I have moved from the early days of liberal American political theology (James Luther Adams, J. Deotis Roberts, Martin Luther King, Jr) to the second generation of American process theologians. These are the men and women who follow the thought of Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality and his main interpreter, Charles Hartshorne. If ever a theology was to be considered bunk, here it is.
There is nothing more enervating to the spirit, more destructive of awe, more tiring of mind and heart, than to consider the castle in the sky created by people who think they are actually talking about something connected with anything like reality. Most of the discussion among process theologians resemble arguments among scholastic theologians - refinements of points left murky by the founders, or the insistence that only in process theology are the real questions answered in a way that is true.
I just can't get past my gut reaction to it all. Bunk. Hogwash.
I admire the intellectual ability that allows these men and women to discuss with all seriousness the difference between God's primordial nature and God's consequent nature, or consider whether, as real entities, rocks have consciousness. I marvel at the insistence that there is something called "mind" and something else called "soul" that exists separately from, and has a life outside, the physical matrix of the body. I can follow the arguments, because I understand the vocabulary, and the rules seem pretty clear; I just refuse to grant that they are speaking of anything worth considering. It's all earnest and sincere, and driven by a double devotion to God and to use Whitehead's vocabulary of a new metaphysics to make clear what is otherwise murky. I simply refuse to grant them the satisfaction of having succeeded.
Sorry for the rant. Had to get that off my chest. I feel better now.
