Introduction
The question of God has never been merely abstract. It arises not in isolation, but within the lived conditions of human experience - within its moments of uncertainty, suffering, wonder, and transformation. Subsequently, across history, this question has taken many forms: God as creator, as judge, as sustainer, as divine absence, or divine presence. Yet beneath these formulations lies a deeper, more intuitive, tension - somewhere between the kind of world humanity inhabits and the kind of God it has conceived over the eons. Who is the God in relation to what humanity and the world are, and are becoming, from generation to generation?
Classical theology often presented God as fixed, complete, and external to the world: an unmoved mover, a sovereign will, a perfect and unchanging being who governs reality from beyond it. In such accounts, the world is contingent, but God is not; the world changes, but God remains the same. This vision provided stability and order, but it did so at a cost. It rendered the divine distant, often unresponsive, if not uncaring, to the very conditions of lived human and environmental experience... amidst its fracture, loss, and evolving states of becoming more than, or less than, itself.
Modern thought, reacting against this distance, moved in the opposite direction. God became internalized, reduced to symbol, a projection, or a moral ideal. In some cases, the divine was discarded altogether, replaced by human autonomy or scientific explanation. Here, the problem was not divine distance, but divine absence. What was gained in immediacy was often lost in depth.
Both approaches, though opposed, share a common limitation. Each assumes that reality itself is either fixed or reducible - either governed from above or explained from below. But what if reality is neither static nor reducible? What if it is not a finished order, but a lived, unfolding field of relation, tension, rupture, and continuation?
If this is so, then the question of God must be asked differently.
The issue is no longer whether God exists as an object among objects, nor whether God can be dismissed as a projection of human thought. Rather, the question becomes: What kind of divine presence corresponds to a reality that is lived, relational, and continually in formation?
Embodied Process Realism offers a way forward. It begins not with abstraction, but with lived experience - where meaning is formed, allowed to fracture, become transformed, and carried forward towards a new identity of meaning. Within such a framework, God cannot be conceived as external to this movement, nor collapsed entirely into it. Instead, the divine must be understood in relation to it: not as a static being, but as a living depth within the unfolding of reality itself.
What follows is not an attempt to define God in final terms, but to reframe the question along with our approach to God, the world, and ourselves... to consider how the divine might be understood within a world that is not fixed, but lived actually, presently, in its goodness and its harms.
I. The Limits of Classical and Modern Theism
If the question of God is to be reframed within a lived and unfolding reality, then the dominant inheritances of theology must first be examined - not in exhaustive detail, but in their guiding assumptions.
Classical theism, in its most influential forms, conceived God as the highest being: perfect, immutable, and wholly independent of the world. God was understood as the ultimate cause, the necessary ground of all that exists, yet untouched by the contingencies of creation. This vision secured divine transcendence, but it did so by placing God beyond the very processes that define lived experience - change, relation, and response. In preserving divine perfection, it often rendered the world secondary and the divine distant.
Such a framework provided coherence within a static metaphysic, but it struggles within a world understood as dynamic and relational. If reality is marked by development, tension, and transformation, then a God who neither changes nor is affected appears increasingly removed from the conditions of existence. The result is not simply philosophical tension, but existential distance - a God who governs, perhaps, but does not participate.
Modern thought, reacting against this distance, shifted the center of gravity. Rather than a transcendent and unchanging God, the divine was reinterpreted in terms of human experience - psychological, moral, or symbolic. God became, in various accounts, an expression of human longing, a projection of ethical ideals, or a construct shaped by cultural development. In this move, the divine was brought closer to human life, but often at the cost of ontological depth.
Where classical theism risked distance, modern reduction risks disappearance.
In reducing God to the structures of human thought or feeling, the question of divine reality is further dissolved rather than expansively answered. What remains may retain value - ethical, symbolic, or communal - but it no longer carries the weight of a living presence within the fabric of existence.
Despite their opposition, both approaches share a common limitation. Each theologic or modernistic approach assumes that reality itself can be stabilized - either by anchoring it in an unchanging divine source or by explaining it entirely within human or natural terms. In both cases, the dynamic, relational, and often unstable character of lived reality is insufficiently accounted for... thereby suggesting the need for a more process-oriented approach.
Hence, if reality is not fixed - if it is instead a field of ongoing formation, marked by relation, tension, rupture, and continuation - then neither a distant, unchanging deity nor a reduced, purely human construct can adequately respond to it.
What is required is not a compromise between these positions, but a reorientation.
The question is no longer whether God stands above the world or is contained within it, but whether the divine might be understood as present within the very movement of a dynamically evolving reality - participating in reality's bends and folds, twists and turns and transformations - without reducing either God or reality itself... while also offering the metaphysical and ontological depth required of either category without imposing finality.
Such a reorientation does not resolve the question of God. It deepens it.
And it is from within this deepened question that a different understanding of the divine may begin to emerge.
If neither a distant, unchanging deity nor a reduced, purely human construct can adequately respond to a lived and unfolding reality, then a different way of speaking about God becomes necessary. This shift is not a rejection of transcendence nor an embrace of reduction, but a reorientation - one that seeks to understand the divine in relation to the dynamic character of existence itself.
Embodied Process Realism offers such a reorientation. It begins with the recognition that reality is not composed of static substances, but of relational movement - of meaning, tension, rupture, and continuation. Within such a world, the question of God must be asked not in terms of fixed attributes alone, but in terms of presence, participation, and depth.
Within a process-oriented understanding of reality, God is neither external to the world nor identical with it. Rather, the divine may be understood as the relational depth within which all things arise, interact, and move forward.
This does not collapse God into the world, nor does it place God outside of it. Instead, it suggests that the divine is present with-and-within the very fabric of relational existence (divine immanency) - intimately involved without being reducible (sic, divine panentheism). God is not an object among objects, but the depth dimension through which reality holds together and continues to unfold.
To speak of God in this way is to move beyond the language of distant causation and toward the language of immanent participation - a presence that does not override the world, but accompanies it.
If reality is marked by development and transformation, then the divine may also be understood in terms of divine (teleological) direction - not as coercive force, but as generative invitation.
God, in this sense, is not the controller of outcomes, but the source of possibilities - the lure toward value, toward beauty, toward greater coherence within the unfolding of experience. Each moment is not determined in advance, but is shaped through response: to what has been (processual past), and to what might yet be (processual future; sic, refer to essay one and essay two in the cosmology series).
This understanding reframes divine power. It is not the power to dominate, but the power to invite, to call forward, to open possibilities that might otherwise remain unrealized.
A process-relational understanding of God must also take seriously the fractured character of lived experience. Reality is not seamless. It is marked by loss, misalignment, and unresolved tension.
Within such a world, God cannot be adequately understood as the guarantor of order alone. The divine must also be encountered within the places where order breaks down - where meaning falters and coherence is strained.
This does not imply divine absence, but a different mode of presence. God is not only found in harmony - but within the very conditions of disharmonious fractures and ruptures - within the very earthy struggles of nature and mankind to make sense, to endure, and to respond.
*As an aside, this also is the process-based idea of an evolving evolution which bears within it a teleology of generative value born in the bones of the kind of (an embodied processual) reality and universe humanity lives and moves within. - res
The hiddenness of God, long treated as a problem, may instead reflect the depth at which the divine is engaged - not as spectacle, but as quiet participation within the tensions of existence.
There are moments within experience that do not follow from what came before - moments of rupture, reconfiguration, and new beginning. These are not merely anomalies, but integral to the unfolding of reality.
Within such moments, the divine may be encountered not as continuity alone, but as transformative emergence - as that which makes possible what was not previously imaginable....
Many might call these moments miraculous, but within a process system, such transformational (Badiou'n) moments come from WITHIN a naturalistically generative reality as they can become possible - without necessitating an external breakage from without by divine intervention. That is, God is always working his will from within his creation rather than interrupting it from without. Hence the idea of divine panentheistic immanency.... - res
What has traditionally been called revelation may be understood in this light - not as the imposition of truth from beyond, but as the emergence of new possibility within the flow of experience.
These moments do not negate what has come before, but they reframe it and co-merge to expand future possibilities towards new realities which open new directions for thoughtfulness and life-giving meaning.
Finally, any account of God must reckon with the role of meaning. Human beings do not encounter the world without interpretation; we name, describe, and communicate what we experience.
Language about God is neither arbitrary nor final. It is real, but partial - shared, but always in development. The divine is not exhausted by any single formulation or linguistic ally described belief, yet neither is it beyond all human expression either.
To speak of God is to participate in an ongoing effort to render the depth of reality intelligible, even as that depth exceeds complete articulation. This has been the experience of the historic church in its uncessing labors to describe the divine and what it means to live in the life of the divine.
Moreover, in this metamodern era of the church - within its maga-level/trumpian failures and horrific people-policies - comes alongside processual restatements of God-and-world, values-and-futures, rising in opposition to popular church beliefs that might pause cruelty for a better expression of life, meaning, and identity. - res
Taken together, these dimensions suggest that God is not best understood as a fixed entity standing apart from the world, nor as a concept reducible to human construction. Rather, the divine may be understood as the living depth of a relational and unfolding reality - present within its movements, responsive to its tensions, and active within its possibilities.
Such a view does not eliminate mystery (such as the miraculous). It situates it.
And it is within this situated mystery - within a world that is lived rather than merely observed - that the question of God continues, not as a problem to be solved, but as a reality to be engaged.
III. The Embodied Turn
If God is to be understood not as distant from reality, nor reducible to it, but as present within its unfolding depth, then such an understanding must ultimately be tested within lived experience.
Theology cannot remain conceptual alone. It must become embodied - encountered, enacted, and carried forward within the actual conditions of life.
For it is within lived experience that reality discloses its character most clearly - not as abstraction, but as participation.
Human experience is not uniform. It is marked by decision, uncertainty, loss, and renewal. It unfolds across moments that are often unresolved, where meaning is not given in advance but must be formed in response to what occurs.
Within such conditions, the question of God does not arise as a detached inquiry. It emerges within the very acts of living - within the need to respond, to endure, and to make sense of what is encountered.
If the divine is present within the unfolding of reality, then it is here - in these lived conditions - that divine presence must be found-and-sought.
Embodied Process Realism challenges the assumption that reality can be approached from a neutral distance. We are not observers standing apart from the world, but participants within it - implicated in its movements and affected by its outcomes.
The same must be said of God.
The divine is not encountered as an object to be examined, but as a presence within which we already participate. This participation is not always recognized, nor is it always named, but it is nonetheless operative within the structures of experience itself.
And within this responsiveness, the question of God becomes less about proof and more about orientation - about how one inhabits the conditions of existence.
Every moment of experience carries with it a degree of openness. What has been given does not determine entirely what will follow. There remains the necessity of response - of choosing how to carry forward what has been received.
Within this space, the question of God is not abstract, but practical.
- In moments of fracture, does one turn toward restoration or resignation?
- In moments of uncertainty, toward trust or withdrawal?
- In moments of possibility, toward creation or indifference?
These are not merely ethical choices. They are participatory acts within the ongoing formation of reality.
If God is understood as the generative depth within this process, then such decisions are not made in isolation. They occur within a field of relational participation - one that invites, but does not compel (hence, the divine lure).
No account of lived reality is complete without acknowledging its fractures. Loss, disorientation, and suffering are not peripheral - they are integral to the human condition.
Within classical frameworks, such realities often posed a problem for belief. If God is all-powerful and wholly good, why does suffering persist?
Embodied Process Realism reframes this question.
Rather than locating God outside of suffering as its controller or preventer, the divine may be understood as present within it - as that which does not eliminate fracture, but participates in the response to it.
Instead, the divine is encountered in the movement through rupture and suffering - in the persistence of meaning, in the possibility of restoration, and in the capacity to continue.
To speak of an embodied realism is to recognize that reality is not given all at once, nor understood in final terms. It is lived forward - carried through decisions, relationships, and responses that shape what comes next.
The same is true of the question of God.
God is not encountered once and for all, but across the ongoing movement of life - within its continuity and its disruption, its clarity and its confusion. The divine is not exhausted in a single moment of insight, but unfolds across the lived trajectory of experience.
To live, then, is not merely to exist within reality, but to participate in its divine, or divinely sacred, formation.
And within that participation, the question of God remains open - not as a deficiency, but as an invitation.
Embodied Process Realism does not offer a final definition of God, nor a complete resolution of theological questions. What it offers is a shift in posture across the theodicies of life - the questions of God's presence in evil or the meaning of harm and suffering...
... In the processual reframing of the presumed distance from God and nearness of evil translate to dynamic human struggle with lived reality - where our participating within the reality is not as an abstraction, but is the very kind of reality we were born into to experience, engage, contend within, and perhaps, where possible, succeed in restoring...
... But not alone. But armed with God's abiding presence in all things...
... And alongside the generative being-ness of an evolving universe itself.
God-and-world, in this light, is not simply to be believed in or denied, but encountered - within the unfolding conditions of existence itself.
And it is here, within this lived and relational horizon, that theology becomes not only a matter of thought, but a way of being.
IV. Coda
Reality is not encountered once, nor resolved in a single movement. It unfolds across cycles of understanding, disruption, transformation, and continuation. What we come to know is tested, what appears stable gives way, what breaks opens new possibility, and what remains must be taken up and lived forward.
This is not an abstract pattern. It is the rhythm of lived experience itself.
Within such a rhythm, the question of God does not stand outside the movement of life, nor does it arrive as a final answer imposed upon it. It emerges within the ongoing formation of reality—within its tensions, its openings, and its continuities. God is not encountered apart from this movement, but within it: not as a fixed conclusion, but as a living depth that accompanies, invites, and sustains.
What follows in life, then, is never a final resolution, but a way of being—of participation within a reality that is still unfolding. To live is to move within this unfolding: to interpret, to endure, to respond, and to carry forward what has been given into what may yet become.
If this is so, then theology is not the completion of thought, but its continuation within life.
God is not the end of the question.
God is present within its asking.
by R.E. Slater and ChatGPT
Primary Philosophical Sources
Gottlob Frege
Frege, Gottlob. The Frege Reader. Edited by Michael Beaney. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
———. “On Sense and Reference.” In Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, edited by Peter Geach and Max Black, 56–78. Oxford: Blackwell, 1952.
Jacques Lacan
Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.
———. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.
Alain Badiou
Badiou, Alain. Being and Event. Translated by Oliver Feltham. London: Continuum, 2005.
———. Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil. Translated by Peter Hallward. London: Verso, 2001.
Alfred North Whitehead
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.
———. Adventures of Ideas. New York: Free Press, 1967.
———. Science and the Modern World. New York: Free Press, 1967.
Process Theology and Interpretive Works
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: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Keller, Catherine. On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.
Authorial Context
Slater, R. E. Relevancy22 Blog Essays. 2009–present. https://relevancy22.blogspot.com/
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