Macquarrie’s Doctrine of God

Abstract

Macquarrie critises the Hebraic monarchical view of God in favour of a panentheist interpretation; this means that he wishes to stress the inner relationship between the being of God and nature in a more emanationist model of creation, although he seeks to retain a measure of creative ‘act’ also. He works from an existential analysis of ‘being’, following Heidegger, to a recasting of dogmatic theology in terms of Being and beings. Revelation, personhood, God and Trinity are elaborated accordingly. Critical questions include those of sufficient distinction between God and the world, God as personal, and the viability of the method from Being to Christian theology.