We need a concept of divinity that does not insult our intelligence. The mysterious inner working of our soul yearns to justify our transcendent ambitions, which normally crash against the wall of reason. Such a result denies the core of our life on earth.
A naturalistic religion is needed. Process theology is just that: a conceptual framework that shows how God is an integral part of our everyday experience and is coherent with the most advanced sciences of our day.
Naturalistic religion. Sounds like an oxymoron. Naturalism says that everything arises from natural properties and causes. “Supernatural” properties and causes are excluded or discounted. How can God be a part of nature?
We can conceive of God as the realm of all possibilities, like the implicate order in physics, where laws of time and space do not operate but unfold into the world of space and time through choices made. For us humans, we experience God as the range of possibilities relevant to this moment of our existence. In this way, God is our freedom to make choices.
It also means that God nudges us ever so gently to be a creative force in the ongoing evolution of the universe. His voice is a calling, an inspiration, an impulse to move in one direction rather than another.
This God, however, will never overrule our choices. He would not stop Lincoln from delivering the Gettysburg Address. Nor would he stop John Wilkes Booth from firing a bullet into Lincoln’s skull.
But if we follow God’s call, that quiet innermost thought-impulse, we can make another world possible.