Process Theology in Just a Few Pages – July 2004

Question: “How can one explain Christian process theology in just a few pages?”

Publication Month: July 2004

Dr. Cobb’s Response

This is a different kind of question from most I have tried to answer, but certainly an important challenge. There is no one right answer, but I am going to respond by contrasting process theology with some common patterns of Christian thinking.

Some Christians understand God primarily as lawgiver and judge. God is the one who has defined what is right and wrong, especially with respect to sexual morality. If one violates these rules one may expect punishment either in this life or beyond.

Some Christians understand God as the one who controls everything, the Almighty or Omnipotent One. Accordingly, whatever happens must have a reason, that is, God must have a purpose for causing or permitting the event. For example, if a child is run over by a car, then either God wanted the child in heaven, or needed to teach the parents a lesson, or saw that in the long run the death of the child was for the good of all.

Some Christians understand God as powerful person with whom they may bargain. If they will perform the deeds they understand God wants, then God will take care of them or benefit them appropriately. Prayer can be a kind of negotiation with God.

Some Christians associate God very closely with Christianity. Only Christians know God and please God. Other people are the enemies of God unless they repent and become Christians. Sometimes this is more narrowly conceived to limit God’s approval to those Christians who understand God correctly as one group defines correctness.

Some Christians associate God very closely with the well being of their own people or nation. They may speak of loyalty to “God and country.” They expect God to support the aims of their nation against others.

Some Christians think of God as truly masculine, even male. God’s maleness supports the domination of women by men and the exclusion of women from priestly roles. Since men are more godlike than women, stereotypical masculine characteristics are honored more than stereotypical feminine ones. God is thought to act but not to be acted on.

Some Christians think that the great majority of events can be fully understood without any reference to God. But they believe that every now and again God intervenes in the course of events. Their prayers are designed to persuade God to intervene to accomplish something they believe to be important. Some Christians believe that God has a fixed plan for their lives. If they fail to follow it, God calls them back to it again and again. Once they agree to follow it, things will go well.

Some Christians believe that God has created human beings to rule the world. They believe that other creatures exist only for use by humans. The natural world is there to be exploited. This includes all the other animals. Their suffering is of no importance.

Process theology rejects all of these views. In doing so it is not alone. Christian ecofeminists in particular typically share in these rejections and think in ways very congenial to process theology. Students of the Bible also often reject these views and come to conclusions similar to process theology without any direct influence from it. Hence, to explain the views of process theology is not to oppose all other theological approaches.

Speaking positively now, process theologians believe that the God revealed in Jesus’ person and teaching is best understood in terms of love rather than of controlling power. This does not mean that God is powerless, but that God’s power is not coercive. We often say that God is persuasive, and that is correct. But it may be still better to say that God’s power is expressed in empowering the creatures and giving them freedom as well as in calling them to express that freedom in love.

Process theologians believe that we cannot assume that what happens in the world is what God wants to have happen in the world. Each event is largely what it must be because of all the past events that inform it. God’s role is to introduce the ability to be more than merely the deterministic outcome of the past. God thus liberates and provides direction. But even in this area, where there is some real freedom in the creature, God does not determine how that freedom is exercised. Otherwise it would not be freedom. In theological language, God’s grace sets us free and guides us. It does not restrict us or compel us.

God’s grace also saves us. This has multiple meanings. It saves us from sheer necessity and meaninglessness by ever offering us new possibilities for life and for becoming more alive. It makes possible solutions and breakthroughs in situations that seem hopeless. It enables us to hope for a positive future even when projections of present trends appear to lead to destruction.

God’s grace is also radical empathy with us and acceptance of us, whatever we do with the opportunities God grants us. God takes us up into God’s own life and we live there forever. This is forgiveness and transformation. That means that everything we experience, God also experiences. God suffers with us as we suffer and rejoices with us as we rejoice. God understands as no other companion can.

This means that God is in us and we are in God. God is a part of our very being and we are parts of God’s very being. It is quite literally true that in God we live and move and have our being. And this is true not only of human beings but of all of God’s creatures. What we do to the least of these we do also to God.

There is no separation between soul and body. We are fully embodied souls and ensouled bodies. God loves our bodies as God loves our souls.

The relation between God and creatures is highly interactive. What God offers us in each moment depends on the situation in that moment. What God offers in the next moment depends on our response in the preceding one. God’s “plan”, if we use that word at all, is continuously adjusted to the changing situation in the world.

This deep relationality is not only between creatures and God. It is also among creatures. In Paul’s language, we are members one of another. We do not exist as self-enclosed individuals but as social beings. We are what and who we are through our relationships with others.

Many of these others are, of course, human beings. We have no existence outside of human community. We are called to heal and strengthen human community and to oppose those forces that systematically weaken and undercut. This has vast implications for economics and for social organization.
But our relations are also with the whole creaturely world. The wellbeing of the world contributes to our wellbeing and its sickness and decay impoverish us as well. We seek the flourishing of other creatures both for their sake and for ours. This has vast implications for the importance of our treatment of the natural world and our understanding of what policies are needed for a sustainable future.

The interconnectedness of all things also means that all thought and knowledge is interconnected. It is a mistake to divide up knowledge in separate compartments as is done in the modern university. Theology should be informed by the sciences, and the sciences should be informed by theology. The world is in crisis, and thought should be directed to solving the crisis rather than to advancing academic disciplines.

Our opportunity and fulfillment is to love and serve God by loving and serving God’s creatures. That does not mean that we must obey rules laid down by God. It means instead that we are to respond moment by moment to God’s loving call to us. This is what it means to be faithful as Jesus was faithful. Because of Jesus we can believe and trust and be assured of God’s forgiveness and acceptance. We can hope for the salvation of the world and work with God to that end.