Why "theoplasticity?".... I begin this blog with a new adage:  belief in God equals passion for change.  Two linkages should probably be explained here.  First, and easiest, I am linking "belief" and "passion."  There is nothing too controversial about this, but it is important for me as a philosophically minded person to say that faith has nothing to do with cold acknowledgement of certain supposedly objective truths.  Rather, to be possessed of a belief, in the sense I mean here, is to be moved by something, to be drawn, compelled, fascinated, smitten.  Indeed, for properly religious belief, it is to be moved infinitely, in a way that troubles and transcends all other loyalties, confidences, and affinities.

A second linkage is somewhat more difficult, but no less important.  It is the link between "God" and "change."   Now, it may seem like this second link seeks to invert the traditional affirmation of God's changelessness. God is supposed to be impassible, beyond change, above the flux, ultimately reliable, etc.  Actually, though, my intent is quite the reverse of a repudiation of the tradition on this point.  Classical Christian theology insists on God remaining above change for some very specific reasons. To change is to become something different from what one once was.  But I want to say, with tradition (I think), that God is already different. That is to say, God contains the fullness of all differences that characterize the creaturely realm within God's self.  The traditional word for this is "plenitude."  Nicholas of Cusa wrote about a "coincidence of opposites" in God.  God is above distinctions between different things not because God is some pure abstraction that is irrelevant to qualities that can differ, but because God contains all of these differences of quality in the fullness of the divine vision. So, God cannot change.  But, the infinity of differences that would constitute change for finite creatures traversing those differences are already in God and thus do not need to be traversed.  So, in a sense, God is change.  More important than a fine doctrinal point about God, however, this thought suggests something profoundly important about change itself. Change is not disintegration, here; nor is it some kind of ultimate threat. Rather, change, as divine, is the eternal harmony or repose of all things in their becoming.  The coincidence of opposites in God's eternity holds out hope for a non-antagonistic relationship among differences in historical time.

Theoplasticity is a practical, perhaps mystical, quest to be relentlessly open to change because of an infinite passion for a God who is change.  It is driven, at this point, by philosophical ponderings (Deleuze, Serres, Latour, Meillassoux), engagements with tradition (recently Eastern Orthodoxy), political commitments, and simply a "sense and taste for the infinite" (Schleiermacher).  With no particular schedule in mind, I will post musings, reflections on readings, would-be conceptual breakthroughs in the development of a theology of plasticity, and probably some whining and ranting.  Theoplasticity is about me personally, it is about my parishioners, my friends, my family, about the church, the sectors or spheres of civilizations, and human nature. And above all, of course, it is about God in relation to these things.