- Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic (1929)
- Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)
- An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935)
- Christianity and Power Politics (1940)
- The Nature and Destiny of Man (1941–43)
- The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944)
- The Irony of American History (1952)
He reminded theology that good intentions alone do not transform societies.He reminded politics that power remains an unavoidable feature of public life.He reminded democracies that collective self-interest can corrupt even their highest ideals.And he reminded religious communities that humility remains necessary wherever human beings mistake their own purposes for universal truth.
The preceding essay, Power, Sin, and the Limits of Idealism, explored these themes through an examination of Niebuhr's life, theology, and enduring legacy. It argued that Christian realism remains an indispensable corrective to moral illusion, political naïveté, and theological abstraction. Any serious social ethic must reckon with the realities of power, institutional self-interest, nationalism, and the persistent tendency of human beings to confuse their own purposes with universal truth.
Yet important questions remain.
If Christian realism teaches us why societies fail, does it adequately explain how they change?
If power continually distorts human relationships, what accounts for genuine transformation?
If history repeatedly frustrates our highest aspirations, how should hope be understood?
If tragedy is an enduring feature of human existence, is tragedy also the final horizon of theological reflection?
These questions do not arise because Niebuhr failed. They arise because his work succeeded.
Christian realism exposed dimensions of reality that earlier forms of liberal optimism frequently overlooked. Yet every theological framework illuminates some aspects of experience more clearly than others. The very strengths of realism invite further inquiry into questions of emergence, creativity, participation, reconciliation, and historical novelty.
It is precisely at this point that process theology enters the conversation.
Beginning with the philosophical work of Alfred North Whitehead and extending through thinkers such as Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb Jr., David Ray Griffin, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Catherine Keller, and many others, process theology developed a distinctive vision of reality as dynamic, relational, participatory, and unfinished. Rather than viewing existence primarily through categories of substance, permanence, or fixed order, process thought understands reality as an ongoing becoming in which every moment inherits the past while contributing something new to the future.
This perspective does not require the abandonment of realism.
Indeed, process theology has often been criticized for underestimating the very realities that Niebuhr emphasized: sin, domination, collective selfishness, institutional power, and historical tragedy. Such criticisms deserve serious consideration.
Yet the reverse question may also be asked.
Might realism itself underestimate the possibilities of transformation?
Might history contain more novelty than realism allows?
Might communities become more than mechanisms for balancing competing powers?
And might the future remain genuinely open in ways that exceed the tragic repetitions of the past?
These questions form the heart of the present essay.
The purpose of this study is therefore neither to replace Christian realism nor to dismiss it. Rather, it seeks to place realism and process theology into constructive dialogue. Niebuhr's concerns regarding power, pride, and collective egoism remain essential. Whitehead's vision of creativity, relational becoming, and emergent possibility remains equally significant.
Together they illuminate a deeper question.
Can theology remain realistic about the failures of history while
remaining open to the possibilities of transformation?
The pages that follow explore that question through a conversation between Christian realism and process theology, between tragedy and hope, between limitation and participation, between what history has been and what reality may yet become.
INTRODUCTION
Every generation inherits unfinished questions and unfinished futures.More so theology begins where inherited answers meet new realities.
Theological traditions do not emerge fully formed, nor do they provide final answers to the questions that shape human existence. Rather, they arise within particular historical circumstances, illuminate certain dimensions of reality, and then pass their insights forward to those who follow. Each generation receives that inheritance, learns from it, critiques it, and extends it into new horizons of understanding.
Today's conversation between Christian Realist Reinhold Niebuhr and process theology belongs to this continuing tradition.
Few theologians of the twentieth century confronted the realities of history more honestly than Niebuhr. Living through world wars, economic collapse, ideological conflict, and the rise of modern political power, he became convinced that Christian thought could no longer afford the comforts of moral idealism's untethered constructs. He felt that human beings are as capable of justice as they are of injustice. That communities can embody compassion as easily as become instruments of exclusion and domination. That nations proclaiming noble principles will also pursue their own self-interests. And that moral institutions established for the common good too frequently became captive to self-preservation and power.
Against every illusion of innocence, Niebuhr insisted upon realism.
He reminded theology that history is not merely a story of progress.
It is also a story of pride, conflict, self-deception, and recurring tragedy.
The realities of power cannot be wished away. The ambiguities of political life cannot be solved through goodwill alone. Human beings remain both capable of greatness and vulnerable to profound moral failure.
These insights remain indispensable to Niebuhr's practical theology.
Indeed, much of contemporary public life seems to confirm them daily. Political polarization deepens. Economic inequalities persist. Religious institutions struggle with their own failures. Democracies wrestle with distrust and fragmentation. The language of justice is frequently employed in service of competing interests. In such a world, Niebuhr continues to speak with remarkable clarity.
Yet if realism teaches us why human beings fail, another question inevitably arises.
How do human beings change?
History is not composed entirely of repetition. New possibilities emerge. Communities reconcile. Individuals transform. Moral horizons expand. Ideas once regarded as impossible become realities. Entire societies sometimes discover ways of living that previous generations could scarcely imagine. This we most recently discovered through the Jonah series.
Where do such possibilities come from?
What accounts for novelty?
Why does history sometimes produce outcomes that cannot be explained solely by the forces that preceded them?
These questions lead toward a different stream of twentieth-century thought.
While Niebuhr wrestled with the tragedies of history, Alfred North Whitehead was developing a vision of reality centered upon becoming, creativity, and relation. For Whitehead, the universe was not a collection of fixed substances moving through time. Reality itself was an ongoing process of emergence. Every moment inherited the past, yet every moment also contributed something new. Existence was not closed but open. The future was not predetermined but continuously forming. Reality is open allowing both failed and unfailed possibilities.
From this philosophical vision emerged what would later become process theology.
Process thinkers did not deny suffering, conflict, or evil. Nor did they imagine that history naturally progresses toward perfection. Rather, they asked whether reality itself possesses a capacity for creativity that exceeds the tragic patterns of the failed past. They explored whether persistent transformation is woven into the structure of existence itself. They sought to understand how novelty emerges, how relationships deepen, how communities evolve, and how the future remains genuinely open towards an evolving partnership between the divine and human, nature, and the cosmos itself.
At first glance, Christian realism and process theology appear to move in opposite directions.
One begins with power.The other begins with becoming.
One emphasizes limitation.The other possibility.
One sees history through the lens of tragedy.The other through the lens of creativity.
Yet such contrasts are ultimately too simple.
For process theology cannot - and will not - responsibly ignore the realities that Niebuhr described. Any vision of becoming that overlooks domination, pride, institutional corruption, or collective selfishness risks collapsing into the very optimism that realism was created to challenge.
At the same time, realism itself raises questions it cannot fully answer. If tragedy is real, what makes transformation possible? If power shapes history, what accounts for genuine reconciliation? If human beings remain vulnerable to recurring failures, why does novelty continue to emerge? There is a persistence to reality's becoming that cannot be stopped by failure to become.
The present essay explores these questions not by choosing between Niebuhr and Whitehead, but by placing them into conversation. For perhaps the deepest challenge facing contemporary theology is not whether realism or hope is correct. The challenge is whether both may be necessary.
A theology adequate to our time must take power seriously. It must acknowledge sin, domination, and historical limitation. Yet it must also account for creativity, participation, emergence, and transformation. It must explain why history disappoints us, but also why the future remains capable of surprising us.
Between tragedy and possibility lies the conversation that follows. And within that conversation stands one of the central questions of modern theology:
Can realism remain open to becoming?
I. WHAT NIEBUHR SAW CLEARLY
The Enduring Wisdom of Christian Realism
Power ignored does not disappear; it merely becomes more dangerous.So too history repeatedly confirms what idealism prefers to neglect.
The temptation within theology is often to move quickly toward new ideas. Every generation discovers new perspectives, new questions, and new possibilities. Yet intellectual progress does not occur by abandoning the insights of earlier thinkers. It occurs by preserving what remains true while extending understanding into new territory.
This is especially important in the case of Niebuhr.
For all the criticisms directed toward Christian realism over the decades, many of its central observations remain remarkably persuasive. Indeed, one reason Niebuhr continues to be read is because reality itself repeatedly confirms what he saw.
Human beings remain capable of extraordinary moral vision. They sacrifice for one another. They establish institutions devoted to justice. They care for the vulnerable. They create communities of meaning, responsibility, and compassion.
Yet these same human beings also remain vulnerable to pride, fear, self-interest, and self-deception.
The contradiction lies at the heart of the human condition. Neither optimism nor pessimism adequately explains it. Human beings are neither angels nor monsters. They are creatures capable of both generosity and domination, wisdom and folly, cooperation and conflict.
Niebuhr understood this tension with unusual clarity.
His realism emerged not from abstract speculation but from historical observation. He watched nations proclaim noble ideals while pursuing power. He watched economic systems generate both prosperity and exploitation. He observed religious communities that preached humility while protecting privilege. He witnessed the catastrophic violence of the twentieth century and concluded that any serious theology must reckon honestly with humanity's capacity for collective self-destruction.
History justified his concern.
The twentieth century witnessed extraordinary achievements in science, medicine, technology, and democratic governance. It also witnessed world wars, genocides, totalitarian regimes, nuclear weapons, and unprecedented forms of organized violence.
Progress and tragedy advanced together.
For Niebuhr, this was not accidental.
Human creativity and human selfishness emerge from the same species. The capacities that enable civilizational goodness also create opportunities for societal domination. Intelligence generates wisdom, but it also generates propaganda. Technological power improves human life while simultaneously expanding the means of destruction.
No social arrangement eliminates this ambiguity. No ideology escapes it. No political system transcends it completely. This insight remains one of Niebuhr's greatest gifts to modern thought.
Equally important was his recognition that power is never absent from social life.
Many ethical systems speak as though moral persuasion alone determines historical outcomes. Niebuhr regarded this assumption as naïve. He understood that institutions possess interests, nations pursue security, economic systems generate inequalities, and political structures distribute power unevenly. Appeals to goodwill, while important, are rarely sufficient to overcome entrenched arrangements of privilege and authority.
Justice therefore requires more than aspiration.
It requires engagement with the realities of power itself.
For this reason, Niebuhr remains deeply relevant to contemporary discussions concerning democracy, economics, race, nationalism, and public ethics. The questions he raised continue to confront every generation. How should power be exercised? How can institutions remain accountable? What prevents collective self-interest from becoming domination? How does one pursue justice without becoming self-righteous?
These questions have not disappeared.
Nor are they likely to disappear.
Indeed, any theology - including process theology - ignores them at its peril.
Any theology that emphasizes relation, participation, creativity, or becoming must still account for pride, coercion, exploitation, and conflict. Any vision of transformation that neglects the realities of power risks becoming detached from the world it seeks to transform.
For this reason, Christian realism remains indispensable.
Yet indispensable does not mean complete.
For even as Niebuhr illuminated the tragic dimensions of history, questions remained concerning creativity, emergence, reconciliation, and transformation. He explained why communities fail. He exposed the distortions produced by collective egoism. He revealed the ambiguities of political life.
But what accounts for those moments when individuals genuinely change?
What explains the emergence of new forms of social cooperation?
How should theology understand forgiveness, healing, reconciliation, and moral growth?
Why does novelty continue to appear within history despite the recurring patterns of human failure?
These questions do not invalidate realism. Rather, they point toward horizons beyond realism itself. It is at precisely this point that process theology enters the conversation.
Tragedy explains much, but it does not explain everything.
Nor does the persistence of failure explain the persistence of possibility.
Human beings speak passionately about justice, yet often pursue advantage. Nations proclaim universal principles while protecting their own interests. Institutions founded upon noble purposes gradually become concerned with their own preservation. Again and again, history reveals the distance between what we hope to become and what we actually are.
Niebuhr spent much of his life examining that distance.
He looked unflinchingly at the realities of power, pride, and collective egoism. He refused to believe that education alone would eliminate injustice or that progress alone would solve humanity's deepest problems. His realism emerged from a conviction that any serious theology must begin with the world as it is rather than the world as we wish it to be.
In this respect, his contribution remains indispensable.
Yet history presents another reality alongside tragedy.
For if history contains recurring patterns of failure, it also contains moments of astonishing transformation.
Human societies are not frozen in place. They change. Sometimes slowly, sometimes painfully, and often imperfectly - but they change nonetheless. New ideas emerge. Moral horizons expand. Relationships once considered impossible become ordinary. Communities overcome divisions that seemed permanent. Entire civilizations gradually develop forms of cooperation, responsibility, and awareness that earlier generations could scarcely imagine.
Something more than repetition appears to be occurring.
History remembers its wounds, yet it also can create new futures.
This tension raises questions that realism alone does not fully answer.
How do genuinely new possibilities emerge?
Why are human beings capable not only of repeating old patterns but also of transcending them?
What accounts for those moments when reconciliation replaces hostility, when forgiveness interrupts resentment, or when a society discovers a more expansive understanding of justice than it previously possessed?
Such questions have always occupied an important place within the Christian imagination.
The language of faith is filled with images of transformation. Repentance, conversion, forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, resurrection - each points toward the possibility that individuals and communities may become something other than what they presently are.
Christianity has never been merely a religion of restraint.It has also been a religion of renewal.
Yet renewal remains difficult to explain.
It is relatively easy to understand why selfishness persists. Human experience provides ample evidence. It is far more difficult to explain why new possibilities continue to arise despite the weight of history pressing against them.
Why does creativity emerge?
Why does hope persist?
Why does the future repeatedly surprise us?
The closer one examines these questions, the more they seem to point beyond ethics and politics alone.
For beneath every understanding of society lies a deeper understanding of reality itself:
If human beings are capable of genuine transformation, what kind of world makes such transformation possible?
If novelty appears within history, what kind of universe allows novelty to emerge?
If the future remains open, then perhaps openness belongs not merely to human aspiration but to the very structure of reality itself.
It is precisely here that another conversation begins.
Where Reinhold Niebuhr devoted himself to understanding the tragic dimensions of history, Alfred North Whitehead devoted himself to understanding the nature of reality within which history unfolds. His concern was not primarily political but metaphysical. He asked what sort of universe could produce both continuity and change, both order and novelty, both memory and possibility.
The answer he proposed was radical.
Reality, Whitehead argued, is not fundamentally composed of fixed things enduring unchanged through time. Reality is a process of becoming. Every moment emerges from what came before, yet contributes something new to what follows. The past is never erased, but neither does it completely determine the future.
If Whitehead is correct, then novelty is not an accident.
It is woven into the fabric of existence itself.
And if novelty belongs to reality itself,
then the future may be more open than realism alone can explain.
It is toward that vision of becoming that we now turn.
The world remembers its past, but it is never confined to it.
So also reality is not merely what is; it is also what is becoming.
If history repeatedly reveals the realities of power, pride, conflict, and limitation, why does history never seem entirely imprisoned by them?
Human beings certainly repeat old patterns. Nations continue to pursue power. Institutions remain vulnerable to corruption. Communities frequently struggle against division and self-interest. The observations of Christian realism remain difficult to dispute.
Yet something else is occurring at the same time.
History moves.
The world changes.
New possibilities emerge that previous generations could scarcely imagine. Scientific revolutions transform humanity's understanding of the cosmos. Social movements reshape political life. Communities once separated by hostility discover paths toward reconciliation. Individuals change. Relationships deepen. New forms of cooperation appear.
The future repeatedly becomes more than a simple repetition of the past.
This reality fascinated Alfred North Whitehead.
Where Niebuhr devoted his attention to the tragic ambiguities of history, Whitehead became increasingly interested in the deeper question lying beneath history itself -
What kind of reality produces both continuity and change?
What kind of world carries the past forward while simultaneously generating new possibilities?
The question may appear abstract, but it touches at the very heart of human experience.
Every person lives within a tension between inheritance and possibility. None of us begins from nothing. We inherit families, cultures, languages, memories, institutions, and histories. The past shapes us long before we become conscious of its influence.
Yet inheritance is never the whole story.
Every life also contains moments of decision, creativity, discovery, and transformation. We are shaped by the past, but we are not simply identical to it. Something new continually emerges within experience itself.
Whitehead believed this tension revealed something fundamental about reality.
Much of Western philosophy had traditionally emphasized permanence. Reality was often imagined as a collection of enduring things that occasionally changed. Whitehead proposed reversing the perspective. What if change were not secondary? What if becoming were more fundamental than being?
The suggestion was radical.
Rather than viewing reality as a world of static objects, Whitehead understood existence as an ongoing process of events, relationships, and experiences continually coming into being. The universe was not a finished structure resting upon fixed foundations. It was a living process of emergence.
The significance of this shift is difficult to overstate.
For if becoming is fundamental, then novelty is not an accident. Creativity is not an occasional interruption of reality. The appearance of new possibilities belongs to the very character of existence itself.
Every moment receives a world already formed by the past. Nothing escapes history. Nothing emerges in complete isolation. Yet neither is any moment entirely determined by what came before. The past influences the present, but it does not fully dictate the future.
Whitehead described this ongoing movement as the "creative advance into novelty."
The phrase captures both continuity and openness.
The world remembers.The world also creates.
History matters.Yet history remains unfinished.
This understanding of reality introduces a different perspective on many of the questions raised by Christian realism. The persistence of power, conflict, and tragedy remains real. Process thought does not deny these realities. Human beings continue to struggle with pride, domination, selfishness, and fear. Communities remain vulnerable to fragmentation. Institutions continue to become captive to their own interests.
Yet these realities no longer appear as the final horizon of existence.
For alongside every pattern of repetition stands the possibility of emergence. Alongside every inherited limitation stands the possibility of transformation. Alongside every tragedy stands the possibility that something new may yet arise.
This does not mean that progress is inevitable.
Whitehead was no utopian.
Novelty can generate destruction as easily as creativity. New possibilities may be constructive or harmful. The future remains open precisely because it has not yet been determined.
Yet openness itself becomes significant.
The future is not merely waiting to arrive.
The future is continuously being created.
This insight would eventually become one of the central foundations of process theology.
Thinkers such as Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb Jr., David Ray Griffin, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Catherine Keller, and many others would build upon Whitehead's vision to develop a theology grounded in relation, participation, creativity, and becoming. Their work would seek to understand not only how reality exists, but how God, humanity, and the world participate together in the ongoing formation of the future.
Such a vision does not eliminate the concerns of Christian realism.
Rather, it places them within a larger horizon.
Power remains real.
Sin remains real.
Tragedy remains real.
Yet none of these possesses the final word.
Reality itself remains unfinished.
And because reality remains unfinished, the possibility of transformation remains present within every moment of existence.
The question then becomes how such transformation should be understood.
For if Christian realism is correct about pride, self-interest, and collective egoism, then any theology of becoming must account for them. Creativity alone cannot explain the human condition. Novelty alone cannot explain history.
Something more must be said about the realities that distort becoming itself.
It is to that question that we now turn.
Relation precedes rupture. Participation precedes alienation. Creativity precedes distortion. Possibility precedes failure.
How one understands sin inevitably shapes how one understands humanity, history, redemption, and even God.
History seemed to confirm his judgment.
Yet process theology approaches the problem from a different direction.Rather than beginning with failure, it begins with relation.
To exist is already to participate.To become is already to be related.
For this reason, sin is perhaps best understood as a disruption within the processes through which life flourishes. It is the narrowing of relationship, the contraction of participation, the refusal of mutuality, and the failure of becoming.
On the contrary, it reveals why evil is so tragic.
In every case, possibility narrows.Relationship contracts.The future becomes less open than it might otherwise have been.
Fear closes the self.Fear reduces openness.Fear transforms neighbors into threats and strangers into enemies.
If sin is primarily a failure of becoming, redemption cannot be limited to forgiveness alone. Forgiveness remains important. But redemption must involve something more.
Niebuhr asked why human beings repeatedly fail.Process theology asks how human beings repeatedly begin again.
One explains the persistence of tragedy.The other explores the persistence of hope.
Something within reality continually presses toward possibilities not yet realized.Something continues inviting existence beyond its present condition.
Reality remains unfinished.And because reality remains unfinished, the possibility of transformation remains present even within the midst of tragedy.
V. POWER AND PARTICIPATION
The deepest forms of power do not compel; they invite.
Though power shapes the world, not all power is coercion.
Reinhold Niebuhr understood something that many theologians before him had neglected or underestimated. Power is not an accidental feature of human existence. It is woven into every dimension of social life:
- Individuals exercise influence.
- Institutions accumulate authority.
- Economic systems distribute opportunities unevenly.
- Nations pursue security and advantage.
- Communities establish boundaries of belonging and exclusion.
Power is everywhere.
For Niebuhr, any ethical vision that ignored this reality was destined to fail. Appeals to goodwill alone could not overcome entrenched systems of privilege. Justice required more than moral aspiration. It required the ability to confront, restrain, and redirect power itself.
History repeatedly confirmed his insight.
Movements for labor rights did not succeed solely because employers suddenly became more compassionate. Civil rights movements did not triumph because entrenched structures voluntarily surrendered power. Democratic reforms rarely emerged because dominant groups simply recognized the error of their ways.
In each case, organized resistance, collective action, and institutional pressure played decisive roles.
Power mattered... and it still does.
Process theology fully affirms this observation.
The question is not whether power exists.
The question is what power ultimately is.
Much of modern political thought assumes that power is fundamentally coercive. Power belongs to those who possess the ability to compel outcomes, control resources, enforce decisions, or impose their will upon others. This understanding is so common that alternative forms of power often become invisible.
Yet human experience suggests that coercion is only one expression of power.
Parents shape children long before children understand authority.
Teachers influence students without force.
Artists transform cultures without legislation.
Ideas alter civilizations without armies.
Friendships redirect lives.
Communities nurture possibilities that no individual could achieve alone.
Love itself exerts power.
Not because it compels, but because it invites.Not because it dominates, but because it transforms.
Whitehead's philosophy emerged from a profound appreciation of this broader understanding of influence. Reality itself, he argued, unfolds through countless acts of mutual interaction. Every moment affects future moments. Every relationship exerts influence. Every decision contributes to the ongoing formation of the world.
Power therefore appears not merely as domination but as participation.
Existence itself becomes a web of mutual influence.
From this perspective, coercion represents only one form of power - and often a relatively crude one.
The most enduring transformations frequently occur through persuasion rather than force. Human beings change because they encounter new possibilities. Communities evolve because relationships deepen. Societies develop because new forms of cooperation emerge. Even democratic institutions depend less upon coercion than upon participation, trust, and shared commitments.
The distinction becomes particularly significant within theology.
Traditional images of divine power often emphasize omnipotence understood as unilateral control. God acts. Creation responds. The future unfolds according to divine determination.
Process theology proposes a different vision.
God's power is not diminished.It is reimagined.
Rather than controlling creation through irresistible force, God works through persuasion, invitation, and relational influence. The divine presence continually lures freewilled-creation toward richer possibilities of beauty, truth, justice, and participation. Every moment contains possibilities for growth, healing, reconciliation, and creativity. These possibilities are offered rather than imposed.
The future remains open because love does not coerce.
This understanding carries important implications for social ethics.
If reality itself operates through relationship and participation, then communities flourish not primarily through domination but through cooperation. Democratic life depends upon dialogue rather than conquest. Justice emerges through expanding participation rather than merely transferring control from one group to another. Healthy institutions encourage mutual responsibility rather than passive obedience.
Power remains necessary.
Yet its highest expression may not be control.
Its highest expression may be the creation of conditions within which others are able to flourish.
Such a perspective does not invalidate Niebuhr's concerns.
Indeed, it depends upon them.
Power continues to be distorted by pride, fear, and self-interest. Institutions continue to require accountability. Nations continue to need restraint. Human beings remain capable of domination as well as cooperation.
Christian realism reminds us why participation is difficult.
Process theology reminds us why participation remains possible.
The two insights belong together.
Without realism, participation becomes naïve optimism.
Without participation, realism risks becoming perpetual management of conflict.
A healthy society requires both.
It must recognize the realities of power while remaining open to possibilities beyond coercion. It must acknowledge conflict while cultivating cooperation. It must restrain domination while encouraging participation.
The future of Christian social ethics may depend upon precisely this balance.
For if reality is fundamentally relational, then power itself cannot be understood solely as force.
Power becomes the capacity to influence the direction of becoming.
And within such a world, the deepest form of power may not be domination at all.
It may be the ability to invite others into richer forms of participation, relationship, and life.
Such a vision does not eliminate tragedy. But it does suggest that tragedy is not the only force at work within history. Alongside conflict and domination, another movement remains present - a movement toward cooperation, creativity, and transformation.
It is this larger horizon that now comes into view.
VI. BEYOND TRAGEDY
Without realism, hope becomes fantasy. Without hope, realism becomes resignation.
Too often religious thought has been tempted to retreat into idealized visions of humanity and society. It has imagined that education would eliminate injustice, that progress would overcome conflict, or that moral aspiration alone would transform the world. Niebuhr refused such comforts. He had witnessed too much of history's violence to believe that human beings naturally move toward virtue. He understood that every society carries within itself the seeds of pride, domination, and self-deception. He knew that institutions created for noble purposes often become captive to power, and that nations frequently confuse their own interests with universal truth.
In this respect, Christian realism remains a necessary discipline for theological reflection.
History is not innocent.
Humanity is not innocent.
These very tragic dimensions of existence are real.
Yet once this has been acknowledged, another question begins to emerge.
Is tragedy the deepest truth about reality?
The question is not whether suffering exists. No honest observer could deny it. The pages of history are filled with war, oppression, cruelty, loss, and disappointment. Every life eventually encounters experiences that cannot be explained away or redeemed by easy answers. Tragedy is woven into the human story.
Yet so is something else.
For history is not merely a chronicle of recurring failures -
It is also a record of unexpected beginnings.
Again and again, human beings have surprised themselves. New forms of cooperation have emerged where conflict once seemed permanent. Long-standing injustices have been challenged. Individuals have changed. Beleaguered communities have reconciled. Horizons once thought impossible have gradually entered the realm of reality.
The same history that contains tragedy also contains transformation.
The question is how to understand both.
For if Christian realism teaches us why human beings repeatedly fail, process theology asks why human beings continue to become. Why does creativity persist despite disappointment? Why does hope survive repeated disillusionment? Why does the future continually produce possibilities that were not fully contained within the past?
These questions led Whitehead toward one of the central insights of process thought.
The world is never finished.
Reality is not a completed structure moving mechanically toward a predetermined end. Reality is an ongoing process of becoming. Every moment inherits a past already shaped by countless decisions and relationships, yet every moment also contributes something new. The past remains influential, but it is never absolute. The future remains open because existence itself remains unfinished.
This openness does not guarantee progress.
Indeed, process theology is no more optimistic about history than realism is pessimistic. Both perspectives understand that human beings remain capable of immense destruction. Both recognize the fragility of civilizations and the vulnerability of every social achievement.
The difference lies elsewhere.
Christian realism tends to emphasize the persistence of limitation.
Process theology emphasizes the persistence of possibility.
One asks why tragedy repeatedly appears.
The other asks why tragedy never entirely succeeds.
For despite humanity's failures, something continues to emerge. New relationships form. New understandings arise. New forms of beauty, justice, and compassion enter the world. The future repeatedly becomes more than the past alone would seem to permit.
Hope, therefore, is not confidence that history will inevitably improve. Such confidence has been repeatedly disproven by experience. Nor is hope a refusal to acknowledge suffering. Genuine hope begins precisely where illusion ends.
Hope arises from the recognition that reality remains unfinished.
Because the world is unfinished, new possibilities remain present even within circumstances that appear closed. Because the future has not yet been determined, transformation remains possible even where failure has occurred. Because becoming belongs to the structure of existence itself, no moment is entirely exhausted by what has already happened.
This conviction also reshapes the theological imagination.
God is no longer understood primarily as the distant guarantor of a predetermined future. Nor is God imagined as periodically intervening from outside the processes of history.
Rather, God becomes the companion of becoming itself - if not the very Participator of becoming - One who is the Presence continuously calling creation toward richer possibilities of life, relationship, beauty, and participation.
Such a vision does not remove tragedy from the world.
The wounds remain.
The losses remain.
The failures remain.
Nothing in process theology asks us to deny these realities. What it asks is whether tragedy should be granted the final word.
The answer is no.
Not because suffering is unreal, but because reality is larger than suffering. Not because history is progressing inevitably toward perfection, but because history itself remains open. Not because humanity has overcome pride and domination, but because the future continues to contain possibilities that neither pride nor domination can fully extinguish.
This is where process theology extends the conversation begun by Christian realism.
Niebuhr taught theology to take tragedy seriously.
Process theology teaches theology to take possibility seriously.
Both are necessary.
Without realism, hope becomes fantasy.
Without hope, realism becomes resignation.
Human existence unfolds between these two horizons. We live between memory and possibility, between inheritance and emergence, between what history has made and what reality may yet become.
Even as the future remains unknown -
So too does it remain processually open.
And it is within that openness that hope continues to live.
VII. THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ETHICS
The future belongs neither to optimism nor pessimism, but to responsible participation.Moreover, an unfinished world requires an ethic of unfinished responsibility.
For more than a century, Christian thinkers have wrestled with the relationship between faith and public life. They have sought to understand how religious convictions might contribute to questions of justice, democracy, economics, community, ecology, and human flourishing. The answers have varied considerably, yet many of these movements can be understood as responses to a common concern: how should Christians participate within an unfinished world?
The Social Gospel emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries amid rapid industrialization, urban poverty, and widening economic inequality. Figures such as Walter Rauschenbusch believed that Christianity must address not only individual morality but also the structures shaping social life. Sin appeared not merely in personal behavior but within economic arrangements, political institutions, and social systems. The Kingdom of God was therefore understood as having public and communal dimensions as well as private ones.
The achievements of the Social Gospel were significant, yet its optimism often underestimated the resilience of power and self-interest. The catastrophes of the twentieth century exposed limitations within earlier assumptions regarding progress and human perfectibility.
It was precisely within this context that Reinhold Niebuhr's realism emerged as such a powerful corrective. He reminded Christian ethics that institutions possess interests of their own, that collective egoism remains persistent, and that justice frequently requires the balancing of competing powers rather than appeals to goodwill alone.
The influence of Christian realism remains visible today. Contemporary discussions concerning democracy, economic inequality, nationalism, racial justice, and international conflict continue to draw upon insights first articulated by Niebuhr and those who followed him. His warnings against moral innocence remain especially relevant in an age marked by ideological certainty and political polarization.
Yet the twenty-first century presents challenges that neither the Social Gospel nor Christian realism could have fully anticipated.
Humanity now confronts ecological crises that transcend national boundaries. Technological developments increasingly reshape identity, communication, and community. Artificial intelligence raises questions concerning agency, responsibility, and human flourishing. Global interdependence reveals how deeply connected societies have become, even as political and cultural fragmentation intensifies.
These realities require a theological vision capable not only of critiquing existing structures but also of imagining new forms of participation.
It is here that process theology offers an important contribution.
Because process thought begins with relation rather than isolation, it naturally emphasizes interdependence. Human beings do not exist apart from their communities, ecosystems, histories, or futures. Every action participates within wider networks of influence. Every decision contributes to patterns extending far beyond immediate circumstances.
Such a perspective encourages an ethic grounded not primarily in control but in participation.
Justice becomes more than the redistribution of power. It becomes the cultivation of relationships capable of sustaining mutual flourishing.
Democracy becomes more than competition among interests. It becomes a process through which diverse voices contribute to the shaping of a shared future.
Ecology becomes more than resource management. It becomes the recognition that human life participates within larger communities of existence.
Even theology itself becomes less concerned with defending fixed certainties and more concerned with discerning how communities may respond faithfully to the possibilities emerging within history.
None of this requires abandoning Christian realism.
On the contrary, the future of Christian social ethics may depend upon preserving realism while extending it.
The realities of power remain.
The dangers of nationalism remain.
Institutional self-interest remains.
Human beings continue to struggle with pride, fear, and domination.
Yet alongside these realities stand equally important truths.
Participation remains possible.
Transformation remains possible.
New forms of cooperation remain possible.
The future remains open.
Perhaps the task facing contemporary theology is not to choose between realism and hope but to hold them together in creative tension. Realism reminds us why justice remains difficult. Hope reminds us why justice remains worth pursuing. Realism teaches humility. Hope sustains courage. Realism prevents fantasy. Hope prevents resignation.
Both are necessary.
The future of Christian social ethics may therefore lie neither in the optimism of earlier liberalism nor in the pessimism that sometimes accompanies realism. Instead, it may emerge through a deeper appreciation of relational participation itself - a recognition that human beings continually shape one another and the world they inhabit through countless acts of cooperation, creativity, responsibility, and care. Likewise, when charitable acts are not pursued, so also is pursued the tragedy of divsion, harm, oppression, and injustice.
Consequently, hopeful ethics do not assume that history inevitably improves.
Nor can one assume that history is trapped within recurring cycles of failure.
Rather, it begins from the conviction that reality remains unfinished.
And because reality remains unfinished, the future remains open to possibilities not yet realized.
It is within that openness that Christian hope continues to find its home.
The future of Christian social ethics may ultimately depend upon whether humanity learns to think relationally at civilizational scale. Ecological crises, technological systems, democratic institutions, global economies, and emerging forms of artificial intelligence all reveal an increasingly interconnected world.
The challenge is no longer merely how individuals should act, but how entire societies may participate responsibly within networks of mutual dependence that now extend across the planet.
CONCLUSION
Hope After Realism
Tragedy is real. But reality is larger.
Every theological tradition emerges in response to particular questions.
The questions that shaped Reinhold Niebuhr were among the most urgent of the twentieth century. How should Christian faith respond to the realities of power? How should democracy confront collective selfishness? How can moral responsibility survive within a world marked by conflict, nationalism, and institutional corruption?
Niebuhr's answer was Christian realism.
Its enduring strength lay in its refusal to evade the tragic dimensions of history. Human beings remained capable of justice, yet vulnerable to injustice. Communities embodied compassion while simultaneously generating exclusion. Nations pursued noble ideals while advancing their own interests. Every political achievement remained vulnerable to distortion by pride, fear, and self-deception.
These observations remain as relevant today as when Niebuhr first articulated them.
Indeed, the contemporary world often seems to confirm them. Political polarization, economic inequality, ecological degradation, technological disruption, ideological conflict, and renewed forms of nationalism all remind us that power remains a permanent feature of social life. The ambiguities of history have not disappeared.
For this reason, Christian realism continues to perform an indispensable service.
It teaches humility.
It warns against moral innocence.
It reminds theology that good intentions alone do not transform the world.
Yet realism, for all its strengths, leaves an important question unanswered.
What makes transformation possible?
History reveals recurring patterns of conflict and failure, but it also reveals creativity, reconciliation, and emergence. New possibilities continue to appear. Human beings repeatedly become more than their pasts. Communities occasionally discover forms of cooperation previously thought impossible. Societies sometimes expand their understanding of justice, dignity, and participation.
The existence of such transformations invites a further question.
What kind of reality allows them to occur?
It is here that process theology extends the conversation.
Where Christian realism emphasizes the persistence of limitation, process theology emphasizes the persistence of possibility. Where realism focuses upon the tragic dimensions of history, process thought explores the creative dimensions of becoming. Where realism asks why human beings repeatedly fail, process theology asks how human beings repeatedly begin again.
Neither perspective is sufficient by itself.
A theology of possibility that ignores power risks becoming naïve.
A theology of realism that ignores transformation risks becoming resigned.
The future requires both.
Human beings inhabit a world shaped by tragedy and possibility, memory and novelty, continuity and change. We inherit histories we did not create, yet we also participate in futures that have not yet been determined. We remain constrained by the past, yet never completely imprisoned by it.
The challenge of theology is to speak honestly about both realities.
It must acknowledge suffering without surrendering to despair.
It must affirm hope without succumbing to illusion.
It must recognize the persistence of domination while remaining open to the emergence of justice.
It must take sin seriously while refusing to define humanity by its failures.
For if relation is more fundamental than rupture, participation more fundamental than alienation, and becoming more fundamental than closure, then tragedy can never constitute the deepest truth about existence.
Tragedy is real.But reality is larger.
History is wounded.But history remains unfinished.
Human beings fail.Yet they also create, reconcile, forgive, and begin again.
The future remains uncertain. But it also calls for responsible, loving action.
Yet uncertainty itself is not merely a cause for anxiety. It is also the condition that makes novelty possible. A closed future permits no transformation. An open future allows emergence, creativity, and hope.
This, perhaps, is the deepest contribution of process theology to the ongoing conversation initiated by Christian realism.
It reminds us that the final horizon of reality is not exhaustion but becoming.
Not certainty, but participation.
Not domination, but relationship.
Not closure, but possibility.
Between realism and hope, between tragedy and transformation, the human story continues unfolding.
And somewhere within that unfolding future, the work of justice, reconciliation, creativity, and becoming remains unfinished.
As does the conversation itself.
Primary Sources: Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism
Niebuhr, Reinhold. An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. Christianity and Power Politics. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. Moral Man and Immoral Society. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Irony of American History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Nature and Destiny of Man. 2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941–1943.
Primary Sources: Alfred North Whitehead
Whitehead, Alfred North. Adventures of Ideas. New York: Free Press, 1933.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Modes of Thought. New York: Free Press, 1938.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Corrected Edition. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978.
Process Theology and Process Philosophy
Cobb, John B., Jr. A Christian Natural Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965.
Cobb, John B., Jr. Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975.
Cobb, John B., Jr. Process Theology as Political Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1982.
Cobb, John B., Jr., and David Ray Griffin. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1976.
Griffin, David Ray. Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Hartshorne, Charles. The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948.
Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt. God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology. New York: Crossroad, 1982.
Christian Social Ethics and Public Theology
Dorrien, Gary. The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity, 1900–1950. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.
Dorrien, Gary. Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis. New York: Macmillan, 1907.
Contemporary Process and Progressive Voices
Keller, Catherine. Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming. London: Routledge, 2003.
Keller, Catherine. Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.
McLaren, Brian D. Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007.
Related Works
Barbour, Ian G. Religion in an Age of Science. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.
A Comparative Overview
The purpose of this appendix is not to present Christian Realism and Process Theology as competing systems, but to highlight their distinctive emphases and areas of complementarity. Both traditions emerged in response to the challenges of modernity, yet they approached those challenges from different directions. Christian Realism focused upon power, sin, and historical limitation. Process Theology emphasized relation, creativity, participation, and becoming.
Together they illuminate dimensions of reality often neglected by the other.
Human Nature
Christian Realism views human beings as capable of both justice and injustice. Individuals may act morally, yet groups often magnify selfishness, fear, and self-interest. Human nature remains permanently ambiguous.
Process Theology likewise recognizes human ambiguity but emphasizes humanity's relational and developmental character. Persons are not fixed entities but participants in ongoing processes of becoming. Human nature remains unfinished and continually open to transformation.
Sin
For Christian Realism, sin is most clearly expressed through pride, self-deception, and collective egoism. Individuals and communities repeatedly elevate their own interests above the common good.
For Process Theology, sin may be understood as the distortion of relational becoming. It is the narrowing of participation, the contraction of possibility, and the failure of relationship to flourish. Pride remains important but is situated within a larger framework of relational disruption.
Power
Christian Realism insists that power is unavoidable. Justice requires engagement with political, economic, and institutional realities rather than reliance upon moral idealism alone.
Process Theology agrees that power is real but broadens the concept beyond coercion. Power includes persuasion, influence, cooperation, creativity, and participation. The highest forms of power are often relational rather than coercive.
Democracy
Christian Realism values democracy because it restrains the abuses of power and acknowledges human fallibility.
Process Theology values democracy because it encourages participation, mutual influence, and the collaborative formation of shared futures.
Community
Christian Realism emphasizes the need for accountability, restraint, and institutional checks against collective selfishness.
Process Theology emphasizes the cultivation of relationships capable of generating cooperation, creativity, and mutual flourishing.
God
Christian Realism generally portrays God as the transcendent source of judgment, grace, and moral responsibility who confronts human pride and limitation.
Process Theology emphasizes God's relational participation within the ongoing processes of becoming. Divine power operates primarily through persuasion, invitation, and the continual offering of new possibilities.
Hope
Christian Realism tempers hope through humility and caution, recognizing the tragic dimensions of history.
Process Theology grounds hope in the openness of reality itself. Because the future remains unfinished, new possibilities continually emerge.
The Future
Christian Realism reminds humanity why justice remains difficult.
Process Theology reminds humanity why justice remains possible.
Taken together, these traditions suggest that a mature theology must take both tragedy and transformation seriously. Realism without hope risks resignation. Hope without realism risks illusion. The future of Christian social ethics may depend upon holding these concerns together in creative tension.
The theological perspectives discussed throughout this essay did not emerge in isolation. They belong to a long and evolving conversation concerning human nature, society, history, and the relationship between God and the world.
Augustine and Christian Anthropology
The roots of Christian Realism reach deeply into the thought of Augustine of Hippo. Augustine emphasized the realities of pride, disordered desire, and the limitations of fallen humanity. His influence would shape Western theology for centuries and provide many of the assumptions later inherited by Reinhold Niebuhr.
Christian Humanism
The Renaissance and Reformation periods introduced renewed attention to human dignity, education, moral responsibility, and civic participation. Christian Humanism sought to hold together faith, reason, culture, and public life while preserving a theological understanding of human limitation.
The Social Gospel
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thinkers such as Walter Rauschenbusch expanded Christian ethics beyond individual morality to include economic systems, social structures, and public institutions. The Social Gospel emphasized social reform, justice, and the communal dimensions of the Kingdom of God.
Christian Realism
The catastrophes of the twentieth century challenged many of the optimistic assumptions associated with earlier liberal theology. Reinhold Niebuhr responded by emphasizing power, collective egoism, institutional corruption, and the tragic ambiguities of history. Christian Realism became one of the most influential theological movements in modern public ethics.
Process Philosophy and Process Theology
At roughly the same historical moment, Alfred North Whitehead developed a philosophical vision centered upon relation, creativity, emergence, and becoming. His work inspired a new generation of theologians, including Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb Jr., David Ray Griffin, and Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, who explored the implications of process thought for theology, ethics, ecology, and social life.
Liberation and Contextual Theologies
The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of liberation theology, feminist theology, Black theology, ecological theology, and other contextual approaches. These movements emphasized the lived experiences of marginalized communities while extending earlier concerns regarding justice, participation, and social transformation.
Emergent and Progressive Christianity
Entering the twenty-first century, many Christian thinkers sought new forms of faith responsive to pluralism, ecological crisis, globalization, and institutional decline. Emergent and Progressive Christianity often emphasized dialogue, participation, inclusion, relationality, and ongoing theological development.
Open Relational Theology
More recent developments have brought together themes from process theology, open theology, relational theology, and contemporary philosophy. Open Relational (Process) Theology emphasizes divine relationality, participatory becoming, creaturely freedom, and an open future in which God and creation interact dynamically.
Open Relational Metaphysics
Building upon these trajectories, Open Relational (Process) Metaphysics explores the possibility that relation itself may be among the most fundamental features of reality. Rather than beginning with isolated substances, it begins with participation, emergence, embodiment, and becoming. Such perspectives seek to integrate theology, philosophy, science, ecology, consciousness studies, and social ethics within a shared relational framework.
Embodied Process Realism (EPR)
Emerging from process-relational philosophy and contemporary ontological inquiry, Embodied Process Realism (EPR) seeks to explain how enduring forms arise, persist, and develop within an evolving reality. While classical substance metaphysics emphasized stable entities and process thought emphasized becoming, EPR argues that reality is best understood through the dynamic interplay of relation, coherence, embodiment, persistence, identity, meaning, directionality, and possibility. Stable beings are not viewed as static substances existing apart from process, but as embodied patterns of relational coherence persisting through time.
In this respect, EPR functions as an ontological bridge between Process Philosophy and Open Relational Process Theology. It seeks to explain how continuity emerges within change, how identity persists through transformation, and how participation gives rise to increasingly complex forms of existence. By emphasizing embodiment as the mediation between relation and persistence, EPR provides a framework through which theology, philosophy, science, consciousness studies, ecology, and social ethics may be understood within a shared process-relational vision of reality.
Rather than replacing earlier traditions, EPR seeks to build upon them. Christian Realism contributes insight into power, limitation, and historical ambiguity. Process Theology contributes creativity, relation, and becoming. Open Relational Process Theology contributes divine participation and an open future. EPR attempts to provide an ontological account of how these realities coexist within an unfinished universe continually moving toward new possibilities of embodied becoming.
Continuing the Conversation
The movement from Augustine to Open Relational Process Theology does not represent a linear progression in which newer ideas simply replace older ones. Rather, it reflects an ongoing conversation across centuries. Each tradition contributes insights that remain valuable. Christian Humanism reminds us of human dignity. The Social Gospel highlights structural justice. Christian Realism exposes the realities of power and pride. Process Theology illuminates creativity and becoming. Open Relational approaches explore new possibilities for understanding participation, emergence, and the unfinished character of reality.
The conversation continues because reality itself remains unfinished.
And so does our understanding of it.
