Process Theology: On Postmodernism, Morality, Pluralism, Eschatology, and Demonic Evil

David Griffin’s latest book, “Process Theology: On Postmodernism, Morality, Pluralism, Eschatology, and Demonic Evil,” continues the author’s characteristic style in lucid prose and straightforward explanation of complex ideas in the process philosophical tradition as represented primarily by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.This new book presents a summary overview and some novel restatements of much of Griffin’s previous work, from a Whiteheadian perspective, on the Judeo-Christian heritage rightly understood as most consonant with a process natural theology, overcoming demonic evil in the world, the solution of the mind-body problem, the realistic possibility of life after death, and the future of an enlightened global order based on the golden rule and great commandments. Griffin’s final essay offers a brief vignette of the life and theology of Charles Hartshorne, probably the most influential process theologian in the Whiteheadian philosophical tradition.David Ray Griffin has certainly demonstrated through his many books that he stands as an able successor to Hartshorne in the role of interpreting and extending Whiteheadian thought. His contributions to that end have always and continue to merit recommendation.

Griffin’s Process Theology applies the philosophical theism of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) to topics in Christian theology. Griffin understands process theology to be “a natural theology in the sense of a philosophical theology, developing positions that can in principle be accepted by members of many religious traditions,” though it has historically been explained in Christian terms (2).Practical minded readers will be interested in Griffin’s use of somewhat abstract philosophical doctrines on the very concrete problems of our world. Griffin’s process theology offers a way to affirm multiple religions without watering down each religion’s distinctive truth claims (Chapter 4). Process theology offers a vision of why climate change remains an existential threat despite God’s will for a safer planet (Chapter 6). Process theology offers a naturalistic account of the demonic as entrenched patterns of influence that oppose God’s will toward freedom and flourishing (Chapter 7). Process theology, Griffin argues, offers conceptual remedies for these and other social ills.Process theism, to be sure, is unorthodox, though not in the sense of an esoteric truth available only to the initiated. Rather, Griffin argues that process theology is publicly available, and has been a minority report throughout the history of ideas in the West. He takes great pains to show where Christian theological consensus has deviated from process theology, and offers his current formulation of process theology as a corrective alternative. This makes process theology—along with William James—“reconstructively postmodern.” Like more well-known postmodernisms, process thought dismantles and interrogates the structures of modernity, but then goes “neo-classical” and reconstructs a realist metaphysics.Although other introductions to process theology tend to get bogged down in its metaphysical underpinnings, Griffin is able to explore important theological topics —e.g. divine attributes, evil and suffering, and the problem of religious diversity—without losing the reader in lists of technical vocabulary. His descriptions of philosophical controversies are linear and rational, always laying out competing positions and giving clear reasons why one is preferable to the others. Semantic ambiguities are cleared up by the use of subscripts. Chapter 5, for example introduces the reader to Christian salvation1, salvation2, salvation3, and salvation4. This book then is highly recommended for three types of readers: readers1 are those looking for a relatively jargon-free introduction to process theology; readers2, who are interested in process theology’s situation within the broader trajectories of Western philosophy; and readers3, who are interested in how theology offers conceptual remedies for modern imprudence.