Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: Describing Whitehead's Metaphysics and Ontology, Part 3

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

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Describing Whitehead's Metaphysics and Ontology, Part 3

Describing Whitehead's

Metaphysics & Ontology

PART 3

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

March 31, 2025

I - What is the Philosophical Relationship Between Ontology and Metaphysics?

Ontology is the study of being. It is a core branch of metaphysics. Metaphysics is the broader study of the nature of reality, encompassing topics like existence, space, time, and the fundamental structure of the universe.

Metaphysics

Definition - Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that explores the fundamental nature of reality, including questions about existence, being, space, time, causality, and the relationship between mind and matter.

Scope - Metaphysics delves into abstract concepts and seeks to understand the underlying structure and principles of the universe.

Examples of Metaphysical Questions - What is the nature of reality? Does the world exist independently of our minds? What is the meaning of life? Is there a God? Do we have free will?

Ontology

Definition - Is a sub-branch of metaphysics, specifically focuses on the study of being, existence, and the nature of what exists.

Scope - It examines the fundamental categories of existence, such as substance, property, relation, and fact.

Examples of Ontological Questions - What are the fundamental types of entities that exist? What does it mean for something to exist? What are the relationships between different types of entities? Are there abstract objects (like numbers or concepts) that exist?

Relationship between Ontology and Metaphysics

Ontology can be seen as a more specific and focused inquiry within the broader field of metaphysics.

Metaphysics provides the general framework for understanding reality, while ontology delves into the specific nature of being and existence.

In simpler terms, metaphysics asks "what is real?", while ontology asks "what exists?"

Ontology = What reality is made of
Metaphysics = How and why it unfolds the way it does

2 - Describing Whitehead's Metaphysic and Ontology

While ontology asks “What exists?”, metaphysics asks “What is the nature of existence?” This then would be the deeper philosophic logic, structure or framework behind Whitehead's processual ontological being and becoming.

Further, Whitehead’s Ontology describes the building blocks of reality - events, relations, processes, and possibilities whereas Whitehead’s Metaphysic explains the deeper structures of reality - why and how those events come to be, evolve, and carry value.

Reality is the creative advance into novelty.

- Albert North Whitehead

WHITEHEAD'S METAPHYSIC

Creativity as the ultimate metaphysical principle. Ex: Evolutionary processes are highly creative from cosmology to biology.
God as the unifying and relational pole of possibility and actuality
The process of becoming is more fundamental than actual being-ness.

Key Concepts:

Creativity

The ultimate metaphysical principle—the driving force behind all becoming.
Not a being, but the power of process itself.

Process of Becoming

Actual occasions are events, not things.
The universe unfolds through ongoing acts of becoming.

God

Has two natures:

Primordial: holds all eternal possibilities.
Consequent: responds to the world, feeling and valuing its unfolding.

God is the lure for creative transformation, not a coercive power.

Value and Novelty

The cosmos aims for intensity of experience—beauty, harmony, novelty.
Every act of becoming contributes aesthetic value to the whole.

Summary

Whitehead’s metaphysic explains how everything becomes through a creative, relational process. At its heart is Creativity, shaped by God’s persuasive guidance and the world’s responses. Reality is not static—it’s a living, evolving cosmos, always becoming something new.

WHITEHEAD'S ONTOLOGY

1. Actual Occasions

The fundamental units of reality are not things, but events called actual occasions—moments of experience.
Everything that exists is in a process of becoming.

2. Prehension

Actual occasions relate to one another through prehension—the way one event feels or grasps other events.
This includes both physical and conceptual prehensions (e.g., sensing vs. imagining).

3. Concrescence

Each actual occasion concresces (gathers together) all prehensions into a unified experience. Essentially, there is a processual teleology deep within Whiteheadian process.
This is how novelty and value emerge.

4. Eternal Objects

These are pure potentials (like forms or possibilities) that actual occasions can realize.
Eternal Objects are always contextualized within process.

5. Creativity

The ultimate metaphysical principle. All becoming is an expression of creativity, realized through actual occasions.

6. God is a unique actual entity with two poles:

Primordial: contains all eternal objects as possibilities.
Consequent: feels and responds to the world’s actualities.

Summary

Reality is a network of interrelated experiences, not static substances. Every entity is a momentary process that prehends others, contributes novelty, and becomes part of a living, evolving cosmos.