The Power of God's Love - A New Christian Center

"I've been asked lately how Open and Relational theologians think about God's power. So I posted an excerpt from my new book as a blog. It gives a quick overview of some primary ways Open and Relational advocates think about divine power." - Thomas Oord

Like myself, and many others, Tom Oord is part of a movement fleshing out a new vision of God as opposed to many past centuries of visionaries preferring to answer the question of God in terms of strength and almightiness.

Let's simply say those conceptual thoughts of the past are false non sequiturs which deserve a better direction for the church than the ones we are witnessing now in Trumpian politics of "kingdom dominionism" or in past church anathemas speaking hate and war as historically attested to in the past since the death of Christ (crusades, inquisitions, European wars of belief v belief, etc).

God's Love is God's Power

Open and Relational Theology (ORT) approaches God and life through God's love rather than by God's power as other theologies have taken.

Such power approaches have been seen through contemporary evangelical theologies of the last 200 years or more (Puritan theologies, Jonathan Edwards, etc). They also include many of the church's past classical theologies and church creeds acknowledging God's love but speaking divine power as their sacred/secular belief centers.

Why? My guess is that if God has a heavenly kingdom and is bringing this kingdom to earth than God's kingdom must be driven by power and not by such weak, elemental things as love, right?

The church's picture of God's kingdom is like that of man's kingdoms. But remember, Jesus said God's kingdom is unlike our kingdoms. Yet the church, not listening to Jesus, constructed its model of God's kingdom like the models it has seen all around itself from the kingdoms of this world since time immemorial.

Consequently, such power-based theologies emphasize divine power over divine love and can be seen on their emphasis of divine holiness over divine embracement; divine determinism over indeterminate agency; divine wrath as God's main attribute towards all humanity; and divine righteousness as the uncrossable bridge without Jesus who leads away from godly condemnation and damnation.

In contrast, ORT says, "No, God's love is the only sufficient comprehender of God's relation to creation and humanity." All other power dynamics must first submit to God's love. If they do not, or cannot, than such approaches - or comprehensions of God - are anathema to the Person and Work of both God and Christ Jesus.

This then is what is meant as the "elemental things of this world." God's love is the finest, most discrete element underlaying all other constructs of God's creational space. Love defines all relationships. And when it doesn't, all relationships are upside-down to one another starting with God and ending up with man and this earth.

A New Christian Center

When God and faith are centered in love then divine holiness and power find a more helpful orientation within the genre of biblical, moral, and ethical theodicy (e.g., the problem of sin and evil in a God created creation).

Sin and evil are not the last words in church beliefs, doctrines, dogmas, or creeds.

Nor is divine wrath, judgment or God's distance away from us (transcendence).

In ORT, God is imminently near, speaking and creating sustaining environments of love moment-by-moment as He can in a world of sin and evil.

By God's heart and by God's ever-nearness (eternal immanence) in our lives, God desires to embrace and carry us (and creation too!) toward better worlds of affirming wellbeing, nurture, empowering re-creative novelty, and deeper worlds of loving relationship to all things.

In this, and many other ways, God's love must both center and define the Christian faith as well as all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological solidarity with one another in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil.

R.E. Slater

August 1, 2021

    

    

      

God’s Power in Open and Relational Theology

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/gods-power-in-open-and-relational-theology

by Thomas Jay Oord

July 28th, 2021

Open and relational theology says we best understand God’s power in ways consistent with our experiences and the world. It draws from scriptural stories and passages that speak of God acting without controlling others.

In Open and Relational Theology: An Introduction to Life-Changing Ideas, I explore how open and relational advocates think about God’s power.

God’s Power and Love

Many open and relational thinkers use the logic of love to make sense of what God can and can’t do. If we think love does not manipulate, for instance, we should remove “manipulation” from activities God does. Or if our experience of freedom suggests God must not control, we remove “overrides freedom” from divine activities. If we think a loving God who could prevent evil would, we remove “God prevents evil singlehandedly” from activities God does. If we think love doesn’t abuse, torture, or sell children into slavery, we take those activities off the list of things God does or wants from others. And so on.

Open and relational scholars use sophisticated arguments to explain their views. They draw from scriptures, philosophy, experience, and more. Most of this work occurs at academic conferences, in scholarly books, or on websites dedicated to complex ideas. To explore them, check out those resources at the conclusion of this book.

An open, relational, and loving God acts but does not control.

Power Proposals

“But why is God’s power relational and persuasive?” we might ask.

Some open and relational theologians think that after creating the universe, God chose to self-limit. Out of love, says this view, God gives freedom and agency to creatures, metaphorically withdrawing to allow them autonomous choice. I call this “voluntary divine self-limitation.”

Others think metaphysical laws or the God-world relationship prevent God from controlling. In this view, God isn’t choosing to be persuasive; persuasion is built into the structures of existence. God can’t unilaterally determine others, because it’s impossible.

Still others appeal to the logic of free will. For them, God can’t simultaneously grant freedom and not grant it. That’s not logical. Giving free will means God can’t control those to whom the gift is given. These free agents might include people, animals, birds, angels, demons, or more. A God who gives freedom can’t control what happens.

My View of God’s Power

My view says God can’t control, because uncontrolling love comes first in God’s unchanging nature. Because God can’t deny the divine nature, God can’t control anyone or anything.

As I see it, outside forces or factors don’t constrain God. Nor does God voluntarily self-limit. God necessarily expresses self-giving and others-empowering love, because that’s what divine love does. I call this “the uncontrolling love of God” or the “essential kenosis” view. I have explained my views in various books.[i]

An Open and Relational God Acts

None of the views I’ve listed says God is absent from our lives or the world. Open and relational thinkers don’t believe God sits on Mars eating popcorn, uninvolved in the affairs of planet earth. God isn’t sitting in the upper deck watching the ballgame below.

These views also reject a “do-nothing” God. God isn’t a couch potato who eats your ice cream but never helps to clean the house. The Creator and Sustainer is more than the glue of the universe, more than a noninteractive Ground of Being. God is active rather than inert.

God is a universal agent who acts directly in relation to creation, without controlling.

Notice also that open and relational thinkers offer proposals about how God really acts. They aren’t saying, “God’s ways aren’t anything like ours.” Instead of a mysterious black box, they propose understandable models to describe divine activity. They use analogies connected to creaturely action.

Home Page - Thomas Jay Oord

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Thomas Oord - Why We Embrace Open & Relational Theology

Why We Embrace Open & Relational Theology

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/why-we-embrace-open-and-relational-theology?fbclid=IwAR2f_n3vEa1Fl-zEjXnv4uhetIeBKZBCsWrPeGCeB07tb1WJGTahds3cvyw

by Thomas J. Oord

February 15th, 2021

I’m writing a book introducing open and relational theology. It’s aimed at the general public and for use in classrooms, small groups, and personal enrichment.

Early in the book, I list reasons people are attracted to open and relational theology. Many of the reasons come from posts on social media. Whole books have been written on some of these reasons.

In this post and in the book, I sketch out each briefly. Below, in no particular order, are reasons many find open and relational theology appealing.

The Reasons…

Jesus – A number of Christians point to Jesus as the primary reason they embrace open and relational theology. In their eyes, the persuasive love of Jesus — who re-presents God (Heb 1:3) — reveals God as one who loves nonviolently. Jesus engaged in giving and receiving love with others believing their responses were not predetermined. God does the same. We best know what God’s love is, say some open and relational thinkers, from the life, teachings, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus (1 Jn 3:16). Open and relational theology offers a framework to make sense of God in light of Jesus.

Scriptures – Others interpret sacred scriptures as pointing to the primacy of divine love. Jews (and Christians) might highlight the fifteen times these words appear in the Hebrew Bible: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to act in anger, abounding in loving kindness, and forgiving iniquity and transgression” (Exod 34:6-7; Num 14:18; Neh 9:31; Psalm 86:15, Joel 2:13; etc.). Muslims might build a case for open and relational theology from the way the Qur’an portrays Allah. It begins, “Allah is the ultimate source of instant beneficence and eternal mercy, who encompasses the entire universe” (1:1-3). The root Arabic letters R-H-M describe God’s caring and compassion. In addition to what scripture says about Jesus, Christians might emphasize “God is love” (1 Jn 8,16) and other New Testament love passages.

Logic of Love – Other advocates of open and relational theology build from the logic of love itself. They ask questions like the following: Does love cause or allow unnecessary pain? Does love predestine some to eternal hell? Does love entirely control others? Concern itself only with self-interest and ignore other-interests? Does love make sense without freedom? To each of these questions, open and relational thinkers answer, “No!” If God loves everyone and everything, a loving God is open and relational.

Moral Intuitions – Others come to open and relational theology following their deepest moral intuitions. They may not have been exposed to religion, but they respond to truth, beauty, goodness, and love. It stands to reason a Source grounds and summons such responses. And if this Source is truly loving, it must be relational rather than static, engaging an open future, not a settled one. The deep intuitions of many fit the open and relational vision.

Healthy Relationships – Another entryway to open and relational thought starts by asking, “What if we took seriously what the research in psychology, sociology, communications, and medicine tells us about relationships and genuine happiness?” Then they ask, “What if we believed God relates in the ways research says healthy people relate?” Many such studies suggest we’re healthier when not manipulated, bullied, neglected, or abused. In fact, people who think God benevolently nurtures are, on average, healthier and happier than others. They have better relationships, greater psychological well-being, and more positive social connections. Some embrace what social science research tells us about the good life and extrapolate theologically.

Solves Intellectual Problems – A good number of open and relational thinkers arrived at these ideas after an intellectual quest. Some wrestled for years with questions about divine grace and sovereignty. Others wondered about God’s relation to time. Some looked for solutions to why a loving and powerful God doesn’t prevent genuine evil. Others tried to reconcile their sense of free will with an active God. Some sought a theology that didn’t imply God is an old white guy intervening on occasion to mansplain morality. And so on. Open and relational theology offers real solutions to our biggest questions.

Relational Worldview – Others came to open and relational theology not so much to find answers but because it fits the way they naturally relate. This is a common entryway for feminists, for instance. A relational God who engages noncoercively fits what many intuit is the best way to live. It fits existence top to bottom, simple to complex, individual to community. If we are open and relational beings in an open and relational world, why not think our Creator is open and relational?

Science and Philosophy – Still others follow theories in science and philosophy to an open and relational view. A number of physicists, biologists, and chemists find creation to be evolving. They conjecture that a God who also in some way evolves must have created it. Or take philosophy. In attempts to make sense of morality and existence, many ethicists and metaphysicians postulate the existence of an open and relational deity who grounds morals and goads existence toward complexity. In fact, a disproportionate percentage of scholars exploring issues in science and religion embrace an open and relational perspective.

Perfect Being – One might come to believe God is open and relational through what some call “Perfect Being” theology. Instead of starting with scripture, science, religious experience, philosophies, or wisdom traditions, this approach asks, “What would a perfect being be like?” This perfect being is, of course, what many call God. If love is the greatest among divine perfections, one might deduce that a loving God is perfectly open and relational. Beginning with love also overcomes contradictions in perfect being theologies that start with power, timelessness, or changeless perfection.

Meaning and Purpose – I conclude with a final reason some find open and relational theology appealing and likely true. The open and relational view provides a framework for thinking our lives have meaning and purpose. Most theologies portray God as one who either pre-programs all life or can get results singlehandedly. In those theologies, our choices don’t really matter. By contrast, open and relational thinking says we have genuinely free choices. Not even God can stop us. The future rests, in part, on what we decide, so our lives have meaning and purpose.

Concluding Questions

I conclude with two questions:

1 - Did I miss something above?

2 - What attracted you to open and relational theology?

I look forward to reading your comments!

<-- Go to link to leave comments at the bottom of Tom's page. By doing so you will help contribute to the writing of his new book he's developing. Thanks. - re slater

* * * * * * * *

Resources & Reading Materials on

Open & Relational Theology

https://trippfuller.com/2019/02/07/thomas-jay-oord-wants-you-to-know-god-cant/

https://homebrewedchristianity.lpages.co/becomingchristian/?fbclid=IwAR27ifxv07WKQn4aIaxbsb11QTwDsZzsOI3DQfqjzM76_9-RrqVoV5435lA

  

 

  

    

  

Envisioning a Process Relational Theology

Richard Rummell's 1906 watercolor landscape view of Harvard University,
facing northeast. Alfred North Whitehead taught at Harvard from 1924 to 1937.

ENVISIONING A
PROCESS RELATIONAL THEOLOGY

A Summary Review by R.E. Slater
of Robert Mesle's Introduction to AN Whitehead

As quoted in a previous article, "What would Bob say if you were riding in an elevator and he had 90 seconds to explain process-relational philosophy?"

• broad vision of the nature of the world and reality

• helps people address issues of evil

• applies to other fields, not just Christianity or religion (e.g. why did the stock market crash?)

• a way to say we are all in this together

• we should be concerned with the common good, not just what’s best for us

Whitehead began his work of process philosophy in reaction to modernism's ascent in the 17th and 18 century. He had begun life as a scholar publishing a treatise on mathematics (Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell; cf. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). As he did so he became conversant with the early quantum physics of Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, and other notables:

The foundations of quantum mechanics were established during the first half of the 20th century by Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Louis de Broglie, Arthur Compton, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Born, John von Neumann, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi, Wolfgang Pauli, Max von Laue, Freeman Dyson, David Hilbert, Wilhelm Wien, Satyendra Nath Bose, Arnold Sommerfeld, and others. The Copenhagen interpretation of Niels Bohr became widely accepted. - Wikipedia

While in discussion with several quantum physicists Whitehead began to explore the idea of a comprehensive metaphysic which blended philosophy with scientific research. Apparently he went through seven years of insomnia and used the time to read up on philosophical history and how it too was reflecting the science of mechanism and the material properties of nature, society, humans, and so forth, stipulated by axioms and orderly laws.

By approaching the world in a mechanistic fashion modern philosophy had isolated its discussions to the thing itself rather than to a world of things abounding around isolated things. This stood out in Whitehead's readings so much so he determined to write of a philosophy in a manner which would comprehend the wholeness of the universe - not as a mechanistic thing, but as an integrated, organic whole, alive to itself and all that was within, and without, its operations.

Further, what was especially important to Whitehead was whether there might be valuative issuances birthing from nature (or creation's) relational connectedness with itself. Valuative instances or experiences of morality, education, aesthetics, even beauty. At which point Whitehead began developing a "Philosophy of Organism" (what we know as "process relational philosophy") from age 63 to 68 (sic, Alfred North Whitehead Bio, Wikipedia):

"Alfred North Whitehead OM FRS FBA (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.

"In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. His most notable work in these fields is the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), which he wrote with former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century's most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.

"Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

"Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "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 consequences for the world around us." For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb."

Of particular interest to Christian process philosophers - what later developed into Process Theology, and now Process Relational Theology - was Whitehead's last chapter on God in his book Process and Reality. Though Principia Mathematica "Principles of Logic" became a work of futility by quantum mathematical standards Process and Reality has survived the test of time and is now flourishing into a global movement across all religions, sciences, and business endeavors.

Though Whitehead spoke of God in a rough framing outline related to his envisioning of God and early process theology, those who came after him succeeded in refining its ground breaking view of how God operates in the world and what God's relationship to the world is.

Philosophers and theologians who have published a monograph defending some variety of process theism informed by Whitehead or Charles Hartshorne include: Henry Nelson Wieman (1884–1975), Bernard Meland (1899–1993), Paul Weiss (1901–2002), Norman Pittenger (1905–1997), Daniel Day Williams (1910–1973), John Moskop, William L. Reese, John B. Cobb, Jr., Schubert Ogden, Edgar A. Towne, Eugene H. Peters (1929–1983), Bowman Clarke (1927–1996), Joseph Bracken, Burton Z. Cooper, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Gene A. Reeves, Lewis S. Ford, André Gounelle, Rem B. Edwards, Delwin Brown (1935–2009), David A. Pailin, Franklin I. Gamwell, Forrest Wood, David Ray Griffin, James A. Keller, Jorge Luis Nobo, Tyron Inbody, Carol P. Christ, George L. Goodwin, Barry Whitney, Santiago Sia, Jay McDaniel, George W. Shields, Donald Viney, Daniel A. Dombrowski, Anna Case-Winters, Kurian Kachappilly, Gregory A. Boyd, Roland Faber, Thomas Jay Oord, Donna Bowman, Derek Malone-France, and Julia Enxing; Williams, Reese, Cobb, Ogden, and Peters were Hartshorne’s students at Chicago; Clarke and Edwards studied with him at Emory; Nobo was Hartshorne’s student at Texas. - SEOP [*we should also add Catherine Keller - res]

Process Relational Philosophy/Theology

Within Part 5 Whitehead describes God in revelationally new ways under process relational thought. The remainder of these notes here will explore with Whitehead how God is perceived within a relational process construct.

Eckhart Hall at the University of Chicago. Beginning with the arrival of
Henry Nelson Wieman in 1927, Chicago's Divinity School become closely
associated with Whitehead's thought for about thirty years.

First, God is pictured as a persuasive, rather than coercive, ruling force. Yet these last two words ill fit Whitehead's description of God as God does not so much rule, nor rule by force, as to defeat the definition of a persuasive, guiding God in creation's affairs. To explore this further, is to ask the kind of action then that this kind of God utilizes. To say God is a guiding or luring presence must necessarily ask the "how" of God's non-coercive guidance.

This then links us with discussions of freewill, self-creativity, self-determination, and a whole host of other qualities asked of God in His relationship to the world, universe, creation, or nature (I will treat each description of the cosmos as equally reflective of the other in this discussion).

If God grants creation to be in His image then all that He is has been granted to creation - especially with respect to the quality of freewill. An agency which may love or not love, show generative value, or deny its course, a nurturing freedom or a debilitating power. Though God's image strives with His creation to produce valuative "feelings" or, generative panexperiential relationships, it may also be denuded, marred, denied, or refused by creation's own freewill agency. This is why freewill is the heaviest burden creation might bear. How it is used can mean everything. When not used well it is the greatest of burdens and griefs.

We might also ask the follow up question of whether God "granted" freewill or whether this issuance was part-and-parcel of His own being/essence. Thomas Oord describes freewill as that which came from God's love. It was never granted or allowed. It flowed naturally from God's very being. Again, the burden of a great gift is to the lack of its use in meaningful, valuative forms. 

By this gift creation and humanity became culpable to its misuse, known in Christian terms as sin and evil. It is not God who is culpable for the sufferings of this world but creation's own "nature" - or misused "divine agency" of God's image. Of note too, when describing non-sentient things such as nature, natural freewill might be referred to as "indeterminative agency or freewill"; which also describes humanity's agency quite well too).

Is God A Supreme Power or Kingly Ruler?

Whitehead goes on to ask the question of how do we understand God. In what terms do we ascribe to God His "Godness"? He notes the classical way of describing God has been of One who exhibits willful control over creation, doing what He wants and when He wants, at any time or any place. One who determines the future as to its results, whether good or bad. Whose dictates or fiats are to be obeyed, maybe strictly so, and that by the conduct of His unilateral rule it may be described as without affection for the world (the church doctrine of impassibilty).

This means then that God may do what He wants to do without being affected by our experiences. God is the Impassable Creator. An unaffected, determining force of creation. One who rules above the world, is transcendent to it, and unfeeling to its sufferings while executing within its providences determinative divine, or heavenly, results which He deems most necessary to the fulfillment of His ambitions. Creation then is simply His pawn to be used for a time then discarded like an old rag without value.

Of course, what Whitehead was noting was that early Israel and the church in the centuries afterwards came to identify God with the figures of Pharaoh of Egypt and Caesar of Rome. The bible describes such a claim as faith idolatry. A misplaced faith which wishes God to be other than He really is, as plainly told to us through the personage of Christ Jesus. He, who was Emmanuel, the suffering God of our experiences (sic, Isaiah 52.13 - 53.12)

The bible, as does process theology, rather focuses on God as a loving, suffering God who walks with us in all our ways, griefs, joys, pains, hopes, and outcomes. One who experiences with us the world as we feel and know it. He is the God of the here-and-now; the present as well as the past and future; the One who carries our burdens and cares; Who is affected by all the world's experiences at every single moment of every possible location wherever creation exists.

This is quite a different description of God than the classic Christian belief of a God of willful power and controller of outcomes. It doesn't see God's power as a unilateral or determinative force but as a guiding, persuading presence, granting generative freedom at every possible  moment. Helping and assisting as we go through life moment-by-moment. But when compared to the Pharaohs, Caesars, even "Presidents" of nations - God is unlike such beggardly rulers. He is more aptly described as the "Servant" King of creation.

One last, God is not in love with God's own power. He is not interested in waiting for us to praise Him, as it were, but much more interested in figuring out with us how to help us in our everyday lives, and creation generally, in its experience of itself towards goodness and light.

God, the Poet

R.E. Slater

God guides

productive, or

constructive, forces

with goodness

and energy

but not by

destructive forces

of any kind.

Nor does God

abandon a

self-creating world

of His own creation,

but redeems it

by atoning guidance,

renewing power,

held in the throes

of freewill agency.

God is the Poet

of worldly affairs,

by loving patience

kindly compassion,

leading the world

towards truth,

beauty, and

benevolent

wellbeing.

R.E. Slater

April 21, 2020

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

How Does God Guide?

Which leads us to yet another question... How is God's work "persuasive?"

Let's start off with this reflection by Whitehead again:

"Apart from the intervention of God in the world, there can be nothing new.
God does not control the world but inspires creativity, order, beauty." - ANW

In essence, God is safeguarding the past, the present, even all future presents, by allowing creation the opportunity to experience a range of creative possibilities within its processes of becoming.

God is the lure, the feeling, the call towards better, valuative possibilities and outcomes. He is not a ruling tyrant or even a benevolent tyrant; He is not a ruthless moralist; nor is God the "unmoved mover".

God dwells in the tender moments of the world. He is moved by love and compassion towards creation and people. Love does not rule but guides. Love does not usurp freewill but grants it. God presents the possibilities of love and goodness while also drawing creation to valuative possibilities. Possibilities for nurture, wellbeing, decision making and living. The love of God is always generative and generatively loving.

1 John 1  [New American Standard Bible (NASB)]

The Incarnate Word

1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.

God Is Light

5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

----------

John 1 [New American Standard Bible (NASB)]

The Deity of Jesus Christ

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The Witness John

6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

In both 1 John 1 and John 1 it is shown that creation as well as mankind may respond to God's love or ignore it. If we choose the latter than we choose to live in unloving, ungenerative lives of darkness and not light.

What Is God's Experience of the World?

From moment to moment across the expanse of creation God experiences the world and takes it all into Himself. When we experience God we are also experiencing God in what He has taken in from the world. His experience of it commits Him to us differently than He would have been in an earlier period of our lives. As we mature and experience the world so does God in a similar way. What we knew of ourselves and of life in an earlier youth we now know differently having lived life; having experienced life. So too with God.

This then removes God from the classic view of His experiencing all of creation from time immemorial to time everlasting. Though God has experienced time immemorial from the past to the present, He, like us, is experiencing the present tense of time with all its future possibilities of its present tense. As God does not determine the future nor does God know the future or has experienced the future. In this sense God is bound by future time even as His creation is, but with the important difference that He is immortal to our mortality.

Thus, God experiences all the past and all the present of every single moment everywhere in creation. As Whitehead says, God experiences the world, and our lives, even as the world and our lives become part of God's past and present tenses. He takes all our experiences into Himself and preserves it forever. God also takes all those experiences of us and the cosmos and re-weaves all His experiences received from it back into His interaction with the world.

Similarly, we do the same as we accumulate experiences in the world with each other and with creation. We then take the accumulation of those experiences and reweave them back into our lives as we respond to the world in our interactions with ourselves, each other, and nature. God is thus experiencing in this same fashion His creation from our experiences of ourselves and each other. From nature, the world, and the cosmos' experiences with itself and other processes.

As God has given Himself to us so we give back to God and to one another our essence and being as we share our experiences forward into the future present tenses of becoming. God then is our fellow companion and sufferer who walks with us, knows our griefs and sorrows, our joys and dreams, and takes all of our being into Himself even as He does with all of creation moment by moment in deep divine fellowship with all that has protruded from Him. In this Image all creation is born.

GOD   <-------------------------->  <---------------------> WORLD
Divine Tension  

God then brings the possibility of valuative becoming into the world even as he bears its non-valuative freewill actions upon this self-same world of possibilities. By this divine interaction God leaves God's Self vulnerable to the world even as He persuades it to become in the whispers of His being to be more than it is. God then is not the coercive power of the world but the "weak-and-strong" power of the world who imagines with us all that could be within the realms of our realities. The prayers of His people, wherever they are, whoever they are, and from whatever religion or culture they are, God hears and seeks to move with us in fellowship, and in answering our prayers, against sin and evil even as we imagine, and pray to create, generative living and life practices.

Is God the Unmoved Mover?

With the Greek philosopher Plato, and the early Church Father Aristotle studied in Platonism, the conception of God was one who was perfect. And by "perfect" they mean to convey the sense that God cannot be touched by His creation. That God is closed off from it; transcendent above it; unaffected by our experiences; unchanging in His eternal Being and Essence; and totally insulated or uninfluenced by creation in all of its portrayals. In classic doctrinal terms God is impassable (unfeeling), doing what He wants, when He wants, regardless of what results by His actions. We might call this a very Greek view of the Semitic God of the bible in its Greek mythologies of reality.

Conversely, if God is imperfect, then He is weak, powerless, touched adversely by humanity or creation. Who feels too much, who is too close to a sinful world of darkness and evil, who too readily changes within Himself to His experience of the world. Who can be influenced by petitions and prayers and pleas of mankind and nature. Whose actions demonstrate too much care, too much reaction to our plights, too much humanness or creatureliness within His experience of the world. In classic doctrinal terms God is passable (feeling), reacting to His experience of the world moment by moment but as an involved God of presence to its harms and ills.

So which view is right? Is God perfect or is God "imperfect"? Or, may God be perfect but in a different sense than the one given Him by theological classicists? Might God be perfect in an imperfect way? And might that imperfect way actually show to us the perfectness of His imperfection. Where God's weakness led Him to the agony of the cross. To the atonement for our ills and harms, sins and evils. To the redemption of our future presents. To the resurrection of our beings, our souls, our meaning. Yet each-and-all into the continually evolving process of becoming who we were meant to become? I think yes. God is all this and more.

Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist/Chinese  <-------  Parallels  -------> Semitic Christian

                  Process based religions                                            Processed based religion

The Constructive Nature of Postmodernism

The era of modernism arose in the 17th-18th Century under the early sciences under luminaries such as Galileo, Newton, and Descartes amongst others. This was the mechanistic world of calculated laws and machines which could be calibrated and directed to do precisely what they were expected to do. It affected market economies, societal community, and everyday pedestrian life.

It was also in this era that bodies and minds were considered separate entities. The body was compared to a machine in all its parts, routines, maintenance, needs, and regularities. Whereas the mind was quite free of these atomistic attitudes and might free-range across non-spatial expanses independent of any physical restrictions (even including those whose minds might be sick physically or psychologically; yet those minds might range wherever they wished to go from hallucinations to psychic experiences).

Here was a dualistic, binary view of the universe. The earlier Greeks had posited such a world as three: body, mind, soul. Though curiously, the Hebrew view was always one, not two, and not three. For Whitehead, having observed in his philosophical studies the atomistic, mechanical worlds of apartness and separation he found he wasn't impressed. That he yearned for another world. A world of wholeness integrated and integrating.

Whitehead lived in the early stages of postmodernism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the age of early quantum physics. It was from modernism's incomplete world Whitehead wished to examine process-based experience "all the way down".

Whitehead then asked whether Descartes was wrong in his binary approach to a universal comprehension of metaphysics. Whether if the human mind was the exception to nature or whether it was an extension of material things such as the body and its connection to the environment around it. Whether humans were the exception to nature as "special" beings or whether they were no different than anything else. Thus, began Whitehead's exploration for a greater, overarching, more integrated, explanation for everything.

Whitehead observed that the human body does have experiences, feelings, and casual reactions to the mind as did the mind to the body (cf. early neurosciences and psychoanalysis). That rather than being separate dualistic entities both body and mind acted as one. That the human condition was that of a holistic experience as a unified relational being. He noticed this through such incidental addresses as injuries, mockery, stress, scorn, pressure, exhaustion, love, anger, even the scratches and bruises a body gets from its experience of the outside world. To him, both body and mind responded as one holistic unit. That they were integral to each other and not two separate things.

To this Whitehead then directed his attention to the animals and nature around him. Even to the inorganic, non-sentient things such as rocks in their experience of time and evolution to the environment around such seemingly "static and impassable" states of their composition. He noticed the animals exhibited like us this body-mind unity. That mountains become hills, rocks became soil, and then he asked whether the experience of life, a process-based life, "goes all the way down"?

To this question Whitehead looked at the quantum world as to whether it was actively moving, changing, integrating, dissolving, flying apart, and flying together. Again, yes. What we as humans experience of a process-based world "all the way up" also occurred on the quantum level of string theory (not known then) "all the way down". That creation was not unlike itself from beginning to end - but completely like itself within its composition and apprehension of a processed-based cosmos.

Creation sings at dawn,
The hills clap their hands,
The heavens dance for joy,
The Lord, our Maker,
Rejoices in His work,
Compassion runneth

over all, through all

Amen and Amen.

R.E. Slater

April 21, 2020

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

The Relational Web of Becoming

PAST, PERISHABLE -------> ACTUALIZED POSSIBILITIES -----> RELATIONAL

                 EXPERIENCES                           Prehensive Actualities                     BECOMING

Even as postmodernism questions modernism by deconstructive thought, so postmodernism might also be a constructive form of evalution leading to greater holism of activity and experience. A comprehensive universe is an interactive, engaging process of the parts to the whole and the whole to its parts. It teaches us to listen to the world around us as well as to be intentional in all the ways we might create valuative constructs into the world around us.

Regardless as to whether these are socio-economic views, or ecological views of social justice, equality, and earthcare, the world is not simply a place of cruel labor or raw resources to be greedily used, stockpiled, and thrown away. Process Thought affirms the value we must place on the world beyond ourselves. Even as the bird and deer might enjoy their own lives, having value for what they are, so too we must recognize the value of compassionate living for all things and people around us. If one is to speak of becoming, then one must always be speaking of compassion as the central component to process philosophy and process theology; of process religion, economics, governance, science, sports, community, church, and every facet of life. 

We live in a process world. Part of its becoming is its striving towards compassion. Even as the God of love birthed the world out of His love, so this world is filled with His love looking to magnify and implode across our many worlds of unloving, uncompassionate attitudes and behavior. We call this generative living. Where every action leads to the welfare of other creatures and entities. To permeate nature and civilizations with compassion. Ourselves with compassion. And those around us with compassion. It is how a processed-based world operates underneath all its freewill agency. Should the two someday join up, the Ying and the Yang of its throes, then with Louis Armstrong we might sing, "What a Wonderful World that would Be."

Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World (1967)

Commentary - Jean Vanier's World of Love and Kindness

Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier’s world of love and kindness

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/jean-vaniers-world-of-love-and-kindness/

"How a visit to an ‘idiot’ asylum inspired the founder of L’Arche"

by Mary Wakefield

July 1, 2017

Some of the time, most of the time, it’s tricky to believe in God. There’s just too much that’s sad — and behind it all, the ceaseless chomping of predators. Then sometimes the mist lifts and just for a moment you can see why the saints insist that everything’s OK. There’s a documentary out now, Summer in the Forest, that for a while cleared the mist for me and made sense of faith.

It tells the stories of a group of men and women with learning disabilities who live alongside volunteers without disabilities in Trosly-Breuil, a small French village north of Paris. The community is called L’Arche — The Ark — and it was founded 53 years ago by a French-Canadian former naval officer, Jean Vanier. In his mid-thirties, Vanier visited an institution for ‘idiots’ and was struck by the great loneliness there. Where most of us would scuttle away guiltily, Jean Vanier made a decision in the autumn of 1964 that sent his life’s trajectory off at an odd angle.

He invited two men, Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux, to leave the asylum where they’d spent their adult lives, and come to live with him in his cottage in Trosly-Breuil. He thought it would be fun, he says. He thought they could go for drives.

In the film, a now elderly Philippe Seux explains what Vanier’s decision meant to him: ‘In the psychiatric hospital, there was nothing to do — just sit on your arse all day doing sod all. When some lads misbehaved, they were given injections to calm down. It was quite a relief to be out of there, I can tell you.’

The cottage became L’Arche, which in turn became an international movement over the years, and there are now hundreds of L’Arche communities worldwide, where men and women who would otherwise live locked up can live as family. The strange and lovely thing is that if Summer in the Forest is to be believed, it’s a family filled with unusual joy.

Jean Vanier is now 88 and, if you ask around in Catholic circles, it’s whispered he’s a saint. He still lives in Trosly-Breuil, but in his spare time he’s a sort of secret superhero for peace — flying around the world to broker between powerful players. Justin Welby called on him this year to mediate between cross bishops, and it’s said he made them all wash each other’s feet. Though Vanier’s life has been punctuated with great accomplishments and prestigious awards, it’s that first invitation to Raphael and Philippe that seems most impressive. You can change the direction of your life — you can change other people’s lives! Deep in my everyday rut, I forget.

When I spoke to Jean Vanier, England was simmering in the aftermath of the election and the Grenfell Tower fire. Summer in this city — all the railing against the rich — seemed a far cry from Summer in the Forest. Vanier lives with and champions the very poorest people. I asked him: All this rage against the rich, can good come of it? Will it be productive? He replied: ‘I mean, it’s not only unproductive but it kills oneself. If you hate people, then you begin to hate yourself. You destroy yourself and no more peace! You are just continually in anger.’

So what are we to do? (When you’ve got a candidate for sainthood on the line, you cut to the chase.) ‘When there is a lot of poverty it should be a call for a lot of people to rise up to share tenderness,’ he said. ‘It’s what the Samaritan did when he bent down and started looking after this Jewish guy somewhere between Jericho and Jerusalem. Something suddenly rose up in him that he could communicate life, and he did it to this guy who was a sort of enemy in religion. We all have that — that’s the beauty, we all have that potential. If we can cool the anger down.’

One way of cooling the anger — better than another smug-fest pop concert — might be a giant screening of Summer in the Forest in Trafalgar Square. This, I think, is actually a genuinely good idea. The residents of L’Arche, unlike most Corbynistas, are some of the least fortunate people on the planet. But they have a laugh. The documentary shows the canteen at breakfast. One young man, David Surmaire, says: ‘I’m a strong man, me. People who treat me as if I’m small — they have to stop it.’ Then he drops to all fours, and barks like a dog while his girlfriend miaows. They’re having a blast. Jean Vanier eats all his meals in the canteen. He sits to one side and gently teases his friends.

Michel Petit, the real star of Summer in the Forest, is a barrel-bellied 75-year-old with the gait and purposefulness of a toddler. In his pre-L’Arche life he spent angry decades in a home. He says, simply and seriously to camera: ‘Jean Vanier is a man who loves us very much. He loves me very much. He taught me about calm.’

To me, Jean said: ‘I’ve been with these people now for 30 years, they are super people. Because they are people of fun, they love to celebrate. Every meal can become a celebration. That doesn’t mean to say that now and again people won’t prod their next-door neighbour with a fork — this is life. But the fundamental movement from many people with disabilities, they have been so pushed down, they don’t know they’re lovable, and then the day that they discover that they are lovable and they can trust themselves, then it becomes whoopee!’

The L’Arche communities are peaceful places, but they’re a puzzle for the West. We all talk great game on equality but the truth is most of us think: ‘I’d rather be dead than very disabled.’ Witness the hundreds of poor babies with Down’s syndrome aborted each year. So how can these men and women at L’Arche be living better lives than our own?

Vanier explained: ‘Look, there are two realities, two cultures. There is a culture of power and there is a culture of relationships. The men and women I live with see that it is good to be together and we don’t have to solve all the problems of the world when we are together. They teach me to lighten up. But then now and again,’ he said, ‘you get people from The Spectator who ring you up and you have to start being serious…’

I looked down at my great list of serious questions, and ploughed on. Here in the UK, the dominant philosophy in the social services is one of ‘care in the community’. The idea is that people with learning difficulties should live not in homes, but in their own flats, independently. Communities like L’Arche are closing down. Isn’t that lunacy?

‘We did that for a while right in the early days,’ said Vanier. ‘We found jobs for people and got them into apartments and everything, but then they found that television and beer go really well together and then we had to work with the AA! The point is not just to have independence, it’s to have friends. People belong together in a shared life.’

‘If I could change the law,’ he said, ‘I would organise it so that industries can be welcoming people with disabilities, meaning they don’t have to pay such high prices, they have much greater flexibility in wages and time and so and so, that could be adapted to people with disabilities.’

Oh what a hot potato this is in England! Rosa Monckton argued the same case in this magazine a few months ago. She suggested that people with learning disabilities who long to work, should not have to be paid the minimum wage. The reaction was apoplectic, I told Jean. ‘What a shame!’ he said. ‘The Down’s people would bring in laughter to the businesses! It would benefit everyone. But anyway…’ Anyway. It’s life, and we’re all in it together.

According to the philosophy of L’Arche, men and women with learning disabilities — loving and guileless — teach us how to live. But, says Vanier, they have another lesson for us too — they also teach us the mystery of living with loss. This I find unnerving. What is the mystery of loss?

‘We all live with loss,’ said Vanier. ‘It’s inevitable. We begin, most of us, by being loved totally when we’re born — then we enter into a world of loss, a mystery of loss. Every time you lose a job, or something precious, or there’s death, there’s loss. We cannot live without this movement of loss and gain. But some people are so frightened of loss, they are just scared stiff of loss.’

He laughed. I didn’t. I thought of a life spent acquiring and keeping safe: a husband, the baby, a house, the great stream of packages from Amazon. The possibilities for loss give me vertigo.

‘You can’t escape it,’ said Jean Vanier, gently. ‘In the end, you even lose what you feel is yourself. We all do. There’s a beauty in that. There’s a beauty even in something like Alzheimer’s, because it is a cry. It’s not a disaster, it’s a cry for a one-to-one.’

But how can that be beautiful? Isn’t it just catastrophically sad?

‘We have to learn to cry,’ said Jean Vanier, ‘because we’ve created an identity of power and not an identity of relationships, and that’s what the whole film is about — an identity of relationships.’

It’s true that Summer in the Forest turns the world upside down. If these men and women, who have so little of what the world admires, can be so happy, then we must be going about things a little wrong. The mystery of loss remains a mystery to me — but I’m left with the image of Sebastian, a member of L’Arche in Trosly-Breuil, whose life is spent lying scribbled up on a sort of motorised bed: limbs useless, head twisted sideways. In the film he’s shown having his heart checked by a doctor. When the doc is done, Jean, standing beside him, leans his head down next to Sebastian’s. ‘You are so beautiful, Sebastian,’ he says. Sebastian, who should by all rights be furious with life, accepts Jean’s love.