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Conclusion
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127 I recently read a story by a woman who lost her faith in God after her younger brother died as a young adult. She could not reconcile this tragic loss with her image of God as all-powerful and all-knowing. She went for several years in a confused religious state, worrying about how she would pull through. In a class on creating a sustainable environment from the perspective of process theology, she returned to her love for God. In order to express the faith she learned from years of grief and loss, she developed a cognitive view of God as relational, ambiguous, and resilient who could understand the painful suffering of her life, and from that she developed a spirituality that was healing. In her own words: Once I had found an idea of God that made sense to me . . . the next step wastofindaspiritualitythatcalledtome....Inowhaveadefinitionof spirituality: a pure connection to self, nature, or other humans that stems from compassion. By working this out, I was able to once again feel my spiritual self stirringinsideme;itwasasifbydefiningspirituality,Iwokeuptheneedtofeel itonceagain.Oncetheneedwasawake,itwasabletobegintobefulfilled.1 The basic theological reform I am calling for is that we understand God as a partner in the ongoing process of a living creation. God is real, and therefore God is a part of the relational, ambiguous process that characterizes our lives. God is not subject to all the same limitations we face in human life because God is an ongoing part of the creativity itself and Conclusion The beauty of god 128 Rethinking Faith we are only moments within the process. But God is relational—that is, God is embedded within the relationality of everything that exists. God is ambiguous—that is, God cannot know the full reality of the future and accepts accountability for the consequences of multiple free decisions. God is resilient—that is, God survives forever, and through God’s resilience, we have hope for love and power in a future we cannot control. Whatever tragedy emerges in history, God is not destroyed, and God’s love creates new moments of contrast and harmony that lead to beauty. Because of God’s love and power, the world of beauty is constantly recreated, and we are called to enjoy and worship signs of the beauty of the world as it is, even as we strive for healing and value that transcends our present reality. ThE bEAuTy OF ThE MulTIPlE gOd Since retirement in 2008, I have become interested in bird watching. It gives me a chance to slow down, get out in nature, and focus on something completely new to exercise my brain. I have learned that birders have seen 469 bird species of birds in North Carolina and the list keeps expanding.2 Worldwide, there are ten thousand species of birds. I assume the lists of other animals and plants in the world is likewise diverse. As I watch birds, I notice most of all their beauty—the various colors, shapes, markings, behaviors, and songs that distinguish them from all other birds. Scientists are constantly discovering and reevaluating the categories of birds because they discover new ways birds are related to one another and new ways they are different. Why does God want so many birds? My theological answer is that God loves multiplicity. Whitehead is correct: the direction of creativity is toward more complexity—“the many become one and are increased by one.” The increase by one is always distinctive because no other moment has exactly the same internal structure and context as any other moment. Birds are constantly coming into being and dying off, and always moving toward a multiplicity of forms. Environmental pollution is evil because it threatens God’s love of multiplicity. Some species becomeextinctbecauseofthefinitudebuiltintocreation;butsome species become extinct because of human abuse of power, thus creating genuine tragedy. Evil is the destruction of bodies and spirits, whether mineral, plant, or animal. In this sense, evil events are enemies of God because they work against the creative love of God toward multiplicity. [3.14.142.115] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 21:45 GMT) Conclusion 129 By analogy, human beings with their diverse cultures, languages, religions, and desires show God’s...