Shorter Reviews

Progress in the science and theology dialogue requires a shared philosophical worldview acceptable to both, contends Joseph Bracken, and he constructs a revised process-relational scheme for this very purpose. Evincing contemporary scientific data and drawing on key modern thinkers, Bracken mounts a convincing argument for a worldview that is through and through social, inter-relational, inter-subjective, and activity-based (as opposed to entity-based). In Bracken’s metaphysics reality is socially organized into integrated processes or systems where momentary, event-like individual entities as the constituents of reality both condition and are conditioned by the systems to which they belong. He goes on to show this proposal’s promise for resolving longstanding theological problems. A systems model alone can adequately account for how creatures are simultaneously “in” God yet retain their own existence and activity in a panentheistic model of the God–world relationship. That systems overlap without losing their distinctive identities (in contrast to substances, which cannot simultaneously be in the same place) obviates Trinitarian and christological conundrums precipitated by older metaphysical categories. Bracken similarly shows how the theologies of divine providence, evil and suffering, the church, and even the theology of miracles, can benefit in novel and interesting ways.

This book has much to commend. Bracken explains Alfred North Whitehead’s thought and its scientific underpinnings in easily accessible, non-technical ways. His engagements with major theologians on subjects like panentheism and the Trinity provide helpful surveys of the state of the discussions. The theoretical quickly becomes practical in concrete applications to controversial topics like beginning and end-of-life decisions, individualism and the common good in social ethics, and ecumenical efforts (including the Catholic church’s relationship to the World Council of Churches, and interreligious dialogue). Bracken’s willingness to revise process-relational thought in view of more recent scientific advancements is a virtue: field theory in physics now dictates prioritizing the enduring structured fields of activity over Whitehead’s momentary “actual entities” themselves. More complete theories of time and causation, similarly informed by the best recent science and robust treatments in contemporary analytic philosophy, could buttress Bracken’s case. Given other viable options for the theology of religions today, some may wish for a fuller justification of the claim that various religions are all different ways of acknowledging the invisible workings of the divine. These possible areas of development notwithstanding, those looking for a satisfying recasting of Christian theology in light of the most recent science, as well as ways forward in the dialogue between the two, will be amply supplied here.

MARC A. PUGLIESE saint leo university richmond, virginia