Louisville Process Theology Network

Why We Need Process Theology

WHY WE NEED PROCESS THEOLOGY

“At the heart of this challenge is the prevailing assumption among educated lay people

that there is a fundamental tension between religion and science.

At worst, they are enemies:

The rationalism of science threatens the possibility of religious faith, and religious faith undermines the acceptance of fundamental scientific truths…….

Yet I am increasingly convinced that the problem is not an essential divide between scientific reason and religious faith,

but rather an outmoded frame for religious thinking that relies on the metaphysical “certainties” of an age long past……….

As someone dedicated to the continuity of Judaism and the Jewish people, I have been searching for ways to think and talk about God that make sense

(that is, that are both internally consistent and consistent with our current best understandings of how reality operates),

that resonate with Jewish texts and traditions, and that promote wise and ethical behavior……..

In recent years, I have found the school of process thought, and process theology more specifi cally, to be a powerful resource in this project………

For process thought, anything that is “actual” is in process. God, in that God too is “actual,” must also be in process, ever-changing and incorporating new aspects of experience………

As both Jewish and Christian process theologians have noted, the eternal, unchanging God is most decidedly not the deity that we encounter in the Torah………

Most importantly, this God learns…….

If God learns, then God changes—and the Torah seems quite clear, and quite comfortable, on this point.”

Excerpts of “Why We Need Process Theology” by Rabbi Toba Sptizer

at reconstructingjudaism.org