Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Can Relational Theism Overcome the Ills of both Process Theology and Classical (Evangelic) Dogma? Part 2 of 2


"The Century is Over" - Evolutionary Tree of Twentieth-Century Architecture with its attractor basins,
by Charles Jencks, Architectural Review, July 2000, p. 77 (see link here)

Introduction

Rather than discussing Dr. Roger Olson's list against process theology (sic, "Why I Am Not a Process Theologian), I thought I might approach this subject from a sideways direction. Mostly because this website contains within it many good responses to process theology, but in a more positive form than Dr. Olson's list - while not ignoring the complaints of classical orthodoxy in lists like this. In essence, we have discussed on many occasions each of Dr. Olson's orthodox concerns in an effort to "update" classical Christian's folklores and dogmas by applying either relational theology or open theism as our tools of rejoinder and expression when writing on process subjects.

Thus, rather than work through a point-by-point response to Dr. Olson's list perhaps the more helpful avenue of discussion would be to re-contextualize the concerns of non-process theologians bounded as they are within their own closed systems of what they think Christianity should, and should not, be. Though we each would like to think we hold open systems of thought that are centered-set in Jesus, in actuality when discussions like this arise we find ourselves describing a Christianity that has difficulty in approaching unfamiliar, non-traditional subject matter. One that is mostly closed and closed-minded.

Whereas the better response would be one of attempting to re-integrate the many helpful directions of process theology back into the folds of Christian orthodoxy so that it might remain relevant to societal needs and perceptions rather than closing any-and-all discussions made upon it. As good examples of this I think Bruce Epperly, Thomas Jay Oord, and Homebrewed Christianity (see sidebar under Emergent resources), each do a yeoman's job in bringing out the practicalities of process thought. Moreover, an open system of thought will approach a closed system of beliefs to help open it up and prevent it from establishing overly strict, uncrossable, epistemological borders. Hence, a by-product of this effort will be seen in an attitude of a future forward movement within one's own epistemological maturity correspondent to a coincidental rise in confidence and personal relevancy to the topics of the day.


Setting the Table

Firstly, process philosophy is to process theology as early Greek philosophy (Hellenism) was to early church theology... a theology that continued well into the Middle Ages until latterly replaced by the Western philosophy of Enlightenment which consequently birthed modern secularism.

What this means is that there was no period of time in the theology of the church (including the New Testament period) that wasn't subjected to the philosophies extant around itself in the lands, people, and customs that it met and interacted with. This was as true of Jewish theology of the Old Testament as it formed and competed against the ANE philosophies of the Akkadians and Sumerians, or Egyptians, or even the Babylonian philosophies of their day. From Jewish creation stories, to flood (Noah) and worship stories (Babel), to its deliverance from Egypt (Moses), and its subsequent deliverance from Babylonian exile (the Prophets). The Bible is replete with Jewish theology examining, absorbing, integrating, reforming, and rejecting surrounding worldly philosophies into its ancient faith.

So too was this true of the early church in the Apostle Paul's day under the many pervasive philosophical influences of the Greeks and Romans as it updated its inherited Jewish theological center of covenant-and-promise (sic, people, worship, land, community) around a Christological center that would re-center everything it knew and believed about God against the prevailing amalgamation of Greek and Roman cosmological and anthropological beliefs and mindsets. Hence, Jewish monotheism soon became nuanced by an understanding of Trinitarian monotheism and Christological atonement schemas; lengthy discussions took place about the effects of Pelagianism, antinomianism, and the nature of the hypostatic union of Christ - including the problem of sin and evil (theodicy); the nature of God's grace and human free will; and a variety of competing apocalyptic eschatologies covering various sorts of anthropological hermeneutics describing the nature of divine revelation as received by the church. Which community of believers were as inherently different in constitution and charter from its predecessor Israel, as it was similar to its earlier communities of God-fearing believers. But underneath, or around, all these newer (Christian) theologies came with it the many fragmented forms of not only Greco-Roman philosophies, but incipient global philosophies as well, which underlay inside, underneath, and around, the church's "gospel" as it spread outwards to the four corners of the trade winds - north, west, south, and east.


Staying Conversant

As such, it would be naïve to think that postmodernism is not influencing today's 21st century church no less than yesteryear's Enlightenment philosophies which had similarly birthed modern secularism and its influences upon the "orthodox" church's doxological life-and-theology over its past 500 hundred years of historical church movement. In response, denominationalism, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism, have each arisen to provide numerous religious answers and attitudes to the deep philosophical questions of their day. Even as today's postmodernism (in reaction to modernism) has bourne its own correspondent rectitudes of analyticism (logical positivism) and continental philosophies via seminal studies in existentialism and phenomenology by the likes of Hegel, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche's NihilismRicoeur, Tillich, Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida.

From this hotbed of ideas in correspondent study of societal event re the turmoil-and-clash of cultures has come the church's reciprocating Christian reaction of liberal theology (19th-20th century), process theology (20th-21st century), and radical theology (the Death of God movement in the 21st century). Certainly the church is not beholden to the belief-sets of philosophy - as can readily be seen by its struggle of theology with prevalent ideologies (whether locally, regionally, nationally, or globally). Which doesn't mean that it isn't affect within its espoused theologies by philosophy either. For no church through the generations of man can be insular from the culture and climate of the nations around itself, no matter its protestations that it is not. It would be naïve to think so. For instance, Western Civilization is rife with ideas and systems to which the church must respond or withdraw. But to withdraw is to become bounded by exclusive, unmitigating ideas, that can no longer communicate with the larger world of ideas that it is tasked to do. It loses its sense of mission when become isolating to its own bounded sets of belief. And once this is done it loses its sense of purpose and fulfillment. A cold, antiquated, orthodoxy does no one any good... least of all its own congregants.

However, to the degree the church understands that "philosophy is like the air we breathe" even as "theology is like the food we digest", to that degree must theology work to stay open and expressive. The liberal theology it once thought so useless long years ago is now the basis for most biblical work today. It took years and years and years for liberalism's concerns to be understood but once grasped the church then re-worked those ideas into its religious charters and institutions (with varying degrees of success or non-success). So too must postmodernism's process theology be re-computed into the life-and-theology of its many denominational expressions. The best vehicles to do this is a maturing  anthropological hermeneutic that opens up and enlarges language constructs, communication, and community; an acceptance of, and concerted effort towards purposefully assimilating, polypluralism within the attitudes of the church; an enlarged idea of how a good narrative theology based upon contextualized resourcing can help with this assimilating process; a scientific mindedness eschewing anti-intellectualism; and an open and relational theology that stretches the boundedness of classic theology; to name a few.

Hence, the church needs to become conversant with all philosophical epistemologies and any derivative theologies spinning from these movements. Which means that the church's definition of orthodoxy must always be in the process of self-examination if it is to remain conversant with the burgeoning societies of the 21st century united in global commerce and exchange, communication, and cooperation.


Good, Bad, and Great Listening Skills

Thus, syncreticism is a fact of life in the church. Accordingly, the church's embrace of orthodoxy cannot be expected to remain static. It must grow and expand in order to accommodate newer ideas and discoveries. Not all accommodations will be biblical, but not all biblical theologies will be as fully expressive as they could be without certain strategic re-thinking (Christian think-tanks and braintrusts). As the church reacts and develops newer theological expressions, time-and-attendance will mediate all false expressions of the Christian faith by death's ever remorseful relent. What seems so certain today to the orthodox traditions of the church may rapidly become decidedly unhelpful and untrue all in one breath at the hand of God (remember Ezekiel where God uses the bowl, to then wipe it out and discard its remains, when done?). Hence, creating lists can only be helpful to those fearful and threatened by newer ideas. And, they can also be harbingers to a dying faith no longer relevant to the church's mission and witness.

Why? Because lists can cause stakeholders to cling to their religious boundaries a bit too tightly to their own demise and death. Or they can help forward-looking, progressive individuals and institutions to respond appropriately by enlarging older, more sacrosanct, theological concepts which have become overly retardative, restrictive, and outdated. There is no harm in conversing with ideas like process theology so long as it helps one's biblical understanding of God, self, and creation, to become more fully enriched and biblically insightful. Today's process theology tells the church that it must reconsider what it means when declaring equality to all but rendering equality to none outside their own circles of impaling beliefs. Or by preaching respect for all persons and religions when remitting time-and-again its generosity to those unlike itself by resisting the necessary of assimilation of cultural pluralism incumbent upon its outreach of the Gospel.

Rather than calling everything foul and digressing from further discussion it is this author's opinion that as mankind mature's in his postmodern societies - especially in the sciences and technologies - so too must we allow reciprocating movement within church doctrine. As science is not static, so too is theology not static. Newtonian physics passed away with all mechanistic, classical philosophies when atomism climbed forward in molecular chemistry and quantum physics. So too must today's postmodern church find that it must update its own theological ideas of "God, man, and the gospel" in the face of societal evolution as it lurches forward in newer discoveries, disciplines, ideas, and language. It would be naïve to think that we must not.


Reading Lists through the Book of Deeds

Thus the warrant to consider process theology and its philosophical underpinnings in light of the orthodox interpretation of Scripture. Lists, like the one Dr. Olson has provided from a non-process basis, can only be helpful to those apologists unwilling to move forward in conversation with a postmodern generation of youth and ideas. Rather than forcing restrictive boundaries and dilemmas upon the church we should be examining how to relate those newer discoveries with what we think we know already. And should our past, more ancient traditions change, than we must know how and why they must change, rather than arguing those changes away in the flotsam of denial and argument.

At the last, I do not fight to hold onto my ideas and definitions of who I think God is. It would be far better if I were the more willing to asking myself why I must believe why God is the way that I want Him to be. Or, to be more content in pursuing better questions of my Christian faith than in demanding better explanations of my faith. Or, to be more content in leaving a little mystery around the God I think I know who in essence has become held hostage as an idol of my imaginations and desires.

As example, at the behest of yesteryear's classicisims, God was declared as far removed from us as a transcendent heavenly Being can be, who was primarily bent on excising His righteous judgment and ire upon a creation gone to hell (per Reformed Calvinism). However, under relational thought, God is primarily re-described as a God who is near to us in presence and person, grace and forgiveness (per relational-process theism). Perhaps had the church held these latter (newer) ideas than perhaps centuries-old inquisitions, crusades, genocides, wars, famine, cruelty, slavery, discrimination, and suffering might have been avoided. If classic Christian orthodoxy is so vaunted than I (and others) do suspect its more tattered message of hypocrisy and greed when reviewing its faith based upon its historical works and deeds.... (what is known as the priority of an orthopraxy over orthodoxy - the practice of one's beliefs).

The respected British historian, Sir Kenneth Clark, once said in his treatise [Great] Civilisations, that "Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." Even so do I when reviewing church doctrine taking precedence over human tragedy and pathos. Consequently, the works of art by artist's like Banksy seems to shout our present generation's ills and fates when left in the hands of the more civilized, Christianized, man whose ethos of beliefs have caused so much grief and harm when left in the hands of a less tolerant, more ignoble society of men motivated by doctrine over deeds, disruption over community, ideals over life, liberty, and freedom.

by R.E. Slater
December 7, 2013
updated: December 13, 2013 
















From Homebrewed Christianity -
A reply from a Process Site (albeit, a "conservative" Process Site)

A Newbie Response to Roger Olson

December 5, 2013 by Bo Sanders 107 Comments


Roger Olson blogged about why he is not a Process Theologian. Since I am a newbie to Process Thought, I thought it would be fun to respond to the post point-by-point. My responses are in bold.

In the days to come, people who do this for a living (instead of a hobby) will respond more deeply and more accurately than I have here.

First … let me say that many, many people I know who think they believe in process theology really don’t. Like many theological labels and categories, over time, “process theology” has been stretched to cover much, much more than it originally covered. Many people who claim to believe in it simply don’t know what it is, historically-theologically, or what it entails logically.

I am up for the challenge. I might be who you are talking about. Let’s see how this goes.

When I talk about “process theology” I mean the type of (so-called) Christian theology based on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (sometimes as modified by Charles Hartshorne) and expressed above all, prototypically, by John Cobb, David Griffin, Norman Pittenger, Delwin Brown, et al.

Good so far – that is what I thought it was. 

In other words, “process theology” is not just any relational theology. It is a type of relational theology, but not the only one. And, I would add, not the best one. (For example, Jürgen Moltmann’s is a relational theology and, in my opinion, much better than process theology.)

Sure. We know plenty of people who prefer Moltmann or the Open Theology of someone like Greg Boyd. No worries there.

Many people have taken a course that included a little process theology or have read a book by a process thinker or just heard about process theology and jumped on the bandwagon without really knowing all that it involves. So—just because you call yourself “process” doesn’t mean you are.

Agreed. We try to say this all the time. Of course we say from a purist sort of qualification and you mean as as dis-qualification – but so far so good. 

So what are the essentials of process theology? My description will be of an “ideal type” based on the consensus of the most noted and influential process theologians (some of whom are mentioned above).

Let’s do this! 

First, process theology assumes that to be is to be in relation. It is a relational, organic worldview.

Yep. In fact, I would ask, “what was the other option?” 

Second, process theology avers that God is not an exception to basic ontological rules but is their chief exemplification.

This is a major distinction and one that I find very attractive. But you are right – it is a significant departure. This is why I talk about Process Thought as not just a new program to download but a new operating system that reformats ones’ theological hard-drive.

Third, process theology asserts that omnipotence is a theological mistake; God is not - and cannot be - omnipotent. God’s only power is the power of influence (persuasion).

Right. The nature of God’s power is not coercive but persuasive. God’s power is not unilateral but seductive. No problem so far. 

Fourth, process theology is a form of theistic naturalism; it does not have room for the supernatural or for divine interventions (miracles).

Umm … yes and no. This is true to the degree that the super-natural is based in a pathetically antiquated metaphysics and a three-tiered universe. But ‘no’ in the sense that there is room for the miraculous – especially as testified to in the Gospel accounts. So we are 4 in and we start to get a little shaky. 

Fifth, process theology denies creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing, and affirms classical panentheism—God and the world are mutually interdependent. There is a sense in which God is dependent on the world (beyond self-limitation).

Ya – read the two creation accounts in Genesis. There is no creation ex nihilo. Read church history. No Jewish person, including Jesus, would have believed ex nihilo until two centuries after Christ. It is a greco-roman reading imported and imposed on the Jewish text. 

Sixth, process theology refers to God as “dipolar”—having two “poles” or “natures”—one primordial and one consequent. God’s primordial pole is potential only and consists of ideals. God’s consequent pole is actual and consists of God’s experience. The world contributes experience to God. God has no primordial experience. (Theologian Austin Farrer referred to this as process theology’s lack of “prior actuality in God.”)

Right. And doesn’t a classic Trinitarian understanding speak of the immanent and the economic Trinity? Am I wrong on this? If I am someone will tell me … 

Seventh, process theology regards God as radically temporal; God learns as history unfolds and how history unfolds is ultimately up to creatures (actual occasions). (“God proposes but man disposes.”)

Umm … isn’t there evidence of this in both the Hebrew and Christian testaments? I mean, it’s not completely unprecedented. I mean, you can go the Openess route and say that it is a ‘self-limitation’ or you can go the Process route and say that it just the way it is (God’s nature / the nature of reality).

Eighth, process theology reduces God’s creative activity to bringing about order and harmony insofar as possible. God is not the actual creator of the world or any actual occasion (the basic building blocks of reality). God can only create, however, with creaturely cooperation.

Right – the interventionist notion of God is shed. This will become important as we move through the 20th century (let alone the 21st). 

Ninth, process theology views Jesus Christ as different in degree but not in kind from other creatures. His “divinity” consists of his embodying the self-expressive activity of God (“Logos”) which is “creative transformation.” He is not God incarnate in any absolutely unique sense that no other creature could be.

Ugh. This is overstated. I would venture to say that the last sentence is not well represented. If one listens to the latest Barrel Aged Podcast with John Cobb on Advent, you will hear a more nuanced and ‘orthodox’ presentation of this concept of incarnation. Jesus IS unique. 

I would go as far as to say that Olsen gets this one wrong. 

Tenth, process theology denies any guaranteed ultimate victory of God or good over evil. The future is “more of the same” so far as we know. Ultimately, that is up to us, not God. God always does God’s best, but he cannot guarantee anything.

Half Right. Is the future guaranteed? No. It is 100% up to us? No – there is still a God in the universe. Does God work with us to bring about a preferable set of possibilities and open up options yet unseen? Yes. 

Now, if that is an accurate brief summary of the essential points of process theology, which I believe it is (allowing that there are people who call themselves “process” who may disagree with one or two points and who may add to it something others would not), here is why I think it is not a form of Christian theology.

I would give it a 90% – but let’s see where this goes. 

First, process theology’s ultimate authority for belief is not divine revelation but philosophy and, in particular, Whitehead’s organic metaphysic (sometimes as altered by Hartshorne). That becomes the “Procrustean bed” on which revelation must fit. It is not merely influenced by or integrated with that philosophy; that philosophy is its very soul and foundation.

Dr. Olson, you have to know that all of Christian theology is both in concert with and based on some set of philosophical frameworks. That is part & parcel of every theological project through the centuries. Process’ explicit reliance on this is not a disqualifying admittance. In fact, it is better than the implicit nature of other historical expressions. 

Second, process theology’s Jesus Christ is not God and Savior in any recognizable sense. Its Christology tends to be either adoptionistic or Nestorian (as in the case of Norman Pittenger).

What? Oh my. Really? Oh no. We are going to have to do a TNT on this one. The beauty of ‘christology from below’ the subtle way that Cobb does it in the pod on Advent is masterful. 

Third, process theology has very little, if any, room for the Trinity. Attempts by process theologians to include the Trinity in their theology have been weak and mostly modalistic. (Catholic process theologian Joseph Bracken has attempted to develop a trinitarian process theology, but I’m not convinced it works.)

Now you are swinging wildly. Would you say this about the parichoretic view? 

Fourth, process theology denies miracles including the bodily resurrection/empty tomb of Jesus Christ.

Not exactly. 

Fifth, process theology constitutes radical accommodation to secular modernity.

Because Evangelicalism has made no accommodation to modernity or changed anything since the Apostles?

Sixth, process theology denies the efficacy of petitionary prayer.

There is no interventionist God in Process. [Rather, God works with us, others, events to effect His will - res].

Seventh, process theology has no realistic eschatology.

Realistic? Did you mean that? Did you mean ‘real’? Otherwise you will have to show me a ‘realistic’ one. 

Eighth, process theology makes God dependent on the world and not as a matter of voluntary self-limitation (as in the case of Moltmann, for example).

God’s nature versus decision - a slight distinction. Certainly doesn’t need to be a matter of disqualification. 

Ninth, process theology reduces salvation to actualization of God’s “initial aim” and thereby falls into a kind of Pelagianism (except that for most process theologians everyone is or will be “saved” in the traditional sense of reconciled with God).

Now this is an interesting point – one worth fleshing out in throwdown. Having said that, I hope you are prepared to have your view of salvation scrutinized. 

Tenth, process theology is so esoteric as to be impossible for most people to understand. It uses conventional Christian language but means something so different that only people steeped in process philosophy could possibly guess at its meaning. The meanings bear little resemblance, if any, to orthodox Christianity.

Oh come on! Is that a real accusation? You just said esoteric. Big words and new concepts are not a problem. People learn new words all time: “I’ll have a venti Caffè macchiato barista”. 

Added: This happens when people join denominations of change expression of church. You can not become Lutheran, Episcopal, Wesleyan, Methodist, Catholic, charismatic, Pentecostal, Eastern Orthodox , non-denominational any other from without learning new words: Sanctification, liturgy, vestry, sacrament, diocese, cruciform, stole, christen, laity … it just goes on and on.

SO the learning of new words and concept thing is not a big deal. We do the same thing when we go seminary: soteriology, annotation, attribution, attestation, primary source, ontology, Turabian.

None of that is prohibitive. People do this all time when it A) benefits them (barista) and B) they enjoy it/ feel it is necessary.

If you talk to someone in the military, medical or legal fields … it is ubiquitous – then it come to religion and ‘Oh NOO! the average person in the pew has to understand EVERYthing immediately’. Why is that?

Is there anything redeemable in process theology? Not that I cannot find elsewhere.

Nothing redeemable? Is that a play on words because of the salvation thing earlier? 

Why is process theology so popular? I think it’s because it seems to solve the theodicy question. If process theology is true, there is no theodicy question. Evil exists because God is not omnipotent and creatures, having free will and some degree of self-centeredness, often resist God’s initial aim for them. I’m not sure that begins to explain evils such as the holocaust. 

It’s popular? Nice. 

You are right about the theodicy question. 

But process theology solves the theodicy issue at too high a cost. The God of process theology is hardly worshipful. In order to be worshipful God must be both great and good (but not one at the expense of the other). The God of process theology is not great enough to be worshipful. He/she/it is great enough to be admirable but not worshipful.

No. Wrong. You sound like the person who says “Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th? Christmas isn’t even worth celebrating!” Just because it isn’t the way you were taught it or previously understood it – doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. You should walk in the woods or come to church with me sometime.

A better solution to the theodicy issue may be found in God’s self-limitation in creation. This is the alternative presented by Moltmann, among others. I highly recommend Greg Boyd’s book Is God to Blame? for those attracted to process theology but wanting a more orthodox alternative. (For those who object that Boyd is an open theist, this particular book does not depend on that.)

This should get interesting.

- Bo


*Side Note by R.E. Slater, November 29, 2019

Having re-read my friend Dr. Olson's review of Process Theology nearly six years from the day he posted his thoughts (see Part I) I still find it unhelpful in its apprehension of its relationship to Open and Relational Theology. Rather, I found it pregnated with older evangelical apprehensions and arguments clinging to a past comprehension of the cosmic universe that doesn't see to work with postmodernism's newer theological environment. Dr. Olson's very helpful expositions on Arminianism (and away from Calvinism) was one of the reasons I found Open and Relational Theology so attractive. Which then led more naturally to embracing Process Theology in its many nuances/expressions of Christian theology rightfully placed in-under-and-through the orbit of God's love. God's power (omnipotence) means nothing to creation without God's love permeating every aspect of creation's lives. As such, I suspect given time and perspective, Dr. Olson, like myself, would join the ranks of Open and Relational Process theologians but there comes a time in all of our lives that our academia cannot keep up with the revolutionary thoughts we must weigh and judge whether helpful or not to the understanding our Christ Jesus our Lord. I wonder, if like Dr. Olson's good and foresightful friend Clark Pinnock, given six years of reflective thought he might have changed some of his opinions on this subject. If anyone knows please comment below as I would find this greatly encouraging.

- R.E. Slater

PS - As a reference point to Bo's open discussion with Roger one might refer to Wikipedia's dated entry to "Open Theism" which would place Roger's arguments more in line with classical evangelicalism. However, importantly note that Arminianism is not presented as a fourth line of argument only its deformed brother Calvinism. ;)  Too, Wikipedia's entry of Open Theism is more of a classical discussion but not updated into the Relational nor Process Sense. This is why I call its entry here dated. Thank you. RES


Friday, December 6, 2013

Can Relational Theism Overcome the Ills of both Process Theology and Classical (Evangelic) Dogma? Part 1 of 2




"Things aren't always the way they first appear to be,
as in the case of today's article...." 


During the past two years we have been investigating what process theology is and isn't. And mostly I have been selectively picking-and-choosing my favs amongst its many fields of petunias, sometimes crying foul, and sometimes praising its many insights into the Christian faith. Certainly I feel the pinch of my fundamentalist, evangelical background against its opposing anvil of post-modernistic theological-philosophies. But then again, I feel that same pinch within my own reading of Scripture when read from the eyes of a Christianity become steeped in folklore, dogma, and secular modernism. The trick is to navigate the best path between all available options without losing one's way, or Bible, or God.

Today, my friend, Dr. Roger Olson, takes aim at process theology when held in the hands of a thorough-going process philosopher, and having read his list I find some agreement and some disagreement with his overly black-and-white assessments. If you have been a steady reader of this blog over these many years you will notice quite immediately how I have attempted to write of a more balanced view of relational theology into the assertions of both process theology and its classical counterpart of Christian dogmatism. The former (in its more radical elements) can speak of a God who becomes pure existence of human wont and will; but the latter can also speak of a God lost from our humanity, and become irrelevant to our lives; who is somewhere "out there," but has forgotten me and my prayers in the midst of a sinful world.

Historically, process theology actually began as "relational-process" theology but somewhere the "relational" was dropped in favor of philosophisms over theologisms (... if these are words!). So I next began the lengthy process of re-envisioning what "process" could mean with the added flavor of "relational" theology mixed into each before then discovering another theologian's writings on this same subject. Consequently, I have added Thomas Jay Oord's observations about process theology to that of Roger's in the next article further below as a counterpane to Roger's assessments. And then, as I have time, will try to respond to Roger's observations in a later posting sometime next week.

But as a reminder to us all, a list like this is a good list to work through to see both the limitations, as well as the unbounded opportunities that lie betwixt-and-between the many shades of process, non-process, and relational theology. Let's simply call this the land of opportunity based upon a more appropriate syncretic blending of relational theology towards each opposing position. And from this maudlin land attempt to re-integrate what both sides have been trying to say about God, ourselves, and this good earth, but have missed within their extreme dipolarizations. Thank you.

R.E. Slater
December 6, 2013
 
*Any future comments I may have will be made at the end of Roger's posting, and not ahead of it.

**Part 2 - May viewed here
 
 
* * * * * * *




[A Non-Process Response to Process Theology
or,
Classical Theology's Response to Process Theology]

"Why I Am Not a Process Theologian"

[A Relational Response to Process Theology]


Process and Wesleyan Theologies
by Thomas Jay Oord
August 15, 2011

Process theology is a way of thinking about God and the world that continues to attract Christians. Those who appreciate John Wesley’s theology are often especially attracted to process thinking.

Of course, no theology is perfect. Every theology – including Process theology – has flaws.  We all see through a glass darkly. But contemporary Wesleyan theologians are attracted to Process theology for good reasons:



1. God is Relational

Process theology offers language and ideas to support the idea that God is essentially relational. Rather than being distant, aloof, and unaffected, Process theology affirms that God is present to each of us and all creation. God suffers with us all. Process theology supports the Apostle Paul’s words: “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God” (2 Cor. 1:3-4, NRSV). The idea that God is relational helps portray the covenantal and incarnational God the Bible describes.  Although distinct from the world, God is in the world as one “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

2. Prayer Changes Things

Process theology argues that prayer makes a difference both to us and to God.  Our prayers affect the way God chooses to act. Many biblical stories tell of how God acted differently because people prayed.  Process theology supports these stories, because God as described by Process theology sometimes acts differently because of what creatures do. For instance, the Lord told Isaiah to inform Hezekiah that he would die. But Hezekiah prayed that God would spare him, and God changed his mind, adding fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life (Isaiah 38:4, 5). Other theologies cannot account for a God who changes plans because we petition. They teach that God has the past, present, and future already decided and settled.  Petitionary prayer makes no difference to the God who rigidly pre-determines all things. Process theology fits with the biblical revelation of a God who is influenced by our prayer.

3. God Made Us Free

Process theology emphasizes that we are free -- at least to some degree. Our freedom is not unlimited, of course. Creaturely freedom is an important category for Wesleyans.  It plays a crucial role in rejecting predestination and in placing blame for sin on creatures. Joshua understood the importance of free responses to God when he told the people, “choose this day whom you shall serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). John Wesley called this “free grace”—God’s free gift and our free response.  He even sounds like a Process theologian when he says, “Were human liberty taken away, men would be as incapable of virtue as stones. Therefore (with reverence be it spoken) the Almighty himself cannot do this thing. He cannot thus contradict himself or undo what he has done.” Overall, I know of no better conceptual scheme for affirming the Wesleyan doctrine of prevenient grace – with its view that God acts first and provides freedom to creatures for response – than the Process tradition.

4. God is not Responsible for Evil

The significance of creaturely freedom, as Process theology understands it, solves the problem that atheists claim remains the primary reason they cannot believe in God: the problem of evil. Process theology blames free creatures and the agency of creation for genuine evil. According to Process theology, God lovingly gives freedom and therefore neither causes nor allows evil. It affirms with James, “God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one,” but that “every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of Lights” (1:13b, 17a). Process theology rejects John Calvin’s idea that God is the source of Adam’s sin.  In sum, many believe that that Process theology provides the best solution to the problem of evil.

5. Community and Individual Matter

Perhaps no theological tradition better grounds the Apostle Paul’s view of the Church than how Process theology explains the centrality of relations and community. It takes with utmost seriousness Paul’s words that "we are members one of another" (Rm. 12:5). Process theologians lead the way in criticizing modern individualism, without rejecting the dignity and responsibility of persons in community. Process theology’s proposal regarding interconnections and interrelatedness is important for considering what it means to be the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-14). I know of no conceptual scheme that better describes how Christians are both persons and a relational community.

6. Contemporary Issues must be Engaged

Process theology engages the issues that characterize our postmodern world better than other theologies.  This is especially true of contemporary science. It also deeply engages and effectively addresses environmental and ecological concerns. Process thought actively tackles the ideas of contemporary culture. Wesleyan theologians think engaging contemporary issues is crucial if Christians are to be salt and light in these wonderful and woeful days. Wesleyans and Process theologians want to “always be ready to make a defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Pt. 3:15).

7. Love Reigns Supreme

The previous statements represent significant reasons many in the Wesleyan tradition are attracted to Process theology. However, I personally find Process theology most helpful as a resource for understanding Christian love. No other theology better describes God’s love as both creative and responsive. No other theology better makes sense of what Jesus called the first and second commandments (found in Matthew 22:37-40 and other gospels). No other theology better grounds Christian agape. Process theology is a first-rate theology of love, and it is little wonder Mildred Bang Wynkoop found it so helpful. If “above all,” Christians should “clothe themselves with love” because it “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14), Christians should explore the fruits of Process theology.

Conclusion

Process theology also has weaknesses. As I said at the outset, no theology is perfect. And there are certainly differences between what some Wesleyans believe and what some Process theologians believe. We should not ignore them.

But Process theology’s central claims about God’s love, prevenient grace, creaturely freedom and responsibility, the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Church, etc., fit under the Wesleyan theological umbrella. There are good reasons many Wesleyans find at least some aspects of Process theology attractive.


* * * * * * *


Baptist Theologian Roger Olson



[Assessing Relational Theology from a Non-Process Theologian]


 Relational Theology: Roger Olson
The second view of God’s sovereignty, the one I plan to expound here, is relational theism. Oord, one of the editors and authors of Relational Theology, defines it this way: “At its core, relational theology affirms two key ideas:
1. God affects creatures in various ways. Instead of being aloof and detached, God is active and involved in relationship with others. God relates to us, and that makes an essential difference.
2. Creatures affect God in various ways. While God’s nature is unchanging, creatures influence the loving and living Creator of the universe. We relate to God, and creation makes a difference to God.” (p. 2) 
Another author, Barry Callen, says of relational theism (or theology) that it focuses on “the interactivity or mutuality of the God-human relationship. God is understood to be truly personal, loving, and not manipulative. The interaction of the wills of Creator and creature are real.” (p. 7) 
Relational theism or theology comes in many varieties, some of them quite incompatible at points. All share in common, however, belief that creatures can and do actually affect God. The relationship between creatures, especially human persons, and God is two-way. God is, as Dutch theologian Hendrikus Berkhof said, the “defenseless superior power” within a genuine covenant relationship with us whose immutability is not impervious to influence but “changeable faithfulness.” According to relational theism, the God-human relationship is reciprocal, mutual, interactive. God is not Aristotle’s “Thought thinking Itself” or Aquinas’ “Pure Actuality” without potentiality. Rather, God is Pinnock’s “Most Moved Mover”—the superior power who allows creatures to resist him and becomes vulnerable and open to harm as well as joy…. 
What I want to outline for you and recommend to you is a non-process, narrative-based, relational view of God’s sovereignty. It is not rooted in process theology which, while relational, detracts too much from God’s transcendence. Process theology is one form of relational theology, but not all relational theology is process. Process theology denies God’s omnipotence which is its main failing. From that flow other flaws such as its denial of any eschatological resolution to the struggles of history and eventual end to evil and innocent suffering. Process theology, in my opinion, sacrifices too much of the biblical portrait of God and, in the process, robs us of hope for the world. It is right in much of what it affirms but wrong in much of what it denies. It rightly affirms God’s vulnerability and the partial openness of the future; it wrongly denies God’s power to intervene in human affairs to rescue, heal and defeat evil…. 
Does this all mean that God needs us? Not at all. This God could have lived forever satisfied with the communal love shared between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but he chose to become vulnerable in relation to the world he created out of the overflowing of that love. Is that just a metaphysical compliment unnecessarily paid to God or a truth necessary to the biblical story of God with us? I would argue it is the latter. A God who literally needs the world is a pathetic God hardly worthy of worship…. 
The key insight for a non-process relational view of God’s sovereignty is that God is sovereign over his sovereignty. The missio dei is God’s choice to involve himself intimately with the world so as to be affected by it. That choice is rooted in God’s love and desire for reciprocal love freely offered by his human creatures. None of this detracts in any way from God’s sovereignty because God is sovereign over his sovereignty. To say that God can’t be vulnerable, can’t limit himself, can’t restrain his power to make room for other powers, is, ironically, to deny God’s sovereignty.


* * * * * * *


Select Comments
from Dr. Olson's article
 
From Reader #1 - As you rightly say, the label has become so flabby that it's hard to know what it actually means. Do you think the rising popularity of process theology is in part a response to the rising popularity of reformed thinking? I ask because if anything puts the theodicy question in sharp relief it's Calvin's theology. Are you familiar with Vanstone's 'Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense: the response of being to the love of God'? He also has an interesting take on the causes of suffering.
 
Reply by Dr. Olson - I'm not familiar with it. I'll add it to my list of books to investigate. Thanks for the recommendation. My experience is that process theology exists almost exclusively among liberal theologians and students and others under their influence--e.g., seminary students and graduates of so-called mainline Protestant seminaries. It doesn't generally filter down to the pews because it's just so esoteric. However I have known many sensitive, reflective, theologically-minded young evangelicals who are attracted to process theology just because it is such an alternative to high Calvinism (which they find rampant among their peers). I try to steer them away from process theology toward a more mediating theology of God's self-limitation.
 
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From Reader #2 - "A better solution to the theodicy issue may be found in God’s self-limitation in creation." - Olson
 
I was going to say this after reading your penultimate paragraph. My answer to the question of "Why does Jesus deserve to be King?" is "Look at how he used power." Self-limitation seems so important for any coherent concept of 'goodness', and it is of practical importance, to boot. You've bumped Moltmann up on my reading list!
 
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From Reader #3 - "Dr. Olson, you could write an article called "Why I'm not an open theist"? I would love to know the differences (and similarities) between process theology and open theism! Grace and Peace!"
 
Reply by Dr. Olson - "Very simple to explain the difference. All open theists believe God is omnipotent and will intervene to conquer sin and evil (eschatological realism)."
 
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From Reader #4 - One question about this quote: "I am not saying people who believe in process theology cannot be Christians...What I am saying is that insofar as a person believes in process theology they are Christian in spite of their theology, not because of it."
 
If one believes in process theology as described here, what makes that person still a Christian in your opinion? Where do you draw the line?
 
Reply by Dr. Olson - I try not to draw bold lines that exclude people unnecessarily. I know some people who think they believe in process theology who I think are confused. I want to be generous to them. I'm not sure a hard core process theologian who denies the ontological deity of Christ, for example, can be a Christian. Which is not a judgment about their salvation which only God knows.
 
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From Reader #5 - Do you have any recommendations for Jürgen Moltmann's work?
 
Reply by Dr. Olson - He has written so much it's hard to know which one of his books to recommend. I guess my overall favorite is his The Spirit of Life. But it's heavy going. Alternatively, I like Pinnock's Flame of Love. They overlap a lot and Pinnock's is much easier reading.
 
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From Myself #6 - Hi Roger. My time spent in process theology have felt the back-and-forth of your concerns above. However, from early on when discovering process theology I have felt that by incorporating a "relational theology" (because, as you know, process theology from early on was "relational-process theology") this method of approach might help to modify process theology substantially to become significantly more impelling than the list I am reading above, that is  so cold and bare. Though there is no official "list" like the one above that I have found, even so I have taken each bullet point and re-written them over the years around Jesus, and the classical God that evangelicalism loves. It has given to this old, classic line of dogma, new life and witness that I find more fully shaped than classical theology's more barren landscape. However, it is also skewed from the purist position of process theology as well, become more conversant to orthodox Christianity rather than its adversary. So that with postmodernism's advent Christianity itself might become more conversant with society itself. A global society at a lost to understand the more vocal traditions of evangelicalism. And a global society that might hear again a more relevant strand of Christianity than what we have previously borne in our Reformed, fundamental traditions. Thus my interest in relational (process) theology. Thank you.
 
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From Reader #7 - This is great! I've been listening to a certain podcast that's hosted by two self-proclaimed "process theologians" who often have folks like John Cobb and Phillip Clayton on to discuss theology. I've been wrestling with process theology for a while because some of what I hear seems to be a pretty good way of looking at human experience. However, I can't bring myself to accept it when I hear, for example, John Cobb deny that Jesus is of one essence with the father. I've listened to his critiques of Nicene language, and I cringe. It's taken me a long time to even get to understanding process thought, and even now I don't claim to be an expert in it. However, I do credit my study of process thought in some sense to my move away from Calvinism and toward an Arminian/ Open theist perspective. I guess God can work good out of anything!
 
Reply by Dr. Olson - I'm glad you're avoiding full blown process thought. So far as I know Phil Clayton is not a process theologian even though he calls himself a panentheist. By the way, Phil and I studied together under Pannenberg in Munich in 1980-1981. We were quite close then. In the basement kiosk of the Bavarian state library we together planned a book about Pannenberg. We were going to edit it together and both contribute to it and we were deciding on scholars to invite to write specific chapters. Our plan was to begin work on it as soon as he arrived back in the U.S. (about a year after I). About a year after I returned, I heard that he and Carl Braaten were editing a volume of essays on Pannenberg and I was not invited to contribute. Huh. Very strange.
 
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From Reader #8 - What is the difference between process theology and open theism with regard to God's foreknowledge? Don't they both advocate that God only knows what is "knowable"?
 
Reply by Dr. Olson - It is the one area where process theology and open theism overlap. But the REASON is different. For open theism any limitation of God is self-limitation (even if made at creation--to leave the future partly open).
 
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From Reader #9 - quote from Dr. Olson: "First, process theology’s ultimate authority for belief is not divine revelation but philosophy and, in particular, Whitehead’s organic metaphysic (sometimes as altered by Hartshorne). That becomes the “Procrustean bed” on which revelation must fit. It is not merely influenced by or integrated with that philosophy; that philosophy is its very soul and foundation."
 
Reader #9's question - I think this first objection is overstated. Let me recommend a book by Lewis Ford, The Lure of God: A Biblical Background for Process Theism. He makes a pretty good case that the process model for God is more biblical than the traditional "omnipotence" model of God, which has its origin in Greek philosophical thought.
 
Reply by Dr. Olson - I knew Lewis Ford. I published an article by him when I was editor of Christian Scholar's Review. He and I had many conversations at AAR meetings. He was a prince of a man and fine scholar. We never agreed, though, about the basic authority for process theology. He thought it was Scripture but admitted that process philosophy functions for process theology much as Middle Platonism functioned for early Christian thought--a lens for interpreting Scripture within culture. Of all the process theologians I have known I consider Ford's the one most devoted to Scripture although I think he interpreted it wrongly.