So says Christopher Howse, religion writer for London's Daily Telegraph. Process theology is one of the sources for open theism, which the Evangelical Theological Society debated in 2003 for violating the inerrancy clause of the ETS Constitution.

Says Howse, "The claims of Process Theology . . . appear the dimmest ever seriously entertained in the discipline." So, what does process theology claim?

Process Theologians, in an effort to show that God is not aloof from creation (especially from complaining mankind), have made human experience a part of God. Process Theology often goes together with something called panentheism. This is not pantheism, which holds that all things are God. Rather panentheism teaches that all things are in God, who is bigger than everything together.

Because God contains the entire universe, he is within time and he is affected by changes in his creation. Thus, God's omnipotence and his foreknowledge of the future are compromised.

Process theology is usually said to be based on the thought of philosopher-mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), but Howse says that a 13th-century theologian named David of Dinant had similar ideas. St Thomas Aquinas referred to David's thought as "most absurd"—and Thomas was not in the habit of name-calling.

Process theology leads to uncertainty about God's ability to fulfill what he has promised.

This is all extremely shocking, for it makes God not God but the uncertain outcome of an unrealised cosmic process. He would not be all-powerful, so would not be able to come to our aid, or to turn bad events into happy conclusions. There would not even be a guarantee that God would get better. He might get worse. There'd be no trusting him. In any case he'd be less than God; he might suffer, but need not understand.

In a classical Christian understanding, God knows all, for he has made it and loves what he has made, and can bring it to a good end. He is not changed by the changeable things that he knows and loves. If he is able to do all he wants, we can trust his promises. Otherwise we're sunk.

Howse's criticisms of process theology are similar to those that have been brought against open theism.