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, December 11, 2021

Progressive Christians Are Beginning To Embrace Process Theology

CHAPTER II
The Pool of Tears

Alice Stretches Tall: `Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); `now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I shan't be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; --but I must be kind to them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.' - Alice in Wonderland

Alice had just entered Wonderland, had taken a magic potion, and immediately began to experience personal changes in the world which she had never experienced before. Notice how she remarked how she had forgotten how to speak, became surprised by the moment, and felt like she was opening up like a telescope

One might aptly describe the world of process theology as a type of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland.... A world in which our spoken language feels quite inadequate; we become overwhelmed by changes occurring within us; and the world we once lived in all of a sudden seems too small as our soul reaches beyond what was once "reality" to what might become a new kind of "reality" or "experience."

Process Theology for progressive Christians may seem like Wonderland and more. Thankfully it is.

What is Process Theology?

Process theology is built upon the English Mathematician/Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy (circa 1910 & 20's) as a alternative to the traditionalized Greek/Christian view of Platonism and all it's subsequent "isms" over the past 2400 years. Which means the entirety of Christian Theology - both Protestant and Catholic (most probably Greek & Russian Orthodox too) - is orientated towards transcendent eternal objects (thank Immanuel Kant, Rene Descrates, et al for this). From the church's creeds and dogmas to its doctrines and indoctrinated life qualities and characterizations, we think in terms of eternal transcendent, static objects.

Realizedly, Whitehead was not proposing a new thought system for Christianity so much as a different way of thinking about Hegelian cosmology (cosmos = universe = world = creation; its my catchall phrase) in which we live and inhabit. But as a Victorian-kind of Westernized Christian (sic, C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, et al) Whitehead's projections would come to "reconstruct" or "recompose" Christianity through his later students such as Charles Hartshorne, and the generations after Charles like David Ray Griffin, John Cobb, Marjorie Suchocki, Catherine Keller, Thomas Oord, and many others.

Process theology is socially and ecologically progressive, and driven by love. But progressive Christianity is not process theology. It may be, or may become that, but is usually composed of a denominational or evangelical mix of Protestant, Orthodox, and missional Catholic faiths. - re slater

What is Process Thought (sic, Philosophy cum Theology)? Well, to ask this is to ask how the Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel thought about life set in his native Germany of the late 1700s. Simplistically, Hegel was tired of looking at the world as set in dualisms: mind over matter, reductionism, nature as a clock-work mechanism, subject v. object, noun v verbs, etc. 

What Hegel proposed was a dynamic, self-determining, self-moving, purposeful, active encroachment of the eternal object into the world of the organic. Let's call him a half-and-half Platonist and perhaps a latent Arminianian ( = Wesleyans, Baptists = Open & Relational Theology). Hegel didn't quite get rid of Plato as he brought its transcendent-forms-above into the here-and-now timeful world below. Again, this is an extremely bare view of Hegel.

Two hundred later Whitehead comes along, is profoundly involved in the Royal British Academy, is conversant with all the science heads-of-state such as Einstein, and is seeing the world about him in astonishingly non-Platonic qualities, features and characteristics. He finishes up Principia Mathematica (1910–1913) with his partner Bertrand Russell and is quite discontent in his person to leave things alone at the age of 62 for the "younger generations" to sort out, if possible.




From age 62-68 Whitehead produces Process & Reality and the rest is history. (PS, do pickup and read a copy of P&R. Do not avoid this task hoping to supplement it's pages through other explanatory publications - or websites - such as here. With the exception of Chapter 4, which is quite dense, most of P&R is readable enough. Then go to additional helps while also returning to Whitehead again-and-again. You'll be glad you did).

Wikipedia - "Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to 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."[23] 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."

In sum, Whitehead took Hegel a step further by totally disassociating with any part-or-parcel of Platonism. No longer did he look at "eternal objects" as being the "real reality beyond the phenomenological world of the experienced or, ahem, ...the "known". If anything, such objects became an epistemological archetype (much like Carl Jung's  archetypes) requiring a kind of primal symbol - or image of convenience - for  orthographic etymologies of expression, meaning and reference. That is, our limiting human languages, require ideation of categorical representations.

The "world" of expressive archetypes provide such categories but do not demand them to be real, only referential in epistemological conversation. As example, the idea of God, truth, love, evil, loss of hope. These are expressive, referential qualities of thought within the human breast but are used as forms of symbolic representation in communication without demanding them to actually real, eternal objects.

Don't let God as a non-object trip you up; think in terms of ourselves... are we "objects" or living, transitioning organic entities made up of a universe of microorganisms which are made up of a metaverse of quantum particles? God is so too... a living "being" who is always in process just as is God's creation, which has taken on His ontological qualities.
Too, as Creator, God is the First Primal Process of all subtending processes. Everything existing is in time-and-motion, composed of community in relationality, dependent on one as to the other, like the air we breathe. Hence, process thought may lead to many other kinds of process thoughts, as today's process theologians are rightly exploring.

Symbolic expressions can be helpful or misleading. Philosophers know this and spend quite a  lot of time explaining what they mean by a word, phrase, statement, or descriptor. Which is also why they can be dense to read or listen to. They are asking us to speculate with them towards other metaphysical, ontological and epistemological categories.




Conclusion

To finish up, Whitehead proposed a very quantum-like state of metaphysics. One that flowed via process-and-event. From a former state of being towards a newer state of being which he described as "becoming." Hence, a prehending state of possibility concresces towards a newer state of actuality before it too concresces forwards towards another state of actuality.

All which means that all of creation (er, the cosmos) moves from "eventful being to eventful becoming". Not as static, unmovable, eternal objects but as timeful ontological events made up of an infinite array of past timeful events, each proceeding together prehending from whole to part to whole again-and-again-and-again in a infinite perturbations of cosmological states of organic becoming. Which is why Whitehead's philosophy was known as a Philosophy of Organism before it later became described as Process Thought.

R.E. Slater
December 11, 2021

ps - I try to steer away from cultic-like new ageism, or "circles of life" manifestoes (causality, consciousness, trivium and logic), astrology per se (though not denying aural cosmic "consciousness" re quantum physical forces and energies), etc. Many religions such as Buddhism come closest to Whitehead's thought in its balance, rhythm, harmonies, and symmetries, even as many of today's contemporary quantum sciences including evolutionary theory via chaotic randomness, movement and growth of organism or particle, etc.
Which is also why process thought may also be thought of as an "Integral Theory"  of everything, in a sense (re version 2.0, as I understand it, from Matthew Segall). Even in the earliest ancient cultures, including Greek philosophy, the ideas of process flow-and-rhythmbeing and becoming, were captured in its thoughts and images but not as an entire cosmological metaphysic. Like an elephant being described by blind men, each seeing a part of the whole, other philosophies, psychologies, sciences, cultures, religions, etc., all have seen greater or lesser portions of the process elephant but not as its own categorical entirety. Thus it is reflected everywhere we look... even in the bible, should we be bold enough to rethink Christianity not only in progressive terms but in process terms. Which is the whole import of this post. - re slater

rev. December 23, 2021

I've added the much respected Roger Olson's recent article as he recently thinks about progressive Christianity in historical context. That is, as versus "liberal theology" which at its greatest height of definition for myself would mean a Christ-less theology without divine atonement and redemption. Liberal theology would treat these subjects as mere cultural symbolism. I do not.

However, as a sidebar, I do not consider it a liberal theology to hold that the bible is neither infallible nor inerrant - though do hold to its inspiration if a far broader and more nuanced fashion than my older dispensational, cum Baptist, background would like. For those thoughts google related topics on the sidebar in this website in the white space which says "search this blog." For myself, conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism holds an incorrect, or let us say, "unbiblical" view of the bible itself placing it into the magical corner of "biblicism" by reading it literally. I vote "yes" to reading the bible historically, grammatically and contextually but it is a big, big mistake to read the bible "literally"... it creates misunderstanding, promotes religious idealism, and leans into the paths of anti-intellectualism because of its misuse of individual, religious, denominationalist, or sectarian subjectivism of making the text into its own pretexts.
One last observation... In an ironic twist, I consider conservative's unbiblical misuse of the bible as "liberalism on steroids" and adding to the great divisions in the church today for those followers of Christ trying to be true to Jesus as opposed to those Christians having left the "biblical" faith for guns, a white supremacist Jesus, and an ingenerous, selfish, advocation for individual rights over the sovereign rights of a peaceful civil democracy.

- re slater


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Embracing Process Theology as Theological Lens
for Progressive Christians

by Rev. Dr. Brice Thomas
August 29, 2016

One of the most interesting findings in the data collected during the biblical storytelling worship services for my doctoral research was the evolution of many in my congregation from a “meaning as reference” to “meaning as experience” theological perspective. Throughout many of our journeys from fundamentalist roots to the UCC, we have struggled to find a systematic theology that could easily explain the processes of God from a progressive perspective. Process Theology was the closest interpretive theological lens that I discovered in seminary for doing that. But in the real, everyday life of the spiritual person it can be difficult to appropriate. While the identification of a new systematic theology that evolves out of a biblical storytelling paradigm was far beyond the scope of my research, the desire to begin a process toward that end still existed. Naming performance criticism as a progressive hermeneutic for translating the ancient symbols of our faith into digital culture was an important initial step toward that end.

Relationship as “Process of Becoming”

Process Theologian, Marjorie Suchocki, has helped to clarify Alfred Whitehead’s notion of “relationship of becoming.” Her understanding of Process Theology, that “all reality is relational and power comes from reality through relation,” is liberating.[1] But it is also intensely challenging. Suchocki’s perspective suggests that we have the unique opportunity and responsibility to engage and realize our ultimate spiritual reality by faithfully pursuing relationship with God. However, this honest pursuit in progressive contexts can reveal that the journey no longer has a beginning and an end. The journey becomes a dynamic experience of faith seeking opportunities to discover possibilities. The destination is no longer heaven or hell. The destination is a deeper intimacy with the one who called us into being, and makes us accountable for choosing our spiritual future.

Pastoral theologian Carolyn Bohler suggests that, “while our present reality may be limited by our choices in the past, the possibility of making new choices in the present can lead to a harmonic future compatible with God’s aims for the world, given what it is now. God’s best possibilities for our future, given the present, are available.”[2] While we are not predestined to choose them, God gives us the free will to do so. Our contribution to this progressive journey is making those choices that move us forward, no matter what we chose in the past.[3] This is the essence of Process Theology and a progressive faith.

The application of these theological processes on my research had important goals: (i) to present a God who is present and participates in our spiritual journeys, and (ii) to help participants discern their own decisions and choices for a better spiritual reality. The influence of this presence and participation had the potential to move the congregation beyond passive faith and encourage them to actively trust God’s initial aim for their best reality.

Process Theology tells us that we can trust God because the character of “God as Wisdom” (God the Spirit in traditional theology) knows the infinite possibilities of our future and works consistently to harmonize our past and present toward a transforming future.[4] This transforming future is the achievement of justice. The eminence of “God as Power” (God the Father in traditional theology) assures that this is God’s initial aim. It confirms that God and justice are the same things. Whether or not that justice is achieved, is the responsibility of God’s creation to choose it.[5] It places the responsibility on us, the pilgrims, to seek revelations of God that transform God’s initial aim into God’s best actual occasion. All the while God is there, creating and wanting and offering us the best and ultimate reality.

Jesus as Model of Relationship with God

This disagreement raised other crucial questions in this research: from whom do we receive atonement then, if not from Jesus Christ? Some progressives believe that we can confess that Jesus Christ is Lord without subscribing to a belief in his divinity as defined by a virgin birth, sacrificial act of atonement on the cross, a physical resurrection and final supernatural ascension. But this rejection of the fundamentalist teaching of Christ’s lordship does not pose a problem of loyalty as some suggest it should.[7] Suchocki, however, posits that since all knowledge is conditioned by perspective, then a consideration of God based on a process analysis of the world and accomplished from a Christian frame of reference influences our conclusions.[8] Therefore the vision of a redemptive God of presence, wisdom, and power could be revealed in the testimony of Jesus Christ. 

This question surfaced in my research: Can process thought harmonize the dissonance between the divine Christ and the historical Jesus for progressive Christians?  [sic, for myself as a process guy carrying forward a reformed tradition, I choose the divine Christ as historic God in human form who was virgin born, as discussed in past posts. - re slater]

Another significant perspective of process thought is the understanding that the Jesus narratives are a testimony to the relationship between humans and a relational God. The exploration of the historical Jesus movement in my church challenged participants to deconstruct Jesus Christ as presented in the sacred scriptures. The search for the historical Jesus challenged whether we could tell the story of Christ apart from the concept of a classical theistic God. From our study of this “hermeneutic of suspicion” it became clear that Jesus the Christ was an earthly portrait of the classical theistic God. To reject the image of a classical theistic God also challenged us to reject the image of Jesus as the divine Christ. Process theology reevaluates these biblical narratives from a relational paradigm. In this paradigm, the stories of Jesus reveal the essence of “God as Presence” (God the Son in traditional theology). Yet the “God of Presence” can also be revealed through other faith practitioners, in spite of and because of our own humanity. Historical studies alone can not provide access to Jesus of Nazareth.[6]

I acknowledge that this harmonization may not be achievable for all progressives, especially considering the exhaustive work of the conservative and liberal Church over the last century to keep the spiritual life confined under the canopy of either a classical theistic dogma or academic intellectualism. But Process Theology can provide insight for progressives who desire to make a relationship with “God as Presence” foundational for their Christian formation. Process theology, expressed through the methodology of performance criticism, can provide a way to discover relationship with Jesus outside a classical theistic perspective. It gives the ancient sacred scriptures new authority for pursuing an authentically progressive spiritual life. This new meaning perspective allowed us to experience Jesus again for the first time. And those are stories that we love to tell!

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You can follow this research here on Vital Signs and Statistics, or view videos and resources of this work at www.ExperientialJesus.com.

[1]Marjorie Suchocki, God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology (New York, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1982), 29.

[2]Carolyn Jayne Bohler, Doctoral Defense Notes, (Dayton, OH: United Theological Seminary, March, 2015).

[3]Bohler, Doctoral Defense Notes.

[4]Suchocki, Process Theology, 72.

[5]Suchocki, Process Theology, 82.

[6]Michael Jinkins, Invitation to Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 104.

[7]Jinkins, Invitation, 120.

[8]Suchocki, Process Theology, 87.


Rev. Dr. Brice Thomas is the Director of Alumni/ae Relations and Adjunct Faculty at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He is also called to bi-vocational ministry at Harmony Creek Church in Dayton, an emerging congregation.



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What Is “Progressive Christianity?”

November 10, 2021


I keep hearing this label “progressive Christian.” What does it mean? I answer as a theologian and scholar of American Christian varieties—ecclesiological and theological.

The trouble is that there is no historical tradition of “progressive Christianity.” There are no prototypes to point back to or to now. This is in contrast to, for example, “liberal Christianity” which is a historical-theological tradition well documented and described by theologian Gary Dorrien in his three volume history of the subject. Unfortunately, he uses “progressive religion” as virtually synonymous with “liberal Christianity” in America.

Most people who call themselves progressive Christians do not fit the liberal profile from the father of liberal Christianity, Friedrich Schleiermacher, up through his contemporary successor and interpreter Douglas Ottati. Some do; some don’t.

Unfortunately, “progressive Christian” is like Luther’s “wax nose” that can be twisted to suit anyone’s countenance. The label only has meaning within some particular context. Perhaps it only means something like “more open to change than what was before in a particular context.”

Let’s [look at] an example

A few years ago two Dallas Theological Seminary professors promoted something called “progressive dispensationalism.” They published a book about it. It was still dispensationalism but with a couple of new interpretations. It was just a new style of old dispensationalism.

Some years ago some of us were calling ourselves “progressive evangelicals.” Our heroes were (among others) evangelical theologians and writers Bernard Ramm, Donald G. Bloesch, Clark Pinnock, Stanley Grenz, Tony Campolo and Ronald Sider. The “progressive” label meant something different in each case except for one thing—all were evangelicals breaking away from fundamentalism.

[Today's Vernacular Usage]

In the past decade, “progressive Christian” (here in the U.S.) seems to be a label preferred by real liberal Christians (whose Christianity seems dubious to me) but also by non-liberal Christians who are “open” to new ideas such as gay marriage, LGBTQ rights within society and the churches, passionate social justice activism, egalitarianism, etc.

When I hear someone labeled “progressive Christian” by themself, or others, I do not know what is meant—other than [someone who is] open to new ways of thinking and “doing” Christianity within a certain context. However, in my experience, the label is increasingly being “owned” by formerly conservative Christians who are moving toward liberal Christianity but hesitating to go all the way there.

In 2022 Zondervan will publish my 22nd book entitled Against Liberal Theology: Putting the Brakes on Progressive Christianity. It is scholarly but completely accessible to anyone with a high school education. I use no “big theological words” without explaining them carefully.

The purpose of the book is to explain what “liberal theology” really is, as opposed to how many people wrongly use the label, and to warn progressive Christians against the cliff at the end of the slippering slope of contemporary “progressive Christianity.” That cliff being full-blown liberal theology which is theology centered around symbolic realism—Christianity mostly cut off from history except for transforming symbols such as the cross and resurrection and Parousia. These are treated by liberal theologians as symbols (although most would say the cross event actually happened but was a tragic martyrdom God used to expose the evil powers of this world).

The one thing I am seeing in common, shared by so-called (contemporary) progressive Christians and liberal Christians is a distaste for doctrines except as relics of Christianity’s history. For both, Christianity is largely reduced to spiritual formation and social transformation. Belief in doctrines such as the Trinity (to choose just one example) is largely considered optional for contemporary Christians.


Roger Olson

*Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the “Note to commenters” at its end.*


Thursday, December 9, 2021

Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context - Session 6


The Alexandrian Solution


Untying the Gordian Knot:
Process, Reality, and Context

What an honor it is to hear from the second generation of process theologians and philosophers now in their late 80s and 90s still able to share their journey with us of the third and fourth generations. The Cobb Institute, as well as many other process organizations and websites like Relevancy22, have been dissecting and weaving together their dialogues, discussions, books, journals, and podcasts over the years so that they are not lost to history, and quite open for exploration and discovery by future generations of process Whiteheadians.

Do take advantage of these living souls in their late years. It is with great honor that these several process theologians continue to share their personal journeys into the realms of the biological, quantum and psychological/sociological sciences.

Lastly, thank you to all those in the process community who have been willing to make time and effort to share their separate process insights from their respective disciplines! Each thought, each soul, helps create depth to a very complex philosophy of cosmology.

As introduction to these series, earlier this past summer the Cobb Institute began an 8-part series discussing and distinguishing substantive philosophies and sciences from those of the process variety. Hosted by Matt Segall, John Cobb, and Tim Eastman each explore Eastman's book written in December 2020 on untying the Gordian Knot of physics. Enjoy.

R.E. Slater
October 31, 2021



Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context



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Amazon Link


Untying the Gordian Knot
Process, Reality, and Context

by Timothy Eastman
In Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context, Timothy E. Eastman proposes a new creative synthesis, the Logoi framework - which is radically inclusive and incorporates both actuality and potentiality - (1) to show how the fundamental notions of process, logic, and relations, woven with triads of input-output-context and quantum logical distinctions, can resolve a baker’s dozen of age-old philosophic problems.
Further, (2) Eastman leverages a century of advances in quantum physics and the Relational Realism interpretation pioneered by Michael Epperson and Elias Zafiris and augmented by the independent research of Ruth Kastner and Hans Primas to resolve long-standing issues in understanding quantum physics. 
Adding to this, (3) Eastman makes use of advances in information and complex systems, semiotics, and process philosophy to show how multiple levels of context, combined with relations—including potential relations—both local and local-global, can provide a grounding for causation, emergence, and physical law. 
Finally, (4) the Logoi framework goes beyond standard ways of knowing—that of context independence (science) and context focus (arts, humanities)—to demonstrate the inevitable role of ultimate context (meaning, spiritual dimension) as part of a transformative ecological vision, which is urgently needed in these times of human and environmental crises.


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The Gordian Knot is an intractable problem (untying an impossibly tangled knot) solved easily by finding an approach to the problem that renders the perceived constraints of the problem moot ("cutting the Gordian knot"). - Wikipedia



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Tim Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot - Session 6
Dec 3, 2021



THE COBB INSTITUTE

In this session Tim Eastman provides a summary of chapter six, after which Randall Auxier, Gary Herstein, and Brian Swimme offer a response.

00:00:07 - 00:02:07 - Welcome from Matt Segall
00:02:09 - 00:25:21 - Presentation by Tim Eastman
00:25:44 - 00:42:26 - Response by Randall Auxier
00:43:05 - 01:10:23 - Response by Gary Herstein
01:10:44 - 01:28:02 - Response by Brian Swimme
01:30:30 - Open Conversation

Tim Eastman's chapter summary notes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d6yN... 

Chapter Summary, by Tim Eastman
This series is provided by the Cobb Institute. Please consider supporting this program and others like it by giving. https://cobb.institute/donate/

CHAT TEXT

000:45:36 Matt Segall: Thanks for that correction, Randy! My mistake.

00:47:58 Jude Jones: Also philosophers are trained to disagree, as if disagreement is the only way to produce intellectual insight


00:54:24 Gary Herstein: Oh, I'm not sure I agree with that, Jude. 😉


00:55:16 Jude Jones: 😂


00:55:18 Matt Segall: I held back so someone else could make that joke. You’re welcome, Gary!


00:55:32 Gary Herstein: 👍


00:55:51 Matt Segall: (just trying to exemplify a more congenial approach😉)


00:58:32 Brian Thomas Swimme: Does anyone know where in Whitehead Rankdall is quoting?


01:00:19 Matt Segall: page 24 of Adventures of Ideas, I thnk


01:00:44 josh hogins: Thank you Matt


01:01:35 Carol Richardson - she/her - Miwok Territory: Confirming it is p 24 of Adventure of Ideas


01:02:56 Matt Segall: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Adventures_of_Ideas/UZeJuLvNq80C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Human%20life%20is%20driven%20forward%20by%20its%20dim%20apprehension%20of%20notions%20too%20general%20for%20its%20existing%20language.&pg=PA24&printsec=frontcover&bsq=Human%20life%20is%20driven%20forward%20by%20its%20dim%20apprehension%20of%20notions%20too%20general%20for%20its%20existing%20language.


01:03:20 Matt Segall: Sorry, that was my attempt to share the Google books link, but it did not work


01:07:12 Jude Jones: My favorite label for infinitesimals was Berkeley’s calling them “ghosts of departed quantities”


01:07:38 Randall Auxier: 😀


01:10:38 Jude Jones: “And what are these Fluxions? The Velocities of evanescent Increments? And what are these same evanescent Increments? They are neither finite Quantities nor Quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the Ghosts of departed Quantities?


XXXVI. Men too often impose on themselves and others, as if they conceived and understood things expressed by Signs, when in truth they have no Idea, save only of the very Signs themselves. And there are some grounds to apprehend that this may be the present Case.” Berkeley’s Analyst


01:26:40 George Strawn: Wolfram seems to agree that complexity is (only) in our theories and that reality requires “a new kind of science.”  Do I have that right?


01:30:21 jonmeyer: With some of the AI models coming along, the kinds of relational structures that networked digital systems produce may constitute a new class of complexity, not really equivalent to classic “brute force” algorithms.


01:34:52 jonmeyer: I sensed pragmatism in the backdrop of Gary and Randalls comments. I’d love to hear Randall describe how he squares his interest in Rorty with Whitehead.


01:37:15 Randall Auxier: You realize Rorty wrote his MA thesis on Whitehead —under Hartshorne?


01:38:27 Matt Segall: Richard I cant unmute myself


01:38:42 Jude Jones: Rorty’s paper on Whitehead, “Matter and Event” is very good, even if there is much in it to disagree with


01:39:50 Matt Segall: audio is working, I hope?


01:40:07 Weston McMillan: Yes


01:40:09 Jude Jones: Yes Matt!


01:47:13 Randall Auxier: I was asked to choose seven of the best papers on Whitehead for translation into Polish, and that was one I chose, Jude.


01:48:14 Randall Auxier: And I disagree with much in it as well.


01:56:15 Jude Jones: Excellent Randy!


01:58:24 Gary Herstein: Persons looking for texts on Category Theory might start at the link below. You'll likely want to get a working facility with basic abstract algebra prior to tackling it: https://www.sciencebooksonline.info/mathematics/category-theory.html


01:58:42 Gary Nelson: Robert Goldblatt in his book Topoi says that Category Theory is replacing Set Theory as foundation of mathematics


01:59:51 Gary Herstein: Some overlap here, but some new ones as well: https://www.freetechbooks.com/category-theory-f71.html


02:00:46 Gary Herstein: Goldblatt still stays pretty solidly in the set theoretic frame, but his book is one of the better ones out there.


02:11:30 Douglas Tooley: Thank you all for another great dialogue.


02:12:49 Gary Herstein: Robert Reid's book "Biological Emergences: Evolution by Natural Experiment" is a very scientifically rigorous challenge to the idea of natural selection as the driver of evolution, as opposed to a conservator of existing species.


02:16:32 Gary Herstein: One way of entering mathematical ideas that I highly approve of is via history. Leo Corry's "Modern Algebra and the Rise of Mathematical Structures" starting in the early 19th C. takes us up to the emergence of Category Theory.


02:16:46 Matt Segall: Thanks for saying a few minutes longer, everyone. We started a few minutes late so I wanted to give Wolfgang a chance to raise this important point.


02:16:56 George Strawn: When I studied category theory decades ago, it was promoted as having its basic concept of morphism being closer to our concepts of interest. Set theory starts with sets and elements and has to build functions on top of them


02:17:15 Jude Jones: Wolfgang do you have a copy of your paper on  “History and Experience” handy? I can get it through the library I hope but if you have it at hand that would be great!


02:18:29 Douglas Tooley: If you go faster than the speed of light time flows backwards?


02:18:50 Randall Auxier: Light doesn’t have a “speed.”


02:19:33 Gary Herstein: Well, if you go faster than the speed of light, the first thing you'll have is a sharply worded letter for Einstein.


02:19:55 Randall Auxier: You wrote that letter and published it in 2006.


02:20:21 Douglas Tooley: If it’s not in anti-matter I won’t be able to read it!


02:20:29 Jude Jones: 🤣


02:21:03 Weston McMillan: Thank you all - great session today (as always)!


02:21:08 Mario-Seth Morales: Thank you Tim and everyone.


02:21:23 Carol Richardson - she/her - Miwok Territory: Thank you all!



* * * * * * * * *



Tim Eastman's chapter summary notes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d6yN...


Untying the Gordian Knot (UGK)

Summary of chapter 6 on the "Complex Whole"


by Tim Eastman

Nov 13, 2021

(UGK 183-4) Here I build on central elements of the Logoi framework (process, logic, relations),  combined with local-global relations and the actuality-potentiae distinction (corresponding to  Boolean and non-Boolean logics, respectively). I have built on this framework (ch 1–3) to address  various aspects of causation, emergence, and complex systems (ch 4) and information and  semiotics (ch 5). Further, I apply the Logoi framework to a set of topics and concepts that are  pointers to a fully integrative scheme. 


Beginning in a rather human-centric manner, I set up story lines that are both personal,  broadly human, and cosmic. I briefly survey the current geologic transition from the Holocene  era to the anthropocene era, of which the latter is partly driven by global impacts of Homo sapiens.  By some accounts, such as standard materialism and epiphenomenalism, humans have no  responsibility because the very concepts of meaning and ethics lack a substantive basis. In  contrast, I argue in a section on transformative thinking and ethics that the Logoi framework can  provide the needed substantive basis. However, the underlying context for such discourse requires  a grounding; for this, I address the need for a systematic philosophical framework (whether the  Logoi framework or some other equivalent framework), and an unrestricted universe of discourse.  Key elements (both ontological and epistemological factors) of such a systematic framework are  summarized. Scales and hierarchies of the natural world are then surveyed, both synchronic and  diachronic. Standard “big histories” (or equivalent) typically presume some form of particularism  (or substance philosophy). Here I focus on how process-oriented ontologies can provide realistic  interpretations without particularism. This is followed by a section on a theory of relations based  on category theory, which is an algebra of relations.


The Logoi framework is based on recent scientific and philosophic developments,  primarily since the turn of the millennium; in turn, these have exceptional resonances with key  insights articulated by Alfred North Whitehead almost a century ago. Many books that attempt to cover the “whole shebang” often focus on physical cosmology and/or “particle” physics. After  summarizing the measurement problem at extremes of scale, I conclude that available scientific  knowledge of the universe as a whole is not sufficiently mature for philosophical work.  Fortunately, all of my philosophical objectives can be achieved without resolving unsettled  questions of physical cosmology. After that, I note some open questions in contemporary biology  and evolutionary theory, and call attention to recent progress toward a new semiotic biology,  followed by a brief review of complex systems and anticipatory systems. I end the chapter by  reviewing multiple perspectives on the whole and call attention to how the Logoi framework  responds to a call for a new dialogic (multivoice, inclusive) grand narrative.


(UGK 189) Clearly any object can be part of some value proposition (e.g., the value of trees in  the forest as part of my affirmation of a park’s value); however, only high-level biological  creatures, having passed the semiotic threshold, can participate in meaningful semiotic choices  (sign-meaning-code). For example, dogs and many other animals share information, through  signed behaviors, about impending danger. In most cases, what we mean by human choice goes  beyond the epistemic threshold, which includes interpretive semiosis. Reference to psyche (mind)  typically indicates a capability that goes beyond the semiotic threshold if not also the epistemic  threshold. For this reason, the Logoi framework is not a pan-psychism in that it does not require


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reference to lower-level mind-like capabilities although the Logoi framework is arguably pan experiential in that it affirms some elemental selective processes as pervasive.


(UGK, 191-2) As humankind embarks on this new anthropocene era, with something like the  Logoi framework in mind, we need to evaluate the full range of history and context, both local  and global, and then decide collaboratively on the best possibilities (given the full range of given  facts and constraints) for responsible action toward the common good. Because such choices and  action are imbedded in reality, both the actual and the possible, they are not just epiphenomena,  but have a certain reality. Insofar as such choices and action reflect ethical considerations and  options, then ethics itself is “real,” not just some disembodied universal, but as a framework of  specific potentia—relations concerning real alternatives in ethical choice and action. 


(UGK, 191) By envisioning various levels of the complex whole, in no way do I claim to achieve  some God’s eye view from outside that complex whole; after all, in that case the whole would fail  to be inclusive because it would not include the hypothetical observer. In a very fundamental way,  this problem cannot be addressed by science alone (being the way of numbers, context independent models, and actualized (Boolean) measurement results) and is, at least in significant  measure, a philosophical problem, or even a metaphysics problem involving ultimate context.  (192) In addition to problems with substance frameworks, so-called Theories of Everything,  promoted by certain scientists based on scientific tools alone, are doomed to failure because they  are working with a restricted universe of discourse (sometimes limited further to that subset of  discourse called scientism)—indeed, besides often presuming a substance framework, these more  limited frameworks are often working with only the actualist hypothesis, which fails to  acknowledge the non-Boolean order and landscapes of potentiae, and thus are incomplete even as  science.  


In summary, there are both fundamental ontological and epistemological factors within an  unrestricted universe of discourse, as follows:


Fundamental ontological factors


Mode of being/becoming - contingent and non-contingent;


Logical orders - non-Boolean and Boolean; potentiae and actualizations;


Extensive connection (prior to metrical relations) - local-global, category theory;


Quantum process - diachronic focus - prehension, succession, symmetry breaking, causation/actualization;


Emergence - synchronic focus - multiple levels with grounding, semiosis/triadicity;


            
        Fundamental epistemological factors
Modes of perception - presentational immediacy/causal efficacy; physics/ semiotics;

Ways of Knowing - numbers/science, context/semiosis, ultimate context/spirit.

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        (UGK 192-3) Arguably, the most fundamental ontological orders are that of the contingent and the non-contingent; many standard accounts simply presuppose only the former, but systematic philosophical argument indicates that claim to be false (see Puntel’s Structure and Being, 2008; Dombrowski, 2017, Viney and Shields, The Mind of Charles Hartshorne, 2021). Consequently, I hypothesize, as part of the Logoi framework, that there is necessarily a non-contingent dimension of being/becoming that encompasses the above fundamental ontological factors; that is, the fact of these ontological factors as such are aspects of non-contingent being/becoming and are aspects of reality that could not be fully non-existent.


        A more Peircean way to conceive of the above fundamental factors is to incorporate both the  contingent and non-contingent, and the Boolean and non-Boolean orders, with three levels of  reality, vis-à-vis the Peircean triad. For examples, levels tentatively deployed for the Logoi  framework are as follows: (1) (non-Boolean) order of potentiae (modally “present in process, and  future”)—Peirce’s first; (2) (Boolean) order of actualization (modally past and actualized present) —Peirce’s second; (3) ordering principles—Peirce’s third—fundamental relationships; some  contingent, some non-contingent. With this framing, meaning is enabled through multiple levels  of context, and the interrelated combination of three basic questions framed by Bradley: the  nature of origin, difference, and order. These questions and their answers, respectively, are  associated primarily with (1) the concepts of potentiae, the non-contingent and ultimates;  (2) succession, quantum process, and actualization (diachronic) along with extension and multilevel  emergence (synchronic); and (3) multilevel constraints on potentiae to yield physical relations (law),  including local-global relations, and ultimate context.  


        (UGK 197) Any proposed grand synthesis requires a highly multidisciplinary approach. The  ways of knowing to be incorporated need to go beyond just the way of numbers (focus on context independence, and quantitative representation) as with some claimed theories of everything  (most often presuming a science-only approach). A more inclusive framing would be to include  the way of context that, in turn, includes the way of signs (semiotics). Finally, to truly incorporate  an unrestricted domain of discourse, the way of spirit is needed to incorporate the reality of  ultimate boundaries, ultimacies, and spiritual experience.  


        (UGK 198) Combining the results of modern science with Peircean biosemiotics, Søren Brier has  shown how a combined information and semiotic (cybersemiotic) framework operates with five  levels of reality, which are adapted here for the Logoi framework.  

1. potentia—non-Boolean: “A primary chaotic level of continuity, quality and potentiality  with a tendency to take habits (Firstness). This goes beyond the physical conception of  vacuum fields that are still purely materialistic, but may be included as an aspect.”  

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2. actualizations—Boolean: “A ‘causal’ level of matter, energy and causality by natural  forces. This is Secondness that has, as its inner aspect, will and mental force.”  

3. “An informational cybernetic system level of informational signals, which encompasses  the goal-oriented mechanical systems described by first order classical cybernetics.”  

4. “The semiotic level belonging to all living systems (biosemiotics), which are so far the only  systems capable of true triadic semiosis (producing signification spheres in sign games).”  

5. “The level of conscious languaging systems (language games, arguments), to our  knowledge so far only occupied by humans.  

        Sign-making is thus immanent in nature, but only manifest in full triadic semiosis in living  systems.” [quatos from Søren Brier's Cybersemiotics (2013) and Brier (2010)].  

        (UGK 202) Our given world exhibits a hierarchical framework in both temporal and spatial  scales as detailed especially by Salthe in his hierarchy theory (Stanley Salthe, Evolving Hierarchical  Systems, 1985). The primary difference between the above more unitary perspectives [i.e., Buchler,  Ross, Wimsatt] and Salthe's hierarchy is that of a focus on diachronic process, which enables  univocity in the quanta of explanation (à la Auxier and Herstein's The Quantum of Explanation),  thus a reduction in ontology, versus a focus on synchronic process whereby multiple temporal and  spatial scales are considered as basic, thus a hierarchy. The Logoi framework works with both of  these perspectives, involving both monistic and pluralistic framings, which can be both unitary in  fundamental quantum process (diachronic, including link- age to highly interrelated non-Boolean  potentiae) and radically plural in the realms of Boolean actualizations, indeed plural in both  specific actualizations and unbounded hierarchies of such.  

        (UGK 203) Although hierarchies of order are discussed in essentially all works about the universe  at large, Salthe’s emphasis on the fact of both extensional and intensional hierarchies is critical  because it shows how all such frameworks (when fully fleshed out) necessarily incorporate both  bottom-up and top-down causation, as argued by George Ellis (How Can Physics Underlie the Mind?:  Top-Down Causation in the Human Context, 2016), due to the inevitable entry of initial conditions,  boundary conditions, and context or environment.  

        (UGK 209) A complementary systematic philosophy and theory of relations was formulated by  the Charles S. Peirce, which emphasized semiotics but overlaps Whiteheadian process thought in  many ways. I envision the Logoi framework as being a synthesis of Whiteheadian process thought,  Peircean semiotics, Hartshorne’s neoclassical metaphysics, quantum field theory, ecological and  systems analysis, and several other strands of contemporary scholarship in science and  philosophy.  

        (UGK 210) Much of modern astrophysics, at less than cosmological scale (i.e., low or moderate  red shift), has made major advances over the past century and is generally based on reliable  research. For my own readings in space physics and astrophysics, I depend on works that build on  evidence-based research that complements any model-driven speculations with independent  observations, both remote sensing and in situ observations. (UGK 211) However, given some  

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        serious methodological and observational limitations at extreme red shifts, such as those  articulated by Auxier and Herstein (The Quantum of Explanation, 2017), I conclude that the current  state of knowledge in physical cosmology is not adequately mature to provide a reliable basis for  philosophical speculation. Further, for essentially all objectives of the current work, including  inferences needed for the Logoi framework, we can set aside questions about physical cosmology.  

        (UGK 214) A new semiotic biology or biological neo-naturalism, building on the best of  biological and biosemiotics research and moving to a new stage of development that sheds any  dependence on the mechanistic reductionism of classical metaphysics, opens up new approaches  in understanding complex systems, ententional phenomena, emergence and anticipatory systems.  Such a new non-reductionist scientific biophilosophy has been articulated, for example, by  Spyridon Koutroufinis (Life and Process: Towards a New Biophilosophy, 2014).  

        (UGK 218) Our radical finiteness, however enhanced by scientific means, will forever remain  outstripped by the limitless depths of both the contingent and the non-contingent, both  actualizations and potentiae. (UGK 219) I recommend that we remain skeptical of the entire genre  of monological narratives and, with Arran Gare (The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological  Civilization, 2017), encourage a dialogic (multivoice, inclusive) grand narrative.  

        (UGK 219) My Logoi framework is a contribution to such a dialogic grand narrative, which is  clearly important at both individual and social levels to offset several human tendencies toward  hubris and control. Such narratives also need to be grounded in ever wider contexts and human  meaning, which is the focus of my concluding chapter.