From Ontology to Metaphysics: The Question of Why

From Ontology to Metaphysics:

The Question of Why

An Invitation to wonder, to question, to seek, and to participate

by R.E. Slater

To my Christian friends and general readership:

A literal Bible cannot sustain faith,
nor can literal defenses provide
a fortress of assurance.

But an open mind,
a courageous heart,
and a doubting spirit,

may yet discover the sacred
wherever one looks
with wonder,
humility,
and renewal.

R.E. Slater

June 24, 2026

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

As an update, I have begun the difficult work of creating the first few opening essays for our next series: "The Metaphysics of Reality."

Currently, the series is sketched out in 71 essays. The previously completed ontology series required 61. It seems this new series will explore a broader horizon of questions necessitating a bit more effort as we move from asking, "What is reality?" to, "Why is reality?"

At the completion of this next, new, series I hope we will have developed a fuller and more capable description of an open and relational process reality. A description with which we might then attempt to develop an open and relational process theology. And, as  capstone to our project, we must conclude by attempting to describe the kind of open and relational process ethic one might expect to participate in given the kind of reality and theology we have described.

Accordingly, the general architecture initially envisioned for this project maps out schematically as the following:

Reality → Ontology → Metaphysics → Interpretation → Ethics → Participation

As in the previously concluded ontology series, we will build a process-relational foundation of metaphysics that is broad enough to engage all beliefs, religions, disbeliefs, and agnosticisms. Why? Because any serious inquiry into reality must remain large enough to welcome an expansive engagement of all perspectives - while remaining disciplined enough within its inquiry to develop a philosophy, a theology, and an ethic capable of engaging a processual reality.

Lastly, the one constant throughout this exploration will be our continuing reliance upon Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy and Theology as a point of departure - one which we will develop further in its conversation with this era's contemporary sciences, human history, evolutionary thought, and ongoing discoveries.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

June 24, 2026

Index - Reality & Cosmology Series (completed: the ontology of reality)

Index - Reality & Metaphysics Series (new series: the metaphysics of reality)

https://ctr4process.org/

The Why of Reality

Reality is ever encountered -

it cannot be otherwise.

We describe our experience

of reality through ontology,

and our questions of why

through metaphysics.

Theology then names the sacred,

while ethics names the action -

and in full circle, our participation,

our questions, our worship, and doings,

returns everything back to lived experience.

Turning and turning turns the Wheel of Life,

across castaway hearts bound to life

as life is bound to every beating heart.

How do we then live within the reality

we think we know and understand?

Perhaps, we begin with wonder.

A childlike wonder where all is possible,

waking every new day to possibilities,

refusing the sleep of adulthood.

And continue with unending inquiry,

uncontent to be staked and claimed

by attitudes and actions dead bound

on the wheel of fear, fabrication, and closure.

Then end with loving involvement,

hungry for exploration,

discontented by walls of darkness,

yearning horizons too far to see.

Truly, reality can be tricky

in its own way:

Where with every horizon reached -
another horizon extends beyond it.

Where with every answer found -
another question awakens in its stream.

Where with every discover made -
the adventurer is invited into deeper humility.

Where with every ending concluded -

another beginning newly emerges.

There can be no final statements,

decrees, dogmas, doctrines, nor creeds,

asserting reality is this or that, beaten,

bound, fettered, or chained.

Reality is because it is -

and it is we who must remove

our chains, open our hearts,

and learn to see unblinded.

May we then live as restless as the Divine -

ever learning, ever inviting, ever becoming,

restless in search,

courageous in spirit,

breathing in wonderment,

freedom, and care.

R.E. Slater

June 24, 2026
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved