Monday, July 25, 2005
(10:41 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
An Annoying Trend in Theology
As some of you might know, I base most of my intellectual convictions on feelings of annoyance and/or revulsion. Good liberal that I am, I find myself led to the "least bad" position. In the case of theology, that is basically something like orthodoxy -- in fact, it's basically as close as I can get to a form of Roman Catholicism without the misogyny and fag-hating.One of the main non-orthodox contenders in academic theology seems to be process thought (I mean "non-orthodox" in a descriptive, not pejorative sense). Having done a mere MA so far, I am not fully engulfed in the culture of academic theology, and so I might be wrong -- maybe process thought is totally out of fashion now. In any case, it seems to be seeping down to the grassroots, a rare accomplishment among academic theologies. Aside from the sense that the entire Christian tradition has been rendered moot, including the Bible, and aside from a sense of mission on the part of its practicioners who seem to believe that all significant theological difficulties have been overcome by the idea that God changes over time, and aside from the fact that the main philosophical reference point for this school of thought shares his name with a type of skin blemish[1], and aside from the fact that this school of thought has, despite its supposed rapprochement with modern thought and dispensing of all the "unconvincing" elements in Christianity, generated seemingly zero converts to Christianity -- well, actually, aside from that, there's not very much annoying about it.
Also, I'm going to say that I don't see why, once we've decided that God has limited foreknowledge and is just kind of on this crazy ride with us, there is any reason to think there's just one God anymore. Sure, you've got YHWH/Jesus's Dad on the one hand, who is just trying to make his way through this crazy, mad-cap world, but you know, why not throw in Baal and Moloch and Zeus and the rest of the gang? Then "our" god could learn through his interaction with other people's gods, too! Such fun, everyone learning, everyone on this great "journey"! (I hope never to take a spiritual "journey" of any kind.)
Maybe what bugs me is that a process God who learns seems to me to "exist" in a way that this bizarre eternal all-powerful trinitarian God does not. It opens up the door for us to wonder, "Man, what's God up to today? What does God do with his spare time?" God doesn't "exist"! Also, I don't think that "God" "knows stuff," in any case. If you're trying to figure out some way to loosen up the zero-sum game so that there's less "determinism" on God's side and more room for us to act, just stop. It's a non-question. We always already experience ourselves as able to choose and as responsible for our actions and inactions -- worrying that God "knew I was going to do this" from all of eternity so that it's not "really free" is just adding a layer of stupid, groundless speculation that separates us from how we actually experience the world and ultimately does no one any good.
Orthodoxy seems to me to be a stopgap against groundless speculation -- not a solution to the theological "problems," but a way of containing them. To some extent, yes, it's a constraint on thought, and it kind of sucks to keep having to refer back to what some long-dead sex-hating misogynist said in 342AD (believe me, I am learning precisely how much that sucks) -- but to the extent that it constrains thought, it also enables it.
[1] Whitehead.
