Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: Process Cosmotheology and the Biological Universe, Part 4 - Andrew Davis' Response to Steven Dick's Naturalistic Cosmology

Quotes & Sayings

We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Process Cosmotheology and the Biological Universe, Part 4 - Andrew Davis' Response to Steven Dick's Naturalistic Cosmology

Process Cosmotheology and the Biological Universe

Part 1 - Why a Process-based Universe is Essential

Part 2 - A New Philosophic-Theology

Part 3 - Steven Dick's Naturalistic Cosmology

Part 4 - Andrew Davis' Response to Steven Dick's Naturalistic Cosmology

* * * * * * *

Process Cosmotheology and the Biological Universe:

Andrew Davis' Process Cosmotheology Response

to Steven Dick's Naturalistic Cosmology

From Negation to Exemplification:

A Deeper Whiteheadian Cosmotheology

by Andrew M. Davis

October 11, 2022

An Abstract Presented to the Process Group of "Cobb & Friends"

Andrew M. Davis argues that Steven J. Dick’s laudable project of [a naturalistic] “cosmotheology” can be considerably strengthened by Whitehead’s bio-centric cosmophilosophy which culminates in (rather than negates) a robust [process-based] cosmotheology.

In demonstrating this, Davis shows how Dick’s six principles of cosmotheology, instead of consisting in a series of cosmological negations (even a negation of “God”), can actually consist in a series of metaphysical exemplifications.

Whitehead’s wider naturalism coupled with his theological realism allow for imaginative metaphysical continuity in our reflection all the way “down” and all the way “up” the biological universe: from terrestrial and extraterrestrial life to the culminating life of God.

What is more, for Davis, Whitehead’s wider cosmotheology arguably re-integrates and resolves outstanding metaphysical problems that remain unanswered by Dick’s proposal (and those of others).

Davis concludes his chapter with six alternative principles of a deeper Whiteheadian cosmotheology.

Biography

Andrew M. Davis is Program Director for the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology. He received his Ph.D. in Religion and Process Philosophy from Claremont School of Theology. He received the 2013 Award for Excellence in Biblical Studies, the 2017 fellowship with FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics) and the 2020 Presidential Award for Academic Excellence. Andrew was recently nominated and elected as a fellow for the International Society of Science and Religion (ISSR).

Davis is author, editor or co-editor of several recent books including Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy (recently nominated for the 2022 Book Prize of the International Society of Science and Religion); Nature In Process: Organic Proposals in Philosophy, Society, and Religion and Process Cosmology: New Integrations in Science and Philosophy.

Davis' organization of the recent Templeton sponsored conference titled “Astrobiology, Exo-Philosophy and Cosmic Religion” brought together over a dozen scholars across science, philosophy and theology/religion to explore the relevance of process philosophy and theology to the interdisciplinary field of astrobiology.

Stay tuned for a forthcoming volume from this event. Follow Andrew’s work at andrewmdavis.info

* * * * * * *

Publications by Andrew M. Davis

From Negation to Exemplification:

A Deeper Whiteheadian Cosmotheology

by Dr Andrew M. Davis, July 27, 2022

Dr Andrew M. Davis joined the RACS Network via Zoom for

a fascinating talk titled: "From Negation to Exemplification:

A Deeper Whiteheadian Cosmotheology.

Davis' website: https://www.andrewmdavis.info/

Process Theologian and Philosopher,
Andrew M. Davis

Whitehead’s Robust Bio-Centric

Processual CosmoPhilosophy

Presented to "Cobb & Friends"

by Andrew Davis

Oct 11, 2022

https://cobb.institute/john-cobb-friends/

Cobb & Friends YouTube channel

A Few Notes by RE Slater

*Steven's presentation consisted of reading from his Power Point slides even as Andrew Davis would later do himself the following week. Notes were mostly unneeded because of the thoroughness of each presenter's slides.

*metaphysics = met·a·phys·ics (noun) - the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.

Dick's naturalistic cosmology has not metaphysic or ontological ground of being. It just is as a materialistic corpus making metaphysics irrelevant. As a pure naturalistic system it intentionally defaces the "divine ground of our Being."

As consequence, we might take Dick's naturalistic system and expand it quite "naturally" into a Whiteheadian system of processual thought involving all cosmology and cosmological metaphysics. This then takes Dicks non-metaphysical system and turns into a processually-based metaphysic which may then include God, divine will, affectations, experience, generative value, teleology, and so forth. Without any metaphysic we simple are with no meaning beyond survival and pro-creation of some kind.

"The soil of our being is deeply and intimately connected to the cosmology of our being."

or,

"Without god's reality there can be no reality."

This then shows us that Whitehead's process metaphysic may be further circumscribed, defined, and filled with a process theology/theism which is "naturally" a more expansive view than a bare atheistic statement that "The universe just is. Get over it."

Says Whitehead,

"We have no right to deface the divine essence of the universe."

In a process cosmology we might say that all things are conscious in their own way.

This also means that a process metaphysics requires value, beauty, ethics whereas a naturalistic cosmology holds no value but is a consequence - not a necessity - of being.

A process teleology is always in the direction of beauty, love, goodness. Pope John Paul once said, "We know God exists because there is beauty, love, goodness in the world." Thereby saying, to a process metaphysician's ears, "That all reality is process, and process is reality."

Process Philosophy considers reality as process reality. That the universe, the earth, all living and non-living things, are evidence to, and testimony of, a process-based cosmology, metaphysic, of all scientific discovery and inquiry, of social-ecological cultures and cultures which are non-ecological, and basically, how all things work. This is what is meant when saying "process metaphysics and cosmologies are processually based all the up and all the way down."

Further, a Process Cosmology is:

pan-experiential - how the universe works. If one thing affects one thing, they together will affect all other nearby things, and like the "butterfly affect" or "ripples on a pond" work in distributive mass perturbing/affecting/creating/etc everything in a series of living, dynamic processes.

pan-relational - all things are relational across the spectrum of creation and experience; too, all things affect the part as well as the whole, the macro as well as the micro; all things are interconnected as one complex field of corporality.

and, pan-psychic - that aspect of non-materiality which might be described as of the soul, or spiritual, mental, emotional, or even astral-ogical (but not strictly, astro-logical). That which "relates to the non-physical realm of existence to which various psychic and paranormal phenomena are ascribed, and in which the physical human body and/or physical creation may participate experientially and relationally. Example, "Spiritual or astral psychism referring to any astral plane of experience."

The question arises as to what is the ontological primitive for process cosmology as a metaphysic....

What is Alfred North Whitehead's theory of Concrescence?

According to Whitehead, consciousness, thought, and sensory perception are not essential to our experience of reality, but are derived from the process of 'concrescence' by which prehensions are integrated into fully determinate feelings.

A non-Whiteheadian classical interpretation may be referenced here: ontological primitive in a nutshell.

RE Slater:

The mainstream physicalist ontology, for instance, posits that reality is constituted by irreducible entities—which I shall call 'ontological primitives', or simple 'primitives'—outside and independent of experience. According to classical physicalism, these primitives, in-and-of themselves, do not carry experience but Whiteheadian processual primitives do carry a kind of experience.

Hubble Space Telescope's Deep Space View

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SELECT WEEK 2 COMMENTS

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From RE Slater to Everyone 02:03 PM

Thank you Andrew. And to Stephen Dick too in his efforts to explain the universe we live in. Without Dick's work Whiteheadian process perhaps might not have as deep a response as it can. It further underlines the clarity of insight by ANW so many years ago and it's continuing relevance to society today.

From Jay McDaniel to Everyone 02:07 PM

Andrew, could you say a little more about God being metaphysically necessary? I'm wondering if it might be more accurate to say that, for Whitehead, God is cosmologically and empirically necessary. After all, God was not included in his categories of existence, even as, for empirical reasons, he felt it important to recognize a principle or order and novelty. Also, I wonder what you do with the fact that Whitehead says, among many other things, that the world creates God even as God creates the world. Does this not give meaning to Professor Dick's idea that, in some way, God is a "product" of the universe?

From Lynn De Jonghe to Everyone 02:08 PM

Leemon McHenry, The Event Universe, Edinburgh, 2020

From Daryl Anderson to Everyone 02:09 PM

found it AI page 237 "§ 16. The Flux of Energy. An occasion of experience which includes a human mentality is an extreme instance, at one end of the scale, of those happenings which constitute nature."

From Daryl Anderson to Everyone 02:15 PM

To further challenge notions of "life" or sentience, consider the work of physicist Attila Grandpierre viz (a) Helios - the sentience of the Sun, and also the (b) "fundamental biological nature of the universe". http://www.grandpierre.hu/site/english/

he has a chapter in Andrew's "Process Cosmology"

From Bob Mesle to Everyone 02:17 PM

Andrew, re possibilities. I still do not find it helpful to postulate a platonic realm of eternal objects. It seems better to me to say that a possibility is anything that can happen—can be actualized—given the past actual world. If the actual past is infinite, then an infinite realm of possibilities seems likely.

From Lynn De Jonghe to Everyone 02:19 PM

Yes Bob, I agree. Further, once an event occurs that constrains the remaining possibilities, even as it creates new possibilities.

From Jay McDaniel to Everyone 02:21 PM

Whitehead uses the term transcendence in a unique way: actual entities transcend one another. They have their own autonomy. But he also speaks of God "transcending" the world even as, so he says, the world also "transcends" God. They have their respective autonomy. For Whitehead, the quality of God's autonomy is quite different from that of, say, a quantum event in the depths of an atom. Andrew wants to argue that finite entities are contingent in a way that God is not - but in principle you could say all of this and add that God, too, is contingent in that God could not exist. (Andrew rejects his.)

From Bob Mesle to Everyone 02:21 PM

Lynn, yes, I agree. The number of possibilities, even if infinite, may be continually enlarged.

From Lynn De Jonghe to Everyone 02:25 PM

On communicating beauty, one thinks of the symbols that Carl Sagan helped to design for the SETI voyage to outer space.

From Al Gephart to Everyone 02:27 PM

I wrestle with how each of these perspectives accounts for the reality of love, that there is an energy deep within humans and even the other-than human that motivate actions whick may threaten its own existence. Isn’t the naturalistic impulse always toward continual existence?

From Prof J Paul to Everyone 02:29 PM

Yes Meta-Aesthetics

From Daryl Anderson to Everyone 02:30 PM

trees providing "mutual aid" to one another... manifesting moralities without language ?

From Michael Witmer to Everyone 02:32 PM

The notion of World loyalty seems apt here.

From David Bartosch to Everyone 02:32 PM

Dark Forest Theory

From Prof J Paul to Everyone 02:35 PM

Sacred Geometrics ..?

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From Cobb Institute / Richard Livingston to Everyone 02:48 PM

For those interested in the topic of metaphysical necessity from a process-relational perspective, I strongly recommend the following book: ON METAPHYSICAL NECESSITY: ESSAYS ON GOD, THE WORLD, MORALITY, AND DEMOCRACY, by Franklin Gamwell - https://sunypress.edu/Books/O/On-Metaphysical-Necessity

From Lynn De Jonghe to Everyone 02:51 PM

Whitehead might call these “vagaries’ the products of misplaced concreteness>o

Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology

Quotes & Sayings

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Process Cosmotheology and the Biological Universe, Part 4 - Andrew Davis' Response to Steven Dick's Naturalistic Cosmology

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