1290. Process And Reality

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Process and Reality, Part V 340\516 f.-Note the parallel Whitehead draws here between "physical feelings" and "the higher intellectual feelings." Presumably, the "other order" by the vague insistency of which the higher intellectual feelings are said to be haunted even as the physical feelings are haunted by the vague insistence of causality, is identicaI with the order referred to in the next paragraph, "in which novelty does not mean loss." But, then, the order "where there is no unrest, no travel, no shipwreck," or "in which novelty does not mean loss," is to be contrasted with "the order of the physical world." And yet, significantly, Whitehead does not speak of "the process of the telnporal world" passing into the formation of another actuality, but rather of "otlIer actuillities, bound together in an order in which noveJty does not mean loss." I take this to mean that \Vhitehead could hardly have understood God to be all actuality, except in the loose sense in which he can speak-for instance--of the body as tm actuality. What is significant here is not "actuality," but "order"; "actuality," by contrast, appears in the plural. And what could it possibly refer to except the "actuaJities" bound together in the consequent nature of God, in which, as Whitehead says, "there is no Joss, no obstruction," just as he speaks of the process of the temporal world passing into the formation of "other actualities, bound together in an order in which novelty does not mean loss"?-That Whitehead speaks as he does here strongly suggestr to me that he hardly thinks of God as an actual entity in any rigid way when he speaks of considering God-having made "a distinction of reason"-in "the abstraction of a primordial actuality" (3441522). 

-Isn't it rather clear that the "question" that Whitehead here takes to be "the Illost general formulation of the religious problem" is the sort of question a \Vesterner, conditioned by the biblical tradition, would be likely to ask? Also, to what extent is this formulation of the religious problem at all apparent in Religioll ill tile Nlilkillg? \Vouldn't one be inclined to judge from the position set forth there that the "religious problem" had more to do with the origin of value, and hence with the necessary conditions of its origin, than with its destiny? 

3401516 f.J-What, really, is "the ultimate evil in the temporal world"? Does it lie in "the fact that the past fades, that time is a 'perpetual perishing,'" or rather in the fact that those of us who have the capacity to ask and answer this question are unable or unwilling to come to terms with the fact that the past fades, and so on? Perhaps, in "the temporal world" generally, the ultimate evil is, indeed, transience. But in that part of the temporal world where there can be such things as "the higher intellectual feelings" and therefore moral _freedom, isn't the ultimate evil the inauthentic way in which beings capable of such feelings, or of such freedom, fail to come to terms with "perpetual perishing"-in short: "sin"? _341 1517 f.l-in what sense is "God" a"intuition"? Also, how is God, conceived as primarily, if not only, "conceptualappetition," any kind of a possible solution to the "religious problem," as\Vhitehead formulates it just above?-Perhaps \Vhitehead's comment here that"God and the World introduce the note of interpretation" helps to shed light onsome of his other comments concerning God. Thus, for example, he can say that"the immanence of God gives reason for the belief that pure chaos is intrinsicallyimpossible" (111 1169]). Or, again, he can say, "the concept of 'God' is the way inwhich we understand this incredible fact-that what cannot be, yet is" (3501531 ). In both of these comments, the same point is made as appears to be madein the original comment, namely, that by reason of the concept-term "God" weare able to understand or interpret what is already a matter of direct intuition,belief, or experience. By inference from what Whitehead says on 347 [5261, wemay say that the "fundamental intuition" of which the concept-term "God" is theinterpretation is "the intuition of permanence in fluency and of fluency inpermanence."ma~rof "interpretation," as distinct from 

34415221-But, dearly, what God presupposes is not just "the

3451523J-Note Whitehead's reference here, not to the "primordial nature of God," but to "the primordial side of the nature of God," which, presumably, must also be said to have a "consequent side." That he can speak in this way, surely indicates how little the first way of speaking should ever be interpreted rigidly,

346general metaphysical character of creative advance," of which God is the primordial exemplification, but also "the 'temporal creatures'''-not these, those, or any other particular creatures, but sOllle creatures (d. 225 1344). f. [526 f.J-What does it mean to be "everlasting"? Does it mean (1) to combine creative advance with the retention of mutual immediacy; (2) to be 

objectively immortal while devoid of perpetual perishing; or (3) to reconcile

immediacy with objective in'lmortality

3471527-When Whitehead speaks, as he does here, of "actuality with

permanence" and "actuality with fluency," he is hardly using "actuality" in the strict sense of(d. 351 15321)? Or are these only verbally different ways of saying the same thing? "all actual entity," since an actual entity as such cannot change and hence is precisely not "fJuent"-no more, indeed, than it can be "permanent," since an actual entity that does not change does become-and perish. Somewhat similarly, to say of "the universal feeling," which is Cod's feeling, that it is "always with novel advance, moving onward and never perishing" (34615251) is to imply that Cod's feeling cannot be that of an actual entity, since no actual entity by itself and as such can instance "the creative advance," and any actual entity necessarily "perishes" as well as "becomes." It seems ever clearer to me that when \Vhitehead says that Cod is "an actual entity," he is really saying only that Cod is actual, other than ideal, potential, etc., because "Cod" means agency of decision, subjectivity, concreteness, and so on-all of which, of course, are characteristics of ind ivid uals as well as events. 

348f. 15291-\Vhat \Nhitehead says here about Cod in contrast to world makes only too clear how much he tends to think and speak of Cod as though Cod were nothing but the primordial nature of Cod, or "the primordial side of the nature of Cod" (345 1523 D. 34915291-\Vhen VYhitehead speaks here about the world being "in the process" of acquiring "a consequent unity, which is a novel occasion and is absorbed into the multiplicity of the primordial character," presumably, "the primordial character" does not refer, as it does elsewhere, to the primordia I natureofCod, but rather to tlte world's being "primordially many," as in "the many become one and are increased by one." In the same way, his reference to "a consequent unity" presumably uses "consequent" otherwise than when he uses it to refer to the consequent nature of Cod, and thus to what he speaks of elsewhere as "the final unity" in which the many are absorbed everlastingly (34715271). By "consequent unity" here he seems to mean only what he elsewhere calls "the genetic unity of the universe" (286 1438]), or "the self-creative unity of the universe" (47175]), which is to say, the unity involved ill tile ml1l1y becoming Ol1e tll1d beillg illCfeosed hy

011(,.

3491529 f.l-vVhat sense does, or could, it make to speak of such things as the primordial character absorbing the consequent multiplicity, or the consequent

unity being absorbed into the multiplicity of the primordial character, or the static vision accomplishing its purpose of completion by absorption of the world's multiplicity of effort?

350 1531 ]-What, exactly, is "this incredible fact-that what cannot be, yet is"? Is it simply that "all the 'opposites' are elements in the nature of things, and are incorrigibly there"? Or is it that our immediate actions "perish, and yet live for evermore" (351 15331)?

350 !532l-\:Vhat \Vhitehead says here about "the universe accomplishl ingl its ilctuality" is presumably only a way of talking about the universe's potentiality being ilctualized. But, then, whill reason is there to suppose that, whenever he uses the term "actuality," he can only meanEven so, VYhitehead does clearly distinguish between "the oneness of the universe" and "the oneness of each element in the universe" (228/3481). Cod may very well absorb the world; but it makes no sense at all to talk about the primordia/natllre of God doing so! ll1l actual entity?