FredP

Sounds like a good book! I didn't realize that Cobb was associated with the idea of "dual aspect monism." I was actually discussing that very idea with a close friend a number of years ago (who is a hardcore Augustinian Neoplatonist). In fact, I believe I coined that term myself, unaware (until now!) that it was already in use. As I use the term (more loosely, I'm sure, than the PP community), it refers to the fact that reality is a unity which is nevertheless essentially polar in nature, manifesting both a subjective and an objective aspect. Panta, how does John Cobb figure into your understanding of PP? Thanks for the link!

Fair enough... I'm not going to have time for a little while either, with starting a new job, and, well, fatherhood rapidly encroaching. (mid-summer) I think I'm going to need to get up to speed myself, before any of these discussions really get beyond the level of cursory explorations. What I really need to find is a really hardcore debate between a Christian Neoplatonist and a Process Theologian. Thx for your thoughts, as always.

Absolutely, hence Wilber refers to both developmental lines and peak experiences. In A Sociable God, Wilber actually makes the important distinction between the "romantic" idea of a Fall from infancy to adulthood, and the more perennial idea of an involution, or Fall into materiality at all. By the time we're conceived, we've already "forgotten" (in the Platonic sense), i.e. we're already on our way Up. (Incidentally, this is how I interpret and apply the Christian idea of original sin.) At the same time, and in an different way, a child's creativity certainly flows more freely before the advent of an extreme adolescent obsession with self-image. This isn't so much the "Great Fall," as it is a pitfall of the developmental process itself. Sadly, it's one that many never overcome.

I highly recommend reading Wilber on developmental spirituality, to avoid the trap of thinking that infants and children are more spiritually mature than adults, and that adults have fallen away from some pristine state of paradise. Especially Up From Eden and The Atman Project. The jist is: infants aren't in Paradise; they just don't yet realize they're on Earth. Subconsious Hell -> Conscious Hell -> (Super)Conscious Heaven. Undifferentiated Union -> Differentiated Split -> Integrated Union. I know this is way too cursory, but I have a train to catch.

I'm going to migrate this discussion over here from P101, since the explicit connection to Process Philosophy seems to be a better fit. I've been thinking about this post a lot over the weekend, and how it relates to (and is different from) my understanding of the God-World relationship. I'm realizing that much of the difference may be due to terminology. So Panta, since you seem to be the resident expert on the fine points of Process Philosophy: Would it be fair, in the above statements, to say that what is meant by "God" and "World" are, respectively, the pure subjective and objective poles of Reality? That is, that it is as true to say that Subject creates the objective world as that Object creates the subjective world; that Subject, in comparison to the objective world, is actual eminently as that Object, in comparison to the subjective world, is actual eminently, etc.? Would it then be true to say that Subject, as that which creates the objective world, is the primordial nature of God; whereas the subjective world that is created by Object is the consequent nature of God? If the answer to my exploratory questions is correct, then our previous disagreements hinge on a matter of terminology. In my terminology, I have been using "God" not as "Subject" but as that Unity which transcends the subject-object distinction altogether (think Tao). THIS sense of God (which mystical theology also sometimes refers to as "Godhead") would ontologically precede and create both "God" and "World" in Process terminology, and be what I have been calling completely ineffable, unspeakable, beyond comprehension, etc. Mull over this and see if it resonates with you at all. If so, it may be more precise in the future to differentiate between "God" and "Godhead" when referring to these two senses of God. (God as subject and "God above God," a la Tillich.)

pray your gods toad the wet sprocket i will give the secrets you request and you will be the one to sacrifice so lay your olive arms upon my breast and sing the poems, free the butterflies pray your gods who ask you for your blood for they are strong and angry jealous ones or lay upon my altar now your love i fear my time is short there are armies moving close be quick, my love i feel my body weakened by the years as people turn to gods of cruel design is it that they fear the pain of death or could it be they fear the joy of life pray your gods who rule you by your fear for they are quick and ruthless punishers or lay upon my altar now your love i fear my time is short there are armies moving on be quick, my love dona nobis pacem, pacem ...

Wow, go away for a long weekend, and you're already out of the loop. What's going to happen when I go on vacation for five days next week? So, does anyone want to talk about Process Theology on this topic anymore, or are people getting tired of the theological jargon? I don't think there is a topic devoted specifically to it, and I'm sure someone would be happy to create one. I for one, am finding that the discussion is helping to clarify some concepts and terminology, as well as getting my wheels turning... But I can understand if others aren't finding it that stimulating. Not to mention, as others have said before, it's not exactly 101-level stuff.

Ok, that helps. By analogy then, imagine transcendentally seeing the universe as a complete multidimensional totality. Not a pre-determined totality, but a real genuinely open universe where choice and chance are genuine realities -- only grasped in a single act of "perception." Weird, from our perspective, perhaps, but perfectly logical if we don't confuse knowledge with determination. That's something like the idea I'm trying to get at. But I'm not trying to convert anyone. Panta: I can't see any sense of World in which the World is permanent, one, or transcending or creating God, but I understand that this is orthodox Process Philosophy, and I do need to understand it better. If for no other reason than to more fully grasp how utterly brilliantly it handles some of the most difficult questions of metaphysics. For now, I still stand by my belief that God and the world are asymmetric. But I do really want to say how thankful I am that we can bring a discussion like this out in the open, and really genuinely argue about it, without it degenerating into a shouting match. (Not that we don't all experience frustrations at times!) I think everybody here really does want to know God, and know how we relate to God, more fully, and that makes all the difference.

This is where the classical Christian claim differs from the Perennial/(Neo-/)Platonic one. God freely offers God's very own Being, by way of incarnation, in the form of the physical universe, and takes on (i.e. "suffers") our experience. Not making an argument here, just tying the classical claim into the discussion.

Well, it's not a human construct, it's a created construct. God created it, but isn't bound by it. Otherwise, yes!

Aletheia: Ok, you REALLY freaked me out with the sushi thing. As I was riding the train home last night, trying to process this stuff and figure out to better express what I wanted to say, I produced exactly the same scenario. What are the chances that we would both come up with the illustration of "whether God knows I am going to eat sushi tomorrow"??!! This alone makes me doubt whether space-time causality is the only means of influencing events in the universe! Now then, ahead we go. Isn't that what I said? I think that anything that can be known by God IS known by God, God having an all encompassing view of, well, everything. I don't think we are actually disagreeing about anything here. I would say you're only dealing with the immanent aspect of knowledge here. When you say that "anything that can be known by God IS known by God," what I hear you saying -- and please correct me if I'm wrong, I sincerely don't want to stuff words into your mouth -- is that 1) God perfectly knows the past and present, and 2) God conditionally knows the future insofar as perfect knowledge of the past and present is to some degree indicative of the future state of things. In an immanent mode of knowledge -- i.e. knowledge within the causal realm, about the causal realm -- I agree 100%. However, transcendental knowledge is not knowledge within the causal realm, based on inductive or deductive extrapolation from facts about the causal realm: it's knowledge of the causal realm in its totality. Panta, you believe that no such vantage point exists, and so God therefore by nature must be contingent on the nature of the universe, just as we are. I submit that this makes the universe ontologically prior to God, which in my opinion makes no sense. You seem to believe that space-time is all there is, or could be, and that any other claim amounts to rain-dancing; but I find it even more illogical that the contingent reality of the space-time-event fabric should be foundational. In fact, I would say a "contingent, foundational reality" is an oxymoron. By the way, please don't confuse supernatural as ontologically prior with the everyday meaning of supernatural as interventionsist. They're two completely different meanings. I've already claimed that the whole question of whether God can or does intervene in the natural world is based on a confusion. But on the meaning of supernatural as ontologically prior to nature, I am a supernaturalist staunchly and unabashedly.

I think I know what you think you mean. Remember my blabberings on time and Eternity a little while ago? That Eternity is the ground of time past, present, and future, transcending and radically negating the whole lot? What I think you mean by PRESENT/NOW is the inbreaking of Eternity into time -- not the mundane present moment. In the causal scheme of things, there is absolutely nothing special about the present, it's simply a reference point on one dimension of the continuum of space-time. In the eternal scheme of things, the present moment is the place where God breaks in and claims us. But this sense of PRESENT has nothing to do with time; it has to do with awareness. You are correctly privileging this sense of PRESENT over the mundane past and future; but (it sounds like, maybe?) you are confusing these two senses of present, and incorrectly privileging the space-time present over the space-time past and future. In any case, a denial of the causal realm of space and time is a denial of the objective aspect of reality, in favor of the subjective aspect, and I have to reject that. And you claimed to agree with that rejection earlier today. Does that make ANY sense whatsoever? This seems to be one of the most difficult problems with free will, and yet it's easy to see that it's a false problem. Why should knowledge of a choice alter its status as a free choice? A choice isn't free because no one knows I'm going to do it; it's free because I choose to do it. My wife knew I was going to vote Nader in 2000 and 2004, but it was still a free choice. Knowledge had nothing to do with it. In fact, one might well reason that the more fully someone knows me, the more they would know what my free choices will be. Interesting... I got my own wheels turning.

You're actually asking three questions: #3. Sure it is; you're a panentheist right? Your free will is in God. I know it sounds like a silly distinction, but it isn't. You are either free in the sense of being free from God's will, or free in the sense of being free in God's will. If nothing exists apart from God, how can you be free from God in any way? But you are free. You are free because God is perfect freedom, and the universe participates in God. That's what I meant by, "free will is a manifestation of God's being wherever it appears." #2. The reason I think "persuasion" is confused, is that it depends on a notion of a God "out there" influencing a decision by me "over here." In the causal realm, events and things influence other events and things; but God isn't an event or thing in the causal realm: God is the eternal Spring of the causal realm itself. God is the Meta-Cause of all causes (like we have any idea what that means). #1. OV says that God in Godself cannot know the future of the causal realm, because the future does not exist, and therefore cannot be known. But the future can only logically be said not to exist in relation to the present. In God's incarnational immanence (i.e. logos / Christ), God would be self-limited with respect to knowledge about the future; but as transcendent, God has no such limitation. That's the confusion. Of course, God's transcendental knowledge of the entire causal realm would have a radically different character than the sort of piecemeal informational knowledge that characterizes immanence, but I'm not going to try to speculate on what can and cannot be known in God's transcendental mode of being. Umm... yes, I think? Really, I just meant to say that the the character of God doesn't logically follow from the structure of the universe. Too much is lost in the translation.

I would have to say I can't find much in there to complain about. My sense is that this "neutral monism" takes more seriously the transcendent otherness of God than process philosophy does, but I won't put any official stamp on that. At the present moment, someone better acquainted with Whitehead and/or Process Theology needs to tell me if I'm right or wrong about that. I know that recent proposals like open theism severely limit God's knowledge of, and power in, the world -- in my opinion, by confusing God's transendence and immanence -- and so I don't buy them. (As I said earlier, I think concepts like God's "coersion" or "persuasion" of the world are confused anyway.) I only want to add one thing to the very last part (The Creative Principle) -- not to criticize it, but to emphasize something I think it implies, but doesn't say outright. Logically / structurally, this "Creative Principle" is all we're strictly allowed to say. We can say that the absolute must actualize the relative, in order for it to properly exist as potential; but we cannot say anything meaningful about why this particular universe exists -- and we definitely cannot extrapolate from this particular universe to predicate anything about God, or about what God's "constraints" might have been in creating it. The question of why this particular universe can only have one possible answer -- pure, radical choice.

God is omnipotent in the sense that all power (omni - potent) is ultimately God's power, and there is no power in the universe that is not God's. The "coercive" and "persuasive" interpretations are equally anthropomorphic. I think Process Philosophy claims that reality is made up of events which have both a subjective pole and an objective pole. Materialism (reality is objective, experience is a side-effect) and idealism / mentalism / experientialism (reality is subjective, matter is a side-effect) are both false. Incidentally, I take this to be one of the senses of the doctrine of the "two natures of Christ" -- in Christ, the universe is recognized to be both truly spiritual, and truly material, in nature. Both aspects are held to be completely valid. I understand the motivation here, but this way of putting it perpetuates the very notion of God's separateness that we seem to be trying so ardently to avoid! All free-will (the exercise of the subjective pole) and lawlike behavior (the exercise of the objective pole) are manifestations of God's being wherever they appear. "God" doesn't persuade "me" to do something good; my choice to do something good just IS God incarnate, "Christ living in me." Changeability and unchangeability are attributes of created things. God is neither changeable nor unchangeable, just as God is neither being nor becoming, neither free nor determined, neither existent nor non-existent, and so forth... more precisely, God completely transcends and unites these distinctions in a Reality more fundamental than any of them. One of those mandalic paradoxes that logic cannot grasp. My $.02 is that, in general, process philosophy just emphasizes the opposite pole from classical / substance philosophy, and as such has an important corrective (but relative) value. Ultimately though, I don't think it's any less misleading than classical theism. Now that I've opened that can of worms....

Right. And by the way, the experience of God is ineffable for Wilber, but a hermeneutic can still develop, because I can still recognize your faltering words and recognize that they describe the same experience as my faltering words do. No explanation of redness is RED, but if I've experienced RED, I can tell by your description of it that you have too. No description of God is GOD -- that includes substance ones, process ones, and panentheistic ones -- but if I've experienced GOD, I can tell by your description of that experience that you have too. This is Wilber's sociology of religion in a nutshell, and it's one that allows for both ineffability and the possibility of dialogue.

It's Eye To Eye. That's where the initial essay appears. But it's all over his stuff now. There's a good dose in A Sociable God as well.

Whitehead, but not Harteshorne. I still need to give Whitehead some more sustained attention, lest I put my foot in my mouth one of these days.

I understand the frustration you've been experiencing, and I appreciate your sharing it with us in all its "rawness." Now that being said, I'm getting the sense from reading your recent posts, that anything you can't logically comprehend, or that seems to imply a logical paradox in your mind, is patently out, magic, opiate of the masses, hysteria, ######, call it what you will. I don't know, and I certainly appreciate the role of science, philosophy, and logic, as far as weeding out childish dimensions of faith and belief; but I can't seriously believe that an information processing machine small enough to fit inside my skull is capable of comprehending the full spectrum of even the physical dimensions of our existence, much less the mental and spiritual ones. To take the example you keep harping on: I understand that a universe coming into existence out of nothing doesn't seem to make any logical sense; but honestly, neither does a universe that has existed for an infinite amount of time (what does that even mean?). Either way, the "given" existence of the universe has a kind of mysterious quality to it. Why does it exist? -- that is to say, even if you can explain the physical causality of its origin, where does it originate ontologically? That's an even bigger mystery. I banged my head against this stuff, logically, scientifically, philosophically, for a decade, and the only conclusion I can accept is that the universe somehow originates in/from God, derives its being, purpose, and meaning from God, and restlessly seeks its ultimate end in God. I don't know what that implies logically/scientifically (if anything); in fact, I'm inclined to agree with the Eastern and Western mystical idea that all concepts about God are ultimately paradoxical. If I can throw a Ken Wilber notion at you, you may want to consider the possibility that you're committing the pre/post fallacy of confusing magic (pre-rational) with paradox (post-rational), because both are non-rational. If you haven't seen that idea before, it's well worth acquainting yourself with. I credit Wilber perhaps more than anyone else for getting me through this impasse. It sounds like you're very much where I was not long ago, and I hope you won't take that as a condescending statement.

I think this would be a great idea, but I almost despair about finding enough local people to do it. I guess they're out there, but how do you find them?

It is easier, isn't it.

Maybe I should write to my college and get my money back. My philosophy degree apparently wasn't very good. Sorry, sometimes you just gotta get it off your chest.

I'm perfectly aware of what Process Philosophy is. Let's get one thing straight, without this degenerating into a food fight: when I use the term Panentheism, I am referring to the structural claim that what it means to be the universe is completely contained by what it means to be God. Therefore, again, as I use the term, it doesn't commit you to a particular ontology. Maybe I'm completely off base in using the term this way; at the same time, just because process thinkers are generally the ones to use it doesn't mean that the word itself logically requires a process committment. I'm not saying there are very many substance panentheists out there, or even that Panentheism and Process Philosophy don't dovetail quite nicely; just that in my mind they are conceptually distinct claims. If I'm using the word incorrectly, I ever so humbly apologize. No hard feelings.

Just a little something to think about... When Jesus says that I must completely die to myself in order to live, frankly that is very unpleasant, and makes me squirm. I don't like it, but to the best of my knowledge and my understanding of how to interpret the Bible, that's what it means, and so I accept that I must do it. I don't say this to sound special (I fail miserably at it most of the time), but merely to say that, just because I'm a progressive Christian doesn't mean I take what I like from the Bible and leave the rest. Just some food for thought.

Well, I'd be just as careful about saying that process is the primary mode of God's existence, as I'd be about saying that substance is. Certainly, process is a really helpful way of elucidating the universe as the God's free self-manifestation; but an sich (that's for you Kantians out there), God must surely transcend these feeble conceptualizations we struggle to make. For me, the I AM has a deeply mystical sense to it, and I prefer to let it confront me in all its rawness, rather than try to tell it what it means.