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

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

What Is Process Philosophy?


What Is Process Philosophy?

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5

Introduction

What is Philosophy?

Philosophy is humanity’s ongoing effort to ask the deepest questions: What is real? What is true? What is good? What is possible? It is a way of thinking critically about existence, meaning, and value. From the Greek philosophia (“love of wisdom”), philosophy has always sought to see beyond appearances — to find the underlying structures of the world and our place within it.

Across history, philosophers have offered different answers. Some emphasized substance — the idea that reality is made of fixed things with stable essences. Others focused on mind or spirit, matter in motion, or the freedom of human existence. Each system frames how we think about science, religion, politics, and even daily life.

What is Process Philosophy?

Process philosophy is the recognition that reality is not a collection of static things but an ongoing flow of events and relationships that are, and are becoming, either more or less than what they are. It suggests that the most basic unit of reality is not an unchanging substance or conjected existential space, but a moment of experience — an event or relational connection which arises, relates somehow to the past, and then "concresces" into a new coherent event, occurrence, or relationship.

Rather than seeing the world, the cosmos, or creation, as a metaphysical machine, process philosophy metaphysical reality as a living, organic network of interrelated processes, always evolving, and continually open to novelty. This shift opens new doors for science, theology, ecology, psychology, economics, governance, and culture — because it teaches us to see change as the essence of reality, and relationship as the ground of being.

Amazon link


1. Process Philosophy — The Light Version

Process philosophy is a way of looking at reality as always in motion. Instead of imagining the world as made up of static substances of some kind - like solid entities or fixed essences which never change - it sees the world as an interconnected web of events, relationships, and ongoing processes merging, conflicting, absorbing, rejecting, and experiencing itself both in whole and in part.

  • Rocks, rivers, trees, and people aren’t “finished” objects; they’re organic and quantum becomings, unfolding moment by moment as a concrescing mass.

  • Even God, in process thought, isn’t outside time but is wholly engaged with the world, continually relating, adapting, and responding. In religious terms, God is theoretically transcendent but it wouldn't matter to the world; in process terms, God must be intimately and immanently connected to the world (what is known as panentheism; NOT pantheism).

  • The key idea: reality is not a collection of things but a network of happenings, occurrences, evolving relationships.

As example, think of processual reality not as a static photograph or snapshot but as an evolving movie or  storyline.




2. Process Philosophy — The Heavy Version

Process philosophy, most prominently articulated by Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), is a metaphysical system built around the primacy of process over substance. Rather than treating substances (self-contained, changeless entities) as ultimate, Whitehead posited that the basic units of reality are actual occasions - momentary drops of experience that arise, relate to whatever is present, and perish in the flow of becoming.

Core Features:

  • Concrescence: Each actual occasion integrates/merges "influences from the past" into a unique unity/essence, then perishes into objective immortality. Reality is always but a moment of time before concrescing towards the next moment.

  • Creativity: Is the ultimate metaphysical principle/motif. Processualism eternally drives toward novelty in a perpetualized state of ongoing creativity (or creation).

  • Prehension: All things feel or experience all other entities. This prehensive state is deeper than mere "sense perception" and is better understood as an ontological state of relationality.

  • Eternal Objects: Pure potentials might be thought of as the goal of processual becoming. They are unlike Platonic forms that are fixed objectives and more like evolving objectives driving towards self-fulfillment within arising, actualizing occassions.

  • God’s Role: Per religion, God functions dipolarly - as the primordial ordering of eternal possibilities (sic, God's primordial nature) as well as the fellow-sufferer who takes the world's experiences into the divine life of God's Being (sic, God's consequent nature).

This system overturns classical metaphysics (Aristotelian substance ontology, Cartesian dualism,etc.) and opens a framework for integrating science, philosophy, and religion in terms of relationality, dynamism, and becoming.


"The study of philosophy is a voyage
towards the larger generalities."

"The oneness of the universe, and the
oneness of each element in the universe,
repeat themselves to the crack of doom
in the creative advance from creature to
creature; each creature including in itself
the whole of history and exemplfying the
self-identity of things and their mutual
diversities."

"The elucidation of meaning involved in
the phrase ‘all things flow’ is one chief
task of metaphysics."

- Alfred North Whitehead


3. Expanded Lexicon of Terms, Concepts, and Phrases

Here’s a broadened vocabulary-set to help avoid recycling similar wordings, concepts, and ideas:

General Descriptors

  • Becoming over Being

  • Flux and Flow

  • Ontological Relationality

  • Dynamic Interdependence

  • Cosmological Holism

  • Events not Substances

  • Processual Ontology

Technical Whiteheadian

  • Actual Occasions (momentary drops of experience)

  • Nexus (societies of occasions)

  • Prehensions (affectuating feelings/relations)

  • Concrescence (the act of becoming one)

  • Perishing into Objectivity (an attained actuality which immediately perishes)

  • Eternal Objects (potential forms)

  • Novelty / Creativity as Ultimate Categories

  • Dipolar Deity (Primordial vs Consequent)

Theological/Philosophical Extensions

  • Panrelationalism (all things related to one another)

  • Panexperientialism (all entities feel or experience one another to some degree)

  • Panpsychism (there is a divine/cosmic consciousness all the way down to some degree)

  • Panentheism (All of creation exists in God and not apart from God, relational model)

  • Participatory Universe

  • Cosmic Symbiosis (entities advantage or disadvantage one another in community)

  • Mutual Becoming of God with World and World with God

Fresh Metaphors

  • From snapshots to storylines

  • From architecture to cosmo-ecological ecosystems

  • From machine clockwork to continuous symphonic improvisation

  • From building blocks to river currents (where no part of the river is the same twice)

  • From monoliths to living, evolving networks

4. Light Contrast Chart

(For general readers — metaphors & simple categories)

PhilosophyHow it sees realityMetaphorFocus of Attention
Substance (Aristotelian)World made of unchanging “things” with fixed essencesBuilding blocksStability, essence, permanence
Cartesian DualismSplit between mind and body; two kinds of substancesTwo worldsThought vs matter
Mechanistic MaterialismReality as a machine, predictable by lawsClockworkMatter in motion
Idealism (Platonic/Hegelian)Ideas or spirit are more real than material thingsBlueprint or scriptReason, spirit, forms
ExistentialismReality defined by human choice in absurd freedomLeap across a voidAuthenticity, angst, freedom
Process PhilosophyReality is relational, dynamic, in constant becomingFlowing riverEvents, relationships, creativity

Andrew Davis Papers
5. Deep Contrast Chart

(For advanced readers — metaphysical categories & Whiteheadian vocabulary)

PhilosophyOntological UnitUltimate RealityRelation to ChangeHuman/Divine Orientation
Aristotelian SubstanceSubstance (ousia)Form + MatterChange = accidentalGod as Unmoved Mover
Cartesian DualismTwo substances: res cogitans (mind) & res extensa (matter)Thinking vs extended beingChange secondary to substanceGod as guarantor of certainty
Mechanistic MaterialismAtomistic particles in motionMatter + LawsChange = motion, deterministicGod excluded
German Idealism (Kant, Hegel)Mind/spirit or AbsoluteRational structuresChange = dialectical unfolding of spiritGod = Absolute Spirit
Existentialism (Sartre, Kierkegaard, Camus)Individual existenceRadical freedom / absurdityChange = choice, angstGod either absent or paradoxical
Process Philosophy (Whitehead)Actual occasions (drops of experience)Creativity + Relational BecomingChange = essence of realityGod as dipolar (primordial + consequent, relationally engaged)

Jay McDaniel's website
6. Extra Lexicon for Contrasts

Process vs Substance

  • Substance = static, self-contained, essence-driven.

  • Process = relational, time-bound, becoming-driven.

Process vs Mechanism

  • Mechanism = determinism, predictability, reductionism.

  • Process = openness, novelty, emergence.

Process vs Idealism

  • Idealism = primacy of ideas/spirit.

  • Process = primacy of experience/events that integrate both matter & idea.

Process vs Existentialism

  • Existentialism = isolated individual facing freedom/absurdity.

  • Process = individual + world co-creating meaning, relational wholeness.

AC Grayling's History of Philosophy
7A. Precursors & Early Intuitions

  • Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BCE) — “All things flow” (panta rhei). Reality as flux.

  • Buddha / Early Buddhist thought (c. 5th century BCE) — impermanence (anicca) as fundamental.

  • Daoist Tradition (Laozi, Zhuangzi, 4th–3rd BCE) — the Dao as flowing process, ever-becoming.

  • Hegel (1770–1831) — dialectical unfolding of spirit/history; reality as process of becoming.

Matthew Segall link
7B. Founders of Modern Process Philosophy

  • Henri Bergson (1859–1941) — philosophy of duration, creativity, and life force (élan vital).

  • William James (1842–1910) — radical empiricism, stream of consciousness, pluralism.

  • Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) — systematized process metaphysics in Process and Reality (1929).

  • Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) — developed process theism, extending Whitehead into theology.

7C. Major 20th-Century Developers

  • John B. Cobb Jr. (1925–2022) — leading figure in process theology, eco-philosophy, interfaith dialogue.

  • David Ray Griffin (1939–2022) — expanded process thought into philosophy of science, religion, postmodern critique.

  • Isabelle Stengers (b. 1949) — Belgian philosopher of science, co-wrote Order Out of Chaos with Prigogine.

  • Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003) — Nobel laureate chemist, dissipative structures, irreversibility in physics.

7D. Contemporary Figures

  • Catherine Keller (b. 1953) — constructive theology, feminist/process theology, ecological critique.

  • Philip Clayton (b. 1956) — process-influenced panentheism, science-religion bridge.

  • Roland Faber (b. 1963) — Whitehead scholar, comparative philosophy, process cosmology.

  • Timothy Eastman (1947–2023) — process physics, processual logoi.

  • Steven Shaviro (b. 1954) — philosopher, connects Whitehead with speculative realism, aesthetics.

Amazon link

7E. Influence Beyond Philosophy

  • Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) — evolutionary cosmology, Omega Point (parallel to process views).

  • Brian Swimme (b. 1950) — cosmologist, Big History with process leanings.

  • Open & Relational Theologians (Thomas Jay Oord, et al.) — draw heavily on process categories.

Note:

The figures in Category #7E are not “pure” process philosophers in the Whiteheadian sense. Instead, they are process-like thinkers whose work resonates with or parallels process categories:

  • Teilhard de Chardin leaned toward an evolutionary teleology of spirit, not Whitehead’s relational metaphysics.

  • Brian Swimme narrates a cosmic story of emergence, echoing process themes without adopting the technical framework.

  • Open & Relational Theologians (e.g., Oord) share the emphasis on relationality and openness but often simplifies or diverges from Whitehead’s deeper metaphysical system.

In other words, these figures extend the intuition of process — dynamism, relationality, evolution, and becoming — but are not always aligned with the full metaphysical depth and technical categories of Whitehead’s system.

In short:

  • Process Philosophy provides the deep metaphysical foundation.

  • Open & Relational Theology is a more accessible (i.e., less rigorous, public-oriented), theological expression that shares relational and open-future emphases but often does not go all the way down into Whitehead’s philosophical system.

  • More simply, Open & Relational Theology's origins is in Process Philosophy and Theology; hence, a fuller description would be Open & Relational PROCESS Theology.

  • Tom Oord is a personal friend and is reaching across non-process theologies as he is allowed - theologies such as Evangelicalism, Methodism, Lutheranism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, etc, to help each Christian sector understand God, faith, church, conduct, outreach, and mission, in a deeper, more Christological and contemporary setting of postmodernism. That is, Tom is attempting to connect the church of yesteryear to the church of the present. - re slater


The Center for Process Studies, Resources, News, & Blog

8. Summary

In short:

  • Whitehead is the central architect.

  • Hartshorne anchored the theological side.

  • Bergson & James fed into the groundwork.

  • Cobb, Griffin, Stengers, Keller, Clayton, Faber carry the mantle today.


Somya Thakker
Conclusion

Philosophy, at its core, is the quest to understand reality. Most traditions have tried to explain reality in terms of what endures — the stable, permanent, or timeless. Process philosophy turns this around. It begins with the insight that what is most real is not permanence but change itself; not isolated substances but relational becoming.

This reorientation offers a vision of the world as alive, dynamic, and interconnected. Rocks, rivers, cells, stars, and even God are not finished objects but participants in an unfolding story of creation. The cosmos is not a completed structure but an open adventure, where novelty is always possible.

To step into process philosophy is to move from seeing reality as a snapshot to seeing it as a movie — a living story of becoming in which we, too, are co-creators.


Amazon link

Process Philosophy & Metaphysics — Core Works & Introductions

  1. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929; corrected edition edited by David Ray Griffin & Donald W. Sherburne, 1957, Free Press) — Whitehead’s magnum opus, laying out the full speculative metaphysical system. PhilPapers+2Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy+2

  2. Donald W. Sherburne, A Key to Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1966) — A classic guide aiding in navigating Whitehead’s dense terminology and structure.

  3. C. Robert Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead (2008) — a clear, relatively accessible introduction to Whiteheadian process thought.

  4. Nicholas Rescher, Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues — a helpful survey of major themes and debates in process thinking.

  5. Process Philosophy article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2006 archive) — summarizing the nature, aims, and internal structure of process metaphysics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

  6. Process Philosophy in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — focusing especially on the role of creativity and the contrast to substance metaphysics. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

  7. “What is ‘process philosophy’ and who is Alfred North Whitehead” — a more informal / popular introduction to the central ideas. Medium

  8. Whitehead Research Project — critical edition, archives, ongoing scholarship. Wikipedia

  9. Center for Process Studies — institutional hub for process thought, archives, bibliographies, journals. Wikipedia

Process Theology, Open & Relational Theology — Key Works & Resources

  1. Thomas Jay Oord, Open and Relational Theology: An Introduction to Life-Giving Faith — a contemporary theological presentation rooted in relational openness. OhioLINK

  2. OpenTheism.info — “Open and Relational Theologies Bibliography” (compiled by Thomas Oord) — a curated list of books, essays, dissertations pertaining to relational theology, open theism, and process theology. OpenTheism.info

  3. Center for Open & Relational Theology (C4ORT) — a repository of relational theology essays, open-access resources, reading groups, etc. Center for Open & Relational Theology+1

  4. Studies in Open and Relational Theologies series — academic book series promoting discourse across open, relational, and process perspectives (ORT, process theology, etc.). Center for Open & Relational Theology

  5. “Resources — Center for Open & Relational Theology” — a web page linking to essays, readings, and further bibliographic paths. Center for Open & Relational Theology

Secondary / Historical / Comparative & Contextual Works

  1. Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution — foundational for the notion of duration, novelty, and evolving life that influenced process thinkers.

  2. William James, The Principles of Psychology; Essays in Radical Empiricism — especially the idea of stream of consciousness and pluralism in experience.

  3. Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity (1948), Man’s Vision of God (1964) — for theological extension of process metaphysics.

  4. John B. Cobb Jr., Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition; God and the World — key humanist / theological interpreters of process philosophy.

  5. David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil; Whitehead’s Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy — important for bridging process thought with contemporary theology, science, and critique.

  6. Catherine Keller, Cloud of the Impossible, Face of the Deep — feminist and ecological theology influenced by process-relational thinking.

  7. Roland Faber, Theologizing after the End of Metaphysics, Charles Hartshorne’s Natural Theology — engaging process thought in comparative philosophy.

  8. Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos (with Ilya Prigogine) — cross-disciplinary resonance with process ideas in science and cosmology.

  9. Works on philosophy of science and process: Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty, Exploring Complexity (with Isabelle Stengers).

  10. Comparative philosophy: works connecting process philosophy with Eastern thought (Buddhist impermanence, Daoism, etc.).

Online / Digital & Reference Resources

  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — entries on Process Philosophy, Whitehead, etc. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy+1

  • Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — articles on process metaphysics and creativity. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

  • OpenTheism.info — relational / open theology bibliographies. OpenTheism.info

  • C4ORT (Center for Open & Relational Theology) — essays, bibliographies, open theology resources. Center for Open & Relational Theology+1

  • Whitehead Research Project / Whitehead Encyclopedia — for critical editions, archives, and scholarly interfaces. Wikipedia

  • Center for Process Studies — archives and bibliographies in the process tradition. Wikipedia

  • Open Access / Digital Theological Library — to access primary texts in theology / religious studies. DTL LibGuides

  • Open access guides in religious studies (e.g. Duke’s open religion guides) — directories of journals, books. Duke University Libraries


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