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13672354 No.13672354 [Reply] [Original]

Was Whitehead right about God?

Whitehead's idea ofGoddiffers from traditional monotheistic notions.[116]Perhaps his most famous and pointedcriticism of the Christian conception of Godis that "the Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively toCaesar."[117]Here Whitehead is criticizing Christianity for definingGod as primarily a divine kingwho imposes his will on the world, and whose most important attribute is power. As opposed to the most widely accepted forms of Christianity, Whitehead emphasized an idea of God that he called "the brief Galilean vision of humility":

It does not emphasize the ruling Caesar, or the ruthless moralist, or the unmoved mover. It dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operates by love; and it finds purpose in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world. Love neither rules, nor is it unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as tomorals. It does not look to the future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate present.[118]

It should be emphasized that for Whitehead, God is not necessarily tied toreligion.[119]Rather than springing primarily from religiousfaith, Whitehead saw God as necessary for hismetaphysicalsystem.[119]His system required that an order exist among possibilities, an order that allowed for novelty in the world and provided an aim to all entities. Whitehead posited that these ordered potentials exist in what he called theprimordial natureof God. However, Whitehead was also interested inreligious experience. This led him to reflect more intensively on what he saw as the second nature of God, theconsequent nature. Whitehead's conception of God as a "dipolar"[120]entity has called for freshtheologicalthinking.

The primordial nature he described as "the unlimited conceptual realization of the absolute wealth of potentiality,"[118]i.e., the unlimited possibility of the universe. This primordial nature iseternalandunchanging, providing entities in the universe with possibilities for realization. Whitehead also calls this primordial aspect "the lure forfeeling, the eternal urge of desire,"[121]pulling the entities in the universe toward as-yet unrealized possibilities.

>> No.13672362 [DELETED] 

>>13672354
God's consequent nature, on the other hand, is anything but unchanging – it is God's reception of the world's activity. As Whitehead puts it, "[God] saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved."[122]In other words, God saves and cherishes all experiences forever, and those experiences go on to change the way God interacts with the world. In this way, God is really changed by what happens in the world and the wider universe, lending the actions of finite creatures an eternal significance.

Whitehead thus seesGod and the world as fulfilling one another. He sees entities in the world as fluent and changing things that yearn for a permanence which only God can provide by taking them into God's self, thereafter changing God and affecting the rest of the universe throughout time. On the other hand, he sees God as permanent but as deficient in actuality and change: alone, God is merely eternally unrealized possibilities, and requires the world to actualize them. God gives creatures permanence, while the creatures give God actuality and change. Here it is worthwhile to quote Whitehead at length:

"In this way God is completed by the individual, fluent satisfactions of finite fact, and the temporal occasions are completed by their everlasting union with their transformed selves, purged into conformation with the eternal order which is the final absolute 'wisdom.' The final summary can only be expressed in terms of a group ofantitheses, whose apparent self-contradictions depend on neglect of the diverse categories of existence. In each antithesis there is a shift of meaning which converts the opposition into a contrast.

"It is as true to say that God is permanent and the World fluent, as that the World is permanent and God is fluent.

"It is as true to say that God is one and the World many, as that the World is one and God many.

"It is as true to say that, in comparison with the World, God is actual eminently, as that, in comparison with God, the World is actual eminently.

"It is as true to say that the World isimmanentin God, as that God is immanent in the World.

"It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God.

"It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God...

"What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world... In this sense, God is the great companion – the fellow-sufferer who understands."[123]

>> No.13672372

>>13672354
God's consequent nature, on the other hand, is anything but unchanging – it is God's reception of the world's activity. As Whitehead puts it, "[God] saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved."[122]In other words, God saves and cherishes all experiences forever, and those experiences go on to change the way God interacts with the world. In this way, God is really changed by what happens in the world and the wider universe, lending the actions of finite creatures an eternal significance.

Whitehead thus sees God and the world as fulfilling one another. He sees entities in the world as fluent and changing things that yearn for a permanence which only God can provide by taking them into God's self, thereafter changing God and affecting the rest of the universe throughout time. On the other hand, he sees God as permanent but as deficient in actuality and change: alone, God is merely eternally unrealized possibilities, and requires the world to actualize them. God gives creatures permanence, while the creatures give God actuality and change. Here it is worthwhile to quote Whitehead at length:

"In this way God is completed by the individual, fluent satisfactions of finite fact, and the temporal occasions are completed by their everlasting union with their transformed selves, purged into conformation with the eternal order which is the final absolute 'wisdom.' The final summary can only be expressed in terms of a group ofantitheses, whose apparent self-contradictions depend on neglect of the diverse categories of existence. In each antithesis there is a shift of meaning which converts the opposition into a contrast.

"It is as true to say that God is permanent and the World fluent, as that the World is permanent and God is fluent.

"It is as true to say that God is one and the World many, as that the World is one and God many.

"It is as true to say that, in comparison with the World, God is actual eminently, as that, in comparison with God, the World is actual eminently.

"It is as true to say that the World isimmanentin God, as that God is immanent in the World.

"It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God.

"It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God...

"What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world... In this sense, God is the great companion – the fellow-sufferer who understands."[123]

>> No.13672384

cringe, God is in everything, take the panentheism pill, he's not a human king in the sky or any one thing, humanizing God is of the most blue-pilled assumptions in the world of theology.

>> No.13672432

Sounds really interesting. I’d love to talk in person to someone about these things. I always have to insert it somehow into a conversation with the people around me. Wish I had philo gf nympho ;(

>> No.13672486

>>13672432
I can be your gf (boy) anon

>> No.13672506

>>13672354
What would be happened in his cosmic theory when someone took out eternal object and God?

>> No.13672519

>>13672372
>He sees God as permanent but as deficient in actuality and change: alone, God is merely eternally unrealized possibilities, and requires the world to actualize them. God gives creatures permanence, while the creatures give God actuality and change.
Is this God transcendent or immanent? I assume by "unrealized possibilities" he means they are not real other than existing immanently in the world as potential.

Poor man's Platonism. Lacks transcendent explanatory power and limits God to the world, therefore failing to explain the existence of either. A transcendent God that is real beyond being but actualises in concrete particularity can do Whitehead's dirty work and provide an explanation for both its own existence and the worlds existence.

>> No.13672528 [DELETED] 

God=the BwO

>> No.13672541

Shaviro on Whutehead's God and Deleuze's Body without Organs
http://www.shaviro.com/Othertexts/God.pdf

>> No.13672582

>>13672354
>It dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operates by love; and it finds purpose in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world. Love neither rules, nor is it unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as tomorals.

Yes. This is basically my belief about love and God. Like love, God for me is very personal, he exists only in the most intimate way. Like God, Love is all pervasive, all encompassing, and what everything is truly. In a book about Empedocles’ idea of the world of Love and Strife, the author Peter Kingsley goes to show how there’s a subtle way in which it’s not Love but Strife that is the truth. Love is deceptive, strife brings everything back to its source, as to be pure again. And there are signs in the poem that point to Empedocles reversal. But he brings this up not to say it’s Strife and not love, but that- why is Empedocles writing with deception? Why does he want us to read between the lines? And the author does this too, the book is written in the way of the ancients, where youre not sure whether he believes that it’s Strife and not Love, or that he’s actually making any claim at all. I began to realize that was it. I think the secrets teachings were trying to unshackle the mind of its preconceptions, it’s conditioning, to come to a realization within the source without the wrong notions. Almost like Love and God are not what you think, and won’t Be, unless you allow Love and God itself to show itself in the ways. Empedocles making a space for strife in hidden clues is a kind of reminder that Love works in mysterious ways, but writing deceptively because he doesn’t want to just say it’s not Love it’s Strife, but that Love isn’t what you think it is, Love is it’s own thing, it includes strife, albeit deceptively. And if you can read through, you can see yourself losing grasp of the concepts, you don’t know what to believe anymore, and this what they wanted. Suddenly thought is moving but without itinerary, your just sharp. Dwelling “ upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operates by Love” by God- by that which is beyond these concepts yet can only be approached by reckoning with them, tarrying with the element and point of event at which language can go no further than the sign, and go beyond that to the acts of humbleness in our world that remain undeconstructable. This is the roots of philosophy, the play of man in the realm of Gods, where he is but a child in the light of an infinite caress

>> No.13672592

>>13672486
Please come over

>> No.13672598

>>13672519
Majority of process theology sets god as immanent, as that way it makes more naturalized

>> No.13672638

>>13672372
>In this way God is completed by the individual

Hegel believed this. He thought of God as a result, coming into consciousness through the individual. I think I like Whitehead, will have to read more into him. Wish I could have a real conversation with someone about these things tho. I always feel like, they write these things so that we could sit down and go beyond them, think them through to our own time with each other. It seems like literally no one is doing that tho. Thank you for this thread

>> No.13672687

>>13672384
the point>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>(you)

>> No.13672765

Yes

>> No.13672840

>>13672638
It isn't a new concept, the Christian Platonic idea was God is superessential non-being, an overflowing transcendent and unknowable nothingness, that creates the world and man from his nothingness in order to know himself in actuality. Hegel makes that God entirely immanent rather than transcendent and immanent.

>> No.13672914

It takes amazing chutzpah to present this sentimental whaargarbl as logical.
Requiring an order to give an aim to entities sounds like the Logos. His entire goal is to obfuscate the fact that he denies the meaning of Christian concepts, so that Christians will be too confused to call him a heretic, while he blasphemes Jesus.
The pun between charity and love and lust was very fertile for 20th century blasphemers.

>> No.13672943

>>13672914
who cares about christcuckery

>> No.13673287

>>13672943
Obviously Whitehead does, or he would't vaguely imply concepts from it in his sentimental whaargarbl.

>> No.13673376

>>13672354
Wow he looks like stefan molyneux

>> No.13673426

>>13673376
based

>> No.13673780

>>13672354
>Whitehead is criticizing Christianity for definingGod as primarily a divine kingwho imposes his will on the world
Well yes, that is characteristically Faustian.

>> No.13673810

What's the difference between this and Spinozism?

>> No.13673829

>>13673810
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=909

>> No.13673844

>>13673829
Thanks friend

>> No.13673848

>>13672354
Ok, I just got done reading a bunch of Charles Sanders Peirce, and I think Whitehead is the next philosopher I want to study. Does anyone recommend reading his works in a certain order? Where do I start with Whitehead?

>> No.13673882

>>13672687
Didn't even continue reading once I read "love", only sentimental brainlets use this word in any meaningful context.

>> No.13673905

>>13673848
If you want to go straight to the magnum opus (Process and Reality) I recommend this path
Modes of Thought>Adventures of Ideas>Process and Reality

If you are interested in religious studies I recommend Religion in the Making

If you are interested in the philosophy of science I recommend Science and the Modern World and The Concept of Nature

If you are interested in evolutuonary epistemology I recommend The Function of Reason

If you are interested in education I recommend The Aims of Education

>> No.13673933

>>13673905
Thanks you very much, this sounds like fun. Peirce is probably the most underappreciated philosopher I have ever read, but I now realize that is due to all of his work being so scattershot and unorganized. At least this guide seems rather intuitive. Also, I think Whitehead and Peirce were bros briefly in real life so this seems like a fitting sequel for study.

>> No.13674010

>>13672840
>unknowable nothingness,
HOW CAN YOU KNOW SOMETHING UNKNOWABLE YOU PATHETIC LARPER

>> No.13674495

Bump

>> No.13674591
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13674591

Whitehead is based

>> No.13674720

>>13674010
From its effects, it's unknowable in its essence.

>> No.13674775

>>13672354
is your spacebar broken?

>> No.13675117

>>13674775
That's how it came out when I copy pastad it

>> No.13675494

Bump

>> No.13675959

>>13672354
No. It's the other way around. God was a god in the pagan sense before the church reinvented him. In that he was more human, righteous and worth following because he was powerful and lordly, even wrathful. King is not a good typification as a king is more a spiritual head bound to others than a commander or selfconcerned lord.

>> No.13676070

>>13673905
I want to edit this, Science and the Modern World should be necessary read, I would put it between MT and AI. his idea of newton-hume lifeless nature is largely mentioned on that book, and I'm pretty sure it's the only book where "The fallacy of misplaced concreteness" is explicitly mentioned besides Process and Reality.

and another, Process and Reality is hard as fuck even if you digested every other literature of whitehead, you should mention secondary literature. A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality was a good take, but we still need more book.

>> No.13676130

>>13674010
Because it is the knower itself, it simply has to drop pretensions and abide in itself

>> No.13676343

>>13676070
What is the fallacy of misplaced concreteness?

>> No.13676592

Bump

>> No.13676782

Bump