For the January-March 2007 issue of EnlightenNext magazine, the editors set out on a mission: to reveal the depth and substance of the real evolution debate. In their endeavor to discover the essential elements behind the common arguments, they uncovered a vastly intricate and fascinating landscape far beyond the boundaries of the public debate between Evolutionism and Creationism. By seeking out and methodically charting the contours of what is surely the greatest philosophical, scientific, and theological challenge of our era, they are helping us to redefine the way we think about where we come from, who we are, and where we might be going.
In this interview with the eminent philosopher and theologian John Cobb, EnlightenNext founder Andrew Cohen and editor Ross Robertson discuss the core values and historical underpinnings of Process Philosophy. This pivotal and increasingly influential school of thought, first established by the great mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, rejects the scientific impulse to reduce all of nature to its basic material components. Instead, Process Philosophy—and Process Theology, as pioneered by Cobb and others—builds upon the rationality of science, while maintaining that all of creation—God, matter, life, consciousness, and evolution itself—are intrinsic aspects of the universe, active at all times, at all levels of activity, and throughout all of ongoing creation.
“There is no God without a world, just as there is no world without God. We cannot think of a beginning of either.”–John Cobb
BIO
Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr. was born of Southern Methodist missionary parents in Japan in 1925. Most of his childhood was lived in Hiroshima and the Kobe area. Furloughs were spent in his mother's parents' home in Newnan, Georgia. Because of the approach of war, he returned to Newnan. He attended junior college of Emory University, located in Oxford, Georgia, but before completing he joined the army to attend the Japanese language school at the University of Michigan. His subsequent military service was mainly translating captured military documents at Camp Ritchie, Marlyand. Soon after Japanese surrender he became part of the army of occupation.
After discharge from the army Cobb earned his PhD from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Thereafter he joined the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, and his appointment for the first year was part-time teaching at Young Harris College, with part-time pastoral responsibility for six churches. He founded a seventh. The next two years he was full time at the college from where he went to Emory University for five years (1953-58). The rest of his teaching career, until his retirement in 1990, was at the Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. He has been guest professor at the University of Mainz, Rikkyo University, Iliff School of Theology, Vanderbilt Divinity School, the University of Chicago, and Harvard Divinity School. He also served as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
Throughout his career Dr. Cobb has been committed to the process thought of Alfred North Whitehead. In 1970, together with Lewis Ford, he founded the journal Process Studies, and with David Ray Griffin he founded the Center for Process Studies at the School of Theology at Claremont. He has written a number of theological books, including A Christian Natural Theology (1965), The Structure of Christian Existence (1967), Christ in a Pluralistic Age (1975), Beyond Dialogue (1982), Reclaiming the Church (1997), and Grace and Responsibility (1995). He has co-authored books in other fields with process thinkers: The Liberation of Life (with Charles Birch, biologist), For the Common Good (with Herman Daly, economist), and Romans (with David Lull, New Testament scholar).
