Transforming Process Theism

Ford (philosophy, Old Dominion U.) finds a problem in process theism, which developed from suggestions by Whitehead and now dominates discussions of philosophical and natural theology in Europe and America: because only past or objectified determinate events can influence present experiences, and because God, as conceived by Whitehead, is never fully determinate or objectifiable as a past event, it is difficult to see how this divine persuasive power can have any influence on the present as a source of creativity and genuinely new possibilities for enactment. He traces the development back to Whitehead's thought and detects another kind of causal influence that does not require objectification. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lewis S. Ford is Louis I. Jaffe Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Old Dominion University. He is the author of The Emergence of Whitehead’s Metaphysics, 1925-1929, also published by SUNY Press, The Lure of God: A Biblical Background for Process Theism, and he is coeditor (with George L. Kline) of Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy. From 1971-1996, he was the editor of the scholarly quarterly, Process Studies.