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The Home of Evolutioneers

David Ray Griffin, Writer Artist of the Month, October 2005

David Ray Griffin was voted by the members and visitors of Universe Spirit as our October Writer Artist of the month.

David Ray GriffinDavid Ray Griffin was a professor of philosophy of religion and theology, at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, from 1973 until April 2004, and is a co-director of the Center for Process Studies. He is one of the foremost contemporary exponents of process theology, founded on the process philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. Griffin is a longtime resident of Santa Barbara, California.

Born in 1939, Griffin grew up in a small town in Oregon, were he was an active participant in his Disciples of Christ church. After deciding to become a minister, Griffin entered Northwest Christian College, but became disenchanted with the conservative-fundamentalist theology that was taught there. While getting his master’s degree in counseling from the University of Oregon, Griffin attended a lecture series delivered by Paul Tillich at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. At this time, Griffin made his decision to focus on philosophical theology. He eventually attended the Claremont Graduate University, where Griffin received his Ph.D. in 1970.

As a student in Claremont, Griffin was initially interested in Eastern religions, particularly Vedanta. However, he started to become a process theologian while attending John B. Cobb’s seminar on Whitehead’s philosophy. According to Griffin, process theology, as presented by Cobb, "provided a way between the old supernaturalism, according to which God miraculously interrupted the normal causal processes now and then, and a view according to which God is something like a cosmic hydraulic jack, exerting the same pressure always and everywhere (which described rather aptly the position to which I had come)" (Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology, p. 3). While applying Whitehead’s thought to the traditional theological subjects of christology and theodicy, Griffin found that process theology also provided a sound basis for addressing contemporary social and ecological issues.

After teaching theology and Eastern religions at the University of Dayton, Griffin came to appreciate the distinctively postmodern aspects of Whitehead’s thought. In particular, Griffin found Whitehead’s nonsensationist epistemology and panexperientialist ontology immensely helpful in addressing the major problems of modern philosophy, including the problems of mind-body interaction, the interaction between free and determined things, the emergence of experience from nonexperiencing matter, and the emergence of time in the evolutionary process. In 1973, Griffin returned to Claremont to establish, with Cobb, the Center for Process Studies.

While on research leave in 1980-81 at Cambridge University and Berkeley, the contrast between modernity and postmodernity became central to his work. Many of Griffin’s writings are devoted to developing postmodern proposals for overcoming the conflicts between religion and modern science. Griffin came to believe that much of the tension between religion and science was not only the result of reactionary supernaturalism, but also the mechanistic worldview associated with the rise of modern science in the seventeenth century. In 1983, Griffin started the Center for a Postmodern World in Santa Barbara, and became editor of the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Philosophy between 1987 and 2004.

After attending Northwest Christian College (B.A) and the University of Oregon (M.A.) from 1957 to 1963, he attended graduate school in Claremont from 1963 to 1968, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1970. He taught at the University of Dayton for 5 years before returning in 1973 to Claremont, where he remained until his retirement in 2004.

RECENT HONORS AND AWARDS:
(1) One of some 60 theologians worldwide included in the Handbook of Christian Theologians, ed. Musser and Price, 1996.
(2) Recipient of the Book Prize of the Scientific and Medical Network in 2000 (for Religion and Scientific Naturalism).

EDITORIAL POSITIONS:
(1) Editor of The SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (1987-2004), which published 31 volumes.
(2) Editor of The Forum in Process Studies.

Books:

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