Theological Reflections on Emergence

It has been some time since I visited Philip Clayton's Adventures in the Spirit (Fortress, 2008) as part of involvement in the Transforming Theology blogging effort. I must admit that I've struggled with a book that pushes at the edges of my own theological/academic training. I enjoy dabbling in science-related issues, but Clayton is playing in a different league.

In chapter 7, which is entitled "Theological Reflections on Emergence," and in it Clayton introduces us to the theological dimension of the conversation. The author is a Process Theologian, and really for the first time in the book, introduces us to the theological dialog partner he wants to use in engaging science.

Clayton's effort, like Schleiermacher's many years ago, is apologetic in nature. He wants to offer a secularized or secularizing world an intellectually sustainable defense of the Christian faith. These are his Speeches to the Cultured Despisers. In the next section of the book, Clayton will lay out his understanding of "panentheism," the basic theological perspective used by process theologians. When I get there I'll talk more about this perspective.

In this chapter, what Clayton does is suggest ways in which "dipolar theism" expresses itself in traditional theological categories. Before we raise the issue of the modifications, let me share his definition of dipolar theism.

He writes:

It is difficult but not impossible to encompass both personal and non-personal functions within a single doctrine of God. Minimally, one has to conceive God's nature as having two sides or "poles": an antecedent (pre-existing) pole, which represents God's eternal and unchanging nature, and a consequent pole, which emerges in the course of God's interaction with the world. (p. 104).

He goes on to say that:

A dipolar theology allows one to conceive God both as the ongoing Ground of emerging processes and as responsive to the entities that emerge within those processes. (p. 104).

The key is to understand that the realities of the modern world require modifications to the way in which we envision God and God's interactions with the universe. In a panentheistic view, doctrines like divine omnipotence, sovereignty, immutability, must be modified. The most important thing to understand is that "if God is to remain consistent with God's own nature, God is now constrained by those decisions, which means that God's present power is further limited" (pp. 106-107).

This is a question that we must wrestle with -- are there limits to what God can and cannot do? What does free will mean in this context? Ultimately the question -- is the future open? I believe that Clayton assumes this to be true.

With chapter 7, Clayton brings to a close a section on the idea of emergence, a scientific view that he wants to engage theologically -- and that's where we're headed. Clayton raises the question of whether, if we assume evolution to be true, we are the product of blind processes or whether we owe our existence to "infinite conscious Spirit." That is the question, one that Christian theology answers by saying that there is more out there than meets the eye.