PhD: Twitter quote 107
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Twitter version I
Whitehead, a mathematician and philosopher, established a speculative philosophy of metaphysics within a scientific non-metaphysical reality.
Twitter version II
I question whether an unconscious deity would in any way proceed to a conscious temporal reality. Where did God’s consciousness come from?
Twitter version III
I reason consciousness would have to exist eternally to lead to a finite reality of consciousness.
2010 Theodicy and Practical Theology: PhD thesis, the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter
Whitehead, a mathematician and philosopher,[1] established a speculative philosophy of metaphysics within a scientific non-metaphysical reality.[2] This system is an attempt to adequately explain all individual beings in existence, including God.[3] Basically a system of metaphysics needed to be developed that would work with modern scientific theories and reality, and therefore God was not a ‘static essence’ but a process.[4] The ‘actual entities’[5] that make up this process are non-permanent and transient and each action and activity is dipolar having a physical pole of the past and a mental pole which is a possibility that can be achieved.[6] The physical pole feels the physical reality of actual entity, while the mental pole feels or prehends as Whitehead calls it, the eternal objects by which actual entities have conceptual definiteness.[7] These physical and mental poles are an aspect of every real being/actual entities although they are not real things themselves.[8] Prehends is the feeling of grasping the physical and conceptual information concerning actual entities.[9] This will occur within a stream and series of occasions.[10] All occurrences take place within the process of these actual entities.[11] Each event is partially self-created and partially influenced by other occasions and entities.[12] God is also dipolar[13] and his nontemporal pole is where God conceives the infinite variety of external objects and sees the possibilities and provides the opportunity for the process of becoming.[14] God is an actual entity and being.[15] God has a primordial nature and consequent nature, with the primordial being conceptual, while the consequent nature is God as conscious.[16] Whitehead explains that the ‘consequent nature is the weaving of God’s physical feelings upon his primordial concepts.’[17] God’s primordial conceptual nature is infinite and does not have negative prehension/feelings, and is eternal and unconscious.[18] This nature is permanent as God works out endless possibilities.[19] God in his vision can determine every possibility and adjust details where needed.[20] The consequent nature of God originates with physical experience with the material temporal world and it is integrated with the primordial conceptual nature.[21] The consequent nature as conscious is determined, finite and incomplete.[22] These two aspects of God’s deity can be distinguished but are inseparable.[23] This consequent conscious nature had God constantly acquiring new experiences.[24] A problem arises that if God’s primordial nature is eternal and unconscious[25] it precedes the consequent nature that is temporal[26] and has consciousness. I question whether an unconscious deity would in any way proceed to a conscious temporal reality. Where did God’s consciousness come from? I reason consciousness would have to exist eternally to lead to a finite reality of consciousness.[27]
October 18, 2021
I will also theologically suggest that God, as triune, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, exists, and has existed, eternally in conscious, relationship within infinite understanding of each other as divine distinctions (persons); Genesis 1: 26-27, as example 'our image', 'our likeness'.
Saturday, September 19, 2020-PhD Full Version PDF: Theodicy and Practical Theology 2010, Wales TSD
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
ERICKSON, MILLARD (1994) Christian Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.
DIEHL, DAVID W. (1996) ‘Process Theology’, in
Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical
Dictionary of Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Books.
GRENZ, STANLEY J., DAVID GURETZKI AND CHERITH FEE
NORDLING (1999) Pocket
Dictionary of Theological Terms, Downers Grove, Ill., InterVarsity Press.
GRENZ, STANLEY J. AND ROGER E. OLSON (1992) Twentieth Century
Theology, Downers Grove, Illinois, InterVarsity Press.
VINEY, DAVID (2008) ‘Process Theism’, in Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, Palo Alto, California, Stanford University.
WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH (1926) Religion in the
Making, New York, The MacMillan Company.
WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH (1927-1929)(1957) Process and Reality, New York, The Free Press/MacMillan Publishing Company,
Incorporated.
WHITEHEAD, ALFRED NORTH (1967)(1986) ‘Adventures
of Ideas’, in Forest Wood JR., Whiteheadian
Thought as a Basis for a Philosophy of Religion, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, University
Press of America, Inc.
[1] Grenz
and Olsen (1992: 135). Diehl (1996:
881).
[2] Grenz
and Olsen (1992: 135).
[3] Diehl
(1996: 881).
[4] Grenz
and Olsen (1992: 135).
[5] Grenz
and Olsen (1992: 135). Diehl (1996:
881).
[6] Grenz
and Olsen (1992: 136). Diehl (1996:
881).
[7] Diehl
(1996: 881). Whitehead (1927-1929)(1957:
407).
[8] Viney
(2008: 8).
[9] Diehl
(1996: 881). Viney (2008: 9).
[10] Grenz
and Olsen (1992: 136).
[11] Diehl
(1996: 881).
[12] Diehl
(1996: 881).
[13] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407). Viney (2008: 8).
[14] Grenz
and Olsen (1992: 137).
[15] Viney
(2008: 9).
[16] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[17] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[18] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[19] Viney
(2008: 9).
[20] Whitehead
(1926: 153-154).
[21] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[22] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[23] Viney
(2008: 9).
[24] Viney
(2008: 9).
[25] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[26] Whitehead
(1927-1929)(1957: 407).
[27] An eternal reality of unconsciousness should lead to a finite reality of unconsciousness.
