I want to share some reflections on process thought, known as process theology when applied to God and religion.  The architect for process thought (or, process philosophy) is Alfred North Whitehead, the brilliant English-born mathematician and philosopher.  His seminal book on process thinking is Process and Reality, published back in 1929.  As an essay on cosmology, this is by far the single most difficult book to understand I have ever encountered.  Nonetheless, Whitehead scholars continue to probe its teachings in an effort to help us understand ourselves and life here on planet earth.

Indeed, our primary ideas about reality–about life and the larger world in which we live out our lives–are important.  They help us understand and make sense of our everyday experience.  More still, they guide us in the ways we think about God (theology), Jesus (Christology), and life in general.

In my life, I have been deeply influenced by the ideas of process/relational modes of thought (an extension of process thought), garnered largely from the teachings of Bernard M. Loomer, a professor of mine at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. 

Professor Loomer always emphasized five foundational ideas/principles that describe reality.  It should be noted that these principles (he called them elephantine principles) are not the end-all of cosmological reflection and truth.  Nonetheless, they are a place to start.  These five ideas/principles are for me, at this time, the most adequate ideas for understanding the universe that I know.  These ideas are:

Process.  The truth of the world is that life is in process.  Along with the universe (birthed some 13.8 billion years ago), our lives are constantly unfolding and evolving.  They are in process; they are decidedly not static.  This is true for all of life–our relationships, communities and groups of all kinds, and for any life-situation we might find ourselves in.  All of life is forever in process, always involved in a process of becoming.  Notably, this  is also true of God.  God is not static, or unchanging, as traditional Christianity likes to affirm.  Indeed, like the universe, God is always in process, constantly evolving–to the point where we can say God is constantly transcending God’s self.  

Relationality.  Life is relational.  To be sure, individuals are literally formed and shaped by their relations.  Our relations define who we are.  Indeed, we become human beings in relationship to other human beings and to God.  In this sense, we are fundamentally relational and social creatures.  A relational view of life has significant meanings with regard to how we view the world.  Consider power, for example.  A relational view of power suggests that as individuals, we both influence and are influenced by the other or others.  We do not simply influence another person, in a unilateral sense, without being influenced ourselves.  The life of any social group (family, team, club, work situation etc.) is relational.  There is back-and-forth, ongoing interaction, learning and growing taking place all the time.

Relativity.  The truth of our lives is relative; it is relative to the particular experience of every form of life.  Every person has a perspective relative to his or her own experience and life context.  The relativity of our present life situation (or life context) says volumes about who we are in any given moment.  The saying, “we cannot really know a person unless we walk for a time in their shoes” applies here.  The reaches of relativity are seen in response to the question: In a church of one hundred people, how many theologies are there, and how many approaches to reading the Bible?  The answer is there are one hundred of each because each person’s theology or way of reading the Bible is relative to his or her own life experience. 

Ambiguity.  Life is ambiguous, which means the truth of or life experience has multiple meanings.  For example, our greatest strength as a person is often the source of our greatest weakness and vulnerability.  The ambiguity of life opens the slippery door of complexity in life.  Life is complicated.  Ambiguous meanings and nuances of understanding abound in the grip of the ongoing chaos, confusion, contradiction, and mystery of our shared lives.  In his writings, the great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr talked about “the ambiguity of the good”–noting how any advance in the good entails, as well, the possibility of greater evil.  An obvious example here would be nuclear energy.  While nuclear energy has many positive applications, it is also the basis for almost unimaginable destruction as seen in the nuclear bomb. 

Tentativity.  The truth of our lives (and of the world) is also marked by tentativity, which means it is not necessarily forever.  For example, how we feel or think today is not necessarily the way we are going to feel or think tomorrow, or next week, or next year.  The truth of our lives is tentative.  The tentativity of life reminds us of the importance of not making premature conclusions, not making too much of the moment–both for others and for ourselves.  We see this all the time in our relationships when we are often too quick to label people (even ourselves) in one way or another.  Always, it behooves us to remember that who we are today, at this moment, does not capture the totality of who we are in the process of becoming.  Why?  Because we are always changing, always evolving.  We are always in the process of becoming something more.

These ideas need to be understood in terms of adequacy as opposed to perfection criteria.  How adequate are they (not how perfect are they) in helping us understand the truth of our common human experience in the most expansive and general sense?  As you let these ideas settle in, you will readily note how they at time overlap and interrelate.    

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The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz is a retired United Church of Christ minister.  He had long-term pastorates in San Diego County and in Miami Lakes, Florida.  His service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama in the late sixties spurred his commitment to social justice ministries and to a spirit of ecumenism as a local church pastor.  He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Pacific School of Religion. He is also the author of The Bible You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In,  The God You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In, and his just-published book: The Jesus You Didn’t Know You Could Believe In. Dr. Frantz and his wife, Yvette, are now retired and living in Florida.