Many theological understandings imagine God and the universe in ways that seem to have no useful implication, as if theological pursuit culminates in believing in round squares. If understanding God ultimately ends without any practical application other than how to best ponder, I wonder the point of it is. Perhaps my issue lies in what I consider “practical”: engagement with the external (as opposed to personal, internal piety). I am not interested in understandings of God that violate my worldview as a 21st century person.
We should foster dialogue that is more open, or less strict, articulating fewer particular beliefs and seeking resonance with feelings generated by Encounter or metaphorical language that could encompass a multiplicity of understandings. Perhaps because I can resonate with the profundity of some emotions and connections, I can understand this as a conceptualization of divine qualities.
I find a home in Process Theology because of its ability to describe a theology in ways that don’t contradict my understandings of the universe. While Process Theology seems to understand some order to the universe, it doesn’t offer a God that is all-powerful in a way that makes me question the sometimes-cruel and often-bizarre happenings of nature or why I have an appendix. While this removes from my understanding a God who can show up and save me from something, it also removes a God who is responsible for or complicit in suffering. Lastly, the interconnectedness that calls us to responsibility is practical in a way that fits my need to engage it with my external world. It’s a God I want to work with.
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