Introduction to Ground, Start and End of Being Theologies

Abstract

The title of this section suggests for consideration two new types of theistic models which, given their focus on a particular aspect of God’s relationship to being, group naturally with the venerable model of ground of being theology. I call the first ‘start of being theology’, to cover views such as deism that identify God as the efficient cause of the universe, and the second ‘end of being theology’, for views such as those here by John Bishop and John Bacon that identify God as the final cause of the universe or humanity, respectively. Notice that start of being theology is distinct from those ground of being theologies that deny God is the efficient cause of the universe, e.g., as Tillich seems to when he argues against a God who “brings the universe into being at a certain moment” and who more generally is “a cause alongside other causes” (1957, 6).