Comparing Wilder, Jung, and Whitehead's "Meaningful Occurrences," Part 1

Comparing Wilder, Jung, and Whitehead's

"Meaningful Occurrences"

Part 1

by R.E. Slater and ChatGPT

My last article adjudged how the literist and playwright, Thornton Wilder, had questioned the facticity of the church's teaching on divine determinism in the lives of mankind. Here, in this article, I would like to expand upon Thornton's theological engagement to include Jung's "Meaningful Coincidence" and Whitehead's form of "Synchronicity".

*Literist - Rare usage. The term lends “literary” with the suffix -ist, suggesting one who practices or is skilled in literary craft—perhaps with an emphasis on aesthetic style, narrative richness, or literary tradition.

*Facticity refers to the concrete and given aspects of an individual's existence, the objective facts which shape one's experience and/or limit one's freedom. It encompasses aspects like one's physical traits and characteristics, social context, historical circumstances, and past choices - all of which are not within one's control.

*Synchronicity refers to seemingly meaningful coincidences between acausal events or experiences which lack a causal relationship but seemingly appear connected. These coincidences are often interpreted as having some sort of omen of significance or perhaps spectral / divine message even though they are likely just random occurrences.

On this latter concept, I had earlier discussed "synchronicity" many years ago when reviewing sports writer turned popular author, Mitch Albom's tract, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." In my August 2011 article entitled, "Divine Synchronicity: What Does It Mean for Christianity?" I used the TV series "LOST" as a corollary discussion to God's interactive presence within humanity's lives in juxtaposition with other (non-Calvinistic) themes.

Thornton Wilder's Determinism

In Thornton Wilder’s tract, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," it readily appears deterministic on the surface, but as we further investigate Thornton's offerings we begin to suspect it's flirtation with both causal and acausal coincidence... even if he never fully commits to either philosophical concept in metaphysical terms.

🔹 1. Apparent Determinism

Wilder sets up the story with the collapse of an aged Peruvian rope bridge to which the hand of fate seems to be at work. Upon the bridge's failing five "innocents' perish provoking Brother Juniper to diligently investigate a deeply probing theological question weighing upon his heart: "Was the tragedy an accident or was it divinely orchestrated? As his investigations proceed it feels as if the friar's tone is one of determinism.

Why? Because the earnest friar begins at the onset with the assumption that there might have been a divine pattern or intention behind those who lived and those who died. Moreover, the friar wants a cause, even a hidden one - a divine logic that might redeem or explain the horrific tragedy.

And yet, in Wilder’s conclusion, he remained steadfastly ambiguous as an author to which Brother Juniper’s theological system fails and is condemned by the church for his heresy in questioning divine judgment. Thornton then ends his treatise with a literary-theological pivot: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love.” This pivot drops causal explanation in favor of a nebulous existential meaning.

🔹 2. Implicit Causal Threads

Each of the five lives which Brother Juniper traces back show an apparent cause-and-effect relationship:

Esteban’s life is shaped by his twin brother’s loss;

Doña María’s ambitions are betrayed in her desperate letters to her daughter;

And Uncle Pío’s mentorship of Camila is florid and intentional.

These backstories reveal relational causality: choices, love, grief, misunderstandings - all leading each actor to their fated moments on the bridge on the same day and appointed hour. And though their acts were not predestined their presence is more-than-causally embedded in the relational flow of their daily routines.

And though I am unfairly running ahead of myself here, from a Whiteheadian view, each of these mortal lives can be viewed as living processual concrescences which are actively integrating past lived choices and reflections to form new demonstrative or expressive acts. As such, Wilder’s causal treatment of the friar's search for a signifying determinism can allow for our Whiteheadian assertion even if Thornton isn’t aware of his schema.

*processual concrescence is the dynamic process by which a new actual occasion (sic, a unit of reality) emerges through the integration and synthesis of past influences, possibilities, and divine aim into a new, unified experience. (More treatment on this concept will be given below).

🔹 3. Acausal Resonance ( = Jungian Synchronicity?)

Yet… there’s more: Why those five? Asks the friar. Why that moment? Why the bridge's failing when wind and rain could have harmlessly undone it?

Here, Wilder invites a sense of synchronicity in the Jungian-style of "acausal meaningful coincidence" - even as he statedly resists giving it a theological label.

Wilder doesn’t say, “God did it.” But neither does he say, “It means nothing.” Instead, the convergence of all five separate lives join together on that fated bridge forcing a seemingly symbolic conclusion which Thornton refuses to enunciate as either determined, fated, or unfortunate. His conclusion? Their deaths catalyze a reflection on love, legacy, and perhaps acausal interconnection.

*Acausality refers to the concept of events happening without a cause, in contrast to causality, which describes the relationship between cause and effect. It suggests that certain phenomena, may occur without a preceding cause.

In this way, the novel feels like an acausal synchronous event even if it narratively rejects any metaphysical certainty.

🔹 In Summary: Wilder’s Layered Coincidence

Coincidence Type	In Wilder’s Narrative	Whiteheadian Interpretation
Deterministic	Brother Juniper’s inquiry, religious judgment	Rejected by narrator; coercive patterns fail
Causal	Life stories showing psychological causality	Matches Whitehead’s prehensive relationality
Acausal	Convergence of five people on the bridge	Feels like synchronicity; divine lure unspoken
Ultimate meaning	“The bridge is love”	Love as the coherence of becoming