Abstract

Donna Bowman utilizes the work of process thinker Alfred North Whitehead to develop a doctrine of election that dialogues with the view of Reformed theologian Karl Barth. Taking seriously Barth's contention that election is the best of all words that can be spoken about God, Bowman reinterprets Whitehead's description of God's provision of the initial aim to each entity as the central cosmological and theological fact of universal election. By combining Barth's concerns with process categories, she concludes that both systems are aimed at common theological and philosophical enemies.