Rufus Burrow: Doctrine of God developed by Borden P.Bowne (1847-1910)

*Rufus Burrow is Associate Professor of Church and Society at Christian Theological Seminary.
ENCOUNTER 53.4 (381) AUTUMN 1992
BORDEN PARKER BOWNE'S DOCTRINE OF GOD
By Rufus Burrow
This article is an exposition of the doctrine of God developed by Borden P.
Bowne (1847-1910), "the father of American personalism." Personalism is any
philosophy for which the person is the fundamental (not necessarily the sole)
metaphysical reality and the only intrinsic value. Although there are at least ten types of
personalism, its Bownean or most typical form is theistic, freedomistic, relational, and
empirical. Its epistemology is activistic and dualistic; its method is analytic-synoptic
(with emphasis on the synopsis end); and its criterion of truth is "growing empirical
coherence."
Bowne's philosophy is distinctly and profoundly theistic. Although not
demonstrable, the theistic conclusion is "implicit in everything," and is the basic
"postulate of our total life." Bowne's epistemology and metaphysics eventuate in theism.
Indeed, for Bowne, epistemology forces us back to metaphysics (or theory of God).1 The
subject-object relation is solved only through metaphysical monism, the view that the
source and "bond of union" of these is God. Bowne was primarily a philosopher who,
near the end of his teaching career at Boston University, easily carried his philosophical
principles over into theology. He did much to clarify some of the basic doctrines of the
church, e.g., the incarnation and atonement, Christian revelation, and the Kingdom of
God.
It may be argued that except for a distinguished minority,2 the views of most
Bownean personalists on God is a continuation and-or development of the insights
1Borden P. Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge (New York:Harper &
Brothers, 1899), pp. 310, 311, 313, 314.
2Personalists who reject Bowne's doctrine of God include (but are not limited to)
Edgar S. Brightman, Peter A. Bertocci, Walter G. Muelder, Georgia Harkness, S. Paul
Schilling, John Lavely. These opted for theistic finitism. For a full treatment of this
theory see Edgar S. Brightman, The Problem of God (New York: Abingdon, 1930).
Harkness's view differs somewhat. See her text, The Recovery of Ideals (New York:
Scribners, 1937), Chapter XIII.
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*Rufus Burrow is Associate Professor of Church and Society at Christian Theological Seminary.
ENCOUNTER 53.4 (381) AUTUMN 1992
382
proposed by Bowne. Mine will not be an exhaustive treatment of his views. I shall
discuss some of the more salient features of his theism and implications for the theodicy
question. Bowne nowhere examines the problem of evil in a systematic way, but much of
what he discusses in his metaphysics, philosophy of religion and more theological
writings has bearing on the subject. Finally, I will consider whether Bowne is at every
point the thoroughgoing empiricist he claims to be, particularly in his doctrine of God.
Personalists in the tradition of Bowne have espoused some of the most
traditional, as well as the most unorthodox doctrines of God. They have no uniform
doctrine of God, nor is there unanimity of thought regarding time and its relation to God
and the world.3 The mainstream of the personalist tradition adheres to the traditional
view of God as omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, and nontemporal. This is the
view of Bowne, though he defined the divine attributes differently from more classical
views. For example, he does not define omnipotent to mean that God can do all things.
It means, rather, that God can do all things that are doable. To speak of God as
Absolute means only that God is limited by nothing within or outside Godself and that
God is that upon which all else depends and has its being.4
3See Albert C. Knudson, The Philosophy of Personalism (New York: Abingdon,
1927), pp. 21, 50, 51, 61, 261.
4Bowne, Theism (New York: American Book Company, 1902), pp. 60-61, 164.
Against Impersonalism and the Metaphysical Absolute
Borden Parker Bowne's Doctrine of God
383
Much of Bowne's theism is a reaction against the agnosticism of Herbert Spencer (1820-
1903); his belief that God is an impersonal "Unknowable;" and his theory that it is
somehow possible to arrive at the personal through the impersonal. Spencer postulated
that persons can only know the phenomenal object and its relations of coexistence with
other objects and succession. But of the noumenal object behind the phenomenal object,
nothing can be known. Reality, accordingly, is completely unknowable to human reason.
Bowne, on the other hand, insists that our knowledge of reality is imperfect and
inadequate, "but to declare [knowledge] utterly false, is fatal to religion." That we
cannot know absolute Truth does not mean that we can know no truth. That we cannot
know all there is to know about God, for example, does not mean we can know nothing
about God. Bowne argues that since we and God are kin this itself implies that we can
know something about God and other ultimate things.5
According to Spencer, mind or the personal is a derivative of an impersonal
force or matter. His evolutionary thought had no place for the personal as cause.
Although he insisted that his doctrine was not atheistic, his "Unknowable" is without
sense, intelligence, or will. Though unwilling to admit it, Spencer was essentially a
metaphysical materialist. He believed that matter, without intelligence, is the cause of all
things. He rejected the idea of a personal God, freedom, and immortality.
Throughout his career Bowne's was mostly a scathing critique of Spencer. In
his philosophy classes he used Spencer's system as a philosophical cadaver.6 He argued
cogently against all systems of impersonalism.7 Of Spencer he finally concludes: "In his
present position this modern Samson parallels the ancient by pulling the temple on his
own head."8
In addition, Bowne had no use for conceptions of an Absolute that is
metaphysically absolute and completely devoid of moral attributes, e.g., love, holiness
and goodness. An example of such a God is the God of Aristotle, who essentially set all
things in motion and then removed Godself from any involvement in the world. This
5Bowne, The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer (New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1874), pp.
77-78.
6Bowne's first book was The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer (1874). His last,
published posthumously, was Kant and Spencer (1912).
7See Bowne, Personalism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908), Chapter V.
8The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, p. 49.
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God is not concerned with events in the world, and according to Bowne, is not the God
of the Christian faith. It is, rather, the God of philosophy, the God who "is
metaphysically conceived and has only a metaphysical function."9 Too often the God of
philosophy, even when in possession of moral qualities, possesses them in only abstract
ways. Bowne had little patience with an Absolute God whose "holiness consisted mainly
in making rules for men and in punishing their transgression."10 He had only contempt
for such a despotic deity who displays no obligation to created persons and the rest of
creation. Such a God, he believed, is not worthy of worship.
Bowne's insistence on the phenomenality or ideality of time and his discussion
of change and identity have important implications for his doctrine of God. However,
though he does an admirable job of discussing the goodness of God or the moral-ethical
attributes of God, he gives scant attention to the theodicy question, though he was aware
that over against the facts of happiness are "the facts of misery," and that they "are
neither few nor insignificant"11 What we do not see in Bowne, however, is a systematic
treatment of these facts with reference to divine omnipotence and omnibenevolence.
This issue is particularly important for personalism since its central category is the
person. It is crucial, therefore, that we have the best possible understanding of the
theodicy question and how evil, suffering, and pain affects the supreme value, i.e., the
person.
Bowne contends that any limitations God may have are self-imposed. But one
wonders about the empirical, moral, or religious adequacy of this view in light of the
magnitude of evil, suffering and pain in the world. This issue takes on more acute
dimensions in the face of suffering and pain which are not due to misuse of human
freedom.12 Concluding that the problem of evil "admits of no speculative solution. . .,"13
9Bowne, "The Logic of Religious Belief," Warren Steinkraus, ed., Representative
Essays of Borden Parker Bowne (New York: Meridian Publishing Company, 1984), p.
154.
10Bowne, Personalism, p. 297.
11Bowne, "The Logic of Religious Belief," p. 155.
12See the caution Brightman raises regarding the tendency to appeal to human
freedom to explain too much regarding the tremendous amount of pain and suffering in
the world. (See Edgar S. Brightman, A Philosophy of Religion [Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1940], p. 260.) Indeed, Bowne himself raises the issue in passing
in his posthumously published text, Studies in Christianity (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
Borden Parker Bowne's Doctrine of God
385
Bowne resorts to faith, claiming essentially with the writers of the Bible that ultimately
all things work together for good.
Bowne's Argument for Theism
Bowne contends that from the standpoint of logic the most acute argument for
theism is the intelligibility of the universe. He considers five arguments for the
intelligence of the world-ground. Of these the least important (common sense
arguments), are inductive: the arguments from order, teleology, and finite intelligence.
The more important arguments for theism are speculative: the arguments from
epistemology, and metaphysics. Epistemology shows, according to Bowne, that to know
things we must think them, or "form thoughts which truly grasp the contents or meaning
of the things."14 We are at an impasse if we do not assume "that the thing world is
essentially a thought world, or a world which roots and expresses thought." (italics
mine) All of nature is characterized by thought. "Nature is speech, not existence," writes
Bowne. "If nature expresses the thought of a thinker beyond it, it is quite credible that
we should find thought in it."15
Metaphysics, on the other hand, shows that the categories of mind have no
existence apart from intelligence. Going beyond his teacher, Hermann Lotze, Bowne
opts for transcendental empiricism, the view that the categories of thought do not
explain mind; mind explains the categories of thought.16 The argument from
metaphysics leads to the conclusion that only active intelligence "fills out the true notion
of being, unity, identity, and causality."
If the universe were not intelligent we would have no way of getting in touch
with it, though we are intelligent beings. That we have been able to read the universe
and unravel some of its secrets is evidence that it is a product of thought or intelligence.
1910), p. 151.
13Bowne, Metaphysics (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898), p. 296.
14Theism, pp. 129-130.
15Ibid., p. 134.
16Metaphysics, pp. 66, 91, 101, 119, 186, 340-341.
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We can know this because we too are products of thought, and Bowne is adamant that
thought can only speak its own language. In order for us to know anything at all there
must be thought at both ends.17 Thought can grasp nothing but thought or thought
relations. All of this assumes, of course, the trustworthiness of reason itself. Any
evidence of intelligibility in the universe is a clue that it is intelligible to mind.
That the argument from intelligence is "the decisive argument for theism," does
not mean that the universe is fully intelligible to the finite mind. It means that finite
mind could not even know the universe is there if it were not through and through
intelligible. Much that we would like to know about the universe will likely remain a
mystery. The point Bowne wants us to grasp is that there is a message there, and
because reality is of the nature of mind, we are capable of unraveling some of the
mystery. We can "get in touch" with the universe because we share with it the common
trait of intelligence.
Although Bowne stressed the decisiveness of this argument, he warned that we
should not expect it to prove too much. It shows us only that there is a Mind back of all
things. It tells us nothing about the moral-religious nature of Mind, or whether it even
has such a nature. To conclude that the intelligibility of the universe points to Intelligent
Mind which is the fundamental cause of things does not necessarily point to the God of
Christianity, for example.18 The argument from intelligence points to theism, but not in
the fullest sense of the existence of a God worthy of worship. Though intellectual factors
are important in the argument for theism, other factors, e.g., religious and moral, are
necessary if we are to arrive at a reasonable conception of the God of Christian faith.
As for other matters pertaining to attributes of God, Bowne held the line on the
need to allow the evidence to inform what we think about God. This is an important
methodological consideration for Bowne, and at every step we need to ask whether he
consistently adheres to it when he draws conclusions. Is he as thoroughgoing in his
empiricism as he can be? Does he allow the facts, particularly what he often refers to as
"the dark things" [sic], to inform his conclusions about God's power and the theodicy
question?
Bowne did not begin his exposition of theism with a full-blown religious
conception of God. Rather, he began by establishing the intelligibility and unity of the
17Theism, p. 134.
18See Francis J. McConnell's commentary in, Borden Parker Bowne (New York:
Abingdon Press, 1929), p. 123.
Borden Parker Bowne's Doctrine of God
387
world-ground. Metaphysics affirms both of these, but this is a long way from a complete
theistic view.19 Bowne is consciously methodical in his movement toward a view of a
God who is more than an out of touch metaphysical entity. Indeed, his is a long, tedious
argument that is redundant at several points.20 He first wants to establish the existence
of the One of philosophy, and to show that it is a unity. Once the metaphysical attributes
of God are established, Bowne proceeds to determine the nature of the God of religious
faith. In the next section I will discuss the metaphysical attributes of God, with some
reference to the moral-ethical qualities. The conclusion will briefly address the theodicy
question and whether Bowne's view is empirically adequate.
Metaphysical Attributes of God
Bowne highlights two classes of divine attributes. The first are metaphysical:
unity, unchangeability, eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. The
second category includes the more concrete, worship-inspiring ethical attributes: love,
holiness, righteous- ness, mercy, justice. The metaphysical attributes "aim to tell what
God is by virtue of his position as first cause." The second class of attributes pertains to
the moral nature of God and God's more intimate relations with created persons and the
rest of creation.21
Each attribute must be carefully related to the evidence. Bowne wants to avoid
forcing conclusions, and therefore does not move too hurriedly from the argument from
intelligence to the existence of the God of Christian faith. Though his is a slow, tedious
argument, he believes the consideration of the metaphysical attributes brings us to a
better understanding of a real living God, but in order to arrive at the richest, most
worship-inspiring conception of God it will be necessary to consider God's ethical
nature.
Bowne is convinced that there is a point beyond which philosophy cannot take
19Theism, pp. 50, 62.
20Although Bowne apologized for "the tedium of this incessant repetition" in Theory
of Thought and Knowledge (p. 62), others of his major works are characterized by the
same, which suggests that he used this as a major pedagogical tool. This conclusion
makes sense, especially when we remember that most of his books were written as
textbooks for his students.
21Theism, p. 172.
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us regarding the nature of God. An element of mystery always remains. Though he
allows us to appeal to "the worship and adoration of religion" in such cases, he cautions
that it is not a procedure that the careful thinker will resort to quickly. Indeed, prior to
dependence on ethical and religious demands Bowne is vigilant in his efforts to lay the
epistemological and metaphysical bases for our thought about the divine attributes,
God's relation to created persons, and the world. However, procedurally he does not
hesitate to rely upon the moral-ethical and religious contributions toward the
development of a worship-inspiring idea of God.
Unity
If a thing is a unity it is at least uncompounded, indivisible, without distinction
of parts, and implies that there is but one fundamental existence.22 What Bowne means
here is that not only must God be one, but only. Bowne therefore rejects the henotheistic
belief in multiple gods who each occupy their own separate universe. Bowne's concern is
that should there be a chance meeting and interaction between these gods in a common
universe, "they would necessarily become finite and conditioned beings in mutual
interaction, and hence not independent and self-existent.23 He understood the unity of
the world-ground to mean that all things "which are bound up in a scheme of interaction
must have their existence in some one thing on which they depend."24 Since, according
to Bowne, this being establishes the scheme or system, all that is in the system must flow
from it.
Bowne concedes the possibility that many universes may exist, but is adamant
that in order to account for this it would still be necessary to postulate the existence of a
single unitary being. Even those who claim a separate metaphysical existence for God,
space, and time still have to resolve the issue of how such "independent and unrelated
existences could be brought into mutual relations. . . ."25 How, Bowne would ask, can we
account for the interaction of mutually distinct beings?
It should be clear, however, that Bowne rejected the notion of the existence of
22Ibid., pp. 173, 177.
23Ibid., pp. 175-176.
24Ibid., p. 176.
25Ibid., pp. 176-177.
Borden Parker Bowne's Doctrine of God
389
other fundamental realities.26 Indeed, it was he who said that "mind is the only
ontological reality," a view that has been problematic for generations of Bownean
personalists,27 as well as thinkers outside the personalist tradition. But all personalists in
the Bownean tradition agree that there must be one fundamental unitary existence to
account for the plurality of beings in existence, their nature, and what order or regularity
there is in Nature and the world. Without such a unifying Ground, would not the order
and organization we observe and experience in nature be little more than a continual
surprise? Bowneans hold that we can reasonably account for the uniformity and
orderliness we observe in nature only by postulating the existence of a "more unified,
overarching, or immanent, or interpenetrating Order." By grounding "the proximate
orders of our environment in an intrinsically unitary Ground," we have more reason for
"trust in the uniformity of Nature."28
26Ibid., p. 176.
27Metaphysics, p. 423. Bowne made a clear distinction between phenomenal and
ontological reality, holding that although both are real, they do not have the same reality
(p. 8). But even this did not absolve him from criticism. Brightman, originally sharing
Bowne's view, relaxed his position as a result of the critique of Georgia Harkness and
the influence of Alfred N. Whitehead's work. He finally concluded that persons are the
dominant, not the sole or only metaphysical realities [See Brightman, "Personalism,"
Vergilius Ferm, ed., An Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: The Philosophical
Library, 1945), p. 576.] Harkness developed what Diane Carpenter has called her own
"distinctive personalistic synthesis" ("Georgia Harkness's Distinctive Personalistic
Synthesis," Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 1988). Harkness acknowledged that
she had been "reared in the personalistic tradition which holds that God and human
persons are the only metaphysical realities." She finally gave this view only partial
assent. "My present view comes closer to a form of theistic realism. I now see no valid
sense in which it is possible to say that only persons are metaphysically real. . . . There
are at least three other types of interrelated reality: events, things (living or inanimate),
and eternal forms" [Harkness, The Recovery of Ideals (New York: Scribner's, 1937), pp.
165, 166-169]. Peter A. Bertocci likewise implies the existence of a plurality of ultimate
beings or structures, while insisting that they still must be grounded in an intrinsically
unitary Being, Ground, or Structure [See The Goodness of God (Washington, D.C.:
University Press of America, 1981), Chapter Six].
28Bertocci, The Goodness of God, pp. 134, 136-137.
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The chief paradigm of real unity in experience is the conscious self. Peter A.
Bertocci contends that "any other model for unity is only makeshift until we can make
our way to the unity exemplified in persons."29 This insistence on unity in the worldground
has important implications for Edgar S. Brightman's theory of the nonrational
Given within the divine nature. If the world-ground is truly indivisible and
uncompounded, as Bowne argues, this nullifies the criticism that by locating the Given
within the divine consciousness, Brightman sets up a dualism at the seat of the
universe.30 Indeed, for personalists, to be a person--human or divine--is to be a complex
unity (among other things) of activity potentials, e.g., willing, wanting, appreciating,
striving to achieve ideal values, etc.; of "given" rational and non-rational factors within
consciousness.
Unchangeability
Unchangeability refers to "the constancy and continuity of the divine nature
which exists through all the divine acts as their law and source."31 Bowne's discussion of
unchangeability is a clear indicator of the ambivalence in his thinking about time.32 For
example, he sometimes suggests that time is relevant to God and that God is in time. In
other instances he contends that God is beyond time.33 Yet elsewhere he writes of the
impossibility of reaching "the ideality of time by eliminating change from being."34
29Bertocci, "Borden Parker Bowne and His Personalistic Theistic Idealism," Ultimate
Reality, Volume 2, Number 3, 1979, p. 221.
30See Brightman, The Problem of God (New York: Abingdon, 1930), Chapters 5-7.
31Theism, p. 178.
32See José Franquiz Ventura's discussion of the ambivalence in Bowne's thinking
regarding God and time [See José Franquiz Ventura, Borden Parker Bowne's Treatment
of the Problem of Change and Identity (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: University of Puerto
Rico, 1942.])
33Theism, pp. 182-183.
34Bowne, Metaphysics, p. 178. See also Bowne, Kant and Spencer: A Critical
Exposition (Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1967) [1912], p. 49.
Borden Parker Bowne's Doctrine of God
391
José Franquiz Ventura concludes that in most cases Bowne opted for the
ideality of time. God, according to Bowne, is beyond time.35 Bowne does not adequately
solve this problem, but he was at least aware that a serious problem exists in the
treatment of God and time. He could see, for example, the problem with an unchanging
soul substance in light of a changing world. But having written repeatedly about the
non-temporality of God and the idea that God is not conditioned by time, he vacillates
on the issue.
Bowne could not bring himself to say, as Brightman would in a later critique,
that "all experience, whether human or divine, is a temporally moving present. Nothing
real is a nunc stans. Activity, change, duration are the essence of the real. The real
endures; the real changes; the real grows."36 As a significant part of the real, God,
according to Brightman, changes and endures. It is important to note, however, that one
of Bowne's greatest fears was that by acknowledging that God is temporal one would
have to conclude that God develops and evolves. Bowne was having none of this, since it
seemed to him that such a God is less perfect than can be, and therefore is less worshipinspiring.
He concludes that "the notion of an evolving, developing God does not
commend itself to speculative thought."37
Bowne finally removes God from all change and time. "Nothing will meet the
case except the conception of the absolute person, which freely posits a changing worldorder
without being himself involved in the change."38 (italics mine) Here Bowne
violates his empirical method and resorts to a Deus ex machina. Without presenting
adequate evidence he concludes that what change exists in the world exists for created
persons, not for God. An implication here must be that what happens in God's world
does not affect God. It is less problematic however, that Bowne contends that "the only
changelessness we need is not the rigidity of a logical category but the self-identity and
self-equality of intelligence."39
35José Franquiz Ventura, Borden Parker Bowne's Treatment of the Problem of
Change and Identity, p. 204.
36Edgar S. Brightman, Person and reality (New York: Ronald Press, 1958), p. 323.
37Theism, pp. 212, 183, 184.
38Metaphysics, p. 190.
39Theism, p. 179.
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Bowne does not adequately respond to the question of how an unchanging God
who has created a world of change and development, and who is, by virtue of his own
argument, immanent in and concerned about all of creation, remains unaffected by both
the changes that occur and the choices made by created persons. If God is not in time, it
is difficult to explain how God can be affected by time and change. This must be seen as
a severe qualification of the love he claims God possesses for created persons. If God is
holy love, and therefore capable of loving supremely, God must be affected in some
way(s) by the object loved and should be able to affect that object in positive ways.
Eternity
Bowne does not want God to be considered limited in any way regarding
eternity. Bertocci has characterized the issue quite well. "If the thrust of omnipresence is
to reject limitations in the here and there of spatiality, the thrust of eternity is to deny
the now but not then suggested by time."40 Bowne contends that in the most minimal
sense eternity has to do with "unbegun and endless duration of existence." This means
that God is unbegun and unending, changeless amid change, and consequently never
affected by change. God, then, is non-temporal.
God, according to Bowne, is unconditioned and therefore not subject to time.
God remains changeless in the presence of change, even though this seems like a
contradiction.41 Bowne is concerned because it appears to him that if God changes, God
cannot be in full possession of Godself. It was difficult for him to see how such a God
could be viewed as dependable. Change, he contends, has meaning only for the
unchangeable. True changelessness is found only in the self-identity or self-equality of
the person.
Omnipresence
In Metaphysics (1898), Bowne suggests that as a category of mind, space is a
principle in being; being is not in space. To conclude that being is in space would mean
that space is "a self-existent reality," a view that would lead to the conclusion that there
is not one, but at least two fundamental beings. As in the case of time, Bowne concludes
40Bertocci, "Borden Parker Bowne and His Personalistic Theistic Idealism," p. 222.
41Theism, p. 185.
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393
that space is phenomenal or ideal. "If space be a real objective existence, then the
infinite, or rather God, is in space, and possesses bulk and diameter."42 But if something
exists in space it possesses volume, and therefore cannot be a unity. Bowne is quite
adamant about the implications of a real space for God and the issue of omnipresence.43
The metaphysical reality of space would bring into question the unity of the worldground
as well as "the unity of all principles in one fundamental being." Space is a form
of intuition, not a mode of existence. Things are not in space and space-relations, but
only appear to be. But Bowne is careful to point out that if we admit the subjectivity of
space we must also concede that there is something beyond ourselves which determines
our spatial experience. "This objective factor may be conceived in two ways. We may
regard it as a non-spatial system with which we are in interaction; or we may regard it
as God himself, who is reproducing in finite thought the order which exists in his
infinite thought."44 Phenomenal reality, e.g., the paper on which I am typing, exists
spatially. However, "proper ontological reality" does not exist in space and has no
spatial predicates.
As immanent in all things, God is omnipresent. Since God is not an extended
being in space, it is conceivable that God never has to take leave from any given place in
order to get to some other place. God does not have to cease one activity in order to start
another in some distant place. God needs no "media" in order to do what God needs or
desires to do in the world. Instead, God's "activity is rather immediately and completely
present." Similarly, if created persons desire to get in touch with God, e.g., through
prayer, "neither the prayer nor the person need go wandering about to reach and find
God; for we live and have our being in him; and he is an ever-present power in us."45
Elsewhere Bowne writes that God "comprises all reality in the unity of [God's]
immediate activity, and hence is everywhere. For by omnipresence we can mean
nothing more than this immediate action upon all reality."46
42Metaphysics, p. 133.
43Ibid., pp. 133-134.
44Ibid., p. 139.
45Theism, pp. 180-181.
46Metaphysics, p. 155.
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Omniscience
Though in "the largest sense" omniscience means knowledge of all things, past,
present, future, necessary, and free,47 there must be a limitation on this meaning in light
of human freedom. That is, the classical meaning of omniscience is so broad that it also
includes divine foreknowledge of the free acts of created persons. If humans are indeed
free, and Bowne believes that to be is to be free, a free act is only a possibility until it is
actually performed. Just as the omnipotent God can do all that is doable, the omniscient
God can only know all that is knowable. Human freedom is a limitation on divine
foreknowledge.
Though it must be conceded that an infinite and omniscient God may have
ways of knowing and knows things that are inscrutable to us, such a God cannot know
the specific choice we will make prior to our making the selection. God can, however,
know the full range of alternatives before us at any given time. But if freedom means
anything at all it cannot be said that God knows in advance the specific choice we will
make.
God knows all that is knowable about past, present, and future, and all that is
expressed in the order of Nature. But because of human freedom God's knowledge of the
future is limited to the vast range of choices open to humans. God cannot foresee the
actual choices that will be made prior to the selection. Indeed, if God both knows and is
omnipotent (as Bowne suggests), but does nothing to prevent selections of choices that
will lead to tragedy and unnecessary suffering, we must question the divine goodness
and love. However, Bowne is adamant that God may have "modes of knowing" that we
cannot comprehend.
Omnipotence
Bowne's is an absolutistic theism, though not of the Hegelian variety. God is
restricted or limited by nothing in or outside God's nature. Bowne opposes those who
claim that God is "limited by some necessities, probably self-existent and eternal, which
cannot be transcended."48 Such a view is incommensurate with both the religious
experiences of individuals and with speculative thought, since it implies a weak God.
47Theism, pp. 186-187.
48Ibid., p. 190.
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Bowne writes that "there is no inherent intractability in the nature of things which
forbids" the human achievement of universal good-will and the elimination of moral
evil, which is the cause of most of the suffering and pain in the world.49 Rather, the
problem, according to Bowne, lies within human nature (freedom) itself. But just as he
rejects the idea of a God limited by "necessities of reason, or eternal truths," he
denounces the idea of a God who can do everything, including the impossible and the
ridiculous. In addition, and in keeping with the attribute of unity, Bowne holds that if
God were limited the eternal truths and necessities of reason would have to be internal,50
rather than external to God's nature.
Bowne acknowledged the existence of divine self-imposed limitations. The
evidence of these include the creation of free finite beings, and God's own goodness and
reason, which are eternally coexistent and integral to God's being. Bowne does not
consider self-imposed limitations to be incompatible with divine omnipotence. Indeed,
he thinks they enhance God's omnipotence, for it may be argued that only a truly
omnipotent God can place limitations upon Godself.
In his discussion of the metaphysical attributes of the World Ground, Bowne
said nothing about suffering, pain, and evil in the world. Perhaps this is just as well,
since at this point in his tedious argument it has not been established that God is a good
and loving God. But even when this is established, Bowne observes almost nonchalantly,
that much of the suffering in the world is due to the misuse of human freedom.51
However, he says very little about how, in light of a God he claims to be both
omnipotent and omnibenevolent, there exists so much pain and suffering not directly
attributable to the misuse of human freedom. Referring to evil or tragedy as the "dark
things" of life, and writing of "the meaningless aspects of existence," and "the cosmic
labor which seems to end in nothing,"52 Bowne concludes that they do have their uses in
the moral order. He stresses the view that character is made through suffering; that
persons are perfected through suffering and struggle; and that the goodness of the world
49Ibid., p. 280.
50Ibid., pp. 191, 192. This view actually foreshadows Brightman's doctrine of the
uncreated, internal, nonrational Given.
51Ibid., p. 277.
52Ibid., pp. 278, 258.
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consists in making it infinitely better.53
So what we find in Bowne and his absolutistic theism is an adamant or
"decided meliorism." Persons and the world have been created in such a way that the
conditions are always ripe for perfectibility. "God's great provision for maintaining that
practical optimism without which life could not go on, is found in the inextinguishable
hopefulness of humanity."54 What is needed, he contends, is conscious effort, persistent
good-will, and love of God and neighbor as one's self, and "a great many evils would
disappear at once," and "we should be far on the way toward the coming of his [God's]
kingdom."55 For Bowne the goodness of the world consists in the possibility of making it
indefinitely better, and in furnishing the conditions for so doing. But finally, the hope
must rest in the testimony of countless generations "that we are in our Father's hands,
and that, having brought us thus far on our Godward way, he may well be trusted to
finish the work he has begun."56 For Bowne it is significant that no matter how
mysterious, sinister, and evil are many aspects of the world, we have the assurance that
it is still God's world--a personal and moral world wherein we need not feel "helpless
and hopeless."57
What we finally come to in Bowne's theism is the idea of a God whose nature is
"holy love;" a God who is transcendent in that the being of all things is dependent upon
God; and a God who is immanent in the sense that God is the ever present power in and
through which all things exist and have their being. However, we do not find in Bowne
a satisfactory response to the problem of evil and suffering, whose cause(s) may be
beyond human freedom.
Conclusion
Bowne was one of the keenest, most original metaphysicians of his day. He has
the distinction of being the first to systematize American personalism and to develop it
53Ibid., pp. 278, 281.
54Ibid., p. 283.
55Bowne, Studies in Christianity (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910), p. 308.
56Theism, p. 284.
57Bowne, The Immanence of God (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905), p. 152.
Borden Parker Bowne's Doctrine of God
397
into a method and a way of thinking about the whole of reality and life. Bowne was not
just a personal idealist, but a theistic personal idealist. In the sense that his philosophy is
profoundly theistic, Bowne, like Spinoza, was a God-intoxicated philosopher.
As implied throughout this essay Bowne did a commendable job of showing
how the argument from the intelligibility of the universe points to an intelligible cause
of all things. Because Bowne was a staunch Christian he was aware that no matter
where he came out in his discussion of the metaphysical attributes of God it would not
be a God that is worship-inspiring. He concludes that the ethical nature of God is holy
love,58 and that the object of worship must be supreme reason, supreme righteousness,
supreme goodness or ethical love, and have the highest possible conception of created
persons.59
According to Bowne God is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent. He saw no
incompatibility between these attributes, concluding that the God of religion--especially
Christian religion--must be a God of love and therefore moral. As omnipotent, then,
God must be moral and responsible in the use of power. Just as those who possess power
in the world are expected to use it morally and for the enhancement of those who have
less, it is expected that the Judge of all will do so. "We see that the law of love applies
to power as well as to weakness, that the strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak
and not to please themselves; that the greatest of all must be the servant of all, and the
chief of burden bearers."60 It was God who called persons into existence in this type of
world with such tremendous possibilities for both good and evil. As the Cosmic Parent,
God is responsible and obligated to care for the created family and the rest of creation. If
this is indeed a moral world, the strongest, the most powerful are obligated to bear the
burdens of the weak.61 In such a world it is not enough to say that God is a God of love.
God must do works of love.
Yet, as consoling as this idea is it does not take us very far in understanding
how a God who is both omnipotent and moral can allow the continued existence of evil
and suffering that does not appear to be caused by the misuse of human freedom. Bowne
himself thought that most of the suffering and pain in the world is caused by the lack of
58Theism, p. 286.
59Personalism, pp. 293-300.
60Ibid, p. 298.
61Studies in Chrisianity, pp. 95, 98, 144.
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good will and the misuse of freedom. Unlike theistic finitists, the problem, according to
Bowne, is not some "inherent intractability in the nature of things." Rather, if persons
would only love God, righteousness, and neighbor with all their might there would be
"the immediate amelioration of all our woes, and the speedy removal of most of them."62
Bowne believed, naively, that if enough individuals are redeemed the world itself would
be redeemed.
Quite apart from revealing Bowne's naiveté regarding the role of socioeconomic
and other forces in the cause and solution of social problems, we also detect
his failure to take seriously the existence of nonmoral evils that lead to excruciating
suffering and pain. If his God is both omnipotent and moral, one wonders why such
evils exist, since such a God has the power to eradicate them, and the moral nature of
God would require that God do so. Although we may say that some incurable diseases
have developed because of choices that persons have made, this does not explain why
innocent persons who did not participate in these choices have had to suffer and die. In
the case of AIDS, for example, why did the young teen, Ryan White, of Indianapolis,
Indiana have to suffer and finally succumb to this (presently) incurable disease? Why
did his mother have to suffer, and still suffers, because of choices made by others?63 Or,
more specifically, because of a deadly virus, which is itself amoral, and therefore attacks
the immune system of innocent persons regardless of gender, race, age, or class. How do
62Theism, p. 279.
63I am indebted to my student, Ms. Beth Meyerson, who has pointed out that
important as self-determination is regarding discussions on God, omnipotence, and
morality, the HIV virus has not come about because of the choices of persons. (This
brings to mind the concern Brightman raised about trying to use freedom to explain too
much regarding the problem of evil, when it may be that there is some intractable
element in the nature of things which is the culprit.) Meyerson correctly discerns that
Ryan White, for example, was an innocent victim whose immune system was attacked
by the HIV virus, which is itself amoral. The virus does not choose to attack the immune
system of some, rather than others. If the virus were an intelligent and moral entity it
would be difficult to understand why it attacks the immune systems of the systematically
oppressed and demoralized peoples of the world rather than those of power-hungry,
selfish oppressors. The point is that this is a much more complex issue than my
discussion implies, but one that any adequate personalistic conception of God must
address.
Borden Parker Bowne's Doctrine of God
399
we explain the existence of such a deadly virus in a world thought to be created by a God
thought to be both absolute and omnibenevolent? One of the ways the HIV virus is
transmitted is through sexual intercourse. Why is the sex drive itself so powerful in
persons? Indeed, does the fact of freedom explain why the consequences of some of our
choices are so devastating?
We cannot hope to find intelligible responses to these and related questions in
Bowne's response to the theodicy issue. We must look elsewhere, although I think
Bowne had a suspicion that his view was not adequate at this point. Unfortunately, he
was not able to follow the evidence where it seemed to be pointing.64
In the discussion of unchangeability and eternity I discussed Bowne's struggle
with the idea of a temporal God. If God is in time and therefore affected by it, Bowne
believed this would lead to the idea of a developing God, which, in his view, diminishes
the dignity of God. So he insisted that God is the only person who is neither in nor
affected by time. At this point Bowne was not aware that he was violating his own
empirical method, and that in the search for truth one must begin and end with the facts
of experience, and be brave enough to follow the facts where they lead. The point, after
all, is not whether we can have the kind of God we would like to have, but that we have
the courage to take seriously the kind of God to which the facts point. Had Bowne
pushed a little further he would have seen that by being in and affected by time God's
dignity can only be enriched, since God would both affect and be affected by all that
happens in the world. This brings God even closer to persons and creation.
But what is even more instructive in Bowne's concern that a temporal God
would have to be a developing God, is his failure to see that a more empirically adequate
view of God, suffering and pain lay precisely in the idea of a developing God--a God
who both changes and remains the same. Bowne was aware that it is of the nature of the
person to both change and remain the same, which implies that persons have a dipolar
nature. The problem is that he was not consistent in applying both of these qualities to
the Supreme Person. The thoroughgoingness of his personalism breaks down here. Had
Bowne explicitly developed and defended a dipolar theism (as did Brightman and
Bertocci) his doctrine of God may be a more relevant response to the problem of evil.
Interestingly, in the treatment of God and time, Bowne himself implied that God has at
64In a soon to be published essay, "Borden P. Bowne's Contribution to Theistic
Finitism," I argue that although Bowne was a theistic absolutist, there is evidence in his
work which points to the finitistic conclusion as a more reasonable way of accounting
for certain types of evil and suffering in the world.
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least two natures. "In his absolute, self-related existence, God is timeless."65 This
implies that God has another nature, although Bowne did not develop this line of
reasoning. And at another place he wrote: "The world-ground is, indeed, unconditioned
by anything beyond itself; but it must be conditioned by its own nature in any case, and
the question arises whether this conditioning involves temporal sequence in the infinite
life itself."66 Had Bowne pressed these views further he may have seen that an aspect of
God's nature may be relative and affected by all that happens in the world, while another
may remain unchanging. At any rate, a more reasonable response to the theodicy issue
may be found in theories of dipolar theism, such as those represented in the work of
Alfred Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and Brightman.67 Although dipolarity is implicit
in Bowne's work, we cannot look to him for the most constructive and systematic
treatment.
65Theism, p. 224. See also pp. 182, 186.
66 Ibid., p. 182.
67See my article, "The Personalistic Theism of Edgar S. Brightman," Encounter,
Volume 53, No. 2 (Spring, 1992).