| John B. Cobb Jr. is one of the most prolific American theologians of the last fifty years, but the volume and diversity of his theological and ethical writings can be problematic for understanding his work as a whole. This dissertation finds that Cobb applies the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne to topics that, in retrospect, comprise three broad chronological-thematic movements: (1) a metaphysical phase that explores natural philosophy, cosmology, anthropology, and history; (2) a constructive theological phase that proposes a Christology, eschatology, and their orienting images; and (3) an ethical phase that engages biology, ecology, economics, and political and social theory through this Christology. Borrowing from theologians David Tracy and Richard Viladesau, I organize Cobb's phases as tripartite components of a greater whole not only in terms of their audiences (i.e., Academy, Church, and community) and discourse types (i.e., foundational, constructive, and praxis theologies), but also the trancendentals of Truth, Beauty, and the Good, respectively.;This study explores Cobb's theological-ethical phases within the contexts of historical aesthetics, contemporary theological aesthetics, and the process tradition. The question of Beauty's relation to the Good is another context, insofar as the aesthetic can ground moral action. For Cobb, humans seek goodness because (1) life's creative drive seeks aesthetic transformation and value, and (2) community and individuals live through the symbolic imagination. This view is consistent with process' assertation that all value, ultimately, is essentially aesthetic.;I argue that the heart of Cobb's theology and ethics is his Christology, that this is explicitly aesthetic, and that its goal is to produce new, motivational theological images. Further, I argue that Cobb's metaphysical-theological-ethical progression demonstrates the possibility of constructing a new systematic theological aesthetics based on his process thought. Cobb himself does not undertake this task, and indeed eventually retracts his technical aesthetic definition of Christ as a proposition-image, but he nevertheless provides an adequate foundation for a process aesthetics. Such a system, my conclusion argues, could be strengthened by engaging natural beauty, a theology of art, alternate aesthetic theodicies, life's tragicomic drama, and the aesthetic value of (Buddhist) emptiness. |
