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

Thursday, March 10, 2022

Bill Leonard - The Fundamentalization of American Religion






March 8, 2022

My church history Prof from Wake Div, Bill Leonard, is back on the podcast. We have a wide-ranging conversation about the changing shape of religion in America. It is always a joy to reconnect with a mentor to pick some more wisdom and get feedback about some of the ideas you are working through.

Dr. Bill Leonard is Founding Dean and Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity. Leonard’s research focuses on Church History with particular attention to American religion, Baptist studies, and Appalachian religion.

He is the author or editor of some 25 books including Christianity in Appalachia (1999); Baptist Ways: A History (2003); The Challenge of Being Baptist (2010); Can I Get a Witness?: Essays, Sermons and Reflections (2013); and A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the U.S., (2014).

In March 2015 he delivered the William James Lecture on Religious Experience at Harvard Divinity School and in February 2017 he gave the William Self Lectures on Preaching at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University.

His newest book, The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Church History: Flaming Heretics and Heavy Drinkers, was published by Fortress Press in July 2017. Leonard is on the board of the Journal of Disability and Religion, The Baptist Quarterly (England), the Day1 Preaching Network, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, and the Governing Board of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

His sabbatical research focuses on a new book, tentatively entitled: “Security or Idolatry?: A History of Religion and Firearms in the U.S.” Leonard writes a twice-monthly column for Baptist News Global, is an ordained Baptist minister, and a member of First Baptist Church, Highland Avenue (American Baptist Churches, USA) in Winston-Salem.




Check out these books by Dr. Leonard:

Previous Podcasts w/ Dr. Leonard:


01:33:24

Podcast Outline
  • the church's loss of cultural social privilege
  • the changing sociology of Sunday
  • the rapid rise of the religiously unaffiliated
  • living through a period of institutional permanent transition
  • changing shape of religious pluralism
  • the changing center of faith from the congregation
  • the rise of Christian Nationalism
  • the history of race and religion in America
  • fear of critical race theory
  • Christian formation in a Biblically illiterate age
  • how American evangelical identity got so ugly
  • the Fundamentalization of American Religion and the move from experience to transaction
  • from the Scopes Monkey Trial to Critical Race Theory
  • how inerrancy migrated to natural law
  • “you can be right about scripture and wrong about the Gospel”
  • an account of American brokenness
  • how big tech is ruining religion
  • the Pornification of Religion
  • how individualism is destroying us individually
  • the growing lack of community for many is a judgment on the church
  • why the West needs the church


Monday, March 7, 2022

Jesus De/Constructed for Lent - Introduction




JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED FOR LENT
AN INTRODUCTION


The class will cover two books. Diana’s Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence and Tripp’s  The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic . . . Or Awesome?If you are super nerdy you may want to check out Tripp’s Divine Self-Investment

***UPDATE*** Tripp’s book has proved hard to find for many of you. HERE is a PDF of the book. We just ask you don’t share it and if inspired purchase a delayed or digital copy.


Class Outline

We will have 6 weekly sessions each Thursday at 5pm ET. In addition to these sessions, there will be a special visit from the author of  After Jesus Before Christianity: a Historical Exploration of the first two centuries of Jesus Movements.

3/3 SESSION 1: De/Constructing Jesus & the Lenten Journey

Reading: the introduction to Freeing Jesus and chapter 1 of the Guide to Jesus

3/10 SESSION 2: the Consequences of C.S. Lewis’ Worst Idea

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 2-4

3/17 SESSION 3: from Executed Prophet to Cosmic Christ

Reading: Guide to Jesus ch 5-7

3/24 SESSION 4: Freeing Jesus from Christendom Capture

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 1-3

3/31 SESSION 5: One Jesus, One Story, & a Multitude of Christs

Reading: Freeing Jesus ch 4-6

4/7 SESSION 6: De/constructed Jesus & the Journey of Holy Week

Reading: Freeing Jesus conclusion & Guide to Jesus ch 8

SPECIAL BONUS SESSION: After Jesus Before Christianity

We are excited to have our friends at the Westar Institute supporting this class. As part of the partnership, we will have a special bonus session with the authors of an exciting new book – After Jesus Before Christianity: a Historical Exploration of the first two centuries of Jesus Movements.


Previous Episodes with Diana & Tripp


* * * * * * *









* * * * * * *


 JESUS DE/CONSTRUCTED RESOURCES


Amazon Link

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the religion and its early dissemination.
Christianity has endured for more than two millennia and is practiced by billions worldwide today. Yet that longevity has created difficulties for scholars tracing the religion’s roots, distorting much of the historical investigation into the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. But what if Christianity died in the fourth or fifth centuries after it began? How would that change how historians see and understand its first two hundred years?
Considering these questions, three Bible scholars from the Westar Institute summarize the work of the Christianity Seminar and its efforts to offer a new way of thinking about Christianity and its roots. Synthesizing the institute’s most recent scholarship—bringing together the many archaeological and textual discoveries over the last twenty years—they have found:
  • There were multiple Jesus movements, not a singular one, before the fourth century
  • There was nothing called Christianity until the third century
  • There was much more flexibility and diversity within Jesus’s movement before it became centralized in Rome, not only regarding the Bible and religious doctrine, but also understandings of gender, sexuality and morality.
  • Exciting and revolutionary, After Jesus Before Christianity provides fresh insights into the real history behind how the Jesus movement became Christianity.
After Jesus Before Christianity includes more than a dozen black-and-white images throughout.


Amazon Link

The award-winning author of Grateful goes beyond the culture wars to offer a refreshing take on the comprehensive, multi-faceted nature of Jesus, keeping his teachings relevant and alive in our daily lives.
How can you still be a Christian?
This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind.
In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life’s challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.
Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.


Christology is crazy. It’s rather absurd to identify a first-century homeless Jew as God revealed, but a bunch of us do anyway. In this book, Tripp Fuller examines the historical Jesus, the development of the doctrine of Christ, the questions that drove christological innovations through church history, contemporary constructive proposals, and the predicament of belief for the church today. Recognizing that the battle over Jesus is no longer a public debate between the skeptic and believer but an internal struggle in the heart of many disciples, he argues that we continue to make christological claims about more than an “event” or simply the “Jesus of history.” On the other hand, C. S. Lewis’s infamous “liar, lunatic, and Lord” scheme is no longer intellectually tenable. This may be a guide to Jesus, but for Christians, Fuller is guiding us toward a deeper understanding of God. He thinks it’s good news—good news about a God who is so invested in the world that God refuses to be God without us.


Amazon Link

When muttering the word “God” doesn’t come easy, what does it mean to call Jesus “the Christ?” Fuller offers a robust constructive Christology that engages three theological registers - historical, existential, and metaphysical.

Beginning Christology not from above or below but from within the Disciple’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, Fuller constructs a powerful Open and Relational Christology. At the heart are three pairings of contemporary thinkers who share a thematic center with distinct trajectories. Fuller weaves each into a vision of God’s self-investment in history and the person of Jesus. The constructive proposal not only uses an Open and Relational vision but reshapes it in light of God’s self-investment in Christ. The significance of Fuller’s proposal is wide-reaching, engaging revelation, divine power, evil, the cross, hope, the imago dei, and the Spirit.

What They're Saying...

“This ambitious Christology marks Tripp Fuller as one of the most significant young systematic theologians to emerge on the scene in recent years. One can profitably read this book as an introduction to Open and Relational Theology; as a refresher on Logos Christology, Spirit Christology, and the quest for the historical Jesus; or as a primer on his six theological discussion partners. But the brilliance of the volume is actually the blending of biblical, classical, and process insights into a single moving vision of God’s self-investment in creation, Israel, and Jesus. Rarely have I encountered a young theologian who writes with this level of systematic depth.”
-- Philip Clayton, Ingraham Professor, Claremont School of Theology

"Tripp Fuller masterfully engages the crucial Christian question: Who do we say Jesus is? Engaging history, philosophy and theology, Fuller offers a vision of Jesus that weds evangelical convictions with progressive insights. His work stands alone side that of John Cobb, David Griffin and Elizabeth Johnson for required reading in Christology."
-- Monica A. Coleman, Professor of Africana Studies, University of Delaware, author of Making a Way Out of No Way: a Womanist Theology


Saturday, March 5, 2022

Summary of the "International Open & Relational Theology Online Conference," February 2022




Summary of the "International Open &
Relational Theology Online Conference"
February 19, 2022




SUCCESS!
February 19, 2022


More than 150 people attended the International Open and Relational Theology Conference (ORTLine22) in February.

Ten authors -- Sharon Baker Putt, John Cobb, Andrew Davis, Bruce Epperly, Catherine Keller, Matthew Korpman, Rory Randall, John Sanders, Matthew Segall, Andrew Williams -- responded to distinguished panelists and conference participants, with conversation topics ranging widely.

Conference attendees will receive at no extra cost the audio and video files from the sessions. They should look for an email from Jonathan Foster with a link to the webpage with ORTLine22 audio and video files.




Schedule of Speakers

~ This was a paid conference and videos can only
be posted if they are present on YouTube ~

9am Eastern
Rory Randall, An Open Theist Renewal Theology: God’s Love, The Spirit’s Power, and Human Freedom
Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord- Panelists: Joshua Reichard, Steve Harper, Chris Baker, Monte Lee Rice

10am Eastern
Sharon Baker Putt, A Nonviolent Theology of Love: Peacefully Confessing the Apostle’s Creed
Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord - Panelists: Brian Felushko, Deanna Young, Travis Keller, Annie DeRolf


11am Eastern
Matthew Korpman, Saying No to God: A Radical Approach to Reading the Bible Faithfully
Hosted by Brian Felushko- Panelists: Eric Seibert, Scott Spencer, Tammy Wiese

Noon Eastern
John Sanders, Embracing Prodigals: Overcoming Authoritative Religion by Embodying Jesus' Nurturing Grace
Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Mark Umstot, Ryan Lambros Janna Gonwa, Michael Brennan

1pm Eastern
Andrew Davis, Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy
Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: Andre Rabe, Austin Roberts, Sheri Kling, Fidel Arnecillo

2pm Eastern
Catherine Keller, Facing Apocalypse: Climate, Democracy, and Other Last Chances
Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: Dhawn Martin, Andrew Schwartz, Elaine Padilla, Jea Sophia Oh

3pm Eastern
Matthew Segall, Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology
Hosted by Jonathan Foster - Panelists: John Pohl, Tim Miller, Michael Epperson, Tim Eastman

4pm Eastern
Bruce Epperly
, Walking with Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism
Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Clemette Haskins, Steve Watson, Tim Reddish, Clarence White

5pm Eastern
John Cobb, Salvation: Jesus’s Mission and Ours
Hosted by Brian Felushko - Panelists: Tripp Fuller, Thomas Hermans-Webster, Donna Bowman, Shaleen Kendrick, Krista E. Hughes

6pm Eastern
Andrew Williams, Boundless Love: A Companion to Clark H. Pinnock’s Theology
Hosted by Thomas Jay Oord - Panelists: Chris Fisher, Shawn Ryan, Linda Mercadante, Sharon Harvey



ADDENDUM




Friday, March 4, 2022

Let's Talk about the Genesis Void from the Language of Process Theology


Amazon Link

Everything Flows explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been supposed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilized and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes.
Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead's panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science.
Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change.
This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the prospects of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality.

* * * * * * *


I'm a huge fan of Process Philosophy as the catalyst of a paradigm shift. Rather than seeing things as static objects, Process Philosophy sees reality as a set of dynamic processes & relationships that are in constant flux. Please refer to the Stanford Encyclopedia entry  -

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/

Alfred North Whitehead's "Process & Reality" was a big catalyst for process philosophy & relational metaphysics, but his work is dense & difficult to wrap your mind around with all of his neologisms & unconventional use of terms. A good overview here  -

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/

Whitehead thought of his system as the "Philosophy of Organism," and there are some in the philosophy of biology who are arguing to take a more process philosophy & relational approach. Here's an open access book from Oxford University Press on it -
There's an introductory "Manifesto for Processual Philosophy of Biology" critiquing Whitehead's full metaphysical system, which is dense & confusing. But there are many powerful & robust aspects of a process/relational metaphysics beyond Whitehead -
https://researchgate.net/publication/322836323_Everything_Flows_Towards_a_Processual_Philosophy_of_Biology

* * * * * * *


Amazon Link


Alfred North Whitehead was among the first initiates into the twentieth century’s new cosmological story. In this newly revised and expanded edition, Segall both sets Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism in historical context and brings it into conversation with key elements of contemporary scientific cosmology—including relativistic, quantum, evolutionary, and complexity theories. It lays bare the inadequacy of the materialistic-mechanistic metaphysical interpretative cosmologies of these theories and exemplifies the contributions Whitehead’s metaphysical cosmological scheme can make to the urgent transdisciplinary project of integrating natural science with the presuppositions of human civilization. The latest scientific discoveries reveal a universe that is nearly crying aloud for an ensouled reinterpretation, one in which, for example, physics and chemistry would no longer be merely descriptions of the meaningless motion of molecules to which biology is ultimately reducible, but rather themselves become studies of creative self-organization at ecological scales other than the biological.

 


* * * * * * *


Let's Talk about the Genesis Void
from the Language of Process Theology

by R.E. Slater

Introduction

Below I've provided a video discussion from two prominent scientists in their own fields of study, the evolutionist Richard Dawkins and Quantum Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss. They are presenting an atheistic lecture of their scientific position. Not a Christian position. In fact, I present this video here to conflict Christians so that we might begin thinking how to speak from a Jesus-faith when encountering an atheist or agnostic view of the world. (For myself, I believe the world holds on balance many more religiously-minded societal members than Spirit-less members. And even these later members tend towards a form of "spirituality" when gazing upon nature, the stars, people, activities, or inspirational times in life).

More specifically, as I listen to this older 2012 presentation on the primordial "nothingness" of the cosmos, which in more recent years, has re-appraised, or re-informed, itself as to what a "quantum nothingness" may mean, I have also been reflecting this same appraisement in my more recent articles on the subject of primordial space (as versus primordial space-time). But here, in this video, I sense Krauss' more primitive, or more inspecific, form of usage who most probably by now has also updated his own scientific understanding unlike what I'm hearing from him in this dated lecture.

A Couple of Thoughts...

As such, I've suggested my own conclusions on the subject of the meaning of the Genesis void many times using creatio continua in referring to the pre-existing "primordial quantum space" before the Big Bang era coupled with process thought. I'll be curious to find out if Richard and Lawrence will do the same using process philosophy's idea of an organic processual evolution. At least I hope so. More likely, they will not, or if they do, will not use it as informed by the process philosophy and theology component within their lecture. By this I mean that if they do speak to an organic universe it will not be in the way which Whitehead had used or understood it. Nor how I am using it to approach the "something from something" debate... they may hint towards the same terminology but on a far, far different philosophical basis using reductional language.

Secondly, the church's understanding of "nothingness" has always been without scientific content. Instead, it is full of Platonic - and later, Enlightenment Era - promotion when referring to its more popular beliefs about a creation resulting from "nothingness" (eg, "creatio ex nihilo"). However, scientifically, one can never get something from nothing. Too, Krauss' usage of "nothingness" is a far different usage of this term than the church's usage as he will explain.

Furthermore, the somethingness that was there provided God with material upon which He might "form" or "create" by His divine encounter and interaction granting to "a formless somethingness" a transformational creational act or process upon it's "inert nothingness" into a dynamic  "somethingness" of  intertwined organic structure.

This then would mean creation is as old as God. Moreover, in a way whereby each affected the other. That is, both God and the "void" of the somethingness that was already there (and described by the church as "nothingness" in Genesis) would have each informed, affected, and responded to the other, positively. In what way might that be?

I might suggest that God was the Affector, Causer, and Creational Force which "formed" or "acted upon" a static "pre-existing primordial somethingness void" towards a responding processual organic creation filled with an inverted state of becoming.

Hence, Process thought says, "That which is, is always in a state of becoming" once affected by a First Order Processual Cause, which is God in this case. Thus, we might say

God is the First Process to all becoming and succeeding Creational Processes.

So much so that the resulting reciprocal affect of creation upon the creating God who formed an "unformed Genesis void of somethingness" into a something state of potential self-creational processes" resulted in allowing His divine transcendence to infill, inform, and influence, this formed - or more correctly, forming - and responding somethingness through-and-through with His divine immanence.

Big breath... So unlike the Greek gods like Zeus - or the church's standardized classical dogma teaching of a transcendent God of through the ages - this Hebrew God of Israel who became Incarnated as Jesus does not come-and-go from from His creation but remains with it providing sustenance, nurture, guidance, redemption, reclamation, renewal, resurrection, and so forth.

Thus-and-thus,

God affects the affected while becoming affected Himself in return.

In more simpler terms, we know this truism from its expression in organic terms as processualism, panrelationalism, panexperientialism, and panpsychism. That is, when you look at, or experience, the flow of the cosmos (creation, nature, et al) we see and experience its affects of these very same metaphysical elements throughout creation's height, width and breadth. Elements which are true because they were inherited from the Creator God who gave of Himself to creation.

In return, God is here with us in everyway possible. We may describe His presence in salvific, redemptive, atoning, or resurrected terms, but God risked Himself by investing His Godhead with us and all of creation. In other words,

We are God's as God is ours.

R.E. Slater
March 4, 2022


* * * * * * *


Update

I'm about 40 min in to the conversation and am hearing a lot of religious conclusions presented which really haven't any good theology about them - which, by the way, I also have spoken to these many sentiments over the years. So, it simply shows their pat responses to faith and religion in general and Jesus more specifically.

Secondly, the primordial universe I've posited does have space in it. Here, it's pretty much the only thing there is in a null-infinite sense. But it is certainly without any quantum particle forms that we know of as I've mentioned before. Nor time. Simply space. To which Lawrence offers a general opinion but not a specific opinion. So, unless Lawrence speaks more specifically by what he means when speaking to "nothingness" I'm assuming we are both speaking to the same thing though I am speaking to it in the sense of "somethingness" while he is speaking to it in the sense of "nothingness". Hence, we saying the same thing - ironically, me in scientific terms while Lawrence in parochial terms (our roles are switched around!). And so I'm hoping to hear more from Lawrence on this subject and that he speaks to it more specifically in quantum terms of somethingness rather than the parochial terms of nothingness in the remaining 60 minutes.

Finally, I am unbothered by either speaker's religious sentiments. We, as Christians must hear these things so as to respond better to our culture's level of understanding and NOT to our own level of religious understanding.

Process Theology gives me those tools to communicate on a contemporary societal level whereas my former Hellenized/Westernized form of Christianity was inadequate to be able to do so. The church's current tool-set or language-set either prevents speech and demands defensive apologia or, when speaking, cannot reflect beyond its own biblical literalism's concordism or its own culture of metaphorical complimentarianism. Whereas in process thought the Christian faith (or any religious faith actually) can pick up its past classical doctrines and transport them back into societal relevancy again.

R.E. Slater
March 4, 2022

PS - here are a couple links to get readers started in their website search:
I don't believe I've had time to index the latest since producing it. Too, on a reread of past links there are sometimes phrases which could be better parsed, or given a bit more length for clarity's sake. Apologies. Many days I simply have limited time. If it's published it's been proofread at least twice... but even then I miss typos, spelling and grammatical errors, and may have chosen a less clear way of communicating what I'm attempting to say. I'll leave it to readers to sort this out between themselves for me on the blogger comment section. Thanks. - res


* * * * * * *


Richard Dawkins & Lawrence Krauss: Something from Nothing
Apr 19, 2012




Critically-acclaimed author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and world-renowned theoretical physicist and author Lawrence Krauss  discuss biology, cosmology, religion, and a host of other topics at this event entitled 'Something for Nothing'. This video was recorded at The Australian National University on 10 April 2012.

Richard Dawkins FRS is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. Born in British colonial Africa, he was educated in England, where he now lives. He did his doctorate at Oxford under the Nobel Prize winning zoologist Niko Tinbergen, then was briefly an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1967 to 1969, after which he returned to Oxford, first as a Lecturer in Zoology, then Reader, before being elected to his present professorship.

He is the author of nine books: The Selfish Gene (1976, 2nd Ed 1989), The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil's Chaplain (2003), The Ancestor's Tale (2004) and The God Delusion (2006). The God Delusion has sold more than two million copies in English, and is being published in 30 other languages. Dawkins is now editing an anthology of scientific writing for Oxford University Press, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. In 2006, to promote the values of education, science, and critical thinking skills, he established The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) which is now a registered charity in both the UK and USA.

Richard Dawkins has Honorary Doctorates of Literature as well as Science, and is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He has been awarded the Silver Medal of the Zoological Society of London, the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the Nakayama Prize, the Cosmos International Prize, the Kistler Prize, the Shakespeare Prize and the Lewis Thomas Prize.

Lawrence M. Krauss is a renowned cosmologist and science populariser, and is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. Hailed by Scientific American as a rare public intellectual, he is also the author of more than three hundred scientific publications and nine books, including the international bestseller, The Physics of Star Trek, and his most recent bestseller entitled A Universe from Nothing.

He received his PhD from MIT in 1982 and then joined the Society of Fellows at Harvard, and was a professor at Yale University and Chair of the Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University before taking his present position. Internationally known for his work in theoretical physics, he is the winner of numerous international awards, and is the only physicist to have received major awards from all three US physics societies, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Association of Physics Teachers. Krauss is also a commentator and essayist for newspapers such as the New York Times, and the Wall St. Journal, and has written regular columns for New Scientist and Scientific American and appears regularly on radio and television. He is one of the few scientists to have crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, and is also active in issues of science and society. He serves as co-chair of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and on the Board of Directors of the Federation of American Scientists.


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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 philosophy, 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.



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