Preface:I am reading a book on process theology (derived from Whitehead’s process philosophy, which you may or may not be familiar with). Process theology is hard to explain, not only because it requires a familiarity with religious language used for centuries (while it also turns such language on its head and completely redefines much of religious language, most notably the term “God”) but because it requires a degree of familiarity with science and nature. It’s like the high culture of religion, but without the pretensions. Or something.

While I will avoid trying to explain process theology, I’ll try to explain some of what’s going on in my head (if I haven’t lost all of that exciting bubble that happened right before I decided an introduction was necessary… crap).

Here is a quotation (which makes more sense if you understand process theology, but whatever):

“We have bodies and hands that can reach out and pull a trigger or grab a child. God does not. So we can overrule God’s freedom in ways that God cannot. God is everywhere and everytime. God can make freedom possible for an entire universe, moving it through an evolutionary process to create a universe of experience. We cannot. We are only here and now. Our powers are ours, not God’s. And God’s powers are God’s, not ours. God cannot overrule our freedom.”

Taken out of its context, this quote could be taken to mean that God acts somehow “consciously” as a controlling force in evolution, which is not so. Just to clarify.

I guess what’s going through my head right now is the crazy reality that something always exists (I’m calling this “God”). There is always an energy bouncing between the tiniest elements of existence. It has these elements reacting to each other in enormously complex ways that are both predictable and unpredictable. Through an amazing domino effect taking literally an infinite amount of time, they have led to me and my temporal existence.

What’s amazing about my existence, though it’s so much more temporally limited than many other existences (actual occasions), is that I seem to have consciousness. While freedom extends to every particle of the universe, I can make choices which take into account how those choices will affect the future and an emotional reaction to things. I have morality. Thus, what makes my existence quite spectacular is how I can use this “morality” to guide my decisions and choices in ways that can have lasting consequence and understand that in each moment of choice. I can try to orient the world, in whatever small way, toward a reality that is pleasurable and meaningful to everyone else and whoever else might come after.

But holy crap! I only have 50 or 60 years left! In the grand scheme of things, my existence is a tiny blip, but in the grand scheme of things, my existence has weight because of the magic of consciousness which somehow manifested out of the chance freedom of every little element bouncing around before I came into being. I am a miracle in that I am a possibility out of a bazillion possibilities and I have the capacity to understand that. I understand that not only in a way which can lead me to be remarkably grateful for the chance arrangement of matter and energy that is me, but in a way makes me aware of the lasting footprint I will have, of the ripples that I create in every moment by using a light bulb or saying a word to someone or hugging my cat or driving my car or eating zucchini. Holy Jesus, I am so meaningful!

So (gosh darn it), I’d better do something meaningful.

Book: Process Theology: A Basic Introduction by C. Robert Mesle