theism.  More precisely, Bishop gives an answer specifically from the Gospels of the Bible.  Christian realists will maintain that the content of the Gospel contains more than just an ethical doctrine, and that the Christian anti-realists lose this “extra content.”  Realist belief in God is necessary to fulfil this “extra content.”  Bishop continues with his functionalist approach to discover what this “extra content” is.  He looks at a number of possibilities before examining the claim that a criterion of the religious adequacy of the realist Christian theistic God-concept is that the belief justifies hope in the midst of suffering.  More specifically, he maintains that this hope is non-triumphalist hope.  I will examine this idea in more detail.

The first question to ask is what is non-triumphalist hope, and how does it differ from triumphalist hope?  Firstly, a triumphalist hope is the hope generated by the belief that, despite appearances, the virtuous individual will always ultimately flourish.  There are two ways that the realist theist maintains this triumphalist hope.  The first is that the rewards are here on earth.  We may immediately reply to this with the observation that when we look at the world it seems to be the case that many virtuous people simply don’t flourish.  We might give any number of examples of people who, despite living virtuously, have suffered and died without reward.  One reply to this is to say that virtue is its own reward, that “to act righteously is ultimately to flourish, no matter what may befall one.”  Bishop finds this reply absurd (and almost obscene), pointing out that it just doesn’t seem right to say that Jesus Christ’s dying on the cross is the exemplar of true human flourishing.

The second reply in defence of triumphalist hope is to posit an afterlife or transcendental realm, where God is able to make sure that the virtuous person always ultimately flourishes.  This will obviously show the deficiencies of an anti-realist theist position, since an anti-realist theist is unable to hold this type of metaphysical view.  Bishop notes two problems with this afterlife reply.  The first is that associated with positing some form of afterlife are all sorts of metaphysical problems in the context of personal identity.  Even if these can be overcome there is a much greater problem.  This second problem is that the type of God who could achieve this rewarding of the virtuous would be so close to being an omniGod that this would not help the would-be alternative-God theist.  An agent, in order to reward the virtuous, would have to be good and powerful enough to be able to overturn the “injustices of historical existence.”  This, it might be argued, is close enough to omniGod to generate the Argument from Evil.

For these reasons, Bishop finds the idea of triumphalist hope too problematic for the theist wishing to develop an alternative concept of God.  He thus formulates the idea of non-triumphalist hope as a criterion for realist theism.  One way he gives of expressing this is to say that we as individuals will not be rewarded or have our virtuous suffering compensated for.  Instead the hope lies in the fact that nonetheless our suffering “will advance the cause of justice and liberation from oppression and so contribute to the flourishing of others, including generations yet unborn” (Section 20).  A second way that Bishop puts forward is that the hope is not a hope for a specific outcome, but the straightforward idea that:

“[T]he intentional object of the hope [is] the simple negation of the content of those thoughts of hopelessness, alienation or despair which tempt us to think that, though living life lovingly may indeed be the highest value, suffering finitude and death – especially as they affect virtuous and vicious alike – make a mockery of commitment to such a life, robbing it of its meaningfulness and point” (Section 21).

 

The non-triumphalist hope enables one to commit oneself to living rightly in the face of the knowledge that one may not be ultimately repaid for this right living.  Even further to the point, non-triumphalist hope enables one to live joyously and cheerfully despite this rather pessimistic knowledge about one’s own well-being[7].

It seems to me that there are a number of ways of formulating non-triumphalist hope.  It is necessary to note at this point that triumphalist hope is referring explicitly to individual triumph.  Within non-triumphalist hope there is the possibility of non-individual triumphalist hope.  What I mean is that it is the hope that others will triumph or flourish, even though the virtuous person may not.  This is Bishop’s thought when he gives the first formulation of the idea in Section 20.  The content of this hope may come in a wide variety of different forms, which will dictate the degree to which others will flourish.  The most extreme form of this is the view that there is inevitable progress towards some future goal or utopia.  The righteous actions of the virtuous either speeds this inevitability to a more hasty result, or else enables the result to occur.[8]  A less extreme form of the content of this hope is that one, through virtuous action, merely helps other individuals to flourish.  There is no guarantee that one’s virtuousness will serve some greater goal.  The negation of this is the idea that despite one’s virtuousness, neither the individual nor anyone else (either society or individuals) will ultimately flourish because of it.  This seems to me to be a purer form of non-triumphalist hope and is the one that Bishop suggests in Section 21 (quoted above).  Bishop suggests that both forms of hope are necessary for the content of Christian hope.  I will examine this second idea first, and then return to non-individual triumphalist hope.

The first question to ask is whether it is possible to have hope in the face of pure non-triumphalism.  Is it possible to have hope despite not accepting that anyone or anything will flourish as a result of your virtuousness?  This is a difficult question to answer.  Bishop seems to think that it is possible, as I showed above in the quote from Section 21.  He seems to think that one can have hope without having hope for a specific outcome.  The content of the hope is that “lives lived lovingly … are not deprived of meaningfulness and point by suffering, finitude and death.”  This is the content of a hope at its barest minimum.  The content does not in any way address what it is that sustains the meaningfulness and point, and it might be argued that there simply isn’t anything.  This is where a Christian realist account provides the extra content over Christian anti-realism.  It is only a realist concept of God that justifies this hope, through its positive assertion of a particular type of reality.  All that a Christian anti-realist can say is that some people may be able to have this type of hope.  It seems clear from this that the realist concept of God need not be omniGod.  The putative alternative concept of God will be an adequate concept of God as long as it has some hope-generating ability.  For example, Bishop’s candidate concept might well be adequate through its “love” component.

I return now to Bishop’s first form of non-triumphalist hope.  As I mentioned above, this is the form in which there is hope for some particular desirable outcome that is achieved through virtuous living.  However, this outcome is not that the virtuous individual will flourish.  It is clearly the case that this type of belief contains more than can be admitted by a Christian anti-realist.  The Christian realist can maintain that some specific metaphysical characteristic of the world justifies this belief.  As with the previous form of hope, at best the Christian anti-realist can only say that some people may be able to maintain this hope in the face of suffering.  However, like triumphalist hope, this form of hope rests on a number of metaphysically contentious claims.  Although this is not fatal to the cause, we must be aware that any concept of God needs to deal with these problems.  The most significant of these arises from the simple observation that we don’t seem to be going anywhere.  For example, the optimism last century regarding progress was shattered by two world wars.  If this form of hope is to be a criterion, the content of an adequate God-concept needs to be able to explain how, despite appearances, virtuous action will “advance the cause of liberation and justice.”

Bishop admits that in addition to non-triumphalist hope, there may be many other criteria for the religious adequacy of a God-concept.  Examples of this may be worship worthiness (which I have discussed above), that the God-concept must have some sort of explanatory power for all that exists, and that believing that the God-concept is instantiated is not simply a matter of scientific rationality.  However, Bishop claims that any concept of God that satisfies the non-triumphalist criterion will also satisfy all other feasible criteria.  He claims that the non-triumphalist hope criterion is the pivotal criterion in the adequacy of a God-concept.  Is this a plausible claim?  Bishop admits to not having a conclusive argument for this, but at least sketches out some reasons.  Firstly, he suggests that worship worthiness will be guaranteed by whatever grounds our hope.  Secondly, he suggests that whatever grounds our hope could plausibly also make everything make sense, according to some interpretation of “making final sense of everything.”  Thirdly, it should be clear that whatever grounds hope cannot be a matter of scientific rationality, since the type of hope is non-triumphalist.  If these are plausible sketches, then Bishop’s claim may hold weight, but it is certainly not inarguable, and Bishop admits this.

 

2.4 Examining the Gospels

The essence of Bishop’s main rejection of triumphalist hope was that it provides no room to develop an adequate alternative concept of God.  The position is that triumphalist hope, where the rewards are in the afterlife, requires a too “fully-fledged” realist account of God to satisfy a concept of God other than omniGod.  If we accept triumphalist hope, then we must accept the omniGod (or near omniGod) concept of God.  But this, in itself, is not a rejection of triumphalist hope.  It might turn out that the particular religious theistic tradition under discussion explicitly requires triumphalist hope, and thus requires an omniGod concept of God, and thus has to adequately reply to the Argument from Evil.

Since we are looking specifically at the case of Christian theism, and in particular the Gospels, I think that it is useful to have a look at what the Gospels say.  Now, I will admit that interpreting the Gospels is extremely controversial and there is likely to be disagreement.  However, for anyone intending to claim that the gospels do not advocate triumphalist hope, they need to take into account numerous instances where Jesus appears to discuss triumphalism.  I will give some examples.  One instance is when Jesus was on the cross talking to the criminals.  Jesus tells the second criminal “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).  A second instance is when Jesus answered the accusations of the Jews.  He said “whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).  A third instance is when Jesus was talking with a Samaritan woman.  Jesus tells her “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

It seems to me that the Gospels can easily be interpreted in a way that emphasises triumphalist hope.  It is thus the task of the Christian theist who wishes to advocate non-truimphalism to show how these instances I have given can be reinterpreted away from the apparent triumphalism.  If s/he can plausibly show this, then one can be a Christian, yet have an alternative concept of God.  While I would be more than happy to see this accomplished, it is my personal opinion that this is indeed a difficult task.

 

2.5 Individual Flourishing as Moral

The final point that I will make is in the form of a simple observation.  This is the observation that the type of God that does not guarantee individual flourishing (when it is able to) might be considered to be an immoral God.  We might argue that an important part of morality is to care about individuals, desiring and assuring that the virtuous (and maybe even the non-virtuous[9]) always ultimately flourish.  If we agree with this moral claim, then a God that does not guarantee individual flourishing is either impotent or immoral.  I admit that this is returning to an omniGod (or near omniGod) conception of God, but it seemed that this issue has to be weighed up when considering alternative concepts of God.  Assuming we ignore the issue of impotence, can we have a concept of God that does not rest well with our own moral standards?  To overcome this problem, one approach would be to develop an ethical system that accepts that individuals need not flourish.

 

3.0 Conclusion

Needless to say, I have covered a lot of ground in this essay.  My main emphasis has been to examine and question Bishop’s methodology for investigating the possibility of alternative concepts of God within theism.  To briefly summarise my position, or rather my lack of position on this issue.  I do not have strong views either way on whether a theist can consistently have an alternative concept of God.  I think that one’s opinion on this is strongly determined by one’s definitional understanding of the term “theism.”  It centres on whether one accepts a restricted or unrestricted definition of theism.  In addition, if one thinks that a theist must hold an omniGod concept of God by definition alone, then it is conceivable that some generally accepted “theistic” traditions are really not theistic at all.  Secondly, I think that one must look to each theistic tradition in turn to determine if that theistic tradition entails one accepting the omniGod concept.  Bishop looked specifically at theism as expressed in the Christian Gospels and argued that the underlying criterion was that of non-triumphalist hope.  This would then open up the possibility for a Christian theist to have an alternative concept of God.  I am not convinced of this conclusion.  I have shown that a Christian theist who wants to have an alternative concept of God must develop a plausible interpretation of the gospels that show that, despite appearances, Jesus was not advocating a form of triumphalist hope.  Thirdly, I sketched out an approach that sees non-triumphalist hope as immoral.  I suggested that morality might dictate that the virtuous should always ultimately flourish.

Bibliography

The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1978).  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible Publishers.

 

Billington, R. (1997). Understanding Eastern philosophy. London: Routledge.

 

Bishop, J. (1998). Can there be alternative concepts of God? Nous, 32(2) 174-188.

 

Bishop, J. (1993). Evil and the concept of God. Philosophical Papers, 22(1) 1-15.

 

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