Beauty and Process Theology: A Journey of Transformation

By Patricia Adams Farmer

Is it possible to think of God as beautiful?

We tend to think of God with superlatives, such as omnipotence, omniscience, and infinity. By their very nature, these words tend to also make us see God as distant. It seems almost sacreligious to speak of God in the terms we might use for any other person. Very few would think to call God beautiful. In this book, theologian and pastor Patricia Adams Farmer looks at God in precisely those terms, inviting us to move beyond limiting ways we have of speaking of God. She sees God as both beautiful and the ongoing author of beauty. God invites us in living a vision, and that vision is not just “good” in some abstract sense. It is attractive. It draws us in. It is active. It challenges us.

Learn to think about and experience God in a new way as you bring process and beauty together. The journey is worth it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Energion Publications
• Release date: Sep 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781631996238

Book preview

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Beauty and Process Theology:

A Journey of Transformation

By

Patricia Adams Farmer

Topical Line Drives

Volume 42

Energion Publications

Gonzalez, Florida

2020

Copyright © 2020, Patricia Adams Farmer

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-63199-621-4

eISBN: 978-1-63199-623-8

Energion Publications

PO Box 841

Gonzalez, FL 32560

https://energion.com

[e-mail]

Dedication

To Ron,

a beautiful soul

and my partner in the adventure of life

Table of Contents

Dedication 1

Introduction 3

Chapter 1: The Dream of Beauty 4

Chapter 2: The Poet of the World 8

Chapter 3: The Art of Beauty 13

Chapter 4: Soul Beauty 17

Chapter 5: Tragic Beauty 20

Chapter 6: Beauty and Creative Transformation 24

Chapter 7: Moral Beauty 29

Chapter 8: Natural Beauty 33

Chapter 9: Beauty and Hope 37

Endnotes 42

Introduction

In De Musica, Augustine described beauty as a plank amid the waves of the sea.¹ From the perspective of process theology, the experience of beauty not only offers life-saving rescue from the storms of life, but also serves as a glimpse into the very nature of God and the world.

Writing this book during the coronavirus quarantine offers new meaning to the phrase, waves of the sea, as waves of the virus sweep across the globe, ravaging lives and livelihoods. This new catastrophe layered atop systemic racism, economic injustice, and the existential threat of climate change, catapults Augustine’s words into a new world on the brink of drowning. How can beauty be a plank against such waves? How is beauty relevant in such times as these? What part does beauty play in the transformation of our exhausted and beleaguered world? And how can beauty tend to our aching souls in these times of crises on every front?

These are some of the questions I address in this short theology of beauty, inspired by process theology, scripture, experience—and in loving companionship with poets, philosophers, artists, mystics, musicians, and the mother of all teachers: nature herself.

In this offering on beauty, I will often refer to philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), whose works are the primary source and inspiration for process theology. In Adventures of Ideas, he often referred to beauty with a capital B, surely to distinguish it from our everyday use of the word beauty, which often falls short of its fuller meaning. I will follow his cue from this point forward, primarily using Beauty (with a capital B) to indicate this larger theological sense of the word.

Finally, this book seeks to offer a pastoral process theology for those seeking a deeper experience with both Beauty and God, for this is the story of a beautiful God. And, while profound expressions of process theology are found in other faiths besides my own, the process theology expressed in this book issues from my own progressive Christian standpoint. As a companion to Bruce Epperly’s foundational books in this series, including Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God² and Process Spirituality³, this offering introduces process theology through the eyes of Beauty.

Chapter 1: The Dream of Beauty

The teleology of the Universe is directed toward the production of Beauty.

– Alfred North Whitehead⁴

I once defined Beauty as that which glistens on the edges of our yearnings and lures us into the depth of things.⁵ This definition was born of the marriage between process theology and my personal experience in the arts. Growing up a musician, artist, and dancer, I longed for a spiritual home that took account of the tender experiences of Beauty in this world. As a deeply religious person, I struggled inwardly to harmonize an all-good God with the realities