Tragedy and God

 Doesn't the fact that God cannot guarantee he divine aims will not always be actualized by creatures mean God is a is a major failure in many respects?

The unique claim of process theology is that there is tragedy in God. Whereas classical theism would view such statement as abhorrent, process understands it as something positive, an affirmation of God's unfathomable love and empathic sensitivity with the joys sorrows, triumphs, tragedies, and failures of all creatures.

Where matters get tricky is how and if we should peak of God's failures. We have to be careful here because referring to “God's failures,” strongly implies that God lacks imagination, has unrealistic explications, doesn't know that the possibilities really are. Attributing such traits to God is ridiculous. A God displaying those traits would be no God at all.

Another issue here is by what standards, what criterion we would use to judge God a failure. It has become a theological cliche to speak of “God's plan,” some master plan for the whole of creation, drawn up before the foundations of the world were ever laid. And then God's successes or failures could e measured against what is or is not accomplished in the plan.

Frankly, I think this whole master-plan idea is theological nonsense. Plans are one thing, the actual reality of any plan fleshed out is a wholly different matter. In reality, God could look at what of the plan has been accomplished and then decide he or she does not like it, that it really isn't what is expected. Such happens all he time with artists. Beethoven fleshed 12 different introductions to his Fifth Symphony, before he found what he wanted. There are simply inherent limitations on relying on plans.

Another problem is how this master-plan idea represents any real degree o creativity on God's part. If God is continually creative, then God is going to move beyond what was thought of eons ago. Indeed, one of the reasons “failure” is not applicable to God is that, unlike creatures, God profits from every experience God has. So God is always going to move ahead from what God thought in the past.

It surely seems to me that it turns God into some sort of obsessive-compulsive personality to assume the thought up a master plan day one. Would it not be impractical for God to  decide eons don the road God will strive for a Beethoven or Shakespeare to come along. The future, especially the distant future is simply too iffy for that sort of thing. And on top of that God worrying and trying to imagine all other possibilities and contingency plans for each of them. No, I think God woks step by step, improvising such beauty as is possible under the circumstances. God is the Great Improviser.

Some contemporary theologians have argued God holds back, giving room for our freedom. The problem I have here is that, to me anyway, they are simply claiming God is not doing all that he or she can. In my way of thinking, that does not insure that God cannot fail; it is actually a claim God is not doing all that God can and therefore is irresponsible. In process, God does not hold back; God is always doing all that can b done. However, free will means that are simply major limitations on what God can do.  Given the reality of free will, there are bound to be conflicts between God and creatures. That's not pointing to a failure on God's part; that's just the way thinks are.

I should also point out that God is not a failure in the sense that the divine or initial aims can b completely rejected by creatures. In their moment of self-creation, all creatures experience God's initial aim for their self-formulation. That means all do empathize with God's aim, actualize to some degree, however small this may be. So God's aim is never negligible.

I agree, then with Hartshorne, who stressed that while we certainly speak of “God's failures,” we would be far better off to find a  more accurate term, such as “God's disappointments"