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Process Theology Study Guide PROCESS THEOLOGY FOR EVERYDAY PEOPLE Bruce G. Epperly Lancaster Theological Seminary Bruce G. Epperly Copyright 2006 1 I. What is Process-Relational Theology? Each one of us sees the world through certain theological, spiritual, and experiential lenses. These lenses shape what we see and how we interpret the events of our lives. These lenses are so intimate that we often assume reality is exactly as we see it. Our images of reality—the lenses through which we see reality—arise from many factors such as: family of origin, personal chemistry, unconscious memory, level of education, social and political context, and faith tradition. While some lenses are healthy and life-affirming, others diminish our sense of value, limit our possibilities, and alienate us from God, nature, our bodies, and other persons. Religious traditions affirm that our images of reality can—more or less—approximate the deeper realities of life. In fact, a healthy religious tradition provides us with: • A vision or picture of reality • A promise that we can experience that reality • Practices that enable us to experience the realities that our faith tradition or theology describe Accordingly, our visions of God and the world shape our character and inspire certain forms of behavior. Human life, according to the tenets of most religious traditions, is not static, but mutable. Persons may experience “conversions,” “great awakenings,” and “enlightenment.” We can change our visions of reality and, thus, change our values, behaviors, and perceptions by our beliefs and practices. As the apostle Paul affirms, “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2) Doctrines, rituals, community support, and 2 daily faith practices shape—and transform—our images of reality and eventually our actions. We think ourselves into new behaviors and act ourselves into new beliefs! Process-relational theology affirms a unique vision of Christian faith. Process theology reflects a creative and dynamic interplay of scripture, Christian tradition, reason, experience, and the best cultural thinking and science of our time. (This is the traditional Wesleyan quadrilateral, plus one factor, culture as a fifth source of divine revelation and religious reflection.) Process-relational theology invites us to explore reality in terms of dynamic, lively relationships that apply to every possible experience. According to the parent of modern process theology and philosophy, speculative philosophy, or metaphysics, resembles the flight of an airplane: it begins on the ground with concrete experience, soars into the heights of generalization, gaining perspective on reality, and then returns to the ground of concrete experience with new interpretations of the world. The words “process-relational” describe the heart of this lively and inspirational vision of reality. Initially articulated by thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Bernard Loomer and later by theologians such as John Cobb, Schubert Ogden, and David Griffin, process-relational theology makes the following affirmations: • Relationship is primary and essential to reality. We are not isolated atomic beings. Rather, each moment arises from its experience of its environment. The environment, including the occasion’s most recent personal past, in the case of humans, is the material out of which each occasion “creates” its momentary experience and gift to the future. • Reality is dynamic—living beings are in a constant process of creative transformation. Experience is dynamic; what is 3 unchanging is embraced by the changing. While both eternity and process are real, process embraces and makes concrete the eternal within the world of time. The greater possibility for change and growth, the more evolved the creature—living persons are more “alive” than rocks because their complexity enables them to embrace more reality with greater experiential insight and sensitivity. • Experience is universal, and not limited to human life. Existence implies experience, although existence does not necessarily mean consciousness. For example, a fetus experiences her mother and a cell experiences its environment—it values certain things and avoids others, even though it is not yet self-conscious. For example, we now know that pre-natal experiences shape a child’s future. Process thought also tells us that non-humans, whether dolphins or cicadas, also experience the world in unique ways. • Experience and value are intimately related. Although “life is robbery” (Whitehead), our recognition of the reality of experience calls us to a “reverence for life.” (Schweitzer) Although rocks and trees lack centers of experience, they are composed of sentient elements. They are loosely joined “societies of actual entitites. We are not alone in the world, but part of a universe of experience, ranging from the simplest to most divine forms of experience. • Freedom is real, but conditioned. To exist is to experience the world from a unique perspective. Each moment of 4 experience embraces its environment, and shapes that experience in its own way. Even the simplest organisms have an element of novelty, since despite their repetition of their environment, they alone experience the world in this place and time. In each moment, we are able to choose again—shaping our responses in new ways. Our choices shape the data of our experience in novel ways. Each moment of experience is a creative synthesis of the world from which it arises. Though our freedom as humans is always conditioned by the past, as embodied by our own past as well as the world from which we emerged, we are never victims of our environment and past history. From a Christian perspective, we can assert that in partnership with God, we can experience personal and social transformation. • God is the primary example of the dynamic, relational, creative nature of life. God is not an exception to the nature of reality, but the prime example of interdependence, relationship, and creativity. The living God shapes and is shaped by all things. God is not aloof, but is present in every situation, providing creative possibilities in the context of the emerging universe. God’s power is not coercive but relational in nature. God works within the lively, dynamic, relational world to bring forth the highest possibilities for freedom and creativity among creatures. God is the ultimate source of the evolutionary process. As the current motto of the United Church of Christ proclaims, “God is still speaking.” 5 +++ Questions: 1) How do you understand the nature of freedom? What is the role of the past in shaping the present? In what ways do we transcend past experiences? 2) Reflecting on your understanding of scripture: do you recognize any themes of process-relational thought within the scriptural witness—relationship, dynamic change, freedom? 3) What does it mean to speak of having a “relationship” with God? What does it mean from God’s standpoint? And, from our own standpoint? Have you experienced God in your life? 4. Do you think nonhumans are able to experience the world? What difference does it make if non-humans are also centers of experience? Can nonhumans have a meaningful relationship with God? 5) What does it mean to suggest that the universe influences every moment of your experience? 6) If relationship is primary, how does this shape our religious practices? 7) If the world is dynamic and evolving, how does that shape our understanding of truth and doctrine? 6 II. A Process-Relational God We begin with a thought experiment: When you think of God, what images come to mind? How we envisage God is important. If God is the ultimate reality, then the goal of the spiritual life is to become like the God you worship. How we view God shapes the way we think of power, health and illness, the nature of truth, and friends and enemies. Speaking about God is always challenging. The theologian Karl Barth once spoke of theological reflection about God as being similar to painting a bird in flight. Another image of our knowledge of God speaks of sight-impaired persons and an elephant. Each person thinks that the part of the elephant they touch is the elephant’s true nature. This image is helpful in terms of our knowledge of God, except for the fact that a living elephant—and also a living God—is constantly moving. We have to race at top speed to stay in contact with the elephant. No description can ever encompass a living elephant or living God. Theologians and spiritual guides describe God in terms of the polarity of apophatic and kataphatic, that is, on the one hand, no language can describe God (God is beyond language and transcends our experience) and, on the other hand, everything points to God (all words and experience reveal something of the holy). Process-relational thought describes God in terms of dynamic relatedness. God is the ultimate relational being—God shapes every experience, providing each moment’s experience with a wealth of possibilities, luring each moment toward wholeness and beauty. God also receives every experience and is shaped by the evolving universe. 7 Traditionally, the words omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence have been used to describe God’s relationship with the world. Although these terms come from the influence of the Greek philosophical tradition rather then the biblical traditions, they express God’s ultimacy, sovereignty, and uniqueness. Process theology provides novel ways of describing divine experience and power in ways that preserve the deepest insights of the Christian theological tradition. Process theology invites Christians to explore the meaning of words like “eternal” and “unchanging” from new perspectives. Omniscience (all-experiencing) relates to God’s experience of the world. Process theology takes omniscience seriously. God truly experiences the world. To experience is to be shaped by what we experience. As omniscient, God is shaped by all things.
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