Process Theology

By Ronald H. Nash

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801067480
• ISBN13: 9780801067488
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Baker Pub Group
• Length: 387 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Critique of Process Theology by Classical Theists

This book is a (sometimes) scholarly critique of process theology (PT) from a traditional theist point of view. Much of it (not all) has a negative tone one expects from the simple difficulty of intuiting new paradigms and the broad benefits of a different framework. The book is interesting if you are interested to know what classical theists think is wrong with PT. And to be fair, you'll also find some appreciation for parts of PT they do like. PT is a special subset of Alfred North Whitehead's broader process philosophy (PP). PT was developed from PP mostly by Christian theologians and some Jewish thinkers to solve long standing epistemological, social, psychological, and metaphysical problems that arise from both classical views AND reductive liberal views, both deeply influenced by Greek and Roman ideas of perfection and substance, Roman equation of peace with uniformity, early cultural and theological conflicts, and how they all panned out for the winners. Therefore, if you are looking for a good introduction to PT or PP on its own terms, then you need to go elsewhere - to the process folk themselves: Hartshorne, Griffin, Cobb, Matthew David Segall, Whitehead himself (if you have the philosophical stamina). Hartshorne's "Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes,” Matt Segall's YouTube talks, and Catherine Keller’s “On the Mystery” are very good places to start. Ultimately, PP and PT are both more influenced by the long suppressed, western Christian hermetic/mystical/wisdom streams, the German idealists (eg. Schelling), the pragmatists (eg. William James), phenomenology, and changes in scientific paradigms over the last 200 years. A surprising number of religious folk, science folk, psychologists, ecologists, and philosophical intellectuals are embracing it for its integral style of looking at things. Whitehead's organic, relational, layered views of the world and how we know it are a breath of fresh air and provide a compelling, increasingly influential alternative to the breathless oppositions between materialistic science and creed-based religion, and the reductionist, causal closure shared by both. The problem understanding Whitehead (which is so evident in this book) is two fold. His dense, systematic writing is the first problem you run up against, and it can stop philosophers themselves in their tracks. But even more problematic is that he questions foundational aspects of western materialism, matter/soul dualism, mechanical views of causality, obsession with certainty and completion, and so much more that has been baked into western paradigms (both religious and scientific) for millennia. It's a paradigm shift and you sort of have to bear the confusing upheaval Whitehead undertakes, until, at last, you can understand it all at once and intuit how it works and how it fits with our actual immediate sense of the fractally complex world. So secondary sources like Segall or Keller, are the place to start for most. Arthur F. Holmes (rest in peace) is one of the contributors to this book. He rejects what he believes is a down graded idea of God’s activity and power by PT. However, I know for fact that Holmes was deeply enamored with Whitehead’s basic holistic epistemology and process metaphysics. Holmes was my main undergraduate philosophy teacher in the 1970s. He often ended a section by appealing to Whitehead’s more organic approach to the world and our knowledge of it. During the 1970s he was deeply appreciative of Whitehead and PP, and while he was a classical theist, he found much to enjoy about Whitehead’s broad phenomenological approach to knowledge and reality. Holmes was my first contact with PP. Nevertheless, I think for Holmes, being a traditional theist, the deep restructuring PT undertakes was just too much. Nevertheless, Holmes taught me to think about things in Whitehead’s 'upside-down' manner. For this I am deeply grateful. To classical theists, I would say that PT (while you will not agree with cert