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

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Index - Processual Divine Coherence



Index - Divine Coherence

To reframe the concept of divine coherence in terms of Whitehead's process philosophy, we must shift from a substance-based metaphysics to a relational, event-based ontology. In this view, God is not a static, perfect substance with fixed attributes, but a dynamic, evolving participant in the ongoing process of the world. Here's a Whiteheadian reinterpretation:


Divine Coherence in Whiteheadian Process Thought

Divine coherence in process philosophy refers to the relational harmony and luring unity that characterizes God’s ongoing interaction with the world. Rather than denoting a fixed absence of contradiction within a self-contained divine being, coherence is understood as the consistent, persuasive aim of God’s presence across time, drawing all actual occasions into the pursuit of value, intensity, and relational harmony.


1. Theology Reimagined:

The Trinity:
  • From a process perspective, the Trinity may be interpreted not as three static persons sharing one essence, but as three relational modalities of divine becoming: the Primordial Nature (God's envisioning of all eternal possibilities), the Consequent Nature (God's participation into the world’s becoming), and the Superjective Nature (God’s influence on the world).
  • Divine coherence lies in the harmonious interaction of these natures - creativity envisioned, received, and offered anew.

Divine Will and Creation:
  • God's “will” is not coercive or deterministic but is better understood as the initial aim - a persuasive call offered to every moment of becoming.
  • Coherence is expressed not through control, but through the faithful offering of novel possibilities in a way that aligns the creative advance of the universe with divine values such as beauty, intensity, and peace.
  • Creation is not a finished product but an unfolding harmony of free responses within a divine ecology.

Incarnation:
  • Rather than seeing the Incarnation as a contradiction of dual substances (divine and human), Whiteheadian thought would see Christ as the supreme instance of divine harmony with the world, a moment of extraordinary relational coherence where God's persuasive aim is most clearly realized in the human experience of Jesus.
  • Divine Coherence then is the processual integration of divine and human aims in a single life or lifeforce - a unique concrescence of love and creativity.


2. In Other Spiritual Contexts:

Sufism and Mystical Unity:
  • Broadly, Whiteheadian coherence aligns well with Sufi notions of divine unity, where union with the Real is achieved not by erasing individuality but by deep relational alignment with the divine rhythm. Practices like meditation or whirling dervish dances become enactments of coherence - occasions where the soul becomes intensely present to God’s lure.

Spiritual and Bodily Practices:
  • Practices like meditation, music, worship, rite, ritual, sacrament, or ceremony serve to heighten a person’s aesthetic intensity and attunement to the divine aim. Coherence is not imposed from above but cultivated inwardly through participatory resonance with the divine process.

Heart, Body, Mind, and Spirit Coherence:
  • The notion of somatic coherence with the spirit and soul in holistic health can be reframed as the subjective harmony of physical, emotional, mental , and spiritual prehensions - aligned with God’s lure - toward wellness and peace. Even bodily systems, in process thought, are dynamic fields of interaction striving toward aesthetic harmony.


3. Philosophical Considerations:

Logical Consistency:
  • In Whitehead’s metaphysics, coherence is not static logical consistency but the mutual reinforcement of prehended values. God is the ultimate ground of this coherence - not by dictating reality, but by offering a vision of maximal harmony that all actual entities may prehend.

Truth and Knowledge:
  • Truth, in process thought, is not an abstract correspondence but a coherent pattern of relevance among entities. God’s knowledge is not omniscient in the classical sense of foreknowing fixed outcomes, but omniscient in feeling every becoming - the Consequent Nature of God lovingly receives all actual occasions into divine embodiment (that is, the divine Self or Being, as God is without body).
  • Divine coherence unfolds as an infinitely concrescing tapestry of relational knowing and presence, faithful in all events, even in tragedy and loss.


Summary in Process Terms:

In essence, divine coherence in process thought is the unbroken faithfulness of God’s presence as a lure toward beauty, intensity, and harmony amid the evolving cosmos.

It is not the negation of contradiction by force or perfection, but the transcendence of chaos through relational creativity.

God, in God's Self, is the source of generative cosmic coherence - not because God controls the world, but because God patiently weaves every thread of becoming into the wider process of meaning, renewal, and love.


* * * * * * *

REFERENCES

How God Works in the World Processually

Re-Imagining Thornton Wilder Processually & Poetically, Part 5



Re-Imagining Thornton Wilder
Processually & Poetically

PART 5

by R.E. Slater and ChatGPT



The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Remastered (2022) - Official Trailer

The Bridge Of San Luis Rey (1958) | Full Movie

I would like to re-imagine Thornton Wilder's Bridge using process theological language.... I have asked ChatGPT to help me with this task. For further inquiry I have provided a list of related references at the end of this article and after the short poems written in homage to Wilder and Whitehead. - R.E. Slater 
RES - "Let's explore 12 quotable quotes made by Wilder through processual eyes."
ChatGPT - "Absolutely—let's explore twelve poignant quotes from Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, each reimagined through the lens of Whiteheadian process thought. This perspective emphasizes relational becoming, divine persuasion, and the emergence of meaning through interconnected experiences."

The Lure of Divine Harmonics

1. Original:

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
— The Abbess

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Love is the connective tissue of the cosmos, weaving together past and present in a tapestry of relational becoming. It is the enduring process that bridges temporal divides, embodying the divine lure toward unity and coherence.


2. Original:

“Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.”
— Brother Juniper

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Life unfolds not by rigid plan or mere accident but through a dynamic interplay of freedom and divine persuasion. Each moment is an occasion for creative advance, shaped by both past influences and the ever-present lure of possibility.


3. Original:

“The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs.”
— Narrator on Doña María

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Unrequited love carves deep channels in the soul, reshaping the contours of experience. Such emotional tides are integral to the processual nature of selfhood, where each feeling contributes to the evolving tapestry of personal identity.


4. Original:

“We ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough.”
— Narrator

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

In the processual cosmos, love's value isn't measured by permanence but by its contribution to the ongoing creative advance. Each act of love enriches the relational fabric of existence, persisting in the divine memory even as individual memories fade.


5. Original:

“Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other.”
— Narrator on Esteban

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Love, in its asymmetry, reflects the diverse intensities of relational experiences. Each person's capacity to love contributes uniquely to the evolving process of becoming, highlighting the richness of emotional diversity in the tapestry of existence.


6. Original:

“Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer's day.”
— Narrator

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Contrary to notions of divine indifference, process thought posits a God deeply invested in the world, experiencing each event and emotion. Every creature's experience contributes to the divine life, affirming the significance of all existence.


7. Original:

“He regarded love as a sort of cruel malady through which the elect are required to pass.”
— Narrator on Uncle Pio

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Love, with its trials and transformations, serves as a catalyst for growth within the processual journey. Through love's challenges, individuals are lured toward greater depth and complexity in their becoming.


8. Original:

“Throughout the hours of the night, though there had been few to hear it, the whole sky had been loud with the singing of these constellations.”
— Narrator

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

The cosmos resonates with a symphony of becoming, each star a note in the divine melody. Even when unnoticed, the universe sings of interconnectedness, inviting all into its harmonious process.


9. Original:

“The public for which masterpieces are intended is not on this earth.”
— Narrator

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Masterpieces transcend temporal audiences, contributing to the eternal realm of values. In process thought, such creations are preserved in the divine experience, influencing the ongoing creative advance of the world.


10. Original:

“He was quite incapable of establishing any harmony between the claims of his art, of his appetites, or his dreams.”
— Narrator on Uncle Pio

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

The struggle to harmonize various aspects of life reflects the complexity of becoming. Process thought acknowledges this tension as part of the creative process, where individuals integrate diverse experiences into a coherent self.


11. Original:

“All of us have failed. One wishes to be punished. One is willing to assume all kinds of penance.”
— Narrator

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Failure is an integral part of the processual journey, offering opportunities for reflection and growth. Divine persuasion invites individuals to transform failures into creative advances, contributing to the richness of the cosmic tapestry.


12. Original:

“Even memory is not necessary for love.”
— Narrator

Whiteheadian Reimagining:

Love's impact transcends memory, embedding itself in the very fabric of reality. In process thought, each act of love contributes to the divine experience, influencing the ongoing evolution of the cosmos.


These reinterpretations aim to illuminate how Wilder's profound insights resonate with Whiteheadian themes of relationality, process, and divine immanence. If you'd like, we can explore these further or create visual representations to deepen our understanding.




Below are three short poetic passages in homage to literary author and playwright Thornton Wilder and to process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead capturing their contrasting views of meaningful coincidence ( aka, "synchronicity").  The last set of short poems will be dedicated to coincidence: 


Fate or Fortune?

Thornton Wilder: Synchronicity as Unknowable Mystery

1. The Bridge

They fell through air not knowing why,
A frayed rope gave way beneath the sky.
But love, he wrote, connects the seam,
Though God remains a distant dream.

2. The Friar’s Question

Did plan or chance the souls unthread?
As Friar sought it's cause among the dead.
Yet silence held the only echoing sound -
By a God too high to touch the ground.

3. The Pattern Not Seen

In death is glimpsed a sacred line,
Too fine for human eyes to opine.
O'er fatal tragedy's lasting question,
Is love enough, amid suggestions.


R.E. Slater & ChatGPT
May 16, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved


Whitehead: Synchronicity as Relational Becoming

1. The Gentle Lure

No plan decreed, no ominous command spoke,
But loving God with broken heart pronounced,
Within transpiring events loomed in open weave,
That love, not fate, despoil all tragic sacraments.

2. A World That Feels

All occasions prehend, all moments intwine,
New life birthed from coinciding experiences.
Synchronic lines stream forward in gentle flow,
Merging past with present concrescing futures.

3. Harmony in Freedom

Not mystery beyond the veil,
But flowing patterns on turning sail,
Abaft the winds of novelty and grace,
Steered the Navigator upon our side.


R.E. Slater & ChatGPT
May 16, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved


Coincidence: Without Divine Coherence

1. Chance Alone

Two strangers met and shared a name,
A dog runs by, fair weathers came -
Nothing is stirred, no soul is moved,
Just meaningless chance come to play.

2. The Skeptic's View

A blip, a blunder, a trick of time,
A shuffled card, a slipped rhyme -
No deeper law, no cosmic thread,
Just atoms drifting, meeting, fled.

3. The Seeker’s Wonder

A feather falls the hour decried,
A stranger speaks a haunted sky,
All pause not daring dreaded fate,
Awaiting fortune's untoward weight
.

4. Two Views

In the skeptic’s heart coincidence is
the static noise in everyday's operation.

In the seeker’s heart sits the quiet
assurance of meaningful meaning.

Some rest in the quiet becoming
of everyday miraculous indwelling.


R.E. Slater & ChatGPT
May 16, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved