Process Theology and Openness of God Theology: Necessarily, Essentially, Neither or Both: How Does God Love the World?

[This little paper contributed to a lasting differene in the dialogue between process theolgy and openness of of God theology. This difference has subsquently been most fully developed in Thomas J. Oord's "Essential Kenosis." DRL /20/2025]

Process Theology and Openness of God Theology:  Necessarily, Essentially, Neither or Both: 
How Does God Love the World?

A Presentation by David R. Larson at the 
November 2004 meetings of the American Academy of Religion
 meetings in San Antonio, Texas

“There is in God both supreme
necessity and supreme contingency.”
Karl Barth 

God’s “conceptuality at once exemplifies 
and establishes the categoreal conditions.” 
Alfred North Whitehead 

“God’s sociality cannot be satisfied by God’s self;  
God’s love requires an object that is not God,
namely, a world.” 
Donna Bowman 

[This little paper contributed to a lasting difference the dialogue between process theolgy and openness of of God theology. It has been most fully developed in Thomas J. Oord's "Essential Kenosis, DRL /20/2025]

Although they agree that God loves the universe, process theology and openness of God 

theology typically differ in their understanding of this relationship. Process theology 

usually holds that it is necessary and essential. Openness-of-God theology often 

contends that it is neither. This difference is related to process theology’s usual 

rejection of the idea that God creates the universe out of nothing, a theme that 

openness of God theology typically affirms. According to leading spokespersons in both 

schools of thought, this is the fork in the road, the difference that progressively becomes 

a huge divide. 

At least three considerations suggest the viability of a third option that splits the 

difference between the first two: God’s love for the universe is essential but not 

necessary. According to this alternative, the basic and permanent situation is neither (1) 

God nor (2) Universe but (3) God and Universe and this is the case because this is how 

God everlastingly determines to be. According to this alternative, the universe always is 

part and parcel of God’s own self-determination. Insofar as God decides to be, to that 

same extent and in that same decision, not as something different than, subsequent to, 

or derivative from God’s own self-determination. God decides never to be alone but 

always to be with and for innumerable others. 

One consideration that points in this direction is that the idea of creation out of nothing 

makes more sense in process theology than some apparently think. In this school of 

thought the basic building blocks of universe are not “things” in the customary meaning 

of the term. They are events, actual occasions or occasions of experience. Also, 

although the term is a noun, “creativity” is not a “thing” but the most general way we 

can describe what happens in all things, that the many become one and the one become 

many. Furthermore, in process theology, an eternal object, although this word is also a 

noun, is not a ”thing” in the ordinary sense. Like one of Plato’s forms, this possibility is 

not merely a human construction; however, unlike one of Plato’s forms, it possesses no 

actuality unless it is realized in an occasion of experience or a sequence of them. Still 

further, the initial aim that triggers the unique formation of each occasion of experience 

is not a “thing” other than God but an “invitation” from God to achieve the greatest 

possible intensity of satisfaction in that event and for others. In addition, that which 

was on hand when “the earth was a formless void” (Genesis 1: 2 NRSV) probably was 

too primitive to count as a conglomeration of “things.” In view of these and other 

possible factors, we may conclude that process theology embraces the idea of creation 

out of nothing after all, albeit in different and often very helpful ways. 

A second consideration is that the theological advantages of denying the doctrine of 

creation out of nothing may not be as great as some apparently suppose. This is 

especially so with regard to the problem of evil. Process theology usually holds that all 

actualities other than God also exercise at least some form and degree of self-

determination. Typically it also holds that neither God nor anything else gives them this 

power; it is intrinsic. These convictions, and others that  fit with them in process 

theology, absolve God of much responsibility for the widespread evil of pointless pain 

and suffering. Much, but not all! 

According to process theology, there are several senses in which God is responsible for 

the possibility of evil, and singularly so. Here and there Alfred North Whitehead 

suggests that the metaphysical principles that would pertain in any cosmic epoch result 

from a divine decision. Because they leave room for the possibility of evil, God is 

responsible. Many hold that Whitehead loses his way in these statements, however; 

therefore, at this early juncture we probably should not make too much of them. More 

to the point, Whitehead holds that the “habits” of our own cosmic epoch that we often 

call “laws of nature” also result from a divine decision. That we live in a universe with 

four dimensions—height, breadth, depth and time—would be different if God’s decision 

were otherwise, for instance. Because these patterns of regularity also leave room for 

the possibility of evil, God is responsible. Still closer to the point, the intensity and scope 

of evil we observe and experience today would not be possible if our world were still a 

“formless void” as it was “in the beginning.” (Genesis 1:2) Because God prompted into 

being organisms with neurological systems as advanced and complex as our own, 

horrors like the Holocaust are now possible, whereas in the primordial situation they 

weren’t. God is responsible. 

Process thought concedes this. It replies that pointless pain and suffering are not the 

only evils, however; blind, deaf, dumb, dark, cold and pointless triviality, the sort of 

thing that apparently was widespread “in the beginning,” counts too. Process theology 

also replies that the decisive question is not whether God is responsible for evil but 

whether God is indictable for it. Its answer is “no.” 

At least two ways to defend this answer come to mind. One alternative is to argue that 

God is not indictable because some factor over which God has no control makes it 

impossible for God to leave things in a state of primordial and primitive chaos, even 

though that would be preferable. A second option is to contend that God is not 

indictable because, when all is said and done, the benefits of living in a universe in 

which evil is possible outweigh its painful costs. 

Process theology opts for the second answer. So does openness of God theology. Both 

schools of thought hold that God is responsible but not indictable for the possibility of 

evil because the advantages of living in a universe like ours outweigh the disadvantages 

and there is no way to have the first without the second. They agree that the universe 

is good not “as a whole” but “on the whole.” Because we gain so little by turning away 

from the idea of creation-out-of-nothing, particularly when we are discussing the 

problem of evil, we do well to hesitate before making that move. 

This parity crumbles in favor of the other school of thought the minute either process 

theology or openness-of-God theology asserts that from time to time God intervenes in 

ways that render null and void the measure of freedom that those who are not God 

otherwise exercise. So far, process theology resists this temptation much more 

successfully than does openness of God theology. This is a problem for openness of 

God theology because, even if each true actuality’s partial but genuine freedom is not 

intrinsic but a gift from God, it must be an irrevocable gift when the word “must” is 

understood both descriptively and prescriptively. If this is not so, if this gift from God is 

not irrevocable, if now and then God unilaterally overpowers others, our complex and 

comprehensive ecology of limited but genuine freedom is an illusion. The kind of 

freedom we are discussing cannot be given and overridden on a case by case basis. In 

order to function at all, it must be a permanent and irrevocable feature of an entire 

ecology of limited but genuine self-determination. 

A third consideration is that much depends upon how we use the terms. Words such as 

“necessary,” “probable,” “possible,” “improbable” and “impossible” pinpoint some of the 

different ways something may be so. It may be so in these and other various ways for 

different reasons, however. Logical necessity, metaphysical necessity, theological 

necessity, political necessity and financial necessity are related but different. Many hold 

that only logical necessity is absolute, that all the other forms of necessity are relative. 

Even logical necessity is relative to the definitions we use, however. That “two plus two 

equals four is so necessarily” depends on how we define each word, for example. This 

casts a long shadow of doubt over the very notion of “absolute necessity.” 

In any case, unless we maintain that the words “God” and “love” mean exactly the same 

thing, something that seems doubtful, the claim that “God is love” is not logically 

necessary. Therefore, it is not absolutely necessary either. This assertion may be 

metaphysically necessary if, as in process theology, it is a decisive part of a 

comprehensive conceptual scheme that merits our support; otherwise it isn’t. 

Depending upon the context in which the discussion occurs, the claim that “God is love” 

may be theologically necessary. Even if it is, even if those within some theological 

tradition find it impossible to doubt it, others are likely to find it very possible to do so. 

Thus, at most, the claim that “God is love” is relatively necessary. The notion of 

“relative necessity” robs the idea of “necessity” of so much conceptual force that in this 

discussion we might be forgiven for abandoning altogether, however. If so, that God 

loves the universe is still the case, but not necessarily. 

Very few matters of fact are! Radical contingency threatens us all from the very center 

of things. Nothing actual has to be. Our lives are not unavoidable. Neither is the life of 

the universe. We might not have been. We can say the same about everything else. 

That we exist, that any true thing actually does exit, is utterly shocking. The universe 

rests on the backs of a tall tower of turtles and the bottom turtle stands on thin air! 

This is what the idea of creation out of nothing is all about. This concept tries to capture 

and expresses the amazement that there is anything at all. For those who experience it, 

this jolt is profound, pervasive and often permanent. So far, openness of God theology 

appreciates this astonishing surprise more keenly and articulates it more clearly than 

does process theology. More than anything else, this is what nurtures its hesitancy to 

abandon the idea of creation out of nothing. This idea attempts to articulate the radical 

contingency that many experience and observe. 

Once we clarify the meaning of the terms, process theology and openness of God 

theology can swiftly agree that God’s love for the universe is essential. When we say 

that some feature of a thing is “essential,” we mean that it is a defining characteristic of 

the item in question. A ball may be red or blue and still be a ball; something that is 

square or triangular cannot, for example. Anticipating Whitehead’s more comprehensive 

suspicion of the distinction between essence and accident, those in the Middle Ages who 

argued that all of God’s attributes are essential may have be been right. Even if they 

weren’t, it is difficult to imagine that today anyone in either process theology or 

openness-of-God theology would deny that love is a defining characteristic of God. If 

God is not love, God is not God! Other schools of thought may doubt this; process and 

openness of God theology don’t. 

These three considerations, plus others that may also pertain, suggest a program of 

research and reflection that might eventually lead to a positive mutual transformation of 

both process and openness of God theology. Although this was not the purpose of her 

book, in The Divine Decision: A Process Doctrine of Election (Louisville: Westminster 

John Knox Press, 2002. xii + 283 pages.), a substantive and provocative volume that 

includes a favorable introduction by John B. Cobb, Jr., Donna Bowman already leads the 

way. Her study prompts the thought that in Karl Barth’s doctrine of election God’s self-

determination (not self-limitation!) everlastingly includes the universe and that in 

Whitehead’s philosophy of organism we find a metaphysical account of how this might 

work. Exegetes of their writings can debate the details of Bowman’s interpretations of 

Barth and Whitehead. A more interesting journey in the adventure of ideas might be to 

see how far and well the way of looking at things her study suggests can take us.