The God Biographers: Our Changing Image of God from Job to the Present

"The structure of old and new biographies of God helpfully organizes a massive amount of material involving biblical studies, theology, history, and philosophy. The central distinctions in contemporary concepts among process, open, Arminian, and Reformed doctrines of God are presented fairly. The brief discussion of the Catholic concepts of de Chardin and Haught provides breadth that is often lacking in these discussions without ignoring the controversial nature of those positions in the Catholic tradition. Larry Witham provides a clear summary that recognizes the variety of factors in the current debates about God that academics, the general public, and the evangelical movement will find useful."---John Culp, Azusa Pacific University

The God Biographers presents a sweeping narrative of the Western image of God since antiquity, following the theme of how the "old" biography of God has been challenged by a "new" biography in the twenty-first century. The new biography has made its case in free-will theism, process thought, evolutionary doctrines, relational theology, and "open theism"---a story of people, ideas, and events that is brought up to the present in this engaging narrative

Readers will meet the God biographers in the old and new camps---Job, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas, and Calvin on one side, and on the other the early Unitarian and Wesleyan thinkers---a new breed of evangelical philosophers---including Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Charles Hartshorne. This story looks closely at the cultural and scientific context of each age and how these shaped the images of God. In the twenty-first century, that image is being shaped by new human experiences and the findings of science. Today, the debate between the old biographers and the new is playing out in the forums of modern theology, courtrooms, and social movements. Larry Witham tells that panoramic story in an engaging narrative for specialists and general readers alike

Larry Witham is a veteran journalist and author in the Washington, D.C., area who has covered current events, history, religion and society, science, and philosophy. After twenty-one years in a newsroom, Witham now writes and edits books full time. He is the author of ten books, including Marketplace of the Gods: How Economics Explains Religion (2010) and A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (2008).