objective immortality in process thought

• process theology:

  • God + the universe are uncreated and eternal
  • God is not omnipotent
  • God + the universe exist panentheistically
• belief in process theology affects ideas about life after death
• most process theologians believe in objective immortality: after death, all individual beings remain eternally as 'objects' in the mind of God - they never die

  • this is due to God's panentheistic relationship with the universe: if the universe is in God then all humans are in God - therefore when any being dies it stays as a real + permanent object in the mind of God
• process theologians reject the idea of subjective immortality: the belief held by most Christians that after death, humans exist as thinking subjects with continued experiences
• many people reject 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?
  • one feature of life after death for 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