Process vs Classic Church Theism:
Cobb v Geisler
Part 1
My Story, Part 1
by R.E. Slater
Perhaps having come to process philosophy and theology late in life has given to me the added advantage of being intimately familiar with the fundamental and conservative evangelical positions of classic theism.
I was raised and taught within the Baptist & Reformed traditions of belief through my first five+ decades of life and only lately became aware of a shift within my faith tradition though I had felt it for years. Even as far back as university.
A shift that had been rumbling in my soul for many decades but at the last was resurrecting in my heart and head even as I was trying to ignore it as I concentrated on business, raising kids, being seriously active in community, school boards, public and civic commissions, youth rec, and adult sports.
When the Lord called me to begin a very broad and deep personal transformation from classicism to process Christianity it was something I withstood for a number of months.
And now, when I listen to Norman Geisler debate John Cobb I no longer can hear Geisler's theistic arguments knowing how far astray they have gone from declaring the biblical faith as set in the Hebrew, and later, Greek Scriptures as Jesus and the prophets had at one time perceived them.
And while I now better understand, and can appreciate Cobb's responses, to the many dodges and false trails of Geisler's beliefs as he obstinately upheld a Christian tradition, these same arguments bounce around today from pulpit to pulpit unwilling to listen and learn for fear God and the gospel of Christ will be lost.
Let me just say, from my personal experience as one who was once sympathetic to these apologies, that God was never lost or outgrown. If anything, God is larger, more relevant, and more amazing in every aspect of His Triune being even as my Christology has found a firmer footing from a metaphysical, ontological, epistemological, and theological basis. Nothing was lost but my unbiblical ideas of the bible and God.
And there's the rub, and the challenge. I fully understand it and do confess a sensibly trained Christian cannot approach process theology without a willingness to let go and let God. But I will have you also know, I can preach the bible as I was taught without losing an ounce of God or God's Word.
Epistemologically, its not like relocating the football field's goalposts. It's more like relocating the entire football field and then abandoning it altogether. And while this is done, to reinvent an entirely new game and then disuse that as well. When the bastions of our personal foundations are uplifted and destroyed its like having to start over again but without actually starting over. Just rethinking what you've heard and placing it into a more proper, godly, salvific context. At least that was how I experienced it.
Lastly, let me share my "conversation with God" when He called me to this task. I took it very seriously and really didn't want anything to do with it. Here it goes:
God, "Hi. Let's talk. I need your help. Let's take up this thing called emergent Christianity and run with it a bit. See where it leads. My emergent/progressive servants are enlivening the Faith again by shaking it from its anomalies and foibles. It's time we take this a step or two further. Can you help Me?"Me, "Lord, No, I cannot. I've been out of lay ministry for quite a while now and was never formally active in it to begin with though I have an M.Div. degree. Use your own ministers and pastors here in Bible Belt, USA. They're familiar with Scriptures. They like to shout and state their hard-headed opinions. And they've become their own public institutions which your people will listen too. PLUS, I have confidence in them! I am not qualified."The Lord, "Yes, yes, yes, but it's you I want, not them."But Lord, "Please, give this burden to someone else! I am not fit for such a task!"Yahweh, "Funny you should mention that... I've heard this line several times before."Me, "Sheesh, Lord! Really?! You're going to play the guilt-trip card?! Do you realize I'll lose all my Christian friends, probably my family too, and have no church in town to fellowship with once Rob Bell and the emergent crew are scrubbed out by my well meaning, officious church brethern."El Shaddai, "Rob bore his burden as well as he could. You saw him suffer for My name as he tried to speak of ME in ways people, both saved and unsaved, could hear. But I need a few more men and women soldiers. Now take up my mantle and speak My Love into a religious world which no longer can see or hear ME."Me, "Thanks Lord. It'd be a deep privilege but this will be an absolute disaster. My heavy heart is already broken and certainly needs repair. Perhaps, maybe, this is the thing to help me get re-righted again."Jesus, "Ah, Hey! Nice seeing you and Abba and talking this out! Great! You and my Father will get along just fine but first, one thing.
Me, "Oh, hey. Hi. I'm afraid to ask what this one thing might be?"
Jesus, "Nothing hard really. The very first thing you'll need to do is to learn to unlearn in order to relearn from my Father and I. Our Comforter will lead and guide you along your way. Ta Ta. And thanks again!"The first thing you'll have to do is to learn to unlearn to relearn. Let's begin there."
And with that, God abandoned me after calling me. His Spirit then led me into a very dark, very lonely, wilderness which didn't end until it needed to be ended. Throughout my abandonment God was not with me. I was very much in a black pit and felt forsaken. And there I stayed refusing to leave until the job was done.
Paradoxically, though I felt keenly God's absence He curiously left His Spirit as guide and mentor. I know, I know, the One is the same as the Other but semantically, in my classical tradition, this is how I felt.
And with that my journey began. Out of the church and into a large wilderness of doubt and uncertainty where no one else could go but me. With no help from no one and nowhere to turn. My burden was mine alone.
Even so Lord, thank you for this privilege - as ill timed, unwanted, and without any good outcome as it felt and came to be. In hindsight it was what needed to be done.
R.E. Slater
November 12, 2021
*I'll continue Part 2 when I begin to list out the pros and cons of the debate I am leaving below. Unfortunately, it sounds like it cut out at the end where it was really beginning to get interesting. For now, give a listen, and list out the things which really are "faith-breakers for you." I made my own list up many, many years ago. And though I never set out to solve this list, it eventually began to sort itself out as the years rolled by. Which is why I've put a lot of effort into Relevancy22. It's for people asking questions and looking for direction. For myself, I have found process faith a very helpful foundation for my Baptist-Reformed tradition to be set upon. It has made this faith heritage much, much more meaningful. For others, maybe not. But once the Lord taught me there is never any reason to go backwards - only forwards - it simply has made sense to go forwards in this way. But to get there it only took the dismantling of my Jesus-Creed faith; you know, "No big deal."
Process Theology Debate:
Norman Geisler vs. John Cobb
Posted: Aug 21, 2021
De Veritate Apologetics and Philosophy
In this debate, Norman Geisler defends the position of
classical theism against the process theology of John Cobb.
Comment: "As a former evangelic I totally understand the need for evangelicalism to claim victory in this debate. But now, as a process guy, I see all too plainly the obtuseness of Geisler's claimed victories and how he argued from his own self-referential and self-reinforcing theistic system putting words into Dr. Cobb's speech as well as process thought itself that aren't there. Pleases note: Part 2 is not on the youtube video nor could I locate it anywhere except here as linked below." - R.E. Slater
Overview: Geisler defends Evangelicalism
"Process Theism versus Classical Theism" - Click here to hear Part 1 and Part 2 of a fascinating debate from the 1980s between Norman Geisler and John Cobb on Process Thought (a.k.a. Process Theism, Process Theology, Process Cosmology, Process Philosophy) and the strange, panentheistic God-world model of process philosopher A.N. Whitehead. John Warwick Montgomery was present at the debate and told Norm that he had just totally destroyed Process Thought.
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Earlier Posts
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The Story of the Bible 1
"Every good theology needs a great philosophy to rest upon
even as a great philosophic-theology must rest on love."
- R.E. Slater
Classical Theism leans heavily upon literalism, biblicism, and the proof-texting of its own apologetics. Back in the 16th Century, Christianity was dealing with the same questions of faith trying to determine how one's belief is valid beyond merely believing. I share there attempt further below by roughing out Edward Herbert's epistemological approach to believing in God.
As a process theologian, let's just say, faith is a Spirit thing.
As a process theologian, let's just say, faith is a Spirit thing.
You cannot prove God. But we know God is there because, well, His Spirit has confirmed it upon our heart.
Nonetheless, our faith must be examined, and if not, it becomes a worthless thing which cannot relate to our mission field. You know... those people out there whom we meet everyday in contemporary society.
Now many we meet will like the old timey cultural mores from present church-cultural traditions and prefer to see life through a bottle as the church has always done. However, there are many more who do not prefer to look at life in this way. They wish to challenge faith. Test it out. See how it runs on the roads of philosophy, science, psychology, technology, literature, anthropology, and such like. And these are the people who are my mission field more so than the Christian church. Seekers requiring a more up-to-date, relevant, and contemporary Christian faith.
So when I listen to "Norman, the Man, Geisler," with his shirt-sleeves rolled up vigorously defending and preaching the faith, I'm also listening in a process way to all the things he is bringing up wrongly. That he is purposely saying wrong for effect while-all-the-while reinforcing his faith as the rightful faith of the Bible Belt church. His church. His Midwest religious body of beliefs.
And with a nod to process personalism, "Yes, Norman's very religious being had changed during that hour of debate" though he thought it not so as he hunkered down in his heart chalking up a victory for God by standing against the process heretics of his day." Well done, Norman. You've proved process' observation that we can, and will, change by our everyday lived experiences even as Pharaoh did before God when listening to his adopted, half-brother Moses.
Moreover, Norman's faith, as was my own faith not many years before, is the kind of Christian faith that America was built by white nationalism and exclusion, manifest destiny, ungenerous capitalism, indentured service, childhood work factories, racial slavery of Blacks, Asians and Native Americans, and the succession of good white Christians from the Yankee abolitionist states of America.
So yes, if you're going to bail out now on process theology know that God's love goes to everyone and not to one's own self-declared religious body unwilling to listen to God while more-than-willing to break an expanding, polyplural democracy seeking civil and religious rights for all. Remember, what one believes bears the outcomes of one's faith in humanity. I, for one, chose process as much for its outcomes as I did because it made complete theological sense. Perhaps Herbert (below) will allow my faith-arguments based upon his own previous surmises of the past. :)
R.E. Slater
November 12, 2021
De Veritate = "Truth is found in the Thing or the Object" of belief, reasoning, or proof
I.
De Veritate, is a major ecclectic work of Edward Herbert published in 1624. It approaches a kind of epistemological knowing from a number of bases:
- truth in the thing or the truth of the object;
- truth of the appearance;
- truth of the apprehension (conceptus);
- truth of the intellect.
II.
Further, the faculties of the mind may be arranged in four indisputable groups:
- Notitiae communes - refers to the natural instinct, or a kind of intimate knowledge, or the strong emotion borne within the human soul as innate instincts of humanity borne of divine origin;
- Sensus internus - the internal sensory perception which feels love, hate, fear, pangs of conscience borne upwards into the soul via free will and communis notitia;
- Sensus externus - the sensory perception of external data related to rational reasoning. Example: sensus communis in the thought of Aristotle, refers to the mental faculty that takes data provided by the five senses and integrates them into unified perceptions.
- Discursus - human reasoning, which is the least certain and only given consideration when other sensory faculties fail.
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