Theme Articles

Process Theology
Rev. Barbara Vincent

Introduction

First, we need to state the obvious. That is :

a. In any discussion about God we are trying to describe the indescribable. In talking of the mysterious unknown, we can only use what we do know in our experience to build up a picture or model of God. But we need always to remember that our picture or model is NOT the reality, only a way of describing it.

And:

b. Whenever we talk of God, there is always some picture or model lying under our words.

What is Process Theology?

Process theology is a contemporary expression of Christian faith with the content of that faith formed through a person’s own personal experience and tradition. What is different is the philosophical basis that underlies the expression of that faith. What is different is the model of reality that underlies it.

The simplest way to grasp it, is to understand how it differs from a commonly held picture of God that I refer to as a 'Traditional' model that has come to us from a pre-scientific past from many, many sources.

Also from the past we have inherited a picture of the world that was created by this God, where things were made of something called matter that God created all at once, out of nothing. Some of these things had life breathed into them by God and so were living things that were completely different from the other inanimate, non-living bits of creation. The most important living thing, or the apex of this God’s world, was a being called 'Man' who was made in God’s image and for whom God had made the rest of the world.

God himself was Spirit and as spirit, was completely and utterly separate from the world of perishable matter. He was utterly transcendent, other than, and without body, parts or passions. He was all powerful and all knowing, not only knowing about the past and present, but also knowing what would happen in the future – he was beyond time. He was completely self-sufficient; the world was not necessary for him and in himself he was unaffected by what happened in it.

And it is not accidental that in describing this 'Traditional' model I have used 'Man' for human beings and 'he' when referring to God, because this, too, is part of the traditional model.

But there is barely an overlap when we superimpose a model of this 'Traditional World' on the world in which we are embedded. This is not the world of our contemporary experience and understanding but it is the picture of God and the world that underlies much of Christian theology.

The Process Model

During the first half of the twentieth century Alfred North Whitehead, an English mathematician, developed what he called a 'philosophy-of-organism' during his 'retirement' years as a Philosophy Professor at Harvard University. He formulated this metaphysical model of reality as a result of his work in physics and mathematics, but drew also on areas such as history, sociology, philosophy and particularly from religious experience which had been an integral part of his background as the son of an Anglican cleric. His model, therefore, took account of the revolution in scientific thinking about the structure of matter that had taken place during his years at Cambridge and London Universities. For him (in his own words), "Reality is becoming; it is passing before one – a remark too obvious to make … you can’t catch a moment by the scruff of the neck – it’s gone, you know." "Hang it all! Here we are . We don’t go behind that; we begin with it."

In this 'Process Philosophy' the basic building blocks of the world were not bits of matter called atoms, but were events, energy events or drops of experience that he called 'actual entities' (or 'actual occasions'). In his own words from Process and Reality (1929),

"An actual entity is a process, and is not describable in terms of the morphology of a 'stuff'."
"Its 'being' is constituted by its 'becoming'. This is the principle of process."
"Each actual entity is a throb of experience."
"Process is the becoming of experience"

Whitehead also built the concept of God into his philosophy:

I should never have included it [the concept of God], if it had not been strictly required for descriptive completeness. You must set all your essentials into the foundation. It’s no use putting up a set of terms, and then remarking, "oh, by the by, I believe there is a God."

Because the starting point for Whitehead’s model was real experience and incorporated the new revolutionary understanding of the physical world, it is not surprising that the world described using his terms, is one and the same as the one we are part of – it was designed that way.

And process theology results from expressing the doctrines and dogmas of our Christian faith using this event based model of reality instead of the substance based 'traditional' one.

God in Process

There are two aspects to the nature of God in the model – the Primordial Nature, which is the Source of all possibilities for creation, and the Consequent Nature, which is the name given to that aspect of God that 'feels' each and every moment as it becomes and incorporates it into God’s own self.

Summary of "how it works"

1. From God’s Primordial Nature, God offers each becoming moment (becoming actual occasion) a possibility for the best possible outcome in its particular circumstances that would give it the maximum possible richness of experience. This is God’s 'initial aim'.

2. The becoming moment 'feels' (prehends) this aim from God but has its own aim (subjective aim) and does not have to accept God’s aim.

3. The becoming moment also 'feels' (prehends) all the preceding moments that have already become and that are now part of what is real and actual, no longer subjective but part of objective reality. The becoming moment 'feels' most strongly its own preceding actual occasions.

4. From all the data influencing it, the becoming moment selects and 'grows together' some of them (concresces, or makes concrete). It then 'perishes' as a 'subject' and is an 'object', part of that which is actual, potentially available as data for all future becoming moments.

["The many become one and are increased by one". (Whitehead, Process and Reality)]

5. God’s Consequent Nature 'feels' what that moment became, takes it into God’s self, harmonises it with what could be and then offers the next becoming moment an initial aim for its best possible outcome in the circumstances.

Using the Model not only leads to a theology that is far more compatible with contemporary scientific understanding than does the substance model described earlier, but it also leads to a picture of God that is far closer to the Biblical image.

Comparison of 'Traditional' and 'Process'

'Traditional'	'Process'
Substance	Event
Independent	Related
Linked to the past like a chain	Open to the past like a cone
'noun'	'verb'
being	becoming
fixed	changing
static	dynamic
non-sentient w. come sentient	sentient
Character of God	Character of God
Aside from normal running of world	Necessary for the world to exist
All-knowing (omniscient)	Knows what is actual
Transcendent over the world	Incarnate on the world
All powerful (omnipotent)	Limits to power
Could coerce	Lures
Sole creator	Creativity shared with world
Unchanging	Becoming richer with world's experience
Beyond feelings (impassible)	Prehends, enjoys
Without body	World is the body

Existence is Relational Summary

1. Relationships are basic to identity.

2. The creative process is the emergence of the one from the many.

3. Nothing can exist unrelated.

4. Becoming takes place in creative response to the past, and in this becoming something new comes into existence.

Editor's note: Parallel to this, we may recall J.H. Oldham's "Real life is meeting" and Martin Buber's "I and Thou". Paul Tillich's words above, are also consonant, when he quotes St. Paul: "If anyone is in union with Christ he is a New Being."