By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
I note that, in succeeding sentences, Whitehead says that "God is the aboriginal instance of this creativity [sc. the ultimate creativity of the universe]" and that "God is the eternal primordial character [sc. characterizing the creativity]" (PRc: 225 [344]).
It seems clear enough from Whitehead's use of "eternal" as well as "aboriginal" and "primordial" that, in his understanding, there never was when "God" was not, any more than there ever was when "creativity" was not, or when "creatures" and "temporal creatures" were not—to take account of his claim in the very next sentence that the interconnections of all these concepts are matters of "meaning."
On the other hand, Whitehead can say that "[t]he primordial nature of God is the acquirement by creativity of a primordial character," as though there might have been creativity without this acquirement (344 [522]). And of course, the same impression is created when he refers to God explicitly as an "instance," or even an "accident" of creativity.
1 October 2000
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