A leading exponent of American Personalism, Edgar Sheffield Brightman (1884-1953) was an eminent philosopher of religion. His provocative idea of a God limited in power was a unique effort to solve the problem of suffering and evil.

Born in a Methodist parsonage in Holbrook, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1884, Edgar Sheffield Brightman showed an early interest in the scholarly life. He studied Greek in after-school hours when in high school in Whitman, Massachusetts, and began writing articles on stamp collecting when he was 16. By the time he was 18, he had had 46 such articles published. Before he entered Brown University in 1902, he worked for a year in a grocery store earning $3 a week. After receiving his bachelor's degree in 1906, he stayed on at Brown as an assistant in philosophy and Greek and completed his M.A. in philosophy in 1908.

Later that year he began studying for the ministry at Boston University...