God Christ Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology

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Summary: Process Thought... Hmmm...
Review: There are, no doubt, some intuitions of truth at the base of process thought. But what struck me more and more as I waded through this text (and it can get a bit difficult and technical) was the boundless and fearless enthusiasm for unbridled philosophical and theological speculation about God's deepest nature and innermost being. I kept thinking of the vision of the Prophet Isaiah, who when he saw God exclaimed, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts." Suchocki talks in what is ultimately a rather casual way about the deepest mysteries of God, as if the operation of the human intellect in itself were able to fathom them. I suppose this is the fruit and end-point of the rationalism which has bedeviled western theology from Augustine to Aquinas, through the Reformers and down to the present. There is absolutely no sense of God's ineffability, and no savor of the fear and awe which should rightly accompany and ground theological speculation of this kind. It's for this reason that in spite of its theoretical and intellectual appeal, process thought seems so cold to me; in spite of its supposed search for a "related" God, I can't help but feel that all it comes up with is a human construct. And to worship a human construct is called "idolatry."

Rating:
Summary: A Doctrine on Process
Review: This work by Suchochi provides the not so timid reader of theology the opportunity to understand the concepts of evil, God's aim, Christ, Redemption, Resurrection and Eschatology from the view point of Process Theology. Suchochi shows God as a truly relational Being. She explains God as one who takes us from the point we are at, considering our pasts and then providing us with the best possible combination of circumstances (considering the world's influences upon us) and developes a way to reach God's aim. Suchochi provides some diagrams that need to be studied well in order to get the most benefit from them.