Rewriting God: Updating Theological Language, Part 2

Rewriting God:

Updating Theological Language

PART 2

The Evolution of Theological Metaphysics:

Moving Beyond Hellenistic Ontologies

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Revelation is ever becoming...

what new revelatory language looks like

through processual description.

- re slater

Earlier this week I stumbled into a section of process theology that I had largely been unaware of and must respond to as failure for my ignorance. My first reaction was a feeling of great loss. My second reaction was how did I miss this?!?! And my third reaction was how do I speak process language with more clarity?

But first, let's ask the question, "Why does the church, its people, schools, and theologians continually work at updating the bible's language? And when it does, how does new church language - or, new theological language such as processual theology - affect the creeds, dogmas, doctrines, and attitudes of past beliefs, statement, and understandings?

Generally, updating theological language involves revisiting and reinterpreting theological concepts, often expressed in religious texts and doctrines, to be relevant and understandable to contemporary audiences. It recognizes that language evolves and that theological understandings, sometimes formalized as doctrines, can and should change to reflect advancements in knowledge and understanding.

I. UPDATING THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE

I.  Why Update Theological Language?

• Changes in language and understanding: As societies and languages evolve, older expressions of theological concepts may lose their original meaning or resonate less with modern sensibilities.

• New knowledge and perspectives: Developments in fields such as science, psychology, and philosophy can provide new insights into the human experience and the world, influencing how theological ideas are understood and communicated.

• Promoting clarity and accessibility: Translating theological language into contemporary language helps make it more accessible and understandable to people, fostering engagement and dialogue.

• Addressing cultural biases: Each generation must wrestle with how to be relevant to the world around it and how to best communicate the gospel message. Theology can act as a filter to strip out unnecessary doctrines or beliefs and translate core truths into the language and culture of the time.

• Encouraging critical thinking: Examining theological language encourages deeper engagement with beliefs, leading to a more nuanced understanding of one's own tradition and other perspectives.

II. Methods for Updating Theological Language:

• Translation into contemporary language: This involves finding ways to express theological ideas using modern vocabulary and phrasing while maintaining the original meaning or belief.

• Reinterpreting traditional concepts: This involves understanding ancient concepts in light of modern knowledge and experience, offering new interpretations that resonate with contemporary concerns.

• Engaging with new perspectives: Drawing from modern academic disciplines, philosophy, and other areas of inquiry can provide new insights and language for theological discussions.

• Textual updating (in the context of religious texts): Involves changes made to religious texts by authorized writers, as evidenced by textual analysis and critical scholarship.

III. Challenges and Considerations:

• Maintaining fidelity to original meaning: A key challenge is to ensure that updating theological language doesn't distort or lose the core message of the original texts and traditions.

• Overcoming historical and cultural distance: Interpreting ancient texts and concepts requires understanding the historical and cultural context in which they were written.

• Addressing linguistic differences: Translating theological terms across languages can be challenging due to inherent differences in vocabulary, grammar, and cultural idioms.

• Avoiding reader-response bias: It is crucial to approach updating theological language with a focus on understanding the author's original intent rather than imposing modern interpretations.

IV. Examples of Updating Theological Language:

• Inclusive language: Replacing gendered terms with more inclusive language to better reflect the diversity of humanity.

• Metaphorical reinterpretations: Understanding traditional concepts like "God" as an "Ultimate Reality" or "Cosmos" instead of an anthropomorphic being.

• Re-evaluating traditional doctrines in light of new knowledge: For example, interpreting creation stories in light of scientific discoveries.

Updating theological language is an ongoing process that seeks to bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern understanding, making faith relevant and meaningful for contemporary believers and society as a whole.

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II. PROCESS THEOLOGY BRINGS CONTEMPORARY LANGUAGE

My former evangelical faith was steeped in ancient language and meaning. This modis operandi (a particular way or method of doing something, especially one that is traditionally well-established) certainly fit the language of the bible as it too is steeped in ancient language and meaning.

So it is very reasonable to expect that traditional church doctrine will resonate with ancient concepts, ideas, social structures, old world constructions, meaning, and positional qualifications.

And what church creeds and doctrines would this refer too? Hmmmm.... A-L-L of them! From the highest evangelical assertions to the lowest jot and tittle!

So, when coming to the highly refined, quantum language of processual theology one cannot expect to be using Egyptian math or Greek philosophy. No, because we are dealing with ancient ideas that are minimally two millennia old, re the New Testament; and four millennia old re the Old Testament.

Since those very ancient eras of beliefs and religious formation much has passed in world history and with it, the evolution of human language, concepts, ideation, etc, across the spectrum of human knowledge.

Process language then is the metaphysical scientific language of our times. It rests in process philosophy and is built on top of that processual foundation. This philosophy is an Integral Philosophy of Everything.

It has competently, and fully, replaced Platonic thought and all other major philosophies of their time. It is why the quantum science correlate so very well with process philosophy, as well as major non-Westernized, non-Christian religions like Eastern Buddhism. It elucidates how creation works very well.

I say this to underline a crucial aspect of process thought: "One cannot make process thought other than what it is!".... And though not defined or termed as "process" per se in ancient cultures, beliefs, and experience, the ancients wrote about it in their own way along with parts of the Western Church through the centuries. But it was Alfred North Whitehead who developed it off of Hegelian thought and which has found it's place today in the 21st Century.

And so, if I can remember, I'll produce a future article on the antiquity of process thought someday.

Illus by RE Slater & ChatGPT

Illus by RE Slater & ChatGPT

III. FROM SUBSTANCE TO PROCESS

Updating Theological Language from its Hellenistic Roots

to Process Thought

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I. The Legacy of Hellenistic Thought in Church Doctrine

The Christian faith has always sought to express divine truth in the language and philosophy of its time. However, many of the categories that undergird classical Christian theology—especially those formulated during the Patristic and Conciliar periods—draw heavily from Hellenistic metaphysics, which emphasized static being, essentialism, and hierarchical order. While these terms once served to clarify doctrine, they now often hinder clarity in light of contemporary metaphysics, science, and relational ontology.

Process Theology, rooted in the work of Alfred North Whitehead, offers a new set of categories—dynamic, relational, participatory—that better resonate with modern scientific and philosophical sensibilities. This shift is not a rejection of Christianity but an evolution of its conceptual vocabulary, offering clearer pathways for expressing enduring truths. 

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II. Classical Doctrinal Language: Hellenistic Foundations

Ancient church doctrines—especially those from the Patristic and Conciliar periods (2nd–5th centuries)—were profoundly shaped by Hellenistic philosophical categories, particularly:

1. Substance Metaphysics (Ousia, Hypostasis)

• One Ousia (essence/substance) and three hypostases (persons = individual reality) were key to Nicene and Chalcedonian formulations of the Trinity and Christology.

• These terms attempted to define God's being using static categories suited to Greek metaphysics, not dynamic relationality. That is, God's Being was framed in essentialist terms of what something is rather than what it does or becomes.

2. Immutability and Impassibility

• God was understood as changeless and unaffected by creation, a view inherited from Plato and Aristotle.

• Divine perfection was thought to require absolute immutability—making God unmoved even by love or suffering.

3. Timelessness

• God exists outside of time (eternal, aeviternal, timeless) per Neoplatonic hierarchies, where the One is beyond becoming, and rendering divine action unrelated to temporal becoming.

• This static eternal concepts framed doctrines of providence, omniscience, and predestination.

4. Dualism of Form and Matter

• Influenced by Platonic dualism, many early doctrines saw the physical as inferior to the spiritual (body vs. soul, world vs. heaven).

• Spirit was seen as eternal, pure; matter was transient and corruptible.

• This dualism devalued the body and material world, influencing doctrines of resurrection, asceticism, and sexuality.

5. Monarchical Hierarchies

• Church doctrines mirrored the hierarchical cosmologies of Stoic and Platonic worlds, emphasizing top-down divine sovereignty.

• God’s rule was conceptualized like that of a Hellenistic emperor: absolute, unilateral, and top-down.

• Mirrored imperial politics and law, shaping images of divine judgment and control.

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III. Why These Classical Categories Are Now Considered Theologically Problematic

They Are Metaphysically Outdated

• Substance metaphysics does not account for quantum indeterminacy, evolutionary development, or relational causality.

• Today’s sciences and philosophies describe reality as processual, probabilistic, and interdependent.

They Promote Theological Confusion

• Doctrines like the Trinity or Incarnation become paradoxes or riddles when framed in static metaphysics.

• Terms like “essence” and “substance” suggest rigid categories ill-suited to describing love, presence, or transformation.

They Undermine Relational Theology

• An unchangeable, impassible God cannot be meaningfully affected by creation.

• This contradicts Scripture’s portrayals of a God who weeps, rejoices, suffers, and responds.

They Distance God from Creation

• By placing God “outside time” or “above the world,” traditional metaphysics alienate divine presence from lived experience.

• This supports deism or fatalism rather than intimacy and co-creation.

They Promote Static Substance vs. Dynamic Becoming

• The term ousia implies a fixed essence, but contemporary physics and metaphysics affirm relational becoming over fixed substances.

• Process theology, influenced by Whitehead, sees every entity as a series of events in relation, not as fixed objects.

They Conscript Static Terminology such as Immutability 

• Instead of saying God is “unchanging,” process theology says God’s character (love) is constant, but God’s experience is open and evolving.

• Divine Immutability can now be redefined as faithful relationality

• This better fits biblical portrayals of a God who grieves, relents, rejoices, and participates.

They Present God as Outside of Time Rather Than Inside It

• Rather than timelessness, process theology affirms God is deeply temporal, knowing the unfolding present with perfect immediacy.

• This renders divine providence more interactive and responsive rather than predetermined.

They Speak of God in Dualistic Terms

• Process theology affirms the unity of mind and body, world and spirit, God and creation—panentheistically rather than dualistically.

They Promote Monarchic Power Over Participatory Co-Creation

• The process view replaces unilateral divine control with co-creative, participatory power—a more ethical and relational understanding of sovereignty.

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IV. PROCESS THEOLOGY'S UPDATED NOMENCLATURE

Process theology shifts theology from a substance ontology to an event-based, relational ontology.

Below are key upgrades in theological language:

Hellenistic Term	Modern/Process Equivalent	Explanation
Ousia (Essence)	Actual Entity / Occasion	Dynamic event in becoming
Immutability	Faithful Relational Constancy	Constant love, evolving response
Timelessness	Deep Temporality	God in time, not above it
Hypostasis	Subjective Aim / Actual Occasion	Entity with internal drive toward value
Logos	Divine Lure	Persuasive call toward beauty/novelty
Sovereignty	Relational Power	Co-creative influence, not coercion

Additional Categories

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V. WHY THIS SHIFT MATTERS THEOLOGICALLY

Greater Coherence with Science and Reality

• Quantum physics, evolutionary biology, and cosmology resonate with relational, dynamic models of being.

Stronger Ethical Implications

• A God who suffers with us and calls us into co-creation is more ethically persuasive than a remote, impassible monarch.

Preserves Mystery Without Obscurantism

• While mystery remains, it is no longer rooted in metaphysical contradiction, but in the depth of relational love and becoming.

Revitalization of Christian Doctrines

• Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and Eschatology become more congruent when reframed in relational, dynamic terms.

Trinity

• Instead of “three persons, one substance,” the Trinity is understood as three relational aspects of divine becoming.

• Reflects divine relationality, creativity, and shared becoming, not ontological abstraction.

Incarnation

• Jesus is not a divine being “inserted” into flesh, but the perfect expression of God’s relational aims in his humanity.

• Christology becomes a model of deep divine-human participation, not metaphysical ousia contradiction.

Atonement

• Rejects penal/juridical satisfaction; instead, the Cross shows God’s solidarity with suffering and the divine lure toward transformation.

• Love and suffering are redemptive not because they appease wrath, but because they express ultimate relational fidelity.

Resurrection and Eschatology

• Each emphasize ongoing, present transformation, not only future events.

• Resurrection is the processual renewal of life, inviting all beings toward divine beauty, harmony, and co-creation.

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VI. WHY THIS SHIFT MATTERS FOR CONTEMPORARY FAITH

• Clarity over Confusion: Instead of defending ancient paradoxes (three=one, immutable yet personal), process theology speaks with philosophical clarity and emotional resonance.

• Relevance over Rigidity: Aligns Christian faith with contemporary cosmology, ethics, and psychology.

• Hope over Fatalism: Divine relationality opens the future rather than determining it. God’s work is ongoing, participatory, and responsive.

• Love over Control: The central divine attribute is not power, but love in relationship—a God who invites, responds, and transforms.

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VII. CONCLUSION: NOT REJECTION - BUT REFORMATION

The goal is not to discard the creeds but to reinterpret their insights through better metaphysical lenses.

The God of classical orthodoxy is often frozen in philosophical categories that no longer serve the church or the world.

Process theology offers a vibrant, scientifically coherent, and ethically compelling alternative that honors the living heart of the gospel.

What is the Gospel? It's about a God

who is love, who is in process with the world,

drawing all creation deeper into divine life.

- r.e. slater