anthropomorphism in depicting the One. And it is on the
foundation of the self-existent, immutable One as the es-
sence of perfection that they proceed to refine conceptions
of the transcendent One in itself and in its immanence with-
in the dependent orders.
Thus, both theists and monists agree that the self-
existent One is incorporeal, since corporeal being is limited
by its spatial nature. But is this incorporeal One to be con-
ceived as a person? For example, is its nature compatible with
the influential, first formal definition of a person as proposed
by Boethius (c. 480–525): “an individual substance of a ra-
tional nature” (Against Eutyches 6)? The line of reasoning that
favors belief in the personhood of the One is fundamental
also to the cosmological argument for the self-existent, im-
mutable cause: any successive change cannot be a succession
independent of an unchanging, unifying agent. Further-
more, a succession cannot be known as a succession apart
from a nonsuccessive experient of succession. In the last anal-
ysis, reasoning itself is not possible without a time-
transcending unity, free from limitations of corporeal com-
position. The self-existent cause is best conceived, therefore,
as an unchanging, indivisible Person.
However, monists in the West (e.g., Plotinus, Spinoza,
Hegel, F. H. Bradley) and in the East (especially Indian ex-
ponents of Advaita Veda ̄nta, from S ́an ̇ kara in the ninth cen-
tury CE to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in the twentieth centu-
ry) developed the concept of incorporeal unity, but they
considered the attribution of any concept of a person to the
suprapersonal One as misleading. The theist, nevertheless,
contends that an infinite Person, inherently and fully ratio-
nal, is the least misleading view of the contemporaneous
One. Can the adherent of the suprapersonal One intelligibly
deny that the One is self-aware and aware of all that is (omni-
scient)? Moreover, can we avoid theoretical shipwreck if the
very insistence on the fathomless depths of the One leads to
the conclusion that the finite person’s ideals of logic and of
truth, goodness, and beauty bear, in principle, no trustwor-
thy clue to the nature of suprapersonal unity?
Nor does the theist stop here. The spearhead of the the-
ist’s rejection of an all-absorbing One is the conviction that
the individual person experiences free will to choose between
alternatives within his powers. The theist stresses that with-
out free will it makes no sense to refer to conclusions as true
or false. For a conclusion that cannot be drawn from a rela-
tively free, impartial weighing of evidence for and against hy-
pothesis is nothing but the outcome of the regnant play of
factors in the knower. Such an outcome is one event among
other events and is neither true nor false.
Furthermore, if personal free will is nullified, so is the
difference between moral good and moral evil, since each de-
pends on a person’s having the free will to choose between
alternative courses of action deemed to be good or evil. It is
such freedom of will that is vital to the theist’s conception
of a person’s responsibility to other persons and to his inter-
pretation of a person’s relation to the physical, the subper-
sonal orders of being, and to God himself.
Hence, when the theist is told that the orders of being
are ultimately machinelike and indifferent to the values of
persons, or that the whole framework of things is a logical
network that allows for no (supposedly capricious) free will,
or when mystical union with the One is taken as indubitable
evidence that a person is in fact only a particular center of
God’s being, the theist will stand by a person’s experience
of limited free will while pointing out the theoretical and
moral consequences of its denial. This stand is basic to his
conception of the Creator as person.
Although theists are not of one mind as to the self-
existent Person’s relation to the order of physical things and
of subpersonal living beings, they concur that God creates
persons out of nothingness (creatio ex nihilo). This concept,
unthinkable to any Greek or Indian philosopher, is admit-
tedly mysterious, but what is posited must be understood in
its context. Creatio ex nihilo does not mean that God, as it
were, takes nothing and makes what he creates therefrom.
Rather, he creates what did not exist prior to his creative act.
God does not create from being(s) independent of him, nor
does he create from his own being; the created orders do not
emanate from his being. God creates persons to be free with-
in their potential and in relation to the other orders. The In-
dian philosopher Ra ̄ma ̄nuja (c. 1017–1173) argued against
the absorption of persons in the distinctionless One
(bra ̄hman), as held in the prevailing advaita (nondualist) phi-
losophy of S ́an:kara—although, in the end, he, too, insisted
on their ultimate union with the suprapersonal One.
Does the creation of persons, free to develop their own
potential and, within limits, their own environments, not
conflict with the attribute of God’s omnipotent will? No,
since God’s creating of free persons is self-imposed and is,
therefore, an instance of God’s omnipotence.
But may not a person’s use of freedom influence the ful-
fillment of God’s purposes? On this, theists disagree, de-
pending, in good part, on their conception of God’s other
attributes. It is worth noting that often, when it seems that
God’s attributes in effect conflict with each other, theists
warn that God’s attributes must not be isolated from each
other, since this would violate the indivisibility of God’s
being. The application of this doctrine here supports the
view that God’s self-imposed creating of persons as free and
not as puppets will not issue in the thwarting of his purposes.
But, if the attribute of God’s omniscience is defined as
God’s knowing all that is, has been, and will be, must not
God’s foreknowledge be limited (and his power affected) by
a person’s freedom? What can it mean to affirm human free-
dom of choice if God knows in every instance and in every
detail what any person will choose? Some theists take omni-
science to mean that the Creator knows all there is to know
(including all the options possible and available). They can-
not understand how the freedom of persons at the point of9104 THEISM