Chapter II
GOD
and the World
SECTION
I
So long as the temporal world is conceived as a self-sufficient completion of
the creative act,
explicable by its derivation from an ultimate principle which is at once
eminently real and the unmoved
mover, from this conclusion there is no escape: the best that we can say of the
turmoil is, For
so he giveth his beloved—sleep.’ This is the message of religions of the
Buddhistic type, and in some
sense it is true. In this final discussion we have to ask, whether metaphysical
principles impose
the belief that it is the whole truth. The complexity of the world must be
reflected in the answer.
It is childish to enter upon thought with the simple-minded question, What is
the world made
of? The task of reason is to fathom the deeper depths of the many-sidedness of
things. We must
not expect simple answers to far-reaching questions. However far our gaze
penetrates, there are
always heights beyond which block our vision. The
notion of God as the ‘unmoved mover’ is derived from Aristotle, at least so far
as Western thought
is concerned. The notion of God as ‘eminently real’ is a favourite doctrine of
Christian theology. The combination of the two into the doctrine of an aboriginal, eminently real, transcendent
creator, at whose fiat the world came into being, and whose imposed will it
obeys, is the
fallacy which has infused tragedy into the histories of Christianity and of
Mahometanism.
When
the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered; and the received
text of Western
theology was edited by his lawyers. The code of Justinian and the theology of
Justinian are two
volumes expressing one movement of the human spirit. The brief Galilean
vision of humility
flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly. In the official formulation of the
religion it has assumed
the trivial form of the mere attribution to the Jews that they cherished a
misconception about
their Messiah. But the deeper idolatry, of the fashioning of God in the image
of the Egyptian, Persian,
and Roman imperial rulers, was retained. The Church gave unto God the
attributes which belonged
exclusively to Caesar. In
the great formative period of theistic philosophy, which ended with the rise of
Mahometanism, after
a continuance coeval with civilization, three strains of thought emerge which,
amid many variations
in detail, respectively fashion God in the image of an imperial ruler, God in
the image
of a personification of moral energy, God in the image of an ultimate
philosophical principle.
Hume’s
Dialogues criticize unanswerably these modes of explaining the system of the
world. The
three schools of thought can be associated respectively with the divine
Caesars, the Hebrew prophets,
and Aristotle. But Aristotle was antedated by Indian, and Buddhistic, thought;
the Hebrew prophets
can be paralleled in traces of earlier thought; Mahometanism and the divine
Caesars merely
represent the most natural, obvious, idolatrous theistic‡ symbolism, at all
epochs and places. The
history of theistic philosophy exhibits various stages of combination of these
three diverseways
of entertaining the problem. There is, however, in the Galilean origin of
Christianity yet another
suggestion which does not fit very well with any of the three main strands of
thought. 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 operate by
love; and it finds purpose
in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world. Love neither rules,
nor is it
SECTION II
In the first place, God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification. Viewed as primordial, he is the unlimited conceptual realization of the absolute wealth of
Thus, when we make a distinction of reason, and consider God in the abstraction of a primordial actuality, we must ascribe to him neither fulness of feeling, nor consciousness. He is the unconditioned actuality of conceptual feeling at the base of things; so that, by reason of this primordial actuality, there is an order in the relevance of eternal objects to the process of creation. His unity of conceptual operations is a free creative act, untrammelled by reference to any particular course of things. It is deflected neither by love, nor by hatred, for what in fact comes to pass. The particularities of the actual world presuppose it; while it merely presupposes the general metaphysical character of creative advance, of which it is the primordial exemplification. The primordial nature of God is the acquirement by creativity of a primordial character. His conceptual actuality at once exemplifies and establishes the categoreal conditions. The conceptual feelings, which compose his primordial nature, exemplify in their subjective forms their mutual sensitivity and their subjective unity of subjective aim. These subjective forms are valuations determining the relative relevance of eternal objects for each occasion of actuality.
He is the lure for feeling, the eternal urge of desire. His particular relevance to each creative act,† as it arises from its own conditioned standpoint in the world, constitutes him the initial ‘object of desire’ establishing the initial phase of each subjective aim. A quotation from Aristotle’s Metaphysics expresses some analogies to, and some differences from, this line of thought:
And since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; . . .
Aristotle had not made the distinction between conceptual feelings and the intellectual feelings which alone involve consciousness. But if ‘conceptual feeling,’ with its subjective form of valuation, be substituted for ‘thought,’ ‘thinking,’ and ‘opinion,’ in the above quotation, the agreement is exact.
There is another side to the nature of God which cannot be omitted. Throughout this exposition of the philosophy of organism we have been considering the primary action of God on the world. From this point of view, he is the principle of concretion—the principle whereby there is initiated a definite outcome from a situation otherwise riddled with ambiguity. Thus, so far, the primordial side of the nature of God has alone been relevant. But God, as well as being primordial, is also consequent. He is the beginning and the end. He is not the beginning in the sense of being in the past of all members. He is the presupposed actuality of conceptual operation, in unison of becoming with every other creative act. Thus,† by reason of the relativity of all things, there is a reaction of the world on God. The completion of God’s nature into a fulness of physical feeling is derived from the objectification of the world in God. He shares with every new creation its actual world; and the concrescent creature is objectified in God as a novel element in God’s objectification of that actual world. This prehension into God of each creature is directed with the subjective aim, and clothed with the subjective form, wholly derivative from his all-inclusive primordial valuation. God’s conceptual nature is unchanged, by reason of its final completeness.
But his derivative nature is consequent upon the creative advance of the world. Thus, analogously to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar. He has a primordial nature and a consequent nature. The consequent nature of God is conscious; and it is the realization of the actual world in the unity of his nature, and through the transformation of his wisdom. The primordial nature is conceptual, the consequent nature is the weaving of God’s physical feelings upon his primordial concepts. One side of God’s nature is constituted by his conceptual experience. This experience is the primordial fact in the world, limited by no actuality which it presupposes. It is therefore infinite, devoid of all negative prehensions. This side of his nature is free, complete, primordial, eternal, actually deficient, and unconscious. The other side originates with physical experience derived from the temporal world, and then acquires integration with the primordial side. It is determined, incomplete, consequent, ‘everlasting,’ fully actual, and conscious. His necessary goodness expresses the determination of his consequent nature. Conceptual experience can be infinite, but it belongs to the nature of physical experience that it is finite. An actual entity in the temporal world is to be conceived as originated by physical experience with its process of completion motivated by consequent, conceptual experience initially derived from God. God is to be conceived as originated by conceptual experience with his process of completion motivated by consequent, physical experience, initially derived from the temporal.
unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as to morals. It does not look to the
future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate
present.
SECTION II
Apart
from any reference to existing religions as they are, or as they ought to be,
we must investigate
dispassionately what the metaphysical principles, here developed, require on
these points,
as to the nature of God. There is nothing here in the nature of proof. There is
merely the confrontation
of the theoretic system with a certain rendering of the facts. But the
unsystematized report
upon the facts is itself highly controversial, and the system is confessedly
inadequate. The deductions
from it in this particular sphere of thought cannot be looked upon as more than suggestions
as to how the problem is transformed in the light of that system. What follows
is merely an
attempt to add another speaker to that masterpiece, Hume’s Dialogues Concerning
Natural Religion.
Any cogency of argument entirely depends upon elucidation of somewhat
exceptional elements
in our conscious experience—those elements which may roughly be classed
together as religious
and moral intuitions.
In the first place, God is not to be treated as an exception to all metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse. He is their chief exemplification. Viewed as primordial, he is the unlimited conceptual realization of the absolute wealth of
potentiality.
In this aspect, he is not before all creation, but with all creation. But, as
primordial, so far
is he from ‘eminent reality,’ that in this abstraction he is ‘deficiently
actual’—and this in two ways.
His feelings are only conceptual and so lack the fulness of actuality.
Secondly, conceptual feelings,
apart from complex integration with physical feelings, are devoid of
consciousness in their
subjective
forms.
Thus, when we make a distinction of reason, and consider God in the abstraction of a primordial actuality, we must ascribe to him neither fulness of feeling, nor consciousness. He is the unconditioned actuality of conceptual feeling at the base of things; so that, by reason of this primordial actuality, there is an order in the relevance of eternal objects to the process of creation. His unity of conceptual operations is a free creative act, untrammelled by reference to any particular course of things. It is deflected neither by love, nor by hatred, for what in fact comes to pass. The particularities of the actual world presuppose it; while it merely presupposes the general metaphysical character of creative advance, of which it is the primordial exemplification. The primordial nature of God is the acquirement by creativity of a primordial character. His conceptual actuality at once exemplifies and establishes the categoreal conditions. The conceptual feelings, which compose his primordial nature, exemplify in their subjective forms their mutual sensitivity and their subjective unity of subjective aim. These subjective forms are valuations determining the relative relevance of eternal objects for each occasion of actuality.
He is the lure for feeling, the eternal urge of desire. His particular relevance to each creative act,† as it arises from its own conditioned standpoint in the world, constitutes him the initial ‘object of desire’ establishing the initial phase of each subjective aim. A quotation from Aristotle’s Metaphysics expresses some analogies to, and some differences from, this line of thought:
And since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; . . .
Aristotle had not made the distinction between conceptual feelings and the intellectual feelings which alone involve consciousness. But if ‘conceptual feeling,’ with its subjective form of valuation, be substituted for ‘thought,’ ‘thinking,’ and ‘opinion,’ in the above quotation, the agreement is exact.
SECTION III
There is another side to the nature of God which cannot be omitted. Throughout this exposition of the philosophy of organism we have been considering the primary action of God on the world. From this point of view, he is the principle of concretion—the principle whereby there is initiated a definite outcome from a situation otherwise riddled with ambiguity. Thus, so far, the primordial side of the nature of God has alone been relevant. But God, as well as being primordial, is also consequent. He is the beginning and the end. He is not the beginning in the sense of being in the past of all members. He is the presupposed actuality of conceptual operation, in unison of becoming with every other creative act. Thus,† by reason of the relativity of all things, there is a reaction of the world on God. The completion of God’s nature into a fulness of physical feeling is derived from the objectification of the world in God. He shares with every new creation its actual world; and the concrescent creature is objectified in God as a novel element in God’s objectification of that actual world. This prehension into God of each creature is directed with the subjective aim, and clothed with the subjective form, wholly derivative from his all-inclusive primordial valuation. God’s conceptual nature is unchanged, by reason of its final completeness.
But his derivative nature is consequent upon the creative advance of the world. Thus, analogously to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar. He has a primordial nature and a consequent nature. The consequent nature of God is conscious; and it is the realization of the actual world in the unity of his nature, and through the transformation of his wisdom. The primordial nature is conceptual, the consequent nature is the weaving of God’s physical feelings upon his primordial concepts. One side of God’s nature is constituted by his conceptual experience. This experience is the primordial fact in the world, limited by no actuality which it presupposes. It is therefore infinite, devoid of all negative prehensions. This side of his nature is free, complete, primordial, eternal, actually deficient, and unconscious. The other side originates with physical experience derived from the temporal world, and then acquires integration with the primordial side. It is determined, incomplete, consequent, ‘everlasting,’ fully actual, and conscious. His necessary goodness expresses the determination of his consequent nature. Conceptual experience can be infinite, but it belongs to the nature of physical experience that it is finite. An actual entity in the temporal world is to be conceived as originated by physical experience with its process of completion motivated by consequent, conceptual experience initially derived from God. God is to be conceived as originated by conceptual experience with his process of completion motivated by consequent, physical experience, initially derived from the temporal.
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