Comments on: The theological worldview (4 of 5)

By: chutney

chutney — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 19:48:31 +0000

Wow. Many thanks for the run down on process thought. I read Suchocki in seminary, but it tasted like a twinkie–mostly air and no meat in the middle. Looks like I’m heading to the theological bookstore to pick up some of the heavy hitters.

The ethical edge of theism is why I can’t go all the way over to pantheism. But it seems to me that the only goods are partial goods. And when folks start proclaiming a pure good, I have to wonder who they’re getting ready to wallop.

Blogs are for first drafts. Add a couple of disclaimers and put that baby up.

By: Dwight

Dwight — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 10:27:51 +0000

Whitehead’s Proces and Reality is the biggest key text of the whole movement really. But it’s largely inaccessible in some ways. It’s like learning a whole new language.

The folks influenced by Whitehead on the other hand, are a bit more easy to dive into….though the way folks take from the system can be widely varied.

I’ve been working more from Henry Nelson Wieman and the work I’d recommend is The Source of Human Good. It’s like Dewey meets Whitehead, though probably closer to the former then the latter.

On a different vein of doing this stuff, Charles Hartshorne’s work Divine Relativity is an excellent critique of traditional theism and a case for a God who is utterly related to human life.

Majorie Suchocki and John Cobb seem to be the biggie names for Christian process thought, but I haven’t read enough of each to evaluate it. But Suchocki’s work God, Christ, Church seems to be one of the more common intro texts.

Of course there is ctr4process.org with links, info on the magazine Process Studies….

Also Zygon magazine is a good source, for science and religion, that has tended to be a home for a lot of religious naturalists, whether working in a whiteheadian or a deweyan vein.

I do think God, actually monotheism even, is recoverable for a liberal religious vision, in that the idea of God has an ethical edge to it and as a symbol can call us away from any partial loyalities to partial goods (whether nationalism, churchism, bibleonlyism, etc.). H. Richard Neibuhr’s Radical Monotheism and Western Culture I think has some helpful pointers along those lines.

I had some idea of writing this into something interesting on the religious liberal blog, mainly spurred on by your own provocative thoughts in this area, but not satisfied with what I”ve been able to put together.

But I always enjoy reading your site.Thanks for thought provoking posts.

By: chutney

chutney — Fri, 25 Jul 2003 15:37:25 +0000

And I need to read some Whitehead and Hartshorne. My memory of seminary lectures is not cutting it.

By: Dwight

Dwight — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 11:40:09 +0000

I need to get Walter Wink’s book there. I agree that
ideally the goal should be a union, not a separation between the natural world and questions of value, meaning, ideals, God, etc. But I’d disagree that “virtually all the great theologians of the twentieth century have not been interested in science” or somehow have not sought such a union.

It seems to me the whole basis of process theology, as well as religious naturalism was that very union. Reading folks from Whitehead to Wieman it becomes clear that there have been some heavy hitters here that have tackeled this issue.

On a side note. I’ve linked you on a new unimaginatively named liberal religious blog that I’ve just set up. And I’ve appreciated reading a number of good articles on this site. Thanks