Replies

I’m very happy that you’re finding value in my posts. Thank you for the positive feedback.

Thank you for your reply Dr. Davis. First I’d like to say that I share the perspective that ultimate reality is interrelationality. For me that means both the interrelatedness and inter-creativity of all of the finite actual entities that populate the universe; and also the interrelatedness of Whitehead’s multiple ultimate elements of reality, namely: creativity in the sense of the creative-experiential-processual energy that actual occasions are instances of; as well as creativity in the sense of creativity acting as an active receptacle for actual occasions, and its role in their mutual immanence (here the influence on my thinking of Nobo’s book, and William Garland’s essay on Whitehead’s creativity is showing); eternal objects; the society of actual entities that the world comprises; and God, the “primordial” subjective individualization of creativity. The creative interrelatedness or polyunity of all of the above; among all of the fundamental ingredients of reality, and the world’s finite actual occasions, is the interrelatedness to which I would assign ultimacy. Is your thinking about ultimacy on the same page?

As for Hegel’s ultimate reality, although there’s some resonance with Whitehead’s creativity there’s also a possible huge difference. Some say that Hegel goes in for a priority monism, to use a technical term, according to which reality or the universe is a whole which is prior to its parts. But for Whitehead, as I read him, the whole is ongoingly created and constituted by the creative interrelating and interactivity of its “parts”, its finite actual occasions and its ultimate elements. The whole is not a prior substantial whole from which process is derivative, rather it’s a perpetual process of whole-ing. Well, if it’s correct to say that for Hegel the whole or ultimate reality is a prior substantial whole from which process is derivative, and that for Whitehead the whole or ultimate reality is instead an everlasting relational process of whole-ing, then we have a significant difference. In that case Hegelianism and Whiteheadianism are not quite on the same page, and although I can still find value in Hegel’s thought I much prefer Whitehead.

Thank you very much, Dr. Davis, for the positive feedback.

Your observation that “The problem with today’s science is that it dogmatically asserts that its objects and its methods are the sole way of knowing.” is also a fundamental and insightful indictment of modern science that we find in Whitehead’s critique of scientific materialism’s focus on “vacuous” objects which are really abstractions that have been reified by scientists who are engaged in committing the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Hi Thomas. Yes, wrapping your mind around a formless and actualityless (to coin a word) reality that’s only actual in its individual occasions but somehow transcends them (at least according to the interpretations that I like) can indeed be challenging. I would suggest reading an excellent article by Andre Cloots, “The Metaphysical Significance of Whitehead’s Creativity”; and a short but wonderful book by Joseph Bracken, The Divine Matrix: Creativity As Link Between East and West.

The Metaphysical Significance of Whitehead’s Creativity

I find it intriguing that there’s a good bit of resonance between Whiteheadian process metaphysics and some ancient emanationist mythologies and philosophies, such as Gnosticism and Neoplatonism. For instance:

1) They both featured what amount to multiple ultimate realities, as does Whitehead’s metaphysics. Admittedly there’s a bit of a difference in that the multiple ultimates of Gnosticism and Neoplatonism are emanations from, and metaphysically subordinate to an ultimate source, which is not the case with Whitehead’s multiple ultimates. Nevertheless, they share with Whiteheadiansm a pluralistic conception of ultimacy.

2) And they featured an ultimate of ultimates that sometimes sounds a bit like some “monistic” interpretations of Whitehead’s creativity (I’m thinking of the interpretations of Whiteheadians such as Garland, Wilcox, Nobo, et al.).

3) And even some of the negative or unsavory beliefs of Gnosticism have some resonance with, seem to be twisted products of insights shared by Whitehead. For example, the Gnostic rejection of matter as inferior and evil resonates with the process view that substance is not the fundamental nature and wholeness of being. Of course Whiteheadians don’t hold substance to be evil, but we do consider substantialism to be a misconception about reality that has some harmful and destructive anti-relational consequences.

4) The Gnostic belief that we have divine sparks imprisoned within the evil matter of our bodies might be a product of a vague insight that we’re embodiments of Whitehead’s ultimate creative reality. Or, alternatively, a vague insight that all actual entities internalize and contain God in the form of divine initial aims.

5) And the Neoplatonist idea that the nous, or God is a demiurgic emanation from “the First”, or “the One”; and the Gnostic’s belief that God is an emanation from an ultimate spirit (unfortunately they make God out to be a negative being called Ialdabaoth, and anti-Semitically identify him with the God of the Hebrew Scriptures) are similar to Whitehead’s view that God is the “primordial accident” of creativity, and has a demiurgic role as provider of creative initial aims and lures to finite actual entities.

For me all of this suggests that these ancient mythologies and philosophies and modern process thought can be located on the same spectrum of theological and metaphysical ideation—along with other emanationist systems such as Hegel’s, and Kabbalah. But as someone who subscribes to Whiteheadian process philosophy I of course think that it’s at the high end of the spectrum; and is a clearer, more accurate, and veracious conceptualization of the insights that it shares with its predecessors. It may be surpassed one day, something that Whitehead was quite open to, but for now I think it’s the best metaphysic of its type out there.

I have the Hosinki book in both a Kindle compatible, and an epub file. I could send it to you as an email attachment if you’d like. Let me know. I would upload it here as an attachment, but I don’t know if that would be acceptable.

I think that you’re quite correct, that some of the same insight found in Whitehead and Whiteheadianism can be found all over the map. Which makes perfect sense after all, because if Whitehead was actually on to something true and profound then plenty of other brilliant minds over the centuries would also have picked up on the same truth.

I respect your right to take a position of skepticism, and I respect the intelligence that can give rise to skepticism. But of course the truth be told it isn’t always purely intelligence that breeds skepticism, it’s also the case that we can all sometimes be skeptical out of a bias, and that our bias can easily grow into a dogmatic bias, so we all need to examine our skepticism to make sure that it isn’t coming from a place of underlying or unconscious bias rather than critical thinking. I’m not trying to reproach you with dogmatism, but you call out the “dogmatic belief” of people engaged in doing theology and I think that it’s just a matter of balance for it to be pointed out that it’s also psychologically possible to dogmatically hold skeptical views. It’s easy to recognize dogmatism in believers, but it’s a trait that it should be acknowledged can also be found in skeptics.

Please don’t take offense, I’m not accusing you of being dogmatically skeptical, after all you’re doing your due diligence by participating in this program before you make up your mind about process thought. I’m merely suggesting that you keep at your investigation of process thought and philosophy and not get too invested in being turned off by Whitehead’s and process theology’s ingression (to use a good Whiteheadian word) of theology into philosophy, and your perception that Whiteheadianism lacks a solid scientific basis. We all need to be mindful that becoming too invested in our skepticism can put us on the slippery slope to dogmatic skepticism. Btw, in a previous reply I suggested reading Timothy Eastman, Jungerman, and Epperson; if you’re primarily interested to know if Whitehead’s ontology can be made to “jibe with current scientific knowledge and inquiry” then doing your due diligence should definitely include reading these authors. They’re all first-rate scientific minds who find much value in process ontology.

(I’m going to post some thoughts provoked by your comments about process theology in a separate post. You’re welcome to peruse and reply to it.)

Thank you for your interest in my post. I’ve tried to post links but the website is not allowing me to, so I’ll provide you with the information that you need to find the articles I’ve read. In these articles Garland, Wilcox, and Cloots seek to develop a conception of creativity as a reality that transcends individual actual occasions, but without falling into a substance monism like Spinoza’s.

1) “The Ultimacy of Creativity”, by William J. Garland. It can be found on anthonyflood.com. If you just google search for the title and the name Garland it should be your first search result.

2) “The Monistic Interpretation of Whitehead’s Creativity”, by John Wilcox. It’s available on two sites, Open Horizons, and Religion Online. Just do another Google search, the first result will be a link to the article on Open Horizons.

3) “The Metaphysical Significance of Whitehead’s Creativity”, by Andre Cloots. It’s also available on Religion Online. Just do another search, but the first result may be for a different site that doesn’t actually have the article, look for the Religion Online result.

Sorry I couldn’t just provide the links, but when I attempt to post a reply with links it doesn’t get posted. But I think that it should be pretty easy to find the articles with the above information. They’re all brilliant articles and have greatly helped me to formulate my understanding of Whitehead’s creativity.

Thank you for your interest in my post. Here are links to the Garland, Wilcox, and Cloots articles, in which they seek to develop a conception of creativity as a reality that transcends individual actual occasions, but without falling into a substance monism like Spinoza’s.

Because you have an interest in indigenous Latin American visions of reality I thought I’d suggest a very interesting book about Aztec thought. Unfortunately all that most people know about the Aztec religion is its admittedly not undeserved reputation for bloodiness, featuring as it did a ritual that involved human sacrifice; and motivating as it did the warlikeness of the Aztecs, war being a means to the end of capturing prisoners who could be offered as sacrifices. However, the Aztecs actually had a quite sophisticated and process-relational view of reality, according to a book by professor of philosophy James Maffie. Maffie’s description of their ultimate reality, teotl, resonates quite a bit with Whiteheadian creativity. Maffie in fact explicitly compares Aztec philosophy to modern process philosophy. The title is Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion.

Thank you Dr. McDaniel for reminding us that religion and spirituality isn’t reducible to the contemplation of abstractions such as ultimate reality. This is an important point that can be lost sight of when pondering a question such as the possibility of multiple religious ultimates. Yes, much of the content of any religion is indeed social, cultural, ritological, and ceremonial, not ultimistic. Down-to-earth rather than ultimate concerns often predominate in people’s everyday piety. But I might point out that this has its cons as well as its pros.

For instance, the aspects of fundamentalist Islam that harm women and make for brutal political regimes are a part of the social and cultural content of Islam, they are not supported in the Koran, by the God found in the Koran, or by Islam’s sense of ultimate reality and concerns. Here’s a case where the social and traditional in religion trumps the ultimate to the detriment of religion, and a great many human beings. And this example is illustrative of what’s really going on wherever we find religionists going reactionary. Faith-based reactionism is always either the result of excessive attachment to social and cultural aspects of people’s religious lifeworld, leading to divisive and dominative identity politics; or it’s the result of essentially secular and political reactionism infecting religion. In either case the ugliness that secularists like to blame on theism is often actually due not to theism per se, but rather to social, cultural, and political concerns and dynamics. It’s often the elements of religions that are not so geared to ultimacy that are the real culprits in the harm that religion has done in history.

I think that it’s also important to remember that although it’s quite true that religionists typically don’t go through their days with minds overly preoccupied by the abstract concepts of their religion, although what’s important to them is “community, ritual, fidelity to bonds of relationship”, when they take a positive and shalomic form these aspects and values of their religion are never divorced from their ultimate concerns; rather, they’re always deeply informed by ultimatistic sensibilities. Perhaps often so deeply that ultimate reality gets paid little conscious thought, but it nevertheless remains foundational. Some social scientists however have disagreed and have tended to reduce religions to religionized social pragmatism, we should avoid flirting with this error by overemphasizing the performative aspects of religions at the expense of an appreciation of their concepts of ultimacy.

And one last point, both abstract ideas of ultimate reality, and “community, ritual, fidelity to bonds of relationship” when focused on too one-sidedly become abstractions from the whole package that is religion and spirituality. In either case we fall into the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. We’re either mistakenly treating ultimism as what religion is in its concreteness, or we’re erroneously taking the lived aspects of religion to be exclusively what religion is in its concreteness. In its full and true concreteness religion is actually all of the above, and so we always need to strive for a holistic understanding of it.

(I apologize for using the neologism “ultimism”. I got it from reading J. L. Schellenberg. I use it, a little more broadly than he does, to mean of or pertaining to ultimate reality, or beliefs about ultimate reality. I just find it to be a handy term.)

There’s also Griffin’s book James & Whitehead on Life After Death.

Charles Hartshorne is of course an example of the fact that one can be a process philosopher or theologian and affirm the ontological argument. I would suggest that you look into his efforts to invent a better ontological argument mousetrap, so to speak.

As for the cosmological argument, well, cosmological arguments seek to defend belief in the existence of God by making a case that God is the ultimate TOE, theory of everything, cause or explanation of everything; but according to process ontology all actual entities are quanta, occasions of creativity, and jointly participate in the ongoing creation of the universe and its diversity. Creativity, the collaboration of all of the actual entities that populate the cosmos is posited to be the ultimate cause of what is rather than God alone; and so process thinkers not making the claim that God is the ultimate cause of things, constructing a cosmological argument to defend theism would not be the way to go for them. Also, according to Whiteheadian cosmology the universe is not contingent or caused, it’s unoriginated and everlasting, which I would think rules out arguing for God’s existence by arguing that God originated the universe (as for the Big Bang, a Whiteheadian view would be that it was only the start of the universe’s current “cosmic epoch”, not an absolute beginning). Cosmological arguments are also contraindicated for process thinkers because they hold that creativity is logically prior to God.