Becoming human or human becoming.

I read a book once (for real) but I can't remember the title, so sorry. It was written by Philip Hefner (I could have misspelled the first name). It turns out that this book has helped me a great deal in a class on Process Theology. It was about taking technology seriously in the process of life for humanity, or something like it. In it Hefner wrote something about like we are not human being but human becomings, which means that there is nothing stagnant about being a human. Our being is really made up of the succession of events in the past (in class and in a book by John Cobb, these are called energy-events), the possibilities that are unfolding in the present and the possibilities that are before us. Thus, in every moment we are changing in a dynamic and organic way and the hope is that we are growing into what God wants for us. Human becoming implies that we are less human now and growing into what it really means to be human. Is that different from becoming human? Does it matter what in order we say this? I don't really know.

We are forever changing and being called by God to grow to be truely human, meaning that we recognize and live out God in our being. It is growing in the image and likeness of God that we hear about in Genesis 1:26-27. Human becoming or becoming human means that ontologically (in our beings) we become more like God and grow in union with Christ. Christ is what it means to be truely human, and Christ was truely human and truely God (I learned a lot today from Dr. Chun). Thus, in order to be authentically or truely human we must be in union or one with our triune God.

I know that this is some pretty intense stuff, but I had to write it out in a place that wasn't going to be graded by a professor. I like looking at the world this way, but sometimes I can't grasp something until I write about it (of course that doesn't always help). Let me know what you think of all of this. It smells like Tillich, process theology and existential philosophy all rolled up together in a post that brings meaning to meaningless. Just kidding. I'm just unpacking after a couple of weeks of some intense study.

Peace,
mark