Process Quotes & Sayings

Philosophy in the Spotlight:

Dr. Matthew Segall: Whitehead and Process

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Premiered Sep 11, 2022

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Co-hosts Christopher Satoor + Elisabeth Schilling

Guest: Dr. Matthew Segall

Matthew D. Segall, PhD, received his doctoral degree in 2016 from the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. His dissertation was titled Cosmotheanthropic Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. It grapples with the limits to knowledge of reality imposed by Kant's transcendental form of philosophy and argues that Schelling and Whitehead's process-oriented approach (described in his dissertation as a "descendental" form of philosophy) shows the way across the Kantian threshold to renewed experiential contact with reality. He teaches courses on German Idealism and process philosophy for the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS. He blogs regularly at footnotes2plato.com.

Matt Segall's YT: ‪@Footnotes2Plato‬

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[Process] Quotes & Sayings

article link

I.

"Philosophers who appeal to process rather than substance include Heraclitus, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Thomas Nail, Alfred Korzybski, R. G. Collingwood, Alan Watts, Robert M. Pirsig, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Charles Hartshorne, Arran Gare, Nicholas Rescher, Colin Wilson, Tim Ingold, Bruno Latour, and Gilles Deleuze.

In physics, Ilya Prigogine distinguishes between the "physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science."

- Process Philosophy - Wikipedia

- Process Philosophy - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

II.

"It seems sensible to understand "process philosophy" as a doctrine committed to, or at any rate inclined toward, certain basic propositions:

1) Time and change (event) are among the principal categories of metaphysical understanding.

2) Process is a principal category of ontological description.

3) Processes (events) are more fundamental, or at any rate not less fundamental, than things (matter) for the purposes of ontological theory.

4) Several, if not all of the major elements of the ontological repertoire - God, Nature as a whole (the cosmos), persons, material substances (quantum particles and macro objects) - are best understood in process terms.

5) Contingency, emergence, novelty and creativity are among the fundamental categories of metaphysical understanding.

A process philosopher, then, is someone for whom temporality, activity, and change - of alteration, striving, passage, novelty-emergence - are the cardinal factors for our understanding of the real.

Ultimately, it is a question of priority - of viewing the time-bound aspects of the real as constituting its most characteristic and significant features.

For the process philosopher, process has priority over product - both ontologically and epistemically."

- Nicholas Rescher, Process Philosophy, 1928, p 6.

III.

"The cycles that can ground us through our busy lives are: breath, rhythms of the day, weekly rhythms like Sabbath rest, waxing and waning lunar cycles, seasons of the year, seasons of a lifetime, ancestral time, and cosmic time.

Each cycle encourages us to mindfully consider the time that passes as quickly as each breath and as slowly as the passing of generations."

- Christine Valters Paintner, Sacred Time, 2021

IV.

"Philosophers can never hope finally to formulate these metaphysical first principles. Weakness of insight and deficiencies of language stand in the way inexorably. Words and phrases must be stretched towards a generality foreign to their ordinary usage; and however such elements of language be stabilized as technicalities, they remain metaphors mutely appealing for an imaginative leap."

- Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1928, p. 4

"Language often stands in the way of expressing processual beingness. However, the felt experiences of passing events tumble through the barriers of psychic language bringing meaning, regeneration, thrival, and hope to the felt processual language of beingness." - RE Slater

V.

"Process philosophy, a 20th-century school of Western philosophy that emphasizes the elements of becoming, change, and novelty in experienced reality; opposes the traditional Western philosophical stress on being, permanence, and uniformity. Reality - including both the natural world and the human sphere - is essentially historical in this view, emerging from (and bearing) a past and advancing into a novel future. Hence, reality cannot be grasped by the static spatial concepts of the old views, which ignore the temporal and novel aspects of the universe given in man’s experience."

- Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021

VI.

"Mind transforms the continuance of physical spacetime into moments (the absolute Now) and blends these moments into an apparent continuity through an overlapping of unfolding capsules. The flow of psychological time is an illusion based on the rapid replacement of these capsules. Each mind computes the measure of time passing and duration from the decay of the surface present (the event) in relation to a core of past events. As each new surface (event) is generated, that surface, the rim of the immediate past, recedes in the wake of rising contents. This recession, an uncovering of phases latent in the original traversal, exposes layers in the past forming the content of the immediate past moment. The surge of the microgeny to a surface that dissolves the instant it appears, the priority of the Self in the unfolding sequence, the feeling of agency, create a Self in a state of becoming, a Self that travels in time like the crest of a wave, always in pursuit of a future just beyond the grasp of the present."

- Jason W. Brown, Psychology of Time Awareness, 1990

"Our felt experience and recognition of passing time carries forward from past eventful experiences to future eventing experiences." - RE Slater

VII.

"The Huayan developed the doctrine of "interpenetration" or "coalescence" (Wylie: zung-'jug; Sanskrit: yuganaddha),[23][24] based on the Avatamsaka Sūtra, a Mahāyāna scripture. It holds that all phenomena (Sanskrit: dharmas) are intimately connected (and mutually arising). Two images are used to convey this idea. The first is known as Indra's net. The net is set with jewels which have the extraordinary property that they reflect all of the other jewels. The second image is that of the world text. This image portrays the world as consisting of an enormous text which is as large as the universe itself. The words of the text are composed of the phenomena that make up the world. However, every atom of the world contains the whole text within it. It is the work of a Buddha to let out the text so that beings can be liberated from suffering. The doctrine of interpenetration influenced the Japanese monk Kūkai, who founded the Shingon school of Buddhism. Interpenetration and essence-function are mutually informing in the East Asian Buddhist traditions, especially the Korean Buddhist tradition."

- Buddhist Philosophy

"Beingness both draws from and, experiences, all of the cosmos' beingness corporately, as well as some of the cosmos' beingness in uniquely creative experiences individually. Life draws from the life of the cosmos as well as it's own personal experience while continually making adjustments to it's corporate and constitutionally personalized paths." - RE Slater

VIII.

• "Reality is a process: nothing ever stays the same.

• The process of reality is creative, emergent, evolutionary, and social.

• There is a profound relationship between creativity, beauty, and life.

• All life deserves respect; nothing in nature stands alone; everything is connected.

• Thinking and feeling are connected; mind and body are not separate entities; aesthetic wisdom and rational inquiry are complementary.

• Human experience begins by feeling the presence of the world and being affected by it.

• Human happiness involves sharing experience with others and responding in harmony to these relationships."

- Jay McDaniel, 2020, Some Principles of Process Philosophy

IX.

"This sense of reality as a dynamic breath-force tissue is reflected in the Chinese language itself, and so operates as an unnoticed assumption in ancient Chinese consciousness. There is no distinction between noun and verb in classical Chinese. Virtually all words can function as either. Hence, the sense of reality as verbal: a tissue alive and in the process. This includes all individual elements of reality, such as mountains or people, and contrasts with our language's sense that reality is nominal, an assemblage of static things. A noun in fact only refers to a temporal slice through the ongoing verbal process that any thing actually is."

- David Hinton, China Root, 2020, p. 35

X.

Some Principles of Whitehead's Thinking

1. Question the assumptions of your community, your society, your religion, your science, your educational institutions, especially those that are rarely mentioned.

2. Question the dominant media, asking who controls it and what they want you to think.

3. Recognize that a serious answer to any important question brings into view lots of other questions [as well as a new language to the soul].

4. When people appeal to mystery, consider that it may be mystification. Push critical thought as far as you can.

5. Recognize that the wider range of influences on an event or person that you consider, the better you understand that event or person.

6. Recognize that the broader you consideration of the context and of the likely consequences of your actions, the better chances you will make towards the right choice.

7. Realize that all your ideas and values are influenced by your particular situation, but refuse to conclude that for this reason they can be dismissed as merely "relative."

8. Recognize that there may be no actions that are completely harmless, but do not let that prevent you from acting decisively.

9. Understand that compassion is the most basic aspect of our experience, and seek to liberate and extend your compassion to all with which you come in contact.

10. Deepen you commitments to your own immediate communities, but always remember that other communities make similar demands on their members. Let you ultimate commitment be all-inclusive."

- By John B. Cobb, Jr., What would Whitehead Think?

XI.

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”

- Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

XII.

The Core Doctrines of Process Philosophy for Circa 2020 CE

"1. The integration of moral, aesthetic, and religious intuitions with the most general doctrines of the sciences into a self-consistent worldview as one of the central tasks of philosophy in our time.

2. Hard-core commonsense notions as the ultimate test of the adequacy of a philosophical position.

3. Whitehead's nonsensationist doctrine of perception, according to which sensory perception is a secondary mode of perception, being derivative from a more fundamental, nonsensory "prehension."

4. Panexperientalism with organizational duality, according to which all true individuals - as distinct from aggregational societies - have at least some iota of experience and spontaneity (self-determination).

5. The doctrine that all enduring individuals are serially ordered societies of momentary "occasions of experience."

6. The doctrine that all actual entities have internal as well as external relations.

7. The Whiteheadian version of naturalistic theism, according to which a Divine Actuality acts variably but never supernaturally in the world.

8. Doubly Dipolar Deism.

9. The provision of cosmological support for the ideals needed by contemporary civilization as one of the chief purposes of philosophy in our time.

10. A distinction between verbal statements (sentences) and propositions and between both of these and propositional feelings."

- David Ray Griffin, Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism, 2001, p.1-12, summary excerpts.

R.E. Slater - Quotes & Sayings on Whiteheadian Metaphysical Cosmology

Alfred North Whitehead

 Quotes & Sayings on Whiteheadian Metaphysical Cosmology

by R.E. Slater

Whitehead questioned Western philosophy's most dearly held assumptions about how the universe works — but in doing so, he managed to anticipate a number of 21st century scientific and philosophical problems and provide novel solutions." - Wikipedia

Who is the metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead?

Alfred North Whitehead OM FRS FBA (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.

In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. His most notable work in these fields is the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), which he wrote with former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century's most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.

Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to the philosophy of science, and finally to [cosmological] metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of Western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "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 consequences for the world around us." For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb.

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One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy.

Whitehead’s master work in philosophy, Process and Reality, propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality [exist in a consistent relationship to one another.] It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant.

The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality, is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds. 

 

On the value of curiosity and speculation

when working with scientific facts...

"Imagination is not to be divorced from the fact;: it is a way of illuminating the facts. It works by eliciting the general principles which apply to the facts, as they exist, and then by an intellectual survey of alternative possibilities which are consistent with those principles. It enables men to construct an intellectual vision of a new world." - A.N. Whitehead

"This is my journey into the world of men. In its study of the bible, church, church history, tradition, and folklore. Of literature, anthropology, psychology, even that of intersectional sociology (as referring to the interrelational web of humanitarian, ecological, economic, political, and legal interaction of societies with one another). 

To this journey we must have a working knowledge of religion, the sciences, philosophy, and importantly, theology itself. Like a working poet, without imagination, without creativity, there can be no movement within the transdisciplinary education and beliefs of men and societies, or into any possible constructionism for the future." - R.E. Slater

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"Whitehead regarded metaphysical investigations as essential to both good science and good philosophy." Let's also include Christianity, religion in general, and all our beliefs, opinions, folklores, superstitions, common logic, and such like. Without investigation, critique, and unorthodox thinking nothing good may come however sincere or deeply believed." - R.E. Slater

"You cannot step twice into the same stream. All things change. It is in their nature." - Heraclitus

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The Ontology of Reality, of Beingness, of Becoming

The Ontology of Being

by R.E. Slater

"We are of the earth, the skies, the heavens.

All that we are was already present."

- re slater

Reality is as indefinable without event

as Time and Conscience are as byproducts

of particulate forces dancing around

interacting with each other

as the unreal consequences

of relational event.

Event depends upon relationality to be real.

Each, taken together, create

a cosmic processual organism in

intra/inter-relational complex of

panexperiential,

panrelational, and

panpsychic

transient processes...

all in motion...

all in intricate dance...

all dependent on one another.

Processual reality,

like processual events,

are incomplete in themselves alone.

Each require the other,

and without the other,

there is neither event nor reality.

These insubstantive elementa

we may call particle, force, or quanta,

are the building blocks

of creation,

the cosmos,

the world.

One cannot simply say the

fundamental forces of the cosmos

are the foundational structures of reality.

No. That was yesteryear.

These quanta bits of

forces,

energies, and

matter,

whizzing around

smashing into one another

mixing chaos with wonder

must interact which each other

else they are not,

ever,

not even alone. 

Nor may the form of our universe,

or relational world,

or that of nature itself,

possibly form the structures

we know as the cosmos today

invested in momentary motion

giving life to that which dances.
without a nature of beingness

devoted to dance.

R.E. Slater

March 22, 2022

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

Process philosophy, as described by Alfred North Whitehead, might be stated as the "Metaphysics of ontology in the process of becoming." Or, more simply, the state of relational processualism resulting from events in motion" moving from states of being-ness to states of becoming-ness. - R.E. Slater

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Process philosophy, as described by Whitehead, might be stated as the "Metaphysics of ontology in the process of becoming." Or, more simply, the state of relational processualism with events in motion" moving from states of being-ness to states of becoming-ness. - R.E. Slater

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The Metaphysics of Being and Becoming

Excerpts from Wikipedia:

• Process philosophy is an approach to cosmological metaphysics which identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects or [immaterial] thoughts) as abstractions from - or ontological dependents on - processes.

• In opposition to the classical view of "change as illusory" (as argued by Parmenides) or "accidental" (as argued by Aristotle), process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world.

• Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science.

• "Process philosophy is sometimes classified as closer to Continental philosophy than analytic philosophy, because it is usually only taught in Continental departments. However, other sources state that process philosophy should be placed somewhere in the middle between the poles of analytic versus Continental methods in contemporary philosophy.

• Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects, thoughts) as...

• "Process thought describes truth as "movement" in and through substance (Hegelian truth), rather than substances as fixed concepts or "things" (Aristotelian truth). Since Whitehead, process thought is distinguished from Hegel in that it describes entities that arise or coalesce in becoming, rather than being simply dialectically determined from prior posited determinates. These entities are referred to as 'complexes of occasions of experience'. It is also distinguished in being not necessarily conflictual or oppositional in operation. Process may be integrative, destructive or both together, allowing for aspects of interdependence, influence, and confluence, and addressing coherence in universal as well as particular developments, i.e., those aspects not befitting Hegel's system. Additionally, instances of determinate occasions of experience, while always ephemeral, are nonetheless seen as important to define the type and continuity of those occasions of experience that flow from or relate to them."

• "In his book 'Science and the Modern World' (1925), Whitehead noted that the human intuitions and experiences of science, aesthetics, ethics, and religion influence the worldview of a community, but that in the last several centuries science dominates Western culture. Whitehead sought a holistic, comprehensive cosmology that provides a systematic descriptive theory of the world which can be used for the diverse human intuitions gained through ethical, aesthetic, religious, and scientific experiences, and not just the scientific....Whitehead's influences were not restricted to philosophers or physicists or mathematicians...."

• "... Actual entities are spatiotemporally extended events or processes. An actual entity is how something is happening, and how its happening is related to other actual entities. The actually existing world is a multiplicity of actual entities overlapping one another...."

• "...The ultimate abstract principle of actual existence for Whitehead is creativity. Creativity is a term coined by Whitehead to show a power in the world that allows the presence of an actual entity, a new actual entity, and multiple actual entities. Creativity is the principle of novelty."

• "The one exceptional actual entity is at once both temporal and atemporal: God. God is objectively immortal, as well as being immanent, in the world. He is objectified in each temporal actual entity; but He is not an eternal object" in the process sense of non-Platonic eternal "objects". God is however, persistently eternal (Thomas Oord perfers the term, 'everlasting') and is eternally informing, urging, partnering with creational concresences of being towards a valuative becoming of wellbeing in the events taking place within an indeterminate, freewilled creation. All of which requires a relentlessly churning pan-en-theistic (not pan-theistic nor classic theistic) structure of operative consequence across events, aesthetics, ethics and being. Consequently, free will is essential and inherent to a panentheistic universe of panexperiential, panrelational, and panpsychic experience of itself in response to the very God whose "imago dei" dwells within its indeterminate and freewilled structure, essence, forms, compositions, or reulting telos. The hope of the cosmos rests not only in its relationship to the divine but in the very indwelling of the divine throughout all its everlasting spaces and concreascing realities as given to it by its Maker.

• Beginning with an examination of religious (or mythological) cosmologies vs. philosophical cosmologies, the logical synthesis is that of a philosophic theology leaning equally into both perspectives dependent upon the approach used.

• "Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology.

• "Philosophical cosmology deals with the world as the totality of space, time and all phenomena. Historically, it has had quite a broad scope, and in many cases was found in religion. In modern use "metaphysical cosmology" addresses questions about the Universe which are beyond the scope of science. It is distinguished from religious cosmology in that it approaches these questions using philosophical methods like dialectics. [Meta]modern metaphysical cosmology tries to address questions such as:

• 1- "What is the origin of the Universe? What is its first cause? Is its existence necessary? (see monism, pantheism, emanationism, creationism, [and panentheism]);
• 2 - "What are the ultimate material components of the Universe? (see mechanism, dynamism, hylomorphism, atomism);
• 3 - "What is the ultimate reason for the existence of the Universe? Does the cosmos have a purpose? (see teleology);
• 4 - "Does the existence of consciousness have a purpose? How do we know what we know about the totality of the cosmos? Does cosmological reasoning reveal metaphysical truths? [See panpsychism]."

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As a metaphysical cosmology, "Process Philosophy and Theology" does this very thing providing to all religions - including that of Christianity - with a number of real world sympathies and perspectives as a better explanation than can be found elsewhere in lesser, non-integral, philosophies. Which is why Whiteheadian thought may be ascribed the place of an Integral Theory of all things, whether Western, Continental, African, Middle Eastern, or Oriental. - R.E. Slater

 

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The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was completed in September 2012 and shows the farthest galaxies ever photographed. Except for the few stars in the foreground (which are bright and easily recognizable because only they have diffraction spikes), every speck of light in the photo is an individual galaxy, some of them as old as 13.2 billion years; the observable universe is estimated to contain more than 2 trillion galaxies.

Cosmology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Cosmology (disambiguation).

Cosmology (from Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos) 'world', and -λογία (-logía) 'study of') is a branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term cosmology was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's Glossographia, and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher Christian Wolff, in Cosmologia Generalis.

Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation myths and eschatology.

In the science of astronomy it is concerned with the study of the chronology of the universe.

Physical cosmology is the study of the observable universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and the ultimate fate of the universe, including the laws of science that govern these areas.

It is investigated by scientists, such as astronomers and physicists, as well as philosophers, such as metaphysicians, philosophers of physics, and philosophers of space and time.

Because of this shared scope with philosophy, theories in physical cosmology may include both scientific and non-scientific propositions, and may depend upon assumptions that cannot be tested.

Physical cosmology is a sub-branch of astronomy that is concerned with the Universe as a whole. Modern physical cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which attempts to bring together observational astronomy and particle physics; more specifically, a standard parameterization of the Big Bang with dark matter and dark energy, known as the Lambda-CDM model.

Theoretical astrophysicist David N. Spergel has described cosmology as a "historical science" because "when we look out in space, we look back in time" due to the finite nature of the speed of light.

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Metaphysics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Metaphysics (disambiguation).

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility.

It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.

The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, meta ta physika, lit. 'after the Physics ', another of Aristotle's works).

Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions:

• What is there?
• What is it like?

Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility.

Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics.

“Philosophy is akin to poetry, and both of them seek to express that ultimate good sense which we term civilization. In each case there is reference to form beyond the direct meanings of words. Poetry allies itself to metre [to music!], philosophy to mathematical pattern.” – Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 174

Process philosophy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects, thoughts) as abstractions from, or ontological dependents on, processes.

In opposition to the classical view of change as illusory (as argued by Parmenides) or accidental (as argued by Aristotle), process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world.

Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, classical ontology has posited ordinary world reality as constituted of enduring substances, to which transient processes are ontologically subordinate, if not denied [completely]. If Socrates changes, becoming sick, Socrates is still the same (the substance of Socrates being the same), and change (his sickness) only glides over his substance: change is accidental, and devoid of primary reality, whereas the substance is essential.

Philosophers who appeal to process rather than substance include Heraclitus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Iain McGilchrist, Thomas Nail, Alfred Korzybski, R. G. Collingwood, Alan Watts, Robert M. Pirsig, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Charles Hartshorne, Arran Gare, Nicholas Rescher, Colin Wilson, Tim Ingold, Bruno Latour, William E. Connolly, and Gilles Deleuze. In physics, Ilya Prigogine distinguishes between the "physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science.

Process philosophy is sometimes classified as closer to Continental philosophy than analytic philosophy, because it is usually only taught in Continental departments. However, other sources state that process philosophy should be placed somewhere in the middle between the poles of analytic versus Continental methods in contemporary philosophy.

Relevancy22 - Collected 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

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