nature of the divine

There has been criticism of the very use of the word “God” because it comes with so much baggage. I do not believe in the God Richard Dawkins rejects, and I understand the desire to avoid the term altogether. Yet I remain hesitant to simply throw it out, because to do so might be to break with a lineage of philosophical and spiritual reflection tha... See more

Schelling differentiates between the divine ground—an unconscious depth or yearning—and divine existence, which is God growing into time, manifesting in the dynamic evolution of the cosmos, and eventually, incarnating as a human being.

Schelling and Whitehead each depict God as a being somewhat at odds with Itself. In Schelling’s account, God harbor... See more

The word “God” is like a stick of dynamite. It remains valuable precisely because its utterance sets off such potent cultural and conceptual reverberations. Whitehead, in his own way, used it to name something at once tender and cosmic, intangible yet inescapable, the poet of the world who does not create the world from nothing but helps us make me... See more

Human concepts can only approximate the holy transcendence that cradles existence itself. Even our most correct perceptual and existential paradigm is going to be inadequate. Concepts are maps, models. And all models are wrong, as the saying goes, but some are useful. The inadequacy of the map may be vexing in its inherent omissions, but nonetheles

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The process conception of God offers both a source of refreshment and a sense of relevant novelty, as well as a sense of companionship, because this is not a God that exists outside the world. This is a God who suffers with the world, as much subject as object, as much a lack as a presence. I do think there is a radical negativity in this vision in... See more

I would suggest that the position with the most theological coherence and historical validity would be best encapsulated this way: God is, and always has been, at work in every culture planting the seeds of Christ even though it may not be communicated in the exact grammar of the traditional Christian lexicon. With Christ as the hermeneutic key, th

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