Many theologians have been reconceiving the God-world relation, challenging the separation that underlay too much of Patristic and Scholastic theology. These panentheists affirm a radical indwelling of God within the world and the world within God. During the same period scientists have begun to abandon the reductionist ideology that characterized much of the modern period. Reductionism is being replaced by a new emphasis on emergence: the study of how new structures and entities arise throughout the evolutionary process and how each requires its own form of explanation.
Surprisingly few theologians have recognized the paradigm shift represented by the convergence of these two important schools of thought. Clayton's pioneering work develops new models of God and the God-world relation in light of panentheism and emergent complexity and models an open-minded Christian theology that still respects tradition.
