Abstract(3) for Lea

7/28/2019 Abstract(3) for Lea

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* A dissertation submitted to the committee of Graduate School, Chungnam National

University in a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

conferred in February 2012.

The purpose of this thesis is that the idea of Whitehead's God applies to

panentheism eventually through a study on process and feature of his theism. The

idea of Whitehead's God is based on his metaphysics and dissimilar to traditional

theism. Whitehead's vision is process-based and organistic. The Dualism of God

and World was disused, God and World together make Creative advance.

Chapter 2 explains the process of an idea of Whitehead's God. Whitehead

introduced God as the underlying activity in Science and the Modern World. But

he defined God as the principle of concretion or the principle of limitation for the

process of realization which underlies each occasion in the same book. Eternal

object is formative element but excluded, because God is based on Empiricism.

Religion in the Making says that formative elements define creativity, ideal

entities, God. This means that the form of Universe changes from monism to

pluralism. Whitehead divides between Creativity and God in Process and Reality.

Creativity is novelty which comes actual world and God is non-actual entity of the

realization to the activity of Creativity. The ground of God as the source of

realization is ontological principle, which every reason to become is in actual

entity.

As mentioned above, Whitehead' God has been developed in three stages. First,

God is non-temporal and non-actual principle, second, non-temporal actual entity,

third, temporal actual entity in the concrescence. This development means a idea


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of God which is related to world immanently, but God was source of order.

This idea of God is reality with dipolarity of a primordial nature and a

consequent nature. God has a primordial nature of conceptual aim involved non-

decision of entity and a consequent nature of making physical aim to resolve non-

decision of entity and to accomplish the elements in the world. This dipolarity of

God involves there is no beginning and end of world's effect on God and God's

effect on world. God of Process Philosophy has worked together all creation in

world's order, consequently God apprehends world much more. Therefore the

organizations of order put on solidarity within all entities and all entities in the

world are apprehended by God's consequent nature. In this process, God of

Process Philosophy has transcendence and immanence at the same time. God is

transcendent because of His identity as entity. And God is immanent for entity in

the world really and because the process of actual occasion is united by God'

initial aim and actual occasion's decision. At a united moment, God contribute to

an identity of reality through apprehending all other actual entities and an initial

aim as data for novel occasions.

In chapter 3, Analysis about the division God and Creativity means that first,

God is not Ultimate but entity because of taking away potentiality(eternal object),

second, Not only God but actual entities have its own Creativity. Ultimate activity

is realized in the world as well as in God. God is a primordial exemplification of

Creativity. This means that God is only exemplification and We refuse ultimate

Creativity is dependent on God's will.Creativity contains novelty that produces epochal occasion, that is creative

transition in Science and the Modern World. The three characteristics of


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Creativity in Process and Realityare 1) pure concept of supreme generalization

excluded generic actuality, 2) the ground of the order and the goad of novelty, 3)

how to involve the process of actual entity through limitation form.Meanwhile, Creativity describes the whole attempt of concreteness from

abstractness. According to Whitehead, God has Creativity for everlasting

concrescence and actual entity has also Creativity for novel actuality from

existing actuality. And Creativity means freedom as its own creation. Because

every actual entity has enjoyed freedom of a subjective decision, We consider the

base of Process Philosophy is identity and freedom. God has included actual

occasion in Himself and actual occasion has been formed by God's contribution,

but each of them don't lose its own identical reality. We consider that God's

transcendence as well as God's immanence is essential.The whole and part is formed co-independent relation of togetherness among

the categories of Ultimate. And by the principle of Creativity the becoming of

actual occasion can be explained the coordinate division of the whole and part,

the creation of actuality explained the evocation from non-decision to decision.

The meaning of the whole and part is that the process is a absolute reality and

useless without actual unification.In chapter 4, I discuss the matter of God and naturalistic theism. Whitehead

argued every actual entity in a process of concrescence has provided God to the

world with the integration of a primordial nature and a consequent nature. But as

actual entities don't prehend the passage of a consequent nature of God, some

Whiteheadians suggested that for God's temporal succession God will be given the

concept of society or field. And other suggested the recognition of God's


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substance, that is the priority of God because the aim of actual occasion has

restricted the physical satisfaction of God. But according to Suchocki's argument

to try to coordinate the system of Process Philosophy, God and world move

conversely each other related to process. Because The phases of God's

concrescence is located the opposite procedure of temporal occasions, in actual

occasions many become one and the same time God incarnates into the world by

the every occasion. By the way God is identical to Creativity of the future, not to

Creativity of the present which brings transition. The future, the present, and the

past correspond to God, Self and World. The reason of dividing Creativity and

God is that firstly, actual entities have creativity for self-identity, secondly, they

need God as ultimate source of eternal objects for receiving the characteristics of

entity able to actualize.In chapter 5, I intended to elucidate the characteristic about evil of Whitehead

theism. Whitehead's God is not concerned the decision of all actualities. God don't

control actual world which realizes a unique creativity in the process of

concrescence and transition. Under such a condition, Good has ontological

meaning that is in harmony with conceptual valuation and subjective aim. However

evil is discordance and triviality. Whitehead denies metaphysical evil as a

necessary concept. Though actual occasion is originally good, it sometimes

becomes the destructive power or the instrumental evil to have a influence on

other actual occasions. That is because the nature of evil is ontological

obstruction. The power of God is not control but persuasion. In the process of

creation God needs the value and power for overcoming discordance and triviality,

this power of God is endurance for persuading subjective aim.


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I consider the matter of process theism doesn't conclude whether the decision

of God is moral on the creature. To the process philosophy freedom is necessary

because Gods stimulation of a more and more complex world, which has the

capacity for more and more Intrinsic value, means the development of creatures

with more and more freedom in relation to God Whitehead's metaphysics is not

contradictory to the inherent evil in the world because God has not controled

completely.

We think that Process Philosophy discarded dualism between nature and

supernature and has attempted the natural analysis of God. Because the idea of

God in Process Philosophy is discussion about God existent in the spatiotemporal

and casual order of the world. the natural analysis of God means that first, we

refuse God's creation of all things, second, there is interrelationship between the

causality of God and the causality of the world, third, the past has related

coherently to ingression toward the future. Attempt of naturalism is made to solve

the problem of evil. The nature of evil is that characters of things are obstructive,

so actual entities must be responsible for the solution of evil. This is the problem

related free decision changing initial persuasion by God in the final decision of

subject-superject of actual entities. Consequently, evil of Process Philosophy is

not the ethical problem but the problem of Ontology, so We deny solving the

problem of evil how to interfere God's supernaturalistic method or the schematic

approach of classical theology of the first effect of God and the secondary effect

of the world.In chapter 6, I consider that Whitehead and Meister Eckhart have something in

common for overcoming a dualistic world view dividing world into between


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transcendence and immanence though a big difference of times. Whitehead tried

to reject the concept of God as a unmoved mover or a transcendental deity and

Meister Eckhart want to get away from the false concept and the superficial and

non-essential relation God and world. Whitehead affirms that every entity in the

world with God has the distinctive creativity and God and world have

transcendence and immanence at the same time. Like this, Eckhart kept the

balance transcendence and immanence dialectically emphasizing continuity God

and creature beyond God as intellect and creature as entity. Therefore one

doesn't exclude many, and God as not-other is differentiated from the other. The

thought of Meister Eckhart is effected by the decline of Scholastic philosophy and

the growth of Nominalism that we cannot see the status of beings in the

universality but discover each thing. The thought is effected by the needs of

times emphasizing the importance of a religious experience, also. Eckhart argued

God's epistemological not-being preaching the idea of "Nothing(or God)" beyond

being(creature) for transcending dualistic opposition. He balances God's

transcendence with immanence beyond God as intellect and the world as being.

There is a metaphysical idea of God, namely Godhead in the key of negative

theology that God is Nothing. Godhead is infinite and dynamic potentiality of the

grounds of God before God and all things is formed. The relation God and all

things with Godhead is similar to the relation God and the world with Creativity,

or the relation God's consequent nature and the world with God's primordial

nature.John Cobb considers Godhead and God as 'Ultimate Reality' and 'Ultimate

Actuality', that is Creativity and God. We apprehend God of actuality in Creativity,


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the cause of matter. Likewise God flows out from Godhead and the world flows

out from God, and then the Soul of world returns to and identifies with Godhead.

God's primordial nature is the apprehension of infinite area of potentiality and

God's consequent nature apprehends actuality physically and has completed

creation. Like this, God' activity of Eckhart or Godhead and God is divided

between infinite creation of transcendence and temporal creation. We don't mean

to discuss about difference the interpretations of Godhead and God. Rather

through these diverse interpretations, Whitehead's idea of God identifies with

Meister Eckhart's panentheism widely.In chapter 7, I consider the history of Whitehead's theism and Process

Theology. Since Whitehead's God was introduced as actual entity having a dipolar

nature, many Whiteheadians and traditional theologists have studied widely until

Process Theology is a part of modern theology. In the beginning of Process

Philosophy, traditional theologists concluded the religious uselessness of

metaphysical God. But it became Process Philosophers has reconsidered

Whitehead metaphysics with theological viewpoint. Hartshorne, Loomer are

among the first generation in Whitehead's lifetime. Their students, Christian, Ford,

Sherburne are the second generation, and Ogden, Cobb, Griffin are the third

generation. Especially, two generations has discussed intensively the matter of

rationality related God. And they respond to criticism from religious unsuitability

of the traditional theologists such as Madden and Hare. Through this way, the

third process theologists give shape to theological approach used the concept of

process metaphysics. They show the approach of process metaphysics can

reinterpret Christianity not to be able to acknowledge in traditional theology. But


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what is important is whether the process theology for Christianity is adequate to

requirement of logical coherence. The analogical interpretation of Whitehead's

God is a rather obscure concept. Therefore it does not related to the intention of

Whitehead and could interpret the only religious necessity. And the critical issue

of process theology is whether process metaphysical theism as well as this result

would meet demand modern religious recognition, various Christianity and other

religions.

God of process philosophy shows the real depth for panentheism of

transcendence and immanence. The dipolarity of God is needed for the

appearance of God being both transcendence and immanence. If the dipolarity of

God weren't required, God would remain the dualism of God without the world and

the world without God and wouldn't appear a view of the world in the related

process. Therefore Naturalistic theism for affecting the development of Process

Philosophy would be panentheism. "It is as true to say that the World is immanent

in God, as that God is immanent in the World."

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