Replies

Hello Jace,
Thank you for this thoughtful comment and for bringing up an alternative position! We might want to consider here the way in which forming occasions internalize possibilities for actualization. All of the possibilities that come from the past world have already been actualized, so none of them could be considered “novel” to the world (although there are things in the past world that may be new expressions for that specific occasion).

All true novelty in the world comes from God, in Whitehead’s system, in the initial aim. Without that novel aim, the forming occasion could not actualize anything other than what is coming from the past world. The occasion then, yes, decides whether or not it will actualize that aim, so it has the freedom to make the aim its own, or not.

So it would be correct to say that no novelty could be actualized without the occasion’s consent, but the originator of novelty, as I read Whitehead, is God. It is this sense in which I’m using the word “ground.” Another word would be “source.”

I have to say Charles and Rolla that I’m so impressed not only by the thoughtfulness of the comments posted, but also in this example of loving community!

That’s really beautiful, Rolla. I know you have far too much company in being wounded by religion. It’s dreadful what has been done and how much terrible theology there is out there. I’m glad that you have joined us for this exploration!

Thank you Charles for this thoughtful reflection! I resonate with the idea of God and humans co-constructing religions.

Hello Scott!
Thank you for sharing more about yourself. It’s wonderful that you led your local group to become more interfaith, and I agree that such work is crucial, as is your other work as well. Chaplaincy is such a beautiful path – one I may have taken had I been more aware of it earlier!
Sheri

That workshop sounds great, Jace, thanks for sending it along! And yes, maybe we’ll cross paths in VT sometime!

Howdy Kyle!
Sounds like you’ve had an interesting journey, with a lot of exploration. Very cool. As Philip Clayton says, we’re all theologians when we’re thinking about matters of ultimate concern, so welcome!

I, too, embrace Christian Universalism. You might be interested in Doug King’s work with Presence International and what he calls Integral Theology where he uses Spiral Dynamics to talk about how the biblical narrative points to universal God identity – and how God has always meant to be all in all, not all in some. You can find his Presence podcast in the usual places and his website is presence.tv. He and I taught a class for P&F last fall.

Good to meet you!
Sheri

Hi Elvi,
Thank you for this post! I think your observations are spot on. Have you read Saving Paradise by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker? Or John Dominic Crossan’s Resurrecting Easter? Both focus on early Christian art.

I love, for example, the iconography of Jesus as Pantocrator and also of the “harrowing of Hades.” Beautiful and powerful images.

Sheri

Thank you so much, Michael, for sharing this deeply important and personal insight, and also for bringing in Tillich as well.
Beautiful.
Sheri

Hello Charles,
I LOVE this post, and especially this comment which captures so much: “Theology became something abstracted from the real world and irrelevant.” Excellent observations and very insightful.
Sheri

Thank you for posting this Weidong! I’m very gratified to hear that you enjoyed it.
Sheri

Great discussion! I’ll add to this a bit from my own dissertation about Whitehead’s four principles within his one world.

“Within this one reality, Whitehead describes four principles at work: 1) the spatio-temporal process of forming and perishing entities; 2) eternal objects, or possibilities available to be actualized; 3) God, the dipolar entity that envisions value, offers relevant possibilities in the form of eternal objects, and receives the actions of the world, holding them in divine memory and responding with compassionate and redemptive love; and 4) creativity, the active principle that answers the question of “why”—why there is anything at all rather than nothing.” Anil Kumar Sarkar describes this as “a continuity of objective immortalities or an emergence of possible forms in the midst of other possible forms. What is suggested here is not a world of static existence, but a world of possible existence—existence by continuous elimination of the possibles.” Lest we imagine all of this to be a strictly linear reality, Sarkar describes the way the four principles continuously dance between perishing and abiding:

‘Of the four principles, spatio-temporal process may be looked upon as a continuously perishing character, but it is abiding also. The eternal objects may be looked upon as abiding in contrast to the perishing spatio-temporal processes, but they are perishing processes in contrast to the process of God; God, in turn, may certainly appear as abiding, in contrast to both the spatio-temporal process and eternal objects, but this basic or primordial character of God is always contrasted with its consequent and superject characters (or aspects), which, again are perishing processes in contrast to the abiding function of creativity; the abiding function of creativity, lies in its process from the forms to the formless.’

And here’s one more paragraph specifically about creativity in relation to God:
“To be human—to be embodied—is to be part of a world of perpetual perishing and creation, of beauty and terror, of joy and sorrow. Though this is a painful reality, the multiplicity and flux that we see in the world is inevitable because of the creativity—what Bracken calls the “divine matrix” —at the heart of reality. In Whitehead’s scheme, Creativity is both the “ground of events” and the “ultimate principle of cosmology” responsible for the fact that anything comes to be in existence at all. Faber describes it as a principle of both “spontaneity and causality.” There are those process thinkers who describe creativity as being “ultimate,” but A.H. Johnson provides key insights into the relationships between God, creativity, the “many” and the “one.” He notes that creativity is ultimate not in the sense of having a “concrete character” or of being “an external agency with its own ulterior purposes,” but only in the sense that nothing can be actual without exemplifying it. In fact, “creativity,” “many,” and “one,” are all “ultimate” eternal objects because all are exemplified in every actuality. Creativity is a “characteristic of self-causation” and is only “saved from being a ‘nonentity’” because God’s primordial nature “envisages” it.”

H Ben,
This is an excellent question. As one who leans strongly toward the perennial tradition, I tend toward thinking that even though religions may have different “ultimates” in terms of how they see what is worthy of worship or of ultimate value, I believe there is only one Ultimate Reality, and that is true for everyone, everywhere. So while I would say that Jesus’ becoming transparent to the depths of God was special, I would not say that it is non-repeatable. Even Jesus said that we would/could do greater things than he. He may have been uniquely open to actualizing God’s aims for him – and helps us all to do the same by his actualization of that in all of our pasts – but we all conceivably have that capacity, even if it is undeveloped in us, or if we are not truly open to it in the way that Jesus was.

Just my thoughts!
Sheri

Great post, Jason! And thank you for the link to Andrew’s essay. Two excellent quotes that express quite a lot. I very much appreciate this analysis by Davis and Griffin.
Sheri

Hi Jace!
Thank you for sharing this about yourself. Sounds like your journey has had some resonances with mine, though I pursued the Jungian path. I’ve since put my toe in the general transpersonal psychology waters – having spoken at their international conference in Prague in 2017. I then also went on to write an article for a transpersonal psych journal on Whitehead. You can check that out here: https://www.academia.edu/39396752/Whiteheads_Metaphysics_as_a_Cosmological_Framework_for_Transpersonal_Psychology

I know the Gibsons and might even try to get up to a workshop with them this year if I can. I’m so interested in exceptional experiences. And currently reading John’s book so I can respond to it in the ORTLine event Feb 10.

Looking forward to being in discussion with you!
Sheri