PROCESS
RELATIONAL
THEOLOGY:
An Outline
Structure
of these overheads
1. Definition and Historical
Background
2. Brief exposition of the
Process-Relational Metaphysical Vision
3. �God� and �Evil� in
Process-Relational Thought
4.
Creation and Original Sin
5.
Process Relational Trinitarian Theology
6.
Christology, Church and Sacraments
7.
Eschatology in Process-Relational
Perspective
8.
Intersections with Feminist and
Liberation Theologies
9.
Inter-religious and inter-cultural
dialogue (esp. Buddhism)
10. Process Relational Ecological
Theology
11. Facing up to some of the
problems
1.
Definition
and Historical Background
Process Theology =
theology making significant use of a certain
background theory or family of theories,
broadly described as �process-relational
thought�
Process-Relational
Thought, rather than Thomism or Neo-Thomism or
Transcendental Thomism or Phenomenological
Thomism, or Existentialism, or Critical
Theory, or whatever.
(For one rendition
of this �background theory�, see next
section.)
Sources for
accessing material on the History of Process
Theology:
�
Appendix B, �A Guide to the
Literature�, pp. 163 � 189 of John B. Cobb,
Jr., and David Ray Griffin, Process
Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Christian
Journals Ltd., Belfast, 1976).
�
Bernard M. Loomer, �Process
Theology: Origins, Strengths, Weaknesses�, Process
Studies, Volume 16, No. 4, Winter 1987,
pp. 245-254.
Brief Historical Sketch:
Herakleitos,
Plato
Nietzsche,
William James, Samual Alexander, Henri Bergson
Alfred
North Whitehead
(
Religion
in the Making (1926), Science and the Modern
World (1927 � chapter on God), Process and
Reality (1929, esp. Part V), Adventures of
Ideas, Modes of Thought
Empirical School
Rationalistic
�
Henry
Nelson Weiman
Charles Hartshorne (Divine
Relativity 1948)
�
Daniel Day Williams
Schubert Ogden
�
Bernard Loomer
John Cobb
�
Bernard Meland
�
Bernard Lee S.M.
Empirical in two senses:
1) method
2) defn
of God =
�the Force in the
universe
for healing and
transformation�
�
John
Cobb, David Ray Griffin, Marjorie Suchocki
�
And
their graduate students e.g.
Catherine Keller, Jay McDaniel and lots of
others.
FURTHER
DEVELOPMENTS
INCLUDE:
�
The Leuven/Louvain School i.e. Jan Van der Veken
and Andre Cloots
and their graduate students (since mid 1970�s)
�
Dialogue with Buddhism, extension
into
�
There has been a strong feminist
cross-over (Suchocki, Mary Elizabeth Moore,
Catherine Keller, Sheila Daveney, Judith Jones
at Fordham, Carol Christ, Nancy Howell and
Karen Baker Fletcher) and an early dialogue
with social and liberation theologies.
�
Process people were very quickly
into ecology and environmentalism, esp. John
Cobb and Charles Birch. Lately Jay McDaniel
and Daniel Dombrowski.
�
Elsewhere:
�
The Process Thought movement has
lately become much more internationalized,
cross-disciplinary, cross-denominational
and cross-cultural, and also more pluralistic,
less strictly Whiteheadian, and from physics
through consciousness studies to education,
psychology and theology, no longer borne along
only by theologians but with theologians still
playing a major role. It
has turned into a cross-disciplinary matrix
for people meeting together from all kinds of
disciplines from all over the place. The
last three international conferences were in
�
Process Theology began, more or
less, as a cutting edge
possibility within mainstream liberal
Protestantism, but with occasional
Anglican/Episcopalian and the very occasional
Roman Catholic.
It has recently become more ecumenical
in its contacts and personnel, including
Orthodox and Evangelical.
�
Main Roman Catholic process
relational theologians probably Bernard Lee
S.M. and, lately, especially Joseph Bracken
S.J. (his latest The One in the Many,
Eerdmans,
�
There has also been a fairly strong dialogue
with and cross-over into Analytic Philosophy
of Religion, the charge lead by David Ray
Griffin (esp. Reenchantment
without Supernaturalism: A Process
Philosophy of Religion, Cornell,
Key Web Sites for
Bibliographical and other Information:
www.alfred.north.whitehead.com
These will take you
to other possibly useful sites.
Very Select
Bibliography
Bracken, Joseph
A., S.J.
The
Triune Symbol: Persons, Process and
Community.
Cobb, John B.,
Jr., and David Ray Griffin. Process
Theology: An Introductory Exposition.
Ford, Lewis S. The Lure
of God: A Biblical Background for Process
Theism. Fortress Press,
Keller,
Catherine.
From
a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and the
Self. Beacon
Press,
McDaniel, Jay B. Of God
and Pelicans: A Theology of Reverence for
Life. Westminster/John Knox Press,
Mesle, C. Robert. Process
Theology: A Basic Introduction. Chalice
Press,
Ogden, Schubert
Miles. The
Reality of God and Other Essays. Harper
and Row, N.Y., 1977.
Suchocki,
Marjorie Hewitt.
God-Christ-Church:
A Practical Guide to Process Theology.. Crossroad,
N.Y., 1982.
Revised version 1989.
Van der Veken,
Jan, editor.
God
and Change: Process Thought and the
Christian Doctrine of God.
Young, Henry
James. Hope in
Process: A Theology of Social Pluralism. Fortress
Press,
For more, see Center for
Process Studies website, an older
version of which is included on the CD
(�probibr.doc�).
2. Brief exposition of the
Process-Relational Metaphysical Vision
�
A
re-visionary metaphysics (versus merely
descriptive): a new way of visioning things.
�
Compatible
with
and inspired by contemporary sciences,
without being scientistic: it attempts to
overcome all the modern dualisms, towards �a
coherent, logical, necessary system of
general ideas in terms of which every
element of our experience might be
interpreted� including ethical, artistic and
religious experiences, as well as those
which motivate the natural sciences.
�
A
revisionary metaphysics which thinks of
reality in terms of connected events,
happenings or processes
�
a
web consisting of strings of related
happenings, nested processes, rather than
things or enduring substances with changing
properties: a unity of process or project
rather than a unity of substances
�
A
revisionary metaphysics which is strongly
relational, without being holistic or
totalizing:
�
Everything
i.e. every
happening takes account of its environment,
to a greater or lesser extent but also in
its own peculiar way and as quality of event
increases more or less creatively.
�
A
revisionary metaphysics which is into
creativity in a fairly
big way, everything a little bit
creative, to be at all is to make a
difference, however slight. There
are no vacuous actualities,
�
though
one needs to distinguish genuine
�individuals�, e.g. electronic happenings,and
�compound individuals� e.g. human
happenings, from
�aggregates�, e.g. stones, telephones,
billiard balls, which latter may give the
appearance of �vacuity� and submit
themselves to (nearly) deterministic laws
(see later).
�
Not
necessarily
�pan-psychist� or �pan-experientialists�,
though it comes also in panpsychists and panexperientialist
versions.
The key ingredient here is the denial
of vacuous actualities, on which all sides
agree.
�
In
Summary, so far:
Everything is a more or less creative
taking into account of its total past
environment (including its own past) and a
giving of itself to be taken into account by
the future of that environment (including its
own future) (where
�it� has the continuity, at best, of a project
or process or series of more or less tightly
connected happenings)
Less
anthropomorphically stated:
Everything is constituted out of
happenings or processes of reception,
transformation and transmission of something
like energy and information from total past
environment to total future environment.
That is to say: everything is a more
or less creative environmentally sensitive
happening, or else a connected series or
more or less integrated �nexus�
of such happenings.
�
A revisionary metaphysics which
thinks in terms of different levels of
natural event, as proportional to:
�
The quality and extent of reception
and transformation,
�
And the likely effectiveness, into
the future environment, of the transmission.
Whether all genuine individuals of
whatever level or quality are
sub-microscopic is however a matter of
vigorous debate.
�
A revisionary metaphysics which
thinks of Human Beings, in this context,
as high grade
natural events, different in degree, not in
kind, from the others, which emerge more or
less naturally in certain complex
environments (under the lure of the
Goodness, Truth and Beauty which is God). (This
puts process relational metaphysics in a
very strong position towards solving the
mind-brain problem and numbers of process
scholars have done serious work on this:
consciousness is no big deal,
we are way beyond Cartesian dualism.)
�
The difference from other such
natural events, including (most, almost
all?) other high grade natural events, is
that we human beings are among that part of
nature which knows itself as an emergent,
creatively interacting part of nature, and
with
that knowledge comes, among other things, responsibility
for the quality of that more
or less creative interaction with
each other and with the natural world.
�
This opens up
the serious need for a social and
environmental ethic to guide the human project
conceived as an emergent, creatively
interacting part of nature consisting of
individuals-in-relationship who depend on the
quality of their relationships social and
natural in order to be who they are. However,
it doesn�t specify exactly how we do the
ethic.
For much, much
more, see Introduction to Process
Philosophy (following Hartshorne), �fulpro3r.doc�,
plus the paper Bgsml2k2.doc, entitled �Big
Things from Small Things?�, also available off
www.alfred.north.whitehead.com
in the journal Concrescence.
For an article on
the connection between 20th Century
process metaphysics and the philosophy of
Plato, see my article whitplatr.doc, also
among the discussion papers on www.alfred.north.whitehead.com
.
3. �God� and �Evil� in Process
Relational Thought
(A) �God� in Process-Relational
Thought
Minimal:
immanent and
Transcendent
resources
In the
Cosmic Process
Cf. R. Mesle, �Process
Naturalism�
PROCESS
The
Lure to
THEISMS
Goodness,
Truth and
Beauty/�the
force in
The universe for healing
And transformation�
Maximal:
various
Possibilities:
�
Whitehead
�
Cobb/Suchocki
�
Hartshorne/Griffin
�
Van der Veken
�
Joseph Bracken
�
Carol Christ
Generally Agreed by all Process
Theists:
A God Who
Affects All and is Affected by All, and
Who Persuades rather than Determines, A
God who is genuinely compassionate and not
just metaphorically so.
Usually alleged, by process
theists inspired by either Whitehead or
Hartshorne:
A
God with a two-fold or sometimes
three-fold Nature: i.e.
Primordial,
Consequent,
and
Projective/Superjective.
�
Primordial:
the element within God�s affecting the universe which is
unconditioned, primordial and self-chosen: God
as Principle of Limitation (or focus) and
Principle of Possibilities and of Novelty, =
God as Creator (usually not creatio ex nihilo). This
makes a universe in the sense of a Cosmos
possible, sets up the boundary conditions
within which the universe happens but also opens up possibilities
within the universe as it happens.
�
Consequent: the
universe as it happens received in its
completeness by God, creatively taken up into
God�s life = in the Christian mystery, the
passion and death of the Christ, followed by
the resurrection and ascension of the
crucified Christ into the life of God, he has
borne our iniquities, he has carried all our
sins�
�
Projective
or Superjective: the flowing-back
into the universe, the Divine Creative
Response = in the Christian mystery, the
descent of the Holy Spirit, in consequence of
the passion, death, resurrection and ascension
of the Christ.
Which
is
to say that God is also a fundamentally
relational Process of Reception, Creative
Transformation and Transmission (even apart
from the Trinity),
But that God is ground of the
Cosmic Process in the first place, without
which there would be 
no
Cosmos,
not just creative receiver and
moulder of the Cosmic Process as it happens
(though that also).
Which is to say: God =
Creative-Responsive Love
Process Pan-en-theism:
rather
than pantheism or classical theism
�
God is immanent in the World,
involved in the self-constitution of every
actual entity (= God as Primordial, the
�primordial nature� of God)
�
The World is immanent in God,
taken up into and making
a contribution to God (= God as
Consequent, the �consequent nature� of God)
�
But God is not everything and
everything is not God: God = an Eternal Event
in His/Her own
right (Whitehead) or a personal series of such
Divine Events (Hartshorne); and
every event in the cosmos has an integrity of
its own, self-creative, self-contained, though
�containing� God and �contained in� God, taken
up into God so to speak immediately after it
happens, �objectively immortal�.
Note on Divine Action:
�
For process relational metaphysics
generally, the ultimate laws of nature, i.e. the laws that
govern individuals of whatever level or
quality and also �compound individuals� (like
us) are all probabilistic rather than
deterministic.
It is only aggregates which admit to
(nearly) deterministic laws.
�
All action of individuals on
individuals is manifested, thus, as a shifting
of
probabilities, e.g.
high grade natural events we call �mental�
events shifting the probabilities of the
firing of neurons in various segments of the
brain.
�
Divine action is modelled in
somewhat similar fashion, the Divine Lure or
Divine Initial Aims as bringing about a
shifting of probabilities which sets the
cosmic process up in the first place, without
which there is no cosmos.
�
Inside this general shifting of
probabilities there can be a localized
shifting of probabilities where for one reason
or another the Divine Lure gets to be
intensified.
Debate
with Classical Theism:
Since the early days, there has
been a fairly vigorous
debate with miscellaneous Thomists and
neo-Thomists and such, taking each other quite
seriously.
This has focussed mainly on the problem
of whether and in what senses God is
immutable, with process people insisting that
God is compassionate in a literal, not just
metaphorical sense.
But one must understand that the
process people are not saying there are no
senses in which God does not change. Some
distinctions have to
be made, in the direction of what Hartshorne
and others term �Dipolar Theism�, also
Neo-Classical Theism.
Fundamentally, we need to make a
distinction between the Divine Existence and
the Divine Actuality:
�
The
Divine Existence is necessary and eternal: there has to be a God, but
�
The
Divine Actuality, what God is in the concrete,
what kind of God there is, is dependent on the
primordial divine decisions, decisions made by
various items in the Cosmos and God�s creative
redemptive response to those decisions.
Thus, for example, God will always
and by necessity know everything there is to
be known (= omniscience), but what God knows
will depend on what there is to be known which
depends to some extent on us.
This distinction however expresses
itself differently with respect to change
depending on the kind of attribute we are
considering:
The
sense
or senses in which 'change' might be
predicated of the Divine Reality.
FOLLOWING HARTSHORNE,
WE NEED TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN
ETHICAL
ATTRIBUTES: THE
DIVINE REALITY IS RELIABLY and
IMMUTABLY LOVE AND MERCY AND FIDELITY
though how this is displayed
will depend on
the goings on of the creatures.
It is not claimed that
the ethical attributes themselves undergo
change, just the manner of their display,
which will inevitably be contingent on the
goings on of the creatures, welcoming the
sinner back, affirming the saint.
COGNITIVE
ATTRIBUTES: God will always know
everything there is to be known, but WHAT GOD
KNOWS WILL DEPEND ON WHAT THERE IS, WHICH
DEPENDS TO SOME EXTENT ON intrinsically
unpredictable CREATIVITY WITHIN THE WORLD
PROCESS i.e. the
Divine Reality is passive to some extent in
respect of what God knows, though not
necessarily in the manner in which God knows
it.
and
AESTHETIC
ATTRIBUTES: WHAT THE DIVINE
REALITY ENJOYS (AND 'SUFFERS') once again WILL
DEPEND TO SOME EXTENT ON WHAT IS THERE TO
ENJOY AND SUFFER, which WILL DEPEND TO SOME
EXTENT ON THE CREATIVE PROCESS ITSELF.
That is to say, God
will always and of necessity know and
enjoy/suffer everything just as it is and
creatively and lovingly respond, AND THIS IS
RELIABLE ALSO AND IMMUTABLE AND NECESSARY AND
ETERNAL, but there will be still a kind of
increase in what God knows and in what it is
God enjoys and suffers.
That is to say: creation makes a
difference to what God knows and to what God
enjoys and suffers, though God will always
know everything there is to be known and will
prehend everything with all its feeling
content, rejoice with those who rejoice,
suffer with those who suffer.
But with ethical attributes it�s
only the manifestation which changes, not the
attribute itself, we do not necessarily say
God loves more or is more faithful or more
compassionate.
In general, God is being modelled
as a perfect personal reality, rather
than just as perfect reality. It
is presumed that personal realities and even
more so perfect personal realities will
manifest certain perfect intrinsically
relational attributes in the most perfect
possible manner. It is this fact which is necessary
about God, but the necessity of this very fact
makes certain kinds of changes in God not only
inevitable but part of what it is for God to
be perfect.
3. �God� and �Evil� in Process
Relational Perspective:
(B)
NEO-CLASSICAL/
PROCESS THEISM ON THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
(mainly
This is so closely
intertwined with the Process Relational
thinking about God and debate with Classical
Theism, that we may as well do it now.
(a)Instead of keeping
omnipotence as traditionally defined, and
trying to reconcile it with goodness in the
face of evil,
�
Give up omnipotence as
a theological mistake (Hartshorne, Omnipotence
and Other Theological Mistakes (S.U.N.Y.,
1984)
�
Or else redefine it
(Griffin, God, Power and Evil 1976, Evil
Revisited, 1991), using the
difficulty of the classical problem of evil as
a further argument for seeing omnipotence in
another way, for which interpretation there
are also other reasons, having to do with the
development of a more critical and more New
Testament concept of 'power' and 'the
perfection of power'.
Omnipotence does not
mean a power not limited by anything else, or
a capacity to do whatever is logically
possible.
The perfection of power is persuasive,
responsive love rather than despotic
determination of all the details.
(b) A second move made
by Process Theism is the extension of
creativity and initiative in the universe
beyond the human realm, effectively to all of
creation.
The Free Will Defence is extended, to
become the
Free Process Defence. (This has
since been taken up by others, e.g. Polkinghorne,
and some so-called Free-Will Theists.)
God may be cosmically persuasive but God is
not and provided there is creation at all
cannot be the only source of creativity in the
universe. Indeed
everything has some degree of initiative, not
only human beings but even sub-atomic
particles, to be is to play a part; many
players, indeed all the players, or at least
all genuine individuals, make a contribution
to the cosmic process.
(c) A third
consideration deployed by many process
thinkers is that what we call evil takes a
variety of different forms and derives from a
variety of different sources.
Much evil is disorder,
disharmony, rather than privation;
though there is also the evil of boredom and
lack of achievement.
Some of these evils
result from the creativity and initiative of
created agents, deliberately introduced into
the drama so to speak; some evils on the other
hand are no one's fault, the unpredictable
result of different initiatives.
The work of the Divine
is a necessary condition for any cosmos
whatsoever, and God presides over the cosmic
process at it goes along. The
Divine lure is everywhere pervasive and
cosmically and eternally persuasive,
but does not fully determine the
nature of the cosmos in actual fact.
For further on God
and Evil in Process Relational Perspective,
see proevilr.doc, the document version of a
paper on my website, at www.mpx.com.au/~gjmoses
. This
includes an analysis of God�s dealing with
evil in terms of the Primordial, Consequent
and Superjective
Natures, and also
an evaluation of how well Process Relational
Theism might do with both Consistency
and Inference problems of evil.
(Consistency: probably good enough; Inference:
not as pure philosophy, requires a strong
theological supplement, which, however,
process theologians can provide.)
Some of the notes in the
Philosophy of Religion unit on my website are
also relevant to this module.
4.
Creation and Original Sin
(A) Theology of
Creation
�
The
process-relational
background theory in its classic forms allows
for a fairly strong
doctrine of God as Creator, though not as
strong as the tradition. God
is that Happening or those Happenings without
which the universe would be bereft of a
Principle of Limitation and of Possibility and
Novelty.
What would be there would be utter,
unspeakable, unknowable chaos, something like
the pre-Big Bang primeval quantum soup but
without governance by the laws of Quantum
Theory or any other laws. There
would be literally nothing to speak of,
Nothing Happening, though not quite absolutely
nothing.
This is probably quite a good evocation
of the tehom, the
tohu wa vohu, the formless
void, the deep, the waters of Genesis.
�
Nor
is this just an event way back in the
beginning: the Divine Lure enters into the
self-constitution of every actual entity. And
in the light of the Christian Mystery, the
life, suffering, death, resurrection and
ascension of the Christ and the coming of the
Holy Spirit, we know this to be not just
primordial but also consequent and projective.
The
cosmos, and life plant animal and human and
all its joy and suffering is received by God,
taken up into the Divine Life and this is
projected back into the world, making the
Divine Lure not just a generalized lure to
goodness, truth and beauty but also a
principle of healing and personal and communal
and cosmic transformation.
�
This
doctrine
may be authentically Biblical, but it is not
yet the traditional doctrine of creatio ex
nihilo, (whether interpreted as in
Augustine and most of the tradition as
creation with no pre-existing material, or in
a more neo-Platonic emanationist manner as creatio ex Deo). Against
this
objection, process theologians would respond:
1) creatio ex
nihilo is not the Biblical doctrine but an
invention of late second century theology in
dispute with the Gnostics and Manichees and various
Platonic philosophies, including an element of
my God is bigger than your God competition; 2)
creatio ex nihilo
makes God ultimately responsible for
absolutely everything, which severely
complicates the Problem of Evil to say the
least.
�
Catherine
Keller,
The Face of the Deep, is probably the
most brilliant literary, poetic, theological
and deeply imaginative contemporary process
relational theology of creation. Keller
makes the important point that chaos is not to
be regarded as some kind of evil principle. Creation
is an act of love, the Spirit hovering over
the Waters is �Tehom-o-philic�, not �Tehom-o-phobic�, and
the best of creativity typically happens on
the Edge of Chaos. Evil
comes from too much order as well as too much
chaos. See
above.
�
In spite of
this, some people influenced otherwise by
process thinking do try to enhance the
doctrine to glorify God a bit more, 1) by
making God the creator also of the cosmic soup
and/or 2) by re-thinking the relationship
between Creativity and God.
�
The
other problem with classic process relational
theology of creation is that it tends to make
creation metaphysically necessary, something
God has to do in
order to be God, in order to have a Consequent
Nature at all for the sake of being a
fully-fledged Actual Entity (or series of
such). To
my mind this tends to make God a little bit
parasitic on creation, makes it somewhat less
than an act of gracious love. To
my mind also, however, Trinitarian Process
Theism need not have this problem.
(B) Original
Sin and the Coming of the Reign of God
�
Of course, God does not have it
all God�s own way, and indeed process people
recently have managed to produce quite a
strong doctrine of Original Sin, as a deeply
ingrained systemic structural corruption of
the relational matrix by taking account of
which people have to
constitute themselves.
�
In process relational thought,
where we have no alternative but to constitute
ourselves on the basis of
the total past environment, this can be really
serious business. This can be so powerful in
certain concrete situations as to make even
the best action possible, the concrete lure of
God in this horrible situation, merely the
better of two or more evils.
�
It�s into this mess that the Reign
of God intervenes, constituting a powerful
focussing of the Divine Lure and a new
grace-filled relational matrix in the context
of which genuine goodness and grace-filled
living once again become possible.
�
The basics of such an approach are
to be found already in
5. Process Trinitarian Theology
or its lack thereof.
�
Attitude
on the Doctrine of the Trinity
varies quite a lot, in a spectrum from
�
Unitarianians like
Hartshorne or Whitehead,
�
To
sometimes
tri-theistic sounding Eastern Church like
Trinitarians (Bracken)
�
Also a
variation between people who stick close to
the metaphysical base in their theology, and
other people who are prepared to renovate the
metaphysical base for the sake, among other
things, of better theology (e.g. Bracken).
�
Buddhistic
versions of the metaphysics have also been
deployed to good effect, in the construction
of Trinitarian theologies: each Person is
constituted by the self-gift of the others,
each is what it is in relation to the others. The
Trinity is an example of Realized Emptiness,
the perfect realization therefore of
completeness and fulness of life.
�
Cf.
John
Bretz, for details.
Comments on
Process Relational Thought and Trinitarian
Theology:
�
The
three-fold
structure of primordial, consequent and
projective turns out to be less useful for
Trinitarian theology than might be thought at
first sight: these describe
God-in-relationship-to-creation or
creation-in-relationship to God rather than a
structure within God.
�
What
is
more useful is the fundamentally relational
character of every actual entity, which in God becomes
unrestricted and which in the Divine case can
easily be pushed in the direction of the
ancient idea of perichoresis or circum-incession: each person
constitutes itself and is constituted on the
basis of a totally open completely
unrestricted actively receptive relationship
with the other two. There
is no negative prehension in God: what is
received is taken up and what is taken up is
creatively responded to and in turn received
and taken up�
�
Bracken
gains
further clarity in the direction of preserving
the Divine unity with the introduction into
process conceptuality of the notion of Fields
equiprimordial
with the Events which constitute themselves on
their basis and which in turn co-constitute
the Fields out of which their successors draw. This
leads eventually to the notion of three Series
of Divine Events (a person = a series of
events or happenings) in unrestricted
relationship constituting themselves on the basis of and
co-constituting one Divine Field of Activity
which in turn constitutes the final
environment for all Cosmic happenings: three
Persons in One God, with operations ad extra
always involving all three persons. [But a lot
of process people don�t like the extra
ontological baggage.]
�
It
is
just possible to go one step better and actually produce a Christianized almost
neo-platonic ancient style Trinity with
process relational conceptuality. The Word and
Wisdom of God is the total reception within
God of the Primordial Envisagement of Eternal
Objects = God�s �Primordial Nature� = the
ancient Logos or Sophia, now as an event or
series of process relational happenings within
God; and the Spirit is constituted in turn by
the reception within God of the love between
the Creator and the Word
�
I
suspect the low status given to the doctrine
of the Trinity in Process Theology in its
classical phrases has more to do with the
mostly liberal protestant background of the
key people involved, rather than with the
background theory as such. But
it might also have something to do with the
fact that the background theory was originally
constructed by Unitarians.
�
Once Trinity is introduced
it becomes possible to recoup into Process
Theology the Jewish Christian Islamic
experience of the graciousness of Creation
while still having an intrinsically relational
personal God.
Without Trinity, Creation becomes a
kind of necessity in
order for God to be a fully-fledged
personal reality, though not necessarily this
creation.
For Process Theologians on
Trinity, see
Trinity in Process edited
Marjorie Suchocki and Joseph Bracken,
Continuum, N.Y., 1997.
Joe Bracken�s latest = The One
in the Many, Eerdmans,
5. Christology,
Church, Sacraments
(a)
Christology
and Incarnation
The problem for Process thinkers
is not that incarnation is difficult to
understand but that it happens all over the
place. To
quote John Cobb:
�God is present in the most
literal sense in every creaturely occasion. In
human beings, God is a source of novelty, of
purpose, of meaning, of openness to others, of
freedom, of responsibility, and of much else
besides.
Far from diminishing our humanity, God
is the giver of that humanity. The
more fully God is present, the more fully we
are human.� (From �What is the meaning of the
�incarnation� from the process perspective�, Center for Process
Studies, January 2001: www.ctr4process.org )
The issue, then, is to determine
what if anything makes the incarnation of God
in Christ so unique, given that God is
implicated in the constitution of every
actuality.
Various levels of answers can be
given:
1) That the Christ event as a whole, the
life, passion, death, resurrection and
ascension of the Christ and the coming of the
Holy Spirit, is the modelling and revelation
of who God is for us, God�s Word about God:
cf. above.
Compare Hegel, History as God�s
2) That Jesus� �subjective aim�
aligns so closely moment by moment with the
Divine initial aims for Jesus
moment by moment (i.e. the divine Creative
Responsive Love in Jesus� case, �my Father�s
will�), that Jesus� personality can be said to
be �co-constituted� by the Divine initial aim
and Jesus� subjective aim. This
is what makes Jesus the Christ, Cobb�s name
for the Word or Wisdom Incarnate; but at the
same time fully human, indeed �the more fully
God is present, the more fully human�. Thus
Cobb, who thinks this might even be enough by
itself to make him a Chalcedonian Christian.
3)
In addition, God�s will for Jesus is
specific and somewhat unique, to focus the
Divine Lure in a special way so as to inaugurate the
Reign of God, and to be the model par
excellence and revelation of who God is for
us, God�s Word about God. So
that it is not as if Jesus just does better at
what we all have to
do. Thus an addition to the
schema from David Griffin.
(b)
The Christian Community, Church and
Sacraments
�
Jesus� life and work and the
community of disciples around Jesus brings
about a focussing and local intensification of
the Divine Lure, to such an extent as even to
shift the probabilities of certain kinds of
events occurring:
demons are cast out, the blind see, the lame
walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised
and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
�
The Reign of God continues
in the Christian community of disciples,
extending the focussing and local
intensification of the Divine Lure throughout
history and in every place and time. Preaching,
prayer and sacraments combine to keep the
focussing alive in the community of disciples,
as does Christian community life of charity,
constituting the community of believers itself
as a grace-filled relational matrix out of
which believers and others may draw and to
which believers in turn contribute.
Thus the
basic structure, as related to the �background
theory�.
7. Eschatology in
Process-Relational Thought
(a)Individual: prospects
of life after death
There are a wide variety of
positions taken by Whitehead influenced
process thinkers on the matter of life after
death.
�
Whitehead was strongly into 'objective
immortality', the life of a person
continuing to function after biological death
within the social and cosmic process and
especially via its 'objectification' within
God. Roughly, the effect that the life
continues to make to the people and world left
behind, and especially the contribution of
that human life to the Consequent Nature of
God.
This is more than just memory as
we might think of it, but still not subjective
immortality in the sense of the
continuance beyond death of the same conscious
series. Whitehead himself was officially
neutral in respect of the latter.
�
Hartshorne is also very strong on
objective immortality but strongly
against subjective immortality in
the sense above defined. He thinks it rather
selfish as well as unlikely and thinks we can
and ought to be satisfied with contributing eternally to
God.
�
Marjorie Suchocki and Lewis Ford
opt for subjective immortality as well, but in
the sense of the preservation of the
life of a person in God in its full
'subjective immediacy', as it was
felt from the inside, not only objectively,
rather than a continuation of the same series.
This requires some rather subtle but for
insiders also rather sophisticated moves
within process metaphysics.
This then becomes a crucial element within
Marjorie Suchocki�s theodicy and eschatology.
�
Jan Van der Veken along similar
lines argues for the notion of 'personal
immortality', immortality of the person
in God. Just as the 10
year old lives on in the 65 year old,
so even more strongly does the 65 year old
live on in God.
�
Finally, David Griffin
has for a while and continues to make strong
argument in favour
of subjective immortality in the
readily intelligible sense of the
continuance of the same series of mental
events beyond biological death. This is
in addition to the normal process apparatus of
objective immortality.
More recently,
�
For references, see my online
paper on God and Evil.
(b) Communal
and Cosmic Eschatology
�
This is commonly regarded by
even sympathetic outsiders as a considerable
weakness within process theology. There is no
guarantee that everything will work out in the
end, that one day God will be All-In-All. There
are just too many other players, all playing a
role, to be at all is to play a part. This
helps out with the
problem of evil but seems to cut off any
genuine communal or cosmic eschatology. We
could just as easily wipe ourselves out, for
example, bring the human project to a
pre-mature end.
�
Process people, including
Henry James Young the Black Liberation
Theology, have reconciled themselves to this,
arguing that it accentuates our level of
genuine responsibility, and the participation
of the oppressed in their own liberation:
�We
must avoid thinking that ultimately the future
lies in the hands of God and that somehow God
will ensure victory. The
thought that God will not allow humanity to
destroy itself perpetuates a false sense of
security.
God�s role is not to coerce humanity
into conformity with God�s ultimate plan. God
insures humanity
continued participation in the struggle for
liberation. And God�s redemption and grace are
inexhaustible; meaning that God never abandons
humanity because of its sinfulness. God�s
love and patience are inexhaustible�
�This
vision of God serves as the basis of
eschatological hope. It is not idealism or
escapism, nor is it false optimism; rather, it
represents a realistic approach to
eschatological hope� .�
(from Contemporary
Philosophy, Vol. XII, No. 9, p. 30.)
�
One possible resolution
might be to adapt John Hick�s argument against
the factual existence of a populated
everlasting hell, relying precisely on the
fact that God�s love and patience are inexhaustible and that
God never gives up. While
it is logically possible for us to keep our
distance and continue to reject, in the long
run it is highly unlikely.
�
It may be that the best
contribution from Process Theologians to
thinking about eschatology is in critical
mode: Catherine Keller�s strident and very
literate analysis and critique of traditional
and contemporary apocalypticism, in Apocalypse
Now and Then.
8. Intersections
with Feminist and Liberation Theologies
�
Process Relational Thinking has
been feminist-friendly from early on, this
owed as much probably to the outgoing,
cutting-edge liberal protestant background as
to the background theory of its classic
proponents cf. John Cobb in Cobb and Tracy, Talking
about God.
�
As already noted, there has been a
strong feminist cross-over, the more prominent
people including Marjorie Suchocki, Mary
Elizabeth Moore, Catherine Keller, Sheila
Daveney, Judith Jones a philosopher at
Fordham, Carol Christ, Nancy Howell and Karen
Baker Fletcher, who is a black womenist theologian
something of a prot�g� of Catherine Keller.
�
For feminist theologians, there
are a number of
different sources of attraction:
o Process-Relational models of the
Divine: God imaged as Dipolar, who is
thoroughly relational affecting all and
affected by all and not at all a macho-male
pater omnipotens,
a God who enjoys our joys and suffers our
pains, as much
mother, sister, brother, friend, �fellow
sufferer�.
o The reconciliation of
relationality and individuality/personal
autonomy, of dependence and creativity, which
the conceptuality enables
o The critique of power
o The ecological potential of the
schema.
�
See Process Thought and Human
Existence notes for more on some of these.
�
Some of the feminists stay fairly close to the
classic process themes, whereas others are
very creative indeed, combining all kinds of
critical influences � especially Keller. With
just about everyone, of course, it is critical
appropriation, not just holus
bolus acceptance.
o With Liberation Theologies it has
been more of a desire to be friendly from the
Process side, but with a degree of suspicion
from the other side, just another middle-class
North American theory.
o Process Relational Theology has
done slightly better, however, with North
American Black Liberation and North American Black
Womenist Theory.
o One advantage of the Process
Relational schema as background theory for
liberationist theologies is that it is not at
all touched by the fall of Marxism and Real
Existing Socialism.
o There has been very strong
critique of economic rationalism and the
dangers of contemporary totalizing corporate
globalism coming out of the process tradition
� see Bibliography.
9.
Inter-religious
and inter-cultural dialogue
�
John Cobb in particular has from
early on been interested in inter-religious
dialogue, initially with Japanese Buddhism
(his parents were Methodist missionaries to
Japan after all), with Abe Masao as his chief
dialogue partner.
�
Recently, he has extended
his efforts to Christian-Jewish dialogue, and
more recently, for obvious reasons, made a
determined effort to open up Christian-Moslem
dialogue
�
The Christian-Buddhist
dialogue has also been a happening among the
�
The more obvious cross-overs:
o The Buddhist no-self
doctrine, and its general anti-substantialist,
eventist attitude.
o Co-dependent origination. The
main difference here is that the 20th
century process version has a more obvious
time-arrow.
�
Beyond this, John Cobb and
Jan Van der Veken have independently worked
themselves into the position that we need to
distinguish at least two species of Ultimate:
Metaphysical Ultimate: e.g. the One, Being
itself subsisting, Whitehead�s Creativity,
Heidegger�s Being, the Absolute, the Buddhist
Nothingness/Sunyata
And the
Religious and Ethical
Ultimate: the Good, the principle of
rightness, the Primordial Qualification of
Creativity, the Infinite, God.
Cobb
comes to this out of his Whiteheadian
background and as a result of inter-religious
dialogue.
Jan Van der Veken is more influenced by
Continental philosophy, though also taking
account of the inter-religious implications.
�
The consequence of this for
inter-religious dialogue: it opens up the
possibility that e.g.
Christians and Buddhists are not so much
giving different answers to the same question,
as giving answers to different questions.
�
In inter-religious dialogue,
classic process people typically incline
towards pluralism, but Cobb seems to end up as
something more like a pluralistic inclusivist:
Buddhists might do better with the
metaphysical ultimate question, we might do
better with the religious and ethical ultimate
question, no need for us to give up anything
but we may have plenty to
learn. Whatever,
he is and remains a committed Christian.
8. Process Social and
Ecological Ethics: background
See also notes on Process
Thought and Human Existence (proche.doc). And,
of course, the articles on my website, also
on the CD as ecotheol2kr1.doc and
ecothohd.htm.
A Process Relational Theology is
a theology which gives strong support to both
social and ecological ethics
�
Because
of
its background theory
And
eventually
�
Because
of
the strong Christian Trinitarian Theism which
it can enable (esp. Joseph Bracken, but also
Peter Forrest and John Bretz)
�
Process social and
ecological ethics, is contingent, initially, on
the re-visioning of ourselves promoted by the
metaphysics, i.e. of us human beings as
(a)
intrinsically relational beings,
dependent for good or ill on the quality of
the interpersonal and social relational
matrix, and therefore caring of necessity for
the quality of that matrix, including its
systemic and structural features; and
(b)
with the natural
environment also as part of the social matrix
on the basis of
which we constitute ourselves
(c)
The notion of human beings
as a high grade
natural being among that part of nature which
knows
itself as an emergent, creatively
interacting part of nature, and which strives,
in that knowledge, to take on responsibility
for the quality of that more or less
creative interaction.
While
socially and ecologically aware, however, the
background theory is not socially and
ecologically totalizing:
�
I may be largely �the
ensemble of my social relations� (Marx)
but I am always and inevitably a more or less
creative way of taking account of my total
social and ecological relationality.
�
On the other hand,
individuality is very largely my peculiar, more or less creative
way of doing relationships.
This
seems to put both individuality and sociality
into fair balance and avoiding extreme
ecological reductionism, while yet strongly
making for care.
Beyond
this, there are, initially, two main ways we
might go:
(I) We might try to lean on the
process-relational version of the (Buddhist)
�No-Self� doctrine
�Self�
�Self�
I am everything that affects me
and everything I affect. There
is therefore no reason why concern should not
be generalized to include all elements which
affect me and which I affect:
:all boundaries both
social and natural are relativised � I don�t
end with my skin
:all boundaries are
permeable.
In rather less ego-centric, more
theological terms, all
reality is as the
Body of God (Hartshorne�s image
for expressing his pan-en-theism:
God is in everything and everything is in
God).
In such circumstances, loving the
Lord my God with all my heart and soul and
strength and mind, and loving neighbour and
everything else as myself are inevitably part
of the same story � on metaphysical grounds!
Advantage
�
Easy to communicate, and good on
the motivational level
�
Does have some Biblical basis
�
Does automatically provoke a care
for the �common good� both of societies and of
eco-systems, for the sake of the flourishing
of their membership, including ourselves
�
Sounds �Eastern� and mystical and
�New Age� (if these are advantages)
�
Easy to reconcile with David
Suzuki, and also
with some versions of Deep Ecology (notably
Arne Naess).
Disadvantage:
�
Tends to lack respect, i.e. respect for real
difference and genuine otherness, by merging
everything into the same pot. (Cf. Val Plumwood).
�
It seems to indicate an
insufficiently differentiated ontology,
reflected into an insufficiently
differentiated deontology.
Getting Ecological Ethics out of
it (continued):
the more usual way =
(II)
A much broader assignment of
�intrinsic value� as motivated by the
metaphysical vision
:Relying on certain
features of the metaphysical vision in order
to do two things:
�
Relying on the fact that we are
very much natural beings in
the midst of other natural beings to
motivate an extension of �Intrinsic Value�
well beyond the human sphere.
�
Relying on the differentiated
ontology to motivate differential assignment
of value.
�
The only problem will be with
respect to the �spill-over� into the human
sphere. If
this can be avoided, we should be all right.
Getting ecological ethics out of
it (cont�d)
Option II: leaning on the
metaphysics (cont�d)
(a)
Intrinsic versus
Instrumental Value,
assigned more widely
�
Intrinsic: value in and of itself, not just
because of its value to humans.
�
Also, value as an end, not just as
a means: this aspect determines what may have
instrumental value, namely anything that
enhances the �life� of something with
intrinsic value.
�
Extrinsic or Instrumental: value because of
and in proportion to its contribution to other
processes.
Value is assigned, on the basis of both
factors, with respect to a connected series of
natural events within a certain total context. E.g. a koala colony in
an old growth forest.
�
Some Process theoreticians assign
intrinsic value potentially to all genuine
individuals (versus just aggregates). That
is, the ontology projects directly onto a
de-ontology.
�
Others, in the interests of sanity
and conceivability, introduce a cut-off point,
e.g. anything which
feels, or has life.
(b)
Degrees
of Intrinsic Value,
Versus
Ecological
Egalitarianism /Ecological Democracy (as in
some forms of Deep Ecology)
= individual human beings,
dolphins, monkeys etc. have higher intrinsic
value than individual ants and worms
Problem 1: in the history of
human ethics, this is very unusual: for all
previous ethical theory whether virtue theory,
divine command, deontological, utilitarian,
every creature with intrinsic value, that is,
value as an end, not just as a means, counts
as one.
Problem 2: within the context of
respecting the environment: how
to avoid reverting to Anthropocentrism? Won�t
human
beings inevitably end up on top of the
hierarchy of intrinsic value? Once again, as
always...
Two
Considerations
for problem 2:
�
A high degree of instrumental value
can and usually does go with low degrees of
intrinsic value: e.g.
creatures at the bottom of the food chain
�
Not just A has greater intrinsic
value than B, Therefore A can do what it likes
with B.
�
No, in addition, B has to be necessary for
the life of A.
�
This is not even enough to justify
meat eating � at least not in affluent western
cultures, maybe in indigenous cultures.
Even
so,
the semblance of a problem still remains
It helps if one is willing to
admit that some values are incomparable �
�
it�s not as if everything is on
the same spectrum (an impression sometimes
given by some versions of process eco-ethics).
�
On some spectra we may not be at
all superior.
And in other places there may not be a
�spectrum�, merely a creature with unique,
incomparable value.
�
This will mean that we cannot
expect mathematical calculability in our
ethical judgements.
�
The recognition of genuine
difference is an advantage overall, however,
even if at this cost.
Problem No. 1: see later, problem
of marginal cases...
11. Facing up
to some of the problems
(A) Some
Specifically Theological Issues
�
Process theism seems to have won
the 'battle' in favour of a God who affects
all and is affected by all
�
However, some classic forms of
Process theism push this to the point of
making God dependent on the world in order to
be God, esp. Whitehead:
�
As with Hegel, God becomes, in a
manner, 'parasitic' on the universe in order
to fulfill Godself as God.
�
This tends to take away the
graciousness of Creation, a rather central
experience in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
�
God as �parasitic�
on the world (cf. Hegel), needs the world in
order to be God?
Resolution:
Trinity helps
�
God as a being
amongst the beings?
A valid critique,
but can be avoided: God is neither Being
Itself/Creativity/Nothingness, nor a being/actual
entity or series of such,
But �the religious
appropriation of the Primordial Qualification
of Creativity�.
Anything more to be said is to be
filtered through the
�
Too naturalistic? No
room for the supernatural?
Or is it a way of
restoring the continuity without collapsing
everything, beyond the natural-supernatural
binaries?
See the paper, �God
and Process Theology: How to do better than
Radical Orthodoxy�, called
neworleanslecture.doc on the CD.
(B) Problems for Ecology and
Anthropology:
�
Giving intrinsic value to
ecosystems as such
�
�The problem of marginal cases',
the cross-over into the human realm
See below for more on these.
Problem One:
Individuals and Ecosystems
�
= a problem with classical
Whiteheadian and Hartshornian
Process, very strange however given the
thoroughly relational background theory
�
According to this, only individuals have
intrinsic
value (where 'individuals' =
individual actualities and 'compound
individuals' such as individual koala and
individual human beings)
�
Ecosystems as such (and also
�societies� and �communities� of human beings)
have only
instrumental value: as providing
a context or home for the thriving of the
various individuals
�
Biodiversity also, in and of
itself, has only instrumental value, to the
extent to which it is 'a good thing' for the
various constitutent
individuals
�
A lot of people think that this is
counter-intuitive
�
There are versions of Process
metaphysics which may alleviate the problem,
esp. the Joseph Bracken version:
�
For Bracken, fields'
are equiprimordial
with events
�
No events without fields
�
No fields without events
�
Fields carry contributions made by
events from past to future
�
Events clue into fields rather
than past events directly
�
Provided we are willing to
continue to allow 'de-ontology' to map
ontology, societies, cultures and eco-systems
as such, including non-living components, might
be given intrinsic as well as instrumental
value.
�
Except that fields, even if
ontologically 'equiprimordial'
are not subjects�
�
Lots of Process people have
problems with the revised metaphysics anyway
�
Maybe we can do better, by
relying on the Theism - see later!
Problem Two: the Problem of Marginal
Cases
= the 'Singerian' Paradox, according to which
the effort to widen moral concern beyond the
human species
has the effect of lessening moral
concern for certain ('marginal') members of
the human species:
�
babies and pigs thought of in
their actuality are at about the same level
�
so
we should be prepared to treat babies as we
treat pigs (at least as far as intrinsic value
is concerned)
�
(Singer introduces a notion of
�person� versus just human being. Only
persons have rights. But
babies and some other human beings fall below
the level of persons... That
is, the notion of persons cuts across the
human species: anything else, for Singer,
would be a version of �specieism�.)
Process people can also fall into
this paradox
e.g. John Cobb, in Matters
of Life and Death.
This
is all very difficult, especially for us
Catholics.
More recently, Danial
Dombrowski (Hartshorne
and
the Metaphysics of Animal Rights, Babies and
Beasts) has
striven to demonstrate that the argument can
go and ought to go the other way, i.e.
�
pigs
and babies, in their actuality, are at about
the same level
�
so
we should treat pigs like babies!
He
uses this as an argument in favour of
vegetarianism.
Principle: use marginal cases only
to extend, rather than restrict, moral
concern??
Yes, as has historically been the
case.
Charles Birch, Living
with the Animals (p. 56):
Is careful not to commit
himself, regarding it as a complex and
contentious issue, which it is not his purpose
to go into.
My own attitude:
�
it's a needless complication,
which tends to bring the environmental
movement into disrepute among otherwise
sympathetic people, derived mostly from taking
our theories too seriously and thinking
theories developed in one place can totalize
the field.
�
Also, there are certain Process
considerations which may alleviate the problem
anyway, including the following:
�
Potentiality
is
of the essence of an event:
Cf. Hartshorne:
being = a potential for all future becoming. This
is what it is to be - in process thinking we
define being in terms of becoming, as a
potential for future becoming�
Cf. Whitehead: "the
many become one, and are increased by one"
Consequence:
process people are inconsistent with their own
metaphysics if they value things only in
accordance with present actuality.
�
Reverence is rarely for individual
events anyway, more usually for a continuing
project, a connected series of such events
taken in total context. Babies
are the beginnings of continuing human projects, old people
are the endings of such projects�
�
Babies, old people etc. are part of
the web of human life: Singer and, less
forgivingly some process people, get
altogether too individualistic in this matter
sometimes.
In respect of this question: Speculative Consistency is all that is
needed in order to defend an already existing
ethical practice.
It is not necessary to be able
to rationally reconstruct in a proof of some
kind in order for
people to be able to continue to engage in it.
(E.g.
burying dead people.)
But perhaps we can do better
with this problem: See Part 5!
CONCLUSION;
Process-Relational Trinitarian
Theism and its advantages over Naturalism
and other kinds of Process Theism
�
Firstly,
process relational trinitarian theism
considerably enhances the process relational
metaphysics:
�
A process-relational trinity
provides a fundamentally process-relational
base to a process-relational universe
�
As in classic neo-platonic
panentheism, 'Exemplary Causality' is added
to the Efficient and Final Causality
�
Secondly,
it
provides
some argument for giving considerable value to
eco-systems as such, and not just to their
ingredients:
�
There is Someone for whom reality
as a whole is valuable
�
To impoverish the whole, either
in respect of its eco-systemic complexity or
in the variety and diversity of its
inhabitants, is to impoverish God.
Cf. John Cobb, in the final
chapter of Mesle,
Process
Theology.
�
Thirdly,
a
process trinitarian theology enables us to
maintain the graciousness of creation while
still having a God who not only affects
everything but is affected by everything:
�
For Process metaphysics, to be is
to have power.
�
Creating therefore involves a
gracious, freely chosen self-limiting,
creation is already a kind of Divine Kenosis
(cf. Peter Forrest)
�
The Creative Process, then, is an
overflow and a flowing back, which, given
already a Primordial Trinity, is
metaphysically not necessary, though given the
Divine Goodness perhaps probablisticly
inevitable!
("Goodness diffuses itself: the gods
are not jealous�" cf.
Plato and Aristotle.
�
Fourthly,
Process
trinitarian
Theism (indeed any Christian/Jewish/Islamic
Process Theism) may provide us with some
subtle ways of dealing with the Problem of
Marginal Cases:
�
It is no longer necessary to base
all our ethics in our general metaphysics
�
We may be able to make some kind
of argument in favour of the non-replacability of
individual human beings, including babies:
individual human beings, as such, have irreplacable intrinsic
value. (cf. Peter Forrest).
�
The theism comes in over the top
to give a kind of 'sacralization' of
pre-existing already discerned intrinsic
value.
�
Finally, we can use our theism in
a kind of reversal of the Euthrypho dilemma: because
we know God values even (and even especially)
the marginal ones, we know them to be
intrinsically valuable, valuable in and of
themselves.
�
As we gradually put on the mind
of Christ, come to see people and all God�s
creatures as God sees them, we may well
ourselves come to experience them as valuable
in and of themselves...
�
Neither
of the previous two moves need commit us to
Divine Command Ethics!
�
(of course
this is not going to help atheistic
non-Christians like Peter Singer - but we are
not atheistic non-Christians. Eventually,
it is their
problem, a serious weakness in their
system, if they can't find a way of
reverencing the marginal members of our own
species).
�
Finally,
the
religions
world and indigenous provide one of two still
existing sources to align ourselves with
�
in our fight to take back control
and responsibility for our lives and for the
lives of the societies and the ecosystems of
which we are a part
�
to subordinate economy to
communities, themselves considered as
creatively and artistically interacting parts
of total environments
�
Religions are good at individual
and communal character formation and
sustenance, via various kinds of
transformative practice
�
To broaden concern
�
To minimize the confining and
limiting influences of ego
�
I.e.
to improve the how, the element of
transformative creativity in our creative
responsiveness
�
And to open ourselves to the
immanent and transcendent resources in the
total created/creative process
To emphasize then this final
point:
Religions by various means serve to focus
and thereby to enhance the power of the Lure
to Goodness, Truth, Beauty, Unity and Peace.
Or at least they can do this, if they are
operating well, and once they have been
purified of their sometimes too much
anthropocentric bias�
In the direction of a truly God-centred world view, which properly understood is also Earth Centred and Life Centred, and concerned especially with God�s so called �marginal� creatures, and which takes account and helps to guide the peculiar responsibilities humans have as creatures who know themselves as emergent, creatively interacting parts of all this.