Resonances and Dissonances: On Reading Artson

Artson Within the Immanent Frame

There are many compliments to be paid to Brad Artson for his delineation of a Jewish Process Theology. He is bold, sensitive, articulate, remarkably well read in a variety of areas—including in aspects of physics and cosmology, which have not been the domain of rabbis for centuries. The best compliment I can pay him is to read him in the light of some of the most significant Jewish thinkers of recent times, and to offer some personal reflections. Both resonances and dissonances emerge from such readings.

There is nothing new in the attempt to present Judaism through the prism of Process. As demonstrated in the 1996 collection Jewish Theology and Process Thought, Jewish thinkers have been engaging with the work of Whitehead, Hartshorne, Peirce, James, and others who have contributed to this approach.¹ Artson is fully aware of this background and cites such thinkers as diverse as Hans Jonas and Harold Kushner, who have found the language of Process useful in the delineation of their own Jewish world-view. A becoming God, a God who is both less and more than omnipotent—such a God can be traced in the Jewish tradition, and may be a God in whom Jews of today can believe.

Brad Artson's theology is situated squarely within what Charles Taylor has called "the immanent frame." In his magisterial study A Secular Age, Taylor describes the processes by which that faith, which was axiomatic and all-pervasive in 1500, has become impossible or unnecessary for many by 2000. The immanent frame comes into being as the result of the complex yet discernible rise of individualism, the crumbling of earlier cosmic orders, the impact of Science and Reform, and many other factors.

At a crucial juncture in his argument, Taylor makes a significant distinction:

The immanent order can . . . slough off the transcendent, but it doesn't necessarily do so. What I have been describing as the immanent frame is common to all of us in the modern West. . . . Some of us want to live it as open to something beyond; some live it as closed.²

Artson inhabits the immanent order. His work appeals to our reason, even as it challenges the dominance of a certain understanding of the rule of Reason: the canons of rationality are to be respected, even as the bullets of rationalism are being dodged. However, in sharp distinction to the current celebrities of the God-as-Dangerous-Delusion school, he refuses to see this frame as closed off to the possibility of transcendence. As inhabitants of modernity's immanent frame we need to acknowledge that for most of us a God of reward and punishment, a God who wreaks stern judgment on innocents—such a God cannot be believed in and worshipped. A wholly powerful and knowing God will not stand, or we will not stand before such a God. A God who demands obedience beyond credulity and common sense and current thinking demands too much.

Artson's claim is twofold: he argues that the immanent frame can indeed be spun open (to use Taylor's terminology). He goes to great lengths to demonstrate that the claim of the current brigade of God-slayers, according to which any acceptance of the scientific worldview leaves no space for any meaningful God concept, is wrongheaded. In parallel, he claims that Jewish tradition is open to a theological vocabulary more nuanced and complex than the standard nostrums and declarations of unswerving faith.

Evil and the Limited God

Brad Artson struggles sensitively with the phenomenon of evil in the world. His approach underscores the notion of a limited God, to be understood not as the source of our suffering but rather as a resource for coping, reframing, and responding to it. Along with this re-casting of God's role in the drama of evil, human perspective is also called into question: what we experience as unmitigated evil may serve a necessary role in some greater dynamic. Rather than sulk in futile ratiocination, we can take on responsibility for world-mending. Theodicy is to...