In God and Personality and Divine Personality, Webb examines ideas of personality and persons and their relation to broadly theistic conceptions of God. Volume 1 begins with a brief historical sketch of philosophical conceptions of personality. Webb then discusses problems in conceiving of personality as involving rationality in individuals, given that ‘rationality’ is often seen as opposed to the ‘personal’ in the sense that a feature of the ‘personal’ is a certain sort of arbitrariness, and that ‘personal’ considerations are not universally applicable. He then begins leading towards a conception of God as personal insofar as worshippers can enter into personal relations with him, starting with criticisms of attempts to finitize God. Continuing his positive account, he explores related issues such as that of God’s relation to finite entities in terms of creation, the problem of sin and perfection and religious experience as a foundation for theology. The second volume explores the notion of personality in ‘man’ in light of the conclusions drawn in the first volume, and how the ‘divine personality’ figures in spheres of human activity such as the economic, scientific, aesthetic, moral, political and religious lives. He then criticizes Naturalism and Absolute Idealism, bringing in considerations regarding the value of persons and concluding with a consideration of personal immortality.
Divine Personality and Human Life
Books
Divine Personality and Human Life
Lecture 1 The Subject Introduced
Lecture 2 Divine Personality and the Economic Life
Lecture 3 Divine Personality and the Scientific Life
Lecture 4 Divine Personality and the Æsthetic Life
Lecture 5 Divine Personality and the Moral Life
Lecture 6 Divine Personality and the Political Life
Lecture 7 Divine Personality and the Religious Life
Lecture 8 Naturalism and the Value of the Individual Person
Lecture 9 Absolute Idealism and the Value of the Individual Person
In Divine Personality and Human Life, his second series of Gifford Lectures, Webb examines the notion established in God and Personality, namely that a ‘Personal God’ is one with whom worshippers may enjoy a personal intercourse in relation to the various spheres of activity in which human personality manifests itself.
- Sam Addison, University of Aberdeen