​
​Thirteen Ways that Process Philosophy
​and Theology Can Die
​
​“But language is a conventional and communal medium and resists exact expression. It is constantly decaying into abstractions, which cannot render experience in its full concreteness.”

​David Perkins, A History of Modern Poetry, Harvard University press, 1976



​​Process Philosophy and Theology can die if:

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  1. The language of process philosophy and theology decays into slogans, cliches, and rarified abstractions at the expense of resonating with human experience in its full concreteness.
  2. Process philosophers and theologians overemphasize truth and goodness and underemphasize beauty.
  3. Process philosophers and theologians assume a process outlook on life and way of living in the world is reducible to philosophy and theology, when in fact it is an outlook on life and way of living that is available to people from all walks of life.
  4. They speak as if all of their ideas are new and unique, failing to recognize parallels to the process in other traditions, past and present.  
  5. They take their ideas too seriously, forgetting the role of metaphor in process thought and forgetting that all ideas are, in Whitehead's words, "lures for feeling."
  6. They forget that lures for feeling can be articulated through stories, poems, music, dance, film, and photography, as well as in verbal and mathematical forms.
  7. They forget the role of intuition in the process approach to life, neglecting the fact that there are many ways of knowing in additional to verbal knowing: musical knowing, bodily knowing, emotional knowing, aesthetic knowing, empathic knowing, and mystical knowing.
  8. They forget that metaphysical truth, understood as resonance with the way things truly are, is more, much more, then a property of verbal propositions.  Metaphysical truth can be found in the way a person lives his or her life, in the lessons learned from the natural world, in living relationships with land and water, and acts of as kindness and compassion.
  9. They overemphasize clarity, almost making a god of it, forgetting that the most important things in life - love and tenderness, wonder and gratitude -  are vague.
  10. They assume that healthy religion is reducible to ethics (to moral goodness) forgetting that it includes wonder, imagination, silence, listening, playfulness, joy, friendships, imagination, zest for life, and a sense of mystery.
  11. They fall into the trap of thinking that theory precedes practice, when in fact practice and theory always go together.  The process way of living can be acquired and intuitively understood through practice even if theory is minimal.
  12. They limit practice to that of individuals and their lifestyles, forgetting  that some of the most important practices are social and collective.
  13. They speak as if "process philosophy and theology" can save the world, when in fact, at best, it is one form of nourishment among others that together, and with God's help, can contribute to the healing and wholeness of a planet in peril.

There are, of course, still other important ways process philosophy and theology can die.  They can die if they are not taught in colleges and universities and seminaries; they can die if they don't make sense to people from different cultures; they can die if their insights cannot be rendered into terms economist and politicians can understand; they can die if they don't make sense to children; they can die if they don't speak to the urgent needs of the world.  The good news is that, gradually but consistently, all of these deaths are being avoided, and process philosophy and theology are evolving in fresh ways, with people using new and creative language that help keep their ideas from decaying.  Witness the work of the Process Nexus, the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China, the Center for Process Studies, the Institute for Ecological Civilization, Pando Populus, the GIEM group in Venezuela, the emerging Process and Faith multi-faith network, the Becomings Network for emerging artists, and more.  Rumors of the death of process philosophy and theology are greatly exagerrated, but the process philosophers and theologians must remain ever vigilant of decay.  Happily and hopefully, vigilance, too, is a process virtue.

- Jay McDaniel, July 30, 2021
Open Horizons