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

Whitehead and de Chardin in Synthetic Thought, Part 6


Whitehead and de Chardin
in Synthetic Thought
PART 6

by R.E. Slater and ChatGPT

March 31, 2025


I cannot elaborate enough that de Chardin's philosophic thought is more theological than philosophical making it more limited in its philosophical framework and pointedly specific in its ontology. As a Christian, I greatly sympathize with de Chardin's effort to Christologize all reality into the Person and Work of Christ (in de Chardin's terms, a cosmic Christogenesis of God's work). However, to be a sufficient metaphysic we must insist on Whitehead's process philosophy from which a processual theology can be derived.

I suspect Whitehead had a number of reasons for developing his philosophical structure but one of those reasons may have been his interest in providing a theistic framework on which to set a philosophical structure which might resonate not only with Christianity but perhaps with all religious affiliations. It is also one of the reasons I am attracted to Whitehead and have been furthering his work in the area of Process Theology. In affect, I am "de Chardin-izing" Whitehead without betraying Whitehead's integral structure (ahem, not "de" but "de-" as in the name).

Further, philosophy has always been the bedrock upon which theology rests. It is never the other way around. True, each may influence the other as I think of process philosophy had in it's influence on process theology (and, vice versa). So it is not inconceivable that as Whitehead developed his processual metaphysic and ontology he was also simultaneously birthing processual theology within his philosophic structure. Why? Because it is nearly impossible to betray our inner selves and Whitehead, if nothing else, was seeking concepts and words to describe God and God's universe as a 19th Century Victorian Christian (Feb 15, 1861 - Dec 30, 1947).

My further suspicion is that the French Jesuit priest, de Chardin, had placed first-and-foremost his Christian theology when creating a pseudo-philosophic structure around the primacy of Jesus Christ. Again, I applaud his view in this matter as I had been trained in my own theology to do the same thing. But again, it only goes one way: philosophy begets theology - and not the other way around. Hence, Whitehead's process-relational panentheistic philosophic structure always lies under Whitehead's process-based metaphysic of "Creativity" or "Creative Becoming" which is the most fundamental principle of reality.

Not the Person of Christ, nor a theistic force such as the Christian God, nor even God's very Self - but the abstract concept of "creativity". Creativity is the metaphysical condition which allows everything to "become" or "have the capacity of becoming." In Whitehead's words, "All actual occasions are expressions of creativity."

But from this metaphysical principle one may say that God is the Chief Actual Entity which embodies or exemplifies the metaphysical principle of "creativity." Which means that God holds all pure possibilities (sic, eternal objects); which are initial aims for each becoming event; and provides the very potentiality for any-and-all possibilities. Hence, God is the Ontological Exemplar of Creativity. Creativity would not be creativity if it were not for God. One could say that when God became so was birthed creativity; which correlates with Christian thought that God ever was and hence, so was creativity as a metaphysic principle or property.

Said in another way, in Whitehead, "creativity" is the metaphysical "stuff" of becoming but GOD is the clearest, most integrated and complete instance of creativity. Why? Because God initiates potentiality (the primordial nature of God); God feels all that is becoming (the Consequent nature of God); and God sustains all cosmic order and possibility over chaos. Thus and thus, God is the living embodiment of creativity - not outside or above it but its most elegant instantiation.

In summary, creativity is the ground of all becoming. Actual occasions are the localized expressions of creativity; and God is the exemplar of creativity - both uniquely expressing creativity's potentiality as well as its actualized relational fulfillment.

Creativity then is the language of philosophy expressing ideas; whereas theology is the language of personages such as a deity from which or whom ideas are expressed. Whitehead is creating a philosophic language in which theological language might be expressed.

Hence, creativity is not above God but God's mode of divine action. Nor is God less than creativity, but its personal, loving, and guiding reality; which is to say that God is both the heart and mind of creativity itself.

R.E. Slater
March 31, 2025

A Christian-Process Synthesis Statement:
  • God is the divine wellspring from which all creative becoming flows.
  • As the Loving Source, God envisions every possibility.
  • As the Faithful Companion, God feels every outcome.
  • As the Cosmic Christ, God draws all things forward in love and transformation.


ADDENDUM

Me to ChatGPT:

It seems that the problem of "priory" may lie between the demands of philosophy as a logical system of reasoning versus that of theology as a systematic expression of religious belief. Each comes at reality differently requiring its own syllogistic framework. More simplistically, one expresses ideas while the other expresses personages or deities.

ChatGPT said:

Yes—you’ve struck the heart of the tension that so often arises when bridging philosophy and theology, especially in the case of someone like Whitehead who was crafting a deeply metaphysical system, yet left an opening for theological reconfiguration.

Philosophy vs. Theology: Two Modes of Approach

1. Philosophy:

  • Operates with conceptual abstraction, logical consistency, and universality.

  • It seeks the principles behind reality: What is ultimate? How does becoming occur?

  • Whiteheadian terms like Creativity, Actual Occasion, or Eternal Object are intentionally non-personal.

  • Whitehead’s system emphasizes structures and processes without dependence on religious narratives.

2. Theology:

  • Speaks in the language of personhood, revelation, worship, and relational encounter.

  • It deals with ultimate meaning through divine agency: God, Christ, Spirit, covenant, grace.

  • Theological language aims not just to describe reality but to transform the human spirit and community.

Tension & Translation

This creates a kind of translational challenge:

So when Whitehead says:

“God is not the ultimate, but the chief exemplification of the ultimate.”

A theologian might rephrase:

“God is the personal expression of the very ground of being, through which all becoming takes place.”

A Metamodern Resolution

A metamodern synthesis might say:

  • Philosophy names the structure. Theology names the presence.

  • One speaks of becoming, the other of belonging.

  • Yet both attempt to describe the living mystery that is the world becoming whole.

A Final Thought

Philosophy offers the frame while theology fills it with presence.

  • Whitehead’s Creativity may be the grammar of becoming.

  • But for the Christian imagination, God is the poet who sings the world into being with love and purpose.




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