I Almost Abandoned Theism, Until I Discovered there is Another Way
James Alexander, MATheol, MA, PhD, TSSF
I had had it with God. Ready to give up. In fact, God was rapidly becoming a non-entity for me. I tried to believe. I explored many religions. My Christian faith seemed empty and unfulfilling. Then, something “came across” my way. It was destined to change my life forever.
Jay McDaniel offers . He didn’t include God in his list because all the implications of Process Thought don’t include God, and he didn’t want to put off or offend nonbelievers of those of various religions. I have listed his eight points exactly as he gives them, and I have taken up his challenge to “color in the details with insights and practices from your own path or tradition” (mine being as a follower of Jesus).
1. Everything is in process; reality is flowing; nothing ever stays the same.
This has been my experience. Nothing stays the same. My happiest moments do not last. Neither do my difficulties. As Robert Schuler so famously said, “Tough times never last, but tough people do.” The nature of the Universe is evolutionary. It is ever growing. Process folks see evolution as a (or the) driving force of the Universe.
When it comes to God, Process Theology tends to see God the exemplar of creation. Not, that God was a created being. But God exemplifies the way things are in the Universe. God too is in evolution. God is a real being, growing and learning along with all of creation. Teilhard de Chardin :
God is not conceivable except in so far as he coincides with evolution but without being lost in, [sort of a ‘formal’ cause] the center of convergence of cosmogenesis (origin or evolution of the universe). The God, who is in evolution, cannot be a God who creates from behind but must be ahead, the prime mover who is Omega.
The whole Universe is moving towards Christ Consciousness (or the Cosmic Christ). God moves with creation to what de Chardin called the Omega point. “Omega Point” for Teilhard de Chardin describes the evolution of our universe. Teilhard de Chardin was a scientist and a Catholic priest. He combined the overwhelming evidence for evolution and the Christian notion that the Universe was on a journey to somewhere good. The Bible puts it this way, “But when all things have been brought under his control, then the Son himself will also be under the control of the one who gave him control over everything so that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:28 CEB)
2. All things are interconnected; no human is an island; things are present in one another even as they have their autonomy.
Indeed. Buddhism points out the interconnection of everything in the cosmos. We have a connection to other people, the air we breathe, the light we see, the starry night we behold. We are dependent on one another for our existence. In the Body of the Cosmic Christ, and the Universe in general, what St. Paul says rings true: We members of Christ’s Body have the same care for one another. The foot needs the hand, the hand needs the eye. All members of our body need the other. If one member suffers, all do. If one member is honored, all rejoice. You are the body of Christ and individually, and collectively members of it. (I Cor 12, paraphrased)
Quantum Mechanics, demonstrates that even elemental particles in our universe appear interconnected. (See my earlier article). Nothing exists of its own. Even God made the Universe for the purpose of loving and connecting to it.
The Buddha said “Since this exists, that exists, and, since this does not exist, that does not exist. That is created because this is created, so if this disappears, that disappears.” We are interconnected beings.
3. The whole of nature has value; all live beings deserve respect; human beings are not the sole repository of value.
That is the point of panpsychism. It is a theory gaining some popularity with philosophers and scientists as the materialist view appears . , “Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality.” It is the idea that God is present in everything and that everything is in God.
This is not to imply that rocks, for example, have a level of consciousness equivalent to humans. It is to imply, however, that everything shares something of God together. All of creation is worthy of protection, care, and is of value to God, and hopefully to humans.
4. Human beings find happiness in sharing experiences with others; there are no isolated egos; all selves are selves-in-relation; humans become whole through reciprocity.
Face it, we need each other. Really, are we not even defined in terms of each other? Don’t I only “know me” because of you (and being known by God, of course). No one can exist alone. At least not if they are going to be healthy. We find our wholeness in relationship.
As put it, “Babies who are not held, nuzzled, and hugged enough can stop growing, and if the situation lasts long enough, even die. Researchers discovered this when trying to figure out why some orphanages had infant mortality rates around 30–40%.”
God also finds satisfaction in relation to others. In the Genesis Myth, God declares the creation of humans very good. God comes to the garden to walk and talk with them. The biblical text calls God Father, and Mother too. What parent does not find wholeness and meaning in loving their Child?
5. The essence of the universe is a continuous creativity of which all things are expressions; there is creativity in plants and animals, hills and rivers, trees, and stars.
The Genesis Myth makes it clear; God is by nature creative. As the scriptures say, The attributes of God are revealed within every created thing. “Nature,” writes , “is God’s Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world.” It is the embodiment of God’s name, “the Creator.” Virtually all religions see God as Creator. Indeed, creativity is such an essential part the nature of the One, that it is the driving force of the Universe.
held to this thought: “The universe’s story may best be told as a narrative of continually increasing Complexity. And, as is clear in the evolution of life forms, each stage of increasing Complexity demands a corresponding increase in Consciousness.”
Humans share in this as well. The famous Humanistic Psychologist, Abraham Maslow said that humans have a Hierarchy of Needs. The lower-level needs must find fulfillment before the higher-level can receive full attention. The higher-level needs, love and belonging needs, esteem, and self-actualization, all presuppose human creativity.
Isn’t it obvious that the Universe is inherently creative? Look at evolution and the wonders worked through it. At the conclusion of Origin of Species, Darwin writes, “There is grandeur in this view of life…whilst this planet has gone cycling…from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
6. All beings seek harmony as their guiding ideal; harmony includes differences; the whole of the universe is a harmony of harmonies.
It doesn’t seem so. At least, not on our planet. I have written about this elsewhere. Still, the world has been here for billions of years. I fear that there will likely be harmony (in fact the Bahá’í Faith is all about the notion of harmony) only after much more suffering in the world. God being “all in all” and a successful conclusion to the Universe () is the goal of the Universe.
Even when the Universe can appear cold and hard, harmony is its “desire.” Think of things like synchronicity, quantum entanglement, gravity- the Universe works in harmony. Complementarity implies harmony. Consider the biological world. Oh, heck, consider making love. Harmony is the heart of the fabric of the universe.
, “God joined in unity with the physical universe and became the light inside of everything…. Light is not so much what you directly see as that by which you see everything else.”
7. Thinking and emotion cannot be sharply separated; mind and body are not two; even thinking is a form of feeling; aesthetic wisdom and rational inquiry are complementary.
This is clear, and we can see it in our own experience. We get “butterflies in the stomach.” We experience emotion in our bodies. Here are just a few examples from of how our thinking body and emotions combine into one:
Anxiety. Lump in your throat, churning stomach, trembling, dry mouth, sweating, shortness of breath, feeling weak or tense.
Anger. Hot or flushed face, clenched fists, or jaw, shaking, jerky body movements.
Joy. Feeling of lightness in your body, warm heart, “butterflies” in your stomach.
Sadness. Feeling of “heartache,” heaviness in your body, tightness in chest, fatigue, drooping face.
Shame. Hot face, lowered eyes, sunken body posture.
Fear. Dizziness, weakness in legs, goosebumps, fast breathing, and heart rate.
We are God’s hands and feet. God needs us. God mixes with us. St. Teresa of Avila put it this way, “Christ has no body on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world.”
8. Every moment of human experience begins, not with projecting things onto the world or even acting in the world, but with feeling the presence of the world and being affected by it.
This can’t get much clearer than as in the Buddhist concept of dependent arising. “This means that everything, whether mental or physical, exists and occurs because of the presence of certain conditions. Everything is dependent on other things.” (). Or, as put it:
Dependent arising means that everything is conditioned by other factors. A flower needs the conditions of sunlight, soil, and water to grow. Or collectedness of mind may be conditioned by relaxation, as a meditative example. All things arise dependent on conditions. They don’t appear out of nowhere.
Some might say it is impossible for the world to affect God. But, the whole of all the worlds religious traditions belies that. God acts on the world. And the world acts on God.
There is much more that we could explore about Process Philosophy and Theology. It might help you. It rescued my faith. There are many books of varying complexity about it all. But here is one whole book. Well-written. Interesting. Worth your time.
Process Theology is deeply rooted in the thought of the Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. I sum all of this up with something he said. This is what I found when I began my Process journey. May you find what you look for as well.
The brief Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly. In the official formulation of the religion it has assumed the trivial form of the mere attribution to (some). But the deeper idolatry, of the fashioning of God in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman imperial rulers, was retained. The Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar.
For folks who can deal with the complex text, “Whitehead feels like balm on the overheated, burning sensation of wounds of division. A way out. A new way. A revolution — not of violent overturning, but of gentle reorientation in which compassionate thinking” just might win the day. It won’t get us all the way to the All in All. But it does give a hopeful vision of the Universe. It offers a challenge I hope we can embrace.
