December 2002 Question
H. Richard Niebuhr said in The Responsible Self something to the effect that God acts in all situations upon us. I assume this comment stems from HRN's view of God as sovereign. What would a process take on this quote be? God is present in everything, but does God act on us through other rational agents and circumstances, or does God only act on us directly through our own psyches?
Dr. Cobb's Response
The questioner
understands that for process theology God acts
directly in every occasion. I would not initially use the
preposition
"through" to describe that acting. God participates
indispensably in
the coming to be of each occasion of experience. Of
course, through this
process, God influences other occasions as well, and that brings
us to the
main point of the question. Does God act on us through other
rational
agents and circumstances? The answer is certainly, Yes,
but it is
worthwhile unpacking that answer because it may not mean just
what others
would mean by the same answer.
Let's review
the basic process model. Each occasion comes into
being as the creative synthesis of selected elements of its past.
In the
case of occasions of human experience, that past is usually primarily
the
immediate past occasion of that person's experience and the occasions
that
have just occurred the neurons making up the brain. Through
these
proximate occasions, one is profoundly influenced by events in
the rest of
the body and the wider world. Whitehead also allows for
direct influences
of occasions that are not spatiotemporally contiguous. He
mentions mental
telepathy as a mode of such influence. He implies that more
remote past
occasions in one's life may also directly influence present
experience. But these speculations are not important for
the present question.
Although God's
immediate causal efficacy in our lives is necessary
to our existence and our freedom, if we consider the content of
any one
occasion, the past plays a far, far larger role. My present
experience is
in massive continuity with my immediately preceding experience.
The
condition of my body, especially my brain, is immensely
determinative. Social psychology shows how much my experience
is formed
over time by my family and the larger community of which I am
a part. My
socio-historical location, my gender, my race, and many other
things
explain a great deal about me. Thus, for the most part,
I am a product of
other people and circumstances. That I am not wholly so
is because God is
also present directly in my life. But the question with
which we are
concerned here whether and how God affects me through other
people and
circumstances.
The answer, of
course, is that God has affected those other people
and circumstances that in turn affect me. We can think of
this in two
ways. First, in terms of long-term evolutionary and historical
processes. Second, in terms of intimately personal relations.
It is because
of God that there are living things and that these
have become more complex and support psyches or souls. Hence,
obviously,
God's effects on us are mediated by billions of years of subtle
influence
on the course of events. Without God, nothing would happen,
but we may say
with more emphasis, there could at best be the purely mechanical
universe
that so many, influenced by the modern scientific worldview, still
posit. Obviously, this efficacy of God through others is
of absolute
importance.
But I suspect
that the questioner has more personal relations in
mind. Does God act on us through friends and mentors?
Yes,
certainly. God acts in them, and the way they relate to
us is affected by
the way God has acted in them. This is true in all relations
whatsoever.
However, in the
context of religious discourse, we usually single
out particular cases. The church and other communities of
faith have a
very important role here. If we situate ourselves within
a community of
people who seek to optimize the influence of God in their lives,
not only
are we encouraged to orient ourselves in the same way, but also
we benefit
from the influence of people in whom God's influence is effective
and
through whom, therefore, that influence is mediated to us.
It is important,
however, not to exaggerate this. The members of
the congregation are influenced by many things besides God.
They are
products of their own past. Some may really believe that
God calls them in
ways that process theologians would judge distorted and even
pernicious. Too often Christians substitute moral laws and
doctrines for
the immediate call of God. Many of these laws and doctrines
are benign,
but some are not. The identification of such laws and doctrines
as divine
will and teaching can lead to fanaticism. I could go on
at length about
the harm that can be done to individuals in faith communities
by sincere
believers who block the call of God by their religious beliefs
and practices.
But God does
break through all that again and again. There are
individuals who are remarkably sensitive to the call of God in
their
lives. Often others recognize that. Many of us can
attest to the beauty
of holiness that they, usually unconsciously, embody. God
acts through
them on us.
Even here we
must be careful. These saints are still fallible
creatures subject to many influences other than that of God.
Their
beliefs, and even their actions, never purely embody God's call.
Yet in a
world that deviates so drastically from that call, their presence
is a real
light. That they, too, have feet of clay should not diminish
our
appreciation of the way God works through them to bless us.
Usually the kind
of influence of which I have just written comes
in personal relations. However, we can also be moved by
others through
their writings or even through stories about them. A few
figures in the
past have enormous influence even today.
I am writing
this in December. In this month we who are Christian
celebrate the birth of the one whose influence surpasses for us,
and even
for many who are not believers, all others. We are moved
by the stories
about him and by his teachings. We want his influence in
our lives to
increase. We find a peculiar complementarity between the
way God works in
us through Jesus and the way God works directly in us. We
call the latter
the Holy Spirit. We recognize the Holy Spirit through what
we know of
Jesus and the Holy Spirit witnesses to Jesus.
Even here we
must be careful. Terrible things have been done and
continue to be done by those who are influenced by Jesus and who
believe
that they are guided by the Holy Spirit. We can be terribly
misled. But
for us as Christians, it is God's work in and through Jesus to
which we
appeal to recognize these distortions.-87
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