An inadequate god

"Searching for an adequate god" is an anthology promoting a dialogue between Free Will Theists and Process Theists. One of the editors is Clark H. Pinnock, apparently something of a red cloth to the evangelical bull. Most of the articles are frankly uninteresting. I never understood the difference between Free Will Theists and regular Christianity (minus the hard line believers in predestination). Perhaps the Christianity I'm familiar with *is* Free Will Theism? Didn't Abraham argue with God about the destruction of Sodom, didn't Jesus change tack when the Jews rejected him, etc?

The main attractions are the two articles by David Ray Griffin. He seems to be one of the leading process theologians. Griffin very self-consciously wants to adapt Christianity to modern science and philosophy, in other words, evangelize people like myself. I can't say I was impressed. He ends up having the worst of both worlds. Unless I've misread him on some crucial point, Griffin believes that Jesus was an ordinary human with psychokinetic powers who wasn't really resurrected. Rather, he lived on as a spiritual "personality". So will everyone else. Already here, Griffin will loose most scientists, who will find it hard to believe in parapsychology or an immortal soul. Also, the admittedly fascinating metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead probably don't square very well with the vaguely positivistic metaphysics I take it are most common among secularized scientists. On the more religious side, Griffin attempts to solve the problem of evil by denying God's omnipotence. Griffin's God is all-good but powerless. In fact, he is less powerful than humans! At the very least, that's the logical consequence of the process view.

Why would a modern like myself want to convert to a creed that's just as unscientific as regular Christianity, while having no answer to the existential problem of evil and suffering?

At one point, Griffin indignantly wonders what a Free Will Theist (or classical theist, for that matter) might want to say to a mother whose children are being burnt to death in a concentration camp. Presumably, the Free Will Theists must say that God could stop the murders, but has chosen not to, for some unfathomable reason. (The predestinarian response would, of course, be even worse.) But what is *Griffin's* response? That God *cannot* stop genocide at all, even in principle? In what sense is that different from the atheist answer? Griffin believes in life after death, but some process theologians apparently don't even do that! Small wonder Griffin calls for a world government (sic) in his article. Without the inadequate god of Process Theism, only a superior military force can stop genocide...

You may interpret this review in any way you see fit. But yes, I like Pinnock's "inclusivism". ;-)