Preface
The modern debate over free will often collapses into dichotomies: determinism versus libertarianism, fate versus freedom, nature versus nurture. Yet such binaries fail to capture the relational, dynamic nature of actual existence. Within a processual worldview - where divine (or cosmic) becoming precedes being, and divine (or cosmic) relationship precedes co-creative independence - free will is not an absolute possession but a degree of participation in the unfolding of creative advance.
Romans 7:19 - Paul’s meditation on the inner struggle between intention and action:
(ESV) “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
(KJV) “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
This verse is part of a larger reflection (Romans 7:15–25) where Paul wrestles with divided will, (i) the human tension between desire for the good and bondage to the patterns of sin, ii) a theme often interpreted processually as the ongoing, relational becoming of moral consciousness.
I. The Processual Ground of Freedom
In Whiteheadian process philosophy, every actual entity is an event of becoming - a nexus of influences and self-determination. Each moment integrates the world’s inherited past (its “data”) with its own subjective aim toward novelty. Freedom arises not as independence from causality but as participation within it: a self-determining synthesis of what has been given and what might yet be.
From this vantage, freewill is not a metaphysical exemption of foundational cosmic rules but a creative co-determination within a cosmos yearning to evolve and become as inherited from its Creator. Each actual entity, whether human or otherwise, expresses both determination (its prehended world) and decision (its concrescent self-creation). God, as the lure toward greater intensity of valuative experience, invites creational-and-creaturely freedom - not as indifference, but as responsiveness to possibility.
II. Gradations of Agency
Human freedom therefore varies by degree, not by kind. Agency, in this view, is graded - a spectrum of self-determining power conditioned by environment, biology, and context.
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Biological and Cognitive Constraints. A newborn, an injured brain, or a nonhuman animal expresses less reflective agency than a mature adult. Yet each still exhibits processual becoming - a pulse of self-determination within limits.
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Cultural and Geographic Conditions. The latitude of freedom available to a person in an open society differs dramatically from that in an authoritarian regime, or within oppressive economic structures. Processual freedom acknowledges that systems condition possibilities.
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Educational and Experiential Dimensions. Knowledge expands the horizon of potential decisions. Freedom grows with understanding, skill, and imagination - aka, the “width” of alternatives available to an organism’s response.
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Moral and Relational Development. Agency matures as individuals integrate empathy and communal awareness into their decision-making. In this sense, freedom is not raw autonomy but relational responsiveness.
III. Processual Freedom versus Classical Free Will
Classical philosophy often imagines free will as an uncaused cause within the self. That is, a metaphysical independence from external forces. Process philosophy, by contrast, sees freedom as emergent, contextual, and relational.
Freedom here is not the ability to act without influence, but the capacity to transform influence into new possibility. Every act is the creative resolution of the past into a novel future. In this sense, the more one can consciously participate in this resolution, the freer one becomes.
Thus, determinism and indeterminism both fall short: determinism denies novelty; indeterminism denies coherence. Processual freewill reconciles the two by grounding creativity in relational causation.
IV. The Ethical Dimension of Processual Agency
Recognizing gradations of agency invites compassion and responsibility. It acknowledges the uneven distribution of freedom across social, biological, and historical landscapes. It also charges all societies, whether closed or open, to increase the conditions for freedom - through education, justice, equality, and empathy - so that each individual’s creative potential may flourish.
The ethical goal, then, is not abstract, metaphysical liberty but enhanced participation in the creative advance of the world. True freedom means to co-create with God - or with the universe itself - toward the realization of value and beauty.
V. Summary: Freedom as Relational Becoming
Processual freewill invites us to see ourselves not as isolated agents choosing from a void, but as evolving participants in a living, interdependent, participatory and experiential, cosmos. We are both products and producers of the world’s ongoing creativity.
Our degrees of freedom vary, but our capacity for novelty - the hallmark of divine creativity - which endures in every act of individual and/or communal/societal becoming. Freedom, in this view, is not a possession to be defended but a relationship to be deepened: the continual co-creation of self, world, and God in the ceaseless adventure of becoming.
Diagram: Gradations of Processual Agency
“Concentric Fields of Freedom: The Processual Ecology of Agency”
Outer Layer — Cosmic & Environmental Conditions
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Context: The broadest sphere encompassing the physical and ecological conditions of existence—cosmic, planetary, geological, climatic.
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Function: Determines the background of possibility. Agency here is deeply constrained but still present in adaptive response.
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Keywords: Cosmic order, climate, habitat, natural limitation, systemic interdependence.
Layer II — Cultural & Societal Structures
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Context: Societies, institutions, and historical legacies.
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Function: Shapes opportunity, social permission, access to resources, and moral paradigms.
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Process Note: Freedom increases as systems become relationally responsive—justice expands possibilities.
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Keywords: Language, law, custom, education systems, collective memory, oppression/emancipation.
Layer III — Interpersonal & Communal Relations
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Context: Families, friendships, work environments, communities.
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Function: Provides immediate relational feedback loops shaping empathy, trust, and decision-making.
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Process Note: Freedom as mutual co-creation: each person’s becoming expands or contracts others’.
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Keywords: Love, empathy, dialogue, relational reciprocity.
Layer IV — Psychological & Developmental Self
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Context: The individual as a dynamic system of habits, emotions, memories, and learning.
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Function: Integrates past experiences with potential futures in subjective concrescence.
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Process Note: Freedom expands as consciousness widens, as self-reflection and imaginative synthesis deepen.
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Keywords: Self-awareness, neuroplasticity, emotional regulation, learning.
Layer V — Biological & Genetic Substrate
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Context: Neurobiological constitution and bodily limits.
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Function: Provides the physical channel through which experience flows; constrains but also enables.
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Process Note: Freedom depends on how biological determinacy participates in novelty.
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Keywords: Brain, hormones, genetics, energy, embodiment.
Core — The Lure of the Good (Divine or Creative Aim)
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Context: The innermost processual field, representing God’s persuasive call—or the universe’s creative teleology—toward value and beauty.
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Function: Offers direction without coercion, grounding freedom in relational love.
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Process Note: True freedom is attunement to the creative lure that invites, not commands, becoming.
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Keywords: Creativity, relational value, divine persuasion, novelty.
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