There is of course the other possibility of Lewis stealing the example from Chesterton. . .

Ι have the impression that theistic personalism is the position that holds that God is a person. On this view, God is a subject Who possesses every necessary attribute of a person to a maximal degree; God is maximally wise, His will is minimally constrained and thus maximally able to make choices, etc. On this thesis, there is a natural kind, if you will, "person," and God is the supreme instance or member of the kind. God and other persons thus are members of a common genus.

Thomists and others reject theistic personalism (If I have characterized it right) because they deny that God is a member of any kind. They hold that personal attributes can be said of God - although the referent of all of those is identical, i.e. God's essence which is identical with His existence, and there is no real subject-attribute distinction in God. For Thomists, God is not a member of any genus or kind. So God is not "a" anything.

I have read Wm. Lane Craig asserting that God is "a" person, but I don't have a citation to hand.

Here's one other question that I will throw in for lack of anything else to tie it to. Is it correct to say, "God is a spirit"? Doesn't that imply that God can be classified as one thing (spirit) among others? Even if he did create the others, doesn't call him a spirit raise the same problem as calling him a person?

I suspect that for most people who lose their faith, there is a large element of feeling involved, and a course in classical theism probably won't help that. And it probably shouldn't (if I dar say so). As I understand the Catholic view of the concept of

faith,

it is what comes after belief in the existence of God, not along with it. It is something more like trust than belief, and I don't think one can be argued into it. And while Flew when from being an atheist to a theist, he did not become a Christian or affiliate with any other religion. Wikipedia says he identified as a deist.

Also, what is aphilosophical, and is it accurate or fair to say theistic personalism is aphilosophical? If nothing else, my spell checker objects to it!

For those seeking truth and certainty, theistic personalism is aphilosophical and as such is vulnerable to crisis.

Could we get from you, or @dennisbonnette:disqus, or @Jimthescott, or anybody else, a clear definition of theistic personalism? Is it a clearly defined term, and is it used widely rather than just in discussions of Brian Davies' work?

I’d rather have a philosophical aneurysm than a physical aneurysm.

And yet, in a sense, atheists are being warned that some philosophical aneurysms exist. :-p

Mike

Agree on the No true Scotsman. It was a cryptic message. Richard Dawkins is still a philosophical aneurysm

The Clergy Project is simply a counterpoint to her claim that many atheists simply don’t believe in the God label commodity. Maybe, (though I’m skeptical about “many” and it didn’t apply to me). But what is to be said of ex-clergy who didn’t believe in her mere commodity description but had faith instead?

I’m sensing an inference to the informal fallacy called the No True Scotsman and was hoping some further discussion would clarify humanfamily’s beliefs.

Mike, excommunicated

If you're a clergyman or woman having a crisis of faith, the people who have faith in your faith should not be deceived. So I can see the moral good of the Clergy Project, even though Richard Dawkins, the inspiration behind the project, is a philosophical goldbrick (that's as kind as I can get). I'd think clergy experiencing a crisis of faith, however, deserve a crack at good theistic philosophy first. For those seeking truth and certainty, theistic personalism is aphilosophical and as such is vulnerable to crisis. Putting the shoe on the other foot, I want an atheist to come to know the God of philosophy like Anthony Flew and not leave atheism non-belief out of fear of wrath. Leave a (non)belief system for right reason.