trust the process
At one point of my “research” (going down internet rabbit trails) for my last piece on the incarnation (God’s becoming human in Jesus), I stumbled upon the wikipedia page for something called process theology. I’d heard of it before. An acquaintance of mine had actually given me a primer on it back when I was in seminary. At the time I was obsessed with a theology called molinism and I simply would not hear of anything else. So the next time I considered process theology was a couple of weeks ago when I was looking at the “themes” section and thinking “okay—check, check, agree, strongly agree, wholeheartedly agree… wait, am I a process theologian?”
Here are those themes:
God is not omnipotent in the sense of being coercive. The divine has a power of persuasion rather than coercion…God does not exert unilateral control.
Reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but serially-ordered events, which are experiential in nature…
The universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will… God cannot totally control any series of events or any individual, but God influences the creaturely exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities…
God contains the universe but is not identical with it (panentheism)
Because God interacts with the changing universe, God is changeable (that is to say, God is affected by the actions that take place in the universe) over the course of time. However, the abstract elements of God (goodness, wisdom, etc.) remain eternally solid.
As you might imagine, I unknowingly reinvented some of these ideas in my book on anarchic christianity—primarily the first theme above.
The second theme above is what I want to talk about in this piece.
Much of the western world, especially those within a christian tradition that constructed itself on foundations of Greek philosophy, operates with a substance metaphysic—the idea that what exists, exists as things characterized by a particular essence or substance. That thing over there is a substance called a tree, made up of smaller substances called cells, made up of organelles, made up of molecules, made up of atoms, made up of subatomic particles. I am a person made up of a spirit and body.
Process thought takes the emphasis away from the idea of fixed substances and puts it on… you guessed it—processes. That thing over there called a tree is a process of cells interacting with each other and with the environment around them, in a way that at one point appears as a seed, and at another point functions as a tree, and at another point takes the form of decomposed carbon. I am a process—a network, a living web, an ever-expanding universe—of social relationships out of which I come to be and through which I am continually created anew.
From a process point of view, it is more generative to think of a soul, or personhood, or being, as a process rather than a substance.
This is a metaphysics of being. It’s a symbolic framework, a way of conceptualizing. Conceptual frameworks aren’t “right” or “wrong” so much as helpful and less helpful. Sometimes it’s helpful to think of an electron as a wave, and other times it’s more helpful to think of it as a particle.
I’m starting to think that it is usually more helpful to think of things as processes rather than substances. When I say I am a theologian, should that be taken to mean that I “have” some sort of theologian “essence” or “substance” that is a part of, or even defines, my being? Or is it more generative for me to mean that as “Terry lives and thinks and works in a web of relationships out of which he often constructs theological meaning?”
My life, my being, my becoming, isn’t the sum of my (somewhat stable) characteristics but rather the sum of my interactions, my relationships, my developments, which of course in some way are predicated on those characteristics but certainly not circumscribed or defined by them. My “Terry-ness” is not contained within my physical, intellectual, emotional, or even spiritual traits but rather within the process of interaction between all that I am and all the people and things that comprise my experience.
In a process framework, God has omnipresence, omniscience, power, eternity, etc., but God’s identity, God’s life, God’s becoming—divinity—is love.
A love that is both creative and responsive, as Catherine Keller describes it. Eros and Agape. Passion and Compassion. The invitation and the reception of hospitality.
Relationships are dynamic—there’s so much more there to draw from, conceptually. Substances are static.
God is, themself, a relation, are they not? A relational web with three nexuses (really feels like that should be nexi). I’ve always found that to be a most beautiful and unique contribution of trinitarian thought. In a process sense, that which is God emerges from the interaction, the interplay, the love between these three “persons.” So instead of identifying God by trying to crystallize the substance or essence of these three persons, perhaps it’s more generative to identify God by the relation between them.
Within that web of relation there is a creative passion that births a world out of the depths of divinity (creatio ex profundis), and a logos or sophia that calls to that world, and a compassion that then enfolds that world back into godself as it responds to the call of incarnation.
As Robert Mesle puts it, “when we experience God’s call and respond to it, we are taking God into ourselves and creating ourselves out of God. God becomes incarnate in our lives…”
And here’s what that can mean for Jesus: “with a relational metaphysic there is no contradiction between incarnating both humanity and divinity. To be more loving is be both more fully human and more fully divine.”
If divinity, or being in general, is not a static substance but a process, the idea of the incarnation completely changes shape. It’s no longer about how two different substances come together in one person, but rather about how one person undergoes a process that is becoming of, and true to, both divinity and humanity. It’s not about Jesus’ having or attaining some sort of equal or uniform “substance” with God, because we’re not thinking of divinity or God-ness or God as a substance to begin with.
Many process theologians, then, think of Jesus as a human being who uniquely responded to the call/logos/invitation of God—responded so extensively as to come to be identified with godself.
(And yet, there really is no such thing as “fully” divine because divinity is an eternal process. To say that Jesus was/is “fully divine” would be like saying the universe is “fully” realized. The inherent quality of the universe is to always expand, so there is never any such thing as full “universe-ness”).
In my last piece, I worked from my subconsciously-held substance metaphysic to argue that the eternal Son of God gave up part of their substance in order to become a human being, and then reassumed that substance upon Jesus’ resurrection and/or ascension.
Within a process framework, this is a theological task that doesn’t need doing. The incarnation is not a question of how to force two substances into the same space, but rather a question of how two beings can undergo a unified process—that of love.
But if Jesus was “merely” a human being who responded to the call which God issues to all of creation (and particularly all human beings) to incarnate divinity, where then lies the uniqueness of Jesus? Or is he not unique?
It’s not that Jesus was/is unique in substance from the rest of us. We’re not even using a substance metaphysic anymore, so that’s not even a relevant thought.
It’s that Jesus had (and has) a unique process of becoming. I wouldn’t even say it was a “superior” process or experience. Just unique.
My concern for the doctrine of the incarnation has been to hold on to the divinity of Christ as some sort of substance that simply could not be relinquished. But now I’m rejecting the whole metaphysic that undergirds that. I’ve encountered a whole new way of understanding what divinity or even being is, which in turn opens up new ways of understanding Jesus’ divinity.
So if we were to worship Jesus, would we be worshiping (“merely”) an extraordinary human being, or perhaps a symbol?
Does the concept of worship itself for many of us inherently rely on a substance metaphysic? Do we define worship as recognizing and praising the superior “substance” of Jesus?
What would a process or relational theory of worship look like? Can you have appreciation, love, gratitude, celebration of Jesus as a unique person, a unique “becoming,” without conceiving of that uniqueness as a superior and unattainable substance?
As an anarchist I love to show appreciation, love, gratitude, affirmation, etc., but I don’t like to think in terms of superiority or hierarchy.
I don’t think God actually cares about being seen as greater or better or higher than us. And I don’t think Jesus does either.
That’s not to say that we can’t say that God’s ways (of love) are not higher or wiser or more beautiful than many other ways. But to affirm the superiority of God’s ways is different from focusing on God’s superiority over people.
Is God’s “superiority” what motivates me to affirm, appreciate, or love them? Or is it God’s uniqueness? Am I motivated by the idea that God places higher than me/us on some metaphysical scale of worth, or by the idea that God is infinitely valuable in a unique way, just as the person across from me is in their own way?
Even with an anarchist rejection of thinking of Jesus (and God) as “superior,” there remains the conception of him/them as infinitely valuable in a unique way (which is true of any being). With Jesus that includes a process of uniquely embodying some of the most powerful and beautiful possibilities for humankind—indeed, for the life of the world.
I love that process thought offers me different ways to conceive of God, humanity, worship, and even being itself. I especially love that those frameworks seem to be able to, or even designed to, avoid hierarchy, coercion, and rulership.
P.S. I’m still unclear on what to do with the implications (and consensus) of process thought around Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. Going back to the first theme above, if God’s only way of acting in the world is “spiritual”—persuasion, invitation, compassion, desire, etc.—then (as many process theologians will say) God cannot suspend the processes of nature, either to walk on water or to come back from the dead. And while I’m sensitive to the problems with the idea of supernatural intervention (if God can heal Johnny, why doesn’t God heal Sally?), I’m not ready to let go of such foundational pieces of 1) my understanding of Jesus and 2) my view of life after death. Can I/we have it all? Is there a way? Stay tuned!