Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Theologs, in their myriad discourses, have sparingly dealt with the notion of the Constructed Environment. When endeavors have branched into the built environment, it is often limited to sacred architecture or utopian visions of urban planning. Neither of these niche topics correspond with the lived reality of all persons who must seamlessly traverse the ecotones of creation and the created in their daily lives. From this void of scholarship, attempts to provide a theological lens for the constructed environment emerged. These works only further relegated concerns of the constructed environment to the fringes of theological thought. Therefore it is constructive to engage the built environment through the lens of a specific, well-articulated theology, in order to see how its motifs play out across the menagerie of theological loci, encompassing the dynamic processes of a particular Weltanschauung. I submit that of all the theological endeavors, none is as well poised for this decanting than Process Thought, for this theological arena has a particular grammar and metaphysic suitable for not only discussing the built environment and creation, but of reconciling the dissonance that presently exists between these two ideas. Therefore this study is structured on the various touchstones of the doctrine of creation, engaging the built environment through this process framework.