Does Classical Theism Exist?

Last year I read a recent book by John Cooper entitled Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers. It was a very good book as far as that goes, jam-packed with information. It was well written, well researched, and for the most part was charitable to those he disagreed with (though I have to admit his interpretation of Pannenberg chafed me at several points) and overall, despite his summaries often being very brief, I learned quite a bit. However one of the interesting questions that came into my mind while reading this, in light of the fact that Cooper wants to defend "Classical theism," is the question "Does Classical Theism actually exist?" He cites in his defense a traditional gamut of thinkers from Augustine to Aquinas, Anselm to Calvin. But there is in Coopers book a curious lack of Eastern Orthodox thinkers, or even many representatives from the eastern Greek tradition (except insofar as they represent what Cooper sees as deviations from classical theism, like pseudo-Dionysius or Nicolai Berdyaev). No Cappadocians. No Athanasius, John of Damascus, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor, no modern day thinkers like Zizioulas, Hart, Afanasiev, Bulgakov, Lossky, Ware, etc... This leads me to wonder that if we are, as Christians, to affirm something along the lines of "Classical Theism," if this is itself a sufficiently "Christian," category, as it really--via the categories employed--seems to me to point to a particularly Western pathology. In fact many Easterners who have become aware of these categories whole-heartedly affirm their affinity to the category "panentheist," without blinking an eye, and move on from there.

Of course Eastern thinkers like the Cappadocians would want to affirm God's immutability et al...But Cooper for example wants to deny any ontological participation on the part of creation "in" God (e.g pp.339ff):

Nicholas of Cusa, Hegel, Hartshorne, Pannenberg, Clayton, and others allege a philosophical proof for their theology--the argument from Infinity. Because God is absolutely infinite, nothing can be completely other or outside him. For, if anything were, then God would be limited by it, that is, finite, that is not-infinite, which is impossible by definition. Therefore all finite reality and relative infinity (mathematical, spatial, temporal, etc.) must be within the absolutlely infinite God, which entails panentheism.

Let us concede that the argument from infinity is sound in a formal sense...this argument does not prove panentheism however, if only because classical theism also affirms the conclusion but interprets it differently Panentheists construe infinity in terms of ontological "in-ness." But classical theists explain it just as well in terms of God's voluntary immanence: All relative infinity and finite existence are immanent in the knowledge and power of God as possibilities he can choose to actualize. If he chooses to actualize them, then they are actually immanent to his omnipotent, onmiscient, concrrent presence, but they are not in him ontologically (p.339)

A few pages later Cooper notes (as he does also at the beginning of the book) that he supports "Reformed Christian classical theism." (p.342). Before I briefly critique this it should be noted that Cooper "affirms fellowship with many Christian theologians who...profess or imply panentheism or other kinds of relational...theology." (Ibid). Cooper is not here pulling (as way too many do) the "heretic," or "non-Christian," card against non-classical Theists. This is a welcome reprieve from the polemics and vitriol that are so often strewn about.

Nonetheless here are a few observations of why I'm not totally convinced about Cooper's overview and critique, which involves several questions that I think would be interesting to address in a follow-up volume or perhaps a complementary study:

1.) As I said before the near total lack of interaction with Eastern Christian sources creates something of a massive lacuna that hangs like a question mark over Cooper's otherwise interesting work. In what sense is the label "classical theism," helpful if it only has the ability to comprehend under itself various thinkers from the Latin west onward (and only then loosely, as thinkers who follow this generality differ from one another, often very greatly)?

2.) Following the first question, in what sense does "Classical theism," as Cooper represents it, completely rule out theosis? Cooper wants to affirm God's true infinity while nonetheless simply affirming a Voluntarist reading of God as the only philosophically sound option (i.e. God is everywhere as He wills this). Cooper, in the paragraph quoted above, is a little sneaky (though not in an intentionally underhanded way) because he wants to say that those who want to affirm an actual ontological participation in God must reduce the "otherness," of creation. These thinkers, like Pannenberg or Nicholas of Cusa, say, at least on Cooper's reading "nothing can be completely other or outside Him," because He is truly infinite. But notice what Cooper has done here: he says that an ontological participation of creation "in" God must mean that nothing can be "completely other," than God, which is why Cooper finds classical theism to be more coherent as it allows the true otherness of Creation.

While I do not think this is the time or place to argue against this specifically, and while there are some who would find this summary of Cooper to be a fair precîse of their position, many other so-called Panentheists would deny that ontological participation occludes a total otherness of creation (or would, at the very least, be uncomfortable with the terms as Cooper has let them stand). In many cases it is the exact opposite: this ontological participation is the only way true otherness can be affirmed. Pannenberg for example does indeed talk about an ontological participation of creation in God, especially regarding man's "openness" to the world, or David Hart speaks about the endless traversal and epektasis or "stretching-out" as we constantly become more like God. But for both of these thinkers our increasing similarity is simultaneous to an increasing otherness between creation and God. Both of these thinkers do not invoke an abstractly "true infinite" to be posited of God, but see God's infinity as precisely a Trinitarian (and so internally and eternally differentiated) infinity. Moreover I am curious how Cooper's take would rule out the soteriological motifs of Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, et al. While obviously Cooper would want to affirm Jesus is both God and man, the type of ontological intermingling or perichoresis (a term first applied by pseudo-Cyril to indicate conceptually the mixture without confusion or tertium quid of the two natures of Christ) seems to be ruled out or at least mitigated by his theology.

3.) Despite Cooper's generally excellent analysis of Panentheism through the ages, he unfortunately (given the nature of his work) does not also have the space to go over and elaborate the other side: the history and evolution of "Classical theism." Quite frankly I am not convinced that Reformed theism can be seen unequivocally as representing the tradition of theistic theology throughout the ages, especially in relation to the East, but also to the West. Despite the fact that Calvin makes a superhuman effort to continually refer to Augustine in his Institutes for example, Calvin does not have a complete corner on the Augustinian tradition, so to speak. Nor indeed is the "Augustinian," tradition as univocally agreed as that epithet would have us believe. One can think of even early Medieval theologians like Abelard who saw various aporiai in the Augustinian tradition and collated them in his Sic et Non exhorting his students to use their reason and decide between the various interpretations. Nor can the more Aristotelian Thomistic tradition simply be lumped together with the Augustinian (whatever the deficiencies of Etienne Gilson's love affair with Aquinas, we can surely still maintain as he did that there is, at the very least, many differences between Thomas and Augustine). At what point do we have to say that "Classical theism," is too rigid or reductionistic to be helpful? As my History of Theology professor joked with me about this issue "Classical theism might be so classical we cant find it anywhere." While neither he nor I necessarily came to any conclusions regarding classical theism (it is, after all, a huge question) I definitely think that work needs to be done, by Cooper or others, to show a continuity strong enough to be worthy of the label. And this research doesn't just need to be done by proponents of so-called "Classical," theism. I have become (startlingly) aware of the reductionistic and often absurd caricatures that occur regarding Classical theism by those who wish to "move beyond," it, in any of its multifarious forms of Process theology, Open theism, Moltmann's Trinitarian panentheism, or what have you. It seems often contemporary theology is rebelling only against a straw man, and so whatever the coherence of their new options, the supposed incoherence of "Classical" theism (often meaning Hellenized, neo-Platonized, Aristotelianized, or what have you, but whatever it is it is not "the Living God of the Bible" or so the story goes) remains suspect.

What do others think? I certainly do not have the breadth or depth of learning to judge the aptitude of the term, simply a suspicion that the terms as they stand are not as helpful as they could be. I would love input!