Whitehead by John B. Cobb, Jr
Chapter 5: A Whiteheadian Doctrine of God
4. God and the Eternal Objects
extension. The regions of other occasions would be included, not in that of a single occasion of the divine experience, but in the regions of a succession of such experiences.
Once again we have a choice of treating God as an exception or of speculating that he is more like other actual entities. If God occupies no region, yet is related to all equally, it is as if he were regionally
contiguous with all regions. Whitehead may deny this and intend that, unlike all other actual entities, God’s immediate physical prehensions of other entities do not involve him in having a regional standpoint. Since regional standpoints are not introduced into the categorial scheme, no self-contradiction is entailed. However, if God is related to every occasion as if he were physically present, it seems more natural and coherent to affirm that he is physically present. That could only mean that his region includes all other contemporary regions.
This passage seems virtually to deny the eternal objects any status apart from God’s envisagement of them. On the other hand, Whitehead is very clear that God does not create the eternal objects; (PR 392.) they are for him eternally. Still, Whitehead seems to assign to God a relation to eternal objects wholly different from that possible to any other entity.
That is, does not God have an unmediated relation, whereas all other entities have only a mediated relation? If so, is there not again a danger of a final incoherence? Have we not introduced God to solve a problem without providing any clue whatever as to how it is done? This seems to be parallel to the weaknesses that Whitehead points out in other
philosophers.(PR 78, 219, 289; FR 24; AI 171.)
It may not be necessary, however, to understand Whitehead in this sense. What the ontological principle demands is that no agency be attributed to eternal objects in themselves. It does not forbid that they be classified as one of the categories of existence.(They are so classified, PR 32. However, Christian correctly calls attention to Whitehead’s wavering on this point. See Christian, pp. 265-266.) Nor does it demand that their sheer existence be regarded as dependent upon God. Let us take as our point of departure the formulation of the ontological
principle to the effect that "every explanatory fact refers to the decision and to the efficacity of an actual thing." On the basis of this formulation I suggest that the relation between God and the eternal objects can be restored to the situation we found in Religion in the Making, namely, that it belongs to no totally different mode from that of other actual entities to the eternal objects.
The apparent incoherence with respect to eternal objects arises at two points. First, it seems that God renders eternal objects effective for actual occasions in a way radically different from that in which temporal occasions make them effective for each other. Second, God seems to envisage eternal objects in a way for which the conceptual prehensions of actual occasions provide no analogy. It is my contention that the first of these areas of incoherence can be rather easily resolved into coherence if the conclusions of preceding sections of this chapter (See especially sec. 1.) are accepted, but that much greater difficulty attaches to the second. We will treat the problems in that order.
Whitehead appeals to the principle of universal relativity to argue that there are physical prehensions of the world by God and of God by the world. He has in mind the consequent nature of God, but I have argued
that God as actual entity is involved. When we recognize the
indissoluble unity of the mental and physical poles in God as in other actual entities, we have no difficulty in seeing that even when the mental pole of God is primarily involved, God as actual entity is involved. Whitehead’s recognition of this led him to note that some of the feelings he usually called conceptual prehensions (prehensions of eternal objects) are really hybrid prehensions (objectifications of an actual entity by an eternal object derived from its mental pole) (PR 343, 377.) In this way Whitehead moves in the direction of assimilating the relation of actual occasions to God to the relation of actual entities to each other. This is a step toward coherence.
However, two points remain at which God seems to function in presenting eternal objects to actual occasions in a way radically
different from that in which they present eternal objects to each other.
These two points are the provision of the initial aim and the provision of relevant novel possibilities. The analysis of the becoming actual
occasion in which these occur should be briefly reviewed.
Every occasion of experience arises in an initial phase in which there are initial data and the initial phase of the subjective aim. The initial data are all the actual occasions in the past of the becoming occasion. The initial aim is the desire for the achievement of a definite value allowed and made possible by the initial data. In accordance with the initial aim, the initial data are severally objectified by the new occasion in terms of eternal objects realized by them. The new occasion then reenacts these eternal objects as now constitutive of its own subjective immediacy.(PR 39-40.) But in addition to this reenactment of what is given in the initial data, there is also a "secondary origination of conceptual feeling with data which are partially identical with, and partially diverse from, the eternal objects" derived from the initial data.(PR 40.)Here novelty enters the new occasion. In subsequent phases of the becoming of the occasion, complex syntheses of conceptual and physical prehensions occur, but these are not our concern at this point.
In Whitehead’s presentation God seems to be the sole ground of (1) the initial aim and (2) the relevant novel eternal objects. In section 1 above, it has already been argued that, without detracting from God’s supreme and decisive role, we can think of past actual occasions as also
contributing to the formation of the initial aim.That argument will not here be repeated. If it is accepted, then there is no incoherence at this point. Here we must consider whether in the origination of novelty, also,
God’s role can be coherently explained.
Whitehead already goes far toward a coherent explanation. He holds that God so orders the realm of otherwise merely disjunctive eternal objects that the prehension of one eternal object suggests that of another.
The prehension of the novel eternal object is in fact a hybrid prehension of God.(PR 377.)
However, it is impossible to rest with Whitehead’s brief and almost incidental statements on this point, for they raise additional problems to which he did not address himself. Let us consider in somewhat more detail the apparent meaning of his position.
A past actual occasion is objectified by eternal object X. This eternal object is then reenacted in the new occasion by a conceptual prehension of X. In addition, eternal object Y is also enacted in the new occasion.
This means that God has been objectified by Y. Presumably the objectification of God by Y was triggered by the prehension of X derived from the past actual occasion. The dynamic by which this triggering occurs is not explained. Perhaps the objectification of a past occasion by X leads to the objectification also of God by X and this in turn leads to the objectification of God by Y because of the close association of X and Y in God. Already this seems somewhat farfetched.
In addition, it introduces two further problems. Whereas in relation to other actual occasions their causal efficacy for the new occasion functions only in the initial phase, this interpretation of the rise of novelty requires that God’s causal efficacy function also in subsequent phases since conceptual reversion" occurs after the initial phase of the occasion (PR 378.) Second, if the prehension of the novel eternal object is, in fact, a hybrid prehension of God, then the new occasion should deal with it as it does with other hybrid prehensions. This would mean that it not only would reenact the eternal object in its own subjective immediacy but also that there might again be "secondary origination of conceptual feeling" introducing new novelty. This would lead to a regress that is clearly vicious and completely unintended by Whitehead.
A much simpler theory, more coherent both in itself and with
Whitehead’s general position, is as follows. According to this theory, there is just one hybrid prehension of God, the prehension that includes the feeling of God’s aim for the new occasion. This aim includes not
only the ideal for the occasion but alternative modes of self- actualization in their graded relevance to the ideal. (That this is
Whitehead’s intention is indicated in PR 74, 75, 342, 343.)It certainly includes God’s conceptual feeling of eternal objects X and Y together with his feeling of relevance of Y to X. Hence no new hybrid
prehension of God is required in subsequent phases. Although the new actual occasion may not actualize itself according to God’s ideal aim for it, it will not include any possibility not provided as having some
relevance for it in the initial hybrid prehension of God.
This interpretation also allows us to see that the difference between God’s function in providing novelty and that of past occasions, although great, need not be total. Some ordering of eternal objects is possible also in temporal occasions and in principle may have some effectiveness for future occasions. The difference, the vast difference, is that God
envisages and orders all eternal objects, whereas temporal occasions can order only an infinitesimal selection of eternal objects. But this kind of difference threatens no incoherence.
I assume, therefore, that the explanation of the derivation from God of the initial aim and of novelty, need not attribute to God’s causal efficacy for temporal occasions a function radically different from that
exemplified in the interrelationships of other actual entities. If this is correct, there is no danger of incoherence, a danger that arises whenever an inexplicable mode of functioning. is attributed to God. However, the second major problem noted above remains unsolved. Is God’s
envisagement of eternal objects totally discontinuous with the conceptual prehensions of temporal occasions?
The problem may be explained as follows. According to the ontological principle, eternal objects cannot be effective for actual occasions except by the decision of some actual entity. That seems to mean that the conceptual feelings of an actual entity always derive from its physical and hybrid feelings. An eternal object not given for the new actual occasion in some other actual entity cannot enter the new occasion. But in the case of God we seem to confront a total exception. Here all eternal objects are effective without the mediation of any other actual entity.
Either the ontological principle is simply inapplicable to the relation of eternal objects to God (in which case incoherence threatens) or the decision to which the effectiveness of eternal objects for God is to be
attributed is God’s primordial decision. If we adopt the latter position, as I believe we should, then we must ask whether in the case of
temporal occasions as well the ontological principle allows that their own decisions can be explanatory of conceptual prehensions not derived from physical prehensions.
The question is not really whether such decisions occur or even whether there are actually any occasions capable of making such decisions. The question is whether in principle the kind of decision by which eternal objects become relevant for God is categorically impossible for all other actual entities. I see no reason to insist upon this absolute difference, and could even suggest that at the highest levels of their intellectual functioning human occasions may be able to conceive possibilities directly. Such a claim would supplement rather than contradict Whitehead’s analysis of novelty in actual occasions as arising from hybrid prehensions of God. He focuses on the emergence of novelty as it precedes and is presupposed by all conscious reflection and decision, whereas I am speaking of new possibilities introduced by highly
reflective consciousness. (Whitehead thought that "in our highest
mentality" we may have clues to the kind of order that will be dominant in a future cosmic epoch (ESP 90) This indirectly suggests some
openness to my speculation.) However, I do not wish to press any claim beyond this: Whitehead should not preclude in principle the possibility that a temporal occasion may have toward some eternal object the kind of relation God has toward all.
If we may modify Whitehead’s apparent position to this extent, then we can affirm with Religion in the Making that in principle "the forms belong no more to God than to any one occasion." The apparent
incoherence introduced into Whitehead’s thought by the application of the ontological principle to the role of the eternal objects can be
removed.