Process thinking, which 'started' with Whitehead and then Hartshorne, is right at one end of a spectrum of beliefs that Tom Oord has called Open and Relational Theology. At the other end are evangelical scholars like Clark Pinnock and John Sanders. The Whitehead end, which today might be represented within the church by someone like Ilia Delio, would seem barely Christian to evangelicals, and many process philosophers consider Whitehead's use of the word to be anachronistic and unnecessary, so perhaps they are right.
It sounds like you might be an open and relational thinker of another kind, so don't close that door completely! I don't know of any process or Open Theist scholars who say God changes God's nature, only that God may acquire new information that results in something that looks to us like God changing God's mind about what the common good might look like.
Many ORT scholars picture God as creating the universe ex nihilo and then voluntarily entering the space-time continuum in order to have genuine relationship with us. Even Whitehead believed that God had one 'pole' that was within time and one outside it.
I think a teleological objection remains, though. If God cannot make the universe bend to God's will, how will the new creation ever happen? What remains of hope?
I have been thinking a lot about your comment about God being able to ‘bend’ people, the universe to his will - yes there is hope in this. It suggests that ultimately, in the end, Gods will, will be done.
Yeah I like some of the philosophical ideas from Whitehead but I think some of the ways people try to use them are ill-informed. This is just doubly problematic because the ideas themselves are largely kept alive via a theology school itself. I’m under the impression you can get more or less the good aspects without the bad by just going straight back to some strains of German idealism. Schelling became pretty orthodox late in his life yet didn’t seem to renounce all the things he said earlier, he just seemed to realize they pointed toward the Bible after all. Part of me wonders if process theology was just an attempt to make Schelling more materialistic and less mythical and that involved basically dropping Christ entirely but not being able to drop God. Disclaimer, I’m not a theologian. And yeah I don’t think process theology leads anywhere loving at all. If God’s basic nature changes, and God starts out good, logically, God would have to change to not be good. If God starts out all-powerful, logically, God would change not to be all-powerful. I think some ideas from process philosophy can be useful, but I think if you were to use the dipolar idea, you’d have to say God has an eternal pole and a temporal pole, which is probably true, for example, things like God being love and all-powerful would be eternal, while God being a burning bush for Moses or walking past Sodom and Gomorrah would be temporal, but that’s never how it’s interpreted in process theology, and also, I’m not a theologian, so please no one take that super seriously just because I commented and speculated about it.
Maybe. I think Whitehead tried to drop it and couldn't though, but yeah, that's basically just pantheism, which always makes atheists ask pantheists why they call the Universe God anyway.
Thanks for your post, Richard. As someone sympathetic to process theology but prefer the phrase "open and relational theology," I'd like to respond to your reservations.
First, though, I should say that process theology comes in many forms. Your reservations describe some forms but not others.
1. I prefer to say God is source for everything that exists AND I deny creation ex nihilo. My view is that God always creates from something, and that something was created by God. I call this creatio ex creatione sempiternaliter en amore: God always creates in creation from love. This overcomes your worry that creation might not have God as its source, but it doesn't carry with it the problems that arise when affirming creation from nothing.
2. I think your second reservation applies only to a very few instances of process theology. The vast majority would say God's nature of love is eternally immutable. It can't change.
You seem to be addressing another issue in this second reservation. It's not about God's nature but about whether God can guarantee love wins. Because I don't think God is omnipotent, I don't think a victory can come through divine control. But I do believe there are grounds to hope that divine love brings a victory that includes all creation cooperating with the Spirit.
I believe that God is a relational God. The trinity, the psalms, the laments, the OT characters, the biblical imagery, how Jesus taught us to pray all create a vision of humanities potential to be in relationship with God. “Our Father” as our source of being, for example, is a relational term. It is a way of positioning ourselves before God. And, when God speaks, he points out he is different to a dumb idol. We do not pray to something that is dead and has been created by us, we pray to him who created us out of nothing. We are dependent.
I see God as separate to his creation, but without him creation would cease to exist. Creation was his idea, made out of nothing. Creation speaks of God, he holds it together, but he is separate to the process the earth is going through. A process he set in motion. That isn’t to say he isn’t involved. I think he is. but to what extent he is involved, what triggers him to evident action? I am not sure.
I may have misunderstood this, but I am deeply troubled by this idea in process theology that God is going through a ‘process’ himself? A sort of emotional journey with us? And that, like us, this changes him? Is it really necessary for God to change? I see the theological “win” (sort of) as it leads us away from the temptation, that because we are made in the image of God, that therefore we have this assumed God given right to dominate others on earth in his name.
But, I think this idea of God being changeable, going through some sort of process, like we are, makes God sound pathetic. It means he is just like me, sort of. It feels like a kind of shiny deceptive twist on what is truly good about Christianity: Jesus being human, as well as fully God. The God going through a process idea SOUNDS and LOOKS like a good idea about who God is, but it isn’t. It cleverly looks Jesus like, it looks like God ‘emptying himself’ in the incarnation, emptying himself into the figure of a man, but it isn’t quite right. I think there is a deceptive element to this concept.
But, I like the idea that God invites us to him. I think this is true, it js how I came to believe in him. I sensed I was being invited. But, we could argue that God dominated the Apostle Paul, he sort of forced himself upon him, he made his sovereignty be made known. We could argue that Paul was coerced by God! It was not a gentle, persuasive invite!
I am also troubled about this idea of putting limitations on his power. No. I think he is all powerful. He is I AM. End of. Again, having limitations on his power, makes God sound pathetic. I don’t see a God in scripture who can’t do what he wants. He can. I think he works with us, he holds back to allow us the freedom to go through OUR process, but he himself can do what he likes. He chooses, most of the time, not to dominate, to withhold, even hide his power most of the time. More often than not it is more like yeast in a batch of dough, rather than a parting of the Red Sea approach. But, hey, if he wanted to, he could just turn up and make himself as King of Kings known to all. And, the biblical narrative seems to suggest that one day he will. It is his will. And, because I fully believe God is omnipotent, I believe he deliberately must choose to reigns his power in, there is a sense of freedom for us because of this, along with the pain of suffering. He knows how to handle his power as God is love. This is something that most humans are not able to accomplish, hence the way worldly power usually leads to dominance and control. Whether that is outwardly aggressive, obvious, or it’s quietly coercive, paranoid and passive aggressive.
Surely, our process is to become like him, not that somehow we are journeying together with him in his process? This is too weird for me.
Like I said, I may have misunderstood some of the key ideas of process theology?
A story which illustrates this for me is Jesus and the death of Lazarus. Lazarus was going to die, he was hearing the cries for help. Jesus in his authority, knowing he has the power to heal Lazarus just carried on regardless with his plan, in his way, in his timing. He got stick for not being on time. Jesus even felt the human emotion with them, wept over his friends death. However, in the end he rose Lazarus from the dead when he was good and ready. There is a process in the pain. Jesus felt pain too, but it did not change him. He didn’t respond any differently to what, perhaps, he had already intended to do just because he was asked to go to Lazarus immediately. He saw the bigger picture - this is where we learn to trust.
Gods Kingdom is not if this world. It is different.
Really interesting to stop and think about these ideas.
Process thinking, which 'started' with Whitehead and then Hartshorne, is right at one end of a spectrum of beliefs that Tom Oord has called Open and Relational Theology. At the other end are evangelical scholars like Clark Pinnock and John Sanders. The Whitehead end, which today might be represented within the church by someone like Ilia Delio, would seem barely Christian to evangelicals, and many process philosophers consider Whitehead's use of the word to be anachronistic and unnecessary, so perhaps they are right.
It sounds like you might be an open and relational thinker of another kind, so don't close that door completely! I don't know of any process or Open Theist scholars who say God changes God's nature, only that God may acquire new information that results in something that looks to us like God changing God's mind about what the common good might look like.
Many ORT scholars picture God as creating the universe ex nihilo and then voluntarily entering the space-time continuum in order to have genuine relationship with us. Even Whitehead believed that God had one 'pole' that was within time and one outside it.
I think a teleological objection remains, though. If God cannot make the universe bend to God's will, how will the new creation ever happen? What remains of hope?
I have been thinking a lot about your comment about God being able to ‘bend’ people, the universe to his will - yes there is hope in this. It suggests that ultimately, in the end, Gods will, will be done.
Yeah I like some of the philosophical ideas from Whitehead but I think some of the ways people try to use them are ill-informed. This is just doubly problematic because the ideas themselves are largely kept alive via a theology school itself. I’m under the impression you can get more or less the good aspects without the bad by just going straight back to some strains of German idealism. Schelling became pretty orthodox late in his life yet didn’t seem to renounce all the things he said earlier, he just seemed to realize they pointed toward the Bible after all. Part of me wonders if process theology was just an attempt to make Schelling more materialistic and less mythical and that involved basically dropping Christ entirely but not being able to drop God. Disclaimer, I’m not a theologian. And yeah I don’t think process theology leads anywhere loving at all. If God’s basic nature changes, and God starts out good, logically, God would have to change to not be good. If God starts out all-powerful, logically, God would change not to be all-powerful. I think some ideas from process philosophy can be useful, but I think if you were to use the dipolar idea, you’d have to say God has an eternal pole and a temporal pole, which is probably true, for example, things like God being love and all-powerful would be eternal, while God being a burning bush for Moses or walking past Sodom and Gomorrah would be temporal, but that’s never how it’s interpreted in process theology, and also, I’m not a theologian, so please no one take that super seriously just because I commented and speculated about it.
Oops! I missed out a rather vital word! Many process philosophers consider Whitehead's use of the word GOD to be anachronistic and unnecessary...!
Maybe. I think Whitehead tried to drop it and couldn't though, but yeah, that's basically just pantheism, which always makes atheists ask pantheists why they call the Universe God anyway.
Thanks for your post, Richard. As someone sympathetic to process theology but prefer the phrase "open and relational theology," I'd like to respond to your reservations.
First, though, I should say that process theology comes in many forms. Your reservations describe some forms but not others.
1. I prefer to say God is source for everything that exists AND I deny creation ex nihilo. My view is that God always creates from something, and that something was created by God. I call this creatio ex creatione sempiternaliter en amore: God always creates in creation from love. This overcomes your worry that creation might not have God as its source, but it doesn't carry with it the problems that arise when affirming creation from nothing.
2. I think your second reservation applies only to a very few instances of process theology. The vast majority would say God's nature of love is eternally immutable. It can't change.
You seem to be addressing another issue in this second reservation. It's not about God's nature but about whether God can guarantee love wins. Because I don't think God is omnipotent, I don't think a victory can come through divine control. But I do believe there are grounds to hope that divine love brings a victory that includes all creation cooperating with the Spirit.
Hope something I said helps,
Tom
This has got me thinking…
I believe that God is a relational God. The trinity, the psalms, the laments, the OT characters, the biblical imagery, how Jesus taught us to pray all create a vision of humanities potential to be in relationship with God. “Our Father” as our source of being, for example, is a relational term. It is a way of positioning ourselves before God. And, when God speaks, he points out he is different to a dumb idol. We do not pray to something that is dead and has been created by us, we pray to him who created us out of nothing. We are dependent.
I see God as separate to his creation, but without him creation would cease to exist. Creation was his idea, made out of nothing. Creation speaks of God, he holds it together, but he is separate to the process the earth is going through. A process he set in motion. That isn’t to say he isn’t involved. I think he is. but to what extent he is involved, what triggers him to evident action? I am not sure.
I may have misunderstood this, but I am deeply troubled by this idea in process theology that God is going through a ‘process’ himself? A sort of emotional journey with us? And that, like us, this changes him? Is it really necessary for God to change? I see the theological “win” (sort of) as it leads us away from the temptation, that because we are made in the image of God, that therefore we have this assumed God given right to dominate others on earth in his name.
But, I think this idea of God being changeable, going through some sort of process, like we are, makes God sound pathetic. It means he is just like me, sort of. It feels like a kind of shiny deceptive twist on what is truly good about Christianity: Jesus being human, as well as fully God. The God going through a process idea SOUNDS and LOOKS like a good idea about who God is, but it isn’t. It cleverly looks Jesus like, it looks like God ‘emptying himself’ in the incarnation, emptying himself into the figure of a man, but it isn’t quite right. I think there is a deceptive element to this concept.
But, I like the idea that God invites us to him. I think this is true, it js how I came to believe in him. I sensed I was being invited. But, we could argue that God dominated the Apostle Paul, he sort of forced himself upon him, he made his sovereignty be made known. We could argue that Paul was coerced by God! It was not a gentle, persuasive invite!
I am also troubled about this idea of putting limitations on his power. No. I think he is all powerful. He is I AM. End of. Again, having limitations on his power, makes God sound pathetic. I don’t see a God in scripture who can’t do what he wants. He can. I think he works with us, he holds back to allow us the freedom to go through OUR process, but he himself can do what he likes. He chooses, most of the time, not to dominate, to withhold, even hide his power most of the time. More often than not it is more like yeast in a batch of dough, rather than a parting of the Red Sea approach. But, hey, if he wanted to, he could just turn up and make himself as King of Kings known to all. And, the biblical narrative seems to suggest that one day he will. It is his will. And, because I fully believe God is omnipotent, I believe he deliberately must choose to reigns his power in, there is a sense of freedom for us because of this, along with the pain of suffering. He knows how to handle his power as God is love. This is something that most humans are not able to accomplish, hence the way worldly power usually leads to dominance and control. Whether that is outwardly aggressive, obvious, or it’s quietly coercive, paranoid and passive aggressive.
Surely, our process is to become like him, not that somehow we are journeying together with him in his process? This is too weird for me.
Like I said, I may have misunderstood some of the key ideas of process theology?
A story which illustrates this for me is Jesus and the death of Lazarus. Lazarus was going to die, he was hearing the cries for help. Jesus in his authority, knowing he has the power to heal Lazarus just carried on regardless with his plan, in his way, in his timing. He got stick for not being on time. Jesus even felt the human emotion with them, wept over his friends death. However, in the end he rose Lazarus from the dead when he was good and ready. There is a process in the pain. Jesus felt pain too, but it did not change him. He didn’t respond any differently to what, perhaps, he had already intended to do just because he was asked to go to Lazarus immediately. He saw the bigger picture - this is where we learn to trust.
Gods Kingdom is not if this world. It is different.
Really interesting to stop and think about these ideas.
For you, love is the source of creation, but not the telos?
Curiosity piqued! What are the “tools” you use to get to your process theology?
I have never come across process theology before. I think God is omnipotent. But, he chooses to reign his power in.