Process Studies - Introduction To Process Philosophy

R.E. Slater side note

Around the time Process Studies was beginning there was another movement going on known as "Boston Personalism" that has been lost to the historical records but seems to have had a very large effect upon the germ of Process Theology. For more on this subject go to the article in Relevancy22 titled: "Roger Olson - Is God Infinite or Personal? The Rise of Boston Personalism as Foundation to (but different from) Process Theology and Revival in Open and Relational Theology."

Wikipedia's link on Personalism describes it as the following but "personally" I like Roger Olson's introduction to the subject far better.

Personalism is a philosophical school of thought searching to describe the uniqueness of 1) God as Supreme Person or 2) a human person in the world of nature, specifically in relation to [other humans and] animals.

One of the main points of interest of personalism is human subjectivity or self-consciousness, experienced in a person's own acts and inner happenings—in "everything in the human being that is internal, whereby each human being is an eyewitness of its own self".

Other principles:

• Persons have unique value, and
• Only persons have free will

According to idealism there is one more principle

• Only persons are real (in the ontological sense).

As an introduction to Process Philosophy I've listed several video channels that are fun to watch, informative and helpful in assessing where this branch of theology has grown and is going over the past decades.

As an Arminian Christian you'll love these videos but as a Calvinist Christian you won't. Having grown up as a Baptist in the mixed environment of both Calvinism (God Rules All) and Arminianism (God Gives Free Will) I appreciate both approaches but have lately, these past ten years, moved away from the excesses of Calvinism to a stronger position of Arminianism.

Consequently, "Process Theology + Piety + Personalism (it seems)" has opened up another world of perspective upon the subject of God, the Bible, and humanity's role in God's Sovereign plan. A plan more marked in my mind with "providing for creation's needs, giving up divine rule, and seeking strength through weakness (the Cross, Church, our growth of Faith, etc)" than it is by God "pre-determining all (closed futures), insisting on His divine adulation (idolatry), and showing strength through judgment (rule and prophetic schematas)." The first approach is guided by Divine Love. The second by Divine Judgment. I much prefer the idea that judgment is born out of love rather than love from judgment.

As further resource, throughout Relevancy22 you will find hundreds of topics dealing with hundreds of perspectives between the correlation of these ideas as they conflict with, and presage, each other. Thus Relevancy22's birth. To lend to the church another theological viewpoint into the halls of its experience with God and this world. And one, for myself, that seems to make a lot of sense giving a better understanding of God, the reading of His Word, the juxtaposition of sin and evil to the will of God, and the difficulty of faith and faith living in this life.

Thank you,

R.E. Slater

August 12, 2017

* * * * * * *

"The Philosopher's: (YouTube) Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_N01_L-fiORG_voNXvv7Kw

"The Philosopher's" Video Lists:

https://www.youtube.com/user/kasperjo28/videos

Published on Jun 12, 2016

An introduction to process philosophy. A short documentary on process philosophy and process thinking - by the danish process philosopher Kasper Johansen. This documentary was filmed in the spirit of process thinking.

Published on Jul 22, 2017

A further explanation of what is process philosophy. - This video is a continuation of a documentary I made on process philosophy last summer. This is a more indepht documentary on process thinking and how to understand process philosophy.

Published on Aug 8, 2017

This video is about the philosophical method of walking and doing philosophy. It helps to move your thoughts physically. This is what learned during a session of walking and philosophizing in deep in the woods of Northern Sweden.

Published on Dec 10, 2015

What is Process Theology?

Interview with Thomas Jay Oord at the Whitehead Conference in Claremont (CA), June 5th 2015.

Published on Jan 10, 2016

A short introduction to the process philosophy & process theology of Alfred North Whitehead (*1861, †1947), containing several photos and 4 speakers, describing some core hypotheses of Whitehead's metaphysics. The speakers are: John B. Cobb, David Ray Griffin, Charles Hartshorne and Rupert Sheldrake.

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Process theology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*Not to be confused with Process Church.

Process theology is a type of theology developed from Alfred North Whitehead's (1861–1947) process philosophy, most notably by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) and John B. Cobb (b. 1925). Process theology and process philosophy are collectively referred to as "process thought."

For both Whitehead and Hartshorne, it is an essential attribute of God to affect and be affected by temporal processes, contrary to the forms of theism that hold God to be in all respects non-temporal (eternal), unchanging (immutable), and unaffected by the world (impassible). Process theology does not deny that God is in some respects eternal (will never die), immutable (in the sense that God is unchangingly good), and impassible (in the sense that God's eternal aspect is unaffected by actuality), but it contradicts the classical view by insisting that God is in some respects temporal, mutable, and passible.[1]

According to Cobb, "process theology may refer to all forms of theology that emphasize event, occurrence, or becoming over against substance [being]. In this sense theology influenced by [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel is process theology just as much as that influenced by Whitehead. This use of the term calls attention to affinities between these otherwise quite different traditions."[2][3] Also Pierre Teilhard de Chardin can be included among process theologians,[4] even if they are generally understood as referring to the Whiteheadian/Hartshornean school, where there continue to be ongoing debates within the field on the nature of God, the relationship of God and the world, and immortality.

History

Various theological and philosophical aspects have been expanded and developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), John B. Cobb, Jr., and David Ray Griffin.[5] A characteristic of process theology each of these thinkers shared was a rejection of metaphysics that privilege "being" over "becoming", particularly those of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.[6] Hartshorne was deeply influenced by French philosopher Jules Lequier and by Swiss philosopher Charles Secrétan who were probably the first ones to claim that in God liberty of becoming is above his substantiality.

Process theology soon influenced a number of Jewish theologians including Rabbis Max Kadushin, Milton Steinberg and Levi A. Olan, Harry Slominsky and, to a lesser degree, Abraham Joshua Heschel. Today some rabbis who advocate some form of process theology include Bradley Shavit Artson, Lawrence A. Englander, William E. Kaufman, Harold Kushner, Anton Laytner, Michael Lerner, Gilbert S. Rosenthal, Lawrence Troster, Donald B. Rossoff, Burton Mindick, and Nahum Ward.

Alan Anderson and Deb Whitehouse have applied process theology to the New Thought variant of Christianity.

The work of Richard Stadelmann has been to preserve the uniqueness of Jesus in process theology.

God and the World relationship.

Whitehead's classical statement is a set of antithetical statements that attempt to avoid self-contradiction by shifting them from a set of oppositions into a contrast:

• It is as true to say that God is permanent and the World fluent, as that the World is permanent and God is fluent.

• It is as true to say that God is one and the World many, as that the World is one and God many.

• It is as true to say that, in comparison with the World, God is actual eminently, as that, in comparison with God, the World is actual eminently.

• It is as true to say that the World is immanent in God, as that God is immanent in the World.

• It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God.

• It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God.[7]

Themes

• God is not omnipotent in the sense of being coercive. The divine has a power of persuasion rather than coercion. Process theologians interpret the classical doctrine of omnipotence as involving force, and suggest instead a forbearance in divine power. "Persuasion" in the causal sense means that God does not exert unilateral control.[8]

• Reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but serially-ordered events, which are experiential in nature. These events have both a physical and mental aspect. All experience (male, female, atomic, and botanical) is important and contributes to the ongoing and interrelated process of reality.

• The universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will. Self-determination characterizes everything in the universe, not just human beings. God cannot totally control any series of events or any individual, but God influences the creaturely exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities. To say it another way, God has a will in everything, but not everything that occurs is God's will.[9]

• God contains the universe but is not identical with it (panentheism, not pantheism or pandeism). Some also call this "theocosmocentrism" to emphasize that God has always been related to some world or another.

• Because God interacts with the changing universe, God is changeable (that is to say, God is affected by the actions that take place in the universe) over the course of time. However, the abstract elements of God (goodness, wisdom, etc.) remain eternally solid.

• Charles Hartshorne believes that people do not experience subjective (or personal) immortality, but they do have objective immortality because their experiences live on forever in God, who contains all that was. Other process theologians believe that people do have subjective experience after bodily death.[10]

• Dipolar theism is the idea that God has both a changing aspect (God's existence as a Living God) and an unchanging aspect (God's eternal essence).[11]

Relationship to liberation theology

Henry Young combines Black theology and Process theology in his book Hope in Process. Young seeks a model for American society that goes beyond the alternatives of integration of Blacks into white society and Black separateness. He finds useful the process model of the many becoming one. Here the one is a new reality that emerges from the discrete contributions of the many, not the assimilation of the many to an already established one.[12]

Monica Coleman has combined Womanist theology and Process theology in her book Making a Way Out of No Way. In it, she argues that 'making a way out of no way' and 'creative transformation' are complementary insights from the respective theological traditions. She is one of many theologians who identify both as a process theologian and feminist/womanist/ecofeminist theologian, which includes persons such as Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki.[13][14]

C. Robert Mesle, in his book Process Theology, outlines three aspects of a process theology of liberation:[15]

• There is a relational character to the divine which allows God to experience both the joy and suffering of humanity. God suffers just as those who experience oppression and God seeks to actualize all positive and beautiful potentials. God must, therefore, be in solidarity with the oppressed and must also work for their liberation.

• God is not omnipotent in the classical sense and so God does not provide support for the status quo, but rather seeks the actualization of greater good.

• God exercises relational power and not unilateral control. In this way God cannot instantly end evil and oppression in the world. God works in relational ways to help guide persons to liberation.

Relationship to pluralism.

Process theology affirms that God is working in all persons to actualize potentialities. In that sense each religious manifestation is the Divine working in a unique way to bring out the beautiful and the good. Additionally, scripture and religion represent human interpretations of the divine. In this sense pluralism is the expression of the diversity of cultural backgrounds and assumptions that people use to approach the Divine.[16]

Relationship to the doctrine of the incarnation

Further information: Incarnation (Christianity)

Contrary to Christian orthodoxy, the Christ of mainstream process theology is not the mystical and historically exclusive union of divine and human natures in one hypostasis, the eternal Logos of God uniquely enfleshed in and identifiable as the man Jesus. Rather God is incarnate in the lives of all people when they act according to a call from God. Jesus fully and in every way responded to God's call, thus the person of Jesus is theologically understood as "the divine Word in human form." Jesus is not singularly or essentially God, but he was perfectly synchronized to God at all moments of life.[17] Cobb expressed the Incarnation in process terms that link it to his understanding of actualization of human potential: "'Christ' refers to the Logos as incarnate hence as the process of creative transformation in and of the world".

Debate about process theology's conception of God’s power

A criticism of process theology is that it offers a too severely diminished conception of God’s power. Process theologians argue that God does not have unilateral, coercive control over everything in the universe. In process theology, God cannot override a person’s freedom, nor perform miracles that violate the laws of nature, nor perform physical actions such as causing or halting a flood or an avalanche. Critics argue that this conception diminishes divine power to such a degree that God is no longer worshipful.[5][18][19][20][21]

The process theology response to this criticism is that the traditional Christian conception of God is actually not worshipful as it stands, and that the traditional notion of God’s omnipotence fails to make sense.[22]

First, power is a relational concept. It is not exerted in a vacuum, but always by some entity A over some other entity B.[23] As such, power requires analysis of both the being exerting power, and the being that power is being exerted upon. To suppose that an entity A (in this case, God), can always successfully control any other entity B is to say, in effect, that B does not exist as a free and individual being in any meaningful sense, since there is no possibility of its resisting A if A should decide to press the issue.[24]

Mindful of this, process theology makes several important distinctions between different kinds of power. The first distinction is between “coercive” power and “persuasive” power.[25] Coercive power is the kind that is exerted by one physical body over another, such as one billiard ball hitting another, or one arm twisting another. Lifeless bodies (such as the billiard balls) cannot resist such applications of physical force at all, and even living bodies (like arms) can only resist so far, and can be coercively overpowered. While finite, physical creatures can exert coercive power over one another in this way, God—lacking a physical body—cannot (not merely will not) exert coercive control over the world.[26]

But process theologians argue that coercive power is actually a secondary or derivative form of power, while persuasion is the primary form.[25] Even the act of self-motion (of an arm, for instance) is an instance of persuasive power. The arm may not perform in the way a person wishes it to—it may be broken, or asleep, or otherwise unable to perform the desired action. It is only after the persuasive act of self-motion is successful that an entity can even begin to exercise coercive control over other finite physical bodies. But no amount of coercive control can alter the free decisions of other entities; only persuasion can do so.[27]

For example, a child is told by his parent that he must go to bed. The child, as a self-conscious, decision-making individual, can always make the decision to not go to bed. The parent may then respond by picking up the child bodily and carrying him to his room, but nothing can force the child to alter his decision to resist the parent's directive. It is only the body of the child that can be coercively controlled by the body of the physically stronger parent; the child's free will remains intact. While process theologians argue that God does not have coercive power, they also argue that God has supreme persuasive power, that God is always influencing/persuading us to choose the good.

One classic exchange over the issue of divine power is between philosophers Frederick Sontag and John K. Roth and process theologian David Ray Griffin.[28] Sontag and Roth argued that the process God’s inability to, for instance, stop the genocide at Auschwitz meant that God was not worthy of worship, since there is no point in worshipping a God that cannot save us from such atrocities. Griffin’s response was as follows:

One of the stronger complaints from Sontag and Roth is that, given the enormity of evil in the world, a deity that is [merely] doing its best is not worthy of worship. The implication is that a deity that is not doing its best isworthy of worship. For example, in reference to Auschwitz, Roth mocks my God with the statement that “the best that God could possibly do was to permit 10,000 Jews a day to go up in smoke.” Roth prefers a God who had the power to prevent this Holocaust but did not do it! This illustrates how much people can differ in what they consider worthy of worship. For Roth, it is clearly brute power that evokes worship. The question is: is this what should evoke worship? To refer back to the point about revelation: is this kind of power worship consistent with the Christian claim that divinity is decisively revealed in Jesus? Roth finds my God too small to evoke worship; I find his too gross.[28]

The process argument, then, is that those who cling to the idea of God’s coercive omnipotence are defending power for power’s sake, which would seem to be inconsistent with the life of Jesus, who Christians believe died for humanity’s sins rather than overthrow the Roman empire. Griffin argues that it is actually the God whose omnipotence is defined in the “traditional” way that is not worshipful.[28]

One other distinction process theologians make is between the idea of “unilateral” power versus “relational” power.[29] Unilateral power is the power of a king (or more accurately, a tyrant) who wishes to exert control over his subjects without being affected by them.[30] However, most people would agree that a ruler who is not changed or affected by the joys and sorrows of his subjects is actually a despicable ruler and a psychopath.[31] Process theologians thus stress that God’s power is relational; rather than being unaffected and unchanged by the world, God is the being most affected by every other being in the universe.[32] As process theologian Bob Mesle puts it:

Relational power takes great strength. In stark contrast to unilateral power, the radical manifestations of relational power are found in people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus. It requires the willingness to endure tremendous suffering while refusing to hate. It demands that we keep our hearts open to those who wish to slam them shut. It means offering to open up a relationship with people who hate us, despise us, and wish to destroy us.[29]

In summation, then, process theologians argue that their conception of God’s power does not diminish God, but just the opposite. Rather than see God as one who unilaterally coerces other beings, judges and punishes them, and is completely unaffected by the joys and sorrows of others, process theologians see God as the one who persuades the universe to love and peace, is supremely affected by even the tiniest of joys and the smallest of sorrows, and is able to love all beings despite the most heinous acts they may commit. God is, as Whitehead says, “the fellow sufferer who understands.”[33]

Process theologians

Bradley Shavit Artson

Thomas Berry

Charles Birch

Joseph A. Bracken

Philip Clayton

John B. Cobb

Monica Coleman

Bruce G. Epperly

Roland Faber

Paul S. Fiddes

Stephen T. Franklin

Terence E. Fretheim

Franklin I. Gamwell

David Ray Griffin

Charles Hartshorne

Nancy R. Howell

Tony Jones

William E. Kaufman

Catherine Keller

Harold Kushner

Michael Lerner

C. Robert Mesle

Jay McDaniel

Schubert M. Ogden

Thomas Jay Oord

Blake Ostler

Arthur Peacocke

Norman Pittenger

Richard Rice

Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki

Alfred North Whitehead

Daniel Day Williams

George V. Pixley

See also

Conceptions of God

Essence–Energies distinction

Liberal naturalism

New Thought

Open theism

Panentheism

Philosophical theism

Philosophical theology

Postliberal theology

Process philosophy

Synergism (theology)

Theopoetics

Earthseed

Neo-Hasidism

References

1. Viney, Donald W. "Process Theism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
2. Cobb Jr., John B. (1982). Process Theology as Political Theology. Manchester: Manchester University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-664-24417-0. ISBN 0-66424417-3.
3. O'Regan, Cyril (1994). The Heterodox Hegel. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. p. 448: "Any relation between Process Theology and Hegelian ontotheology needs to be argued. Such argument has become more conspicuous in recent years". ISBN 978-0-791-42005-8. ISBN 0-79142005-1.
4. Bonting, Sjoerd Lieuwe (2005). Creation and Double Chaos. Science and Theology in Discussion. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-451-41838-5. ISBN 1-45141838-8.
5. John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 342.
6. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Process Philosophy", retrieved September 6, 2014.
7. Whitehead, Process and Reality, Corrected Ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 348.
8. Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes(Albany: State University of New York, 1984), 20-26.
9. John Cobb and David Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 14-16, chapter 1.
10. Hartshorne, 32-36.
11. Donald Wayne Viney, Charles Hartshorne, "12. Dipolar Theism", retrieved September 6, 2014.
12. http://processandfaith.org/writings/article/process-theology
13. Center for Process Studies, "CPS Co-directors," retrieved September 6, 2014.
14. "The Body of God - An Ecological Theology," retrieved September 6, 2014.
15. C. Robert Mesle, Process Theology: A Basic Introduction (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1993), 65-68, 75-80.
16. Mesle, 101.
17. Mesle, 106.
18. editor, John S. Feinberg ; John S. Feinberg, general (2006). No one like Him : the doctrine of God ([Rev. ed.]. ed.). Wheaton. Ill.: Crossway Books. p. 178. ISBN 978-1581348118.
19. Roger E. Olson, “Why I am Not a Process Theologian,” last modified December 4, 2013, Patheos.org, accessed May 7, 2014.
20. David Basinger, Divine Power in Process Theism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 14.
21. Al Truesdale, God Reconsidered (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2010), 21.
22. David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 268.
23. David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 265.
24. David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 267.
25. David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 9.
26. David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 8.
27. David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 6.
28. David Ray Griffin, "Creation Out of Chaos and the Problem of Evil," in Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy, ed. Stephen Davis (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), 135.
29. Robert Mesle, “Relational Power,” JesusJazzBuddhism.org, accessed May 7, 2014.
30. Schubert M. Ogden, The Reality of God and Other Essays (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1992), 51.
31. Charles Hartshorne, "Kant's Traditionalism," in Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers: An Evaluation of Western Philosophy, ed. Charles Hartshorne (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 174.
32. Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), 58.
33. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 351.

Further reading

• Bruce G. Epperly Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed (NY: T&T Clark, 2011, ISBN 978-0-567-59669-7) This is "perhaps the best in-depth introduction to process theology available for non-specialists."

• Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki's God Christ Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology, new rev. ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1989, ISBN 0-8245-0970-6) demonstrates the practical integration of process philosophy with Christianity.

• C. Robert Mesle's Process Theology: A Basic Introduction (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8272-2945-3) is an introduction to process theology written for the layperson.

• Jewish introductions to classical theism, limited theism and process theology can be found in A Question of Faith: An Atheist and a Rabbi Debate the Existence of God (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1994, ISBN 1-56821-089-2) and The Case for God (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1991, ISBN 0-8272-0458-2), both written by Rabbi William E. Kaufman. Jewish variations of process theology are also presented in Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Anchor Books, 2004, ISBN 1-4000-3472-8) and Sandra B. Lubarsky and David Ray Griffin, eds., Jewish Theology and Process Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995, ISBN 0-7914-2810-9).

• Christian introductions may be found in Schubert M. Ogden's The Reality of God and Other Essays (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-87074-318-X); John B. Cobb, Doubting Thomas: Christology in Story Form (New York: Crossroad, 1990, ISBN 0-8245-1033-X); Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984, ISBN 0-87395-771-7); and Richard Rice, God's Foreknowledge & Man's Free Will (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, 1985; rev. ed. of the author's The Openness of God, cop. 1980; ISBN 0-87123-845-4). In French, the best introduction may be André Gounelle, Le Dynamisme Créateur de Dieu: Essai sur la Théologie du Process, édition revue, modifiée et augmentee (Paris: Van Dieren, 2000, ISBN 2-911087-26-7).

• For essays exploring the relation of process thought to Wesleyan theology, see Bryan P. Stone and Thomas Jay Oord, Thy Nature and Thy Name is Love: Wesleyan and Process Theologies in Dialogue (Nashville: Kingswood, 2001, ISBN 0-687-05220-3).

• The most important work by Paul S. Fiddes is The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); see also his short overview "Process Theology," in A. E. McGrath, ed., The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Modern Christian Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 472–76.

• Norman Pittenger's thought is exemplified in his God in Process (London: SCM Press, 1967, LCC BT83.6 .P5), Process-Thought and Christian Faith (New York: Macmillan Company, 1968, LCC BR100 .P615 1968), and Becoming and Belonging (Wilton, CT: Morehouse Publications, 1989, ISBN 0-8192-1480-9).

• Constance Wise's Hidden Circles in the Web: Feminist Wicca, Occult Knowledge, and Process Thought (Lanham, Md.: AltaMira Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7591-1006-9) applies process theology to one variety of contemporary Paganism.

• Michel Weber, « Shamanism and proto-consciousness », in René Lebrun, Julien De Vos et É. Van Quickelberghe (éds), Deus Unicus, Turnhout, Brepols, coll. Homo Religiosus série II, 14, 2015, pp. 247–260.

External links

• The Center for Process Studies

• Process and FaithReference works

Reference Works

• Donald Viney, "Process Theism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• John B. Cobb, Jr., "Process Theology," Religion-Online

• Byrne, Peter; Houlden, Leslie (2013). "Process Theology". Companion Encyclopedia of Theology. London: Routledge. ISBN 1-13492200-0; ISBN 978-1-13492200-0.

• An encyclopedic-type article

• Michel Weber and Will Desmond (eds.), Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Frankfurt / Lancaster, ontos verlag, Process Thought X1 & X2, 2008 (ISBN 978-3-938793-92-3).

5 Things You’re Reading, When You’re Reading The Bible

5 Things You’re Reading, When You’re

Reading The Bible

article link

by Benjamin L. Corey
March 13, 2017
Comments

I love the Bible.

It’s why I spent eight years of my life in seminary, why I’ve served as a church pastor even when they couldn’t afford to pay me, and is why even now I end up finding Greek flashcards in the most random places in my house.

But my love for the Bible includes honesty.

When we love someone or something, it’s easy to grow to see them the way you want to see them in your mind, often overlooking obvious realities that, if acknowledged, would create more work for the relationship. I did that for many years with the Bible, but now my love for it includes a willingness to embrace it for all it is– and to be honest about that.

In my years of studying, wrestling, and growing to love the Bible deeper and more honestly, I’ve come to embrace and acknowledge that when we read the words on the page, we’re reading a lot more than just those words. So, here’s 5 things we’re reading, when we’re reading the Bible:

5. You’re reading books and letters where the primary/original meaning is what the author intended the original audience to understand.

I remember learning in Sunday School that the Bible was “God’s love letter to us.” It’s a cute idea, but is less than helpful because we’re not the original audience, and that matters.

The reality is that these are sacred books, stories, and letters, where the primary/original meaning is the meaning the original author intended to convey to the original audience– and we’re neither of those parties. It’s almost like trying to understand an inside joke; until you understand the relationship between the sender and receiver of a message, and the context of what’s being discussed, it’s easy to walk away with all sorts of broken understandings of what was really being communicated. This makes things like understanding ancient culture, customs, and general history, a critical aspect of understanding the Bible.

4. You’re reading an unfolding story of people slowly growing in their understanding of God.

For those of us who grow up in conservative traditions, we’re often taught that the nature and character of God is perfectly revealed on every page of Scripture, but that’s not actually true.

The Bible, while a collection of books spanning centuries, is ultimately an unfolding story of people trying to understand what God is like. There are glimpses of God revealed throughout the story, as well as misunderstandings about God, and even blaming horrid actions on God– but the revelation of God is a progressive revelation. The entire narrative builds towards the introduction of a main character– Jesus– who is God made flesh and reveals that the nature and character of God has often been profoundly misunderstood.

The giant twist of the story was the realization that the only way to know what God is like, is to look at what Jesus is like– everything else gets reinterpreted in light of God made flesh.

3. You’re reading the judgment call, and even bias, of a translator.

Translation may involve the same part of your brain as math, but it’s not *exact* like math. The reality is that when translating ancient manuscripts into modern language, there are words and expressions that do not have a 1 for 1 swap. You also find words that could have meant many different things in the original language, and without the ability to ask the original author which meaning they meant or which meaning the original audience most likely would have understood, you’re left with no choice but to make your best guess– and that best guess can radically change the flavor of any given passage.

Other times there is outright bias on the part of the translator to the point where they will deliberately translate something in a way that is more favorable to their opinion or position. Either way, when you read the Bible you’re already reading someone else’s best guess, or someone else’s bias.

2. You’re reading nuance in English that does not exist in Greek.

Translation isn’t just a challenge from Greek or Hebrew into English, but also brings up reverse issues: words in English that carry flavors, associations, and nuance, that would not have existed in the original language. When this happens, we are subtly led to read things into Scripture without even knowing we’re doing it– unconsciously assuming that modern or English nuance actually applies to the text.

A great example of this is the word “hell.” The NT uses three completely different words that we translate into English as hell, even though all three Greek words have different nuance– none of them being the equivalent to what we think about when we see the English word, hell. Our version of the word didn’t exist in the first century, so using the English word “hell” causes us to read a modern understanding into an ancient text, wrongly.

1. You’re reading your own beliefs, assumptions, and generational theology.

Every time you pick up a Bible, you’re reading not just words on a page but are also reading previously held beliefs and assumptions into the text. This is a version of confirmation bias, which essentially is an unwillingness (often subconscious) to have your cherished view be shaken by additional facts or information, and is a *really* hard habit to break.

If your childhood was spent being taught that X was true, when you read the Bible you’ll read it in such a way that assumes X is true. When you encounter a passage that contradicts or challenges X, you’ll naturally look for alternative ways to understand the passage so that it lines up with your unwillingness to consider that X may not be true after all.

Believe violence against enemies is ok? You’ll read that into the Bible. Taught that God is full of wrath, that there’s a great tribulation about to come upon us, and that the end is here? You’ll read that into the Bible, too. That’s because it’s natural to bring our own beliefs and assumptions to the party with us, and to read the Bible in such a way that makes it conform to the view we already hold– we all do it, we just have to learn to be aware that we’re doing it.

…

I grew up in the world where people had bumper stickers that said, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it,” but it’s really not that simple. The Bible is a complex collection of writings. There are translation issues, narrative issues, nuance of language issues, and the human tendency to make something conform to a previously held belief.

I think we need to be honest about that, and allow that to invite us into a posture of humility when reading the Bible.

I still love the Bible every bit as much as I loved it back then, but I love it with more honesty now– even thought it creates a lot more work for the relationship.

What is the Higgs Boson, and why is it so important?

What is the Higgs Boson, and why is it so important?

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/208652-what-is-the-higgs-boson

by Graham Templeton

June 24, 2015

The Higgs boson is, if nothing else, the most expensive particle of all time. It’s a bit of an unfair comparison; discovering the electron, for instance, required little more than a vacuum tube and some genuine genius, while finding the Higgs boson required the creation of experimental energies rarely seen before on planet Earth. The Large Hadron Collider hardly needs any introduction, being one of the most famous and successful scientific experiments of all time, but the identity of its primary target particle is still shrouded in mystery for much of the public. It’s been called the God Particle, but thanks to the efforts of literally thousands of scientists, we no longer have to take its existence on faith.

Why has the Higgs been the subject of so much hype, funding, and (mis)information? For two reasons. One, it was the last hold-out particle remaining hidden during the quest to check the accuracy of the Standard Model of Physics. This meant its discovery would validate more than a generation of scientific publication. Two, the Higgs is the particle which gives other particles their mass, making it both centrally important and seemingly magical. We tend to think of mass as an intrinsic property of all things, yet physicists believe that without the Higgs boson, mass fundamentally doesn’t exist.

The reason comes back to something called the Higgs field. This field was actually theorized before the Higgs boson itself, as physicists calculated that in order for their theories and observations to jive, it was necessary to imagine a new field that existed everywhere in the universe. Shoring up existing theories by inventing new theoretical components to the universe is dangerous, and in the past led physicists to hypothesize a universal aether — but the more math they did, the more they realized that the Higgs field simply had to be real. The only problem? By the very way they’d defined it, the Higgs field would be virtually impossible to observe.

The Higgs field was thought to be responsible for the fact that some particles that should not have mass, do. It is, in a sense, the universal medium which separates massless particles into different masses. This is called symmetry breaking, and it’s often explained by way of analogy with light — all wavelengths of light travel at the same speed in the medium of a vacuum, but in the medium of a prism, each wavelength can be can separated from homogenous white light into bands of different wavelengths. This is of course a flawed analogy, since the wavelengths of light all exist in white light whether or not we’re capable of seeing that fact, but the example shows how the Higgs field is thought to create mass through symmetry-breaking. A prism breaks the velocity-symmetry of different wavelengths of light, thus separating them, and the Higgs field is thought to break the mass-symmetry of some particles which are otherwise symmetrically massless.

The (a) mouth of the Large Hadron Collider.

It was not until later that physicists realized that if the Higgs field does exist, its action would require the existence of a corresponding carrier particle, and the properties of this hypothetical particle were such that we might actually be able to observe it. This particle was believed to be in a class called the bosons; keeping things simple, they called the boson that went with the Higgs field the Higgs boson. It is a so-called “force carrier” for the Higgs field, just as photons are a force carrier for the universe’s electromagnetic field; photons are, in a sense, local excitations of the EM field, and in that same sense the Higgs boson is a local excitation of the Higgs field. Proving the existence of the particle, with the properties physicists expected based on their understanding of the field, was effectively the same as proving the existence of the field directly.

Enter, after many years of planning, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), an experiment massive enough to potentially falsify the theory of the Higgs boson. The 17-mile loop of super-powered electromagnets can accelerate charged particles to significant fractions of the speed of light, causing collisions violent enough to break these particles into fundamental constituents, and deform space around the impact point. With a high enough collision energy, it was calculated that scientists could basically super-charge the Higgs boson, pushing it up into an energy state where it would decay in ways that we canobserve. These energies were so great that some even panicked and said the LHC would destroy the world, while others went so far as to describe an observation of the Higgs as a peek into an alternate dimension.

As you can see from this chart of the composition of the universe, understanding
dark matter and dark energy will be fundamental to understanding our universe.

Initial observations seemed to actually falsify predictions, and no sign of the Higgs could be found — leading some researchers who had campaigned for the spending of billions of dollars to go on television and meekly make the true-but-unsatisfying argument that falsifying a scientific theory is just as important as confirming it. With a bit more time, however, the measurements began to add up, and on March 14, 2013 CERN officially announced the confirmation of the Higgs boson. There is even some evidence to suggest the existence of multiple Higgs bosons, but that idea needs significant further study.

So what’s next for the God particle? Well, the LHC just recently reopened with significant upgrades, and has an eye to look into everything from antimatter to dark energy. Dark matter is thought to interact with regular matter solely through the medium of gravity — and by creating mass, the Higgs boson could be crucial to understanding exactly how. The main failing of the Standard Model is that it cannot account for gravity — one that could do so would be called a Grand Unified Theory — and some theorize that the Higgs particle/field could be the bridge physicists so desperately desire.

In any case, the Higgs is really only confirmed to exist; it is not yet remotely understood. Will future experiments confirm super-symmetry, and the idea that the Higgs boson could decay into dark matter itself? Or will they confirm every tiny prediction of the Standard Model about the Higgs boson’s properties and, paradoxically, end that entire field of study once and for all?

The Authentic Rigor of the Bible as a Literary Narrative of the Ages

To read the bible is to read of its composition at the hands of many many authors and editors. As has well been said, the bible is a literary composition not a literal composition when we read its pages. To me, this makes the bible all the more authentic over the contrived "inerrancy" movement which would say otherwise. If this literary authenticity was not found in its pages than the bible would simply pass into the archives of history as another mythical narrative elicited from ancient civilizations long pass.

To that end, the biblical legends that arise from the bible's pages are a common narrative theme bespeaking cultural relevancy rather than historical irrelevancy. When compared to other literary narratives it is a very common argumentation derived from the human breast linking past to present. Even today, in our postmodern cultures, news services and social media, contemporary interpretations of the news continually purports to "interpret" God's hand in human affairs as did the "divines" of yesteryear from the pages of the Old and New Testaments.

No less was this narratival work done by other, more ancient civilizations, bespeaking God's "favor" upon their actions through war canons, documentaries, and cultural legends. Today we do the same. It seems we cannot avoid thinking in nationalistic terms when interpreting our past and present actions. Revisionism lies everywhere to the uncritical, inward-evolving human story of pathos in event. It is how humanity tells its story to itself and other peoples and nations though its story may not be God's story of redemption but a more earthly form of "redemption" a civilization may wish to cling too.

This makes the Bible authentic. It was never written as a creedal tract but as a theological narrative relating the difficulty of faith in the streams of popular beliefs and actions. And in many instances, as a-less-than-godly narrative from the lips of God's people steeped in lore, legend and legacy. For many a faithful one, it required standing up to one's culture to challenge its common misperceptions. And when done, receive for their efforts shunning, excommunication, libel, and perhaps death, when speaking out. Today, popular examples abound in postmodern civilization as both church and government, communities and individuals decide who or what is worthy to be heard. It bespeaks the ancient disease of sin in the hearts of the faithful wishing to be valiant but finding their works but filthy rags needing Jesus' atoning redemption.

As such, this historical-literary feature of the Bible makes it all the more interesting and relevant to today's postmodern cultures grasping how to interpret God's Word in a day-and-age when all claim "knowing God" but really are living far-far-away from His Heart, Word, and Spirit. And no, I am not speaking of the world here, but of the today's fundamental and conservative churches and faith claimants clamoring about to the truth of their messages yet finding their dutiful work, preaching, and outreach nowhere close to God's heart and mission. Thus religion is bourne away from faith to idolatry, away from good intentions to evil, without any questioning of its truer, darker heart held within the human breast casting eyes ever outwards rather than inwards. So the bible tells us let us examine ourselves first, our faith, and our commitments, and learn to be wise when seeking truth and fellowship. Amen and Amen.

R.E. Slater
August 3, 2017

* * * * * * * * * *

A Few Facts Christians Should Know About The Bible’s “Canaanite Genocide”

link to article

by Benjamin L. Corey

July 31, 2017
Comments

In recent years the issue of violence in the Old Testament has become a hot topic of discussion in many Christian circles. While there’s plenty of violence in the Old Testament worthy of wrestling and discussion, one particular event seems to come up a lot: the Canaanite genocide.

There’s fewer stories in the Bible that create the problems the Canaanite genocide creates. How could “God’s nation” completely slaughter an entire people group? How is it loving to one’s neighbor to kill all of them? Why would God make them do such a thing?

All good questions. Atheists have pounced on them for years, while most evangelicals have had to engage in cognitive dissonance as the modern concept of inerrancy has forced them to now find a way to justify an event (that if true) isn’t morally different than the holocaust or other genocidal conquests we’ve seen through history.

This discussion has been re-sparked by recent news that scientists have discovered that the Canaanites were not wiped out. This study reports:

“DNA retrieved from roughly 3,700-year-old skeletons at an excavation site in Lebanon that was formerly a major Canaanite city-state shows that “present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite-related population, which therefore implies substantial genetic continuity in the Levant since at least the Bronze Age.”

In light of this study, here’s some important facts that Christians might want to know about the Bible’s Canaanite genocide:

Fact: The Bible itself ultimately makes it clear that the genocide did not happen.

Later in the Bible we find out that there are, gasp, still Canaanites. In fact, Jesus actually heals one of them in the Gospel of Matthew. So this idea there was a genocide where all of the Canaanites were destroyed? We know just from reading the Bible this isn’t true.

Fact: We already knew scientifically that the genocide didn’t happen.

As Dr. James McGrath pointed out today, many of us were surprised that people are acting like this is some sort of new discovery, when it’s not:

“First of all, the Bible is very clear (in places) that the Canaanites were never completely wiped out from Israel. But second and more importantly, historians have always been aware that the Phoenicians were a Canaanite people, and so the discovery that their descendants are to be found in the regions they historically inhabited should not be a surprise either…”

Furthermore, as Peter Enns has pointed out in his own work, we know from archeological evidence that the genocide did not happen– certainly not on the scale the Bible implies.

Fact: False reports of genocide are common in the bronze age.

Should the fact that the Bible implies genocide occurred, but that modern evidence disproves this, be shocking? No, of course not. In fact, this clear exaggeration of events actually makes the Bible more authentic instead of less– and this is because at the time these passages were written, it was actually commonplace to falsely claim one had wiped out all of their enemies. Instead of shocking, it is quite affirming because it is exactly how I would expect a bronze age written war conquest to read. Had Canaanite records survived to present day, I wouldn’t be surprised if they claimed to have wiped out all their enemies, too.

Case in point, here is a short 2 minute video blog I made in Amman, Jordan when I stumbled upon a Moabite artifact that does exactly this– and ironically, falsely claims there was a genocide that destroyed all of ancient Israel:

One of the hot issues in theology today is the issue of violence and genocide in the Old Testament. Did God command genocide? Did the people of God ruthlessly slaughter their enemies? I'm here at a museum in Amman, and have stumbled upon an artifact from a Moabite king that might completely change the way you read some of the claims of the Old Testament, especially claims of genocide:

https://www.facebook.com/benjaminlcorey/videos/1002072116605360/

So, when we as Christians discuss the problematic Old Testament passages claiming genocide, we need to begin from a starting point that recognizes that both the Bible, and multiple angles of science, affirm the reality that there was not an extermination of the Canaanites. Furthermore, we must also recognize that these exaggerations do not call the authenticity of the Bible into question, but instead affirm it is a historical document of a specific time and place, and that it reads exactly the way one would expect it to read– including exaggerations of genocide.

Of course, this brings up other questions, perhaps the most important being: “If the Bible claims that God ordered genocide, does that mean God really did?”

That’s a question for a different day– but the important facts to remember, is that they didn’t do what we often think they did.

And that’s actually good news.

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Relevancy22 - Disclaimer, Purpose, Intention, and Goal

DISCLAIMER:

Relevancy22 is a collection of Contemporary, Postmodern, Critical Theology discussions built as a reference site and not as a personal blog. To make it interesting I try to interact with the material as I have time. Its contents and topics have been constructed to help users think through a vast array of contemporary issues. Using its Indexes on the right hand column will help any explorer begin acquiring the rudimentary knowledge gained from past contemporary and historical discussions required of the Christian faith in this post-truth age of rigorous belief juxtapositioned against known academic truths and post-conservative questions. It is this latter I wish to explore.

Relevancy22 does not purport to be a conservative "safe" site but one asking relevant questions to today's postmodern global cultures especially in light of who God is, what the bible is, and how the church thinks through these issues. The author, me, came to Jesus many, many years ago as a child and grew up in a fundamental church, and later, attended conservative-evangelical churches, all of which I have dearly loved. About a decade ago (2009) the Lord brought all my education, seminary training, and past ministries into re-calibration as I watched the church provide less and less relevant answers to its congregants and society. As such, I respect the past for the beauty it held but must now differ from its conclusions which I've been re-adjusting and updating over the years towards a more contemporary voice. I try to be gracious in my writing or reporting but at times do become passionate about a subject or topic as you will discover.

Relevancy22 was Holy-Spirit-borne for Christians seeking legitimate answers (or helpful directions) to their faith. In a way, I believe Relevancy22 to be recapturing the Orthodox Christian faith from the constructed one being voiced about by today's conservative churches which draw too heavily on their doctrinal commitments and not enough on an open (rather than closed) bible unfettered by traditional teachings. If the articles found within sound different, radical, or not quite conservative, they are. They've been written - or edited from other author's bodies of work - to cause us to think about difficult biblical subjects which have been overly simplified resulting in more fictional narratives of the church's faith than what they really are. In my mind, making the Christian faith "safe" from academic, scientific, and cultural examination is the beginning of all the evils of popular religions refusing to submit to, or enact, God's grace and mercy, peace and forgiveness, into the lives of both the lost and saved. Thus this online dialogue here. We need another gospel which embraces the fullness of God and His salvation through Christ our Savior.

As always, may God's peace and love flood the hearts and minds of readers everywhere.

Your brother in Christ,

R.E. Slater
August 3, 2017

Roger Olson - Is God Infinite or Personal? The Rise of Boston Personalism as Foundation to (but different from) Process Theology and Revival in Open and Relational Theology

Is God Finite?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2017/07/is-god-finite/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=BRSS&utm_campaign=Evangelical&utm_content=259#

by Roger Olson
July 23, 2017

Most Christians in the middle or to the “right” of the middle of the Christian theological spectrum will automatically recoil at the question “Is God finite?” The knee-jerk reaction even I feel is “No, of course not. What a silly question.” On the other hand, when asked to explain God’s infinity many such Christians (middle to right of the theological spectrum) have some difficulty. “Unlimited?” “Eternal?” “Omnipotent?” All are answers one hears as attempts to pin down what “infinite” means in relation to God.

To the best of my knowledge, however, nobody thinks or can show that the Bible itself actually says God is “infinite.” The word itself simply means “not finite.” But what does “finite” mean?

This became a divisive issue among European Christians especially during the so-called “Atheismusstreit” (atheism controversy) that broke out in German universities in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The person who launched it was philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte who argued that God can either be infinite or personal but not both. Fichte’s claim possibly cloaked an atheistic intention; it’s somewhat difficult to tell as atheism was illegal at that time and place.

Perhaps the most important legacy of Fichte was G. W. F. Hegel who, after Fichte, tried to “fix” the problems Fichte and others raised about God and defined God as “Absolute Spirit” and the “wahrhaft Unendliche” (“true infinite”) that includes the finite in itself.

Now jump to the early 20th century. One of the nearly forgotten but very influential Christian philosophers of religion throughout the early and middle 20th century was Edgar Sheffield Brightman (d. 1953) who taught at Methodist-related Boston University. Brightman was very interested in theology and sought to reconstruct the Christian idea of God to make it fit the facts of experience more adequately. He launched a brief movement called “Boston Personalism” that was eventually replaced, for most liberal-leaning Protestants in the U.S., by Process Theology. (Here it might be helpful to note that Brightman was Martin Luther King’s mentor at BU during his doctoral studies there.)

Over the years I have heard of Brightman and Boston Personalism and read some secondary sources (book chapters, journal articles) about him and it. But I never, until recently, actually dipped into a primary source. Because of a recent challenge to do so, by a philosopher of religion influenced by Brightman and Boston Personalism, I bought the “classic” of Boston Personalism at a used bookstore and read it. The book is The Problem of God by Brightman published by Abingdon Press (the Methodist publishing house) in 1930.

Here I do not have space to go into all the “ins” and “outs” of Brightman’s (and Boston Personalism’s) idea of God. I will just mention a few points I found interesting and say that I found them interesting partly because I think they left a lasting impression that is not directly connected with Process Theology. (Most scholars of modern theology seem to think that Brightman laid the foundation for Process Theology’s later rise and replacement of Boston Personalism as the “theology of choice” among liberal-learning Protestants in America.) In other words, I “hear” and read echoes of Brightman’s view of God as “finite” elsewhere—not only among Process theologians and those influenced by A. N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.

In The Problem of God Brightman argues at some length, but in winsome style (the book is really very easy to read), that throughout the history of thought about God (especially but not only Christian) there has been a back and forth tendency that he calls “expansion” and “contraction.” The expansion tendency has been to think of God as so different from humanity as to make God useless for human religious need. (And Brightman does argue that God is necessary for humanity and includes in the book some strong arguments against atheism in all its forms including secular humanism.) One notable example of that, he argues, is the attribution to God of “infinity” which does lead, as Fichte argued, toward a de-personalizing of God. Pushed to its logical conclusion, “infinity” is incompatible with personality and we need a personal God because our basic religious need is for God to deal with suffering. (I will leave that there and challenge doubters to read the book which is available on line through Amazon and other re-sellers of out-of-print books.)

The contraction tendency has been to think of God as so similar to humanity, so anthropomorphic, as to be also useless religiously. Another human religious need is to have someone to worship and be powerful enough to bring value out of evil.

In true Hegelian style (although Fichte actually said this before Hegel), Brightman’s thinking is about “thesis” and “antithesis” searching for “synthesis.” The “thesis” would be the expansion tendency and the antithesis would be the contraction tendency. So what is the “synthesis?” That God is finite and personal but supreme above all other finite and personal beings.

So, in what sense is God “finite” for Brightman (and his Boston Personalism followers—a few of which are still around)? And why do I care?

Well, first of all—to why I care. I long ago rejected the notion that God is “infinite.” I rejected it when I first heard it articulated which was probably in some seminary class. I immediately thought that the concept itself was beyond comprehension (except perhaps in mathematics) and that attributing it to God led away from thinking of God as personal, present, involved, loving and able to be affected by us. With Brightman (who I only learned about later) I thought of that attribute of God in traditional theology as an inappropriate expansion of the concept of God brought into Christian thought through philosophy, not the Bible.

On the other hand, I have never felt comfortable with saying that God is finite. That “feels” to me like too much of a contraction of God. So I have preferred to think of God as not infinite but also not finite—insofar as the latter implies a God who is limited in knowledge and power. I have long, perhaps always, preferred to think of God as self-limiting in relation to the world he created. I kept looking for some serious discussion of that concept in Brightman’s book but did not find it. That is interesting because, around the time Brightman wrote The Problem of God the great Baptist theologian Augustus Hopkins Strong was advocating (or had been advocating) the solution (to the same problems Brightman identifies) as “God’s Self-Limitations.” (I do not know the exact date of that essay; it is included in a volume of Strong’s essays published by Judson Press in 1899.) I can’t believe Brightman knew nothing about Strong’s alternative and I wish he had responded to it. Perhaps he did in another publication.

Anyway, my preferred alternative to the problem Brightman identified in historical Western thinking about God—going back to the Greeks—is God’s self-limitations. That, of course, has become one of the major themes of non-Process Christian theologians such as Emil Brunner and Jürgen Moltmann.

So what did Brightman mean by God’s finitude? A careful reading of The Problem of God reveals that he did not mean that God is pathetic, or “evolving,” or powerless. He did mean, however, that there is inherent in God’s eternal being “the Given” which is a particular nature that governs what God can and cannot do. Clearly Brightman was no nominalist/voluntarist! He was a realist with regard to God. He believed God has a specific nature and it includes certain limitations that are not voluntary on God’s part. Among those limitations are that God cannot know the future insofar as it contains events not yet knowable because they will be determined by free will beings other than God and that God cannot coerce free creatures to do his will. According to Brightman, these denials/affirmations about God are necessary “contractions” apart from which the “expansion” would make God religiously unavailable if not irrelevant.

Well, it should be obvious to all readers who pay any serious attention to conversations about God taking place in even evangelical Christian theology how Brightman’s influence may have “trickled down”—even where his name is not known.

Here are a few things about which I agree with Brightman—after reading The Problem of God:

1. First, he was not afraid to think about God metaphysically.
2. Second, he recognized and articulated one of the main problems in Western theism including much traditional Christian thinking about God—the problem of the continual alternation between expansion and contraction.
3. Third, he affirmed that God’s personhood is primary for religion. An impersonal God is of no religious interest or use.

Here are a few things about which I disagree with Brightman—after reading The Problem of God:

1. First, I would not go so far as to call God “finite.” I think that at least strongly hints at too much contraction in the doctrine of God.
2. Second, I think all the problems he identifies can be solved by replacing “the Given”—as he thinks of it—with God’s loving self-limitation in relation to creation.
3. Third, as a philosopher, not a theologian, Brightman relied too heavily on reason and experience to the neglect of revelation and tradition (the four parts of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral).

In some ways my recent book Essentials of Christian Thought turns out to be an alternative to The Problem of God although not entirely in disagreement with the latter.

I found reading Brightman’s The Problem of God a satisfying exercise even as I found myself disagreeing with many of its point. One quandary left over from reading the book is whether Brightman believed in an eventual triumph of good over evil. I find hints in the book that he did, but I’m not sure how his “finite God” could bring that about.

One thought I had was more of a “wonder,” a question, whether my friend Thomas Jay Oord ever read the book or any of the writings of the Boston Personalists and whether he was influenced by them. I think I see certain real points of congeniality there—especially Oord’s basic idea that God cannot coerce free will beings. Tom does not seem to me to “fit” into the category of Process Theology (even though he studied with Cobb at Claremont). Might his theology “fit” more closely into the category of Boston Personalism?

I know of one other theologian who is working to revive Boston Personalism—Gary Dorrien who teaches theology at Union Theological Seminary. (Which is not to say Dorrien follows Brightman or anyone else slavishly; I have just heard him say publicly that he feels a special affinity for Boston Personalism and wishes to breathe new life into it as a live option for liberal Protestant theology.)

By no means do I intend this question as a criticism of Tom Oord or Gary Dorrien; as a historical theologian who focuses especially on modern theology I’m always curious about connections—especially ones not known or recognized. I believe there can be connections, strings of influence, that are not conscious or even known. This is what I call my “trickle down theory” of historical theology. Thinkers like Brightman can “release,” as it were, ideas into the theological “atmosphere” that later re-appear even where he is not known or his influence recognized.