Objective immortality in process thought

• God and the universe are uncreated and eternal- God did not create the universe out of nothing: his purpose has always been to create order and complexity from chaotic and formless matter
• God is not omnipotent- he seeks to achieve his purpose through 'persuasion', leading to intelligent, complex beings
• God and the universe exist panentheistically- God is the soul of the universe, so God experiences every single process within the universe
• Most process theologians believe in objective immortality. That is, after death, all individual beings (human and animal) remain eternally as 'objects' in the mind of God. In that sense, they never die
• Process theologians reject the idea of subjective immortality, which is the belief held by most Christians that after death, humans exist as thinking subjects with continued experiences, etc
• Objective immortality= the belief of process theology that after death, all living things exist forever in the mind of God
• Subjective immortality= the belief of most Christians that the thinking self continues as the same subject of consciousness
• Process theology avoids the anthropocentrism of much Christian thought about this life and life after death but many people, Christian and non-Christian, reject the idea of objective immortality
• Why do people reject the idea of objective immortality?

  It is meaningless. If a person no longer has individual experiences, what significance can being in the mind of God have for that person?
• Why do people reject the idea of objective immortality?

  One feature of life after death of Christians is that innocent suffering will be redeemed. If a person no longer exists as an individual but simply as an object in the mind of God, there will be no awareness of this having been done