Process Philosophy

 

            The importance of a process-oriented philosophy patterned after Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) is its thorough grounding in science combined with its metaphysical dimension that makes it like the systems of Leibniz and Hegel. 

Events are the basic components of nature and passage, or creative advance, is its most fundamental feature. Such views are like the anti-mechanistic philosophy of change we find in Henri Bergson. Charles Hartshorne would expand his influence in the United States. He also saw the definite character of events as due to the ingression of timeless entities, a Platonic notion. He understood religion as reaching its deepest level in the solitude of humanity as it forms the attitude of the individual toward the universe. 

He called his metaphysics the philosophy of organism. The universe consists of becoming, each moment a process of appropriating and integrating the infinity of reality provided by the antecedent universe and by God as the abiding source of novel possibilities. He wanted to provide a scheme of ideas broad enough to overcome the classic dualisms. However, the infinite nature of existence meant that all any system can do is approach reality and provide more adequate schemes than predecessors. He saw the long-entrenched Newtonian system of physics collapse before Einstein, so dogmatic assurance was his enemy. The impulse of life is toward newness that arise out of societies stable enough to nourish an adventure that is fruitful rather than anarchic. His metaphysics elucidated the nature of beauty, truth, art, adventure, and peace. Peace was a religious attitude that is primarily a trust in the efficacy of beauty. His sense for the fullness of existence led him to urge upon philosophy the task of making good the omissions he saw in strict scientific materialism by reverting to the variety of concrete experience and then framing broader ideas.

Process philosophy leads to the metaphysical and ontological belief that reality consists of an ever-expanding system in which the patterns of existence and activity that exists between and among spatial-temporal finite material objects are more important than the parts.[1] The system of the universe consists of a hierarchical subset of systems consisting of local arrangements of galaxies and within galaxies the arrangement of various star systems and planetary systems. This suggests the metaphysics of substance (Aristotle, Aquinas) used to explain enduring objects is replaced by the interrelationships of finite-temporal objects within the system. This suggests a metaphysics of becoming, in contrast to a metaphysics of being, and an event ontology. This suggests that what common sense thinks of as enduring objects and persons is an illusion in the sense that all objects and persons are byproducts of interrelated transient events. If everything is becoming, then there is always a tension between identity and difference, between presence of being and the absence of being. The same stuff can have mental and physical properties that have an information-bearing pattern within the metaphysical system. The body is a set of dynamically interrelated and hierarchically ordered processes that are constantly undergoing minor changes in their internal relations to each other and in their collective relation to an ever-changing physical environment.[2]

To exist is to be a finite temporal object within a system of finite-temporal objects, in which the process of the system determines success, regardless of what happens to individual entities. Each finite-temporal object is a momentary self-constitution in such a way that it looks like an enduring entity while the system remains hidden. Cooperation between the constituent actual entities of any given system, and cooperation between systems in the gradual emergence of an even more comprehensive higher-order system in the hierarchy of systems, is the way nature works. Organisms with part or members that cooperate with each other will survive to pass on their genetic inheritance to offspring. This suggests a metaphysics of integrated systems of dynamically interrelated subjects of experience. Lower-order systems have their ontological value, but they exist to support the existence and well-being of the higher-order processes. 

The universe exists as an open, unbounded, finite system. Science projects a steadily declining universe, consistent with the entropic force of decay defined the second law of thermodynamics. The universe will go through the dominance of black holes, and finally, in the 100^th cosmological decade, the black holes will give way to a universe of electrons, positrons, neutrinos, and photons of enormous wavelengths. Yet out of this moribund expanse of space-time, new universes can emerge. Truly, all things must pass, everything has its time, even the massive, beautiful, expanding, violent, and chaotic universe, of which we are a small part. As an open system, the relation of spatial-temporal objects and persons is one full of opposition and tension (and therefore dialectical) in a way that has both creative and destructive possibilities.

Nature organizes itself into increasingly structured societies.  God’s purpose in the creative advance is the evocation of intensities.  The immanence of God gives us reason for the belief that pure chaos is intrinsically impossible.  Yet, the immensity of the world negates the belief that any sate of order can so established that beyond it there can be no progress.  The environment consists of two layers, the immediate relevant background provided uniformity, and the remote chaotic background. Experience is the self-enjoyment of being one among many, and of being one arising out of the composition of many. The satisfaction of an actual entity lies beyond itself and constitutes the solidarity of the universe.  Feeling aims at their subject. The sense of order merges into novelty, so that massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition, and that novelty always reflects upon a background system.  The universe craves novelty and yet terror at the loss of the past haunts it.

Personal unity is an inescapable fact. There is a unity in the life of each person, from birth to death. How such identity occurs in the context of process and becoming is a challenge. This identity must consider the unity of nature and the unity of each individual human life. Our consciousness of the self-identity pervading our life-thread of occasions, is nothing other than knowledge of a special strand of unit within the general unity of nature.  It is a locus within the whole, marked out by its own peculiarities, but otherwise exhibiting the general principle that guides the constitution of the whole.  This general principle is the object to subject structure of experience. The immanence of the past energizes the present. Our sense of unity with the body is the same as our sense of unity with our immediate past. The universe itself is both transient and eternal. Each actuality is physical and mental. Each occasion is immediate and other. Here is where the future becomes immanent in occasions in the present, because without this influence, the present would become empty of content. The future works itself into the crannies of the present. The future is immanent in the present. The future is significant for the process of self-completion of each occasion as an anticipation. The constitution of the present will be embodied by a future that will re-enact its patterns of activity, making the future immanent in the present occasion. Each individual occasion is transcended by the creative urge. The anticipation of kinship with the future assumes the form of purpose to transform concept into fact.  The future is immanent in the present because the present bears in its own essence the relationships that it will have to the future.  It thereby includes in its essence the necessities to which the future must conform.  The future is there in the present, as a general fact belonging to the nature of things.  It is also there with such general determinations as it lies in the nature of the present to impose on the future that must succeed it.  All this belongs to the essence of the present and constitutes the future. However, since future occasions do not exist (obviously), the future is present in the mode of anticipation. The independence of the present is the ground for the “freedom” within the universe. [3] This lure or attraction toward complexity and harmony suggests the strength of aesthetic attention at the heart of the universe. Beauty is the internal conformation of the assorted items of experience with each other, to produce maximum effectiveness.  Beauty thus concerns the inter-relations of the various components of reality, and the inter-relations of the various components of appearance, and the relations of appearance to reality.  Thus, any part of experience can be beautiful.  The teleology of the universe is directed to the production of beauty.  Thus, any system of things that in any wide sense is beautiful is to that extent justified in its existence. If truth concerns the conforming of appearance to reality, then beauty is broader than truth is. It also has a broader impact than does goodness. Science becomes the determined pursuit of truth and art the determined pursuit of beauty. [4]  

Self-identity as person emerges from moment to moment as already involved in various activities while we reflectively understand that identity over time, thereby learning what makes us unique in relation to others. Human cognition involves a community of inquiry concerning an objective order of reality. Such ontological objectivity is a presupposition. Without it, communication would be impossible. This mind-independent reality outdistances the range of human cognition. Real things have a cognitive depth we cannot reach. Realistically, this means the limits of “our” world do not define the limits of the real world. Such metaphysical realism is a presupposition or postulate for our inquiries that allows us to learn from our experiences. Such a view preserves the distinction between true and false regarding factual matters, it preserves the distinction between appearance (our picture of reality) and reality itself, it serves as a basis for intersubjective communication, it furnishes the basis for a shared project of communal inquiry, it provides for the fallibilistic view of human knowledge, and it sustains the causal mode of learning and inquiry and to serve as basis for the objectivity of experience. Such would be my statement of being as becoming in general. This would be my outline of an ontology of anticipation, which would show how at each level of finite-temporal objects, the previous level contains traces of what would become. Higher levels are not the necessary outcome, but higher levels necessitate the past out of which they arise.[5]

Process philosophy is, thankfully, becoming a common influence upon theology. The God of a universe that is in process may well be a God in process, in open-ended interactivity with each of its many creatures. The divine process is one of inexhaustible life.[6] God is the unlimited conceptual realization of the absolute wealth of potentiality. God patiently provides the tender care of all things in such a way that nothing is lost. We can expect novelty to emerge out of the basic structures of order. Here is a creative wisdom that that calls forth self-organizing complexity through the lure or initial aim of divine activity on each emerging occasion. God is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading the world toward truth, beauty, and goodness. God and world are in a creative advance into novelty. At the smallest level of nature, in its subatomic particles, the principle of uncertainty reigns. These small “particles” can act like a thing, but then disappear and reappear. They can act like a point and then like an extended wave. The rules of cause and effect do not apply there. They can have a strange influence upon other subatomic particles at vast differences. The regularity that we experience in our world is not there in the quantum world, but the quantum world may well explain things in our world that are difficult to explain, such as migrations of butterflies and birds over vast territories and even across their generations. 

Remembering the uncertainty and relatedness of the quantum world in nature can form an analogy for theology in that theology needs to be careful not to invest too much certainty into the finite formulations of the various denominational families. Openness to novelty, as well as proper respect for the efforts of the past, are important in theology. Theology is at risk when it engages in “misplaced concreteness,” projecting onto an historical moment an absolute quality. It is at risk when it commits the dogmatic fallacy of hardening a belief into an absolute truth. The history of the church is full of such fallacies. They have led to schism and violence. The theologian today needs to avoid such fallacies. The church today needs to learn how to argue faithfully and in a trustworthy way. The richness of its faith and its inexhaustible quality of facing the challenges presented by changing historical circumstances too often succumbs to the temptation of totalizing truth claims that perpetuates an antagonistic polarity that paralyzes faith rather than fostering its life-enhancing qualities. It can lead to a theological dishonesty motivated by pleasing those in authority rather than embracing a future that is pressing upon the church to receive its time as well. A progressive theological hierarchy can be just as stifling to pastors and laity as can any conservative hierarchy. We need to remember that truth sets us free. 

Process philosophy has the potential to encourage a conversation between normally vigorously opposed communities of faith. How one uses such a world view often depends upon other decisions one makes.

A theological thinker will make a choice regarding the tradition of theology. 

If one wishes to be faithful to the biblical and Christian tradition, one could simply reshape notions of the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Christian life with the forms of thought developing in our era. This would be a conservative use of process thinking in a way that preserves the past, incorporates valid thinking of today, and leaves one open to new possibilities for the future. Such a use would lead one to respect the contribution of the past and lead to a desire to have some consistency with the church of Jesus Christ through the ages. Karl Barth would not be a process theologian, yet, because of the depth of his understanding of the Incarnation and the cross, he can sound like a process theologian in places of his Church Dogmatics. Pannenberg has process elements of his theology, but Hegel was his path toward this philosophical perspective. Some evangelical theologians have gravitated toward this perspective, with pan-en-theism being the theological perspective. Its ability to bring the transcendence and immanence of God into a philosophical perspective is beneficial. Progressive theologians have also found in the process philosophy of Whitehead a helpful means of integrating modern scientific approaches in physics, biology, psychology, sociology, and ecology with the biblical and theological tradition. 

One could also use such a worldview to replace the tradition with a perceived newer and better thinking of today. This would lead to a revisionist theology that would look with skepticism upon the contributions of the past, since it was a patriarchal and hierarchal intellectual environment, and shape a theology for a new age. Such a view would count it admirable and prophetic to separate itself from the church of the past and rely upon new revelations of Christ for today. Its advantage, that it is free to develop a theology embedded in the whims of at least one vocal part of the present age, is also its weakness, for I am not sure why anyone would feel the need to add a troublesome ancient text and tradition to something they can believe without that baggage.

I want to admit openly that the view of God in process theology is not the God of the Exodus, Yahweh, the tribal deity who is truly present to a people who needed a liberator and one who would fight for them, a Divine Warrior who was clearly on the side of the oppressed slave rather than the oppressing Egyptians who were themselves imprisoned within their fear of the slaves and their possible rebellion. Viewing God as active in the world through the Spirit in a way that persuades and attracts seems like a weak view of God. I want to suggest that truth lays in another place.

In Season 4, episode 15 of Fringe (2012), we have a big reveal in the series. The Observers thought they had erased Peter from existence, which they wanted to do because he was not supposed to have lived through childhood. The intervention of an Observer preserved his life, but that intervention had other unpleasant ramifications for the future of humanity, so the Observers devised a plan to erase him from the memories of those with whom he had interacted. It worked for a while, but Peter kept showing up in dreams and daydreams of those closest to him. He became incarnated in a moment, as he rose out of the water in a nearby lake. Olivia, his romantic interest, at first does not recognize him. Therefore, Peter spends much of the season trying to get back to another timeline, a different potential future. It is his desire to get home. However, she starts having memories from the “other” Olivia in a different potential future. In this episode, an Observer reveals that the plan to erase Peter from this timeline did not work. The love of those around him would not allow him to be erased. In a dramatically high moment, the Observer reveals that this potential future is his home. He admits he cannot prove it scientifically, but he thought that the love of those around him had for him would not allow the erasing of him from their potential future. Thus, he was, as in the Wizard of Oz, already home. The Olivia that was recovering memories from the “other” Olivia was his Olivia. Such a moment in a television series can be sappy, but I did not experience it that way. My point is that while the way process philosophy can speak of a divine lure or attraction toward certain forms of life that enhance human flourishing can sound like weakness, a story like this is a reminder of the type of power love and attraction can hold over people. Nor must we shy away from recognizing that it has an erotic quality to it that may take us beyond scientific analysis, although I must grant that science may well explain even that.

Process theology has another potential within it to highlight the significance of the revelatory moment of Jesus of Nazareth. The way he led his life, the self-sacrifice of his life that culminated in the cross, and the vindication of his life and death and resurrection, reveal a creative transformation of the relation between God and humanity. Jesus lived his life in obedience to his Father. However, we dare not minimize the significance of his death. His cross exposes the depth of human sin in its turn from the source of what is life-giving. It reveals the human self-deception of acting righteously while also acting violently and coercively. In a personal way, it reveals my identification with those who judged Jesus and put him to death. It reveals my sin, my waywardness, and … my need of forgiveness.

 

       1 What can wash away my sin?

       Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

       What can make me whole again? 

       Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

       4 This is all my hope and peace: 

       nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

       This is all my righteousness: 

       nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

       

The creative transformation that occurs in Jesus of Nazareth puts the people of God on notice that the notion of God as Divine Warrior who would command the ban of every man, woman, child, and beast of a village is no longer a possibility. It puts behind the people of God a prayer to bash the heads of the children of the enemy upon the stones. It puts behind the people of God stoning people because of adultery, homosexual practice, misusing the name of the Lord, breaking Sabbath law, and breaking any of the Ten Commandments. As Jesus of Nazareth took within himself the sin and disobedience of the people of God, represented by the Jewish leaders of his day and his disciples, as well as the sin and disobedience of humanity, represented by the Roman leaders of his day, he bore the burden of the sin and evil of humanity. He absorbed the violence toward which human beings are prone. The loveless cycle of racism, greed, and envy is repetitive in every generation, for which I could site many biblical passages. The Father, to whom Jesus owed his obedience, honored the way of Jesus with resurrected life through the life-giving power of the Spirit, giving the people of God that same Spirit by which to build community and life in faith, hope, and love. Granted, the people of God have been weak reflections of this creative transformation, but enough faithfulness has remained to witness to its truth. Thus, it opens the door for a liberating, healing, and guiding presence and power of the Spirit in personal, communal, and institutional life.

Process theology, through its version of pan-en-theism, can pave the way for developing an understanding of both the transcendence and immanence of God. God provides the structuring conditions out of which novelty arises. There is a logos in creation out of which new themes emerge.

Process theology also has the potential to bring convergence of various denominational families in eschatology. All Christian communities might be ready to put behind them The Late, Great, Planet Earth of Hal Lindsey and dispensational thinking. It was disappointing for me to learn that John Wesley in his comments on the Book of Revelation adopted the views of J. A. Bengel on chiliasm. Such a view inevitably looks toward a time when the scientific description of the end will not be, which is a problem for many conservatives as well as the progressive. It also inevitably looks forward to a time when the Father, acting in concert with the Crucified Son, and in the power of the life-giving Spirit, becomes a coercive and vengeful force rather than a persuading and luring one. Process theology holds out a view of Jewish apocalyptic that allows it to be as it is but focusing upon its vision of a creative transformation between God and humanity that allows the life-giving energies of the Spirit to bear fruit in an increasingly free, peaceful, and just future. It recognizes the intensity and even violence of the process, and is thus not utopian about the process, but it also holds forth a powerful vision of a loving and just potential future for humanity, while always recognizing the self-destructive propensities of humanity.

Let us pause here to consider the religious notion of an end. If God is the transcendent source and goal of the cosmic process, another picture emerges. As the source of the processes of the universe, God will redeem it from transience and decay. Persons have a destiny beyond their deaths in which all hurts will be healed and the purpose of God for them will reach fulfillment. In the transition from time to eternity in which this redemption occurs, there is sufficient continuity to ensure that individuals share in the life to come as their resurrected selves, but sufficient discontinuity to ensure that the life to come is free from the suffering and mortality of the old creation.[7] When human beings as complex systems die and are fully incorporated by God into the divine life, they experience themselves for the first time as a completed reality. The human experience of time is always an experience of perpetual perishing, a flow from the future in terms of what one sees as possible for oneself right now, into the present where one decides about what to do next, and from there into the past as a fully determined event in one’s life history. In contrast, eternity will be experienced as a dynamic togetherness of past, present, and future. In eternity one sees the fullness of one’s life-history as an integral part of a higher-order process that never ends in the inner trinitarian life of God. Time exits within eternity and time shapes eternity.[8]

The dissolution of the universe through entropy means physical entities will not survive, but patterns of existence and activity will survive within the inner life of God as shared with finite creatures. The past universe exists within the divine memory as the sole non-temporal reality. Everything is preserved within the inner life of God. The end is a triumph of divine and creaturely activity. The end gives glory to God and satisfaction to finite creatures as they appreciate their role in being part of this end. Our personal end and the biblical vision of a last judgment unite in one event. As Genesis 1-3 are metaphors regarding the beginning, so biblical talk of an apocalyptic end are metaphors of human accountability to God.[9] It is in this way that the immediacy of sorrow and pain is transformed into an element of triumph.  This is the notion of redemption through suffering, which haunts the world.  It is the generalization of its minor exemplification as the aesthetic value of discords in art.  All the opposites are elements in the nature of things and are incorrigibly there.  The concept of God is the way in which we understand this incredible fact, that what cannot be, yet is.  God is the great companion, the fellow-sufferer who understands.

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] (Bracken 2014), although he is expressing a view based on Whitehead, and which I incorporate throughout this part of the essay. This is also a brief way of re-thinking Pannenberg and his notion of field theory and the field of force.

[2] (Bracken 2014) 220-4.

[3] (Whitehead, Adventure of Ideas 1933)

[4] (Whitehead, Adventure of Ideas 1933)

[5] (Rescher, Objectivity: The Obligations of Impersonal Reason 1997)

[6] (Keller 2008), 4-7.

[7] These statements are consistent with John Polkinghorne. 

[8] (Bracken 2014) 225.

[9] (Bracken 2014) 225-30.