Is anyone here familiar with "Process Theology?"

[housewolf]

What can you tell me about it?


Thanks

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Haven't heard about it

but I'll check back here to find out if someone has.

[Bunny]

2. Never heard of it, but here's a quick Google search item:

Process Theology, Process Theism

Advanced Information

Process Theology is a contemporary movement of theologians who teach that God is dipolar, or has two natures, and that he is integrally involved in the endless process of the world. God has a "primordial" or transcendent nature, his timeless perfection of character, and he has a "consequent" or immanent nature by which he is part of the cosmic process itself. This process is "epochal," i.e., not according to the motion of atoms or changeless substances but by events or units of creative experience which influence one another in temporal sequence.

The method of process theology is more philosophically than biblically or confessionally based, though many of its proponents use process thought as a contemporary way of expressing traditional Christian teachings or seek to relate biblical themes to process concepts. Also the method emphasizes the importance of the sciences in theological formulation. Thus process theology generally stands in the tradition of natural theology, and in particular is associated with the empirical theology tradition in America (Shailer Mathews, D. C. Macintosh, Henry Nelson Wieman) which championed the inductive, scientific approach in liberal theology. Also process theology has some philosophical kinship with the evolutionary thinking of H. Bergson, S. Alexander, C. Lloyd Morgan, and P. Teilhard de Chardin. But its true fountainhead is Whiteheadian philosophy.



http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/process.htm

[elshiva]

3. I am a Process Theologian, sort of.

I believe, like A.N. Whitehead, that God is within all matter (or panentheism). I believe God is not responsible for natural disasters like tsunamis and does not use such means to punish them. Nature has its own free will.
Process theology is about becoming, the process. God is still creating the world. He is intimately involved with his creation, but he can not MAKE it conform to his will by punishing it. God is not a rapist! God is beckoning and drawing us into himself by his lovingkindness.
The ultimate end of becoming is union with God. Taking panentheism and ultimate union with God to their logical ends, I do not believe in Hell. If God is part of his creation, why would he harm it? Why would a perfectly loving Being put cigarettes out on his arms?
Heaven seems sensible to me. Traditional understanding of Heaven as a place of light, happiness, and freedom (angel wings) point to the joy of the union of Lover and Beloved.

[Bouncy Ball]

5. You put that very nicely, elshiva.

[elshiva]

6. Thanks, Bouncy Ball.

There's so much to Process Theology. I don't think any thought system can sum up the Reality of God, though.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. Indeed and another aspect I find very attractive is...

the ethics of committed relativism that arise naturally from process theology or process naturalism.

[elshiva]

11. Yes, committed relativism and pluralism!

One pluralist theologian once commented that with the incarnation of Jesus one should not "absolutize what God has relativized" in the person of Jesus. I can say then that Jesus is the Christian messiah, but not the Jewish messiah. As a person living in a praticular culture and time, Jesus did not fulfill the criteria of Jewish messiah, to lead the Jews to victory over the Romans, establish peace, and bring all of the dispersed Jews back to their homeland. But, Christians see his life and death as saving by our own criteria...

[Bouncy Ball]

4. Oh my gosh! I am reading a book on it now!

Here is the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0827229453/qid=1108612246/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-4007988-6164865

Amazing book and I have discovered I am a process theologian. Or a naturalistic theist. Or a theistic naturalist. However you want to put it!

I highly recommend that book, btw. Very personable and readable. NOT dry at all. I find myself nodding a lot as I'm reading it and a lot of quotable parts.

"...it is only through the creatures of the world that God has hands."

A UU lay minister I know recommended it to me.

[Pacifist Patriot]

7. Does writing term papers and delivering two sermons on it count?

;)

I am rapidly becoming a process theologian. I highly recommend the writings of John B. Cobb, Jr.

This introductory book by C. Robert Mesle is also excellent.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0827229453/qid=1108740512/sr=8-5/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i5_xgl14/002-5299159-8518424?v=glance&s=books&n=507846


Here is a section of my term paper on Christology in which I mention process theology.

Process theology offers an alternative interpretation of the incarnation that provides for a Christianity that is more respectful of religious pluralism. Process theology views the world in terms of “drops of experienced relationships” rather than of substances. (Mesle 1993, 106) Mythologies surrounding Jesus’ birth and resurrection arose as interest shifted from his teachings to his nature. Process theologians do not accept the virgin birth and resurrection as literal historical events. They explains Jesus’ divine nature by saying that “Jesus was responsive to God in a special way…the ethical affirmation that Jesus responded fully to God’s call is transformed into a theological affirmation that Jesus incarnated the divine Word in human form.” (Mesle 1993, 106) More importantly, the incarnation is not a single event but rather a process in which Jesus had to continuously choose to sustain his special relationship with God.

The ineffable mystery of homoousion as expressed in Trinitarian creeds becomes rational in the context of relational theology. “To be more loving is to be both more fully human and more fully divine. To be more relationally powerful, more capable of sharing the sufferings of others with healing love, is to be both more human and more divine.” (Mesle 1993, 107 – original italics) Jesus as the Christ, a symbol of the eternal call of God to the world, serves as a splendid example of the divinity that lies within every human being.

As every human being incarnates the divine call to some degree, we may reasonably conclude that “it is entirely possible that what God called the Buddha to do in his culture may have been different in some ways from the call to Jesus in his cultural setting, or to Gandhi in his. God’s call is always toward richer, fuller, more loving life for people, but there isn’t just one way to live lovingly or richly.” (Mesle 1993, 109) Not surprisingly, all three of these men urged for more compassion in our human relationships, a common theme in the major religious traditions worldwide. Process theology does not limit history to a unique saving event or person but reminds us that the Christ is within us all.

My Conscience and Consciousness paper has a few references to process theology sprinkled throughout it.

http://www.unitarianminister.org/theo_601.htm

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. Not to overwhelm you, but I can't help myself because I'm so excited

by it.

The concepts of process theology include:

* God is not omnipotent in the classical sense of a coercive being.
* Reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but serially-ordered events, which are experiential in nature.
* The universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will. Self-determination characterizes everything in the universe, not just human beings. God cannot force anything to happen, but rather only influence the exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities.
* God contains the universe but is not identical with it.
* Because God contains a changing universe, God is changeable (that is to say, God is affected by the actions that take place in the universe) over the course of time.

[elshiva]

10. Carter Heyward called God "the Changer and the Changed"

taking her title from the famous album by Cris Williamson.
The fact is God is evolving if only because God continues to act every second.