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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Process theology | 2/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T04:33:48.313243+00:00 | kb-cron |
== Relationship to liberation theology == Henry Young combines black theology and process theology in his book Hope in Process. Young seeks a model for American society that goes beyond the alternatives of integration of blacks into white society and black separateness. He finds useful the process model of the many becoming one. Here the one is a new reality that emerges from the discrete contributions of the many, not the assimilation of the many to an already established one. Monica Coleman has combined womanist theology and process theology in her book Making a Way Out of No Way. In it, she argues that 'making a way out of no way' and 'creative transformation' are complementary insights from the respective theological traditions. She is one of many theologians who identify both as a process theologian and feminist/womanist/ecofeminist theologian, which includes persons such as Sallie McFague, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Catherine Keller, and Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki. C. Robert Mesle, in his book Process Theology, outlines three aspects of a process theology of liberation:
There is a relational character to the divine which allows God to experience both the joy and suffering of humanity. God suffers just as those who experience oppression and God seeks to actualize all positive and beautiful potentials. God must, therefore, be in solidarity with the oppressed and must also work for their liberation. God is not omnipotent in the classical sense and so God does not provide support for the status quo, but rather seeks the actualization of greater good. God exercises relational power and not unilateral control. In this way God cannot instantly end evil and oppression in the world. God works in relational ways to help guide persons to liberation.
== Relationship to pluralism == Process theology affirms that God is working in all persons to actualize potentialities. In that sense each religious manifestation is the Divine working in a unique way to bring out the beautiful and the good. Additionally, scripture and religion represent human interpretations of the divine. In this sense pluralism is the expression of the diversity of cultural backgrounds and assumptions that people use to approach the Divine.
== Relationship to the doctrine of the incarnation ==
Contrary to Christian orthodoxy, the Christ of mainstream process theology is not the mystical and historically unique union of divine and human natures in one hypostasis, the eternal Logos of God incarnated and identifiable as the man Jesus. Rather, God is incarnate in the lives of all people when they act according to a call from God. Jesus fully and in every way responded to God's call; thus, the person of Jesus is theologically understood as "the divine Word in human form." Jesus is not singularly or essentially God, but he was perfectly in sync with God at all moments of his life. Cobb expressed the Incarnation in process terms that link it to his understanding of actualization of human potential: "'Christ' refers to the Logos as incarnate hence as the process of creative transformation in and of the world".