Process Philosophy / Theology (tradition, creation, God, science, Articles)

[Scarlett Wampus]

I'm wondering how many people here have heard of Process Philosophy / Process Theology. I'm fairly sure I've heard it mentioned by several people in various threads.

If you have heard of it, what are your general thoughts about it? Has it influenced your views at all?

[doppelgänger]

There are several threads about it. A_E and I both have essays on our own respective versions of it.

[doppelgänger]

States of Awareness and the "Spirit"

Process Theology of the Cross

Contra "Free Will" - from neuroscience to process theology?

[Scarlett Wampus]

I liked your essay there doppelgänger. I was familiar with the ideas and several names since over the last couple of years a great deal of what I've read and spoken about with people has obviously been influenced by process philosophy. It was only a couple of days ago that I started reading about process philosophy specifically. I've ordered a couple of books on the subject to better familiarise myself with it.

My first thoughts were that it echoed a Taoist-like impression of the world as perpetual change also that the sense of interrelatedness and instances of things being temporal processes like patterns in a stream rather than fixed objects sits well with Buddhist and Taoist notions of existence.

I don't know why free will and God play significant roles in process philosophy / theology for some but I'm sure reading Whitehead's books and another primer I found might explain that.

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

I don't know why free will and God play significant roles in process philosophy / theology for some but I'm sure reading Whitehead's books and another primer I found might explain that.

And I don't understand how they could not. To me, process theology describes the ongoing partnership between God and creation to create creation. Continual new and surprising outcomes. Free will is central to it. Without it, there is no point.

[Fluffy]

I've heard about process theology for a long time but I only discovered process philosophy yesterday (!) so I'm looking forward to reading more into it. Are the two linked? So far all I know about process philosophy is it is an ontology of the becoming.

Edit: Oh right I checked a bit more into the wikipedia articles and saw that process theology is influenced by process philosophy. Cool! I think that the theological constructs within process theology have far less problems than those found in traditional theology but I am uncomfortable with the focus on free will. I'll need to read more into it.

[Scarlett Wampus]

Fluffy, yeh me too. I'd heard of Process Theology but not Process Philosophy so didn't realise there were plenty of Process-ors more inclined towards a naturalistic worldview too.

Something I'm wondering is whether Process Philosophy could gel with the concept of Holons. Holons are a cornerstone of my metaphysical perspective but because Holons are generally conceived as 'things' rather than 'processes' it might prove quite hard to try mixing them together without creating an incoherent mess.

Lilithu, ok, that's cool. Presumably its also the case that free will would cease to have a point without God?

[Bishadi]

ProcessTheology as the 'words' share seems like a resolve to simply observe what is true and represent the process. (my opinion)

Such like Pi an Phi... represent ratio's. These are not laws, just descriptions of what already exists.

Or how about Evolution; this shares 'how the progression' may work but the mathematical frame has still been left unpublished in standard form because the description exposes the 2nd law of Thermodynamics is only a guide and the 'community' will have none of that.

The error in current physics shares that a system is isolated rather than having relevance to the 'total' system where to remove the 'uncertainties' specific observation to the entanglement of energy between the experimental specimen and the observational (creation of experiment) must be maintained within the descriptions (schroadinger's cat).

The description that enables the understanding (process) of the entanglement of all mass/energy in time; will unfold a universal paradigm shift in comprehending existence (the physical sciences). What is beautiful to see is that the combining framework was born from the process long ago established in theology; that light is the life of everything.

so by defining light as energy between all structures, then the property of light called entanglement offers the physical reality to ground that non-local affect (gravity).

So a Theology of Process could be simply to represent what is physically true and then ground all reasoned knowledge within the confines of empirical fact, rather than belief.

Instead of starting with adam and eve, maybe atoms and energy.

Instead of pointing at god, elsewhere... share god in all things.

Instead of thinking man is above nature maybe share each equal within nature and share that true fact that each can create life by the choices we make, and then live forever in the contributions that are good (for life to continue)....

the 2 cents worth, from the opinion of this 'i'....