God as Poet of the World: Exploring Process Theologies, Robert Faber, Westminster John Knox Press 2008 (ISBN 978-0-664-23076-0), ix + 365 pp, $39.95.
Ronald Faber is Professor of Process Theology at the Claremont School of Theology, in Claremont, California. As is well known, Process Theology is one of the major theological innovations over the last century, and its wide-spread influence has been pervasive. In this book, Faber presents a systematic exploration of process theology’s inception and development, its chief concerns and concepts, and its (possible) contributions to twenty-first century theology – especially with reference to cosmology and politics. In what follows, the contents of the title will be briefly highlighted, so as to gain a better conception of the entailments of Faber’s contribution(s).
The title begins with a recounting of fourteen theologians’ articulation of what they perceive to be the essence of Process Theology; Faber includes the responses of such notable names as John Cobb, Lewis Ford, David Ray Griffin, Catherine Keller, and Barry Whitney. Following this brief section, Faber gives a broad introduction to his own view regarding the question, ‘what is Process Theology?’. In providing his answer, Faber is keen to keep in mind the following considerations: history, content, and perspective. More specifically, with regard to history, Faber notes that Process Theology has four precursors – broadly considered: pragmatism, evolutionism, liberal theology, and the philosophy of the organism (7). With regard to content, Faber highlights the processive oscillation between creativity and evolution in the teachings of Process Theology. With reference to perspective, Faber notes that Process Theology – building from the theological section of Whitehead’s Process and Reality (1929) – characterizes God’s relationship with the world as being a(the?) poet within it (from whence the title of this text derives). From Whitehead, Faber contends that 1). The creative process exhibited throughout the universe is the form of the unity within it; 2). God constitutes the universe as process by offering unto it various possibilities for realization; 3). It is as the creative power of the universe that truth, goodness, and beauty are actualized; and 4). God is the saving ‘poet’ of the world, shaping it continuously (15). Faber contends that Process Theology is a theology of perichoresis, representative of God’s creative adventure within the world, being the ground of its novelty, as well as its compassionate companion.
In the first – full – chapter, Faber covers the ‘Emergence and Differentiation of Process Theology’ in recounting the various historical figures who gave shape to it in its embryonic stages of development, including the work of Shailer Mathews, the empirical theology of Henry Wieman, the neoclassical theism of Charles Hartshorne, the theological naturalism of Bernard Loomer, the existential theology of Schubert Ogden and John Cobb, the speculative theology of Lewis Ford and Joseph Bracken, as well as the postmodern theism of David Ray Griffin and Catherine Keller (17–43). Throughout this chapter, Faber is especially concerned with pointing out the continuance – or lack thereof – of these schools of thought in following Whitehead’s view of picturing God as event, God’s dipolarity, and God’s relationality.
The second chapter recapitulates the ‘Philosophical Background’ of Process Theology, highlighting the ‘philosophy of organism’ given by Whitehead, especially his concepts of the subject and his dual metaphysics (49–62). Notably, Faber contends that whitehead’s philosophy was always based on the priority of relationality over isolation. Additionally, Faber asserts – and defends the assertion thereafter – that Whitehead’s organic cosmology originated from critiques of Platonic and Newtonian cosmologies, both of which he viewed as being too one-sided (70–76). But where is God’s place within this organic cosmology? This question is addressed by Faber in the third chapter, wherein it is stipulated that God’s role is not to ground – or establish – the world per se, but to reconcile it instead, appearing as the source of the future, the ground of subjectivity, the spheres of possibility, and the guarantor of personal identity (81). Herein, Faber also notes that with respect to initial aims, God acts in a genuinely creative fashion (97).
In what is disputably the most impressive chapter, Faber depicts the ‘Relationship between God and the World’ (chapter 4, i.e.). Asserted herein is the notion that God is a dipolar entity, panentheistically collecting the world within his being; seen as such, God’s immanence and transcendence is reconceived as a mutual immanence of God and world, which fosters a radical reciprocity of relationship (121). God is depicted as fundamentally being one in relation to an ‘other’, becoming God as the world becomes the world; through uniting the world, God experiences the world, knows the world, and reconciles it (124). In articulating Whitehead’s six antitheses, Faber depicts God and the world as engaged in continuous dialectical movement in relation to one another (157–70). In short, God is the poet of the matrix, saving all differences as relations (179).
Chapter five expands on Process Theology’s ‘Visions of God’, whereas the sixth chapter makes explicit Process Theology’s ‘Programmatic Alternatives’, particularly in resisting modernity’s focus upon substance dualism. In sum, this book is a superb resource for those who want to explore the basic contentions of – and implications of – process theology, picturing it as fundamentally a constructive theology, based in part upon Whitehead’s process philosophy, and maturated through the creative mutual interaction of philosophy and theology. However, Faber highlights that Whitehead’s philosophy is neither a nor the base of Process Theology, but is rather a contributor to it, along with the pragmatism and evolutionism of Bergson, James, and Alexander. It is highly recommended for graduate-level courses related to the philosophy of religion or contemporary theological movements.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA