But even in this short preface there is room for a less strict and more personal interpretation to reopen the work of natural theology and specifically to appeal to Whitehead. So far I have argued for serious attention to natural theology based on the situation within the theological discipline. The essence of the matter is connected with the concepts of man and God.
This means that in our generation, natural theology should not be seen as a dubious luxury for the systematist, but as the basis for the preaching and also for the realization of the faith. Therefore, in Chapter I I try to introduce the reader to Whitehead's perspective and give him a clue as to the meaning of some of the essential expressions. For a clear account of the actual genetic development of Whitehead's thought from the foundations of mathematics and logic to the principles of natural science and to comprehensive cosmology, see Lowe, "Whitehead's Philosophical Development."
Some reference to Whitehead is made, but this chapter calls into question my own understanding of the nature of philosophy and theology.
A Christian Natural Theology Based on the Thought of Alfred North
Whitehead by John B. Cobb, Jr
An Introduction to Whitehead’s Philosophy
- Whitehead’s Philosophy and the Problem of Dualism
- The Analysis of an Actual Occasion
- Societies of Actual Occasions
He may be able to find factors at the most primitive level that can be generalized so that they can be enlightening also for the ultimate entities in the physical. In this example I am thinking of the possibility that the tie is brown instead of green. We are only aware of the very high level syntheses of these simple data that are performed in the advanced world.
None of the entities we are aware of in ordinary experience is an individual chance. A molecule is characteristic of persistent objects in the extraordinary similarity of the successive events that compose it. Whitehead shows that this is due to the great predominance of the physical sex, or physical sensations.
Whitehead's analysis sharply contrasted it with traditional interpretations of the subject-object schema.
The Human Soul
- The Soul as Social
- The Distinctiveness of the Human Soul
- Life After Death
- Personal Identity
- The Unconscious
- The Locus of the Soul
What the soul immediately experiences or anticipates are actually the experiences of the entities immediately adjacent in the brain. This contribution of the body's feelings to the soul is an important part of what Whitehead calls causal efficacy. The causal activity of the body for the dominant experience is always vaguely in the background of that experience.
Whitehead's understanding of the relational nature of the soul is still more radical than this suggests. In each of its momentary occasions the soul is one of these ultimately real entities in the world. Therefore, the continued existence of the soul or the living person would really be.
There is no indication that any segment of the brain is the immutable seat of consciousness.
Man as Responsible Being
- Freedom as Self-Determination
- Intrinsic Value as Beauty
- Goodness as Moral Value
- An Ethical Theory
- Duty, Love, and the Initial Aim
- Peace
It is not sufficient simply to declare that every occasion is free to decide how it will take account of the universe. Furthermore, it must be in the subjective immediacy of the individual occasion that the intrinsic value must be found. To be told that we should prefer the experience of the pig is pure dogmatism.
It is composed of the sensa that we project onto our surroundings as if they occupy regions in the contemporary space around us. It is the source of all our knowledge of contemporary regions and is assumed in all presenting immediacy. In the simplest case, the idea of possibility arises from the experience of the nexus itself.
Experience in the form of causal efficacy, the experience that links us to the reality of other entities, contributes indispensable to the massiveness of the total experience. Proponents of this view, however, are not usually concerned with the question of the relationship of the present self to the future self. Ethical claims would be uniquely justified by factual statements about the subjective form of it.
It is not self-evident that the fact that my sense of obligation is the subjective form of the feeling of a proposal justifies the claim that I should update that proposal. First, are there possible modes of behavior whose subjective form of the imaginative feeling inevitably includes the sense of obligation? They are justified by statements about the inescapable inclusion of the sense of obligation in the subjective forms of their imaginative feelings of certain possible modes of behavior.
When one struggles to make a decision, a sense of obligation is inevitably incorporated into the subjective form of the imaginative feeling of giving oneself fully. But secondly, the sense of obligation is influenced by factors other than the expected consequences of the action.
Whitehead’s Doctrine of God
- The Character of the Argument
The analysis of the world in the preceding chapters of Science and the Modern World has shown that all definite entities can be analyzed into real entities and eternal objects. First, he tells us that God's ordering of the eternal objects is primordial, and that in a sense that clearly means. This doctrine of God's representation of the eternal objects as the basis of their effective relevance to the world may seem strange.
Besides the description of God as a primordial actual entity, there are passages about the influence of temporal occasions on God. On the other hand, in the discussion of consequential nature, it is clear that philosophical and religious concerns are interrelated in Whitehead's presentation. Whitehead does not quite say that God's perception of the world includes the world as a whole.
A final feature of the consistent nature of God is barely touched upon in the last two paragraphs of the book. Like most other ideas about God in Process and Reality, this was foreshadowed in Religion in the Making. This effect of the world on God is an essential part of the process by which God functions as the principle of limitation.
The argument was therefore particularly vulnerable to the new understanding of evolutionary processes in nature that dominated the nineteenth century. My point is that the problem of order must be repeated, however we understand the nature of the world. These must vary according to the description of the structures of the world in which they find their premises.
The significance lies in the unusual thoroughness and relevance of the description of the world from which the argumentation begins. This is, of course, a function of the categories in which the description of the world develops.
A Whiteheadian Doctrine of God
- God as Actual Entity
- God and Time
- God and Space
- God and the Eternal Objects
- God and Creativity
He remembers vividly and consciously on each new occasion all the occasions of the past. The concept of 'subsistence' is simply the notion of how eternal objects can be constituents of God's primal nature.'. These two points are the provision of the original goal and the provision of relevant new opportunities.
The initial data is all actual occasions in the past of that occasion. In Whitehead's presentation, God seems to be the sole ground of (1) the original purpose and (2) the relevant new eternal objects. The grasping of the new eternal object is actually a hybrid grasping of God. (PR. 377).
In Whitehead's analysis, God's role in creation is centered in the provision for each actual occasion of its original goal. (In section 1 above, I have argued that previous temporal occasions may also contribute to the formation of the original goal. Whitehead says that together with the initial data constitutes the initial phase of the event Second, the initial data is not part of the genesis event in the same sense as the original purpose.
The initial data are the events in the past of the becoming event as it was. The problem I want to focus on now is that of the relationship of God as creator to creativity. However, it is my thesis that the role of the creator in Whitehead must be more drastic than in
This being done, there is no philosophical objection to asserting a temporal beginning of. In section 1 of this chapter I introduced a qualification regarding God's sole agency in bringing about the original goal.
Religion
- Religious Belief and Religious Experience
- The Religious and the Ethical
Thus God is the urge for adventure and the basis for the possibility of the answer. The view of God does not ensure success for good in the world. The fourth feature of Whitehead's understanding of the religious significance of God's vision is companionship.
There is a final factor in man's relationship with the consequent nature of God that further strengthens this sense of divine companionship. In this fourth stage of the mutual relations of God and man "creative activity completes itself. Love for God must be expressed in love for the creature, because it is near.
As in the case of understanding God's purpose for us, the totality of each experience is subject to it. But God's causal efficacy beyond the anticipation of the original purpose can be reduced to banality. Indeed, holiness can be identified as the subjective form of understanding God in the way of causal effectiveness.
Finally, many elements in the causal efficacy of a living person's past events must be excluded from relevance. The foundation of all experience, certainly the experience of God, lies in the nonsensual perception of individual entities. If this is correct, then it is possible to understand the special character of the otherness of God in pre-reflective religious experiences.
Many leading representatives of the great religions of mankind are opposed to preoccupation with conscious experience of God. In light of the discussion of God in Chapters IV and V, we can now add that the ideal goal is the gift of God.
