Bernard Loomer

Bernard MacDougall Loomer (March 5, 1912 – August 1985)^[1] was an American professor and theologian. Longtime Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School and a leading proponent of Process Theology, Loomer wrote “The world is God because it is the source and preserver of meaning; because the creative advance of the world in its adventure is the supreme cause to be served; because even in our desecration of our space and time within it, the world is holy ground; and because it contains and yet enshrouds the ultimate mystery inherent within existence itself. . . . The world in all the dimensions of its being is the basis for all our wonder, awe, and inquiry.” Loomer decried theological certainty and delighted in the wonder of existence: “Final answers are not to be trusted. We are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery."

Loomer wrote a somewhat critical review of C.E.M. Joad's 1942 book, God and Evil, for The Journal of Religion.^[2] While praising Joad for a "frank and honest account of Joad's spiritual and intellectual odyssey," Loomer was clearly less than enthralled with Joad's lack familiarity with "the best of modern religious thought," undoubtedly a negative reference to Joad's dependence upon Edwin Bevan and C. S. Lewis. He described the book as one containing "loose thinking and unexamined presuppositions" without giving any evidence.

Religious historian Jerome A. Stone credits Loomer with contributing to the early thinking in the development of Religious Naturalism.^[3]

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