Process thought argues that it is basically persuasive, and depends for its effectiveness upon that which is capable of responding to such persuasion. Instead of mentality being emergent from that which is purely physical, mentality may be required for the emergence of any actuality, if divine influence is operative in the process. If so, the possibility of mentality, at least, must be present all the way down. Moreover, if the mental is somehow emergent from the physical, it would seem that God would have to be emergent from the world. Nothing within the world could dictate the answer to this question, since nothing within the world could determine whether its source is essentially independent of it.
Transempirical issues are also metaphysical ones, and here the questions are highly controverted.
Clayton espouses a panentheistic model to explain God's activity in the world within the context of contemporary science. It would also seem necessary to embed that model within a larger metaphysics.