This collection of essays stages a dialogue between Friedrich Schleiermacher and Alfred North Whitehead on significant features of 'open' system. The volume offers new options for rehabilitating system for future theological and philosophical thinking by opening system to a flexible relation with changing reality. Key ingredients for system are discussed in three areas of contact between Schleiermacher and Whitehead. One such ingredient concerns historical precedents figuring crucially in Western systematic philosophy. Another feature is the systematic categorization of experience that relates epistemology, metaphysics, and the empirical sciences. System is also brought to bear on pressing contemporary issues, such as ethics and religious pluralism.

Christine Helmer is Assistant Professor of Theology at Claremont School of Theology (CST) and Assistant Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) in Claremont, California, USA.Marjorie Suchockiis Former Dean and Professor Emerita at CST, Professor Emerita of Religion at CGU, Director of the Process and Faith Program at the Center for Process Studies (CPS), and Co-Director of the CPS.John Quiring isAdjunct Professor of Philosophy at Victor Valley College in Victorville, California and Program Director of the CPS.Katie Goetzis a Master of Divinity student at CST and a candidate for ordination in the United Methodist Church.

Christine Helmer, Introduction ·Jack Verheyden, Mapping the Land of Beginning Again

I. System and Historical Context:Roland Faber, Whitehead at Infinite Speed: Deconstructing System as Event ·Jacqueline Mariña, Schleiermacher Between Kant and Leibniz: Predication and Ontology ·Krista Duttenhaver, Relative Freedoms: The Influence of Spinoza on the Systems of Schleiermacher and Whitehead ·Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, System without Certainty

II. System and Categorization:Christine Helmer, Novelty and System in Schleiermacher's Thought ·Anna Case-Winters, System and Dynamism in Whitehead's Thought: The Category of the Ultimate and the Concept of God ·J. R. Hustwit, Open Interpretation: Whitehead and Schleiermacher on Hermeneutics ·Philip Clayton, Systematizing Agency: Toward a Panentheistic-Participatory Theory of Agency

III. System and Contemporary Themes:Julia A. Lamm, The Force of Dialogue and a Dialogue of Forces: Resources for Open Theological Systems ·David Ray Griffin, Feeling and Morality in Whitehead's System ·Eilert Herms, Process and God in Whitehead and Schleiermacher ·John B. Cobb, Jr., Schleiermacher and Whitehead on Religious Pluralism