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During the pandemic of 2020 and 2021, First Presbyterian Church of Waco opened up an option for adult learners to have a customized Christian Formation experience with the pastors.  Dr. Helen Kovacs was a person who requested a customized formation experience on the subject of process theology.  At her own initiative, she submitted a paper reflecting on what she had learned.  Her regret is that she includes nothing, yet, on the Kingdom of God in her reflections.  Helen is continuing her discovery and education in process theology and appreciates the books as well as open source resources like Open Horizons. 

​- Leslie King, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Waco, Texas; Chair of Education Committee, Cobb Institute for Process and Practice

Customizing Process Theology

​Helen Kovaks

INTRODUCTION
 
I discovered that what I began as an intellectual/ cognitive study of two modern theological models turned into a life changing spiritual journey.  Since I am sure you knew at some level what the project could become, I trust you will indulge me in this introduction. I began by wanting to explain why I planned to write about the theology I had learned. First, I wanted to consolidate and integrate the various topics into a more or less coherent whole.  Also, I hope to get feedback on areas where I have misunderstood or need to do more thinking and/or reading. As part of this, I originally thought I needed to write a description of the life review I had done.  As I outlined the points of the review, I realized I did not need to write it out. Instead, I needed to record how the theology work has changed my thinking, feelings, and even behavior.

When I did the review, I first described who I am today (a seventy-four-year-old privileged white Christian woman etc.) but the major insight occurred when I honestly listed my strengths and weaknesses.  Many of the weakness I have never been able to really look at before as they always elicited strong feelings of shame and a deep conviction that I am not good enough and cannot really justify my existence.  This time these feelings did not happen.  Instead, I thought of the relational God I have been getting to know and knew I was okay and valuable as a person despite my many weaknesses. I find myself looking forward to the future and to the possibilities still available to me for moving toward well-being if I “listen” to God.  In fact, this is truly the first time that I have felt this way when engaging in self-evaluation. My behavior has changed as well.  Instead of just dutifully sending cards or notes to shut ins, I find I want to do more to help them feel connected to the church family.  I intend to talk with you about my ideas to be sure I’m not meeting my needs instead of theirs.

As has been becoming evident over these seven sessions, I am increasingly drawn to Process Theology. The positives for me are many since I have finally moved on from my childhood-acquired theology that left me feeling both that I would never be good enough and that a supposedly loving God found me unlovable.  I now feel a sense of acceptance and peace.  I am now able to truly forgive, both myself and others where I had held on to my anger and judgement. Furthermore, my energy has been freed up to work actively for well-being and justice. I can’t thank you enough for guiding me through this process. Another positive for me is the way the theory is fully compatible with modern science. Since I spent my career with my primary identity being a developmental psychologist, the developmental nature of Process Theology fits especially well with my world view. Further, Process theory’s rejection of reductionist materialism makes my intellectual pursuits match my religious views.  Finally, I have been able to move past my earlier theological confusions to either modify or totally reject certain concepts including the Adam/Eve version of original sin, the concept of an omnipotent God who knows the future and thus affirms the concept of predestination, materialistic determinism, and the idea that God created the world from nothing (ex nihilo). While I still have much to learn, I feel I am at last on a path to genuine growth in living my faith.

As I began writing, I made another discovery.  There is an enormous gap between what I think I understand and what I can put into words.  I thank God that it is easier to begin to live my new faith understanding than it is to put that understanding into words.  My writing really was better during my career when I had a more complete understanding of my topic. That is especially true given that Process Theology has its own specialized language and I am not yet fluent.  I need to remember that the point of this exercise is not perfection but to enable me the think through more coherently where I am now. So here goes.
 
GOD

My understanding and experiencing of God2 have changed from my adolescent traditional view of God as omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and eternal.  Those four words meant to me that God was primarily powerful, distant, and judgmental.  Process theology has introduced me to a radically different God.  In process terms, my new understanding is that God is relational and responsive.  The idea of a relational and responsive God who is affected by each creature in feeling our feelings, suffering when we suffer; and enjoying our feelings of joy, was initially mind-blowing.    God shares fully the experience of every creature and is responsive in each relationship.  I experience this as a pervasive and unending love that is responsive to my becoming.  I understand that God3 is also Creator, Judge, and Redeemer. I will discuss each of these aspects in turn but will save redemption for the section on Salvation.

God is responsive to the world.  God’s initial response is to feel with the individual.  There are three modes of feeling. First, God feels each aspect of the world in relation to all other aspects.  Second, God feels each aspect of the world in relation to its initial aim. Third, God feels the difference between the good that was possible and the good achieved. God’s response is not coercive but persuasive, taking the form of revealing possibilities for each entity to move toward good in all situations.3 In each moment, God judges the value of each action or thought and then offers possibilities for that individual that are possible in the particular context. All possibilities are consonant with the actual context. Thus, God uses her/his divine power to work toward good and to lure creatures into moving toward well-being in each moment of experience.  While process theology sees God as omnipresent, it does not see God as omnipotent. In each moment of becoming, God is present and offers possibilities but the individual retains the freedom to choose from all. While God has a sense of which possibilities will lead each entity toward the greatest good, God does not know what choice will be made.  God gave creatures freedom so God also does not know the future.  Thus, in Process Theology, God is omnipresent but neither omnipotent nor fully omniscient

God is continually relating to her/his created world which is itself an entirely relational world.  According to Whitehead (as presented in Suchocki’s God, Christ, Church), the world is made up of “dots” of energy.  These dots can be concentrated as units of matter ranging from quarks to cells to humans. Every experienced moment (or actual event, using Whitehead’s terminology) of every unit is relational, even at the level of quarks. While humans are made up of units from minerals to cells to organs, all of which are interrelated, they also are a concentrated unit in relation with God, the physical world, and every other unit of creation.  Theology is primarily interested in understanding the relationships between humans, God, and creatures.  All are engaged in interrelationships with each other and God.

According to Process theology, God provides each creature with an initial aim which is toward love, compassion, and justice.  God’s vision of good is truth, beauty, and love which together lead to harmony between all creatures. “Truth is God’s absolute knowledge of every entity in the fulness of what that entity has become. Beauty is God’s ability to relate every entity to all others and reconcile all things in God’s nature.  Love is God’s absolute acceptance of every entity in the fullness of what it has become within God’s transforming reality.  These three constitute the well-being of the world.”  In ordinary English, God knows and loves us, offering each the best possibilities, and yet continues loving us even when we reject good possibilities.  Thus, God’s call to each entity is toward good.  God offers a way to transform our past and to lead us to “new ways of creating good in the world”. God also calls us to “wider circles of caring for the whole of creation”.

God is the creator of the world.  Both the Genesis creation story and Process Theology affirm that God did not create the world out of nothing (the traditional ex nihilo).  Instead, God created order from chaos by initiating the great evolution.  God creates with and through creatures. All of God’s creation has been evolving and continues to evolve toward ever greater complexity and harmony.  God continues her/his creation as part of every moment of each creature’s becoming by presenting possibilities for growth toward goodness/well-being. The process of creation in humans involves the past, the present including creation of possibilities by God and ourselves, and imagination of possible futures.

As indicated in Matthew 25, God is a judge.  Through God, Christ judges each moment of reality and offers possibilities for transformation and redemption at that moment for each entity.  Not all things are possible for an individual as these are limited by the individual’s past, the present situation, and imagination for the future. This transformational possibility occurs within God’s relational response to each entity. However, each entity must be open for transformation to occur.  Thus humans, as God’s creatures, are in constant relationship with God yet are free to reject or avoid both the relationship with God and transformation.  God’s judgment is always salvific and cannot be separated from God’s intention to transform our sins toward the good. This possibility of Redemption, which requires recognition and acceptance of responsibility for one’s sins, will be discussed more in the section on Salvation.

For several reasons, I worry about plagiarism.  First, I read several books by Marjorie Suchocki (“God, Christ, Church,; Fall to Violence; In His Presence; Divinity and Diversity; and part of End of Evil ; as well as other sources such as John Cobb and the Constructive Theology work group, and I read most of them twice. Second, I took verbatim notes on all of the reading but took abbreviated notes when compiling the original notes for this paper.  Third, I have particularly acute visual memory. All three together suggest that the risk of returning to the original wording as I write is quite high.  For a paper that I am writing primarily for my own benefit, I did not go back over the paper to identify places where I probably plagiarized. However, I put quotation marks where I was reasonably certain I had used an author’s exact words but I did not track down the exact source.

Since I believe that God transcends sexuality and gender, I cannot use masculine pronouns for God.  Yet nothing else is comfortable. Therefore, I decided to use she/he whenever I need to use a pronoun for God.

Process Theology provides a detailed account of the relationship between God and creation, including humans.  This topic is deeply intertwined with the subtopics of this paper. Therefore, I have addressed this issue in part in all the sections of the paper, rather than pulling it out as a separate topic.
 
Jesus Christ

Jesus was fully human and became Christ through his continuing process of becoming.  God’s -purpose in incarnation was and is to repair the damage to the world from human sin and to restore the relationship between God and humans.  Thus, Jesus was born as God’s response to the world of human sin.  The incarnation of Jesus occurred in the fulness of time when the Jewish people were oppressed and sinful resulting from breaking their covenant with God.  Jesus, by fully adopting God’s initial aim, communicated the essence of “God’s self-created character”. While Process theologians (as opposed to process philosophers) believe that God is immanent in all creatures, only Jesus continuously conformed fully to truth, love, and beauty.  While I believe that Jesus is part of the trinity, I am still uncertain about the creation of both Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  I still wonder about the role of both Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit my life and the lives of others. Thankfully, I am much more certain about the life and ministry of Jesus as a revelation of God’s nature and as a prescription for how I should live.

The heart of the revelation of God’s nature through Jesus’ ministry is the certainty of God’s love for his creation. The abiding and forgiving nature of that love is clear in Jesus’ life and teachings. Jesus showed God’s love and mercy in healing, preaching, and praying.  He also showed God’s deep concern with justice.  Jesus loved others but with justice, accepting the person and but not the behavior.   Jesus did not affirm actions or behaviors that are against the well-being of others. Further, Jesus exhorted his followers to forgive others and to love their neighbors. Throughout his ministry, Jesus focused on the coming of the Kingdom of God.  It was clear that the coming of God’s reign would require many changes in the social order.  Jesus went against many parts of the social order of his day.  He called sinners before they had repented, he accepted and spoke to women, he accepted and healed those that were ostracized because of bodily imperfections, he spoke often of the need to help the poor and imprisoned, and even associated with tax collectors. All of these are social factors that work toward ill-being rather than well-being.  God’s reign seeks harmony among all of creation.  The “foundation of this reign is the interdependence of God’s love working itself out as justice”. In all ways, Jesus manifested the love to which he calls others.  Like God, Jesus related to all reality. Jesus Christ emphasizes God’s love for us relating that love to the call for us to “reflect the divine image that is love and justice in relationships”.

In many ways, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ are central to understanding Christianity but are difficult to fully comprehend in the context of today’s world. I believe that the crucifixion occurred as the natural outcome to Jesus’s confrontation of the injustice and cruelty in his day; confrontations that led Jewish leaders to condemn Him. Jesus suffered pain and feeling forsaken on the cross because of other’s sin even as God suffers the results of the sin in the world.  Jesus continued to show God’s love even when suffering pain and agony.  This was seen most clearly in his forgiving his oppressors and in seeing to the ongoing care of his mother.  I do not believe that his death on the cross was a ransom for our sins.  Instead, redemption comes from God’s action in the resurrection.  The resurrection, for me, reveals God’s forgiveness, love, and saving grace.  In resurrection, Jesus is transformed.  He retains the past, scars and all, but is transformed and thus given “new life, context and direction”.  In Baptism, we accept Christ as a salvific presence in our lives. 

Clearly this account of Jesus Christ leaves as many questions as answers.  The nature and origins of the Trinity, the actual relationships between God Jesus and the Holy Spirit remain a mystery to me.  The relationship between humans and each part of the Trinity, and even whether each of these aspects are truly separable remain for future growth in understanding. 
 
Human Nature and the Problem of Evil

“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them:” (Gen. 2: 27)

This verse has been the source of much debate and discussion through the ages as Christians and Jews have tried to understand human nature. It remains a central question for theology today.  What has Christion Theology said historically about the nature of man? How has a century of research on human behavior and personality influenced 21st century theology and modern ideas about human nature?  While even a brief account of the historical views is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to recognize the intense attention this topic has received throughout history.  In my reading, both Constructive Theology and Process Theology directly addressed this issue.  These readings, combined with my professional knowledge of Psychology, have both influenced and complicated how I understand human nature. In addition, the whole issue of human nature is deeply impacted by the existence of sin and evil.  While early Jewish and Christian history focused on what is means to be “in God’s image” or how God’s image is evident in humans, ironically humans have tended to project human qualities on God seeing God as being like a human, more specifically, a man. My plan is to first discuss general issues of human nature and then address the problem of sin and evil.

According to Process Theology and contemporary Psychology, it is impossible for humans to develop and survive in the absence of securely human relationships. I believe that the desire to bond or attach to other humans is present at birth. Failure to attach to another human has catastrophic consequences for the developing infant and young child. An attachment, even an insecure one, enables the individual to form other relationships including a relationship with God. “Regardless of the specifics of any given culture”, humans attach and are interdependent.  Being relational with others and able to transmit feelings from one to another is a central feature of human experience.  Humans also relate to the world around humans. Process theology places all these relationships at the heart of existence.  Because humans are relational, we are capable of being and becoming.  Essentially, humans “participate at some level in what we become”.
 Cognitive--emotional functioning4, including rational thought, language, and self-regulation is another aspect of human nature. All of these require socialization (human relationships) to develop appropriately and thus depend on the relational ability described above. Also, part of cognitive-emotional functioning is the capacity, once a necessary maturity has developed, for transcendence. Process Theology outlines three modes of human transcendence: transcendence in relation to our own past through memory; transcendence in relations to others through empathy; and transcendence to the future through imagination. These capacities are unique to humans and therefore make the relationship between humans and God unique as well.

In addition to the individual relationships and capacities already discussed, humans have a strong tendency to form social groups and social structures. This tendency requires that relationships extend beyond one-on-one relationships to group relations. These, in turn, enable formation of communities. Suchocki, in Fall to Violence, argues that two social factors, human solidarity and social inheritance or socialization5, are significant in understanding human nature, specifically the human tendency toward evil. Human solidarity refers to ”universal participation in sin” resulting from our “organic” connectedness with other members of our species.  It “is the recognition of our connectedness …through . . .” which . . .  “comes one’s own participation in every evil, and with it, a share in the responsibility for all evil” {p. 102}. In essence, “we are affected by the sins of others, and our own sins likewise have an effect upon all others”. {p. 101} Socialization refers to the way that culture, including its institutions and patterns of behavior and sin are passed on to each successive generation. Relations with others thus form the core of experience for humans which directly impacts their relationships with God.

Most historical concern about human nature has focused not on these positive abilities but on human capacity for sin and evil. The most difficult aspect of understanding humans who are created in God’s image is the abundance of unnecessary violence in the world.  Early in Jewish and Christian history, the concept of original sin emerged as an explanation for sin.  The original sin, based on the story of Adam and Eve, was disobedience, shown in eating from the forbidden tree.  God responded to this disobedience by casting Adam and Eve out of Eden and applying the sin to all their descendants.  Thus, all humans were believed to be born into sin and thus, considered sinful from birth.  Since God created the world, this idea absolved God from being the creator of evil. I believe that this myth served this purpose in the beginnings of Israel. However, it is a problem for me theologically in this time of evolution and relativity.  Disobedience against God does not begin to describe the evil, both historically and currently, carried out by humans against other humans across the centuries.  Furthermore, the God I believe in would not send hurricanes, volcanos, and other natural disasters as random punishment for sins.

I believe that just as we come into life with a need to attach to other humans, we come into the world with a built-in tendency to violence.  Both tendencies would have had enormous survival value as early humans were evolving.  While humans are clearly the most destructive creatures in today’s world, they were relatively weak when living near apex predators.  These tendencies are supported physiologically by oxytocin in the case of attachment and the “fight, flight, or freeze” response in the case of violence.  Thus, I accept Suchocki’s definition of sin as unnecessary violence.  She defines violence broadly to include oppression, cruelty, poverty, exploitation, genocide, and destruction of humans and the world (both of environment and resources) in addition to direct physical and psychological violence. While such violence is clearly a failure to conform to God’s will and thus a sin of disobedience, humans have tended to define disobedience very narrowly to only include things we do not tend to do.  Thus, we fail to believe that slavery, oppression, poverty etc. are sins against God. Instead, many Christians focus on sexual sins, rather than violence. Therefore, this has enabled many Christians to ignore sins of power (slavery, oppression, etc.) as not relevant to their relationship with God.

According to Suchocki, with whom I agree, sin or violence is the result of the three tendencies described above: the tendency toward violence as way to solve problems, human solidarity, and socialization. The perceived need of humans to have more than their share of power and resources, commonly called greed, is a driving force for social and institutional sin today.  Individual characteristics, still the focus of many Christians, also result from the belief that one should be privileged above others in power, wealth, and access to resources. Reliance on violence in all forms to solve problems and gain that privilege is not viewed by some individuals as sin.  As long as they do not commit sexual sins, they believe they are “sinless”.  I believe that Suchocki’s understanding of evil, especially as presented in Fall to Violence, is excellent and provides a solid base for understanding evil not available in the traditional concept of original sin.  I find that I consistently apply concepts from her book in thinking about evil.  It has become one of the most certain aspects of Process Theology for me.


Finally, the parallel issues of freedom and responsibility are central to understanding humans and their relationship with others and with God. As described briefly in the section on God, she/he does not coerce individuals to conform to her/his will.  Instead, God is present in all moments of becoming and participates in the process by presenting possibilities for the individual in her/his response to the moment.  The possibilities presented are focused on those responses that will lead to the greatest well-being but also includes possibilities that are neutral but the best possible given the person’s history and circumstances.  Since God, in creating the world, created freedom for his creatures, she/he is limited to possibilities that are possible for that individual, given their past and present context. The individual is free to choose poor options as well as good options.  God ‘s will is that each one choose the best option, as God always works toward good and well-being for the world. However, while God tries to persuade the individual to choose the best option, God does not coerce that choice. Furthermore, the human bears responsibility for the choice made and of necessity, will be judged by God. God’s judgment includes the possibility for transformation.  This always requires that the individual develop of awareness of the sin {poor choices] and an openness to God’s transforming
Grace.

While it is common to separate cognitive and emotional functioning, they are continually interrelated since information to the frontal lobes, the seat of cognition, always goes through the limbic system, the seat of emotional functioning.

Spirit

The Holy Spirit is one of the three parts of the Trinity: God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Understanding the Holy Spirit is surprisingly difficult even though I am relatively certain I have experienced the Holy Spirit in my life.  I experience the Holy Spirit as God in action in the world, communicating rather directly possibilities for the individual receiving the communication. The constructive theology group describes six marks of the Spirit: prophetic, particular, paradoxical, performative, processual, and primordial. All these marks can be found in the Bible.  For example, the prophetic mark is found several places including Isaiah (42:1) where God states He has “put my spirit upon him” (the anticipated servant). Processual, defined as calling into the process of endless transformation, seems to me to be expressed by the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). The beatitudes illustrate the paradoxical mark of the Spirit by bringing contradictions together. Primordial refers to God’s power of renewal of all physical life.  I have experienced the final two, performative and particular, in my life. I remember several times when one of these occurred and at least one example where both occurred.  I was at graduation. (a requirement of my job). I became aware that the colleague sitting next to me was quietly crying.  I knew that he had lost his faculty position and been treated very unfairly by the university. In this particular situation, I felt called by the Spirit to convey this injustice to the University President through a letter. I am still certain it was what I was called to do although I failed to convince the President of his misjudgment and had my pay docked.   There have been many other occasions where I felt called to some action.  Most of the time it led me to grow in my understanding of God, the situation, and actions I might do. In summary, Suchocki in God, Christ, Church, describes Spirit in a way I found helpful.  She wrote that Spirit is “the wisdom of God whereby God brings the church to birth in each generation, guiding it through divine providence in its manifestation of apostolicity, unity, and holiness” (p. 234). This description is a perfect lead-in to the next topic, the Church.
 
This one is much shorter than earlier topics.  It was among the topics I studied most recently where my understanding is still incomplete and somewhat confused.  I tried to share what I understand so far.
 
Church

I confess I thought I knew a fair amount about the church except for the term for its study, ecclesiology.  As you might guess, I was wrong. In my reading, I learned a great deal and emerged with a greatly enhanced understanding of the importance of the church to faith.  I am actually embarrassed by my earlier view of the church. I left the church completely when a sophomore in college after being deeply involved and committed during high school.  During this absence, I considered the church bad for mental health.  My view of the church was quite negative.  I returned to the church almost reluctantly when I completed graduate school.  I was at first enthused and felt devout.  I became disillusioned after serving as an elder and watching the church unravel when it chose a new senior minister.  My disillusionment was expressed by the statement “don’t expect too much because the church is a collection of sinners.  I met Andy there and we married in the church.  Even then, the minister who married us made us write our own vows (1979) and service and then did not follow it.  Two years later we moved to Texas and joined First Pres.. I joined choir, taught Sunday School and served as a Deacon back when Deacons were only involved in building maintenance.  My faith re-emerged partly due to Andy’s strong faith and partly due to First Pres.. I thought my new-found commitment meant I had a mature view of the church.  I have been pleasantly surprised by my greatly enhanced understanding of the church.

My understanding

The Christian church, which has continued to exist and grow despite a history of wars, corruption, involvement in politics, and endorsement of such evils as slavery, colonialism, white supremacy, and fascism, is proof of the continued presence of God, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit. History also shows many communities characterized by acts of faith, compassion, and justice. This reality raises the question “what is the church?”.  Process Theology and Constructive Theology have each described the church with four components.  Constructive theology emphasizes kerygma (message), koinonia (fellowship}, diatonia (service), and didache (teaching).  Process theology, as presented by Suchocki, also details four essential features:  unity, holiness, apostolicity, and universality.  Unity refers to “the unity that is created “when “many people share in an identity formed through faith in Christ”. Holiness refers to sanctity or devoutness.  Process theology describes it in terms of God’s transformation of the church community into true holiness. Apostolicity refers to the church’s reliance on the teaching of the apostles and continuity with the past.  These three features are interrelated.  “Holiness is the effect of unity [ future] and apostolicity [past] held together in the present.”  A key feature of both approaches is community, seen in ‘unity’ for process thinkers and ‘fellowship’ in the constructive theology model.  Both views expanded my concept of church by emphasizing community and it was further enhanced by holiness and kerygma. I find it hard to describe the richness of my new understanding of church.  I have a new idea of what Identity in Christ means.  Also, my awareness of the importance of justice to God and the church has grown considerably.  I know I said the church didn’t talk about it very often but it was really that I didn’t attend to it before. Also, I have a new appreciation of the meaning of the sacraments which had become rather pro forma for me of late. Finally, I now see how important the church is in calling for and and sustaining discipleship where before I saw it as an individual thing.
 
Salvation

The term ‘salvation’ had little meaning for me before this study.  I saw it as an obsession of certain Christians with individual eternal life.  I objected to the idea that only a few (the elect) would be saved.  I was offended when told I would go to Hell because I was not Baptized by immersion as an adult. When given a test requiring that I rank order values like peace and compassion, I ranked Salvation last.  When I gave the test to undergrads at Baylor, they uniformly ranked it first.  I wondered why we were so different. After my study, I have a totally different understanding of salvation, which I will try to describe below.

Salvation is an ongoing process in life rather than an unending type of existence after death.  The mark of salvation is metanoia (change of mind). The aim of life is living salvation which is a transformation of ordinary existence.  It is not rooted in linear time or the eternality of physical life.  It can be experienced many times in life and is not always transcendent. One definition of salvation is moments of deep connection to God where more than ordinary life is possible. There can be a great increase in possibilities for fostering well-being (creating value) in the world and experiencing this deep connection with God. This connection is possible in life, death, and after death. Another way to describe salvation is a positive response to God’s purposes. God acts to make salvation possible and to preserve value.

Resurrection is best understood as rebirth in God.  This rebirth involves awareness of God’s love and concern.  This rebirth also requires the judgment discussed earlier. Judgment involves developing an awareness of the self as known by God including what you were and what you could have become. It also requires awareness of other’s experience of yourself.  This awareness is transformed by God when you acknowledge your guilt. God’s forgiveness enables your forgiveness of the self and others.  Thus, resurrection is a rebirth in God when physical bodies become spiritual bodies and existence continues as part of God.