The Resilience of the Supernatural
in a Deeply Enchanted World
Russ Douthat and Process Theology
"Zondervan Books is thrilled to announce that New York Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat’s latest work, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, has made its debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Believe ranked as number eight in Hardcover Nonfiction and number ten in Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction after its release on February 11, 2025."
Here are three excerpts:
[The world] offers multiple prompts, multiple indicators, converging and overlapping and all pointing the human intellect in a similar direction—with strong indications of cosmic order and design and a strong possibility of human significance within that order and good reasons to think that we can reach up toward the supernatural even as the supernatural reaches out or down to us.
Douthat, Ross. Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious
“The theme of this book is encouragement: to urge people toward religion generally, to suggest that it’s better to start somewhere even if it isn’t the place I would start, out of a trust that God’s providence will ultimately reward all sorts of efforts and enfold all manner of sincere beliefs.
And I do believe this. The difficulty of human life, the burdens that each one of us carries, the mystery inherent even in a cosmos that offers good reasons to believe—all of this makes me optimistic that God will repay even the most mediocre effort, the halting attempt to reach upward to the truth, the good-faith attempt to understand our purposes that doesn’t necessarily reach the mark.”
- Ross Douthat, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious
You might think of God as a pantheistic spirit that’s all-pervasive but not all-powerful in the sense imagined by the philosophers of Western monotheism. You might assume that He’s a being who changes with and is changed by His creation, as in the so-called process theology that influences some liberal Christian thought. You might embrace the gnostic idea that the true God is outside and above a material universe that it did not personally create, sending messengers and interventions to help us escape from our cycles of suffering into a purer realm of spirit. You might think of God as the friendlier part of a dualist principle, in which good and evil and creation and destruction are intertwined like yin and yang.
Douthat, Ross. Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious
Douthat has been a New York Times Opinion columnist since April 2009. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Deep Places; The Decadent Society; To Change the Church; Bad Religion; Privilege; and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party. He is the film critic for National Review. He lives with his wife and five children in New Haven, Connecticut.,
You might think that, in the previous paragraph, Ross Douthat is dismissing process theology—but in fact, he’s not. Rather, he is suggesting to his readers that if they don’t find a Calvinist understanding of God plausible (and it seems that he himself does not), there are other ways to address the problem of evil: that is, the challenge of reconciling belief in a God who is both all-good and all-powerful with the realities of violence, rape, murder, disease, loneliness, hurricanes, and the untimely deaths of children with cancer. He points out that there are alternatives that remain compatible with certain forms of religious belief, one of which is process theology.
You might think that, in the previous paragraph, Ross Douthat is dismissing process theology—but in fact, he’s not. Rather, he is suggesting to his readers that if they don’t find a Calvinist understanding of God plausible, there are other ways to address the problem of evil: that is, the challenge of reconciling belief in a God who is both all-good and all-powerful with the realities of violence, rape, murder, disease, loneliness, hurricanes, and the untimely deaths of children with cancer. He points out that there are alternatives that remain compatible with certain forms of religious belief.
My aim in this page is to bring Douthat in further conversation with process theology and, importantly, to encourage process (and open and relational) theologians to break out of their process (open and relational) bubbles of progressive Christianity and learn with, and from, conservative points of view. I make no arguments. These are 'notes' that you might find helpful as you read Douthat's bestselling book.
- Jay McDaniel
Douthat and Process Theology
Ross Douthat and David Ray Griffin, a process philosopher and theologian, have much in common theologically. Both believe that many Western intellectuals—especially those shaped by scientific materialism—have been wrongly seduced by what Douthat calls the “myth of disenchantment.” This myth presents the world, including both earth and heavens, as if there is no room for divine realities or paranormal presences: spirits, apparitions, telepathy, out of body experiences. Against this view, both Douthat and Griffin argue that the world is in fact enchanted—that it includes spiritual realities and paranormal phenomena which are experienced empirically by many people across cultures. They contend that it is time for intellectuals and others to adopt a worldview open to such possibilities. Griffin makes his broader case in Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration and many other works, while Douthat articulates a similar but distinct vision in Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious.
Additionally, both believe that careful attention to the universe at large and to human experience lends itself to belief in God—understood as a personal reality who is active in human history and revealed uniquely, though not exclusively, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Both are Christian: Griffin a liberal Protestant and Douthat a conservative Catholic. For them, belief in God can emerge through personal experience but also through other avenues—such as the study of the cosmos and its apparent fine-tuning for life, or the study of human consciousness and what Griffin calls the presence of “mind in nature.” Douthat, a Catholic, has referenced fine-tuning and the profound evidence of intentional design in nature as among the supports for his own faith. He told Jonah Goldberg in an interview that it’s noteworthy that we have minds able to comprehend the universe around us—including its chemical structure—which, to him, seems anything but accidental.
Moreover, both recognize that, for some people—particularly committed atheists—belief in God is viewed as intellectually or morally irresponsible because of the problem of evil. Yet both Griffin and Douthat regard this as, in some respects, a false problem, rooted in overly rigid or simplistic notions of divine omnipotence. It is at this point that Douthat briefly references process theology as one possible way liberal Christians have addressed the issue—by rethinking the nature of divine power altogether. While he mentions process theology only in passing, and does not adopt it himself, its inclusion signals his awareness of theological alternatives that seek to preserve faith while acknowledging the depth of human suffering.
Furthermore, both Douthat and Griffin affirm that faith and reason, religion and science, can be reconciled. Griffin, drawing on the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, develops a postmodern philosophical framework in which scientific insight, spiritual experience, and rational argument are woven together in a coherent worldview. Douthat, writing for a more popular audience, gestures toward similar harmonies—arguing that religious belief is not an escape from reason but a fuller engagement with the complexity, beauty, and mystery of reality.
Together, Griffin and Douthat represent two different but overlapping approaches to religious belief in a disenchanted age: one speculative and metaphysical, the other traditional and narrative-based. Both challenge the assumption that modernity has left no room for God, and both call for a renewal of intellectual and spiritual openness—one that sees the world not as closed and mechanical, but as alive with meaning and presence.
That said, there are important differences between the two, especially in language and theological orientation. Griffin is careful to distance his work from what he calls “supernaturalism,” arguing instead for a wholly naturalistic metaphysical framework—albeit one that expands the category of “natural” to include mind, value, and spiritual experience. For Griffin, divine presence, paranormal experience, and even life after death are real, but they do not require an appeal to a separate, supernatural realm. His emphasis is on the fact that God, while continuously present in the universe in sometimes amazing and miraculous ways, does not interrupt the laws of physics and chemistry. Griffin speaks of paranormal experiences as ultra-natural not supernatural.
Douthat, by contrast, is fully at home with the language of the supernatural and the numinous. In fact, two chapter subheadings in Believe—“Romancing the Numinous” and “The Resilience of the Supernatural”—reflect his comfort with these terms and his belief that they must be reclaimed. For him, a re-enchantment of the world necessarily includes a renewed openness to these categories, understood within a Catholic worldview that sees divine mystery as both personal and transcendent. Words like supernatural and numinous are central to his theological imagination, but they are notably absent from Griffin’s.
It’s worth pausing over Douthat’s use of the word supernaturalism. The term carries both theological and existential weight. Theologically, it refers to belief in a divine being who intervenes in the world. Existentially, it speaks to experiences that are astonishing, awe-inspiring, and not easily captured by rationalist categories—events that suggest a reality deeper or more mysterious than modern secularism typically acknowledges. Douthat’s openness to phenomena like telepathy, psychokinesis, past-life memories, out-of-body experiences, and apparitions points to his conviction that the world is more enchanted than we often assume. In this, I believe, Griffin would agree—especially given his own belief in a continuing journey after death. What Douthat means by supernaturalism is, at least for me, evoked by what Griffin means by ultra-naturalism. Whether or not events contravene "the laws of nature" is moot. Everything depends on what is meant by "laws," which, for Griffin and other process thinkers, are not blueprints but rather habits, some less flexible than others, Supernatural happens work with and in such habits: whether or not they 'break' them is a matter of interpretation, but that they are extraordinary is obvious.
When it comes to politics—and to a sense of what God seeks for the world—Douthat may actually be closer to Griffin’s teacher, John Cobb. Like Douthat in Believe, Cobb holds a strong commitment not just to Christianity as a broad spiritual orientation but to Jesus as a historical and theological center. True, their emphases differ: Cobb focuses on the historical Jesus and his radical vision of God as a loving Abba, while Douthat emphasizes the cross and sacrificial redemption. But for both, faith is not abstract; it is rooted in the concrete person of Jesus.
Cobb’s central theme—the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven—is especially resonant in our time, and he interprets it in explicitly this-worldly terms. Understood as a divine lure, felt both individually and collectively, the kingdom invites the formation of local communities that are creative, compassionate, diverse, inclusive, ecologically responsible, and empowered. These communities are where the light of love can shine most brightly—particularly in family life and shared local endeavors. For Cobb, such communities must not be subordinate to impersonal bureaucracies or distant powers. Their agency and moral responsibility must be honored.
In this, Cobb finds common ground with Douthat and many conservative Catholics, particularly through the principle of subsidiarity—the idea that social and political life should be organized from the bottom up, with decisions made at the most immediate level competent to address them. Cobb’s well-known call was not for a world government but for the world to evolve into a community of communities of communities. Like Douthat, he viewed the nation-state as a morally significant unit—a container in which local communities can be incubated, nourished, and protected.
This vision led Cobb, especially in his influential book For the Common Good (co-authored with Herman Daly), to critique economic globalization and advocate instead for traditions of local self-reliance—economically, politically, and culturally. In this respect, Cobb was “conservative” in a deep and thoughtful sense: not in opposition to change, but in defense of place, community, and the moral dignity of the local. Here, Cobb belongs—perhaps surprisingly—in the same extended family as Douthat’s friend J.D. Vance. Though they come from different theological and political traditions, Cobb and Vance share a deep concern for the erosion of local communities and the alienating effects of globalized, technocratic systems. Both affirm the dignity of place, the importance of rootedness, and the moral and spiritual significance of family and community life. For Cobb, these concerns arise from a process-relational theology grounded in love, creativity, and the lure of the divine. For Vance, they emerge from a cultural and moral conservatism shaped by personal experience and a desire to restore meaning and stability to American life. In different idioms, both speak to the hunger for belonging and the hope that enduring renewal—social, moral, and spiritual—can grow from the ground up.
In Believe, Douthat does not appear fully aware of the theological depth and diversity within process thought. His one-sentence allusion to process theology is that it proposes a God who "changes with and is changed by His creation." This comes immediately after a sentence that entertains the idea of a God who may be all-loving but not all-powerful in the classical sense—an idea that process theologians also affirm. At this juncture, Douthat might have benefited from a closer engagement with the open and relational theology movement, which draws directly from process theology but has taken root primarily in evangelical Christian circles. Open and relational theologians offer robust biblical, philosophical, and pastoral frameworks for thinking about a God who is responsive, relational, and persuasive rather than coercive.
Like many conservatives, Douthat wants to affirm both divine activity in the world and authentic human freedom—without sacrificing either. This balance is difficult to maintain within classical theism, which often tips toward divine determinism, or within strict materialist frameworks, which reduce human agency to illusion. Open and relational theology, particularly in its process-oriented form, offers a constructive alternative: a vision of God who works through love, not domination, and who invites human beings into genuine participation in the unfolding story of the world. Had Douthat taken more seriously this growing body of work, he might have found in it a richer and more coherent account of divine power and human freedom—one that resonates deeply with his desire to re-enchant the world, affirm the dignity of the person, and respond meaningfully to suffering.
There is, however, an important lesson in Believe for process theologians. Douthat’s audience is larger and wider. He speaks to conservatives—both religious and cultural—in ways process theology has not yet spoken, and perhaps may never fully speak. Unlike many process thinkers, Douthat is unafraid to use words like supernatural and numinous without qualification. He is not beholden to speaking in ways that seek validation from the dominant paradigms of scientific materialism. The result is that his universe can seem more enchanted, richer, and more mysteriously alive. By contrast, the process universe—despite its openness to purpose, mind, the paranormal, and of course to God—can sometimes appear overly cautious, intellectually domesticated, even slavishly deferential to the assumptions of scientific rationalism. This raises a real challenge: Can process thinkers recover a more vivid, poetic, and symbolically charged language that speaks not only to skeptical intellectuals but also to those who yearn for a universe alive with divine presence? Douthat, for all the differences in metaphysics and emphasis, reminds us that sometimes theology must enchant before it can persuade.
- Jay McDaniel
A Note on Mysticism
and the Supernatural
In Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, Ross Douthat describes five kinds of mystical experiences, all of which he considers "supernatural" in nature. The first is a sense of oneness with the universe—a feeling that the boundaries between self and world have dissolved, often arising during meditation or in awe-inspiring moments in nature. The second involves an encounter with something wholly other, a divine presence that seems to press into or look back at the person having the experience. The third is the appearance of a specific supernatural figure—such as Jesus, Mary, an angel, or a deceased relative—who may speak or convey a message. The fourth kind includes experiences that have effects on the physical world, such as miraculous healings or uncanny events that defy natural explanation. The fifth involves contact with a supernatural being that has its own agency—a will and purpose that can act in the world, such as God, spirits, or other entities not bound by scientific laws. Douthat believes that these kinds of experiences are fairly common and that they call into question what he calls the "myth of disenchantment"—the modern assumption that the world has been stripped of spiritual meaning by science and secularism. For him, the persistence of such experiences across cultures and time suggests that the world remains alive with mystery, presence, and divine possibility.