ABSTRACT

The forms of theism most familiar (though not necessarily best known) to a Western audience are the Abrahamic: Christian, Muslim and Jewish. Each of those traditions can also be subdivided (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Humanist; Shia, Sufi, Wahhabi, Ahmadiyya; Orthodox, Conservative, Hasidic, Reform and so on). (The opening section is a revised version of a short article “In Our Hands,” Reform October 2008: 1718. I profited from discussion of these issues at the Colloquium at St Deiniol’s Library, Hawarden, 2-4 November 2007. The results of that Colloquium have since been published as Deane-Drummond and Clough 2009.) Other varieties of theism include the pagan Greek, African and Hindu. Such stories and doctrines as they have in common, or dispute about, are discussed in other chapters of this volume. Almost all-with the partial exception of some Hindu varieties-suppose that God cares most for human beings, and that human beings are closest of all God’s creatures to the divine. Quite what follows from that assumed resemblance is unclear.