The Depersonalization of God A Consideration of Soteriological Difficulties in High Calvinism

This book traces the process in Calvinist theology by which God's will came to be conceived as the dominant aspect of God's character. The author argues that the idea of God as personality began to suffer when the early Church fathers interpreted revelation using categories from the Greek philosophical tradition. This thesis is illustrated through an examination of Augustine's conception of God's relationship to the world and Augustine's view of the relationship of the universal to particulars as it affected Biblical testimony. The development of this theology is documented through Scotus, Ockham, Luther, and Calvin resulting in a soteriology in which the eternal decrees of a depersonalized God came to usurp the cross of Christ as the source of salvation. Contents: What Can We Know? The Problem of Epistemology in Theological Paradigms; Augustinianism; Theories of Atonement; Key Developments in the Medieval Period; The Concept of God in Luther and Calvin; The Poles of Ten the God-Concept; and Soteriological Parallels in Buddhism and Islam.