He is an associate professor of philosophy and religion at Anderson College and a lecturer in the philosophy of religion at the School of Theology. Browning was educated at the University of Chicago, where he is now a professor of pastoral theology at the Divinity School. He has taught at Harvard, Chicago and Emory Universities and is now Ashbel Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas.
Professor of Divinity at the Perkins School of Theology, he now teaches at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Process Philosophy and Christian Thought by Delwin Brown, Ralph
James, Gene Reeves (eds.)
Preface
Apart from the biases of the editors, there are at least two reasons for limiting this anthology to Whiteheadian process philosophy. Second, although other process philosophers have been influential within Christian theology, in recent years Whiteheadian process philosophy has generated increasing interest and excitement as a philosophical basis for Christian thought. All in all, they provide a good introduction to the variety and scope of Whiteheadian process theology and its place in contemporary Christian thought.
Without their work, in some cases presented here for the first time, such a volume on process philosophy and Christian thought could not exist.
James, Gene Reeves (eds.) Introduction
Whitehead’s Metaphysical System by Victor Lowe
The "principle of relativity" applies the doctrine of the relativity of all things to the definition of "being." Every concretion is an indivisible creative act; and so is the temporal advancement of the universe. Both are in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative progression towards novelty.
The interaction between God and the world was also the subject of the last philosophical paper Whitehead wrote, "Immortality."
The Development of Process Theology by Gene Reeves and Delwin
In the United States, Whitehead's closest theological sympathizers were at almost the opposite end of the theological spectrum to Thornton. Loomer's article also shed a lot of light on the problem of the relationship between God and evil. Hartshorne's dipolar conception of God is compatible with Whitehead's notions of the primordial and consequential nature of God.
Recent expositions of the process view of God are as often indebted to Hartshorne as to Whitehead. Christian attempts to clarify the logical status of the concept of God.57 Christian concludes, among other things, that Whitehead's view of God is "categorically contingent, systematically needs and . existentially contingent." is. Fundamental to Griffin's analysis is Whitehead's concept of the ideal goal - in the case of Jesus a peculiar ideal goal that (a) aims at the optimal expression of God's being, and (b) is.
Section One: Religion and Metaphysics
Religion and Metaphysics by Alfred North Whitehead
One of the worst periods of neglect occurred in the mid-nineteenth century with the Dominion. The present is all you have; and unless you find in that present the general principles which interpret the present to include the representation of the whole community of existents, you cannot take a step beyond your little piece of immediacy. It may be objected that we believe in the past and talk about it without establishing our own metaphysical principles.
To the extent that your metaphysical beliefs are implicit, you vaguely interpret the past in line with the present. But when it comes to the primary metaphysical data, the world of which you are immediately aware is the entire datum. The difference is that religion is the longing of the spirit for the facts of existence to find their justification in the nature of existence.
But science can leave its metaphysics implicit and retreat behind our belief in the pragmatic value of its general descriptions. It is for this reason that the previous lecture emphasized the broadest view of the religious experience. The shadow passes into the fact, to be constitutive of it; and yet the fact precedes the shadow.
There is a kingdom of heaven before the present passing of present things, and there is the same kingdom which finds its consummation through the fulfillment of this passage. The actual world, the world of experience, thought and physical activity, is a community of many different entities; and these entities contribute to or detract from the common value of the total community At the same time, these actual entities are, for themselves, their value, individual and divisible.
Christian Faith and Process Philosophy by Bernard M. Loomer
The explanation for this inadequacy is inherent in the very nature of the philosophical enterprise. This general methodological principle is applicable to the problem of the relationship between philosophy and the interpretation of the Christian faith. Furthermore, this general principle implies that the "givenness" of the Christian faith must be qualified.
These structural patterns can be defined in terms of the category elements that make up a metaphysical system. Regarding nature and history alone, there is no resolution of the tension between good and evil. A discussion of the possible difficulties associated with the "concreteness" of this process is postponed here for a future occasion.
In other words, the sovereignty of the God of the Christian faith is abandoned because God's freedom is too limited. The fact of the resurrection is central and decisive for our thinking about the meaning of the Christian faith. In terms of process philosophy, therefore, in a sense God is not responsible for the nature of the conditions through which creativity operates.
He is the source of good in the sense that the realization of good depends on Him. Second, creation (in process philosophy) appears in terms of the emergence of the higher from the lower.
Christian Natural Theology by John B. Cobb, Jr
- The Task of Natural Theology
- The Problem of Relativism
The last point leads to a consideration of the substantive or material reason for the rejection of natural theology. First, he must consider the intrinsic excellence of the structure of thought he proposes to adopt and adapt. Diverse visions of reality lead to diverse philosophies and are in turn strengthened by the excellence of the philosophies they give birth to.
The decision on the part of the Christian theologian about where he should turn for his natural theology should involve the judgment of whether the vision of reality underlying the. It is because no philosophy can be considered absolutely philosophical that the Christian can and should choose between philosophies [as long as they are philosophically of equal merit) the one that shares his own vision of the fundamental nature of things. In the field of science, the fundamental principles that are now applied are far from the fundamental principles of the Newtonian scheme.
The philosopher's task with regard to the history of philosophy is not to refute his predecessors, but to learn from them. These inferences will prove false, because in the nature of the matter no system of thought is final. We must never regard it as a final, final expression of the human mind beyond which thought cannot progress.
I can be no more certain of the truth of the assertion that the absolute has manifested itself than of the truth of philosophical analysis. Whitehead saw the work of the creative philosopher in terms of the novelty of his perspective.
A Christian Natural Theology? by Schubert M. Ogden
Of course, part of the reason Barth's judgment was so extreme was the role of "natural theology" in the church's struggle against Nazism in the 1930s. Its real basis was a new vision of Protestant Christianity that saw, as Barth said in 1933, that "many roads lead back to Rome" and that Protestantism would fulfill its calling only when it finally "said goodbye to every form of natural theology .” 2. Conservatives, on the other hand, while showing a growing interest in Barth, were not sympathetic to his complete rejection of natural theology.
It was probably inevitable, then, that the eclipse of natural theology in the thirties and forties would prove temporary and that it should once again find its English-speaking champions. Recently, however, there have been other indications that the matter of natural theology may have both a future and a past. As was evident from his earlier study Living Options in Protestant Theology,4 Cobb considers it to be a form of natural theology.
Cobb's deep conviction, which he defends at length in his new book, is that the fortunes of natural theology today depend on Christian. For this reason, the subtitle of his book is quite right: he offers us a natural theology "based on the thought of Alfred North Whitehead." The one place where I have major reservations is Cobb's view of the nature of natural theology and how we arrive at a decision.
But this, I think, does not justify speaking (with tradition) of "Christian philosophy" or (with Cobb) of "Christian natural theology" — though we may say (with Karl Rahner) that any philosophy which is true, to that extent . Similarly, I cannot share Cobb's assessment that there must be any standard other than its intrinsic philosophical excellence, by which we may choose a particular form of natural theology.
Analogy and Myth in Postliberal Theology by Bernard E
He taught at Tufts University and is now professor of philosophy at Wilberforce University.
Meland
Psychological and
Ontological Perspectives on Faith and Reason by Don S. Browning
The Metaphysical Target and the Theological Victim by Malcolm
- The Metaphysical Target
- The Verifiability Principle
- The Abandonment of Positivistic Dogma and the Analytic Turn to Metaphysics
- The Theological Victim
At first glance, Ogden's rather optimistic assessment of the possibilities for dialogue between theologians and philosophers is not unreasonable. The main target of the logical positivists was metaphysics, not theology. The problem of the status of the principle of verifiability was eagerly tackled by non-positivists.
Positivists, because of the excessively restrictiveness of the principle, found themselves in the embarrassing situation of throwing scientific babies into the metaphysical bath. One way out of the proposed difficulty is to abandon the requirement for conclusive verification. In a night of intense bonding between them, the stranger emerges as the leader of the resistance.
His faith is soon put to the test because the stranger reappears as head of the local unit of the Gestapo. We have already noted that the logical relation of negation raised problems for the restrictive tendencies of verifiability. The first of these is to keep changing the statement of the principle in the effort to obtain a suitable version of it.
After all, there was something prejudiced and dogmatic about the positivists' tortuous attempts to arrive at a version of the verifiability principle with the right combination of. The traditional problems of philosophy are then found hidden in the sophisticated formulations of the present.
