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supremely absolute (a necessary being with some non-changing features, e.g. God transcends the
creation and God is love).
Admittedly, some classical theists have not always evenhandedly held on to both truths in
some theological concurrences. Nevertheless, at its best the historic Christian tradition has
always sought to hold the truths that God is genuinely interested in our lives, saddened by our
suffering, delighted by our holiness, disappointed and angered by our sin; and at the same time
that he lives in transcendent, unalterable blessedness. More dangerously onesided, Ogden
eliminates the logical tension of historic Christianity by jettisoning one entire side of the
paradox, so that the preferred, relational side is exalted at the expense of God's independence and
transcendence. The absolute pole of the "dipolar God" is severely truncated, since this
panentheistic God is unable to know, plan, or change the future apart from the independent
actions of human creatures (though admittedly the process God is not quite as large a distortion
as the God of pantheism). Ultimately, the construction of the process God was constrained by a
rigid use of formal logic, resulting in a God bigger than us, but tragically smaller than the God of
the Bible.
A Feminist God
Feminists have had many difficulties with the God of historic Christian theism. Sallie
McFague is one of a number who want to maintain an identification with the Christian tradition,
but critique it from the standpoint of secular feminist canons of justice.
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In addition, a
simplistic use of formal logic likewise distort her conclusions regarding God's nature. Although,
on the one hand, she is loathe to explicitly reject any model of God (given her thesis that such
models are nothing more than our constructions of God), much of McFague's major book,