Christian Process Theology:

​ Introductions for the spiritually-interested,
intellectually-engaged General Reader
​

Process theology is an evolving multi-religious tradition. Its advocates include Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Bahais, Pagans, and people who are spiritually interested but not religiously affiliated. Christian process theology is one of its most important and influential expressions. This page offers two introductions to Christian process theology for the spiritually-interested, intellectually engaged general reader; along with, at the bottom of the page, a list of additional books and resources, of which there are many. The introductions are by Marjorie Suchocki, professor emerita of the Claremont School of Theology, and Jay McDaniel, chair of the board of the Cobb Institute for Community and Practice.  Suchocki's is especially valuable for church-involved readers and McDaniel's for the more general reader. Both essays stand on their own, but, together, they offer a good introduction to Christian process theology.

Christian Process Theology

An Introduction by  Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki

 reprinted with permission from Process and Faith

1. In a nutshell, what did you say it is?

Well, some nuts are hard to crack, but try this: Process theologies are relational ways of thinking about the dynamism of life and faith. Process-relational theologians integrate implications of a thoroughly interdependent universe into how we live and express our faith. We are convinced that everything is dynamically interconnected; that everything matters; that everything has an effect. Such insights can be adapted to many faith traditions, but this particular booklet applies them to Christian faith.

2. Is there a difference between process theology and process-relational theology?

No, I am using the terms interchangeably.“Process” indicates the dynamism in this way of thinking, and “relational” indicates the supposition of radical interdependence.

3. What sources do process (or process relational) theologians use?

Like many Christian theologians, we draw from Scripture, the long faith tradition, philosophical categories, and our own experience. The philosophical categories we use are those of process philosophy, especially as developed by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. But I caution you to notice (should you decide to investigate further!) that these sources and categories can be used by process-relational theologians in a great variety of ways!

You will find that within Christianity, process philosophy has appealed most to liberals, but there are also evangelicals who find it useful. Some Unitarians use process philosophy without appropriating much from Christian scripture or tradition. Further, Jewish and Buddhist thinkers have made use of process philosophy, operating with quite different scriptures and traditions.

My answers here reflect my personal experience as a committed “oldline” Protestant who finds rich meaning in the affirmations and symbolism of the Christian tradition, but sees the need for quite radical revision of some inherited teachings. Thus this booklet presents a Christian process theology that makes the most sense to me, but you will find some of these other ways of developing process theology in the attached bibliography.

4. But aren’t Scripture and tradition clear enough to stand on their own?

To study the history of any faith tradition is to see how that faith adapts to the “common sense” of its particular time and place. Tradition is like a flowing river that continuously carves out new paths. Once I saw a detailed map that showed how the Mississippi River had continuously changed its course throughout its history. It still goes down to the sea, but how it goes down to the sea is a varied story. It’s the same with tradition. It all leads to the expression of God’s work with us, but how it expresses that work varies from age to age. If we stare at a single spot in tradition, and see it as if it were the entirety of it, we get the illusion that tradition stands still. It’s tempting to reduce the whole tradition to what happened at Nicea in the 4th century, or with Aquinas in the 13th century, or Luther in the 16th, or Wesley in the 18th. But the tradition is much richer than any single period! It is constantly moving, and we who are a part of that tradition are responsible for knowing how it has developed, and for contributing to its contemporary flow.

The same is true of biblical understanding. The texts are given, but how they are interpreted varies enormously from age to age. Just think of the way several great streams of Christianity interpret those baptismal texts! The texts are the same; the interpretations are quite varied and even contradictory. So how we draw from Scripture is also an adventure. Scriptural understanding blends studies of the actual texts together with the history of the way those texts have been interpreted in the tradition. Scripture may look like a steady state sort of thing, but it is actually a dynamic story of varying interpretations and applications through history. Both Scripture and tradition are formative for the Christian tradition, deeply contributing to the changing shapes of Christian theology. But in using Scripture and tradition, we all use other categories to help us interpret them—even when we think we are not! Process-relational theologians join those who claim we should be clear about how experience and philosophical suppositions affect the way we interpret Scripture and tradition.

5. But doesn’t that dilute Scripture and the tradition?

Philosophy (the methodical use of reason to interpret the world and/or our experience within it) has always been involved in interpreting Scripture and creating the tradition. It’s not a question of whether philosophy will be used, but which philosophy will be used! Process people think that Scripture speaks deeply about a relational world to whom and with whom God also relates. So why not use a philosophy that is relational—like process philosophy?

6. And experience, please?

Theology is always filtered through one’s own experience! One of the great differences in theology since the 19th century is that we increasingly began to recognize the role of our own subjective experience in how we develop theology. On the one hand, we always bring a perspective that is shaped by things such as our social location, our gender, our nationality, and so forth. But we also bring our religious experiences into the mix—that is, our interpretation of the presence of God in our own lives. To ignore this experience is to pretend that theology is just some head trip that may or may not relate to the way we live. So, then: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience all enter into the way process-relational theology is formed. It becomes the “stuff ” from which we express our faith that God is with us for our good.

7. So you use these four sources, but what exactly is process philosophy?

Process is a relational philosophy. There have been various relational ways of talking about the world since “way back when,” but most philosophers talked as if the ideal thing should be something solid that doesn’t depend on anything beyond itself. To be in relation was considered a lesser value than total self-sufficiency. In the 20th century we began to see that the ability to relate to another wasn’t just a happenstance of the way things are, but is the core of the way things are. To exist is to be in relation. Does God exist? If you say yes, then God must also be in relation. To whom? To everyone and everything!

The philosophy takes relationship a little bit further. Process thinking says that to be related to something is to be internally affected by that something, and to affect something else in turn. Relationship is itself a dynamic process! To exist is to be affected by others, and to have an effect on others. Again, does God exist? If you answer yes, then God is affected by others, and has effects on others. Which others? All others!

Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne are the two major philosophers of the 20th century who most fully developed this kind of philosophy. Process theologies usually draw from either or both of these philosophers.

8. So what does this mean for the way process relational theologians talk about God? Is God still the Creator?

Of course! But as you might expect, how we talk about God as creator in relational categories differs from the “creation out of nothing” that has been so dominant in most of the Christian tradition. If God is in relation, then God is always in relation. Process does not have a way to talk about there being absolutely nothing except God. Process-relational thinkers tend to take Genesis 1 more seriously than does the tradition, for Genesis 1:1 does not speak of God existing independently and apart from anything else. In Genesis, there appears to be a primeval chaos with which God works, and from which God brings order—creation—into existence.

In the relational categories of process thought, God creates with the world. We actually think this is a much stronger way to express God’s power. A children’s fable once told about a rivalry between the wind and the sun. Which one would be able to remove the coat of that man down there on the road? The wind thought that it could, and so it blew and blew and blew with great force. Unfortunately, the strength of the wind was such that the man just drew his coat more firmly around himself. Then it was the sun’s turn. The sun just beamed its rays down upon the man until finally he grew quite warm—and removed his coat. In process terms, the wind worked coercively, trying to force its will upon the man, but the sun worked persuasively, luring the man’s cooperative action. To be able to elicit the willing cooperation of another is a far greater power than simply to force the other to do as one wishes.

God creates through persuasive power. Don’t we experience it that way? We don’t see God yanking things and people around as if they were puppets! The tradition accounts for this by saying that God gave people freedom. Process people think that freedom isn’t an occasional thing limited to just some aspects of creation, but that something like freedom pervades all existence. Every part of God’s creation has some element of freedom. What we call “freedom” ranges from very low levels of indeterminately random events to very high levels of conscious decision-making. And there are many grades in between. God works with each element in existence, in every time and place, offering possibilities for achieving the good. Finally, the world determines what it does with God’s possibilities in every moment. Freedom means the ability to participate at some level in what one becomes.

If we take freedom seriously, then we must talk about three powers of creation. There is the power of the past, which simply means that where we are and when we are makes a difference to who we can become. We must take account of these past influences, because we simply do not exist in a vacuum. We exist relationally. In a sense, we take the creative influences of the past into ourselves in every moment.

But we also take the creative power of God into ourselves at every moment. In this second creative power, God offers us a future, a way of becoming oneself that is not quite like any other way ever achieved before. God’s creativity is the power of transformation, of hope, of a new future. God’s influence toward the future takes account of the past that affects us, offering a way of dealing with that past.

And the third creative power, of course, is ourselves. Finally, we decide what we will become. We are responsible for dealing with the actual past received from the world and the possible future received from God. The world as we know it is, in every moment, the end result of this creative process: the power of the past, which is the power of the world; the power of the future, which is the power of God, and the power of the present, which is our own power to integrate these influences into who we are becoming in every moment. Our freedom is to take these three creative powers and to use them. The choice of how we use them is ours.

So yes, God is by all means Creator, calling the world into existence in every moment. But God creates with the world, not independently of the world. The world enters into something like a creative dance with God, emerging anew in every moment as it takes its past and God’s future into its becoming self.

9. Well, what about evil? Doesn’t evil ruin this notion of a “creative dance”?

Your question comes too quickly! What is evil? Is it the same as what we call sin? Traditionally, evil has been understood to be the destructiveness that seems to be built into the nature of things. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes are not evil in themselves, but they certainly can have evil effects—“natural evil”—for living creatures! Illness and death have also been called “natural evils.” All living creatures are by definition mortal; hence all will die. Is this what you mean by evil?

In a process universe, every creaturely becoming takes place in a myriad of other creaturely becomings. There is necessarily a measure of conflict built into the system, particularly given our interdependence. For process thinkers, this is all part of the dynamism that makes existence on our planet possible. Thus, the fact that sentient creatures experience pain is part of the price of our existence.

Sin, on the other hand, has been understood as moral evil, or choices that go against God’s will—“missing the mark” is a frequent biblical meaning for sin. The Christian tradition has often combined these two senses of natural and moral evil by suggesting that sin is the originating cause of all evil, including natural evils of calamity, illness, and death. While process theologians tend to agree with the “missing the mark” interpretation of moral evil, they disagree with the claim that moral evil is the reason why we have natural evils.

10. Do you mean that process theologians don’t hold with ‘Adam and Eve’?

Ah, Adam and Eve. A quick summation of the tradition might be helpful here to highlight some of the differences between process theologies and the long tradition of “original sin.” For much of Christian history, all sin and evil was traced to the disobedience of a first human pair. Their disobedience resulted in a corruption of their very nature. Prior to this failure, Adam and Eve presumably lived rationally, so that their minds always governed what they felt and did. What they felt and did was always orderly and good in a perfect love for God, and love for the world in and through God. Following disobedience, this orderliness was overturned, and proper love lost. Consequently, Adam and all his progeny are afflicted with unruliness. The mind no longer governs the body rationally, and all manner of evils follow.

But process cannot follow this view. All the evidence suggests that humans are part of a great evolutionary process, and that God creates in and through this process. “Creative transformation” is another name for changes that emerge in evolution. Instead of talking about a perfect first human pair existing about 6000 years ago, we talk about the long evolutionary history of our race, and the role that aggression and violence have necessarily played in our development—sometimes for our good, sometimes not. But as relatively weak creatures on the animal scene, it was important for us to live by our wits, and to struggle for our food and shelter. The ability to fight was important to our survival, and we used it—and still use it—to shore up our defenses and build up our own interests. The capacity to do this takes many forms. In positive forms, we blend our own interests with the interests of the wider communities within the world. In negative forms, we secure our own interests against all others—greed and rapaciousness are illustrations of this. Process-relational thinkers affirm that God calls us beyond violence toward communities of well-being.

Another difference between process and traditional views concerns the role of reason. Like the tradition, process thinkers value reason highly, but not in the same hierarchical order. Reason is part of the mind-body integration of what it is to be human. Reason is valued as part of the whole of who we are. What threatens to overwhelm us is not our bodies or emotions—they are who we are!—but our tendencies toward the many forms of violence. The tradition sought to control bodily urges and desires; process thinkers seek to control the human capacity for violence.

What, then, is sin in process views? It is, as the tradition claimed, “missing the mark.” And what is the mark? The mark would be the fullest development of what we can be, individually and communally, in expanding circles of caring to God, self, and neighbor. To talk about sin is to talk about the refusal of love from and to God and from and to neighbor and even from and to oneself. Still another way of talking about sin is to say it is unnecessary violence.

In a process view, one must talk about communal as well as individual sin. We live interdependently, and we act interdependently. Individual sins are magnified when exercised through our communal identities, creating great evils through such things as oppressive systems of exploitation, wars of aggression, economic systems based upon greed, or systematic decimation of our environment for the sake of profit.

Because we believe God is always calling us toward the good, we believe that God calls us toward transformation from violent ways of imposing our wills on other creatures toward ever-new cooperative ways of creating good on this earth. When we fail to heed God’s call, we fail to contribute as best we can to the commonwealth of all. This failure is sin. Sin—whether personal or societal—has ill effects that spiral beyond its origins in this interdependent world.

11. But you said God is related to the world. How does God relate to sin? Is this where traditional notions of “justification by faith” come in?

Process thinking holds that God is the most relational reality of all. If God relates to all the world, then human choices to damage others—be it humans, animals, or the environment—are felt by God. God feels everything that happens in just the way that it happens—God feels victims and violators. Our long tradition thought of God as observing evil, but not feeling it—indeed much of the tradition thought that God could not feel anything at all!

This was what the doctrine of “divine impassibility” was all about. But if God is relational, then God feels, and feels perfectly. The issue is not whether God feels the world, but what God does with God’s feelings of the world!

Think of the traditional Christian image of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. One part of the Christian tradition could not imagine that God could experience pain; therefore, it formulated theories of God’s abandonment of Jesus on that cross. The cross then became God’s wrath, poured down on the God-forsaken Jesus because he was bearing the sin of the world. Thus there is a strong element of the Christian tradition that views Jesus death as suffering inflicted by God on the God-Man Jesus instead of us as punishment for our sin. “Justification by faith” was taken to mean God’s action through Jesus of clearing the slate of sin for all who were united to Jesus through faith. Our sins were transferred to him, and therefore would no longer be counted against us.

Process-relational thinking need not go in this direction, for several reasons. First, we cannot separate God’s presence to the world even for a moment, much less for three hours on a cross. God was with Jesus on that cross. Second, to the extent that process-relational theologians view unnecessary violence as sin, violence cannot be that which saves us from sin! To attribute such action to God is like taking the most vile aspect of our own vengeful spite, and projecting it onto God.

How, then, do process-relational thinkers view that crucifixion? The Christian tradition is a many-splendored thing, and while viewing the cross as God punishing Jesus for our sins has achieved some dominance, it is by no means the only Christian response to the cross of Christ. Abelard, living in the twelfth century, argued that God saves us by revealing through Jesus Christ both God’s nature and that which human nature is called to be. This revelation is healing and empowering for us, and Christ becomes our teacher. Process thinkers tend to side with Abelard. Jesus reveals who God is to us and for us. The cross does not represent vicarious sacrifice, but the revelation that God is with us even in our deepest pain.

God feels us. Jesus did indeed suffer the pain of sin—crucifixion is a vile sin. Because it is morally evil to crucify persons, Jesus died because of sin. But this is different from saying that Jesus died for sin. Jesus reveals that the sins of all humans affect God. If God feels the world, then God feels the sins of the world. If Jesus is understood to be a representative of God, then by his crucifixion he reveals that God feels the effects of our sin.

12. So does the process God simply writhe in agony throughout eternity?

While God must feel the world, what God does with the felt world is entirely up to God! Because of the philosophy we use, we relational theologians can maintain that God judges evil within God’s own nature, and transforms evil through this judgment. God integrates the feelings of the world into God’s own self, transforming those feelings in the process until they are conformed to the divine character. If the Christian tradition speaks of God in crucifixion, it does not stop there—it speaks of resurrection.

Process theologians think of God as the resurrection in a variety of ways, the most important of which is the creative transformation that God works for the world within the divine nature. Some process thinkers understand this to be the resurrection of the world into God for a judgment that saves, arguing further that this internal transformation within God has an effect on what creative transformations are yet possible within history. Other process thinkers argue that while God feels the world, what can be called resurrection—or creative transformation—happens for the world not in God, but only in history.

13. Is this how you deal with resurrection? What do you process-relational theologians think about Easter? Was there an “empty tomb”?

If we take the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to be a revelation of God for us, then the resurrection is a vital part of this revelation. Resurrection reveals that sin does not have the last word, but God does. God is the power to answer our sins not by succumbing to them, but by transforming them.

Because I see resurrections all the time, and experience them within my own life, I can talk about resurrection confidently. If you push me to say that all the molecules in Jesus’ body were summoned together and the processes of death reversed and Jesus just got up out of that grave and went through a few walls and that’s what resurrection is all about, I think you’re missing the point.

I can’t tell you how God raised Jesus within history. I, like most theologians— process or not—am convinced that resurrection is something utterly different from resuscitation. Resurrection cannot be reduced to molecules revivifying! Resurrection is the power of God to overcome evil, to bring hope to otherwise hopeless situations, to make creative transformation possible no matter what. Womanist theologians say that “God makes a way out of no way,” and this is what I think resurrection is all about. The resurrection of Jesus is like a great shout telling us that no evil is greater than God, or can overcome God’s power of resurrection. Because of this revelation— however God brings it about—we know we can trust God no matter how bleak situations may seem. God is there, offering us a future that can change history—whether our own or the whole world’s—toward the good. Resurrection tells us that hope is grounded in the reality of God.

14. So then, for process-relational theologians the importance of Jesus is his revelation of the nature of God? We hate to ask, but how could Jesus have given such a revelation? Don’t you see him as just another man?

One at a time, please! For process folks, Jesus represents God for us, because we see him consistently responding positively to God’s moment by moment call to him. That call is that he live as God would have him live in each and every situation. He conforms himself so thoroughly to the will of God that in and through his person and his actions, we see clearly what God is like. We learn through him that God’s will is toward love, compassion, justice, kindness. Because we trust that God’s character is revealed through Jesus’ life, we can trust God as well!

As for how he could reveal God, the dynamics are the same dynamics operative in every aspect of creation: the power of the given past, the power of God’s call toward a possible future, and the power of subjectively integrating the two. We presume that God used the power of Jesus’ Jewish past to offer him the possibility of living according to the love of God in every moment. So far as we know from the record, Jesus responded freely and positively to the call of God. He lived God’s love, and thus revealed God. This was not a “supernatural” revelation, but a revelation through the natural processes of existence.

It is possible that if it hadn’t been for the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus would have been viewed as another great teacher, or even have been absorbed into the anonymity of history. But he suffered the cruel violence of political torture, which was followed by the amazing stories of his resurrection appearances. All of the gospels are written because of these resurrection appearances, so that Jesus’ life and death are seen through the lens of the resurrection. The resurrection is the vindication of the way he revealed God—in his life and in his death. This revelation becomes the ground of our faith that God is the power of creative transformation in history.

15. Hmmm . . . now you’re too much of an optimist. Look around you! Read the newspaper! How can you possibly say that God is a power for creative transformation in our world? Pretty hopeless hope, judging from today’s news.

And that’s where you’re plumb wrong! Remember, the God of all the universe works with the world, not on the world. God always offers possibilities for a good that the world can bear. That qualifier, “that the world can bear,” is not a disclaimer, just a witness to the threefold power of creation mentioned above: the power of the past world, the power of the future from God, and the power of the present, which is our own integration of these powers into ourselves. If I am being hit over the head with a lead pipe, the only possibilities for my good that are suited to me have to do with how I respond to the blow. The physiological response will be largely determined by the blow itself, but even there, we can count on influences toward healing throughout our bodies if the blow isn’t lethal. Beyond this, God offers me emotional and social responses that will work to my own and to the communal good. I need not get twisted into hatred or bitterness or vengefulness. If the blow is lethal, my earthly life will be over—but God is the power of resurrection. I will experience the resurrection life in God.

But your objection had more to do with social and political realities, not simply an individual experience. Again, God works with us all toward the communal good. We are called to responsiveness to God, to care for the common good. God works with us, and calls upon us to use all our collective wisdom and power in cooperative response.

16. You said God works with us toward our individual and communal good. Does God have a plan for our lives?

I’d have to say that the plan is in process! Because God works with the world, God’s plans are necessarily responsive to the world. Process people can say that God works generally toward greater complexity, harmony, intensity, and beauty in the world. How this applies specifically depends upon the world as well as God. Let me give you an example: years ago I was faced with a vocational dilemma. I was perfectly happy teaching at a seminary, directing its Doctor of Ministry program, and teaching many students. As it happened, one afternoon as I was teaching a class of ministers, I received a phone call: another seminary was asking me to be its dean. I hadn’t sought this other job—it had “sought” me! What to do? I told the class, and immediately one of them put a chair in the middle of the circle, and told me to sit down. Then these pastors gathered round me, touching me, praying for me.

Following their prayers, one said, “Marjorie, you can’t make a wrong decision.” I knew at once what he meant. Because of the faithful presence of God, both options were real possibilities. If I chose to stay at the one school, God would work with me to bring about the best possibilities in those circumstances. But if I chose to leave, the same was true: God would work with me in those circumstances as well! Was one better than the other? Probably. But if I made a mistake in choosing, God would nonetheless work with me toward my own and others’ good! I could count on it! God’s plan for my life, then, was not in the “go here, do this, do that,” but in the overall direction of increasing my openness to God and to others, and acting with the best wisdom I could muster. In the process, I could trust God. Whatever the decision, there was no need to look back, or to second guess. God’s plan for my life is that I become more Christ-like: more deeply loving, more widely caring about life in community, more intentional toward the good in all my acts. And this plan can work in all manner of circumstances.

Our Christian understanding of the way God works both generally and specifically in our lives is grounded in the revelation of God that we see in Jesus Christ.

17. You keep talking about the “communal good.” Some of what you’re saying sounds pretty individualistic to me. Is the church simply a gathering of individuals, each of whom cares about the common good?The church is much more than that! Process thinking gives a dynamic way of taking seriously such images as being “one in Christ,” and “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

We live in an interconnected world, where we are continuously receiving the influences of others, integrating these influences into our continuous becoming. The church is created as we receive the influence of the revelation of God in Christ into who we are, weaving it into our very beings. We are literally being formed in and through the influence of God as mediated through Christ. But if this is so for each, it is so for all. This means that there is a unique sharing of identity among us Christians, binding us into the community of Christ. We are members of one another, being many and one at the same time.

There is an important ramification to this continuous emergence of the church as the community of Christ. Remember, to be is to have an effect. Each individual influences what other individuals may become. This power of influence is exponentially multiplied through the interweaving of individuals that continuously creates community. It’s sort of like the old image of the difference between a single straw and a broom when it comes to sweeping floors! Woven together into community, governed by the vision of God mediated through Christ, the church can be a more powerful force for good in the world than any single person could be.

A peculiar thing about a community of faith is that it unites people who might otherwise not come together. It usually takes us beyond our togetherness with people close to us, like family and friends, and unites us with all sorts of others. This becomes a “proving ground” for learning to care for others beyond our own circle, expanding the edges of that circle. This openness to one another’s good, and to the common good beyond even our own community, is also openness to God.

18. So which came first, the individual or the community? Can you accept a “both/and” answer?

No individual is born in a vacuum; each person is born into a ready-made community, whether it be toward the good or toward the ill. That community shapes the child’s becoming sense of him or herself. But the growing child is increasingly responsible to some degree for what he or she does with the influence of the community. We recognize this in the church through infant baptism, formally taking the child into the shaping influence of the community called church. But that growing child—or adult, in cases of adult baptism— also shapes the continuing community. In an interconnected dynamic world, one cannot so easily separate out “individual” and “community” so as to decide which came first! It is always an interwoven relationship, so that we best speak of people as “individuals-in-community.”

19. All right, you’ve talked about how process-relational people think—but what about things like prayer, and worship, and stuff like that?

In a process-relational world, prayer is more important than ever. If God works with the world, then prayers are part of what God works with. And think about it. Prayer actually changes the way the world is, and therefore changes what can happen. In the most simplistic of terms, if you are praying, you aren’t not praying! Your praying is an openness to God’s own desires, and this opening is something God can work with. Prayers aren’t some magic-lantern sort of thing, or some “pretty-pleasing” that we present to God. Prayers have a very pragmatic function: they make a difference to the kinds of empowering calls that God gives to us and to others.

As for worship—this is both communal and personal. Communally, it’s a joining of people together through Christ in openness to God and one another. Through this shared openness, our shared offering of ourselves in praise to God, we become woven into one another’s welfare. This weaving isn’t just a present thing—to the contrary, the liturgies that many churches use in worship also unite us to generations who preceded us. These prayers were their prayers; these readings were their readings; these hymns were their hymns. We are united with “the company of the saints” in our worship! And we today, adding our praise and prayer in new as well as in old ways, join that “company of the saints” for tomorrow’s Christians. We anticipate the future, even as we remember the past! So worship plays a peculiar role in uniting the church-past and church-future in the worshiping congregation of the present.

In worship we also cultivate openness to God in love for God and neighbor—human and otherwise!—in all our living. Thus the worship of God involves us increasingly in actions that bring about well-being on this earth. No one person can do everything—but every single person can do something, and together we can do more than we can individually. So the worship of God involves not only our corporate actions on designated days of worship, but it involves us in individual and corporate actions toward the communal good throughout our lives. Worship, then, pervades our times.

20. You keep talking about community, and the communal good, in the context of Christian faith—what about other faiths?

Process-relational people are convinced that God works faithfully throughout the world—throughout the universe, really—toward the good. This means that God is fully involved in all the religions of the world, calling them toward faithful modes of being community together. There’s no essential reason why there should be only one form of human community—to the contrary, all the evidence suggests that God rather delights in diversity. And while Christians gratefully see God for us in Christ and in Christian community, there’s no essential reason why God can’t work in other ways too.

In a deep sense, that’s God’s business, and the business of those committed to the form of religious life to which God calls them. Process-relational Christians tend to think that God is calling us to a new moment in the world’s history—to a moment of friendships developing across religious lines, both individually and corporately as communities of faith. Friends respect one another. They talk to one another, learn from one another, are even transformed by one another. What if God is calling the religions of the world to create new modes of caring in a world still too torn by greed, lusts for power and domination, and a will to destroy others? Our new mission may be modes of friendship through which we cooperate with one another toward the common good. And this common good involves protection and care for our planet, sustainable lifestyles for the world’s people, care for all earth’s creatures. It’s a relational, interdependent world. Perhaps God now calls us to live more fully into this reality.

21. Whew—you’ve worn me out. I have more questions to think about—or “feel” about! But first, will you tell me something about yourself? Who is this “Marjorie” that I’m talking with?

I’m just one more person deeply affected by process-relational ways of thinking! There was a time when I felt like “Humpty-Dumpty.” All the “answers” to questions about how God works with us began to break down for me—they no longer made sense, and I felt as if I were falling off of some great wall into a chasm. But then it was as if the chasm itself were “God”—that I had fallen out of belief in categories and doctrines and into the mystery of God as present. So I looked for new ways to talk about the God I knew through chasm and Christ, if that makes sense to you!

I went to school, studied philosophy and the Christian tradition, and was accused of being “just another process thinker” when I didn’t even know what “process” was! Then I discovered Whitehead’s way of thinking about the world, and it was as if he were describing the world that I experienced. So I began to use his philosophy to reshape how I express my Christian faith. And I am deeply convinced that all our philosophies and theologies pale beside the wonder of who God actually is—I suspect God puts up with all our theologies, since none of them can adequately plumb the mystery of God, the love of God. I am a United Methodist, and I like the way Charles Wesley so often says in his hymns that not even angels can comprehend the love of God—even though they spend eternity trying!

In any case, I finished school and went on to teach theology—many kinds, not just process—at three seminaries, retiring recently from Claremont School of Theology. I am the director of the Process & Faith Program of the Center for Process Studies, and also the director of the Whitehead International Film Festival here in Claremont.

Want to read more? Here are a few suggestions:
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• Brizee, Robert. Eight Paths to Forgiveness. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1998.
• Cobb, John B., Jr. and David Ray Griffin. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976.
• Cobb, John B., Jr. Becoming A Thinking Christian. Nashville: Abingdon, 1993.
• Cobb, John B., Jr. Reclaiming the Church: Where the Mainline Church Went Wrong and What to Do About It. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997.
• Cobb, John B., Jr. Transforming Christianity and the World: A Way beyond Absolutism and Relativism. Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1999.
• Griffin, David Ray. God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976.
• Griffin, David Ray. Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
• Inbody, Tyron L. The Transforming God: An Interpretation of Suffering and Evil. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997.
• Lubarsky, Sandra B., and David Ray Griffin, eds. Jewish Theology and Process Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
• McDaniel, Jay. Of God and Pelicans: A Theology of Reverence for Life. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989.
• McDaniel, Jay. With Roots and Wings: Christianity in a Age of Ecology and Dialogue. Maryknoll: Orbis Press, 1996.
• Mesle, C. Robert. Process Theology. St. Louis, Chalice Press, 1993.
• Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt. God-Christ-Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology. New York: Crossroad, 1988 (revised edition).
• Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt. In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1996.
• Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt. Divinity and Diversity: A Christian Affirmation of Religious Pluralism. Nashville: Abingdon, 2003.

Bibilography of Works by Marjorie Suchocki

Christian Process Theology:

​An Introduction by Jay McDaniel
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Note: The essay below is an epilogue to my book What is Process Thought? Seven Answers to Seven Questions (Process Century Press, 2020). The epilogue is one of many being used by people around the world to introduce Christian Process Theology. Another is Marjorie Suchocki's What is Christian Process Theology?, which can also be found in Open Horizons. Still others are listed at the bottom of this page.

 
Sometimes people confuse process thought with Christian process theology. This is a problem. Process thought is an intellectual and cultural movement influenced by the philosophy of Whitehead. It is international in scope, with advocates on every continent, and who come from many walks of life. Some are philosophers, but others are schoolteachers, economists, environmentalists, mathematicians, business leaders, musicians, and poets. Some are Christian, some Jewish, some Buddhist, some Hindu, some Marxist, and some have no religion at all. They form part of a community of people who are influenced in varying degrees and ways by Whitehead. They are the international Whitehead community.

What do they hold in common? They all think that everything is interconnected, that all things are in process, that each living being has intrinsic value, and that the best future for the world is to build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, equitable, ecologically wise, and spiritually satisfying with no one left behind. They realize that many other people also hold these ideas and values. They do not think that the whole world needs to convert to Whiteheadianism. But they do think that Whitehead offers unique and powerful support for these ideas and values.

Who, then, are Christians influenced by Whitehead’s thought? At one level they are merely a subcommunity within the larger Whiteheadian community. Nevertheless, members of this sub-community have been some of the most influential within the overall process movement. The role of Christian process theology in the process movement is good news to people who are interested in religion, but problematic for people who are eager to see process thought speak to a wide variety of people, some of whom may not be interested in religion at all. One of the reasons I have written this book is to introduce process thought to people who are interested in learning about it, even if they have no interest in religion. The idea for the book emerged in my own mind while teaching courses in process thought in China, where sometimes it seemed relevant to mention “religion,” but sometimes not.

Still, the whole tradition of process thought is deeply indebted to the pioneering work of Christian process theologians, especially to John B. Cobb, Jr., whose own work has kept so much of the Whiteheadian tradition alive. An introduction to process thought would be incomplete without a brief introduction to process theology. By way of an epilogue, then, I address one more question: What is process theology?

The question is difficult to address, because process theology is itself in process. I have said that process thought is like a novel in the making, with new generations adding new chapters. So it is with process theology. Today process theologians in the Christian tradition are developing mystical theologies, political theologies, feminist theologies, biblical theologies, postcolonial theologies, evangelical theologies, and post-Western theologies. In the future, I predict that they will be developing Pentecostal process theologies. On the one hand, the variety can be bewildering, especially to outsiders. But on the other, it is precisely what draws people to Christian process theology in the first place. Process theology is an inclusive tradition that welcomes a variety of voices and perspectives and that cannot be reduced to one voice.

Process theology is also a multireligious tradition. For the sake of brevity I am using the phrase “process theology” as an abbreviation for Christian process theology. But I do so with great reluctance. If “theology” names a religiously inspired way of thinking, then today there are other important kinds of process theology: Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu, for example. Additionally, in East Asia, there are many who are interpreting Confucianism and Taoism with help from Whitehead, sometimes considering these traditions as “religions” and sometimes as “cultural traditions.”

Just as process thought is not reducible to process theology, so process theology is not reducible to Christian process theology. This is good news for all process theologians, including the Christians. There can be no peace in the world unless there is peace among religions. With the emergence of process theology as a multireligious subcommunity, it becomes possible that Whitehead’s philosophy might provide a conceptual vocabulary by which people from many different religious traditions might interpret themselves to one another, learn from each other, and work together to build sustainable, multireligious communities. It is within the context of a multireligious world, and also a multireligious process tradition, that we consider Christian process theology.

Process Theology in Process

Christian process theology—from here on, “process theology”—emerged in the 1950s in the United States, and, for most of its history, it has been developed by Western Christian theologians in the United States and, to some degree, in Europe. Many among the first generations of process theologians were primarily preoccupied with metaphysical considerations. In particular they were concerned with ways that Whitehead’s understanding of God could help reconcile science and religion, science and philosophy, and, more poignantly, how it could reconcile God with evil.

Here, a word about “evil” is in order. Evil is understood in different ways by different process thinkers. For my part, I think of it as tragedy: that is, (1) the debilitating suffering from which humans and other living beings suffer, and which, all things considered, would have been better had things been otherwise; and also (2) the missed potential from which many also suffer, as occurs when a young child suffers from cancer. Some of this tragedy is caused by human beings, and some is not. Many in the first generation of process theologians in the Christian tradition turned to process theology because it presented a plausible way of understanding how an all-loving God does not cause such tragedy, and cannot prevent it, but nevertheless shares in the suffering and provides hope amid its devastating effects. As Christians they saw this God as the very kind of God revealed in Jesus. If Jesus is a window to the divine, they said, Jesus reveals the humanity and vulnerability of God.

Today, however, a new generation of process-oriented thinkers is emerging, and their interests in process theology cover a much wider range. They are still interested in God and science, God and philosophy, and God and suffering. Additionally, they are deeply absorbed in many subjects besides God, however named, and they grow weary—even bored—with thinking that theology must always be about God. I am reminded of an incident many years ago when I taught an entire course called Contemporary Ideas of God to college undergraduates. I was proud of myself because I had developed a scheme with sixteen ways of thinking about God, the last of which was the process approach. I drew diagrams on the board for each view, and was quite sure that the students would love the course. At the end of the course one student, a favorite of mine, came up to me afterwards and said: “Thank you for this course; I learned a lot from it.” I asked her what she learned, and she said: “I learned that I am not interested in God.” She then added: “I am more interested in a spirituality of connectedness than a spirituality of God.”

Immediately, I knew what she meant. She meant that she found the sacred, however named, in felt and mutually enhancing relations with other people and the natural world, not with a transcendent entity which, to her, seemed like a focal point in the male imagination. Her notion of a spirituality of connectedness gave me new eyes for many religious traditions, including Confucianism, in which notions of a transcendent deity seem less important than notions of relationship. I coined the phrase the “horizontal sacred” to name this other way of experiencing the sacred. My point here, then, is that first-generation process theologians were interested in the “vertical sacred,” but that the new generation is at least as interested in the horizontal sacred, and in very practical ways. They are interested in Christian approaches to the environment, inter-religious dialogue, sustainability, counseling, gender relations, race, politics, literature, music, economics, healthcare, and spirituality. If a parliament of process theologians occurred, and participants were asked why they are drawn to process theology, they might focus on its relevance to the life of discipleship.

The Life of Discipleship

Among process theologians, there are two complementary ways of understanding Christianity: one objective and descriptive, and one more theological and normative.

From the first perspective, Christianity is a multigenerational, social, and historical movement, with many different expressions, that began sometime after the death of Jesus and has been evolving ever since in many different directions. Process theologians who understand Christianity in this way emphasize that it is a tradition in process, and that new generations of Christians can add to its history. They add that responsible participation in the tradition lies in demonstrating meaningful continuity with the past, building upon inherited resources that elicit wisdom and compassion, but also acknowledging the failings of the past: its patriarchy, its neglect of the Earth and nonhuman animals, its arrogance toward other religions, its imperialism, its insensitivity to diverse sexual orientations, and its tendencies toward violence. Another name for the latter acknowledgment is repentance. For process theologians as for biblical theologians, repentance does not necessarily involve a sense of guilt, but it does require a desire to turn around from the sins of the past and move constructively into the future. Process theologians believe that Christians can repent as individuals and as a community.

The second way of understanding Christianity is more theological and normative. It seeks to understand Christianity not as it has been in the past, or even as it is in the present, but rather as it should be and ought to be, if it is faithful to the healing ministry of Jesus and the wisdom of tradition. Of course, no given Christian can stand outside his or her social location and declare with perfect objectivity what this “ideal Christianity” might look like. But many process theologians have developed various versions of the ideal, and in what follows I will present the outline of a view often found.

As the first Christians came into existence, they were not called Christians. They were called people of the Way. Process theologians appreciate this terminology, because they believe that Christianity—and for that matter every religion—is a way of living. A way of living cannot be reduced to a way of thinking or a way of feeling or a way of acting. It is not simply a worldview or an application of a worldview. It is an orientation toward life guided by a set of subjective aims. It involves the whole of one’s life: head, hands, and heart. According to this way of thinking, there is no sharp dichotomy between religion and culture. In China, for example, Confucianism and Taoism are often considered cultural traditions but not religions. From a process perspective there is no need to quibble over the word “religion.” They are ways of living.

What, then, would be the guiding aim of the Christian way of living? Process theologians would agree with most other Christians. It is to be faithful to God as God was revealed in Christ. Here, the word faith means more than belief, at least if “belief” is understood as intellectual assent to ideas. Faith means trust in God. Imagine someone learning to float in the shallow waters of a sea. The person may assent to the idea that the sea can support her, but she may still try to grasp the water and sink. In order to be supported by the sea, she must somehow cease trying to grab the water and allow her own fears to drop away. She must trust the water. For process theologians, as for most Christians, this trust can be facilitated by belief in God, but it can also be obstructed by an overly fervent belief that evokes excessive clinging. If we trust God, says the process theologian, we best realize that God cannot be grasped as an object among objects in physical or mental space, and that God can flow within our lives only if we realize, among other things, that God is always more than our concept of God. Thus, trust in God requires a healthy sense of mystery.

Still the question remains: What does it mean to trust God as revealed in Christ? It lies in sharing in the journey of Christ and extending that journey. This sharing does not require repeating every belief of Jesus or imitating his every action. It does not even require believing that Jesus was totally devoid of sin. There may well have been times in Jesus’ life when he became angry when he should have been more tender, thus missing the mark of responding to God’s lure for his life. But it does involve trying to be open to God in one’s own way and time, as Jesus was in his way and his time. This involves a willingness to be creatively transformed, again and again, by the face of the stranger, the beauty of nature, the changing circumstances of life, and the ever-adaptive callings of God. For process theologians this is what it means to live in Christ or to walk with Christ or to follow Christ.

Christ as Logos

For process theologians such as John B. Cobb, Jr., the Christ who is followed is not reducible to the historical Jesus but is also the calling presence of God, dwelling inside the human heart and also within the rest of nature, the one who beckons toward creative transformation. The Gospel of John speaks of this beckoning presence as the divine Logos and says that it was revealed but not exhausted in the healing ministry of Jesus. Let us speak of it simply as the Spirit of God at work in the world. On this view, the Christian is one who seeks, with Jesus, to live from this Spirit.

The New Testament says that a person who lives from this Spirit has “put on the mind of Christ.” If a person puts on this mind, she is open to the sacrament of each present moment and also to the past and future. On the one hand, her mind can be inspired by the stories of Jesus as recounted in the New Testament and by the liturgies of the church. She is nourished by what process theologians call the causal efficacy of the past. But her face must also be turned toward the future and thus receptive to fresh promptings from the Spirit. She must be open to novel possibilities, derived from God, which have no exact parallel in the Christian past but which, if actualized, bring hope to the world. Thus, a walk with Christ is not a mechanical process derived from already existing rules for walking but rather a creative and flexible process, in which one’s footsteps help create the path.

Most Christians who are influenced by process theology find that a walk with Christ is both freeing and challenging. It is freeing because it involves being open to the freshness of the divine Spirit, which can both animate and empower a person, day by day and moment by moment. One who walks with Christ is free to enjoy the sacrament of each present moment. From a process perspective, the Christian life involves a healthy balance of work, prayer, and relaxation, in all of which God can be present. Nevertheless, a walk with Christ is also difficult because it involves living from a set of values that are not often supported by the surrounding world. In the twenty-first century, the surrounding world for many people is the culture of consumerism. This culture tells us that we are saved or made whole by appearance, affluence, and marketable achievement. A walk with Christ approaches life with a very different set of values. It sees wisdom and compassion as much more important than appearance and affluence; it sees the face of God in the poor and powerless; it struggles against the principalities and powers of injustice; it prizes nonviolence over violence; it rejects revenge; it values humility over celebrity; it risks having faith in God’s love even when that love seems absent; and it seeks to live simply in the world, without too many possessions, so that others can simply live.

Of course, few Christians undertake this walk consistently and completely. Many fall short of it. But this way of living—this kind of walking—is the life of discipleship to which Christianity points. The Christian trusts that God is in the walking itself and not simply in the destination, and that God also provides the power to begin anew when the walker falls short of the walking. A Zen master was once asked what is it like to be enlightened, and he responded: “When I fall down, I get up again.” Process theologians appreciate the spirit of his response and add that God’s Spirit is found in the energy to get up again.

Panentheism

Thus the question emerges: What is God in process theology? Process theologians understand God as encompassing Life, within whom the universe unfolds. This way of thinking about God is sometimes called panentheism: a word which literally means everything-in-God. Panentheism is different from pantheism. Pantheism is the view that the totality of finite actualities is identical with God. Panentheism, by contrast, is the view that all actualities are somehow part of God, but also that God is more than everything added together.

In the Whiteheadian version of panentheism, as developed in Process and Reality, God has three aspects. God is (1) a nontemporal mind who envisions all the potentialities which the many beings in the universe can actualize; (2) an everlasting consciousness filled with compassion who empathically receives the world into the divine life, moment by moment, and (3) a guiding presence in the universe who dwells within the depths of each creature, luring it to exercise its creativity in creating the best possible outcome for the situation at hand. The first aspect is called the Primordial Nature of God. The second is called the Consequent Nature. And the third is generally understood as the way in which the Primordial Nature is in the world.

Some, but not all, process theologians are Trinitarian in perspective, and the three aspects of God just named can suggest something like a doctrine of the Trinity. The Mind of the universe, understood as a holding tank or reservoir of timeless possibilities, would be similar to “God the Creator.” The Compassion would be the side of God revealed but not exhausted in Jesus. And the guiding presence would be the Spirit of God.
For many process theologians, what is most important about the doctrine of the Trinity is not that it illuminates the interior life of God, which will forever be a mystery, but rather that, in a more general way, it points to the primacy of relationality in understanding human life. If we humans are made in the image of God, and if God is in some way Trinitarian, then humans are made in the image of the Trinity. This means that we rightly find our own well-being in community with other people and the natural world, just as God finds God’s own well-being in felt relations with the world. There can be no isolated salvation. We are saved together or not saved at all.

Process theology proposes that God finds God’s own well-being in felt relations with the world. The everlasting consciousness of God—the Consequent Nature—is itself a receptacle for the experiences of all that happens in the universe and is inwardly composed of those happenings. This leads some process theologians to speak of the universe as the body of God. The universe is not the body of God in the sense that everything that happens in the universe is a result of divine agency, but rather in the sense that God feels the happenings of the universe much like we feel the happenings in our own bodies; that is, as inside us yet more than us.

How can this be understood? Perhaps one way to understand how the universe is inside God is to compare the universe to an embryo within the womb of a mother. The analogy is apt in three ways. First, the embryo has its own life, which means that things can happen in its unfolding that cannot be controlled by the mother. Similarly, say process theologians, things can and do happen in the universe, by virtue of the creativity of the universe itself, which cannot be controlled by God. This is how process theologians explain the tragedies of our world, both natural and humanly made. Cancer and murder, tsunamis and rapes, are not the product of divine agency, but the result of the power and creativity of the world itself. This creativity is neither good nor evil in itself but can unfold in many different ways, some tragic and some beautiful. God is an instance of this creativity, but not the only instance. All creatures in the world—including cancer cells and murderers—embody it, too.

Nevertheless, and second, what happens in the embryo is felt by the mother and is part of her. Similarly, say process theologians, what happens to each entity in the universe—to every human being—is felt by God and affects God. This is how process theology begins to talk about prayers in which a person addresses God as a Thou and not an It. When humans address God, they often sense that their prayers are being received into a deeper listening as the prayer occurs, and that the listener who listens is affected by the prayer. Process theologians agree. The Consequent Nature of God is the deep listening. For many people, of course, the question is how God answers prayers. For process theologians, God does not and cannot answer prayers by manipulating situations in a unilateral way; but the very act of praying can alter the situation of the one praying and also the ones prayed for, such that God is better able to act in their lives. It is important to emphasize, though, that petitionary prayer is but one kind of prayer. Prayer understood in this way is one instance of the more general idea that all the experiences of all living beings—whether happy or sad, constructive or destructive—affect God and become part of God as they occur. No one suffers alone.

Third, the analogy of the universe within the womb of a mother rightly suggests that God is active in the world in a noncoercive but perpetually influential way. In the case of a mother in pregnancy, this activity takes the form of amniotic fluid that nourishes the developing embryo and perhaps also influences the attitude of the mother. In the case of God, this activity takes the form of “initial aims,” which represent the way in which God is immanent in the universe, even as the universe is also immanent within God. I will explain initial aims shortly, but first a further word is in order about alternative images of God, such as that of Mother. Needless to say this image of God as Mother and the universe as a womb can be controversial to at least two sets of people: very traditional Christians for whom male imagery of God is the only relevant imagery, and feminist Christians who want to avoid stereotyping women as finding their fulfillment in, and only in, pregnancy. The good news among process-oriented Christians is that there are many feminist Christians who help critique these stereotypes and who offer alternative images. But the image of God as Mother is indeed challenging to more traditional Christians, and this challenge, on the part of process theologians, is in some ways very intentional.

Beyond God the Potter

Process theologians employ such images in order to provide a constructive alternative to an image of God that too often dominates the monotheistic imagination. We might call it (1) the externalist perspective, because it imagines God as completely external to the world; or (2) the unilateralist perspective, because it sees God’s power as one-sided or unilateral and thus capable of molding the world according to divine will; or simply (3) the patriarchal perspective, because it imagines God on the analogy of a powerful male ruler who wields power but is not empathic. On this view, the relation of God to the world is analogous to that of a Potter and the pot that “he” is molding. The Potter is external to the pot, and the pot’s destiny is largely determined by the will and power of the Potter. Process theologians reject this image of God the Potter. They think God is more loving, and that the ministry of Jesus is one place where this love can be seen.

For many Christians, the image of a parent and child is much more relevant than that of a potter and pot. This is the beauty of envisioning God as Father or Mother. Process theologians understand and appreciate this preference for parental imagery, but then add that, in an authentic Christian life, there is no need for Christians to always understand themselves as children in God’s presence. It is all right to be an adult in God’s presence, too, and thus to add one’s own voice to the ongoing life of God. This is the wisdom of the Psalms, where so often the Psalmist laments or protests, sometimes against God. For process theologians there is something right about this approach to God. It allows human beings to share with God the whole of their lives and to own their own feelings.

Still, it remains the case that, for process theologians, the ultimate nature of God is love. From a process perspective, love has two sides: (1) an empathic side, which listens to others and is affected and changed by what is heard and felt and (2) an active side, which responds to what is listened to by providing possibilities for well-being. Jesus showed these two sides of love in countless ways: by listening to others and sharing in their suffering; by taking delight in the faith of others and the innocence of children; by comforting the afflicted, especially those who were despised by others; and by afflicting the comfortable, especially those who thought they were better than others. At the end of his life, he also revealed a nonviolent side of love by dying on a cross rather than responding to violence with violence. In these various activities, Jesus showed that a life of love is flexible and improvisational. It does not follow a perfectly scripted blueprint, because it realizes that each new situation requires a slightly different response. In seeking to walk in love, Jesus seems to have realized that each moment has its calling.

In process theology, the callings of the moment are called the “initial aims.” These initial aims are the callings of the moment to which Jesus was responsive in his way. They differ from moment to moment, but always they are for the well-being of life relative to the situation at hand. The phrase “initial aims” is not especially melodious, but it does use a word that is very important to process theologians. The word “initial” is meant to suggest that God’s callings are present in the beginning of each moment of experience at an unconscious but powerful level. Initial aims consist of possibilities that people can actualize, and they also contain within them the felt hope that they will be actualized.

For process theologians, this felt hope belongs both to God and to the person. Thus the aims of God within human life are God’s hopes for the person, but also the person’s hope for himself or herself. These aims are for the well-being of life, but the nature of well-being can change from one moment to the next. There is a time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to work and a time to play, a time to be awake and a time to sleep. In our waking moments, though, these aims are always for wisdom, compassion, harmony, and creativity. If we seek a single word to describe values such as these, some process theologians use the word “beauty.” Thus, we can say that God’s lure within human life is a lure toward ever increasing beauty.

Objections to Process Theology

Process theology is controversial for several reasons, most of which pertain to the understanding of God just explained. Three objections are common.

The first is that, for process theologians, God is not all-powerful in a traditional sense. The traditional view has been that once upon a time, before the beginning of creation, God had all the power there was, and that, after creating the universe, God could, if God so chose, intervene in the affairs of the universe in a unilateral way. The paradigmatic example of this unilateral power was that God created the universe out of nothing.

Process theology is controversial because it rejects the idea that there was ever a time when God had all the power and, as a consequence, rejects the idea that God’s power is unilateral. Concerning the creation of the universe, process theology proposes, along with Whitehead, that creation is a continuing process, still unfolding, and that there was never a time when only God existed. Thus, process theologians propose what is sometimes called a creation-out-of-chaos perspective. Their view is akin to that of the first creation story in Genesis, which suggests that, even at the outset of the universe as we know it, there was a watery chaos over which the Spirit of God brooded, and that God’s Spirit evoked or called the heavens and earth into existence from that chaos. From a process perspective, there is wisdom in this point of view. The universe as we know it may (or may not) have begun with a big bang some thirteen billion years ago, prior to which there were no stars, planets, molecules, or even atoms. There was only a dimensionless energy from which a cosmic explosion occurred. But this energy was itself there from the beginning, along with God, and God did not create it out of nothing. Indeed, it may have itself been the result of a contraction of a previous cosmic epoch, in which it took other forms. This energy is the creativity which, for Whitehead, is an ultimate reality. Process theologians further propose that the process of evolution, including its galactic and terrestrial dimensions, is ongoing and will continue forever in one way or another. This is why God does not have, and cannot have, unilateral power. God’s power is that of everlasting love, not coercion, evoking various forms of order and novelty from the chaos at hand. To trust in God is not to trust that everything that happens is or even could be a result of God’s will. It is to trust that, no matter what happens, there is always hope.

The second reason some people find process theology controversial is that it denies divine foreknowledge. The traditional view has been that all the details of the future are known by God in advance of their occurrence in history. The image is that of God on a mountain, looking down on the past and present and the already determined future, seeing all in a single glance. Process theologians propose, by contrast, that God sees the past and also the present as it is coming into being, but not the future until it occurs. God knows what is possible in the future, but not what is actual until it is actualized by the world. For process theologians, this helps make sense of human freedom and also of the idea that we are called by God. If we were called by God to act in a certain way, but God knew in advance that we would act otherwise, then we would lack the freedom to respond to God’s call.

A third reason process theology is controversial is that, by virtue of its rejection of omnipotence and omniscience as traditionally understood, it calls into question the hope and confidence that many Christians feel. This is the hope that at the end of time, whenever that is, “all will be well” through God’s power to bring about a state of affairs in which this wellness, however conceived, is realized. For process theologians, this state of affairs cannot occur, because God does not have unilateral power. They add, though, that there are two alternative and valuable ways of understanding what it means to say “all will be well.”

One is to recognize that in the receptive side of God—the consequent nature—all the happenings of the universe are gathered into a unified harmony, moment by moment, in which their value is appreciated and affirmed forevermore. In the technical terms of Whiteheadian thought, all things are objectively immortal in the everlasting memory of God. Some add that human beings can have an intuition of this everlasting life in a feeling of peace that they experience in this very life. This is not a peace that excludes tragedy, but rather a peace that includes tragedy in a deeper beauty.

A second way, developed by Marjorie Suchocki and David Ray Griffin, is to affirm that the journey of a human soul or psyche does not end with the death, but that instead there is a continuing journey after death, in which the soul can grow into whatever form of wholeness is optimum for human life as lived in harmony with the rest of creation. On this view, the “wellness” of life does not hinge on a transformation of terrestrial life into a divinely ordained perfection, but rather in the possibility that there is more to life than this life. This view is called subjective immortality. The philosophy of Whitehead avails itself of affirming these two types of immortality: objective immortality in the memory of God and subjective immortality in a continuing journey after death. Should life after death be a fact, the potential of the soul to enter into an ultimate wholeness will depend on the soul’s cooperation with God’s will, God’s initial aims. Even here, the divine prayer for the soul will need to be answered, or responded to, by the soul itself.

Christians have hoped for life after death for many reasons. The ultimate problem is not death itself. Some deaths can be happy deaths. Moreover, from a process perspective, every moment is a death of sorts: a living and a dying. The problem is incompleteness. It is the fact that so many people and other creatures die without having tasted a wholeness for which they understandably yearn. The hope of the process theologian is that, one way or another, this wholeness can be known in this life or another.

The Future of Process Theology: Process Theology in East Asia

I end this epilogue with some speculations. I have said that the first generation of Christian process theologians were Western. Thanks largely to the work of John Cobb, growing numbers of process theologians now live in other parts of the world. This parallels the fact that today more than sixty percent of Christians live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Historians suggest that Christianity is becoming, and in many ways has already become, a post-Western tradition. The future of process theology will lie not only in the West but also, and perhaps even more significantly, in post-Western forms of Christianity. Along the way, process theology will be changed. It will become Asianized, Africanized, and Latin Americanized. What might this look like? I conclude by offering an image of East Asian Christianity as influenced by process ways of thinking.

In East Asia process-oriented Christianities will be shaped by the Bible, but also by Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. These East Asian Christianities will be more than Whiteheadian theologies. For that matter, most Western process theologies are not simply Whiteheadian. Consider the work of John Cobb. He is a Christian in the United Methodist tradition. Methodists often point to four sources of theological insight from which Christians can draw: the Bible, tradition, reason, and experience. Cobb has drawn from each of these sources. He is not simply a Whiteheadian theologian. He is a biblical theologian, a church theologian, an ecological theologian, a liberation theologian, a science-influenced theologian, and a pastoral theologian. He draws upon Whitehead’s thought, not as an overriding ideology which dictates all that he thinks, but rather as an intellectually helpful resource for integrating insights from the Bible, tradition, reason, and experience.

The same situation will apply to East Asian process theologies. They will draw from numerous spiritual sources, including the Bible and their own traditions. Whitehead will be one voice among many, not a dominating voice. But insofar as they utilize Whitehead’s thought, they will highlight aspects of Whitehead’s philosophy that have remained unrecognized or underdeveloped by many Western process theologians. Three examples can make this point.

First, Whitehead’s philosophy offers a deeply ecological vision of reality, helping people understand that the Spirit of God is present throughout creation. Nevertheless, with some important exceptions, many process Christian theologians in the West have focused on God’s relation to human beings and not on God’s presence in hills and rivers. Shaped by nature-centered traditions in Taoism, a process Christian theology emerging in East Asia can be more ecological than Western versions, perhaps helping Western process theologians widen their ecological horizons.

Second, Whitehead’s philosophy offers a deeply contemplative vision of reality, helping people understand how they can “feel the feelings” of others and dwell in the Spirit of God, not only by helping others in compassionate ways, but also by listening to them and by allowing them the space to be themselves. And yet many forms of process theology in the West neglect this listening side of love, focusing more on engaged response to the needs of others. A process Christian theology emerging in East Asia can partake of the spirit of mindful listening found in Buddhism, helping Christians remember that sometimes the most loving thing we can do for others is not to change them but to listen to them.

Third, Whitehead’s philosophy offers a profound emphasis on the role of the body in human life, showing how body and mind are “not one” but also “not two.” This opens the door for a respect for ritual as one way in which people can participate in the life of God. Far too many process theologians in the West have neglected ritual as a gateway to God’s presence, focusing instead on beliefs and worldviews. A process Christian theology emerging in East Asia—and also in Africa and Latin America in this instance—can help Christians remember that God can be found, not simply in believing in God and acting on the basis of those beliefs, but also in moving with God in ritual and dance. God can also be found in methods of healing that are found in traditional Chinese medicine—practices that build upon a harmony of mind, body, and spirit. Western process theologies have tended to neglect the healing arts as a place where Christianity comes alive, and thus as sacraments in their own right. East Asian Christianities, among others, can help bring God back into healing.

As East Asian Christianities emerge, they will also build upon aspects of Whitehead’s thought that have likewise influenced Western process-oriented Christians. For example, a key feature of Whitehead’s thought is the idea that a human person is a person-in-community, not an ego-in-isolation. This notion of a person is consistent with Confucian images of the human person. Thus we can well imagine a Confucian Christianity which sees human beings as deeply relational, but which abandons the idea that these relations can or should be hierarchical, as was sometimes the case in classical Confucianism. A Confucian Christianity will then say that dwelling in mutually enhancing relations with other people and with the natural world is itself the heart of discipleship.

In East Asia, of course, as in many other parts of the world, some of the most dynamic forms of Christianity will be in the continued emergence of Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of process thought. Already this is occurring among a handful of evangelical thinkers in the West. Some Evangelicals recognize that the process understanding of God is more consistent with biblical points of view than many classical alternatives, and also that process theology offers promising ways of interpreting Christ and the born-again experience. The same kind of development can occur in Pentecostal traditions, because Christian process theology offers a strong doctrine of the Spirit. It shows how the Spirit can be experienced in silence and in ecstasy, in prophetic action and in music. The value of process theology for Evangelicals and Pentecostals alike is that it can help them make these affirmations while at the same time respecting the wisdom of science, biblical criticism, and other world religions.

In historical Christianity, Christ has been understood in many ways. The majority of Christians have used the word Christ to name (1) the divine Spirit or Logos present throughout the universe, (2) a historical figure—the historical Jesus—in whom that Spirit was embodied, (3) a resurrected savior—the post-Easter Jesus—who is alive in the present and who, upon invitation, can dwell within the heart as a friend and guide. But other Christians have used it in still other ways. Quakers, for example, use the word Christ to name (4) an inner light found in all people that can be a guiding presence in one’s life and (5) an atmosphere of love that can be part of a community and felt by others. And liberation theologians have used the word to name (6) the face of the poor and marginalized. Process theologians have typically focused on the first two ways of understanding Christ, but interestingly and importantly, all of these ways can be developed in the ongoing process tradition.

Among Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians, the third way is especially important. Both emphasize the importance of having a relationship with Jesus as one’s personal lord and savior. Is this possible? Some would say no, because the universe contains no spirits of any sort. But process theologians can well argue to the contrary. Recall the fact that some them believe that the journey of a soul continues after death. If, in fact, this occurs, there is no reason why Jesus might not be among the souls who thus continues. If this is the case, we can imagine that Jesus’ own journey would continue as lived in relationship with those who place their trust in him, with both benefiting. When Christians say “thank you, Jesus,” they are not necessarily talking to a dead ancestor. They may well be addressing a living spirit, alive in their hearts, who is a companion along life’s way. The cosmology of Whitehead is open to this possibility.

This does not mean that all Christians must have a personal relationship with Christ as resurrected savior. This is one face of Christ, but not the only face. The fourth way is especially important to contemplative Christians. For them, Christ is an inner light and thus a guiding force within one’s life. In process theology “inner light” and “guiding force” are initial aims. This way of being connected with Christ can easily be complemented by the fifth way, which is to know Christ in the warmth of loving and compassionate relations with others, including people who are not Christian or who do not believe in Christ. In process theology, Christ would name a certain kind of mood or subjective form that clothes a community when its participants dwell in harmony.

But it is the sixth way—finding Christ in the face of the poor, powerless, and marginalized—that is so important to Christians the world over, even if they also find Christ as inner light or resurrected savior or an atmosphere of love. From a process perspective every moment of experience is a subject for itself but also an object in what comes after it. Every moment is objectively immortal. This means that the very identity of individual humans who lived in the past is not reducible to their lifetime. They can exist in the future too, in the lives of those who come after them. The same applies to Jesus. He was not simply who he was; he is also where he is. Moreover, where Jesus is partly depends on how he is remembered and known by present generations. It is the genius of liberation theologians to say that, if we want to be faithful to Jesus’ healing ministry, we must see him, among other places, in the poor, powerless, and marginalized.

This does not mean that, as we look into the eyes of a lonely grandmother, or a victim of rape, or a man tortured in prison, or a hungry boy, we must picture Jesus. We have no idea what Jesus looks like. But it does mean that we set our sights on the grandmother and the rape victim and the tortured prisoner and the boy, saying that they do not suffer alone and that we are with them. In a sense, we allow the historical Jesus to be absorbed into their lives, such that in serving them we dwell with him.

One thing that process theology might add, though, is that we also find the face of Christ wherever we find beauty: in the innocence of the child, the mutual care of friends, the intimacy of romance, the wandering of the river, the shining of the stars. Not only in sadness, but also in beauty, we find the salvation of the world. Christians say that we are saved by God’s grace. Process theology shows how this grace can be found in this world when, in gentle ways, we are drawn into love.
 
McDaniel, Jay. What is Process Thought?: Seven Answers to Seven Questions (pp. 102-123). Process Century Press. Kindle Edition.

Additional Introductions 
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Books

In God's Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer
Marjorie Suchocki

​Process Theology; A Basic Introduction
Bob Mesle

On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process
Catherine Keller

Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed
Bruce Epperly

Process Spirituality: Practicing Holy Adventure
Bruce Epperly
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God of Becoming and Relationship: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology
​Bradley Artson (introducing Jewish process theology)

Open and Relational Theology: An Introduction to Life-Changing Ideas,
Thomas Oord (introducing open and relational theology)

Making a Way out of No Way
Monica Coleman (womanist theology)

Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition.
John Cobb and David Ray Griffin

God Christ Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology
Marjorie Suchocki

The Process Perspective: Frequently Asked Questions about Process Theology
John Cobb, Jeanyne Slettom



​Cobb Institute Slideshows
(useful in workshops)

Christian Process Theology
drawing from Suchocki's essay above

​Christianity is a Singing Tradition
​Especially for the musically-minded

Open and Relational Theology 
​The open and relational understanding of God

Process and Spirituality
​Offering a spiritual alphabet

​Beauty and Process Theology
Patricia Adams Farmer

God in Process Theology: Six Approaches
God in Whitehead's philosophy
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