Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

loved. God not only grants us his unconditional goodness but also remains involved in every moment of our lives. He did not love us once in the past when He decided to lavish His grace upon us. His love is ever fresh and new, responsive, relevant, passionate, involved and full of risk. God does not have a plan of love nor the certainty that His love will yield specific results. On the contrary, He loves us because that is who He is and not because He wants to achieve something! This means that God needs relationships. His essence assumes the relationship of love and therefore He is not a passionless hermit nor a narcissus self-sufficient in his internal structure. Waclaw Hryniewicz also emphasises the relational nature of God who is: the contradiction of separation and death. He is the most community-minded being. This God may be known in a personal relationship, in a covenant of the mind and heart. The ancient Church in its wisdom is handing down to us through the belief in the holy Trinity of Persons a magnificent intuition that God is a communal and relational reality. He is not an eternal Solitary focused on Himself in the narcissist fancy but a community of Persons, sheer involvement, the archetype of all being. No reality may be comprehended on its own, without reference to others. Even God exists because of communion. Nothing can exist apart from communion, not even God Himself who seeks the friendship ot man. Elsewhere, Hryniewicz adds that God is ontically bound with the world, which means that: 7 J.B. Cobb, Jr, Living Options in Protestant Theology: A Survey of Methods (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), p. 286. s J.B. Cobb, Jr, and D.R. Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), p. 46. 9 Hryniewicz, Kosciol jest jeden , p. 91. 20 Journal of European Baptist Studies the tragedy of creatures is thus incorporated into the mystery of God Himself. Whatever happens in time, finds its ultimate satisfaction in God. Through the drama of salvation history something ‘happens’ to God as well. In His internal life some kind of ‘change’ occurs ... God does not jealously guard His happiness, joy and glory for His own sake. He is far from any sort of solipsistism. He shares His life and joy with His creatures. The destiny of all creation does not exclude the Creator himself. 10 Process theology has challenged the traditional theistic tenet of God’s omnipotence, often presented in terms of His exclusive responsibility for whatever happens in history. God is no longer seen as the Lord in control of everything. 11 In other words, the world becomes the fellow creator of the future which can no longer be determined. God stands before the world with his suggestions, as it were, which He recommends and argues for, but without any ultimate obligation. Hryniewicz also states that ‘to His creatures, God remains an inexhaustible invitati