A History of the Concept of God: A Process Approach
Daniel A. Dombrowski explores the history of the concept of God from the perspective of neoclassical, or process, theism. His neoclassical approach assuages the current crisis in philosophical theism, caught between a defense of classical theism and assertions of religious skepticism. Instead, the work offers Charles Hartshorne’s notion of a God who always evolves, quite unlike the allegedly perfect figure of more traditional, and increasingly unsatisfactory, accounts. Dombrowski surveys the classical theists and their roots in ancient Greek philosophy before turning to contributions from the sixteenth through twentieth centuries, ultimately discussing twenty-three thinkers. The key figures in this history are Plato, who ironically provided the philosophical basis both for classical and neoclassical concepts, and three great figures in process theism: Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, and Hartshorne. The concept of God has a rich past; this book argues that it can have a rich future as well.
About the Author
Daniel A. Dombrowski is Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University. He is the author of twenty-three books and over two-hundred articles in scholarly journals in philosophy, theology, classics, and literature. Among his books are Rethinking the Ontological Argument: A Neoclassical Theistic Response (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); and Process Philosophy and Political Liberalism: Rawls, Whitehead, Hartshorne (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019). His latest book is The Way of Reason in Religion and Politics: The Philosophy of Franklin I. Gamwell (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2026). He is the Editor of the journal Process Studies and is Past-President of the Metaphysical Society of America.
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