Concept

Process Theism

Intro

Most Christians, when they hear the word "God," picture a Being who is unchanging, all-powerful, all-knowing, and outside of time. That is the classical view, the picture sketched in Genesis and worked out by thinkers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

Process theism rejects that picture and offers a different one. The framework was built in the early twentieth century by the British mathematician Alfred North Whitehead and developed by the American theologian Charles Hartshorne. They said the classical view was a Greek philosophical mistake imported into Christianity, and proposed that God is dipolar: He has two natures. One is eternal and unchanging (the "primordial nature"). The other is in time, changing, growing, and being enriched by what happens in the world (the "consequent nature").

On this view, God did not create the world from nothing. The world is in some sense always there, alongside God, and God works with it by persuasion rather than by sheer power. God does not know the future in advance because the future does not yet exist to be known. God is genuinely affected by what creatures do, and grows through their experiences.

Process theism is a real position with serious philosophers behind it. It is also outside the boundaries of historic Christianity on multiple counts. Nicene Christianity confesses God created from nothing, is all-powerful, and is in His essence not dependent on the world. Process theism denies all three.

This page lays out what process theism teaches, where it sits relative to classical theism, open theism, and theistic personalism, and why orthodox Christianity has consistently rejected it. The framework matters not because many evangelicals embrace it (few do) but because process categories quietly influence some liberal Protestant theology and some ecumenical conversations.

Quick reply line: "Process theism says God has two natures, one eternal and one that grows with the world. It denies creation from nothing, denies classical omnipotence, and makes God dependent on creation. The Nicene faith rejects all three. It is outside historic Christianity."

In full

A modern theological framework, derived from the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality, 1929) and developed theologically by Charles Hartshorne (The Divine Relativity, 1948; The Logic of Perfection, 1962), in which God is conceived as dipolar, having both an eternal, unchanging "primordial nature" and a temporal, changing "consequent nature" that grows and is enriched by the world's becoming. Process theism sits at the far end of the continuum from Classical Theism:

Strict Classical Theism → Theistic Personalism → Open Theism → Process Theism
 (Aquinas, Hart) (Plantinga, Craig) (Pinnock, Boyd) (Whitehead, Hartshorne)

Each step rightward relaxes one or more classical-theist constraints; process theism relaxes the most. The codex treats it as outside the boundary of historic Christian orthodoxy, multiple of its core moves (denial of creatio ex nihilo, denial of omnipotence in the classical sense, God's dependence on the world) are rejected by Nicene Christianity. The framework is included in the codex for comparison and because process categories have influenced some otherwise-orthodox theologians (esp. in liberal-mainline Protestant theology and ecumenical dialogue).

Core doctrinal moves

Origin and development

Whitehead (Process and Reality, 1929; Gifford Lectures 1927-28) developed a metaphysics in which the fundamental units of reality are not substances but actual occasions, momentary becomings of experience. Reality is process, not being. God, on this view, is a particular kind of actual entity, the supreme exemplification of the process, with two "natures" (primordial = atemporal grasp of pure potentials; consequent = temporal incorporation of every actualization).

Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) systematized Whitehead's account theologically, defending dipolar theism as both philosophically superior to classical theism and more recognizably "religious" (a God who genuinely loves and responds, not the abstract "unmoved mover" of Aquinas). His The Logic of Perfection also gave a modal version of the ontological argument that influenced Plantinga.

Christian process theology is associated with the Claremont School (John Cobb, David Ray Griffin, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Catherine Keller) and with theologians who adopt process categories partially while remaining within Christian orthodoxy (Schubert Ogden, Norman Pittenger, more recently Philip Clayton). The 1976 Cobb-Griffin volume Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition is the standard textbook.

Apologetic-significance, the classical-Christian critique

Classical theists reject process theism on multiple grounds, several of which are internal (i.e., process theism's God cannot do the metaphysical work the classical God does):

1. Denial of creatio ex nihilo. Process metaphysics has matter / actuality eternally co-existing with God. This contradicts the biblical doctrine of God as Creator of all things visible and invisible (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 11:3; Nicene Creed). If God and matter are co-eternal, God is not the absolute source of being. See Aseity, Ipsum Esse Subsistens.
2. Denial of omnipotence. A God who can only persuade cannot guarantee any eschatological outcome, including the resurrection of the dead, the defeat of evil, or the final consummation of all things. The biblical and creedal hope ("Thy kingdom come"; "He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet", 1 Corinthians 15:25) requires a God with the metaphysical power process theism has explicitly denied.
3. Denial of aseity. A God enriched and constituted by creaturely events cannot ground the cosmological arguments, the world's existence cannot be terminally explained by a Being who Himself depends on the world for content.
4. Mutability of God's character. If God's consequent nature is shaped by every creaturely event, then in a world of much evil, God contains that evil within His own being. Classical theism's God is good without remainder; the process God incorporates the world's brokenness into Himself, making "the goodness of God" a moving target.
5. Christological inadequacy. Process Christology typically reduces Christ to the "supreme exemplar" of God's persuasive lure, the clearest case of God's creative aim being actualized in a creature, rather than the Incarnate Logos. This is functionally Adoptionism with a metaphysical update; the codex position is that this fails Christology at the Council of Chalcedon level.

The classical-theist diagnosis: process theism is not a variant of Christian theism, it is a different religion that retains some Christian vocabulary. (Cf. David Bentley Hart's critique of process theology as functionally a sophisticated paganism with a religious affect.)

What process theism gets right (steel-man)

The codex should not caricature. Process theism is responding to real problems in strictly-formulated classical theism:

• The personalist objection that classical theism's God is too abstract, an "unmoved mover" who cannot meaningfully relate to creatures, is partially correct as an exegetical worry (anthropopathic passages, Christ's tears, divine "repentance" in Genesis 6:6). Classical theists answer with the analogia entis + communicatio idiomatum tradition; process theists found the answer unsatisfying.
• The problem-of-evil pressure on classical omnipotence is real; process theism's "God-cannot-prevent" move is one (drastic) response, parallel to but going further than Plantinga's Free Will Defense.
• The "fellow-sufferer who understands" formula does capture something the Incarnation expresses, that God in Christ does enter and bear creaturely suffering. The classical-theist correction is that this is true of the Son's incarnate state (Chalcedonian two-natures), not of the divine essence as such.

Influence

Process theism has not become a major confessional tradition but has had outsized influence in:

• Liberal-mainline Protestant theology (esp. UCC, some PCUSA, some Episcopal)
• Ecological theology and panentheist movements (Sallie McFague, Catherine Keller)
• Theology-and-science dialogue (Ian Barbour was a process theist)
• Comparative theology / interreligious dialogue (process categories travel well across traditions; John Cobb on Buddhism)
• Modal ontological arguments (Hartshorne's The Logic of Perfection, 1962, was a major source for Plantinga's modal recovery, see Modal Ontological Argument)

See also

• Classical Theism, the contrast position; what process theism rejects
• Classical Theism vs Theistic Personalism, the multi-position comparison hub
• Open Theism, the intermediate position between theistic personalism and process theism
• Divine Simplicity, denied by process theism (dipolar God)
• Aseity, denied (mutual God-world dependence)
• Divine Immutability, denied
• Divine Impassibility, denied
• Eternity (Divine), denied (God in time)
• Ipsum Esse Subsistens, process theism's deepest rejection
• Modal Ontological Argument, Hartshorne's modal recovery fed Plantinga's version
• Cosmological Arguments, cannot terminate in the process God