Abstract
Process thought has not received a significant uptake among Catholic theologians. Apart from Thomists and perhaps Lonerganians, most Catholic theologians have preferred more personalistic or hermeneutical philosophical approaches to the metaphysical systems on offer. Alfred North Whitehead, the father of modern process thought, sought to develop a metaphysical system that would replace the generally Thomistic language of substance, accident, causation, and existence, with a more “dynamic” set of categories such as event, relationship, and process. This approach led to a very different conception of divine being, one that existed in mutual relationship with the world, such that “it is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God.”
This collection of essays provides various levels of engagement with and extensions of Whitehead’s approach, touching on a variety of theological questions of interest. The first two essays, by David Burrell and J. J. Mueller, reproduce articles that have appeared in Theological Studies that raise significant objections to Whitehead’s project. Ilia Delio suggests links between the thought of Duns Scotus and that of Whitehead. Daniel Dombrowski examines the contribution of Charles Hartshorne, who brought Whitehead’s ideas to a larger audience, and its relation to Catholic thought. Maria-Teresa Teixeira identifies similarities and tensions between Whitehead’s thought and key Catholic positions. Joseph Bracken, perhaps the most prominent Catholic thinker to have engaged with Whitehead, suggests a more “systems-oriented” metaphysics to balance permanence and change, drawing on lesser-utilized elements in Whitehead’s thought. Thomas Hosinski proposes a process interpretation of creatio ex nihilo that would bring it closer to more traditional Christian belief on the issue of creation. Palmyre Oomen considers ways in which process thought might assist in understanding the Incarnation through the notion of co-inherence. Thomas Schärtl suggests the use of a process metaphysics for understanding sacramentality and the Eucharist. John Becker, one of the editors, engages with the topic of religious pluralism from a process perspective. Marc Pugliese, the other editor, enters into the debate about the possibility of intrinsically evil acts, comparing the position of Aquinas and Whitehead. A final essay by Leo Lefebure brings process thought into dialogue with ecological issues, including Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. There is a brief afterword by Thomas Rausch offering some autobiographical notes on his own encounter with process ideas. The book also has a rather long introduction by John Cobb Jr, one of the key popularizers of process thought, on his own encounter with process thought and notes of appreciation of and engagement with each of the contributions to the volume.
This is a good place to start for anyone interested in engaging with process thought. A number of the authors spell out basic aspects of the process vision, helping to unpack the dense and difficult ideas found in Whitehead’s writings. The editors have done well to begin with two relatively critical pieces so as not to turn the work into a one-sided affair. One issue I felt was not seriously engaged with is the repeated assertion that God is temporal, an inevitable consequence of Whitehead’s understanding of the God-world relationship. Such a claim appears to violate Einstein’s account of the relativity of time. Whitehead was aware of this difficulty and attempted to address it by reinterpreting Einstein’s theories of both special and general relativity. This remains an unaddressed issue in the work.