God

Either and both. There are many important questions that are not decided by holding the process perspective. People from many different spiritual traditions can make use of process categories to clarify, deepen, and enrich their traditions. The process perspective allows us to honor this diversity. Difference does not lead directly to judgments of truth and falsity or to the need to rank the positions. Difference as such vastly enriches the world.

I think there is a sense in which theology as such is “hopelessly” Western if that means inescapably tied to Christianity. What we understand by theology brings together history and philosophy in a way that Christians cannot avoid. We have to discern universal meanings in particular historical events since we assert that particular historical events have importance for all people.

Dr. Cobb's Response

Process theologians generally emphasize where God is. First, God is everywhere in two ways. God is everywhere offering possibilities for the self-constitution of events and nudging them toward better possibilities. Second, God is everywhere absorbing into the divine life all that happens in the world. This is as true in war as it is at all other times and places.
But where is God not? In terms of the second way in which God is present, the answer is nowhere. Whatever the sin and suffering, God is the companion who suffers with the creatures.

Dr. Cobb's Response

In one sense, the answer must certainly be Yes. To be complete, one might well argue, one must be completed, finished, unsusceptible of any change. In process theology, we teach that this is not the way to understand God.

But "complete" has other meanings. The first meaning listed in my dictionary is: "Having all necessary parts; entire; whole." By this meaning God is surely complete. God is lacking no "necessary part". God is entire and whole. Another meaning is "Thorough, consummate, perfect." In this sense too, God is complete.

One way of approaching this question is to bring again to the fore the ancient triad of the true, the good, and the beautiful. People everywhere make judgments about truth, goodness, and beauty. Obviously, such judgments are made by people who do not connect them to God, even by people who strongly deny the reality of God. For some, one of them serves as an alternative focus of commitment and devotion. Devotion to truth may lead one to emphatic atheism. Devotion to goodness may lead to harsh criticism of accepted religious teachings.