Researching today’s sermon, I came across an undated typescript by Duncan Howlett in our church’s archives. This typescript appears to date from between 1938 and 1946, when Howlett was minister in New Bedford, and in it Howlett anticipates some of the points he made a few years later in a pamphlet he wrote for the Pamphlet Commission of the American Unitarian Association. What makes this typescript interesting is that Howlett makes an explicit reference to process theology, and he links process theology with his assertion that Unitarianism is concerned with the process of thinking, not with determining correct belief. Here’s an excerpt from the typescript:

“No really satisfying answer to the question, ‘What is Unitarianism?’, is possible because of the assumptions that are implicit in the question itself. Alfred North Whitehead used to say, and I’m quoting, ‘If you cannot agree with a man’s conclusions, but cannot find anything wrong with the argument by which he reaches them, look at his premises — spoken or unspoken — admitted or unadmitted — and there you will find the answer to your question.’ I believe the difficulties we encounter [in] describing Unitarianism are found in the assumptions that we bring to the question itself….

“Our error lies in the fact that we, like the orthodox [Christians], have always taken the creed structure of Christendom for granted. We have tried to explain ourselves in terms of it and apparently it has never occurred to us to do otherwise…. [But] You don’t say anything really significant about a Unitarian when you give a summary of the theological opinions he happens to hold….”

And later in the typescript, Howlett continues:

“Unitarians, rejecting fixed creeds and confessions of faith, hold that the task of religion is to state its first principles, constantly to test the validity of those principles in open encounter where every voice may be heard, and to be ready to restate them whenever clarity requires. The Unitarians believe that truth in religion, as in all things, lies at the end of the process of inquiring. Every possible facet of humane xperience must be brought to bear upon such an inquiry if any approximation of truth is to be acheived as a result of it. Unitarians believe that religious differences between men [sic] ought to be measured by their belief in this process or by their lack of it.”