A Brief History of the Idea of God

Dombrowski traces the development of philosophical theism from ancient Greece through contemporary process thought, offering a historical reconstruction that culminates in an argument for neoclassical theism. The work examines how successive thinkers have refined and challenged traditional conceptions of deity, ultimately advocating for a dipolar God who combines abstract perfection with concrete responsiveness to temporal reality.

The study begins with pre-Socratic and Platonic foundations, analyzing how early Greek philosophy established key divine attributes such as immutability and transcendence. Dombrowski demonstrates how Aristotle's unmoved mover and subsequent Neoplatonic elaborations shaped medieval theological synthesis, particularly through Augustine and Aquinas. This classical tradition, he argues, created an increasingly abstract deity divorced from temporal experience and genuine relationship with creation.

Central to Dombrowski's analysis is the modern critique of classical theism initiated by thinkers like Hume and Kant, who exposed logical tensions in traditional divine attributes. He examines how post-Kantian philosophy, particularly German idealism, attempted to reconcile divine transcendence with immanence. The work gives special attention to American philosophy, including Peirce's evolutionary cosmology and James's finite God hypothesis, as precursors to process theology.

The culmination of this historical survey is Dombrowski's defense of process theism, drawing primarily on Whitehead and Hartshorne. He argues that neoclassical theism resolves classical paradoxes by reconceiving God as dipolar: possessing both an eternal, necessary aspect and a temporal, contingent aspect. This allows divine perfection to include genuine responsiveness to creatures while maintaining metaphysical ultimacy. God becomes the supreme exemplification of metaphysical categories rather than their exception.

Dombrowski positions this view against both classical theism's static perfection and modern atheism's rejection of divinity altogether. He contends that process theism preserves religious values while satisfying intellectual criteria for coherence. The work engages contemporary debates about divine action, theodicy, and religious experience, suggesting that neoclassical concepts better account for both philosophical rigor and lived religious experience.

The monograph functions simultaneously as intellectual history and constructive philosophy of religion. By tracing conceptual development across centuries, Dombrowski aims to show that process theism represents not a departure from the theistic tradition but its logical culmination. His historical method serves an argumentative purpose: demonstrating that ideas of God must evolve to remain philosophically viable and religiously meaningful in light of accumulated criticism and new metaphysical insights.