Writing A Theology (of Love) for a Nuclear Age (of Brokenness)

 

 

Writing a Theology (of Love) for a

Nuclear Age (of Brokenness)

by R.E. Slater

I. Type

The scientific article below speaks to "surviving" nuclear holocausts (but not necessarily surviving from radiation fallout across wide biotic landscapes).

It brings to mind a discussion I was hoping to have years ago which never occurred. It's topic was creating "A Theology for a Nuclear Age".

Such a theology wasn't meant for survival but for confronting how we might interact with one another in fairness, equity and empathy.

One element for a new theology of love is that of expressing "Virtue," a quality reflecting a "beneficial act of helps to another."

If we failed in these basic acts of humane virtue then we have failed in our purposes to live with each other - and with planet earth! - in significant and influential ways.

II. ArcheType

Which brings us to the idea of processual living expressed through the idea of an interactively, highly connective processual theology.

By "process" is meant the idea of connectivity and relationality in resultant acts of cause-and-effect within the broader universe which is highly interactive in its responsiveness of parts to whole and whole to parts.

The idea of process is how creation works whether we recognize it or not. It's idea may be found embedded across all religions espousing, but not necessarily becoming, processual faiths sharing loving acts of kindness to one another.

ArcheType - a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology. 

Processual theologies - are highly interactive. Descriptive terms like panrelational, panexperiential, and panpsychic convey that aspect of God to creation and creation with itself. It's how the world works underlaid by generative value given and received between things.

In Christ's crucifixion we see a recurring processual archetype displayed throughout the Being and Essence of the Author of Creation whose creation bears the imprint of that creator-God's generative Self. A Loving Presence which gives of Self and restores; which forgives and shows grace at all times (irrespective of what many say); and which fixes and heals all who come for restoration.

The Christian theme can be found in all of the world's religions and within very Earth itself. The Cross of Christianity illustrates this generative (sic, redemptive) motif of processual restoration across the plains and archetypes of relational interactions multiplied infinitely in every direction.

Such a (loving) processual theology is truer in form to Jesus-living and faith than the church's current theologies of dominionism, exploitation, and oppression of all those unlike itself. These types of "non-processual" theologies overlook the consequences they generate by religious acts of sin and evil. In comparison, a processual theology of love must look at our failures, repent from them, and work towards the redemption of all things (people, nature, human structures, attitudes, and ideologies) from states of relational brokenness to states of relational healing, unity, and care-giving.

In this, theologies of love, especially processual theologies of love, repent of their religious practices of Christian secularism, legalism, oppression, and dominionism, by seeking to restore and regenerate all living relationships between ourselves, and with each other, and even the Earth itself. Such processual theologies grant hope and purpose when built on foundations of processual love that are, and are becoming, more fully expressive, connective, and valuative.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

February 26, 2023

Series Posts

INDEX

Index - Evolution of Man & Religion

PART I

Bible Civilizations Are a Lot Younger Than Paleo-Human Civilizations

PART II

Climate change since the advent of humans

PART III

In the Days Before Genesis - Part 1, by R.E. Slater

PART IV

In the Days Before Genesis - Part 2, by R.E. Slater

ECO-CIV 1

Healing the Earth and One Another

ECO-CIV 2

Writing A Theology (of Love) for a Nuclear Age (of Brokenness)

* * * * * * * *

Sheltering miles from a nuclear blast

many not be enough to survive unless

you know where to hide...

"...Indoor locations to avoid are the windows, the corridors, and the doors," said co-author Loannis William Kokkinakis.

"The best location is in the half of the building farthest from the blast, in a room with no windows. But, "even in the front room facing the explosion, one can be safe from the high airspeeds if positioned at the corners of the wall facing the blast," Kokkinakis told Insider...."

- article link

* * * * * * * *

Listening to Duran I hear several themes running at once through his lyrics. Beyond the relational theme comes the themes for humanity, for planet Earth, for the wishes to survive beyond the collapse of our dreams, hopes, and purposes all gone to ruin. Most of all I hear a theology of love which has fallen out of vogue for a theology of mere survival. This may be true but I believe to survive we must hope... and to hope is to know that the God of Love has created a creation with a deep longing for love and connection, atoning redemption and restoration. It is this God who came to know the loss of loved ones, of dreams, of a failed message as the incarnate Jesus who teaches us how to sing again in the midst of loss. Let us sing. Let us bind one another's wounds. And most of all, let us learn to care and love again in an ordinary world filled with pain and loss. 

- r.e. slater 

Duran Duran - Ordinary World (lyrics)

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue

Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you.

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away.

But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive.

Passion or coincidence
Once prompted you to say
"Pride will tear us both apart"
Well, now pride's gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart.

What is happening to me?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away.

But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive.

Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Fear today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk.

And I don't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive.

Every one
Is my world (I will learn to survive)
Any one
Is my world (I will learn to survive)
Any one
Is my world

* * * * * * * *

article link

Description

The possibility of a nuclear holocaust has brought humankind into a radically new, unprecedented, and unanticipated religious situation. Gordon D. Kaufman offers a cogent and original analysis of this predicament, outlining specific proposals for reconceiving the central concerns and symbols of Christian faith. He begins with an account of a visit to Peace Park in the rebuilt city of Hiroshima. Reflecting upon this experience, Kaufman foresees that further use of nuclear weapons will result not in rebuilding but in annihilation of the human enterprise.

About the Author

Gordon D. Kaufman is Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the author of twelve books, including In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology.

Foundations for a Radical Christianity, Part 5 - A Theology for the End of Modernity

A Theology for the End of Modernity

Apparently great minds think alike and when they do they appear as alter-egos to one another. Or so I would like to think as a theological layman who has exerted a lot of effort into envisioning what a postmodern theology might look like over these past several years of research and writing. And lately, what a Radical Christianity might look like as it emerges from the shadowlands of crisis to become a postmodern tribute to things we have attested, acclaimed, embraced, and vouchsafed, as a worthy theology for the end of modernity.

But all kidding aside, my theological radar has now locked onto a fellow theological twin who has spent a lot of time writing of a theology at the end of modernity. Someone who was onto this gig a lot earlier than I was but whom I had no personal knowledge of until today. "Oh!" I thought, "How those years of feeling so alone might have been gathered up into the hopes and dreams of encouragement had I known there were fellow exegetes similarly burdened and seeking a theology for the end!" How grand this might have been! But in hindsight I doubt I would have been so greatly moved by the Spirit in my labours of research to envision a new kind of theology. One that was postmodern, radical, relational, and contemporary with science and technology. A theology both mysterious and personal, wonderful and meaningful, in every possible way that it could be. And so, by the Spirit of God, I laid down my visions through digital pen and paper to describe what a postmodern theology might look like and never looked back to the fatherlands of my faith. A faith that had come into crisis and required a rewrite if it were to be relevant once again.

And so, it seems that in the not so distant past (or, in a galaxy far, far away) there was a Professor by the name of Gordon Kaufman who dwelt in the lands of Harvard of Boston who also was gripped in his imaginations to express the great mystery of God in light of science and technology. Who wished to re-fit his Christian faith into the larger plan of the Divine than currently presented within the chambered halls of Christian modernity.

For Kaufman, part of that conception was to envision God as an act of Being (or, more simply, God as a creating process) which he described by the phrase "God as creativity." In this way he might focus on not defining the mystery of God ontologically (or personally) but through the evidences of His Being. Or by the fingerprints of His Soul left behind on the foundations of creation's firmament. Whose Divine imprint is evidenced by the evolutionary processes spanning creation cosmologically, geologically, and biological. Processes which we have focused on here at Relevancy22.

But I would also add the relational components of spirituality (Godwards), sociologically (outwards), psychologically / psychoanalytically (inwards), and ecologically (cosmologically). So that in every part, whether by the process of serendipitous creation (meaning, an evolution that was massaged by our Creator towards a furthering ends of presenting humanity with the opportunity for spiritual life with the Creator-God). Or within its divine components of Godly mystery, mankind (and all creation by extension) might be brought into a fully rounded and beautiful relationship with all that is God. Both to His Being and well as to His activity of creativity (or, in my line of thinking, "activity of re-creation"). So that in every way, and in every possible manner, we are presented with the opportunity to meet both the holy Personage and the Art of our Creator-Redeemer.

A Theology Not of the Dark Side but Full of Light and Grace

So where do we begin? As good fortune would have it you may begin with me and many others as we join into a series of studies produced by Homebrewed Christianity's Summer School of 2015 where Gordon Kaufman's theology will be investigated over a period of six-weeks (holidays excluded, of course). The cost is $30 through the links provided. Please consider joining this weekly forum with many other like-minded brethren wishing to envision a theology come to the end of itself in modernity and what it might look like on the other side of its modernal chasm of crisis. For myself, it has never been a theology of the dark side (in homage to the newest Star Wars film soon to be released) but a theology full of light and grace.

Peace,

RE Slater

May 19, 2015

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens

Official Teaser Trailer #2 (2015) - Star Wars Movie HD

* * * * * * * * * *

Summer School – Living Options in Christian Theology

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2015/05/17/summer-school-on-hbc/

by Bo Sanders

May 17, 2015

JOIN the Homebrewed Community as an Elder or Bishop, and you’ll be enrolled for FREE – www.homebrewedcommunity.com. OR, you can register for the class by itself here –www.trippfuller.com/learning. Sign up – order your book – and get ready for the goodness!

Bo and Tripp are excited to announce a new High Gravity class for this Summer! We are interested in a vibrant approach to a contemporary theological framework that doesn’t require a complete overhaul of your already existing faith.

• Is Process too big of a leap?
• Does Radical Theology provide too little substance?
• Is Practical Theology just too darn practical?

Looking for a robust, thoroughly-Christian theological framework for the 21st century? Then we have a conversation for you!

As I have taken some time off these past several months, I have noticed a couple of trends:

1. Process is just too big of a conversion for some. They like the ideas and enjoy that Tripp is so jazzed about it … but it is a major commitment to learn that vocabulary and overhaul nearly every aspect of what they have been taught was Christianity.
2. Radical Theology is interesting and challenging … but at the end of the day just doesn’t provide very much to go on. It is deconstructive in helpful ways but doesn’t leave you with much for constructing a faith worth even having.
3. Practical Theology asks some helpful questions and people get why I am into it … but it is a second order discourse and people want to ask some ‘first order’ questions about some primary issues.

This June and July we want to engage is a conversation about science, technology, other religions and the limits of language – while constructing a fully up-to-date version of Christian belief! Don’t worry about Heidegger, Hegel or Kant – plenty has already been said about them – this is an intelligent conversation about the here-and-now of Christian thought.

Living Options in Christian Theology

June 12 – Intro: Theology for a Nuclear Age

June 18 – Week 1: Theology, Science & Nature

June 25 – Week 2: Theology and Public Discourse

July 4 – Half-Time Break

July 9 – Week 3: Theology, Historicity and Solidarity

July 16 – Week 4: Theology and Corporate/Corporeal Identity

July 23 – Week 5: Theology and the Prospects for God-Talk

Our main text will be Theology at the End of Modernity: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Kaufman – Sheila Greeve Davaney (Editor)

Each of the 5 sections of the book has 3 essays. Each week we will focus on 2 of those essays with Tripp taking one to explore and Bo concentrating on another. We will also supply supplemental material each week on the course website. PDFs of course material will begin going out May. 

_____________________________________________

JOIN the Homebrewed Community as an Elder or Bishop, and you’ll be enrolled for FREE – www.homebrewedcommunity.com. OR, you can register for the class by itself here –www.trippfuller.com/learning. Sign up – order your book – and get ready for the goodness!

Gordon D. Kaufman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gordon Kaufman

Born	June 22, 1925 Newton, Kansas
Died	July 22, 2011 (aged 86)
Main interests	Progressive Christianity, Modern theology
Major works	In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology
Influenced by[show]

Gordon D. Kaufman (22 June 1925 – 22 July 2011) was the Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity (Emeritus) at Harvard Divinity School, where he taught since 1963.^[1] He also taught at Pomona College and Vanderbilt University, and lectured in India, Japan, South Africa, England, and Hong Kong. Kaufman was an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church for 50 years. He was the subject of two Festschriften. He was a past president of the American Academy of Religion(1982)^[2] and of the American Theological Society, as well as a member of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Kaufman was the author of 13 books, which influenced how many mainline Christians have considered God language and religious naturalism. Among these are An Essay on Theological Method, God The Problem, Theology for a Nuclear Age, and In the Face of Mystery. This work earned him the 1995 American Academy of Religion Award for excellence among constructive books in religion. ^[1]

He participated for many years in the discussions on religious naturalism at the The Highlands Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought and the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (Lecturer 2006) ^[3]

Views on God

In a review of Kaufman’s In The Beginning…Creativity^[4] –

For religious people a challenge is to bridge their belief in God with scientific explanations of the world. There is a huge need for a new understanding of God that bridges these viewpoints(…) His book is the first that makes a big step forward on this issue. Starting with the notion offered in the Bible of God as Creator he offers a proposal of God as "creativity". Creativity as a mystery that somehow was involved in the initial coming into being of the universe, in evolutionary processes, and in human symbolic creativity(…)This framework is a scholarly step forward towards resolving the faith-science debate. It provides a framework where God is not Protestant, Jew or Muslim. And it plants protection of the environment as a foundation of moral life (…) He is following the same theme Albert Einstein described in his writings on religion. And Kaufman's proposal complements the religious naturalist proposals of Ursula Goodenough

In a second review of In the beginning …Creativity .^[5]

One must wonder what would bring about this radical shift, and Kaufman is very honest with readers about why he believes the traditional understandings of God are inadequate. First, he discusses today's ecological crisis, and asserts that the situation of our world today and the threat of global disaster and decay through human actions is unlike anything Christianity has ever faced before. He not only concludes that this is a bigger issue than Christianity has ever faced (it is before been preoccupied with existential questions of guilt, sin, happiness, and so on), but he further concludes that Christianity may be in the way. 

The second major development that in his view stands in the way of traditional faith in a personal God is the developments of science (specifically evolutionary cosmology and biology) have shown us a much bigger universe than was once thought to exist. A personal God is not an idea that is comprehensible in this type of setting

Kaufman in his Prairie View lectures says –^[6]

I suggested that what we today should regard as "God" is "the ongoing creativity in the universe" - the bringing (or coming) into being of what is genuinely new, something transformative;(…) In some respects and some degrees this creativity is apparently happening continuously, in and through the processes or activities or events around us and within us(…) is a profound mystery to us humans(…) But on the whole, as we look back on the long and often painful developments that slowly brought human life and our complex human worlds into being, we cannot but regard this creativity as serendipitous(…) I want to stress that this serendipitous creativity - God! - to which we should be responsive is not the private possession of any of the many particular religious faiths or systems(…)This profound mystery of creativity is manifest in and through the overall human bio-historical evolution and development everywhere on the planet; and it continues to show itself throughout the entire human project, no matter what may be the particular religious and or cultural beliefs

A Zygon abstract on a Kaufman article states –.^[7]

Thinking of God today as creativity (instead of as The Creator) enables us to bring theological values and meanings into significant connection with modern cosmological and evolutionary thinking. This conception connects our understanding of God with today's ideas of the Big Bang; cosmic and biological evolution; the evolutionary emergence of novel complex realities from simpler realities, and the irreducibility of these complex realities to their simpler origins; and so on. It eliminates anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism from the conception of God(…) 

This mystery of creativity—God—manifest throughout the universe is quite awe-inspiring, calling forth emotions of gratitude, love, peace, fear, and hope, and a sense of the profound meaningfulness of human existence in the world—issues with which faith in God usually has been associated. It is appropriate, therefore, to think of God today as precisely this magnificent panorama of creativity with which our universe and our lives confront us

God as Mystery

For Kaufman, the only “available referent” for the word “God” is the construct we hold in our minds, a construct that has developed over the centuries. There may be a “real referent,” but even if there is, it remains “a transcendent unknown.”^[8] Thus, Kaufman thinks of God as “ultimate mystery.” He does not speculate whether there is an “extra-human reality” called God.” Thus, as a theologian, he views his work as dealing with “profound, ultimately unfathomable, mystery.”^[9]

The “ultimate mystery” called “God” serves as a living symbol in our culture. For many people, it functions as the primary point for “orientation and devotion.” Being oriented on the “ultimate mystery in things” is an awareness of one’s “bafflement of mind” over the mystery “that there is something and not nothing.” When the mystery is thought of as God, it evokes not only bafflement but trust and confidence.^[10]

Works

• In Face of Mystery - Harvard University Press (October 7, 2006), ISBN 0-674-44576-7
• Jesus and Creativity - Fortress Press (July 30, 2006), ISBN 0-8006-3798-4
• In the Beginning-- Creativity - Augsburg Fortress Publishers (July 2004), ISBN 0-8006-6093-5
• God, Mystery, Diversity: Christian Theology In A Pluralistic World - Augsburg Fortress Publishers (March 1, 1996), ISBN 0-8006-2959-0
• An Essay on Theological Method, An American Academy of Religion Book; 3rd edition (January 2, 1995), ISBN 0-7885-0135-6
• Theology for a Nuclear Age - Westminster John Knox Press (May 1985), ISBN 0-664-24628-1
• Theology an Imaginative Construction - Edwards Brothers (1982), ASIN: B0016JFF9A
• The Theological Imagination - Westminster John Knox Press; 1st edition (January 1, 1981), ISBN 0-664-24393-2
• Nonresistance and Responsibility, and Other Mennonite Essays - Faith & Life Press (June 1979), ISBN 0-87303-024-9
• God the Problem - Harvard University Press (December 12, 1972), ISBN 0-674-35526-1
• Systematic Theology - Scribner's (1968), ASIN: B001OXJ7DS
• The Context of Decision;: A Theological Analysis - Abingdon Press; 1st edition (1961), ASIN: B0007EB8QY
• Relativism, Knowledge, and Faith - University of Chicago Press (1960), ASIN: B001P5RABQ
• Theology at the End of Modernity: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Kaufman - Co-editors Sheila Greeve Davaney & Gordon D. Kaufman, Trinity Pr Intl (October 1991), ISBN 1-56338-017-X
• Mennonite Theology in Face of Modernity: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Kaufman - Cornelius H. Wedel Historical Series 9, co-editors Gordon D. Kaufman & Alain Epp Weaver - Bethel College (July 1996) - ISBN 0-9630160-7-5

Christianity caught in the wastelands of Modernity

Faith in Crisis: Cycles of Challenge Presented to God's faithful

An Anthology of Process Philosopher and Theologian David Ray Griffin

Americans Who Tell the Truth

An Anthology of Process Philosopher

and Theologian David Ray Griffin

Compiled by R.E. Slater

One of the early process figures with John Cobb after Whitehead and Hartshorn was David Griffin. Below are his titles produced over seventy some years. 

David Ray Griffin

An Introduction to Process Theology

Center for Process Studies  |  Feb 6, 2015

http://www.whitehead2015.com - Seizing an Alternative Conference David Ray Griffin: "An Introduction to Process Theology"

Anthology of David Ray Griffin

Wikipedia - Books

• A process Christology, Westminster Press, 1973, ISBN 0-664-20978-5

• Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition, with John B. Cobb, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976, ISBN 0-664-24743-1

• John Cobb's Theology in Process, Westminster John Knox Press, 1977, ISBN 0-664-21292-1

• Process and Reality, Free Press; 2nd edition, 1979, ISBN 0-02-934570-7

• Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time: Bohm, Prigogine and Process Philosophy, State University of New York Press, 1986, ISBN 0-88706-115-X

• The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals (Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State Univ of New York Press, 1988, ISBN 0-88706-784-0

• Spirituality and Society: Postmodern Visions (Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1988, ISBN 0-88706-853-7

• Varieties of Postmodern Theology (Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1989, ISBN 0-7914-0050-6

• God and Religion in the Postmodern World: Essays in Postmodern Theology (Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1989, ISBN 0-88706-929-0

• Archetypal Process: Self and Divine in Whitehead, Jung, and Hillman, Northwestern University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8101-0815-1

• Sacred Interconnections: Postmodern Spirituality, Political Economy and Art (SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1990, ISBN 0-7914-0231-2
• Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology (Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1990, ISBN 0-7914-0198-7

• God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy, University Press of America, 1991, ISBN 0-8191-7687-7

• Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations, State University of New York Press, 1991, ISBN 0-7914-0612-1

• Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy: Peirce, James, Bergson, Whitehead, and Hartshorne (SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1993, ISBN 0-7914-1333-0

• Postmodern Politics for a Planet in Crisis: Policy, Process, and Presidential Vision (SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1993, ISBN 0-7914-1485-X

• Jewish Theology and Process Thought (Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1996, ISBN 0-7914-2810-9

• Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration (SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 1997, ISBN 0-7914-3315-3

• Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion), Cornell University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8014-3778-4

• Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought), State University of New York Press, 2000, ISBN 0-7914-4563-1

• Process Theology and the Christian Good News: A Response to Classical Free Will Theism in 'Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists', Cobb and Pinnock (editors), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000, ISBN 0-8028-4739-0

• Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, ISBN 0-664-22773-2

• Deep Religious Pluralism, Westminster John Knox Press, 2005, ISBN 0-664-22914-X

• Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy: An Argument for Its Contemporary Relevance (SUNY Series in Philosophy), State University of New York Press, 2007, ISBN 0-7914-7049-0

• Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2007, ISBN 978-1-55635-755-8

• Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism: Rethinking Evil, Morality, Religious Experience, Religious Pluralism, and the Academic Study of Religion, Claremont, Process Century Press, 2014, ISBN 1-9404-4703-8

• The Christian Gospel for Americans: A Systematic Theology, Anoka (Minnesota): Process Century Press, 2019, ISBN 1-9404-4742-9

Amazon link

1973 - This book, originally published by The Westminster Press in 1973, was the first full-scale Christology based upon process thought. Its Whitehead's process philosophy provides a basis for explicating the idea that Jesus of Nazareth is God's decisive self-revelation, in a manner that is consistent with both modern thought and Christian faith. A Process Christology brings together three dimensions of recent the new quest for the historical Jesus, the new-orthodox emphasis on God's self-revealing activity in history, and the theology based primarily on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. This edition contains a new Preface.

Amazon link

1976 - Process Theology is an introductory exposition of the theological movement that has been strongly influenced by the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. It offers an interpretation of the basic concepts of process philosophy and outlines a "process theology" that will be especially useful for students of theology, teachers of courses in contemporary philosophy, ministers, and those interested in current theological and philosophical trends.

1977 - Amazon link

Amazon link

1979 - One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy.

Whitehead’s master work in philsophy, Process and Reality propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality into a consistent relation to each other. It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant.

The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds.

1986 - Amazon link

Challenges the conventional view of time

1988 - Amazon link

Amazon link

1988 - This book takes a genuinely new spiritual stance reflecting the emergence of a post-modern science and differing from the relativistic nihilism that calls itself postmodern but is really modernism extended to its limit.

Based on a direct experience of reality as divine, this postmodern spirituality transcends modernity's individualism and patriarchy, its forced choices between dualism and materialism, anthropocentrism and relativism, supernaturalism and atheism, intolerance and nihilism. Bringing moral and ethical values back into rational discourse, this book provides a critique of various aspects of modern society--political, economic, social, agricultural, and technological aspects. This criticism, informed by the postmodern worldview, points toward a more satisfying form of personal existence and a sustainable form of global order.

Amazon link

1989 - his book sorts out the confusion created by the use of the term "postmodern" in relation to widely divergent theological positions. Four different types of postmodern theology are distinguished in the preface: constructive, deconstructive, liberationist, and conservative. Two forms of each type are discussed in the book.

Writing from a constructive, postmodern perspective, the authors enter into dialogue with the deconstructive postmodernism of Mark C. Taylor and Jean-François Lyotard, with the liberationist postmodernism of Harvey Cox and Cornel West, and with the conservative postmodernism of George William Rutler and John Paul II.

Amazon link

1989 - Addressed to readers who have found liberal theology empty or who believe that one cannot be religious and fully rational and empirical at the same time.

Amazon link

1990 - Archetypal Process is a pioneering study linking the ideas of process philosophy, as developed by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, with the archetypal psychology of C. G. Jung and James Hillman. This is the first work to examine the interconnections of these two modes of thought.

Archetypal Process examines the importance of cosmological thinking and the need to ground archetypal psychology in a metaphysical, philosophical framework. It treats the necessity for symbol and myth, the nature of the spirit, and language as a metaphorical vehicle of thought, and finally, it adds a much-needed feminist perspective to the debate.

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1990 - This book shows the interconnections between postmodernism, religion, politics, economics, and art. It shows that the awareness of interconnectedness is at the center of the postmodern sensibility. Sacred Interconnections illustrates the rejection of the modern idea that these subjects can be discussed as separate disciplines.

While the term "postmodern" has been widely used for deconstructive, cynical, even nihilistic attitude, especially in the world of art and literature, the book represents the emergence of a reconstructive, reenchanting postmodernism, even within the artistic and literary circles.

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1990 - In this book, Huston Smith and David Ray Griffin propose religious philosophies to succeed the waning worldview of modernity. Huston Smith proposes the perennial philosophy or primordial tradition, and David Ray Griffin offers postmodern process theology. The ultimate issue debated is whether we should return to a traditional religious philosophy or seek a new never-before-articulated worldview.

The debate covers the following issues: the relation of Christianity to other religions; the ultimate reality of a personal God in relation to a transpersonal absolute; the ultimate reality of time and progress; the problem of evil; the nature of immortality; the relation of humans to nature; the relation of science to theology; the relation of upward to downward causation; and the possibility of nonrelativistic criteria for deciding between competing worldviews.

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1991 - The baffling age-old question, if there is a good God, why is there evil in the world? has troubled ordinary people and great thinkers for centuries. God, Power, and Evil illuminates the issues by providing both a critical historical survey of theodicy as presented in the works of major Western philosophers and theologians--Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Luther, Calvin, Leibniz, Barth, John Hick, James Ross, Fackenheim, Brunner, Berkeley, Albert Knudson, E. S. Brighton, and others--and a brilliant constructive statement of an understanding of theodicy written from the perspective of the process philosophical and theological thought inspired primarily by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.

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1991 - In this book Griffin responds to critiques of his earlier work—God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy—and discusses ways in which his position has changed in the intervening years. In so doing, he examines the problem of evil, theodicy, and philosophical theology, and contrasts traditional theism and process theism with regard to the question of omnipotence.

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1993 - This is, perhaps, one of the most important books written of the decade (90s). At the "end of the modern age" and the deconstructionist movement, this book explains what should happen "after the deconstruction takes place". This argument for a pan-experiential world view finds common ground between the vitalism of the pre-modern age and the determinism of the modern age. The dynamic synthesis leads one to anticipate, with excitement a re-constructive age where all experience is embraced; the scientific and verifiable built on the heart of the spirit. This work anticipates that aesthetics will take center stage in the new age.

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1993 - This book argues that the planetary crisis, which has been produced by modernity, demands a postmodern politics, especially in the United States, the chief embodiment and exporter of modernity. What is needed is an America that promotes a new world order that is genuinely new—one based on a concern for the human race as a whole, and on a sustainable relationship between the human species and the rest of the biosphere. John B. Cobb, Jr., Richard Falk, David Ray Griffin, Wes Jackson, Frank Kelly, Frances Moore Lappé, Joanna Macy, Douglas Sloan, Jim Wallis, and Roger Wilkins write about various dimensions of this postmodern politics, including its educational aims, morality, time-consciousness, and ecological sensibility, its agricultural and other environmental policies, its truly democratic process, and a postmodern presidency. This book provides the most complete prescription yet for the kind of presidential leadership we need and the kind of transformation in the body politic necessary to evoke and complement such leadership.

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1996 - This collection constitutes the first extended discussion of the relationship between Judaism and process thought. In the last half century the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne have become important sources for contemporary theological reflection. Recently, a number of Jewish thinkers have examined process thought as a potentially valuable resource for postmodern Jewish theology. This book brings together many Jewish thinkers who have pioneered this discussion. Jewish thinkers who have found process thought to be a useful framework for contemporary Jewish thought discuss issues that are primarily theological, such as God's transcendence and immanence, the problem of evil, the idea of revelation. Also included is a dialogue between Jewish and Christian thinkers on the appropriateness of process thought for their religious traditions. Critical reflection on the continuities and discontinuities between Judaism and the process model is also covered.

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1997 - Examines why parapsychology has been held in disdain by scientists, philosophers, and theologians, explores the evidence for ESP, psychokinesis, and life after death, and suggests that these phenomena provide support for a meaningful postmodern spirituality.

"This elegantly written book shows a greater command of the empirical data than any other work on the subject by a philosopher, and no other philosophical work on the survival of death deals with the conceptual issues with greater subtlety or thoroughness." -- Stephen E. Braude, author of ESP and Psychokinesis: A Philosophical Examination and The Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science
br>In this book, David Ray Griffin, best known for his work on the problem of evil, turns his attention to the even more controversial topic of parapsychology. Griffin examines why scientists, philosophers, and theologians have held parapsychology in disdain and argues that neither a priori philosophical attacks nor wholesale rejection of the evidence can withstand scrutiny.

After articulating a constructive postmodern philosophy that allows the parapsychological evidence to be taken seriously, Griffin examines this evidence extensively. He identifies four types of repeatable phenomena that suggest the reality of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. Then, on the basis of a nondualistic distinction between mind and brain, which makes the idea of life after death conceivable, he examines five types of evidence for the reality of life after death: messages from mediums; apparitions; cases of the possession type; cases of the reincarnation type; and out-of-body experiences. His philosophical and empirical examinations of these phenomena suggest that they provide support for a postmodern spirituality that overcomes the thinness of modern religion without returning to supernaturalism.

"This is a very thorough integration of the data from parapsychology, both experimental and anecdotal, into the philosophical discussions concerning the nature and role of consciousness. The scholarship is sound, and the issues raised in this book are very hot topics in the academic community, especially among philosophers and cognitive scientists." -- Richard S. Broughton, Director, Institute for Parapsychology

"An informative book about parapsychology that I can recommend highly to all philosophers and theologians." -- Ian Stevenson, M.D., Carlson Professor of Psychiatry, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center

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2000 - Occasionally, a book comes along that is definitive for its field of study, a book that marks a milestone in thought.... Griffin has written just such a book―a book that, by all rights, should mark a watershed in the academic study of religion.... Griffin makes about as strong a case as one can in a single volume for a genuine and viable alternative. ― The Journal of Religion

The process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne has made many distinctive contributions to the philosophy of religion. David Ray Griffin now offers the first full-scale philosophy of religion written from this perspective, discussing such topics as the relationship between science and religion, the validity of religious experience, the nature and existence of God, religious pluralism, creation and evolution, and the problem of evil. Griffin's clear and comprehensive book also serves as a valuable introduction to process philosophy itself.

In his vigorous defense of a worldview that is fully naturalistic and fully religious, Griffin shows not only how this position reconciles naturalism with freedom, genuine religious experience, and even life after death, but also how its naturalistic theism "reenchants" the world in the sense of providing cosmic support for moral values.

Highly original and sometimes controversial, Griffin's book develops its stance in conversation with influential proponents of other philosophical positions, including William P. Alston, Jürgen Habermas, John Hick, Colin McGinn, Alvin Plantinga, Hilary Putnam, Willard Quine, Ninian Smart, Jeffrey Stout, and Bernard Williams.

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2000 - Winner of the 2000 Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize

In this book, David Ray Griffin argues that the perceived conflict between science and religion is based upon a double mistake-the assumption that religion requires supernaturalism and that scientific naturalism requires atheism and materialism.

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2000 - Process Theology and the Christian Good News: A Response to Classical Free Will Theism in 'Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists', Cobb and Pinnock (editors), Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000, ISBN 0-8028-4739-0

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2004 - Furthering his contribution to the science and religion debate, David Ray Griffin draws upon the cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead and proposes a radical synthesis between two worldviews sometimes thought wholly incompatible. He argues that the traditions designated by the names "scientific naturalism" and "Christian faith" both embody a great truth--a truth of universal validity and importance--but that both of these truths have been distorted, fueling the conflict between the visions of the scientific and Christian communities. Griffin contends, however, that there is no inherent conflict between science, or even the kind of naturalism that it properly presupposes, and the Christian faith, understood in terms of the primary doctrines of the Christian good news.

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2004 - Foreword by Mary Ann Meyers Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the doctrine of panentheism - the belief that the world is contained within the Divine, although God is also more than the world. Here for the first time leading scientists and theologians meet to debate the merits of this compelling new understanding of the God-world relation. Atheist and theist, Eastern and Western, conservative and liberal, modern and postmodern, physicist and biologist, Orthodox and Protestant - the authors explore the tensions between traditional views of God and contemporary science and ask whether panentheism provides a more credible account of divine action for our age. Their responses, which vary from deeply appreciative to sharply critical, are preceded by an overview of the history and key tenets of panentheism and followed by a concluding evaluation and synthesis.

Contributors: Joseph A. Bracken, Michael W. Brierley, Philip Clayton, Paul Davies, Celia E. Deane-Drummond, Denis Edwards, Niels Henrik Gregersen, David Ray Griffin, Robert L. Herrmann, Christopher C. Knight, Andrew Louth Harold, J. Morowitz, Alexei V. Nesteruk, Ruth Page, Arthur Peacocke, Russell S.

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2005 - A groundbreaking scholarly work, Deep Religious Pluralism is based on the conviction that the philosophy articulated by Alfred North Whitehead encourages not only religious diversity but deep religious pluralism. Arising from a 2003 Center for Process Studies conference at Claremont Graduate University, this book offers an alternative to the version of religious pluralism that has dominated the recent discussion, especially among Christian thinkers in the West, which has evoked a growing call to reject pluralism as such.

Renowned contributors of a diversity of faiths include: Steve Odin, John Shunji Yakota, Sandra B. Lubarsky, Jeffery D. Long, Mustafa Ruzgar, Christopher Ives, Michael Lodahl, Chung-ying Cheng, Wang Shik Jang, and John B. Cobb Jr.

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2006 - Probing disturbing questions that beg for a response from the Christian community, distinguished scholar of religion and popular writer David Ray Griffin provides a hard-hitting analysis of the official accounts of the events of September 11, 2001. A tireless investigator, Griffin has sorted through enormous amounts of government and independent data and brought to the surface some very unsettling inconsistencies about what really happened. In this, his latest book, he analyzes the evidence on 9/11 and then explores a distinctively Christian perspective on these issues, taking seriously what we know about Jesus' life, death, and teachings. Drawing a parallel between the Roman Empire of antiquity and the American Empire of today, he applies Jesus' teachings to the current political administration, and he explores how Christian churches, as a community intending to be an incarnation of the divine, can and should respond.

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2007 - Examines the postmodern implications of Whitehead’s metaphysical system.  Postmodern philosophy is often dismissed as unintelligible, self-contradictory, and as a passing fad with no contribution to make to the problems faced by philosophers in our time. While this characterization may be true of the type of philosophy labeled postmodern in the 1980s and 1990s, David Ray Griffin argues that Alfred North Whitehead had formulated a radically different type of postmodern philosophy to which these criticisms do not apply. Griffin shows the power of Whitehead’s philosophy in dealing with a range of contemporary issues—the mind-body relation, ecological ethics, truth as correspondence, the relation of time in physics to the (irreversible) time of our lives, and the reality of moral norms. He also defends a distinctive dimension of Whitehead’s postmodernism, his theism, against various criticisms, including the charge that it is incompatible with relativity theory.

“Those who are unfamiliar with Griffin’s recent books will be grateful for this clear, readable, and thorough introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy as constructive (rather than deconstructive) and postmodern. However, those who are well versed in Griffin’s previous books will also benefit from his expanded use of the theory of hard-core common sense, his defense of theological ethics, and his detailed examination of Whitehead’s reformed subjectivist principle. In short, this is an excellent book that could be read with profit by philosophers and theologians generally.” — Daniel A. Dombrowski, author of Rawls and Religion: The Case for Political Liberalism

“No one working in the area of process thought will want to miss this major new book by David Ray Griffin.” — Donald W. Sherburne, coeditor of Whitehead’s Philosophy: Points of Connection.

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2007 - The mind-body problem, which Schopenhauer called the "world-knot" has been a central problem for philosophy since the time of Descartes. Among realists-those who accept the reality of the physical world-the two dominant approaches have been dualism and materialism, but there is a growing consensus that, if we are ever to understand how mind and body are related, a radically new approach is required. David Ray Griffin develops a third form of realism, one that resolves the basic problem (common to dualism and materialism) of the continued acceptance of the Cartesian view of matter. In dialogue with various philosophers, including Dennett, Kim, McGinn, Nagel, Seager, Searle, and Strawson, Griffin shows that materialist physicalism is even more problematic than dualism. He proposes instead a panexperientialist physicalism grounded in the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Answering those who have rejected "panpsychism" as obviously absurd, Griffin argues compellingly that panexperientialism, by taking experience and spontaneity as fully natural, can finally provide a naturalistic account of the emergence of consciousness-an account that also does justice to the freedom we all suppose in practice.

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2014 - Can scientific naturalism, according to which there are no interruptions of the normal cause-effect relations, be compatible with divine activity, religious experience, and moral realism? Leading process philosopher of religion David Ray Griffin argues that panentheism provides the conceptual framework to overcome the perennial conflicts between these views, with important implications for religious pluralism, the problem of evil, and the academic study of religion. Panentheism—God as the soul of the world—explains how theism can be fully natural while still portraying God as distinct from and more than the world. Griffin’s Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism is an essential source for philosophers of religion and others seeking to reconcile faith with science and Christianity with other religions.

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2016 - “God” has been the most embattled idea in the modern world. The lives of many people revolve around God; without God, they believe, life would be unbearable. Others regard the idea of God as the worst, most destructive, idea ever invented. The one group finds the evidence for God overwhelming; the other group finds the same for atheism. The debate has centered around the idea of God as the creator of the world. Many philosophers, theologians, and scientists have assumed that, if we would simply add up the good arguments for and against the existence of God, we could reach agreement, one way or the other. But in this book, David Ray Griffin argues that progress on this issue will be impossible unless we distinguish between two radically different ideas of a divine creator, which he calls “Gawd” and “God.” Whereas there is overwhelming evidence against the existence of Gawd, there is also overwhelming evidence for the reality of God. After looking at this evidence, the book illustrates the importance of this distinction for the issue of climate change.

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2016 - As the world increasingly grapples with the consequences of global warming and its resulting climate changes, the urgency of the crisis has become inescapable, despite continuing corporate-led efforts at fomenting doubt and denial. Then in June 2015 there occurred a powerful intervention into the discussion by Pope Francis. His encyclical, Laudato Si': On the Care for Our Common Home, called for swift action on climate change. Almost simultaneously with the official publication of this encyclical, there was the biggest-ever conference of the movement known as process thought, based primarily on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. This conference discussed various ways in which process thought could be helpful with respect to the global environmental crisis, especially climate change.

In this book, David Ray Griffin undertakes to show why process thought--meaning process philosophy, theology, and social/economic thought--provides a natural and helpful context in which to expound and defend the ecological message in the pope's encyclical. In concise arguments, Griffin shows that the position of Whitehead-based process thought on climate change and related matters is remarkably similar to that of Pope Francis in the encyclical. This similarity is important for two reasons. First, as process thought and the pope's encyclical come out of very different traditions, the similarity allows each to add credibility to the other. Second, process thought, which embodies a long-standing type of philosophical theology that is consistent with today's best science and has been growing in influence, can be used to support dimensions of the pope's encyclical that might be rejected by secular minds.

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2017 - Why process theology? Why now? In these eight essays, David Ray Griffin not only illuminates key ideas of process theology but offers compelling arguments for their importance in addressing the urgent issues of our time. Available for the first time in one place, these essays are the summation of a life’s work, including Griffin’s carefully developed arguments for the rejection of supernaturalism and divine omnipotence, and in favor of religious pluralism, panentheism, and the “neo-classical” theism of Charles Hartshorne. Always relevant, Griffin draws a direct line from a society’s theology to its ideology, which in the U.S. includes the denial of climate change, the logic of war, and the loss of a moral center.

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2019 - In 1934, Confessing Christians in Germany declared that support for the Nazi regime violated the basic principles of the Christian faith, thereby creating a status confesionis (confessional situation), requiring a binding doctrinal stance on sociopolitical questions. In this book, the result of a lifetime of engaged religious, philosophical, and critical inquiry, David Ray Griffin declares that with regard to American Empire, the church in America is in a similarly dire situation and must stand up for the integrity of the Gospel. He writes: “Our Christian faith at its best would lead us, both as individual Christians and as churches, to oppose the American Empire in the name of God. As long as the church does not explicitly oppose this empire, it is, by its silence, a de facto supporter.”Chapter by chapter (in some cases, verse by verse) Griffin argues that Christians in America must deal with the darker side of their country, especially its imperialism, racism, and nuclear and climate policies. With clarity and insight, Griffin points out ways in which the American Empire is similar to the Roman Empire—the empire that crucified Jesus—and urges Christians, “publicly and unequivocally” to reject it.To that end, Griffin has written a theology that aims always to keep in mind the meaning of “gospel”—good news. That is, it focuses on the primary doctrines of Christian faith, which are unqualifiedly good news, as distinct from secondary and tertiary doctrines, some of which have delivered bad—sometimes horrible—news. The primary doctrines are rooted in the Bible, especially the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Written from the perspective of process theology, the book is “liberal in method and conservative in content.” “Liberal in method” means that all appeals to authority to establish truth are rejected. Theology, like philosophy, can argue for the truth of its doctrines only on the basis of evidence and reason. So although the reality of revelation can be affirmed, theologians cannot make claims for the truth of events or doctrines by claiming that this truth was revealed. It is “conservative in content” by virtue of employing a constructive postmodern worldview, based on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Being “conservative in content” does not mean affirming the types of conservative theology that allow secondary and tertiary doctrines to distort the gospel’s primary doctrines. It means reaffirming primary doctrines of the Christian gospel, such as God’s creation of the world, God as actively present in us, and divinely-given life after death. American Christianity is in crisis. In this timely book, David Ray Griffin preaches the Gospel—not interpreted for the convenience of Americans, but to remind Americans of what the Gospel actually says and what it calls us to do.

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2021 - This position has lately been described as building ecological civilizations of equality and fairness at its humanitarian core. That by recognizing God's heart of compassion and building whole societies devoted to open and thriving democracies humanity does nest when serving each other's needs. - res

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Modern imperialism is primarily a Christian phenomenon. The British Empire and now the American Empire were created by countries regarding themselves as primarily Christian. But it has been the period since the second world war, when the US became especially dominant, that imperialism has come to be seen as a threat to the very existence of civilization. Throughout much of the 20th century, America’s most famous theologian was Reinhold Niebuhr. (His picture was once on the cover of Time magazine, and Barack Obama has said Niebuhr was his favorite theologian). For decades, Niebuhr brought a Christian perspective to the national discourse on issues of war, peace, international affairs, and global democracy. That his view changed dramatically over the course of his career—from first advocating for global democracy and then turning decisively against it—makes a study of his positions a useful background for renewed calls for a global democratic government. Our present world order allows for war, imperialism, and plutocracy, along with the increasingly dire consequences of climate chaos and pandemics. In this book, Griffin makes an impassioned case for the rejection of this world order and a commitment to the only livable alternative—a worldwide movement to democratize human civilization.