By Schubert Ogden
_Creativity_ _According to Hartshorne, "The concept of creative becoming has a religious origin, for it is the generalization of the divine 'fiat' back of the world" (LP: 122). "Whitehead's 'category of the ultimate'-creativity-is merely theology become clear as to its own meaning._{_}It_ _is the only ultimate category that belongs in a theistic philosophy. Not 'being,' for that is an abstraction from becoming or creative freedom" ("Man's Fragmentariness": 27). "A theistic philosophy ... must make of creativity a 'transcendental/ the very essence of reality as self-surpassing process. This is precisely what Whitehead does in his 'category of the ultimate\!\!'_ _(ANT: 26)._ _Elsewhere Hartshorne points out that "just as in Thomism 'being' is not simply the same in God and in other things, so in \ [Whitehead's_ Wiki Markup
_Can Hartshorne's statements on this matter be sustained? The first seems sufficiently well-founded to require no further discussion. As for the second, one may test its validity by asking whether "creativity" could be used in the different senses in which "being{_}{_}J_ _system 'becoming' or 'creativity,' rather than mere being, is the supreme but analogical unity"_ _UR,_ _37: 72 f, 78). "\[C\]reativity-as-such is no more a God beyond God in \ [Whitehead's\] system than being-as-such is in Thomism. The difference is mainly in the shift from mere being to process-as the ultimate analogical universal or form of forms"_ _(W{_}{_}M: 41)._ _(::;;::das Sein)"_ _is used, for example, by Coreth, when he speaks of (1) its_ *{_}summative{_}* *{_}sense (::;;::being as the sum of all beings); (2) its{_}* *{_}principiative{_}* *{_}sense (=being as the principle of all{_}* *{_}beings=actus essendi);_* *{_}and (3) its{_}* *{_}horizon-like{_}* *{_}sense (=being as the horizon of all bein.gs: the a priori unity and totality as the condition of the possibility that-within this unity and totality-individual beings can be posited as being and known as being)._* *{_}It{_}* *{_}seems to me that,_* *{_}mutatis mutandis,_* *_"creativity"_* *{_}could be{_}* *{_}appropriately used in all three of these senses consistently with Whitehead's own intention in using it, regardless of whether or not he himself ever so used it._* Wiki Markup