Process Theology, Enlightenment Reason, and the Authority of Scripture: An LCMS Evaluation

The rise of modern progressive theology within the Church cannot be understood apart from its philosophical roots. Among the most influential of those roots is Enlightenment thought, which elevated human reason into the position of final judge over truth. Within that trajectory, process theology stands out as one of the most comprehensive and far-reaching expressions of this shift. From the standpoint of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), this development is not merely a different theological style or emphasis. It is a basic reordering of authority: from divine revelation to human reasoning, from Scripture as norm to philosophy as norm.

This matters not only for the doctrine of God, but also for the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of Scripture, and even the language Christians use to speak truthfully about reality. Process theology does not simply offer a new vocabulary. It undermines the Church’s confession that Jesus Christ is God the Son, eternally begotten of the Father, not made, and of one substance with the Father. In place of that confession, it tends to present Christ as a man whose will uniquely coincided with God’s will. Such a view cannot be reconciled with the catholic creeds, the Lutheran Confessions, or the plain sense of Holy Scripture.

In contrast, the LCMS stands in the stream of confessional Lutheranism that insists theology must be governed by the Word of God. The Church is not free to reconstruct God according to modern philosophical preferences. Nor is the Church required to abandon the classical language of categories, essence, and substance simply because modern thinkers find such language uncomfortable. Christians use categories and essence language all the time in daily life, and there is nothing irrational about doing so. The refusal to use such language in theology is therefore not an advance in clarity, but often a retreat from doctrinal precision.

I. The Enlightenment Shift: From Revelation to Autonomous Reason

The fundamental theological problem introduced by the Enlightenment was not the use of reason as such. Christianity has always made use of reason as a created gift of God. The problem arose when reason ceased to function as servant and instead assumed the role of master. Once human reasoning became the final tribunal before which doctrine had to justify itself, revelation was no longer received as God’s authoritative speech. It was filtered, reduced, and reshaped according to what modern man found acceptable.

This shift changed the character of theology itself. Rather than beginning with God’s self-revelation in Scripture and submitting thought to that revelation, many theologians began with philosophical assumptions about what God could or could not be, what miracles could or could not occur, and what doctrines modern people would or would not accept. Scripture, once confessed as the inspired and inerrant Word of God, became treated as religious material to be analyzed, revised, and domesticated.

From an LCMS perspective, this is the decisive dividing line. The issue is not whether Christians think. The issue is whether Christian thinking is captive to the Word of God. The Missouri Synod arose precisely in opposition to the rationalism, unionism, and theological accommodation that had overtaken large portions of European Protestantism. The Saxon immigrants did not come to the New World to place themselves under a new regime of speculative theology. They came so that they and their descendants might live under the Word of God in its truth and purity.

II. The Historical Reason the LCMS Exists

The history of the LCMS cannot be separated from this doctrinal struggle. German Lutheran immigrants, especially those associated with C. F. W. Walther and the Saxon migration, sought to preserve confessional Lutheranism against the encroachments of rationalism and state-imposed theological compromise. They understood that where Scripture is no longer the final authority, the Church soon loses not only doctrinal clarity but the Gospel itself.

For that reason, pastoral formation was essential from the beginning. Early feeder schools and seminaries were not founded merely to supply institutional infrastructure. They were created so that pastors would be trained to preach, teach, and administer the means of grace faithfully under the authority of Scripture. The first generation of pastors sent into the United States was not being prepared to speculate about religion in the abstract. They were being formed to serve congregations with the pure doctrine of Christ crucified, grounded in the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures.

That historical fact remains highly relevant. The LCMS was not born from a desire for novelty, but from a desire for fidelity. It exists because the Church must always resist the temptation to let foreign philosophical systems become the governing authority over biblical doctrine.

III. Process Theology as a Mature Expression of Enlightenment Theology

Process theology represents one of the most advanced forms of this Enlightenment trajectory. Influenced especially by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, process theology rejects the classical Christian doctrine of God as immutable, self-existent, sovereign, and fully perfect. In its place, it offers a God who is in process, who develops in relation to the world, and whose being is affected by temporal events.

This is not a small modification. It is a fundamental redefinition of God. The God of Holy Scripture declares, “For I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6). The God confessed by the Church is not one being among others within a changing cosmos. He is the Creator of heaven and earth, distinct from creation, Lord over history, not conditioned by it. He acts in history, but He is not constituted by history.

Process theology reverses that relationship. It begins not with divine revelation, but with a philosophical system, then asks Scripture to fit into that system. In this way, process theology becomes an especially clear example of theology ruled by human reasoning. It is not merely that philosophy assists theology, which it may do in a subordinate role. Rather, philosophy here determines in advance what God must be like, and biblical language is then reinterpreted in order to conform to those assumptions.

For an LCMS evaluation, this means process theology is not simply mistaken at one point or another. It is structurally disordered. It establishes the wrong authority at the outset and therefore arrives at distorted conclusions regarding God, Christ, revelation, and salvation.

IV. Process Theology and the Diminishing of Christ

Nowhere is this distortion more serious than in the doctrine of Christ. Historic Christianity confesses, with the Nicene Creed, that Jesus Christ is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.” This is not optional language. It is the Church’s faithful summary of the biblical witness concerning the Son.

The LCMS therefore confesses that Christ is not merely a holy man, not merely a moral teacher, not merely one whose will aligned with God’s will more perfectly than others. He is God the Son, eternally begotten, not made. He took on human flesh for us men and for our salvation. He is fully God and fully man in one person. Only such a Christ can truly save.

Process theology, however, tends to recast Jesus in far more reduced terms. Rather than confessing Him as the eternal Son incarnate, it often speaks of Him as a man who perfectly responded to God, a man uniquely open to the divine, or a man whose will entirely coincided with God’s purposes. But this is not enough. A Christ reduced to exemplary obedience is not the Christ proclaimed by the apostles.

If Jesus is merely the man whose will best aligned with God, then the incarnation is emptied of its meaning. The atonement becomes moral influence rather than the reconciling sacrifice of the God-man. Redemption becomes a pattern for imitation rather than a completed act accomplished by the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The sinner is then left not with certainty, but with religious aspiration.

From a confessional Lutheran standpoint, this is devastating. The Gospel depends on the identity of Christ. The One who died for sinners must be more than a spiritually advanced man. He must be Emmanuel, God with us. If Christ is not truly God the Son in the flesh, then His saving work loses its proper ground and efficacy.

V. Why We Should Not Abandon Categories, Essence, and Substance Language

Modern theology often speaks as though classical language about essence, substance, and categories is obsolete or oppressive. Yet this dismissal is frequently more rhetorical than rational. Human beings use categories constantly, and they do so because categories reflect the ordinary structure of thought and speech. We do not cease speaking in terms of what a thing is simply because modern philosophy has become suspicious of metaphysics.

Consider an ordinary example. On a roadway, one may see sedans, trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles. These differ in shape, size, and function, yet all may rightly be identified under the category of “motor vehicle.” In everyday speech, nobody finds this irrational or oppressive. We recognize that these distinct instances share something essential that allows us to classify them truthfully. A vehicle may vary accidentally in color, manufacturer, weight, or age, while still belonging to the same general kind.

The same basic principle applies far beyond traffic. We distinguish trees from animals, contracts from conversations, gold from iron, and parents from children. We speak this way because reality is not chaos. Things have natures. They are not meaningless bundles of unrelated moments. Even people who reject substance metaphysics in theory rely on categorical reasoning in practice.

That is why Christians do not need to surrender classical theological language simply because certain modern schools of thought are hostile to it. When the Church confesses that the Son is of one substance with the Father, she is not speaking irrationally. She is speaking carefully, truthfully, and necessarily. She is preserving the distinction between the Creator and the creature and confessing who Christ actually is.

To do away with such language is not to achieve greater humility. It is often to lose the ability to speak precisely where precision matters most. Heresy frequently advances by means of vague and elastic language. Orthodoxy, by contrast, often requires exact words because the truth of the Gospel is exact. Christ is not approximately divine. He is not merely adjacent to deity. He is not simply aligned with God. He is true God, begotten of the Father from eternity.

VI. The Historical-Critical and Progressive Impulse

Process theology does not stand alone. It belongs to a broader modern pattern in which Scripture is repeatedly brought before human judgment. The historical-critical method often approaches the biblical text as a merely human product shaped by religious development, competing communities, and evolving beliefs. Progressive theology then frequently extends this approach into doctrine and ethics, treating biblical teaching as open to continual revision according to contemporary sensibilities.

The common thread is clear: human reasoning, human experience, and human moral intuition become the standards by which revelation is measured. Whatever seems implausible, uncharitable, or outmoded is reinterpreted or set aside. But from an LCMS perspective, this is simply the old rationalist temptation in newer forms.

Once this method is accepted, the results are predictable. The doctrine of God is softened. The doctrine of sin is revised. The uniqueness of Christ is weakened. The authority of Scripture is reduced. And because Christology lies at the center of the faith, the person of Christ is eventually restated in ways that are more philosophically palatable and less dogmatically definite. Process theology provides a particularly striking example of this pattern because it reworks not only biblical ethics or biblical interpretation, but the being of God and the identity of Christ themselves.

VII. The Confessional Lutheran Response

The confessional Lutheran response is neither anti-intellectual nor philosophically naive. It does not deny that theological language can be difficult or that philosophical tools may at times serve theology. But it insists that theology must always remain under Scripture, never above it. Philosophy may clarify terms, defend coherence, and expose contradictions. It may not rewrite revelation.

For this reason, the LCMS continues to confess the Scriptures as the inspired and inerrant Word of God and the only source and norm of doctrine. It continues to confess the ecumenical creeds not as alien impositions, but as faithful articulations of biblical truth. And it continues to confess Jesus Christ as the eternal Son, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, who for us and for our salvation became man.

This is also why Lutherans need not be embarrassed by metaphysical clarity. The Church has always had to say not only that Jesus saves, but who Jesus is. If the “who” is corrupted, the “saves” is soon corrupted as well. Precision in Christology is not scholastic excess. It is pastoral necessity.

Conclusion

Process theology may be understood as one of the clearest outcomes of the Enlightenment’s elevation of human reason over divine revelation. It begins with philosophical assumptions foreign to Holy Scripture, redefines the doctrine of God, diminishes the full deity of Christ, and weakens the Church’s confidence in the fixed truth of the Word of God. By presenting Christ chiefly as a man whose will perfectly coincided with God’s will, it fails to give Him His proper place as God the Son, eternally begotten and not made.

The confessional Lutheran answer is not to retreat from thought, but to restore right order. Reason must serve revelation. Philosophy must remain subordinate to Scripture. And Christians need not surrender the language of categories, essence, and substance, since such language reflects the way human beings ordinarily and truthfully speak about reality. We use categories every day because things really are what they are. A motor vehicle is not a bird, and a man is not God. So also, Jesus Christ is not merely a man aligned with God. He is the eternal Son in human flesh.

The Church therefore does not need less doctrinal clarity, but more. It does not need less metaphysical seriousness, but more. And above all, it does not need a theology reconstructed by modern reason. It needs the faith once delivered to the saints, received under the authority of Holy Scripture, confessed in the creeds, and preached for the salvation of sinners in Jesus Christ our Lord.