The Not-Yet God – Carl Jung, Teilhard de Chardin and the Relational Whole by Ilia Delio – a Book Review

Franciscan theologian, Ilia Delio, is one of the most interesting and progressive thinkers of our age. An expert in the writings of Teilhard, she founded the Center for Christogenesis, which has recently been re-branded as the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture (WISR Institute).

In The Not‑Yet God, Delio explores God and the world considering evolution, quantum physics, psychology, and technological change. She argues that God and creation form a dynamic, unfinished relational whole rather than a static, distant deity.

She claims that the “old God” of a static sky‑deity is collapsing in modern consciousness as science, technology, and globalization reshape how we understand reality. In its place she articulates “relational holism”, a vision in which God, the world, and consciousness are deeply entangled, so that God is the living Whole of an evolving universe that is still becoming. God is “not‑yet” in the sense that divine life unfolds historically and cosmically, and humanity itself is an unfinished species.

This challenges long-held concepts of God and, in embracing process theology, forces the reader to think differently about what the world and they themselves are becoming, their relationship with God and how the kingdom of God in unfolding. In classical Christian theology, immutability means that God does not change in being, will, or knowledge. Delio reframes this. She argues God is unchangingly committed to creative, self‑giving love, yet the ways that love is embodied can and must change as the universe evolves. Not shy of controversy, she draws upon Jung’s depth psychology and Teilhard’s evolutionary theology to ground this new insight.

At times, Delio writes at levels above my understanding. She has a wide vocabulary and is not afraid to use it. She also invents new words to fully capture her ideas. She names her framework “theohology” (literally, “God‑whole”) to stress that God and world form one relational whole. She revisits classic doctrines—Trinity, Christology, salvation, church, and sacraments—arguing that each must be rethought as dynamic processes of relational becoming rather than fixed structures. O’Murchu and Treston have made similar arguments in books separately reviewed on this website.

Attentive to AI, genetic engineering, and other radical technologies, Delio sees them as part of a new cosmology that forces theology to confront global interdependence and planetary risk. She argues that only a God understood as relational wholeness, deeply entangled with creation yet drawing it toward fuller love, can speak meaningfully in this emerging axial age.

Readers will find some of their existing paradigms and concepts of God challenged. In that sense, the book is a rich reward for effort.