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

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY by Arthur Holmes, Wheaton College




A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
by Wheaton College, Arthur Holmes

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Arthur F. Holmes, Wheaton College


Arthur F. Holmes (1924-2011)
October 9, 2011  |  Wheaton Archives

Arthur Frank Holmes, author and professor, died on October 8, 2011. He was born March 15, 1924 in Dover, England. His father was a school teacher and Baptist lay preacher. Holmes received his education from Wheaton College, graduating with a B.A. in 1950. He followed this with his Masters in Theology in 1952 and finally his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Northwestern University in 1957. In 1949 he married his wife, Alice, and together raised two children.

Holmes was notable for his contributions to the idea and practices of the integration of faith and learning, an idea he championed for the entirety of his career of over forty years. Starting in 1951, Holmes taught at Wheaton College in what would be a lengthy and influential career of over forty years. During this time, he was the Chair of the Philosophy Department between 1969 and 1994.

Holmes was the author of several books including All Truth is Gods Truth (1977), The Idea of a Christian College (1975), and Building the Christian Academy (2001). His works are characterized by a centralized idea of the integration of faith and learning. While Holmes is most known for his work in Christian higher-education, he also wrote about the need for a continuous education of Christians at an early age.

Throughout his writings and career, Holmes emphasized that, indeed, “all truth is God’s truth.” His desire was for Christians to not shy away from the difficult questions that may arise from whatever subject of academic study they choose. With a firm belief that any truth they find can be reconciled with their faith, Holmes challenged educators and Christians in academia to grapple with what they are interested in, noting that a strong faith can handle some turbulence while coming to a better understanding of God’s creation.

In reflection on his career, it is obvious he accomplished the goals he set forth for himself as a young teacher: he encouraged faith and learning in students, he countered the anti-intellectualism he found in the American church, and he helped prepare a great many students and Christian intellectuals for the various ranks of academia.


A previous featured Dr. Holmes reflecting on the nature of morality in today’s culture.

The Archives & Special Collections also highlighted on of Dr. Holmes’ more
memorable chapel addresses, (Ists, isms, and anti-ism-ists), via its Facebook page.

The Arthur F. Holmes Papers are housed in the Wheaton College
Archives & Special Collections.


* * * * * * * *


Embracing the Love of God
October 3, 2011  |  Wheaton Archives
by David Osielski

From November 1-3, 2000 James Bryan Smith delivered five messages to the Wheaton College audience based upon his book “Embracing the Love of God, The Path and Promise of Christian Life.” The text of Smith’s first message was from 17th century Christian poet, George Herbert and his third poem on love.

Love (III)
by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.
 
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?
 
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.

A synopsis of the book is found on the publisher’s website: “Unfortunately, in today’s world many people fail to experience the freedom and healing power of God’s grace. Even Christians too often experience judgement, rather than the love that is the vital essence of Christian life. A visionary guide in the spirit of Celebration of Discipline, Embracing the Love of God calls Christians back to the basics — to understanding the promise of God’s love to transform our most important relationships and fulfill our deepest spiritual needs. Here James Bryan Smith launches readers on a revitalizing spiritual journey. He distills the basic principles of Christian love and provides a new model for relationship with God, self, and others that is based not on fear and judgement, but rather on acceptance and care. Smith’s moving insights illuminate the gentle nature of God’s love and teach readers how to continue on the path of love by embracing it day by day. For both new Christians and those desiring renewal, Embracing the Love of God offers hope, peace, and guidance for spiritual growth.”

James Bryan Smith (M.Div., Yale University Divinity School, D.Min., Fuller Seminary) is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, KS and a writer and speaker in the area of Christian spiritual formation. He also serves as the director of the Aprentis Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation at Friends University. A founding member of Richard J. Foster’s spiritual renewal ministry, Renovare, Smith is an ordained United Methodist Church minister and has served in various capacities in local churches. In addition to Embracing the Love of God, Smith is also the author of A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Devotional Classics (with Richard Foster), Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven and Room of Marvels.




Click here to enlarge



On My Mind – Arthur Holmes
August 30, 2011  |  Wheaton College  |  Archivesadmin

Twenty years ago, the Wheaton Alumni magazine featured a series of articles in which Wheaton faculty told about their thinking, their research, or their favorite books and people. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus Arthur F. Holmes (who taught at Wheaton from 1951-1994) began the series in the January 1991 issue.

When Wheaton Alumni asked me to tell alumni what I am thinking about nowadays, my mind turned to a recent best-seller that both Christian college and public university educators have been talking about for the last three or four years. Alan Bloom complains in The Closing of the American Mind that today’s students talk as if no such things as right or wrong exist; he adds that they have no world-view in which any such values might be grounded, and that as a result they lack a strong sense of personal identity. Instead we hear talk of “alternative lifestyles,” as if morality is simply a matter of personal preferences.

This is hardly new: many alumni will recall from college philosophy courses Sartre’s existentialist theme from the forties and fifties, that since God is dead we now must create our own values. Or the positivist’s claim that, if I say honesty is morally good or dishonesty is wrong, I am in reality just venting my emotions. Someone has called it the “Booh! Hoorah! theory.” Even Christians sometimes talk as if God imposes his law on otherwise morally neutral situations. This implies that morality has nothing to do with the essential nature of human beings and that ours is not in any sense a moral universe. On the other hand stands the claim that we do live in a moral universe, ordered in ways that bear witness to what is good and right. If this is the case, then we do not create our own values, for they are already inherent in God’s creation.

Recently, I have been researching the historical roots and development of our belief in a moral universe. For more years than I like to think, I have been teaching a year-long course on the history of Western philosophy. I am now retracing that story from the standpoint of this topic and, having come to the beginning of the Middle Ages, am hoping to complete the resulting manuscript–along with revisions to my history course–before retirement catches up with me a few years from now.

The story begins with the emerging idea of cosmic justice in Homer and Hesiod, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. A just person and a justly ordered city-state are but microcosms of an entire universe ruled fur just ends. The presocratic philosophers, speculating about such order in the universe, proposed that a cosmic Mind, a logos, lies behind both nature’s laws and the moral life. As a result, concern for the moral improvement of the soul naturally led Plato to his famous theory of forms and the belief that God must be good–a view Aristotle echoes in his claim that everything has purpose, a natural end that is good. And so foundations were laid for theories of natural law, natural rights, and objective moral values that have shaped Western civilization. From this standpoint Bloom is right when he claims that objectively grounded moral values point to an overall world-view, within which framework I can define my own identity.

Our history was, of course, shaped by the convergence of this Greek tradition with the biblical heritage of the Christian church. So my story must also include the interplay of philosophy and theology in the early church, the medievals, the Protestant reformers, and beyond.

But with the rise of modern science it takes a new direction. In an impersonal world of matter in motion, moral concerns seem alien. “Can I take a thing so dead,” Tennyson asks, “Embrace it for my mortal good?” Empirical methods had no way of getting from observable facts to intrinsic values. So ethics became a matter either of subjective feeling or else of predicting desirable consequences. In both cases, subjectivity ruled, relativism resulted, and there was really no such thing as right or wrong. The world-view was in effect that of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: God is dead, so “we must become the meaning of the earth.”

It is little wonder that voices arose in protest, and Bloom is far from alone. Forty years ago the British Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe wrote that for half a century the concept of moral law had seemingly been excluded from ethics. Yet, she continued, how could the idea of moral law survive without the idea of a lawgiver? In that sense, the Greeks were closer to the truth than are many of our contemporaries. Even Bloom fails to get that point.

———

Dr. Arthur F. Holmes is Professor Emeritus and former chair of the philosophy department. A native of England, where he received his early schooling, Holmes completed his education with a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1957. He has been the recipient of several awards, including Illinois Professor of the Year presented by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Dr. Holmes has authored several books, including, Shaping Character: Moral Education in the Christian College (1991), All Truth is God’s Truth (1977), and The Idea of a Christian College (1975).



R.E. Slater - The Wheel or the Anvil?


"Time and a Fox Turning the Wheel of Fortune with People of all Ranks to the Right" (c.1526)
Woodcut by Albrecht Dürer  (c.1471–1528)



The Wheel of Time
by R.E. Slater

The Wheel of Time turns,
as ages come and pass,
each leaving memories,
birthing legends long pass.

Legends fade to myths,
till myths were long forgot,
in Ages of long ago,
becoming legends once again.

R.E. Slater
June 19, 2021; rev August 9, 2021

*adapted fr. Robert Jordan

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved






The Wheel or the Anvil?
by R.E. Slater

History has been shown
turning as a fated Wheel
when looking backwards,
steadily churning forwards,
slipping and grinding,
upwards or downwards,
on rising helical axial.




The Anvil too has been
a hardened, useful tool,
smashing and grinding,
unmade and made,
till all is remade
the reflecting pools
of one's Creator.




Myself, I wish to grow
life as it becomes, natural-like,
taking what is, or isn't,
forming what could be
from what can be, raising
what lies hidden within,
blazing passion's beauty.

R.E. Slater
June 19, 2021; rev August 9, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved





To Understand Process is First to
Understand Processual Processes
by R.E. Slater

I know these past few months have seemed like a Hodgepodge of topics. I've covered Christian politics, LBTGQ, Feminism, BLM, Christian Humanism (=Social Justice), Ecological Civilizations, Evolution and Divine Love, Life in a Secular Age, Process Christianity and Religion (such as Islam), Quantum Physics, Open Theism, Relational Theism, Process Philosophy, Process Theology, Lent and Resurrection Sunday.

Needless to say we've covered a bit... but there's a reason I've been writing and posting so many diverse articles which I hope by now you may have discovered my reasons but if you haven't let me share them with you....

The What and Why of Processual Process Philosophy

Firstly, the study of process philosophy and theology is composed of many parts. These parts are not simply in the religious area... certainly it affects the spiritual life of the interior, one's faith and beliefs... but even as spirituality is everywhere and not simply within a person we must then offer to discuss society at large, how it cross-sects with itself and nature, and nature with living, and the many disciplines of science, arts, and the humanities. Spiritual is everywhere when thought of in the sense of a God and creation in process to itself. And if one is to be able to apprehend the orthology of process philosophy then one needs to be able to see it in all the world and not simply think of it in parochial terms of archaic phenomenological or existential expressionism.

Thus I posted quite a few articles on evolution and quantum physics to detail the naturalistic flow and movement of mass interacting with space and time. The psychedelic mushroom philosopher, Terrence McKenna, said it thusly (as heard through mine ears):
"...History grows through a nexus of completion. These nexi grow [and weave] themselves [together] towards a concrescence of extremely high novelty in whatever medium they are embedded within. This then shows that any localized state of high complexity can - and will - move through all lower orders of mediums while 
exerting a kind of attraction to, or from, itself.... That is, "as gravity draws us through space" so "time draws us through [relational] concrescence." Which is why things become more and more complex, [expressed] in faster and faster [historic cycles]...." 

 

The Foundation of Terence McKenna's Ideas -
Alfred North Whiteheads Concrescence and Process

From his talk entitled "The World and its Double"



Processual Process as Foundation

Without understanding the process-foundation of unique (or novel) elemental constructs in the universe we would have no us, no stars, no Earth. And I think the quantum sciences in particular show the exquisite flow of processes through time in space in which we live, and move, and have our being.

Another example can be found within the flow of biology (cf. Everything Flows) describing the processual nature of biologic life. We may see the macro worlds of nature but deep within its quantum cellular matrices are its elementals constructs which are never static, ever flowing and in relational rhythm with one other.

Our bodies are not merely composed of flesh and blood but deep within the body's organic substructures of cells can be found the quantum physics of its biology bound together in a macro entity we call our bodies constituting who we are and how we function. As humans, we flow as as the world of creation flows. We are no less, nor no more, than the cosmos around us... each flowing together, interacting with one another, all making us the "Us" which we know and perhaps love.

As such, Process Philosophy states that all events - whether biological, geological, or astronomical - are formed of foundational elementals compiled together and affecting one another from first to last in the cosmic batter of force, mass, and energy. That we live in a panexistential, panpsychic cosmos of "being and becoming". Never at rest. Always in motion. Always pulling together and pulling apart. It is the nature of life to be in chaos and randomized disorder.

And it is for this reason why Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism becomes so profound as the comic interplay of life moves through time and space in harmony - or in disharmony  - with itself. Either creating wellbeing and value or destroying the essence of the same. Ancient and modernized Asian philosophies and religious expressions have indicated the same in terms of  cosmopsychological metaphysics expressed in natural and human agency seeking to find personal or individuated harmony, balance, or rhythm. Whitehead calls these elementals as individuating prehending and concrescing moments of intake and outtake against all which is met through the restrictive or enhancing mediums we move through.




How Does Process Philosophy Affect Christianity?

Now I say all this so that when we turn our minds to the bible and Christian theology (as have other world philosophies and religions have sought to do) we might begin thinking in terms of the divine-ever-evolving-creational moments of renewal, redemption, restoration, or resurrection.

Whenever God speaks, or moves, or creates actuality in the experience of the cosmos God is always doing so through His own Being and Essence which is essential a formed and forming processual ontological sense of spiritual evolving. Always in growth. Always in interaction with creation (as well as the Divine Self). And always forming and reforming in response to the agency fill world of creation granted by Divine Love to be and become.

God then is a processual Being. Not a far off, distant and transcendent sort of uncaring, diffident (shy), or holier-than-thou sort of Being. But a Divine Being in fullest pronounced interaction to the very creation S/He or TransGod has created. God is the Wholly Other who is Wholly embedded and enmeshed within the very creation begun by the offerings of His heart's songs to become, and then become again and again and again, ever and always. Thus creation can be described as inherently evolutionary from its very roots to its many possible worlds of being and becoming. Neither God, nor His creation, is ever limited.

So when Christians speak of God or of God's divine activity or of Jesus or of the Christian life of love and humanitarian outreach, we must thank in process terms of what this meant and means to our beliefs about Theology Proper, Christology, Theodicy (the problem of evil), Creation, Harmatology, Pneumatology, Ecclesiology, Bibliology, or even Eschatology. The entirety of Christian theology and outlook now changes. No longer held in static thoughts of eternal objects, places, and permanence, but in dynamic envisioning of the phenomenological and existential as real and practical when reflecting movement, flow, rhythm, and balance.




A Faith Conclusion

One's view of the Bible tends to structure one's thoughts about God and salvation, church and testimony, evangelical witness and faith expression. If God, heaven, church, love are simply stated in terms of static eternal objects such as expressed by Plato in ancient Greek society; or in terms of philosophical argument and logic as Aristotle did; or as each were then integrated by Aquinas into Catholic Thomistic thought and idiom; then we will miss the idea of processual creational processes uniquely embedding themselves into all of life, its evolving relationships, and yearning for love and wellbeing within a world of healing or harming agency.

The world of divine processes are not static. They do not consist as representations of eternal objects. But as present moments of events flowing, incorporating, building, growing, rejecting, removing, etc, lurching chaotically forward seeking a kind of divine resting place to be what it yearns and become what it is driven by. Divine creational presence of God and world are intermeshed transactions of synchronous moments reaching forward with the divine breath inhaling and exhaling momentary states of love and duty, letting go and putting on (ahem, the old man and new man, not the battle armor of sin and evil, but the guarding armor of love, mercy and forgiveness).

When we read of Christian biblical or systematic theology in the bible let us learn to read it in terms of process thought rather than the classic traditional political economics of death, guilt, isolation, and division. Whether in the bible or in real life today, God is evolving with us in seeking out a Christ-based redemptive level of being which may become more thoroughly than it is at presence.

And like the divine, we are as much in process as God is, each relationally experiencing the universal world from it's differing attitudes of secular or religious understanding stirred within life's depths and resounce. God said so Himself when He said,
Romans 8:37 "...But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loves us. 38) For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39) nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
If this is what was meant when Paul spoke to the Romans then we may think of Christ's atoning work in life and death as a divinely lived salvation working its way throughout all creational experiences of life. That God who is both different and alike, Other and presently present, is ever moving over the waters of time and through His Spirit of Divine Breath is drawing, calling, bidding, seeking all moments to become one in God's Living Self. We each, along with everything and everyone else, are daily bathed in the baptismal waters of divine love and presence drawing processual agency towards spiritual life and liveliness.

Peace,

R.E. Slater
June 9, 2021





The Process Metaphysics of
Alfred North Whitehead (*1861, †1947)
Jan 10, 2016
A short introduction to the process philosophy & process theology of Alfred North Whitehead (*1861, †1947), containing several photos and 4 speakers, describing some core hypotheses of Whitehead's metaphysics. The speakers are: John B. Cobb, David Ray Griffin, Charles Hartshorne and Rupert Sheldrake.



A History of Philosophy | 61 Whitehead's Process Philosophy

NOTE: There is an issue with this lecture - 
the video (but not the audio) goes out at
12:33 and doesn't resume until 23:24.




A History of Philosophy 62
Whitehead and Process Theology
Jun 16, 2015




A History of Philosophy 63
Whitehead's "Science and the Modern World"
Jun 16, 2015