God in Process
God in Process
A few nights ago, I spoke with Jim for the first time, a young adult who felt comfortable sharing his struggles about God with me. "I just don't know how to make sense of all this," he kept saying. For Jim, life in an Evangelical upbringing meant he wasn't allowed to ask questions about God, stray from the norm, or think for himself. Yet, as he grew older, he started having doubts, especially after needing three brain surgeries. During his first surgery, he could imagine God was with him. At his second surgery, questions of "how could God do this to me?" began creeping into his mind. By the third surgery, he came utterly unhinged and unable to relate to God. “I feel so lost! I mean God is supposed to be all-powerful, couldn’t he just fix me? Does God really love me?”
As a Pastor, I encounter people like Jim all the time. He is one of many experiencing deep and painful confusion about God. Typically predicated by some life-altering event, people sense the classical ways of thinking about God no longer work. At that moment, they are often left with a choice: do I walk away or continue believing what I know? My usual response is, "Could there be a third option? You don't know what you don't know. Perhaps you’re about to start an amazing journey of rediscovering God.”
For many, Process Theology provides a roadmap to rediscovering God without throwing away the Christian tradition. At it’s best, Process Theology offers an internally consistent and logical understanding of God and the Universe. At it’s worst, Process Theology is incredibly confusing, academic, and inaccessible. In this post, I hope to explore the four basic foundational elements of Process Theology in a way that can be easily communicated and understood.
These four elements include: “(1) All things flow, (2) all things are interconnected, (3) value is intrinsic to reality, (4) experience goes all the way down and up.”[1] For each of these elements, I will illustrate the classic counter-argument, new way of thinking, Biblical references to support these ideas, and practical ways to communicate these concepts. By doing so, I hope to develop more strategic and nuanced ways to describe the experience of God.
All Things Flow:
The first fundamental concept of Process Theology is “all things flow,” or “God is affected by and participates in that flow.”[2] For many, God is unchangeable (immutable) and not affected by us. Furthermore, God is all-powerful (omnipotent) and, therefore, perfect. It would stand to reason then, if God is all-powerful and perfect, how can God change? For many, this is a direct challenge to the Christian tradition. However, Process Theology is not challenging the Christian tradition; instead, it challenges the Greek influences upon it.
The early Jewish people, Christians, and Jesus himself did not necessarily view God as unchanging. These concepts came primarily from Greek influences, especially Plato, who argued that change is "merely a shadowy copy of a realm of eternally unchanging forms."[3] Essentially Plato suggested that “change” is merely an illusion. Plato put a great emphasis on being (unchanging) over becoming (changing), that still exists in our culture today. Yet, experientially, we all know the only thing constant is change. Obviously, me at 32 looks, feels, thinks, and experiences the world very differently than me of age 14. There is no illusion to the fact that I am now 6’3” instead of 5’9.”
Still, though, "following the Platonist (not the Bible), Western Christian theology asserted that God was the ultimate unchanging reality.”[4] The idea that God could change is a severe stumbling block for most Christians who value inerrancy, certainty, and the illusion of control. Yet, logic aside, even from a Biblical perspective, it is not far fetched that God could change. For instance, in Exodus 12, God is determined to destroy the Jewish people after they worship false idols. Moses pleads with God, begging him to change his mind. “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster he planned to bring on his people (Exodus 32:14).” There are other countless examples of God changing his mind (1 Samuel 15:29, Amos 7:3, Jonah 3:10, 2 Samuel 24:16, and more).
Additionally, if we believe we are made in the image of God (explored later), and everything changes (including us), then one could certainly assume that includes God. Ironically, the people who have the most trouble accepting this concept are those who believe the Bible is inerrant, yet examples like these clearly illustrate God’s changing nature.
Perhaps then, if we change, and we are made in God’s image, God is the most affected and changed of all. Now, does that mean there is nothing unchanging about God? Not at all, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. “To say that God grows (flows and changes) is not to say that God becomes wiser or more loving (as if God previously lacked wisdom and love) but only that, as new creatures arise and new experiences occur, the objects of the divine love have increased and therefore the divine experience has been enriched."[5]
For example, as mentioned I am different at 32 than I was at 14, but still possess similar attributes and genetic markers. There is a sense of continuity over time about who I am that moves through my memory. I am always in the present influenced by my past (prehending), both here and now, but different in each moment. However, this is more than an inherited identity, as I always have a choice to become something new moment by moment as I lean into the lure of God. I am in a process of becoming in all moments, not a static, unchanging being. Our faith and understanding of God is no different.
Jesus illustrates this evolving nature when he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill (Matthew 5:17).” He then continues for several verses with the classic, “You’ve heard it said (x). But I say to you (y).” For example, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... (Matthew 5:43-44).” Jesus didn't simply throw out the past; he was evolving people's understanding of God and faith at that time.
In the same way, Jesus helps us see our ability to adapt and respond to the lure of God given to us in each moment while prehending our past. From this, we become something new and grow. If we are genuinely interconnected (explored next), a part of God, who is a part of us, then our growth is also God’s growth.
All Things Are Interconnected:
The second fundamental concept of Process Theology is “all things are interconnected,” or “God is intertwined with the world.”[6] For many, God is distant from the world, outside of time, and again all-powerful. This image of God often implies a top-down linear and coercive kind of power that is not relational. In a culture that values top-down power, receiving from anyone suggests weakness. For example, if you're a store manager (considered powerful), you get to affect others; if you're a lowly store clerk (considered weak), then you're the one always being affected.
Again, the inherited Greek lens affects our view of power and God because “Plato and most other thinkers, from philosophers to theologians to kings, have believed that it is only the ability to affect that really counts, while the ability to be affected is largely a defect or weakness.”[7] When this is the dominant way of understanding power, God would seem weak if interconnected and affected by us. This lens inhibits our ability to understand the interconnectedness of all entities and maintains an unhealthy vision of God.
Does that mean God isn’t powerful? Not at all, but power needs redefining. In Process Theology, God is not only the most powerful, but God’s power is relational through interconnection to all things. The Gospel, one could argue, is an attempt to redefine the narrative of power. God does not seek the kind of power that culture deems powerful. Instead, “...Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness (Philippians 2:5-7).” The phrase “emptied himself” comes from the Greek word “kenosis,” which means pouring out completely for the sake of others. Kenosis implies that Christ did not attain power through coercion and top-down linear power, but rather, emptied himself for others as an interconnected act of mutuality.
Additionally, this verse illustrates how God is not distant and apart from us, but instead enters into our story with a human likeness. Therefore, it does not make sense to view God as all-powerful and detached from us. Ultimately, a detached yet all-powerful God is self-erasing because power is always relational and interconnected.[8] Meaning you can’t have power unless there is someone to have power over.[9] When power is both giving and receiving (often in the same moment), there is always an interconnected exchange. God embodies this strength, both pouring out and taking in the world, without losing divine identity (clearly illustrated in Jesus Christ).
Scientifically, we can also find grounds for God’s interconnection. At a fundamental level, all entities (humans, animals, plants, rocks, etc.) consist of the same components, atoms. For example, 90% of our body’s mass is stardust.[10] We are a part of the stars, and everything else that exists. Everything that exists is a part of the same energetic vortex. Therefore, to deny our interconnectedness is to deny reality. Further, to deny God's interconnected nature would also be a denial of truth.
“Let’s think of God not as way up there but as already here, everywhere. Think of a blade of grass... God is in that life... We need to think of a whole field of living cells in which what happens to any of them affects all of them. We need to think of ourselves as part of that field... in every one of those cells, God is at work.”[11] For instance, if I were to burn down a forest to clear space for my new home, I would directly affect the species and environment that make up that forest. We are one, and this oneness implies our actions directly affect others and ourselves.
God incorporates the whole history of the world in an experiential unity of oneness. Each moment of our lives becomes part of the larger whole and lives on forever in the eternal life of God. The divine experiences us and grows with us: taking more in, enriching, evolving, and expanding. In many ways, God could be considered the unification of the Universe, not separate or apart, but deeply connected to it all, the soul of the Universe itself.
Value is Intrinsic to Reality
The third fundamental component of Process reality is “value is intrinsic to reality,” or “God lures us towards good.” Many believe that God created the world out of nothing in an attempt to maintain human uniqueness and the will of God. Furthermore, many insist that God has a predetermined plan for one’s life, and "everything happens for a reason." For many, our job is to surrender to the will of God, because HE knows best.
To start, the Biblical understanding of creation does not imply creation out of nothing. Looking closely at Genesis reveals another possibility: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:1-2).” God’s interaction with the face of the deep and water is not creating from “nothing.”
From this passage, one could contend that God creatively ordered creation in cooperation with pre-existing self-determining entities like the face of the deep (primordial chaos) and water (substance). Simply put, from a Biblical perspective, God did not create from nothing; instead, God created out of chaos. Scientifically, this view of creation also aligns with our current understandings of how the Universe began and life itself developed (the Big Bang Theory and evolution). God is creating with a world, always in relationship to something that already existed.
Still, for many, the idea that complex order can arise from chaos (evolution) means we can't be made in the image of God (imago dei). That is a scary thought for some who want to attain human uniqueness. Yet human beings do not have to be the fundamental point of God's creation to maintain our uniqueness or imago dei. "Process theology offers an alternative that sees values as fundamental to reality and the development toward greater complexity as consonant with evolution and creation as co-creation."[12] To exist is to experience, and to experience is to feel, and what we feel are values (categories of emotions measured by intensity). The potential values that we sense and step into (consciously or not) are what God lures us into to create a better future for all beings.
While it is true that we are all connected, slowly evolved from chaos into complex beings, it is also true that human beings are the most complex of all entities. For instance, if someone dies who is close to me, I may mourn as an animal would, but I also have the potential to do much more. Unlike an animal, I can create new possibilities and meaning from the event. For example, I could start a non-profit in that person's memory that helps others. As a human, I can sense the lure of God and decide whether or not to follow in ways that other entities cannot.
Still, regardless of our uniqueness, value is intrinsic to all existing things; it is part of the fabric of reality. God, it could be said, is continuously luring all things into a future that provides the most value (goodness, beauty, love) for all entities. “If ‘creation is a relational act of God, then creation is really ‘co-creation,’ with God.”[13]
Perhaps then, humans have the highest potential to positively (or negatively) impact the Universe, as we sense God’s co-creative lure. We have free will, a God-given reality, and our choices have consequences. As beings with free will, we are lead by God to co-create a universe with an open future that requires our cooperation. We are not robots carrying out some pre-planned reality, surrendering all of ourselves to some powerful top-down God. Instead, we are co-creating a future with God, the hands and feet of Christ, impacting and changing the Universe around us. Indeed, we are more powerful than we might suspect.
Experience Goes All the Way Down and Up:
The last fundamental aspect of Process Theology is that “experience goes all the way down and up,” or “God feels our feelings.”[14] For many, God is the exemplar of perfection. Surely, God couldn’t feel “imperfect” emotions like grief, depression, or sadness like us. Due to this notion, in times of suffering, many people, like Jim (mentioned earlier), feel God is absent. Additionally, good things are supposed to happen to good people who believe the right things about God. However, it seems time and time again that God does not protect us from suffering.
Process Theology offers another way to think about suffering – not surprisingly, bound in the relational interconnectedness of our experience. First and foremost, to view life with an expectation of “not suffering” is a delusion that needs overcoming. If Christianity teaches us anything, it is that God not only suffers with us, but that suffering is part of our collective story towards resurrection.
The cross itself, the logo of Christianity, should have been the most obvious marker of God suffering with us. “To say that Jesus was God, then, ought to mean that God himself is one with us in our suffering, that divine love is not essentially benevolence – external well-wishing – but sympathy, taking into itself our every grief.”[15] Other passages reveal Christ’s deep well of “imperfect” emotions. For instance, when “Jesus wept” over Lazarus’ death (John 11:35), or when he sweat blood out of extreme anxiety (a medical condition known as hematohidrosis) before going to the cross (Luke 22:44). God is not only with us in our suffering but has experienced it in its totality. The pain we feel becomes part of the life of God as God continually takes in our experiences of the world (interconnectedness).
However, God does not only take in our human experiences but all experiences of every entity. When I take my Dog for a walk, his face lights up; he exhibits joy and his experience shifts. If I were to abuse my Dog, he would experience pain and retreat. “Imagine that experience/feeling/emotion goes all the way down to subatomic particles.”[16] As previously mentioned, we are all interconnected: humans, plants, rocks, as even “electrons, protons, neutrons, and other subatomic ‘particles’ are drops of spatial-temporal experience. They experience their physical relationships with the world around them as vectored emotions – feelings that drive them this way and that.”[17] Mainly, one could "think of energy as the transmission of physical feelings."[18] So while rocks may not have consciousness, there are still atoms (energy) swirling around (experiencing) its makeup.
Therefore, if we are all interconnected and experiencing values (to varying degrees of complexity), then God is also experiencing all entities in every given moment. Perhaps then, we don’t have experiences (feelings, emotions), but are experience itself. We continually experience the God who experiences us in a cosmic web of interconnectedness that continues throughout eternity in an ever-evolving process of love.
Conclusion:
Many people are leaving their faith because the classical understandings of God no longer make sense. Process Theology offers an internally consistent and logical understanding of God and the Universe through four foundational means: “(1) All things flow, (2) all things are interconnected, (3) value is intrinsic to reality, (4) experience goes all the way down and up.”[19]By exploring these concepts, one realizes that God is affected by and participates in the flow of life, interconnected with all that is, luring us towards good, and experiencing our feelings. This co-creative, relational, ever-evolving God lures us on to create value for all entities everywhere. For me, an eternal journey of interconnected becoming doesn't sound half bad.
Bibliography:
Cobb, John B. Praying for Jennifer: An Exploration of Intercessory Prayer in Story Form. Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room, 1985.
Cobb, John B, and David Ray Griffin. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976.
Hartshorne, Charles. Reality As Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion. The Phoenix Series, 2 [I.e. 3]. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1953.
“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology, date accessed June 18, 2020, https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1r6G6zJeKhlTDhoEwGIICfBb71q3xWxj0
Mesle, C. Robert. Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead. Templeton Foundation Press, 2008.
Footnote References:
[1]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology, date accessed June 18, 2020, https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1r6G6zJeKhlTDhoEwGIICfBb71q3xWxj0
[2]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[3]Robert C. Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead(Templeton Foundation Press, 2008), 8.
[4]Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North, 8.
[5]John B, Cobb and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 4.
[6]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[7]Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead, 67.
[8]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[9]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[10] “Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[11]John B. Cobb, Praying for Jennifer: An Exploration of Intercessory Prayer in Story Form, (Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room, 1985).
[12]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[13]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[14]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.
[15]Charles Hartshorne, Reality As Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion(The Phoenix Series, 2 [I.e. 3]. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1953), 147.
[16]Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead, 35-36.
[17]Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead, 35-36.
[18]Mesle, Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead, 35-36.
[19]“Intro to Process,” Claremont School of Theology.