- PR, Process and Reality
- SMW, Science in the Modern World
- MT, Modes of Thought
- AI, Adventures of Ideas
- AE, The Aims of Education
- SmB, Symbolism, its Meaning and Effect
- RM, Religion in the Making
- ESP, Essays in Science and Philosophy
God is the primordial, and never-completed act of creation. This does not mean that he is the only act of creation or that he is the creator of the world. One of the list of paradoxes which Whitehead puts forth near the end of Process and Reality as summing-up large portions of his thought is, "It is as true to say that 'God creates the World, as that the World creates God' 19".
In Whitehead's philosophy God is both himself an aotual entity and is also an abstract factor in all other aotual entities. He is both immanent and transcendent.
The notion of God is that of an actual entity immanent in the actual world but transcending any finite cosmic epoch - a being at once actual, eternal, immanent, and transcendent 20.
In his dual function of being a creative act himself and of operating in all other creative acts, God does not differ from finite actual oceasions. 21 Each actual entity is a creative process and achievement in its own right, and in this sense transcends all other actual entities, including God. It is also an aspect of all other actual occasions, and so is immanent in them. So it must be kept in mind in discussing God that "God's existence is not generally different from that of other actual entities, exoopt that he is 'primordial' in a sense to be gradually explained. 22" The general principle of "coherence" which applies to all of Whitehead's metaphysical principles applies also to God. 23 He must not be interpreted so as to dominate completely all the other metaphysical principles. 24
The limitations of this paper do not permit me to include a discussion of God in himself, as an actual entity and as a creative process. As explained by Whitehead, God is a very complex entity. My interest in God, then, in this paper is limited to his function, or functions, as a factor in finite creative acts. I have already touched upon the function of his "consequent nature" in each creative act, 25 so I shall limit the discussion in this section to the function of God's "primordial nature" in each finite actuality during the internal process of its development.
It is difficult to describe God's primordial nature in itself, for it is mainly as a factor in finite process that Whitehead describes it. In itself it is one, integrated 26, positive conceptual prehension of the entire realm of eternal objects in itself &endash; an an infinity of pure potentials. It is true, as we have seen, that each finite occasion prehends the entire realm of eternal objects, but not as God prehends it. The finite occasions, because of their need to impose limitation on possibility, prehend most possibilities negatively. God's primordial prehension contains no negative prehensions. 27 The great difficulty, then, will be to understand how God can prehend all possibilities positively and get a coherent ordering of them. It would seem that he would prehend only the desolation and confusion which the realm of pure possibility is in itself. Certainly this achievement shows that God does occupy a very unusual place among actualities, and it to easy to accept Whitehead's contention that this primordial act of total conceptual prehension of all possibilities can be performed only once in the universe. 28 It may be a by-product of this discussion of the function of God's primordial nature in finite actuality to help clarify the notion of what this aspect is in God himself.
How does God's primordial nature function in each finite occasion? Many of Whitehead's statements on this issue are too ambiguous to help much in answering this question. I have selected a few which seem to support two general views on this question, which I call the "strong" view and the "weak" view. I present first the *strong" view or views, which I think is not Whitehead's central or final opinion on,this subject. 29 As a matter of fact, most of the statements which I give in support of this view can be reinterpreted so as to permit the assertion of the "weak" view. In most cases it is their incompleteness or some inadvertant choice of phrase in them which leads to the strong view. In the following quotatlon, for example, the final phrase bursts like the knell of doom on the whole interpretation of concrete existence as creative process which I have been developing in this paper.
It is a contradiction in terms to assume, that some explanatory fact can float into the actual world out of nonentity. Nonentity is nothingness. Every explanatory fact refers to the decision and to the efficacy of an actual thing. The notion of 'subsistence' is merely the notion of how eternal objects are components of the primordial nature of God. … But eternal objects, as in God's primordial nature, constitute the Platonic world of ideas. 30
I devoted a good deal of Chapter Three of this paper to proving that the realm of eternal objects in itself did not constitute the "Platonic realm of ideas", and it was only because it doesn't that it seemed possible to interpret concrete actual process as truly creative in its own right. If, however, the primordial nature of God is going to take over this function - of being an antecedent realm of perfect forms which determines the order and character and perhaps even the existence of all finite actualities, then I might as well have saved myself the trouble. Even though eternal objects in themselves do not interfere with the creative interpretation of finite existence, the primordial nature of God would then make such an interpretation impossible.
But the mere phrase stating that the primordial nature of Ood is the realm of Platonic ideas in not in itself enough to make me lose hope. After all, as I have already noted, this notion, along with the rest of Plato's writing, is capable of a variety of interpretations. 31 The whole question is, how much antecedent determination of finite process does it imply? It cartainly seems to imply some.
Such a primordial superject of creativity achieves… the complete conceptual valuation of all eternal objects, This is the ultimate basic adjustment of the togetherness of eternal objects on which creative order depends. 32
What about that phrase "creative order"? If the primordial nature of God implants its order on the world, which is what I mean by the "strong" interpretation of the function of the primordial nature of God -, then this order and the world in which it functions are not "creative".
As a matter of fact, the "strong" interpretation is itself capable of considerable variation. In its "strongest" form it holds that the primordial nature of God determines the actual order of the world in every detail, and determines each actual entity to be just what it is - creating it and setting it forth in the world to actualize just that particular nuance of his primordial nature which God wants actualized at that particular moment.
Evidence for this view comes mostly from the failure to dissociate God from "creativity" clearly enough in Science and the Modern World 33, certain strange statements about the necessity of the order of the world and about actual order being a mere fragment of divine order in Religion in the Making, 34 and such statements as
He [God] is complete in the sonse that his vision determines every possibility of value. Such a complete vision coordinates and adjusts every detail. Thus his knowledge of the relationships of particular modes of value is not added to or disturbed by the realisation in the actual world of what is already conceptually realized in his ideal world. 35
I do not believe that this is Whitehead's true meaning concerning the functioning of the primordial nature of God in finite actualities. It conflicts with too many other aspects of his philosophy. If space permitted, I thlnk that I could reinterpret most of the statements which seem to support this view. It must be acknowledged, however, that this is exactly the interpretation.which some commentators have made of this principle of Whitehead's. 36
A more plausible version of the "strong" view is that, though God has the complete plan for the world in his primordial nature, he doesn't "impose" It directly on the world, but rather holds it before the world as an ideal. God knows what forms it is best for each occasion to strive to realize, and he makes an effort to lure each occasion into choosing the best for it, but, since the individual occasions are free, they may fall into error or choose the worse rather than the better.
This interpretation is usually based on Whitehead's expressed admiration for Plato's "great religious intuition" that God rules the world by "attraction" rather than "compulsion," 37 on Whitehead's application of his oft used phrase "lure for feeling" as the primordial nature of God 38 and on his contention that the initial phase of the subjective aim - the teleological aspect - of each occasion is directly derived from God's primordial nature. 39 This interpretation of the relation of God's primordial nature to each actual occasion seems to have gained a large acceptance among commentators on this aspect of Whitehead's philosophy. 40
Footnotes for Chapter Four Section B (19-40):
19 PR., p. 528.
20 PR., p. 143.
21 "The transcendence of God is not peculiar to him. Every actual entity, in virtue of its novelty, transcends its universe, God included (MT., p. 143)."
22 PR., p. 116.
23 PR., p. 116.
24 See above, ch. 1, Sect. C of this paper.
25 "…God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification (PR., p. 521)."
26 See above, ch. 2, Sect. D(4)(c) of this paper.
27 See above, ch. 3, Sect. A(2) of this paper.
27 PR., p. 524.
28 PR., p. 378.
29 PR., p. 73.
30 See above, ch. 3, Sect. A, footnotes 1-4, of this paper.
31 PR., p. 48.
32 SMW., pp. 154 and 257. In general, the notion of God is poorly and inadequately developed in SMW., and it is not much more advanced in RM. It is only in PR. and the works which follow that Whitehead disentangles the various factors of God enough to allow us to see each one more or less clearly.
33 RM., pp. 119-20.
34 RM., pp. 153-4.
35 Mr. Lawrence (The Development of Whitehead's Epistemology, p. 395) says that Whitehead holds this view and seems to regard it as a reason for not taking Whitehead's theology very seriously. Mr. Ely, (The Religious Availability of Whitehead's God, p. 11) seems to think that Whitehead held this view when he wrote SMW., but that perhaps he modified it later (p. 21).
36 AI., pp. 213-214. Also, "The power by which God sustains the world is the power of himself as an ideal (RM., p.156)."
37 PR., p. 522.
38 PR., pp. 104, 343, and 522.
39 Ely, op. cit., pp. 25-6, Willard, R.M., The Place of Value in Whitehead's Philosophy, p. 200, in Schilpp, op. cit., are among those who interpret the function of the primordial nature of Whitehead's God in this manner.
40 PR., p. 523.
But if God is in his primordial nature the organized goal which attracts finite actuality to realize his patterns, then, in the words of Bergson, "All is given", we have a case of absolute "finalism", and actual process does not create its own character, but has only the subordinate role of "actualizing" or realizing the preordained character given to the world by God's primordial nature. If the argument which I have given in Ohaptor Three of this paper has any validity, this is not only not in agreement with the rest of Whitehead's philosophy, but is not even consistent with it. For there I argued that what he meant by "actualization" or "realization" was the bringing of discrete things into "concrete togetherness", and that this process of realizing form could not be divorced from the process of generating form itself, because actual form, as distinguished from the shapeless infinity of pure possibility, was always a matter of having an ordering of possibilities by emphasis and repression, and such an ordering could be achieved only in concrete togetherness.
Certainly many of the things which Whitehead says about the function of God's primordial nature do not fit either version of the "strong" interpretation of this function. First, Whitehead says that God's primordial function of conceptual valuation is not an act performed prior to all actuality but is "in union of becoming with every other creative act. " 41 Secondly, there is Whitehead's statement that creativity is independent of God. that God is only the "primordial instance of creativity" 42, and that both God and the world bring novelty to each other. "Neither God nor the world reaches static completion. Both are in the grip of the ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty. Neither of them, God or the world, is the instrument of novelty for the other." 43 Further, Whitehead'says that God's primordial nature makes genuine novelty possible. 44 Indeed,
Perhaps the key word here is "ground", Whitehead frequently avoids saying that God's primordial nature is an order or the order of the world. He criticizes both science and religion (and also esthetics and morality) for being dogmatic about patterns of order 45. In his more careful moments he says only that God is the "foundation of order", not order itself. 46 Indeed he says that it is essential for novelty that order be constantly changing 47. A general statement of the relation of God's primordial nature to the order of the world would seem to be (1) that it provides that the world Is not faced with the pure chaos of the realm of eternal objects in itself 48, and (2) for reasons that will be made clear in a moment, It aims at and facilitates the production of order - but order in general, not some predermined order.
The "weak" interpretation of the role of the primordial nature of God in each actual occasion, which is, I think, Whitehead's own most mature interpretation,, is based on his clear and frequently repeated formulation of this role as the metaphysical "principle of concretion". 49 This metaphysical principle is not an appeal to a complete, all-knowing God. It is a very limited and specific metaphysical function, and one that is called for by the very nature of the other metaphysical principles which I have already discussed, particularly by the metaphysical principles called by Whitehead "eternal objects" and "creativity". Eternal objects include all possibilities for definite character, but in themselves they form an indefinite, disorganized realm. The kind of relation which every eternal object has to every other eternal object is only an over-all field relationship. They confront the world as all equipotential - that is, they present no definite, graded alternatives to the world. If the bare notion of something going on in the world, and "creativity"gave actual process some principle on which to choose among these possibilities, there would be no reason to invoke the primordial nature of God. But it doesn't: creativity is the notion of a completely characterless activity. It does not have within otself, as a pure, metaphysical principle, a basis for choosing among eternal objects.
Hence the need to invoke the primordial nature of God as a principle of concretion. His primordial nature mediates between characterless creativity and infinite equi-potential possibility. By it, "the barren inefficient disjunction of abstract potentialities attains primordially efficient conjunction of ideal realization" 50. God prehends the whole infinite realm of possibility and gives it a total impulse towards actualization. This does not mean that he gives it a definite order, for that would be actualization. His primoddial nature does not solve the problem of joint realization of conflicting possibilities. Only actual finite process can work out the solutions of those problems, even for God. That is why God needs finite process. But his primordial conceptual realization provides a tentative, actualization of all possibilities. It will be remembered that conceptual prehension in general is tentative actualization - some connections being made but not all (when all are made, there is "complete definiteness, complete actuality, physical realization") 51 And his primordial valuation of all possibilition to that - though even God doesn't know how this is to be done - they all receive maximum realization. The creative problem of actual process is to fulfill God's primordial aim - the maximum realization of all possibilities. Each finite occasion works out its own solution. It achieves a definite actuality by prehending negatively most possibilities and arranging the others in an order of emphasis. Insofar as it achieves "contrast" - joint realization rather than repression of possibilitioss, however, it is moving towards the realization of God"s primordial aim - both for itself and for God. Because it is only insofar as finite processes achieve new contrasts, that God's aim is fulfilled for himself. Because he has in his primordial nature prehended all possibilities as somehow realizable, he can include all realizations in his consequent nature. He can says,"yes, now that it has been achieved, I see that that is what I wanted," and takes it unto himself.
Thus it can be seen what Whitehoad means by saying that God's primordial nature is the organ of novelty in the world. It presents to each new occasion all as yet unrealized possibility (the occasion gets the realized possibilities through its prehensions of its actual past) as capable of realization and as desirable to be realized. 52
And thus, also, it can be understood what Whitehead really means when he says that God's primordial nature is the source of the initial phase of the subjective aim of each occasion. This does not mean that God give each occasion its definite goal. As we have seen, the initial subjective aim for each occasion is quite goneral: it in the aim at the maximum contrast and intensity of experience obtainable under the particular circumstances 53. What God transmits to it is his own subjective aim at absolute maximum contrast and intensity of the experience in the whole universe, 54 and each occasion adapts God's aim to its own limited circumstances and realizes it as far as it can.
This concludes the analysis of concrete existence as creative process and the contribution of the various abstract factors In Whitehead's metaphysics to this analysis. I now turn, In Part II of this paper, to Whitehead's ideas on value, and will try to show that they are all grounded in the foregoing analysis.
Footnotes for Chapter Four Section B (41-54):
Move to Part II, Chapter Five, Section A