Process – Free-Will – Postliberal

From the book,

“This widespread disaffection with Enlightenment rationality opens the door to other approaches to theology. For postliberals, it means that contemporary culture is no longer the norm for Christian thought. Accordingly, the primary concern of Christian theology is not to find other language with which to express the Christian message, but to employ the narrative form of Scripture. In doing so, it reverses the tendency of modern theology to accommodate itself to culture. Instead of letting the world absorb the gospel, its goal is for the gospel to absorb the world. ‘Rather than translating Scripture into an external and alien from of reference, which devalues and undermines its normative position and eventually produces an accommodation to culture, the postliberals call for an intratextual theology that finds the meaning of the Christian language within the text.’
“Evangelical theologians who share the conviction that theology’s primary concern lies within the text will have reservations about Wheeler’s call to employ process philosophy in hopes of getting a larger hearing. IN particular, they will question the very ideas of an independent perspective that corroborates the biblical perspective. As they see it, our most important concern should not be to find conceptual, philosophical ways of expressing the Christian message, but to let the primary symbols and narratives of Christian faith speak with their own power. To make the case he wants to for process thought, Wheeler needs to take into account the shifting theological scene.”

Richard Rice, Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue between Process and Free Will Theists, editors: John Cobb & Clark Pinnock, p. 158.