by John M. Fraiser
Presented February 2006
How would you want to be defined: by who you are or by what you do? Which do you think is more basic and responsible for the other: who you are or what you do? Process philosophy and process theism seek to answer not only this question about people, but also about the whole universe and more importantly about God.
Process Philosophy is a theory of metaphysics.
What is metaphysics? Can have several definitions, but in this case deals with questions of what is real or ultimately real. Metaphysics is a comprehensive explanation of all that exists.
Process philosophy offers a view of what is foundational to reality.
Process philosophy develops out of a discontentment with both a purely naturalistic/materialistic philosophy and classical theism.
According to Process thinking, both philosophies (naturalism and classical theism) are wrong to explain the universe in terms of matter or more generally “substance.” Matter or “substance” is not the most basic reality of the universe, rather, according to process thinking, it is the idea of process or change.
Nature is in a constant state of flux and has no fixed state and therefore any talk of “being” should be explained in terms of “becoming.”
1. The inadequacy of “substance” metaphysic. According to Process Philosophy, “substance” is an inadequate metaphysical theory. All things cannot be explained in terms of substance. For example, thoughts, heat-waves, numbers, and beliefs are all real, but can hardly be explained in terms of substance.
Process philosophy claims that since everything is in a state of flux, “process” is an adequate metaphysical explanation. There is no constancy only change.
The principle of process replaces the principle of “being.” Process becomes an ontological description.
2. Support from modern science. Process philosophers feels vindicated by modern science.
a. Quantum phyics. The physics of Isaac Newton, which was the standard view up into the 20th century, said that very small things (atoms) combined to produce standard processes (windstorms and such) but today quantum and nuclear physics are demonstrating that the Newtonian view has it backwards. Instead, very small processes combine to produce standard things (ordinary macro-objects).
At the particle level, when physicists look closer to examine a particle, it disappears. They take this to mean that at the smallest level, things are popping in and out of existence. According to process philosophers, since particles are popping in and out of existence, “substance” is inadequate to explain the universe.
b. Evolutionary biology. Evolution also supports that the universe has always been in a state of change.
Process philosophy has an elaborate way of explaining how all of reality can be understood as processes. We’ll only discuss a little bit of this explanation.
Actual Entities are units of experience which make up a process. All of reality is made up of these units of experience.
Since everything is a process and does not have a fixed composition such as in materialism. No actual entity is wholly determined by the activity of another; or phrased positively, every actual entity retains some power of self-determination, however minimal or slight it may be.
Process implies potential. Everything maintains a potential to be what it chooses to be.
But lets be practical for a second here. Can all things really be explained in terms of a process? Can a rock be explained purely as a process? What about your lunch this afternoon: isn’t it physical, doesn’t it have substance? How can we call it simply a process? (Even if the turkey on your sandwich is processed)
Process philosophy has an answer for this. Your lunch is made up of “actual entities” (units of experience) in a particular arrangement that makes up a sandwich, a red delicious apple and a granola bar.
How do they get arranged this way? What causes these experiences to be in this exact arrangement?
Nearly all Process philosophers explain this in terms of God. Process philosophy is essentially process theism. As Alfred North Whitehead said, to make a metaphysical claim is to make a religious claim.
Any attempt to explain all of reality becomes a religion of sorts. It becomes the thing to which you are most committed.
Process theism will sound very different and perhaps even ridiculous and absurd to you. This is because they start with completely different presuppositions than traditional Christianity.
Process over being
Priority of science over revelation or scripture
Libertarian human freedom as essential to explain things as a process
Give-and-take relationship between God and the world (panentheism)
Co-eternality of God and the world
Extrinsic and intrinsic limitations of God’s freedom and power
“Universal creativity:” To be is to create- Alfred Whitehead
God and humanity is involved in the creation of the world. God is the supreme creator but we are co-creators.
No distinction between the natural and the supernatural. This is distinction follows only from an assumption of creatio ex nihilo.
It is tempting to emphasize process theism's denial of the supernatural and thereby highlight what the process God cannot do in comparison to what the traditional God can do (that is, to bring something from nothing). In fairness, however, equal stress should be placed on process theism's denial of the natural (as traditionally conceived) so that one may highlight what the creatures cannot do, in traditional theism, in comparison to what they can do in process metaphysics (that is, to be part creators of the world with God).
Aquinas provides a less obviously question begging reply. He says that to love another is to will the good of the other; God necessarily wills the good of the other, so God is love (Summa Theologica I, Q 20, a. 2). Process theists do not deny that love requires willing the good of the other, but they maintain that it requires something more, or at very least that there are greater forms of love of which willing the good of the other is a necessary aspect. Divine love is more than beneficence; it includes sensitivity to the joys and sorrows of the beloved. This idea is expressed in Whitehead's depiction of God as “the great companion — the fellow-sufferer who understands” (Whitehead 1978, 351). Hartshorne points out that Anselm's God can give us “everything except the right to believe that there is one who, with infinitely subtle and appropriate sensitivity, rejoices in all our joys and sorrows in all our sorrows” (Hartshorne 1948, 54).
Maybe you’re thinking, “This is a really strange view of God and reality. Why would someone want to believe this at all?”
Begins with presuppositions that we do not share.
Classical theism holds to the necessity, eternity, infinity, independence, immutability, and impassibility of God. Hartshorne agrees that God can be so characterized, but only with respect to the divine existence and essence. Hartshorne adds that God's actuality is contingent, temporal, finite, dependent, mutable, and passible. Indeed, Hartshorne agrees with Whitehead that all achieved value is necessarily finite in the sense of not exhausting all that can be. Whitehead makes the point that the limitation of God is a necessary condition of God's goodness.
[God] gains his depth of actuality by his harmony of valuation. It is not true that God is in all respects infinite. If He were, He would be evil as well as good. Also this unlimited fusion of evil with good would mean mere nothingness. He is something decided and is thereby limited (Whitehead 1997, 153).
It is noteworthy that Whitehead does not say that God is not infinite, but that God is not infinite in all respects. Thus, dual transcendence does not entail that God is in no sense infinite. Hartshorne locates the infinity of God primarily in the unlimited capacity to influence, know, and care for the creatures in any conceivable world.
In Plato's myth, the eternal demiurge creates a universe that is a living creature, animated by a soul. Hartshorne argues that the best philosophical interpretation of the myth is to consider the demiurge and the world-soul as two aspects of the same deity (Hartshorne 2000, 55). If this is correct, then Plato affirms a version of dual transcendence, with one aspect of God being the universe. According to this interpretation, Plato came close to Hartshorne's view that, “the world is God's body” (Hartshorne 1941, 185). This is not to say that God has a location within the universe, but that the location of the universe is in God, for the divine being-in-becoming is all-inclusive. Hartshorne borrows a word invented by Karl Krause (1781-1832) to express this view: panentheism — everything (pan, all) is in (en, in) God (theos, God).