Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: What Is Process Theology?

Quotes & Sayings

We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Thursday, September 25, 2025

What Is Process Theology?

What Is Process Theology?

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5

1. Introduction

Philosophy and theology have always walked closely together. Philosophy seeks wisdom in its broadest sense, asking questions about reality, truth, and value. Theology takes up those same questions but turns them toward the divine: What is God like? How does God relate to the world? What difference does this make for human life and hope?

Theology cannot exist without philosophy, because every vision of God rests on assumptions about what reality is. At the same time, philosophy without theology can become abstract, disconnected from humanity’s deepest spiritual longings. The two disciplines form a dialogue: philosophy sets the ground, and theology builds upon it in the search for meaning.

Process theology belongs in this conversation. It is a theology rooted in process philosophy - drawing its metaphysical categories from Alfred North Whitehead’s vision of a world made not of static things but of events, relationships, and becoming. Just as process philosophy reshaped metaphysics, process theology reshapes how we imagine God.

2. What Is Philosophy?

At its heart, philosophy is the love of wisdom (philo-sophia). It is humanity’s attempt to think carefully about the great questions: What is real? How do we know? How should we live?

Historically, philosophy has developed systems to explain the world:

Substance metaphysics (Aristotle) saw reality as made up of stable essences.
Dualism (Descartes) separated mind and matter.
Materialism treated reality as a machine.
Idealism (Plato, Hegel) elevated ideas or spirit above matter.
Existentialism (Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus) emphasized human freedom and angst.

Each system has left a mark on religion and culture. But each has also shown limitations, especially when confronted with modern science, ecological crisis, and the human yearning for relational meaning.

3. What Is Process Philosophy?

Process philosophy, most fully expressed by Alfred North Whitehead, reframes the very foundation of metaphysics. Instead of seeing reality as a collection of unchanging substances, it sees reality as a dynamic web of events and relationships.

The building blocks of reality are not things, but actual occasions - momentary drops of experience that arise, interact, and perish.
Prehension describes how each moment “feels” and takes account of others.
Concrescence is the act of becoming one unified experience.
Creativity is the ultimate principle: the drive toward novelty, the ever-emerging flow of reality.
God in this system is dipolar: the primordial nature provides order and possibility; the consequent nature receives and redeems the world’s experiences.

Whitehead’s system is not just abstract speculation. It provides a metaphysical framework that resonates with quantum physics, evolutionary biology, and ecological interdependence. It portrays a world that is alive, relational, and creative to its core.

This metaphysical vision is the anchor and foundation for process theology.

4. What Is Process Theology?

Process theology is theology done with Whitehead’s categories in mind. It asks: If reality is truly processual - relational, creative, and becoming - then how should we think of God, creation, and faith?

God is not the Unmoved Mover of Aristotle, untouched by the world. Instead, God is the Most Moved Mover—the one who feels all things and responds with love.
God does not coerce the world by sheer omnipotence. Instead, God persuades creation - offering lures toward beauty, truth, and goodness.
The future is not fixed in advance but open. God works with creation in co-creative partnership.
Divine power is not unilateral control but relational love.

In short, process theology reframes God from a monarch to a companion - not less than transcendent, but also deeply, immanently connected, living as the very DNA within the very fabric of creation.

5. Key Distinctions: Philosophy → Theology

It is important to note the shift:

Process Philosophy describes reality in general metaphysical terms: creativity, concrescence, prehension, actual occasions.
Process Theology applies those categories to God and faith: divine creativity, divine suffering-with, divine persuasion.

For example:

Creativity in philosophy is the universal principle of novelty. In theology it becomes God’s creative love drawing the world forward.
Concrescence in philosophy is how each moment unifies its influences. In theology it helps us describe how God integrates the world’s sufferings into the divine life.

This shift shows why theology is more than an echo of philosophy. It is a reflection on the divine-world relationship grounded in, but not reducible to, metaphysical categories.

6. Core Themes of Process Theology

Dipolar God
- Primordial nature: the realm of possibilities and order.
- Consequent nature: God’s living relationship with the world, where every joy and sorrow is felt.
Divine Persuasion
- God does not force but invites; not compels but lures.
- Love is persuasive, never coercive.
Relational Immanence
- God is not separate from the world but present in every moment of becoming.
- Panentheism: the world is in God, and God is in the world.
Christ / Spirit
- Christ as the fullest embodiment of God’s persuasive love.
- Spirit as the ongoing presence of God’s relational energy in the world (sic, divine /creational panpsychism)
Theodicy
- Evil is not “sent” by God but arises from the tragic possibilities of freedom and creativity.
- God shares in suffering and works with creation toward healing.

7. Applications

Process theology is not only a theory; it has practical implications:

Church & Faith - Worship becomes an act of co-creation with God. Prayer is not pleading with a distant deity but conversing with a loving companion who genuinely responds and works together with creation towards a loving, redeeming, transformative ends.
Ecology - If all creatures are interrelated drops of experience, then every life has intrinsic value. Process theology undergirds ecological ethics: caring for Earth is caring for God’s body.
Justice - God’s persuasive love empowers human communities toward liberation, peace, and equity. Process theology resists domination and violence because God’s power is never coercive.
Interfaith Dialogue - Because process categories are metaphysical rather than sectarian, they provide a common grammar across religious traditions. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Indigenous worldviews can find resonance in the relational vision of reality. This is the essence of "mission" between systems of belief where disparate faiths can work together processual towards common value-driven goals.

8. Conclusion

Philosophy asks the deepest questions about reality. Process philosophy reshapes those questions, showing that what is most real is not permanence but process, not isolation but relation, not coercion but creativity.

Process theology grows out of that foundation. It reimagines God not as an aloof monarch but as a companion in becoming - the one who suffers with creation, persuades with love, and lures all things toward beauty and wholeness.

At its heart, process theology is a love-centered, relational, globally relevant vision of faith. It bridges science and religion, ecology and spirituality, justice and hope. It invites us to see ourselves not as passive recipients of divine decree but as co-creators with God in the ongoing adventure of the universe.

Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology