1254. Concerning "the oneness of the universe . . .

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Concerning "the oneness of the universe, and the oneness of each element in the universe" (228 [347]), Whitehead says that the doctrine of his philosophy of organism is that,

"however, far the sphere of efficient causation be pushed in the determination of components of a concrescence—its data, its emotions, its appreciations, its purposes, its phases of subjective aim – beyond the determination of these components there always remains the final reaction of the self-creative unity of the universe. This final reaction completes the self-creative act by putting the decisive stamp of creative emphasis upon the determinations of efficient cause. Each occasion exhibits its measure of creative emphasis in proportion to its measure of subjective intensity. . . . [I]n the temporal world for occasions of relatively slight experient intensity, their decisions of creative emphasis are individually negligible compared to the determined components which they receive and transmit. But the final accumulation of all such decisions – the decision of God's nature and the decisions of all occasions—constitutes that special element in the flux of forms in history, which is 'given' and incapable of rationalization beyond the fact that within it every component which is determinable is internally determined.

"The doctrine is, that each concrescence is to be referred to a definite free initiation and a definite free conclusion. The initial fact is macrocosmic, in the sense of having equal relevance to all occasions; the final fact is microcosmic, in the sense of being peculiar to that occasion. Neither fact is capable of rationalization, in the sense of tracing the antecedents which determine it. The initial fact is the primordial appetition, and the final fact is the decision of emphasis, finally creative of the 'satisfaction'" (47 f. [75 f.])

So far as I can see, what Whitehead refers to in this passage as "the self-creative unity of the universe" can only be one and the same with what he elsewhere speaks of more explicitly as "the oneness of the universe, and the oneness of each element in the universe." For, clearly, whatever else he may mean by it here, "the self-creative unity of the universe" definitely refers to the self-creative unity of each and every actual occasion in the universe as well as, presumably, the self-creative unity of "the primordial appetition," if not also the consequent/superjective nature(s) of God, in respect to which God also has objective immortality (32 [47]). That he speaks of "the decision of God's nature" in the singular may well confirm that all that he has in mind here, in referring to the self-creative unity of God, is the unity constituted by God's "unconditioned conceptual valuation of the entire multiplicity of eternal objects." But there can be no question that, if God is also objectified by God's consequent/superjective nature(s) —as Whitehead expressly and repeatedly insists—"the self-creative unity" of God is not exhausted by God's primordial nature, but includes God's consequent/superjective nature(s) as well; for "God's 'primordial nature' is abstracted from his commerce with 'particulars,'" and "[a]s such . . . is a mere factor in God, deficient in actuality" (34 [50]).

11 October 2000