My Wife the Theologian

My wife is taking a philosophy of religion course this term at the very secular Portland State University. The following was her answer to a mid-term question asking: "What is Process Theism? What is Creative-Responsive love? Does this approach to the concept of God overcome problems presented by the traditional interpretations of the characteristics of God? Why or why not?" She was limited to three pages or less:

Process theism is a contemporary challenger to classical theism motivated in part, it seems, to make belief in God viable for contemporary, secular man. Though it is technically incorrect to refer to process theism in the singular – there are process theisms – a brief sketch of some commonalities presents sufficient contrast to traditional theism to be illuminating.

Process theology views itself somewhere on a continuum between pantheism and traditional theism, the latter two of which are viewed as unacceptable extremes. On the one hand, if pantheism identifies God and the world in some way, process theology denies God and the world are identical. On the other hand, while process theology claims God and the world are not identical, they are nevertheless inter-dependent and co-responsive, which distinguishes process theology from theism.

With respect to traditional philosophical attributes of God (pure actuality; immutability; impassibility; timelessness; simplicity; necessity; omniscience; and, omnipotence), process theologians reject every one, presumably to some extent because of the logical relatedness of each attribute to the other. Instead, they offer a number of counter-theses to describe their concept of God, which they suppose more accurately reveals God’s relatedness to the world. For the purpose of this paper, I will focus on what appears to be the fundamental critique of traditional theism by process theology, and suggest that this approach to the concept of God does not overcome what process theology sees as a fundamental problem within traditional theology.

By proposing that the traditional theistic concept of God’s immutability leaves him a static, inert, unresponsive being totally unrelated to the world, who is ultimately inconsistent with the sources of revelation (typically, Christian biblical revelation), process theology suggests the attribute of immutability – that is, changelessness understood as static changelessness – is an improper interpretation of revelation. Properly understood, revelation discloses God’s activity in the world, and his relatedness to the world. They indicate that if God is love, and because love is dynamic, the static and changeless God of traditional theology is wrongheaded. In privileging the changeless being-ness of God, traditional theology has missed God’s becoming-ness, and thereby removed his relatedness. In short, process theology is a growth out of the basic principle that change is the universal element of reality. Process theologians derive from this the principle that reality is fundamentally process: everything affects everything else, including God. The world and God are, therefore, interdependent.

There are at least two serious difficulties with these contentions. The most obvious defect of the whole structure of process theology is that it appears impossible for it to account for why anything exists, including God. If God and the world are truly interdependent, then the existence of neither is accounted for. Neither God nor the world can account for the other’s existence: one cannot give existence to the other. Since his being is totally dependent on the world, to suggest that God and the world are never without one another, that both are beginning-less, still does not answer the question. This raises not only a serious philosophical problem for process theology; it also raises a major problem in terms of revelation. To the extent that process theologian’s criticize traditional theology on the grounds of the sources of revelation, so too can traditional theology criticize process theology. At least in terms of classical Christian theology, what happens to the doctrine of creation?

Furthermore process theologians seem to have misunderstood the ground for the assertion that God is immutable. In suggesting that God is all perfect, and that being all perfect it is impossible for him to acquire more perfection through change, traditional theology maintains he is perfect not because he has reached some limit of perfectibility, but because he is limitless perfection itself. This is in fact to deny something of God; that is, something inherently finite. God’s immutability does not result in stasis, inertia, inactivity, and thereby an unresponsive unrelated-ness to the world; rather, because he is so supremely active and dynamic, it is impossible for him to be more dynamic, active, and intimately related to his creation. In misunderstanding “being” in a static, mechanistic sense, process theologians have nominalized a verb: being is an active verb, not a noun. For traditional theology God is, surprisingly enough, supremely immutable because he is supremely active.

Within the system of process theology can be found a suggestion that God’s love as understood by traditional theism is one-sided and incomplete. Cobb and Griffin suggest a more complete understanding of divine love can be grounded in a dipolar notion of divinity. Cobb and Griffin’s thesis of Creative-Responsive love is a reaction to their view that traditional theism overemphasizes one “pole” of the nature of love. In reference to God’s love, they basically suggest that traditional theism cannot account for love as a creative activity, and that traditional theism implies a concept of God in which his love is equated with control. Supposedly, the classical doctrine of creation implies God’s control over the world, whereas the process theologians’ concept of God’s love implies he is an interdependent partner and cooperator with the world.

But this thesis, dependent as it is upon the overall system of process theology, is subject to the criticisms outlined above; namely, that God’s dynamic love is misunderstood by process theologians as static and inert, and hence requiring another, more balancing “pole.” But this is again to misread unchangeable love as a noun; if unchangeable love is unchangeable precisely because it is infinitely, perfectly dynamic (grammatically, a verb), then it begs the question of how this love is static. Moreover, why should we understand the classical Christian doctrine of creation as implying control over the world, as opposed to implying abundantly self-overflowing care for the world? Cobb and Griffin’s introduction to the notion of needing another “pole” to complete the traditional concept of God – dependent as it appears to be on a misunderstanding of the ground for the assertion of God’s immutability – is subject, then, to the principle of parsimony: it is a spurious addition unnecessary to account for God’s supposedly necessary, supposedly “feminine” traits.

Right now, she is in the other room practicing her Latin. I am so in love. This post was the recipient of a: