The Indispensible Context
One of the things I’ve enjoyed, as I’ve grown more acquainted with open and relational theology, is the way it’s able to stay in dialogue with science and philosophy in a way that the “theology of my former life” cannot. This isn’t the typical Western Christianity, influenced as it is by Greek philosophy and its “reflected side of reality” (Thank you, Plato, for suggesting that the world we live in isn’t really that important. And thank you, “enlightened” thinkers and theologians for baptizing such dualism into the Christian faith.)
In contrast to such thinking, what process-influenced open and relational theology is giving us might be reality itself. As evolution transcends survival (e.g., natural or random selection), it points to a process of value-realization pouring into the real world in each moment. The world is the “indispensable context,” as Andrew Davis says in a series of helpful youtube videos on process theology, “in which the realm of possibility finds true reality.”
The world as indispensable context not only esteems creation, its biblical. Imagine that! John’s famous statement, “For God so loved the world…” might be true for a thousand different reasons, but none more so than the world is literally the place for God’s hopes and dreams to become realized. In this sense, God needs the world. But, of course, we need God’s hopes and dreams. I imagine this is what Whitehead is getting at––how else to understand Whitehead than to rely upon imagination?––when he says, “It is as true to say that God creates the world, as that the world creates God.”
The indispensable context is not a post-mortem thing. It’s not something located out there “somewhere beyond the pale blue sky.” It’s not awaiting us at a later date–though, by faith, I look forward to more and more interesting instantiations of the indispensable context at later dates. Instead, the kingdom of heaven (whoops, sorry, the indispensable context) is present and available on this date. It constantly, lovingly, patiently insists that something bigger than us is present with us in this very moment. (And in this moment, and this moment…)
A question then is, what am I doing within this context? Am I aligning myself with love such that her hopes and dreams are becoming a reality in my world? Oh, and other questions, like, if God loves the world, how is it that Western Christianity has given itself permission to manipulate and abuse the world? I suppose the answer to the latter question has to do with our willingness to divorce ourselves from reality, which cycles us back to the beginning of this little post. However, as much as you would like to reread the stuff I’ve written, there’s no need! Just hear the invitation to be open to more evolved thinking and undivided ways of living right here amid the indispensable context. The world needs us to think and live. The world needs our love just as much as God’s love. Maybe our love is God’s love.
