“God does not control His creatures; He graciously lets them be.” This is the theme of Geddes MacGregor’s nineteenth book of religious philosophy, which attempts to bring together John’s, “God is love” belief and the insights of kenotic theology. According to the later, God empties Himself of His divinity, not only in the incarnation but also and primarily in creation, making creation, in the words of Simone Weil, “on God’s part an act not of self-expansion but of restraint and self-renunciation.”
Geddes MacGregor declares that this proposition is, in fact, a revolutionary concept of God that has traditionally been misunderstood. He uses kenotic insights to argue for a radical readjustment of our notion of God as immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He also explores what happens when kenotic power is loosed from the traditional trinitarian mold from where it came and placed in a wider frame of reference. Though challenging and certain to arouse controversy, He Who Lets Us Be will surely enhance Geddes MacGregor’s already substantial reputation as a philosopher and theologian of extraordinary power.
Table of Contents
Preface
I. Implicates of “God Is Love”
II. The Ancient Greek Tradition of Immutability
III. Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Otiose?
IV. Kenotic Theory and Its Historic Setting
V. Kenoticist Difficulties Provide the Clue
VI. Creativity as Kenotic Act
VII. Freedom and Necessity
VIII. A Solution to the Problem of Evil
IX. Providence and Prayer
X. A New Vision of the Self-Emptying God
Index
The late GEDDES MACGREGOR was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Paris, and Heidelberg. He was Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California and authored of more than 20 widely known books.
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