Catholic Dictionary

Term

PROCESS

Definition

A course or method of systematic operations, as a process on inquiry into some question of doctrine or a process of investigation into some disputed issue in ecclesiastical law. In modern philosophy, process has come to mean more than method. It has entered the stream of Christian thought from Oriental pantheism to describe a concept of being that is still "in process" or becoming. Its dominant feature is that everything is in flux, everything is changing, so that nothing simply is, in any part of its nature. (Etym. Latin processus, a going forward, advance, procedure, method; from procedere, to go before.)