Process theism articulates a conception of God as fundamentally temporal, relational, and affected by the world's becoming. This position claims that God is not the unmoved mover of classical theism but rather the supreme exemplification of metaphysical categories that apply to all reality: God experiences, responds to, and grows with the universe. The core structure involves three key moves: first, rejecting divine immutability and impassibility as Greek philosophical imports incompatible with biblical portrayals; second, affirming that God's perfection consists in perfectly responding to each moment rather than in static completeness; third, proposing dipolar theism where God has both an eternal aspect (primordial nature) containing all possibilities and a temporal aspect (consequent nature) experiencing the world's actualization.
The position emerged from Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality (1929), which developed a metaphysics where becoming is more fundamental than being. Charles Hartshorne systematized this into process theology in works like The Divine Relativity (1948) and Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (1984). Key developers include John Cobb (A Christian Natural Theology, 1965), David Ray Griffin (God, Power, and Evil, 1976), and Marjorie Suchocki (The End of Evil, 1988). Earlier precursors include Henri Bergson's philosophy of duration and William James's notion of a finite God. The movement gained particular traction in liberal Protestant circles, with process theologians arguing it better captures the biblical God who grieves, changes plans, and enters into genuine relationship.
Critics raise several objections. First, the metaphysical critique: William Lane Craig argues process theism's God lacks the aseity and sovereignty required for worship, while Brian Davies contends it reduces God to merely the greatest being among beings. Second, the biblical objection: evangelical theologians like Bruce Ware claim process theology contradicts scriptural affirmations of divine foreknowledge and providence. Third, the problem of evil remains: if God cannot prevent evil due to metaphysical constraints, why call this being God? Process theists respond that their view better explains divine love as genuinely responsive relationship, that biblical anthropomorphisms reveal deep truths about divine experience, and that God's power as persuasive rather than coercive better addresses theodicy than classical omnipotence.
Process theism differs from classical theism by affirming divine temporality and passibility versus eternal immutability. Unlike deism, it maintains God's ongoing involvement through persuasive agency. While sharing divine temporality with open theism, process thought restricts divine power more radically and grounds this in necessary metaphysics rather than voluntary self-limitation. Against panentheism generally, process theism specifically requires Whiteheadian metaphysics and dipolar theism, not merely that the world exists 'in' God.