Genes induced by the plant hormone auxin are probably involved in the execution of vital cellular functions and developmental processes. Experimental approaches designed to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of auxin action have focused on auxin perception, genetic dissection of the signaling apparatus and specific gene activation. Auxin‐responsive promoter elements of early genes provide molecular tools for probing auxin signaling in reverse. Functional analysis of several auxin‐specific promoters of unrelated early genes suggests combinatorial utilization of both conserved and variable elements. These (...) elements are arranged into autonomous domains and the combination of such modules generates uniquely composed promoters. Modular promoters allow for auxin‐mediated transcriptional responses to be revealed in a tissue‐ and development‐specific manner. (shrink)

Most process theologians have rejected the creation of the world out of nothing, holding that our universe was created out of some antecedent universe. This article shows how on process grounds, and with faithfulness to much of what Whitehead had to say, process theologians can and should affirm the creation of our universe out of nothing. Standard process objections to this are refuted.

This article approaches Judaism through Rabbi Bradley S. Artson’s book, God of Becoming and Relationships: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology. It explores his understanding of how Jewish theology should and does cohere with central features of both process theology and Robert S. Hartman’s formal axiology. These include the axiological/process concept of God, the intrinsic value and valuation of God and unique human beings, and Jewish extrinsic and systemic values, value combinations, and value rankings.

This chapter contains sections titled: Works cited.

There is a great similarity between process theology and Chinul’s Buddhist thought. They share the conception of a mutual immanence and interaction between the world and the ultimate reality. They also share the view that the true or sanctified self is an incarnation and expression of the ultimate reality in and for the world. However, Chinul’s Buddhist thought is weak in dealing with the aspect of redemption.

What would a Jewish process theology look like if it also adopted the a priori principles of rabbinic Judaism - among them, the authority of Torah given on Sinai, an historically particular revelation of divine instruction for a particular people, and the authority of the Oral Torah, an historically evolving hermeneutic, according to which that revelation becomes normative practice for communities of observant Jews? I trust this would not be a naturalism, since it would be a theology (...) that found its grammar or regulative logic in a textual hermeneutic rather than in an account of the orders of perception and imagination. It would not, for the same token, be an anti-naturalism, but rather a theology for which the distinction between natural and super- or non-natural was not definitional. For such a theology, for example, the world out there would belong to the order of creation (maaseh bereshit), rather than to "nature." This would mean that, since God creates through words, language (at least some sort of language) and world would be intimately connected rather than extrinsic phenomena, It would mean, furthermore, that for language to "know" the world would not be surprising and that something like a form of realism would not be out of the question, While it would presuppose the authority of divine speech and even of some human interpretations of it, this other-than natural theology would not, as naturalists might suppose, present a heteronomous conception of divine law, If the distinction nature/not nature would not be definitive for this theology, neither would those of autonomy/heteronomy, body/spirit, this world/other world, This theology would present its own variety of neutral monism; in this case, however, the undifferentiated plenum would be termed a plenum of undifferentiated signification (or pure semiosis), of which undifferentiated feeling (or pure experience) was an instance; "prehension" would be another term for interpretation, Max Kadushin was the first and, as far as I know, the only Jewish thinker to articulate a process theology in the service of what he considered the behavioral or halakhic authority of classical rabbinic literature. In this paper, I examine Kadushin's work as the foundation of a rabbinic text process theology, I assume, from the outset, that such a theology may complement a Jewish natural process theology and that a Jewish process theology, in general, would appear as a process of dialogue between textual- andnatural-process theologies. (shrink)

For many years feminist theologians have found much in common with process theology. As a consequence a robust tradition has developed that links feminist theology with many aspects of process theology. An important element of this tradition is the attempt to draw similarities between postmodernism and feminist process theology. In this article I argue, first, that the connection between feminist process theology and postmodernism is philosophically problematic and, second, that another contemporary (...) feminist approach, the new materialism, provides the basis for a more fruitful dialogue between feminist theology and process theology. My goal is to extend this dialogue. (shrink)

Book review of Bruce Epperly's Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed.

The notion that God and the world are mutually interdependent is generally taken to be unique to twentieth-century process theology. Largely, process thinkers have focused on classical theists, rather than the mystics. My thesis, however, is that, centuries before process came along, there were Western mystical concepts stressing that God needed the universe in order to become conscious and complete. In support of my thesis, I will provide a synopsis of the doctrines of God as found (...) in mystics such as Boehme, Dionysius, Eckhart, and then show how Whitehead’s aesthetic provides a coherent philosophical psychology of ecstasy. Key words: aesthetic experience, causal efficacy, consequent nature of God, ecstasy, feeling, German Romanticism, primordial nature of God, reformed subjectivist principle, Nicht, unconscious experience. (shrink)

God Beyond Orthodoxy: Process Theology for the 21stcentury.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Naturalistic Empiricism as Process TheologyGary Dorrien (bio)The founders of the Chicago School of Theology sought to develop a fully modernist theology, the first one by their standard. They swept aside the a prioris of Kant and Schleiermacher, declaring that nothing is given and no norm from the past holds legitimate authority. Theologian Shailer Mathews, philosopher of religion George Burman Foster, church historian Shirley Jackson Case, and (...) psychologist of religion Edward Scribner Ames were the founders. They agreed with Ernst Troeltsch that Ritschlian historicism is not true historicism and with William James that lingering over the mystery of subjectivity is a loser for theology and philosophy. Theology had to change to deserve the modernist name. Instead of claiming that religious knowledge is a product of religious experience, theologians should say that religious knowledge is a product of disciplined empirical reflection on experience, especially the experience of external relations. Moreover, the Ritschlian approach of employing a Christian framework to get a Christian answer is illegitimate. The only way to make theology truly modern is to make it as scientific as chemistry, or at least, sociology.The Chicago School had a quintessential figure in each of its first three generations. Mathews was the emblematic founder, Henry Nelson Wieman defined the second generation, and Bernard Meland defined the third generation. Each generation had a process orientation that distinctly ventured theological claims. Mathews led the Divinity School as dean from 1908 to 1933, crafting a socio-historical theology of evolutionary process, functional patterns, value theory, and cultural progress. Wieman developed a theological behaviorism that touted its empirical objectivity and opened the door to the organic metaphysical system of Alfred North Whitehead, though Wieman subsequently tried to close the door. One stream of Wieman’s protégés stuck with his approach and another stream tacked back to Whitehead. Meland synthesized the history of the Chicago School, pulled it in Whitehead’s direction, and later regretted that Whitehead, philosopher Charles Hartshorne, and process theology were too scholastic. Process theology, Meland believed, should be more theopoetic, more culturally attuned, and less scholastic—a prescription with an ample future once feminist theology entered this field. [End Page 5]I. Shailer Mathews and the Early Chicago SchoolThe University of Chicago was the product of John D. Rockefeller’s money, Midwest Baptist anxieties about falling behind other denominations, and William Rainey Harper’s vision of a modern Baptist university. Harper, a Hebrew Bible scholar, and a phenomenally enterprising administrator, founded the university in 1890, stocking it with faculty stars he plucked mostly from New England colleges and universities. Mathews was not a star, or thought to be brilliant. Raised in the staid, thoroughly middle-class, evangelical ethos of Portland, Maine, he was educated at Colby College in Maine, befriending sociologist Albion Small, who became Colby’s president in 1888. Small opened a succession of doors for Mathews—seminary at Newton Theological Institution, a faculty position at Colby in public speaking, graduate study in sociology at the University of Berlin, teaching sociology at Colby, and in 1894, two years after Small moved to Chicago to found the nation’s first sociology department, following Small to Chicago. Harper chaired the Old Testament Department, Mathews’s former teacher at Newton, Ernest DeWitt Burton, chaired the New Testament Department, and Mathews was hired to teach New Testament history, never mind that he had no training in it except whatever Burton had taught him. Burton told Mathews not to worry—his Berlin training in sociology should apply just fine to New Testament history. The University of Chicago had a mission to make religion relevant again, and Mathews could help with that.1Harper enlisted him to serve as an extension of himself in Harper’s numerous endeavors. Mathews was really good at representing Harper, speaking for him on the road, hustling back to Chicago for classes, and enjoying his dual role. To ground himself in his acquired field, Mathews wrote a series of articles on “Christian Sociology” that became his first book, The Social Teaching of Jesus (1897). Christian sociology, he explained, was the use of social science to explicate the objective meaning of Christianity, an overdue enterprise. A scientific reading... (shrink)

This anthology is intended primarily to provide students of theology with some of the basic writings of the major thinkers who have contributed to the development of the movement known as "process theology." Because of the content students of philosophy will likewise find it useful. The editor begins the work with an introduction in which he ably traces in broad perspective the various ways in which a mental attitude stressing process is reflected in contemporary culture, philosophy, (...) and theology. The first part of the volume then provides essays that center on process thought as this has emerged from the writings of Alfred North Whitehead and his American disciples. Two essays in this part are concerned with tracing the development of process thought, the one by Norman Pittenger centering on its historical evolution from Whitehead through Hartshorne and others into a distinct theological movement, whereas the one by Charles Hartshorne is concerned with the inner development of process thought as a noetic capable of dealing with relational reality. In other essays in this part Bernard Meland comments on the value of process thought in providing an imagery and concepts congenial to contemporary man in his struggle to understand his experience, and Bernard M. Loomer examines in detail the empirical basis and methodology central to Whitehead’s philosophy. The essays in the second part focus on the relationship between God and the world as this relationship is interpreted by process thinkers. Here selections include the final chapter of Whitehead’s Process and Reality, Hartshorne’s suggestive account of the philosophical and religious uses of the term "God," Schubert Ogden’s attempt to defend a concept of God modeled on process thought as more conformable to biblical testimony than the concept of God classical in Christian thought, Walter Stoke’s endeavor to integrate features of process thought within a more Thomistic framework relative to the being of God, and two essays by Daniel Day Williams and John B. Cobb, Jr. on the relationship between God and world and God and man. Essays in the third part, called "Christ and Redemption," reflect the efforts of three Whiteheadian-inspired theologians, Meland, Pittenger, and Henry Nelson Wieman, to rethink the Christian doctrine of the incarnation within the framework provided by process thought. In the fourth part of the work attention is directed from Whitehead to another major source of contemporary process theology, Teilhard de Chardin. The essays include Theodosius Dobzhansky’s lengthy critical appreciation of the major directions in Teilhard’s vision of the universe, Teilhard’s own views on a cosmic Christology, a development of his views on this topic by Henri de Lubac, and other studies of aspects of Teilhard’s thought by N. M. Wildiers, George Crespy, and Christopher F. Mooney. An appendix includes a comparative study of the metaphysics of Teilhard and Whitehead by Ian G. Barbour. A useful bibliography completes the anthology.—W. E. M. (shrink)

Writing an accessible introduction to process theology is no easy task. As Roland Faber notes, “Process theology is a quite complex phenomenon”. Yet this is the task he sets out for himself in The Becoming of God: Process Theology, Philosophy, and Multireligious Engagement. While Faber describes his book as an introduction to process theology, it would perhaps be better described as an introduction to the thought of Alfred North Whitehead and its theological (...) implications.In typical Faber fashion, this poetic introduction to Whitehead is thorough, complex, and insightful. Ranging across issues of science, religious studies, theology, and philosophy, Faber tackles some of the most complicated thought problems... (shrink)

Process theology is far less prominent in Britain than in its country of origin, but its central doctrine of a developing God would prove, I think, to be held by many British theologians if one made enquiry. Professor Keith Ward may show which way the wind is blowing when he writes in his recent book Rational Theology and the Creativity of God : ‘only if God is temporal, can he be the free creator of a universe of (...) free creatures; only if he is eternal, can he possess that necessity which is the foundation of the world; only if he is dipolar, can he be both’. To that extent he accepts the Whitehead-Hartshorne position. Why has the the absolute timelessness of God seemed obvious so regularly to thinking religious people down the ages? It must be, I shall say, that they have felt themselves in touch somehow with another world, or rather another state, in which time is absolutely transcended. But I am not concerned only with that in this article. My business is to suggest that process theology is important for a number of reasons. I shall return to Ward's book at the end. (shrink)