Does God evolve?

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Non-exhaustive thoughts on process theology and panentheism

Summary upon request:

Please consider that with posts like this one, I deal with some of the material in the comments section as well. As in I provide more opinions. Cheers. Whitehead, like Brightman, Mill, and James, along with others reason the God of the Bible needs to be abandoned for concepts of a finite, developing progressing God. This work is edited from my PhD and is mainly descriptive although I do point out some difficulties with the views as I postulate Biblical, Reformed doctrines and therefore hold to a traditional view of the nature of God.

Jeff Jenkins of the Thoughts and Theology blogs is responsible for the fine art work.

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Process Theism: Alfred North Whitehead

David Viney (2008) suggests that Edgar Sheffield Brightman is one of the twentieth century proponents of Process theism.[1] Although Brightman’s views were primarily independently made, process theism refers to a general group of theological concepts attributed to Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)[2] and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000).[3]

Whitehead is the more preeminent exemplar and within Process and Reality (1927-1929)(1957) explains he desired to complete an account of humanity and its experience in relation to philosophical problems.[4] In Religion In The Making (1926) Whitehead explains it is legitimate to attempt with a more definite knowledge of metaphysics, to interpret human experience, but these general principles must be amplified and adapted into one general system of truth.[5]

Whitehead disagreed with a traditional view of a ‘transcendent creator, at whose fiat the world came into being, and whose imposed will it obeys.’[6] The nature of God needed to be philosophically constructed anew.[7] A balance is sought between God’s immanence and transcendence, and a concept of static transcendence is rejected as instead God is understood to have a evolutionary transcendence. God and the physical realm are immanent with each other and God’s transcendence means their realities are not identical and not always determined by each other.[8] God is fully reasoned to be involved and influenced by temporal events and processes.[9] These processes unfold as sequences of events over time. God, contrary to classic and traditional Christian theism is finite, temporal, changeable and experiences intense emotion, pain and sadness. Whitehead explains that ‘It is not true that God is on all respects infinite.’[10] Process theology is a philosophical approach that does not rely on any kind of divine revelation.[11] Instead it relies on a process of change over time as a theory of metaphysics.[12] God’s actual concrete nature is responsive and influenced by the processes that take in the world, and therefore God is limited. Some things are unknowable for God, that he only can realize as they happen, and as these new things develop God’s knowledge processes over time. Divine sovereignty is questionable and certainly no longer absolute within this system.

Whitehead, a mathematician and philosopher, established a speculative philosophy of metaphysics within a scientific non-metaphysical reality.[13] This system is an attempt to adequately explain all individual beings in existence, including God.[14] Basically a system of metaphysics needed to be developed that would work with modern scientific theories and reality, and therefore God was not a ‘static essence’ but a process.[15] The ‘actual entities’[16] that make up this process are non-permanent and transient and each action and activity is dipolar having a physical pole of the past and a mental pole which is a possibility that can be achieved.[17] The physical pole feels the physical reality of actual entity, while the mental pole feels or prehends as Whitehead calls it, the eternal objects by which actual entities have conceptual definiteness.[18] These physical and mental poles are an aspect of every real being/actual entities although they are not real things themselves.[19]

Prehends is the feeling of grasping the physical and conceptual information concerning actual entities.[20] This will occur within a stream and series of occasions.[21] All occurrences take place within the process of these actual entities.[22] Each event is partially self-created and partially influenced by other occasions and entities.[23] God is also dipolar[24] and his nontemporal pole is where God conceives the infinite variety of external objects and sees the possibilities and provides the opportunity for the process of becoming. God is an actual entity and being.[25] God has a primordial nature and consequent nature, with the primordial being conceptual, while the consequent nature is God as conscious.[26] Whitehead explains that the ‘consequent nature is the weaving of God’s physical feelings upon his primordial concepts.’[27] God’s primordial conceptual nature is infinite and does not have negative prehension/feelings, and is eternal and unconscious.[28] This nature is permanent as God works out endless possibilities.[29] God in his vision can determine every possibility and adjust details where needed.[30] The consequent nature of God originates with physical experience with the material temporal world and it is integrated with the primordial conceptual nature.[31] The consequent nature as conscious is determined, finite and incomplete.[32] These two aspects of God’s deity can be distinguished but are inseparable.[33] This consequent conscious nature had God constantly acquiring new experiences.[34]

A problem arises that if God’s primordial nature is eternal and unconscious[35] it precedes the consequent nature that is temporal and has consciousness. I question whether an unconscious deity would in any way proceed to a conscious temporal reality. Where did God’s consciousness come from? I reason consciousness would have to exist eternally to lead to a finite reality of consciousness.

Panentheism

Process theism approaches are sometimes referred to as being panentheistic. The two approaches are not identical but process theism moves in the direction of panentheism.[36] David H. Nikkel defines panentheism as from the Greek meaning ‘all is in God.’[37] Both God’s transcendence and immanence are accepted, as the world and matter is in God, and God is ‘all-encompassing with respect to being.’[38] Panentheism is not identical to pantheism which postulates that ‘God is identical with everything’ or that God is in everything and that God and the universe are one.[39] The difference being that panentheism understands ‘God is in all things’ but not identical with all things as with pantheism. As example, God in pantheism may be considered to be equal with a tree. God in panentheism may be considered beyond the tree, but the vital force within it, whereas in my traditional Christian theistic understanding God is beyond a tree and sustains it, but is not the vital force within it. Panentheism attempts to ‘avoid the pitfalls’ of traditional theism.[40] Panentheism can reasonably be understood as an overarching view within many process theism approaches which I have contrasted with my own views.

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

DIEHL, DAVID W. (1996) ‘Process Theology’, in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.

GRENZ, STANLEY J. AND ROGER E. OLSON (1992) Twentieth Century Theology, Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.

NIKKEL, DAVID H. (2003) ‘Panentheism’, in Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, MacMillan Reference USA, New York.

VINEY, DAVID (2008) ‘Process Theism’, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Palo Alto, California, Stanford University.

WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH (1926) Religion in the Making, New York, The MacMillan Company.

WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH (1927-1929)(1957) Process and Reality, New York, The Free Press/MacMillan Publishing Company, Incorporated.

WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH (1967)(1986) ‘Adventures of Ideas’, in Forest Wood JR., Whiteheadian Thought as a Basis for a Philosophy of Religion, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, University Press of America, Inc.
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[1] Viney (2008: 35).
[2] Viney (2008: 1).
[3] Viney (2008: 1).
[4] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: vi).
[5] Whitehead (1926: 149).
[6] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 404).
[7] Whitehead (1926: 150).
[8] Viney (2008: 10).
[9] Viney (2008: 1).
[10] Whitehead (1926: 153). Whitehead claims that if God was infinite in all ways this would make him as infinitely evil as he is good. I doubt logically and reasonably that an infinitely holy and good God could at the same time be infinitely evil and so I can grant Whitehead half a point here. However, God could still be infinite completely in nature and willingly allow evil to exist within his creation. I definitely agree with Whitehead that an infinitely good and evil God would be a God of nothingness. Whitehead (1926: 153). I doubt this being could logically exist.
[11] Viney (2008: 1).
[12] Viney (2008: 1).
[13] Grenz and Olsen (1992: 135).
[14] Diehl (1996: 881).
[15] Grenz and Olsen (1992: 135).
[16] Grenz and Olsen (1992: 135).
[17] Grenz and Olsen (1992: 136).
[18] Diehl (1996: 881). Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[19] Viney (2008: 8).
[20] Diehl (1996: 881). Viney (2008: 9).
[21] Grenz and Olsen (1992: 136).
[22] Diehl (1996: 881).
[23] Diehl (1996: 881).
[24] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[25] Viney (2008: 9).
[26] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[27] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[28] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[29] Viney (2008: 9).
[30] Whitehead (1926: 153-154).
[31] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[32] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[33] Viney (2008: 9).
[34] Viney (2008: 9).
[35] Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[36] Grenz and Olsen (1992: 142). I am not stating that this is the case in every documented view of process theism, but it is generally true that the two views are closely related.
[37] Nikkel (2003: 1).
[38] Nikkel (2003: 1).
[39] Blackburn (1996: 276). Blackburn also explains Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677) is noted for this view within Western philosophy
[40] Nikkel (2003: 1).


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