Christianity in Process

All great poetry is divinely inspired. In that sense also, we read in second Timothy that the whole library of ancient Israel is divinely inspired. We note that it is also useful for teaching, in reproof, in correcting faults, and in training in uprightness. We can specify that it is the ancient Hebrew library about which this is said. Probably in ancient China and in ancient Greece something similar could be said about their libraries. We Christians believe that God’s inspiration is present in all of these, and others. However, the events recorded in the New Testament have for us special importance, so the New and Old Testaments are in a special sense our scriptures.

God is present in every event. Quite literally, God is “incarnate” in everything; so the proclaiming that God was incarnate in Jesus is not especially exciting. We may do better to think of God’s incarnation as a special mode of presence because we do find God in Jesus in a way that we do not find God present in a tree. Whitehead locates God’s presence, especially in God’s calling. We humans, in every moment experience, along with much else a pull in a particular direction. This is the initial aim of each momentary occasion. That is present in every momentary event. But the aim that emerges from the initial aim and a hundred other influences is called the subjective, which is what that occasion actually aims to be and along with all the other causes determines what it actually becomes. You can see that the presence of God may be largely smothered in the outcome. But occasions can choose the initial aim above all else. God then becomes determinative of what happens. We can use the term “incarnation” to refer to that situation. God’s presence is visible in the actual outcome. Finding people in whom in general we are confident that much of the time we see in their behavior the effective working of the divine presence may call forth the idea of God being truly incarnate in that person.

Strangely Christian “orthodoxy” followed a particular philosophy far more than the Bible. This orthodoxy thought that what is really good is what a thing is in itself. Relations were limitations. God, they thought had none. But think for a moment what God could be before God had created anything when God was all alone by Godself. God could not love, for there was nothing to love. God could not know, for there was nothing to know, God could not cause anything, for there was no effect. Indeed, it is hard to think of God existing at all. The greater the cosmos that God influences loves, and knows, the greater is God. It seems rather obvious that a Creator who does not create anything is not much of a Creator. Sometimes people don’t notice that if they attribute all power to God, they similarly deny any power to God.

Often law is a human construct, and often it is to be supported and enforced. But Christians believe that the grounds for better and worse are found elsewhere, in the initial aim God gives us in each moment. We are called beyond all strictly rational arguments or considerations, moment by moment, to constitute ourselves in the way that is best for the whole. Since that is different in every situation, it is not easily understood as law. Christians are free from the law just because we are called to do far better. We can generalize and say that we are always called to love and to act in love. The gift of the initial aim is itself grace. But much of the time “sin” in the sense of “missing the mark” or “falling short.” This in no way lessens God’s love and generosity. This is grace. The grace may include calling us to face our failures if that is what we need. Grace does not free us from sinning or from responsibility for sinning. But the divine response to our falling short is to love us and keep calling.

Jesus’ world like ours was heading toward self-destruction. His “world” was Israel rather than the planet. Jesus taught that God called us to enter a different world. His name for it has been translated into English as “Kingdom of God.” In this world, people would, above all, love their enemies, especially those who persecuted them. Those Jews who followed him gave up revolting against Rome and tried loving individual Romans. But most Jews did not, and Rome eventually destroyed Jerusalem and dispersed the Jewish people. Still, those who were living by love of one another and others continued to experience a different reality in which they could participate even when Israel as a political entity was destroyed. Today, some of us call the alternative to the current world order, an ecological civilization.

The question of life after death did not preoccupy the Jews of Jesus’ day. Most believed that a different kind of life continued. Jesus used this belief as a background for some of his parables. It was never the foreground of his teaching. We are called to live in and for the “Kingdom of God” here and now. I personally believe that there is new and different life after death. I think it is all heaven in that our relation to God will play a more direct and immediate role. However, much of it may also be more like purgatory. As C.S. Lewis points out not all of us will be ready to live intentionally in and for God and one another.