Dec 11, 2012
The term "process theology" refers to a system of thought (a metaphysical philosophy that is also a theology because it includes the reality of God or a godlike entity that influences the unfolding developments of the world) that emerged in the early twentieth century and is based primarily upon the reflections of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Both its name and its scope, however, engage questions that date to the beginning of formal philosophical thought about the nature of reality and whether it is best thought of in terms of "Being" or "Becoming," as primarily static and unchanging or dynamic and constantly in process. As a theological system, process thought is characterized for its strong divergence from many elements of classical theism, especially Christianity, rejecting such ideas of perfection necessarily needing to involve eternal unchangingness, or a God who created ex nihilo and to whom all the "omnis" would apply (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent). In these and other sensibilities, process theology has long been recognized as having many similarities to Mormon views of God and the nature of reality, leading to a fair amount of philosophical exploration about touchstones and divergences. In this episode, Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon and philosophers Jim McLachlan and David Grandy discuss process and LDS connections and differences, focusing mostly, however, on ways that engaging process thought has pushed them into new views of or deeper dives into Mormonism and its intuitions and sensibilities about God, humans, and the natural world. The discussion includes some "teaching" of process theology and its metaphysics (and panelists give plenty of "nerdy" or "jargony" alerts in these parts), but for the most part stays rooted in broad territory, connecting with the history of thought, problems with classical science and philosophy and mechanistic views of matter that have difficulty engaging pre-cognitive or pre-conceptual elements of both human and natural experience, and exploring the kind of openings into which process and LDS thought both wade. In short, although some of the material discussed is technical, we have made a real effort to stay connected with ideas that play out in all human lives, making this, we hope, still very accessible and interesting to all listeners, regardless of their training in philosophy or theology.