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Charles Hartshorne believes that the ontological argument forces on us the disjunction, either "God exists" is true necessarily or "God exists" is false necessarily. This, he holds, is simply a logical extension of what Anselm discovered, for, as Anselm saw, God cannot be understood in the imperfect mode of contingency, whether as existing or not. Hartshorne thinks that the possibility of "God exists" may be asserted as an intuitive postulate. If so, then the second of the disjuncts -- that "God exists" is false necessarily -- is false (and indeed could not be true). Hence, "God exists" is true necessarily.

Yet, as R. L. Purtill has pointed out, a precisely parallel argument holds if we conjoin with the original disjunction the premise that "God does not exist" is possible.¹ For then the first of the disjuncts -- that "God exists" is true necessarily -- is false (and must he so). "God exists is then false necessarily.

Moreover, if to show that "God exists" is possible one must show that some actual set of circumstances requires God’s existence, then, says Purtill, one would, in adducing such a set of circumstances, "have proved God’s existence without the ontological argument."² Likewise, if by showing that some actual set of circumstances is incompatible with God’s existence, one shows that "God exists" is not possible, then, in adducing such a set of circumstances, one would have "proved God’s non-existence without the ontological disproof."³

Perhaps the defender of the doctrine, "God exists" is possible, need only conceive a set of circumstances to require Deity, while the opponent of the doctrine need only conceive a set of circumstances incompatible with divine existence, e.g., a completely evil universe. Without settling the question whether an actual or only a conceivable set of circumstances need be adduced, Purtill says he inclines to favor the first option -- as in the cosmological and design arguments. But then the possibility of God would be based on a proof itself sufficient to show that God exists (granting that the proof succeeds). "Thus, if the ontological argument is sound it is superfluous."⁴

In his provocative essay, Purtill has certainly thrown down the gauntlet to the Anselmian. Not only has he focused attention on the crucial postulate of the ontological argument, the postulate of logical possibility, he has advanced the thesis that a justification of that postulate would already include the conclusion of the argument and thereby render it superfluous.

At the outset it should be said for purposes of clarity that the Anselmian is not trying to establish that God is one possibility among others, that is, that God is a potential being. Rather, he is concerned to show that God is not inconceivable or (putting it another way) that the concept of God hangs together in the understanding and breaks down neither logically nor ontologically. Perhaps to accomplish that task fully would require a full-blown doctrine of God and the world. In any event, it is not simply an intuition (an "intuitive postulate") that perfection is not impossible -- except to one sufficiently enlightened by examination of the conceptual problem of God. My contention is that such an examination can provide the assurance one needs to assert that God is conceivable.

That assurance, if it can be achieved, must be internal to the doctrine of God itself and need not be sought in and through arguments such as the cosmological and design arguments. Doubtless these arguments have a bearing on the ontological argument, and I will later suggest what it may be. My point here, however, is that to ask how God is possible is (to put it in broadest terms) to ask how an individual being may be so conceived as to function universally in the universe, each thing in the universe in turn functioning with respect to that individual being. To be sure, the functioning must be specified. But what I am concerned to stress is the utterly unique role the individual being God, in functioning universally, is understood to fill. Hartshorne, in explaining how we may conceive that role, simultaneously provides the intuition that a divine being is possible.

The definition of deity, as unsurpassably great, identifies one and only one being, though the definition contains no empirical elements. As Hartshorne puts it, God is the one individual definable a priori.⁵ Thus, in conceiving deity -- though the conception is a bare abstract thought -- we possess the principle of individuation for God; we describe no mere class of beings. The perfection of that individual being consists precisely in its all-comprehensive functioning. And this in turn may be understood by speaking of God as the ground of all possibility.⁶ "The basic referent of ‘possible,’" says Hartshorne, "is to the divine capacity to create and enjoy creatures"⁷ That capacity, being coextensive with possibility itself, furnishes God a status transcending that of any of the unimaginably many alternative possibilities, making God the individual being to which there is no alternative. God’s inclusiveness of the possible is paralleled by the possession of whatever actualities are realized. To speak of God’s modal coextensiveness, as Hartshorne does, is the abstract, non-dynamic way of referring to God’s unsurpassable capacity to make alternatives possible and to produce (without necessarily determining) actual creatures.

I submit that this conception itself, when adequately elaborated, shows the possibility of God. For unless the conception contains hidden contradictions, it shows that deity would exist no matter what else did or might exist, no matter what else did not or might not exist. In Hartshorne’s words, "the existence of God is not a possibility competing with other possibilities . . . [God’s] role is not competitive."⁸ To say that nothing can rival God in greatness is simply to say that any other existent does (or would) compete with other possibilities and hence is (or would be) inferior to deity. It is God’s embracing all possible and actual things which at once defines God’s uniqueness as an individual being, explains the noncompetitiveness of thyme existence, and explicates its unsurpassibility. God is possible because it is possible for possibilities to have a ground, namely, an individual who functions as their presupposed source. Or, to state the point another way, God is possible because by existing no entity can contravene the very condition or presupposition of its being.

We would smell a paradox in the declaration: "I can’t disclose whether I am capable of uttering an English sentence." Similarly, we may find it paradoxical to ask Purtill’s question whether some set of circumstances is incompatible with -- or, alternatively, requires -- God’s existence. For God is conceived as the ground or condition of any and every set of circumstances. In his "rejoinder to Purtill," Hartshorne aptly declares: "From the unsurpassable power of God to adapt to circumstances I deduce that nothing could conflict with his existence." ⁹ He adds: "From the unsurpassable power of God to produce effects I deduce that . . . anything could show his existence."¹⁰ At a minimum, it is possible that God so exist as to conflict with no circumstance whatever but, rather, so exist as to furnish its very possibility.

It should be evident that Hartshorne’s understanding of God represents a departure from that of Anselm and other classical theologians. As George L. Goodwin sees it, "the key move in the Hartshornean re-conception of God is precisely the introduction of possibility into the Godhead."¹¹ Possibilities do not exist in a vacuum. They belong (or subsist) within the context of God’s being, since God is their indispensable source or principle. Hence, God is not actually complete and perfected, the exhaustion of all possible values. Rather, God is modally complete. This means that God includes whatever is in fact actual, and can and will possess any predicate or compossible set of predicates that becomes actualized.¹²

What is missing in the classical view of God is the logical (and modal) distinction between property and instance, between the abstract concept and its concrete embodiment. God was, in the tradition, said to be God’s perfection. If that be true, then God "is evidently the mere content of an abstract definition."¹³ And being merely abstract -- albeit necessary -- God falls short of actuality or concreteness. Hartshorne escapes the paradox of abstractness, to which J. N. Findlay has called attention. Hartshorne distinguishes the existence of deity -- that God’s identity is instantiated in actual states -- from the actual states which exhibit the divine identity. It is God’s unlimited capacity to possess successive states, each an inclusive appropriation of its corresponding world state, that makes sense of modal completeness or co-extensiveness. Yet the view is unmistakably dipolar, for the perfection of God is that abstractly conceivable capacity of God to have and enjoy creatures, a capacity unsurpassable because limited by no actual or possible thing.

If, as Goodwin says, Hartshorne’s key move is to introduce possibility into the Godhead, then of course time is introduced as well. For possibility, according to Hartshorne, is essentially futurity -- the determinability of some actual state of affairs, its Inn -- finished, yet-to-be-completed aspects. I am not referring here to what Hartshorne calls "pure" or eternal possibilities, which he says are wholly rational and presuppose no choice, decision, or selection.¹⁴ It is in this latter sense that Cod’s existence can be said to be a possibility. But in speaking of possible divine states we refer to what is possible for God relative to time and place. It is possible for God to enjoy tomorrow’s values, and to suffer its disvalues, only when and as these become actual facts.

To explicate the manner of God’s functioning with respect to all actual and possible entities, Hartshorne employs the psychical categories -- volition knowledge, love, experience, valuation, etc. These are not for him symbolic usages, nor are they merely analogical. They are true of God literally. Thus, for example, God’s omniscience is the clear and complete cognition of all things just as they are. God knows the past in all its variety and detail, the present in its creative becoming, and the future as that set of possible (and probable) states furnished by the temporal advance to date.

Now my argument is that Hartshorne’s neoclassical way of conceiving Cod furnishes the postulate of logical possibility for the ontological argument. For one thing, it escapes the logical difficulties which afflict the classical actus purus doctrine. But its positive strength is (1) to provide an understanding of God’s identity as an individual through abstractions alone ("This does not imply that God is a merely abstract entity, but only that what makes God God and no other individual is abstract"¹⁵), and (2) more specifically, to identify God as the sole individual with strictly universal functions, defined with relation to actuality as such and with respect to possibility as such. Hence, God as an existing being can be seen to conflict with nothing whatever, God being the foundation (the ground or source) of all things and the preserver of all through the unsurpassable power to include all omnisciently.

The intuition into God’s unique universal role and utter noncompetitiveness yield is also the intuition that no existent could either cause God’s existence or prevent it. Such independence of any possible condition identifies a pure possibility -- what is possible in a special sense because nothing conceivable threatens or rivals it.

At this point, we must face a possible objection. For without contending that Hartshorne’s doctrine of God is incoherent or that something might, if it were actual, put an end to God’s existence, in short, without contending that God is impossible, one might claim simply that a world without God makes sense. The claim appears modest enough -- merely the assertion that all beings may be and perhaps are imperfect in some fashion.

My view is that the other arguments for God -- those other than the ontological argument -- do not directly provide the postulate of logical possibility. But they do function to protect that possibility from alleged alternatives -- such as the one Just suggested, namely, that it happens or might happen to be the case that all beings fall short of perfection. Accordingly, the ontological argument has an independent status; it is not superfluous. Yet its postulate that divine existence is possible can and must be defended against specious claims and proposals that a world without God is as possible as one with God.

Consider the above-mentioned objection. It might be put as follows: "God does not exist, but not because some unfortunate accident incompatible with divine existence has brought about God’s nonexistence or prevented God’s existence. No, the world is just a Godless world in which all beings are surpassable." In effect, the objector holds that either a Godfull world or a Godless world is possible, though only the latter obtains.

It seems to me that the other arguments can and do connect appropriately with such an objection. For consider, to begin with, the fact that no one could ever know the world to be Godless. I am assuming of course that the objector means to insist (among other things) that in the Godless world no individual possesses omniscient awareness. Let us examine this hypothesis. How might we establish it? Even if we surveyed each part of the universe and found them all cognitively deficient, we would not have succeeded in showing that God does not exist. For God is no part of the universe. "Nothing less than the all-inclusive reality, or at least the universal cause of reality, is even a candidate for the status ‘divine.’ " ¹⁶ But, in any event, the notion that beings imperfect in knowledge could inspect all parts of the universe is implausible at best. So if one holds that all individuals are or might be imperfect, none having omniscience, one is committed to a position which is strictly unknowable. "For how can any incomplete survey of reality constitute evidence that there is not a complete survey?"¹⁷

Of course, it might be argued that an unknown and unknowable truth -- say, the truth about all things and their imperfections -- is nonetheless a truth, since it is true by dint of its relation to reality. But note, we now have the hypothesis that, though no knower is free of ignorance and confusion, there is still a pure and comprehensive truth about reality. It is, we might say, a perfect truth -- one such as a perfect knower would possess were such a knower to exist. But we do not assess beliefs and ideas by comparing them with bare, unexperienced reality. We compare them with various aspects of our experience: expectations are examined in light of subsequent experiences, concepts are evaluated by their adequacy to perceptions, etc. So what sense can we find in the supposition that truth is independent of experiencing or knowing? Indeed, is not reality just "what is or would be experienced and known by an experience free from doubt, unclarity, inconsistency, and unanswered questions"¹⁸?

There is, however, another (and perhaps more convincing) attack on the contention that a Godless world is possible. For if a Godless world is one without an omniscient knower, this, if true, is a wholly negative fact. We assume that the objector does not hold that some set of conditions or accidents has put God out of business or kept God from coming to be in the first place. Rather, the objector takes it to be conceivable that all beings just are, simply are, imperfect.

Since it is assumed that no fact in the Godless world is such that, were it nonexistent, God would exist, the absence of God is a sheer absence, with no positive bearing or significance. Most negations -- like ‘‘no fire in the room" -- imply some positive factual alternative -- like "every part of the room below ninety degrees centigrade" or "air in the room clear and fresh." Indeed, such facts, falling under observation, give us ground for denying states of affairs which are incompatible with them.

But if God is just "not there," and yet all else is the same -- if a world where no individual is perfect is a conceivable world -- we would lack any positive evidence for the divine absence. This absence would in principle be unknowable, since nothing one might observe would or could constitute the meaning of that absence. But what no one would or could conceivably experience does not represent a conceivable state of affairs.

Hartshorne contends that all fact must have its positive aspect, merely or exclusively negative facts being impossible. This "axiom of positivity" he asserts to be a truism, yet one with immense consequences.¹⁹ One such consequence is that "‘the non-existence of God’ could have no possible positive meaning, and . . . this suffices to render it logically null and void." ²⁰

Now, the supposition that God might fail to exist, that this is just as possible as God’s existing, is not an empirical supposition. Rather it is simply an attempt to identify a priori something conceivable. My contention, to repeat, is that against such a supposition arguments other than the ontological argument are effective. Thus they may protect the postulate of logical possibility (so essential to the ontological argument) by discounting an alleged correlative or complementary possibility of nonexistence. They do not then directly establish that "God exists" is possible. That, as I have argued, is an implication of the concept of God itself. What those arguments provide the ontological argument is an a priori repudiation of the conjunct "and also possibly God fails to exist, all things being imperfect."

I have not, in fact, employed the lineaments of the classical cosmological argument in seeking an a priori negation of that conjunct. Bather I have had recourse to what Hartshorne calls the epistemic or idealistic argument.²¹ My two theses have been (1) that in a world of imperfect beings the truth that no omniscient knower exists would simply be unknowable -- which cannot possibly be so -- and (2) that in such a world no fact could furnish evidence for God’s nonexistence, hence God’s nonexistence would be a purely negative fact, and so nonsense. I believe that various arguments can be used against that a priori hypothesis of a world without deity, depending on how in particular (with which emphases and details) one undertakes to describe that world.

Where does the famous problem of evil fit into the discussion? Arguments from evil take us beyond the position of our objector who claimed only that a Godless world is also possible. For those arguments aim to show that God is either improbable or downright impossible. They represent a direct assault on the possibility postulate of the ontological argument. It is the concept of God which is at stake and which, in and of itself, must either conquer or be conquered by the alleged incompatibility of evil with God’s existence.

If God is conceived as all-powerful, as in classical theology, and this attribute is taken to mean that all decisions are God’s -- that in truth God is the only agent -- then the theist must surely deny either the existence of God or the existence of evil. In fact, the very conceivability of evil in any possible world would, as Hartshorne declares, wreck theism if divine power and goodness could not coexist with evil. For in that case God would have to be conceived as contingent even if God were to exist. Since evil is conceivable, and contingency of existence is surpassal.1e, theism is absurd unless God’s existence is compatible with the existence of evil.²²

But of course God’s existence is not compatible with the existence of evil if God exercises a sheer monopoly in decision-making. So if God exercises such a monopoly, theism is absurd. Yet is not divine power capable of excluding all evil and guaranteeing universal harmony? Neoclassical theism answers that to be a creature at all is to be a creator on the nondivine level.²³ So if God has creatures, their self-determinations will always add definiteness to the range of potentiality furnished by their causal conditions. Of course, if every creature is to some extent self-determining, then there is always risk of conflict and suffering. Since, for Hartshorne, nothing -- from angels to man to particles -- is simply determined by deity, risk of evil is unavoidable.

How does this doctrine fit with the view that God is unsurpassable power? To begin with, omnipotence -- as the making of all decisions by one agent -- is a pseudo-idea. This follows from the fact that a creature’s concrete decisions cannot be made by another individual or by any situation or law. Theological determinism, Hartshorne points out, divides all decision-making into (1) God’s, which is supposed to be utterly free (and inexplicable) and (2) creatures’, which is supposed to be utterly unfree (and wholly explicable). To take the term decision from its context among creatures and extend it to God is then to leap an absolute gulf.²⁴

Moreover, it is not weakness in God that God does not enforce universal harmony. It is an implication of God’s having creatures, and of their having self-determination, that there is risk of discord. Yet God sets limits to the freedom of action for creatures, namely, the laws of nature, which no creature decides. In this sense God guarantees limits to the potential chaos of the universe. What is often overlooked or denied is that God has receptive or passive power to take the contributions of the creatures and to decide what use to make of them in God’s ongoing life. God’s power would indeed be deficient were God incapable of receiving the determinations of the creatures. Of course, this requires that God be a self-surpassing being, not unmoved or immutable. It also requires that the sufferings of creatures, not merely their joys, be internalized by God, who thereby suffers with the creatures -- a departure from the classical view of divine bliss.

The heart of Hartshorne’s doctrine is that God does not manipulate or set concrete events at all. What God decrees is what sort of risks of evil shall accompany what sort of opportunities for good. For risk is inseparable from freedom, as is opportunity. The laws of nature maximize the chances for good, while minimizing those for evil. "The chances of evil are subordinate to the chances for good, so that good is the primary overarching probability."²⁵ Note that even if each creature chooses a good course for itself, achieving internal harmony, it is partly luck whether that course harmonizes with, or clashes with, the courses chosen by other creatures. In short, a good can conflict with other goods.

What restricts freedom is always other exercises of freedom that is, decisions made by oneself and others (including atoms and cells) in the past. "Even the laws of nature are divine decisions made long ago, and freely made."²⁶ Past exercises of freedom, including God’s in establishing the order of nature, is what is meant by causality.

I have, I hope, presented the main features of Hartshorne s view of the problem of evil. What should be clear is that the basic issue is the concept of God. For where there is confusion or inconsistency in that concept, there is correlative difficulty regarding what it means to be a creature.²⁷ If a creature could escape all evil, and indeed even its possibility, and escape it because God’s perfect power and goodness would prevent anything undesirable from occurring, then the very conceivability of evil would render theism absurd. Hence, the postulate of logical possibility, which, as I have argued, rests on the cogency of the idea of God, must by virtue of that very idea reveal the problem of evil to involve a misunderstanding. Thus, it is not here germane -- at least, not directly germane -- to recur to the various other arguments for God’s existence. What is germane is the clarification of the idea of God. There is reason to believe that the conceivability of evil, perhaps especially natural evil but also moral evil, impugns the classical doctrine of divine power and thereby shows that doctrine to be defective. Hartshorne’s neoclassical view is that decision-making cannot be monopolized by deity (hence the classical doctrine is intrinsically impossible). For the only way God could have creatures or a world is to set creatures free, within limits -- or, better, set limits on the inherent freedom of creatures -- and thereby risk evil. So the problem of evil, it turns out, is based on the misapprehension that God could monopolize decision-making and still have creatures. Once it is seen that evil is to be explained by the presence of many free creatures in the world, and by their social relations, that misapprehension becomes evident to us. The classical doctrine of omnipotence and the problem of evil are each aspects of the misapprehension, and accordingly both are precluded by the neoclassical vision of God.

The ontological argument properly focuses attention on the postulate of logical possibility and hence on the doctrine of God itself. That doctrine must carry within its conceptualities the warrant for the postulate. Should it be claimed that any set of circumstances or its possibility is incompatible with the existence of God, the burden then falls on the advocate of theism to show that the claim is not only false but confused. For it is impossible that a conceivable set of circumstances be such as to conflict with the existence of that individual who is presupposed by every actual and every possible state of affairs. Once the theist has clarified in a doctrine of God the universal functioning and hence the inalienability of the divine individual, the ontological argument proceeds of its own strength.

On the other hand, should it be assumed that there is a matching possibility opposed to the possibility of divine existence, the other arguments for God can be called on to exclude that assumption. Those arguments may proceed directly to the conclusion that a necessary being exists. But this in no way weakens the ontological inference from the concept of deity to necessary existence. In short, the ontological argument is by no means superfluous, since it does not rest on the other arguments to guarantee the postulate of logical possibility, and gains support from them only insofar as that postulate is protected by those arguments against options they show to be specious.

Notes

1B. L. Purtill, "Ontological Modalities," The Review of Metaphysics 21 (December, 1967), 303.

2 Ibid., p. 306.

3 Ibid.

4Ibid., p. 307.

5 See Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity; (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), p, 31.

6 See Charles Hartshorne, "What Did Anselm Discover?" The Many-faced Argument (New York: Macmillan Co., 1967), p. 324. See also Charles Hartshorne, "Rationale of the Ontological Proof" Theology Today 20 (July, 1963), 281, and Charles Hartshorne, "The Formal Validity and Real Significance of the Ontological Argument," The Philosophical Review 53 (May, 1944), 232, 240.

7 Hartshorne, "What Did Anselm Discover?" p. 324.

8 Ibid., p. 330.

9 Charles Hartshorne, "Rejoinder to Purtill," The Review of Metaphysics 21 (December, 1967), 309.

10 Ibid.

11 George L. Goodwin, The Ontological Argument of Charles Hartshorne (Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1.978). p. 55. Goodwin’s italics.

12 See Charles Hartshorne, Anselm ‘s Discovery (La Salle, Illinois; Open Court Publishing Co., 1965), p. 123. Note the qualification added in Hartshorne’s parenthetical comment, that "God does not have the anger of the angry man as the man has it . . ." Ibid.

13 Charles Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1962), p. 105.

14 See Hartshorne, Anselm’s Discovery, p. 185.

Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1970), p. 246.

16 Charles Hartshorne, "Is the Denial of Existence Ever Contradictory?" The Journal of Philosophy 63 (February, 1966), 88.

17 Charles Hartshorne, "Royce’s Mistake -- and Achievement," The Journal of Philosophy 53 (February, 1956), 127.

18 Charles Hartshorne, "Royce and the Collapse of Idealism," Revue Internationale de Philosophie 23, 79-80 (1967, Fasc. 1-2), 51.

19 See Charles Hartshorne, ‘Negative Facts and the Analogical Inference to ‘Other Mind,’’’ Dr. S. Dadhakrishnan Souvenir Volume, ed. J. P. Atreya (Moradabad, India: Darshana International, 1964), p. 151.

20 Ibid., p. 149.

21 Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis, p. 286.

22 Ibid., p. 292.

23 See ibid., p. 293.

24 See Charles Hartshorne, "A New Look at the Problem of Evil," Current Philosophical Issues: Essays in Honor of Curt John Ducasse (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas Publications, 1966), p. 204.

25 Ibid., p. 210.

26 Ibid., p. 211.

27 See ibid., p. 202.

Charles Hartshorne holds that concrete reality is actuality and that actuality is definite or determinate.¹ Does he mean only that definiteness or determinateness is a distinguishing mark of concrete reality? No, Hartshorne’s position is much stronger than this. He wishes to identify determinateness with actuality: fully determinate particularized quality is actuality (see TDG 193). As Hartshorne succinctly puts it, "definiteness is actuality" (RSP 94).

A metaphysician must explain the distinction between the actual and the possible. If the two are not distinguished, the actual may be taken as the possible all over again. The philosophy of being (as opposed to the philosophy of process) will then follow as a logical truism. For "there could be no emergent novelty at all" (CSPM 63). Hartshorne makes the possible-actual distinction by insisting that the possible lacks the definiteness of the actual; possibility is essentially indefinite and determinable. Hence, actualization is the becoming (or incoming) of new definiteness.

A concrete entity is, in each and every one of its features, settled, all the alternative ways it might have become and hence might have been an actuality having been resolved. To be sure, what the entity’s future may be is not settled: that will have to await subsequent particularization in which it is ingredient. But the entity in itself, as an actuality, is not potentially more or less, nor potentially other, than it is. Future entities will relate to it in ways yet to be decided, but its being is utterly determinate.

Hartshorne’s view that definiteness is the touchstone by which the actual is distinguished from the possible, and indeed the very meaning of actuality, is familiar to process scholars. Moreover, it is a plausible view, on the face of it, and one might accept it uncritically were one not to consider some of its rather startling consequences. One such consequence, which Hartshorne himself points out, is that "there is no such thing as a possible particular" (CSPM 122). This means that the possibility of this or that thing, however specific that possibility may be, never contains the precise particularity that eventuates as that actuality. For example, though poets and dramatists were possible before 1564, Shakespeare (as a sequence of actual states) was not among the possibilities. The reason is that no possibility corresponds to Shakespeare in his definiteness, there being no such thing as a fully definite possibility. No one, including God, can know in advance or plan the concreteness of events. Only an outline of future events, an abstract and determinable somehow, is available, even for omniscience.

Will this mean that Shakespeare, before 1564, was not possible? No, says Hartshorne; before Shakespeare actually existed, there was simply no entity Shakespeare to which "possible" or "impossible" (or any other predicate) could attach, the definiteness of Shakespeare being a creation added to antecedent reality and not present in it. Is it a proper reply that Shakespeare was of course no actuality before he became such but was a possibility prior to actualization? Well, Harts-home will reiterate that possibilities, however restricted, fall short of the definiteness of actuality, and he will remind us that when we speak of Shakespeare we are referring to actuality (actual states of a man). An actuality is an instantiation (or perhaps better, an incarnation) of its possibility, which is always relatively nonparticular, and universals, no matter how narrow, never entail their instances. Indeed, it is a key notion for Hartshorne that the general does not imply the less general or the particular.

It is obvious that if the definiteness of an actuality preexists the actuality as a possibility, the actuality preexists itself, granting that definiteness is actuality. We may accept the principle that from the general we cannot deduce specific or particular content -- it is a sound principle. However; we must then either deny (in company with Hartshorne) that an actuality is a possible thing or deny Hartshorne’s premise that definiteness is actuality It is necessary to deny one or the other, but not both. One option is to affirm that an actuality is something possible (after all, denying this seems counterintuitive, or at least contrary to common sense) and deny that definiteness is identical with actuality. Then of course we are squarely at odds with Hartshorne.

How are we to decide the issue? Hartshorne’s identification of actuality with definiteness means that actuality is the limit -- the zero case -- of indefiniteness. So an actuality will be wholly present all at once or simply absent. Within the fullness of a given actual entity no further determination is possible. Only in subsequent moments is additional particularization admissible. But now, whose decision calls forth the realization of new definiteness? Whose potentiality is resolved in that process? And indeed, where is the process itself, the transition in which that resolution is enacted? Decision and actualization cannot be attributed to the actual, for its determinateness is absolute. Hartshorne says that "only the past alone [not the present or the future] is fully determinate" (CSPM 64). But then the actual, being fully determinate, is past (see CSPM 61), and the past cannot now decide or enact anything. So decision and actualization must be located in the present moment, if anywhere. However, in the present moment (whatever its duration) there is no actuality which is coming to be or developing, none by whose decision-making new definiteness is being realized. The present, being less than actual, must be relatively indefinite, and since for Harts-home the indefinite is the possible, the present moment can be nothing more than possibility. Can possibility be the locus of decision and actualization? It can only if the abstract can make decisions or resolve its own indefiniteness -- which Hartshorne would deny.² It will not change the situation to assert that Hartshorne’s theory, though it has no place for the internal development of an actuality, does provide for temporal development by stipulating that each succeeding actuality comes into being as a whole. The point of our argument is that neither the settled past nor the relatively indeterminate present can explain the possibility of a new occasion, for the determinate can no more decide or act than can the determinable.

The curious upshot is that Hartshorne’s doctrine actually imperils the philosophy of process. For him there is no concrescence, no growing together into concretion. In an article nearly forty years ago Hartshorne spoke of the (seeming) paradox that every determinate character, as an essence, "involves its existence," though that existence is contingent (see SDE 142). As Hartshorne explained, the contingency is not whether the determinate character will exist -- it will -- but whether existence or the universe or nature will enjoy that particular addition, that member, that determination. Defined to the point of zero indefiniteness, an essence exists; it is actual. "Not even God can fully define a world without creating it" (CSPM 122). The important point is whose contingent qualification, whose definition, the particular addition is said to be. That addition belongs to existence or the universe or nature. Apparently innocent, this contention meets the question of the locus of decision and actualization by making existence itself or the universe or nature a concrescing subject.³ But this will not do, even if we have recourse to God as the inclusive being. For the universe is neither more nor less than all that is actual and all that is possible. And the actual, consisting of entities each of which, like the medieval deity, is actus purus, can neither change nor enact change; and the possible, consisting of abstractions or universals (which entail nothing more specific, nor any particular), is not an agent and therefore can add no cubit of definiteness to its stature.

Interestingly, Hartshorne’s illustrations of actualization and purposive action often refer to persons -- the painter about to paint a picture, the man whose motive is to insult someone, etc. (see CSPM 65-67). These references, like those to existence, the universe, and nature, fall prey to the objections made above. At best such references evade the issue and give Hartshorne’s doctrine of actuality an illusory air of plausibility; at worst they implicitly trade on ideas foreign to Hartshorne’s own premises.

Certainly Hartshorne is correct on the large issue: if there is emergent novelty in temporal process, that novelty cannot have been present before its emergence, and therefore we should not import it into antecedent possibility. He holds that unqualified determinism, by confusing the causally possible (the future in relation to the past) with the causally necessary (the past in relation to the future), does just that (see CSPM 61). The result is that time and its modes are destroyed. If here too, regarding determinism, Hartshorne is correct, can we also accept his argument that omniscient foreknowledge of future actualities would contain those actualities? Doubtless such foreknowledge would entail that future actualities exist (if knowledge is agreement with reality); then, of course, they would not be future -- and, once more, temporal distinctions would disappear. Yet the question remains whether foreknowing future actualities means literally possessing them as items of knowledge. One’s answer here will depend on the answer to the prior question, is definiteness what is meant by actuality? If not, then the foreknown particular, though definite, will not be identifiable with its definiteness, nor will it be exhaustively knowable, its reality not being reducible to its status in cognition. Of course, if an actuality cannot be fully apprehended, this will have implications for the vital question of the retention of past data.

For Hartshorne, reality is (in principle) knowable through and though, so of course the unknowable is unreal. This axiom underlies and illuminates his claim that definiteness is actuality. For while the formal and abstract may be grist for cognition, the factual and concrete may prove ultimately unassimilable -- unless it be on a continuum with the former, the terminus ad quem where all questions regarding an entity’s features or its relations are answered. Then the actual is conceived in terms of its capacity to settle, for a sufficiently penetrating knower, whatever inquiries that knower may make respecting it. This is only a way of expressing, more concretely, Hartshorne’s view that the law of excluded middle is the criterion of the actual. Is the particular entity this way or that? As definite, the entity will leave no doubt. Thus, it is the cognitive context that shapes Hartshorne’s conception of actuality; hence, in the final analysis what anything (including the concrete) is, is what it is as an item of knowledge in the perfect knower.

So Hartshorne’s distinction between possibility and actuality falls within the knowable, or better, within the content of omniscience. But one may hold, on the contrary, that the actual is never simply a content of knowledge. If it is not, then the distinction of possible and actual is not that of indefinite and definite; rather the possible is the fully-knowable, the actual the only-partially-knowable. For the possible, however articulated or specific, is in principle accessible to the knower; the actual, as an instantiation of possible structure and quality, is knowable, but, as concrete, it exceeds any knowledge of its structures and qualities. To the claim that particulars are only partially knowable, Harts-home protests that the partiality involved is merely a factual limitation. Of course no human knower completely grasps or includes the entities he knows, but God fully incorporates and thus preserves all events as they occur. Time then is strictly a cumulation -- nothing is lost! "What could remain unknown to God?" Hartshorne will argue. "If nothing, then what could ever suffer loss or be omitted?" But it is not that God, knowing an actual entity, knows partially where he might have known fully. That interpretation takes the entity as the answer to all questions regarding its features or relations and regards that answer as the entity’s very being and identity. In short, it assumes its definiteness to be the actuality. And why indeed should definiteness escape detection by an omniscient knower?

God’s retention of past facts is, for Hartshorne, the basis for the permanence of historical truth. If God failed to retain them, what basis would there be? But what I have been suggesting is a distinction between an event and the facts about it. We must decide whether the truth (the facts) about some event -- even the truth as known to God -- would exhaust the reality of that event. We may concede that facts are everlasting, but is an event everlasting? If so, then the event will ever and always occur. Of course, as we have seen, Hartshorne denies development or coming-to-be within an actual entity, this denial being implicit in his identification of the definite and the actual. But this denial presents serious problems, as we pointed out. And, on the other hand, if the event is somehow a concrescent process, its entitative continuation in God seems impossible.

The distinction between facts and events is, I think, the distinction between definiteness (definite truth) and concrete entities themselves -- about which definite truth is possible. Correlatively, there is the distinction between X-as-known and X-as-existing. If anything is known (or knowable), then of course it exists in some sense or other. But a thing’s being known is not identical with its being. Perhaps this is finally a matter of intuition rather than of argument. Suppose a man to feel anxiety about dying. Would God then possess the man’s anxiety? I do not deny that God would know all the facts involved and would be in sympathy with his creature. But the anxiety itself is the man’s, not God’s. Such in any event is my intuition.

References

CSPM -- Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1970.

RSP -- Charles Hartshorne, Reality As Social Process. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1953.

SDE -- "Santayana’s Doctrine of Essence," in The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Paul A. Schilpp. Evanston: Northwestern University, 1940.

TDG -- Charles Hartshorne, "Tillich’s Doctrine of God," in The Theology of Paul Tillich, ed. Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall. New York: Macmillan Company, 1956.

Notes

1 Hartshorne has taken this position time and again in his writings, from the earliest to the most recent. Among the many references, I suggest the following: SDE 137-82 (see, e.g., 141); Man’s Vision of God (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1941), p. 225, pp. 244-47, and p. 315; "Chance, Love, and Incompatibility," in RSP 85-109 (see especially 94 and 98f; also see [in a later chapter] 118); TDG 193 "Abstraction: The Question of Nominalism," chapter IV of CSPM 57-68 (see especially 61-64; also see [in an earlier chapter] 22f and [in a later] 122).

2 "Very likely characters [forms or essences] do not themselves act" (SDE 154).

3 Hartshorne s view, I think, has not changed since his early article (SDE). In his most recent book, for example, he says: "Reality is protean, not for our ignorance merely, but in itself" (CSPM 67).

Introduction

From a purely textual standpoint, there is a sound basis for arguing that Henri Bergson is a rationalist as much as an intuitionist. He attempts to explain rather than merely describe the facts which confront him. His explanation is a cohesive structure resembling in some respects an axiomatic system. Bergson, of course, assumes throughout the correctness of the theory of evolution. All phenomena have resulted from a continuously developing process. None have been present in their existing state from the very beginning. Bergson also assumes that the recurrent appearance of the different life forms in the course of evolution, throughout the various species, is an indication that they are necessary, at least from a practical standpoint. Furthermore, the recurrence of these forms suggests for Bergson that they are intended. Within this context Bergson seeks to account for the existence of a given function by showing "how and why it is necessary to life" (TSMR 196). Following this account, he then attempts to explain "why it is what it is rather than anything else" (CE 167, 244; MM 67). Herein consists the methodological basis for his entire analysis. Why certain forms are necessary to life, and why they are as they are, are questions present at every point in his examination.

This discussion will be limited to the epistemological and physical forms immediately important for freedom. Other forms could be considered, and would have to be in a complete treatment. Man’s social character, for instance, relates necessarily to the possibility of truly free acts, but space forbids introducing it here.

I. The Method and Problematic

Our objective is to reconstruct and explain the necessary conditions of individual free acts treated by Bergson, particularly in Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution. This is a more encompassing and manageable alternative than would be an analysis of the sufficient conditions. It is quite difficult to discern the sufficient conditions of free acts in Bergson’s thought; he makes a deliberate effort not to define such acts. "Any positive definition of freedom will ensure the victory of determinism" (TFW 220). Hence it is nearly impossible to provide the sufficient conditions with any confidence. Bergson begins rather with the experience of freedom as an immediate datum of consciousness; as such it cannot be explained by anything other than itself. Along with duration, the facticity of freedom serves as a postulate for the rest of his thought. "We put duration and free choice at the base of things" (CE 300). Freedom offers Bergson the ground from which he can explain the existence of other realities and at the same time criticize the scientific theories of his day. Freedom and duration are facts of immediate experience. If these facts are inadmissible to science, science must be faulted, not human experience. "We cannot sacrifice experience to the requirements of a system" (CE 45).

Bergson envisions a series of implications resulting from his postulation of freedom as an immediate given. Man experiences himself as acting freely -- that is a primary fact. The problem arises when the possibility of these acts is considered. Bergson’s solution reveals to him a series of necessary conditions, the arrangement of which can be discerned by examining his textual use of terms such as "allows," "symbolizes," "measures, and "must" on the one hand as well as "requires" and "necessitates" on the other.¹ These two basic sets of terms have a general difference in that what precedes the first set usually constitutes a necessary condition, whereas what precedes the second will in large measure serve as a sufficient condition. For instance, in Matter and Memory, he states that perception "symbolizes" indeterminacy. The implicative relation in this instance is the reverse, however. He begins with indeterminacy and attempts to show how and why perception must follow. Similar reversals occur with the term "measure. In general these linguistic patterns provide easy access to the internal structure operative in his thought.

Bergson’s problem in large part is modern scientific philosophy. One aspect, the metaphysical, derives from Descartes; the other, the phenomenological, stems from Kant. In the first case the difficulty rests with the nature of materiality. In the Cartesian mode of thought, matter is identified with extension and is subject to a complete and consistent set of mechanical laws. As a result, the possibility of a free act by a material being is precluded. Since all future movement is theoretically determined, the free act is at best an illusion. In the second case the problem rests with the understanding. In the Kantian analysis an act will always occur within the temporal frame and be schematized according to the categories of the understanding. The act can be understood, then, in no other way than as causally determined. Man cannot experience himself as free. Freedom on an empirical level is incomprehensible.

To dismiss both problems, Bergson simply begins with freedom as a fact of immediate experience. "Freedom is therefore a fact, and among the facts which we observe there is none clearer" (TFW 221). Man is aware of himself performing acts which are not foreseeable or explicable in terms of antecedents. Bergson finds in all of life, but particularly in man, centers of indeterminacy, a view which requires that the nature of matter be reexamined. In addition, the fact that indeterminacy is a given of immediate consciousness calls for a reexamination of the limits and function of the intellect. In order to fully understand the axiomatic pattern that issues from this primary fact, it is best to begin with Bergson’s two metabiological principles: matter and the Élan Vital. If matter is defined as a tendency toward extension and mechanism, then it is necessary to introduce a counter-tendency to explain the nonmechanistic life forms. The Élan Vital is this counter-tendency responsible for the various organizations of living matter. Indeterminacy requires both tendencies -- matter to obtain individuation and distinctness (ME 39f; CE 282), the Élan Vital to obtain life and its higher organizations (CE 282f). For free acts to occur matter and spirit must exhibit certain forms. These various forms will subsequently appear in the order of their importance. Beginning with the fact of indeterminacy, Bergson determines the necessity of conscious perception (A). Perception leads additionally to memory (B) and affection (C). Finally, space (D) and the intellect (E) are considered, more or less completing the epistemological consequents of indetermination. However, there are also physical consequents as exhibited in the material body (F). These last complete the order treated in this study. The structure begins with the more primary and inextensive conditions and moves to the more peripheral or extensive conditions. Initially, however, we must consider the metabiological tendencies in order to create a setting for the progression.

Materiality. Bergson places his discussion of materiality within the context of a continuum which has as one terminus pure inextension and as the other pure extension (BEP 304f). Concrete materiality would be best described as existing in a state of "extensity" within these two extremes. Both ends of the continuum must be regarded as limits never fully reached on the concrete level. Inextension in the extreme would be pure spirit; extension in the extreme would be regarded as pure matter, or, to use an identical expression, pure space. "Space [is]... an ideal limit in the direction of which material things develop, but which they do not actually attain" (CE 392, 238). Materiality as extensity is a tendency toward pure space, and, as such, is a tendency toward differentiation, distinction, multiplicity, and individuality. When matter is regarded as extensity, the mechanistic model fails. Future movement in the extensive field is not predictable even theoretically (MM 1; BEP 323f). Furthermore, exact repetition never occurs (CE 52). Material extensity is durational in character, and although there is recurrence, recurrent movement does not involve an exact repeating, i.e., there is an absence of identity in recurrence; previous states cannot be returned to precisely, nor will present states ever repeat themselves exactly. In addition, there is interpenetration, not distinct multiplicity in material extensity (TFW 884 There is differentiation without precise exteriority. In essence the mechanists presume that pure extension is achieved concretely, when in fact it is not (CE 13). Because it is not, the basis for absolute predictability is absent.

The primary analogate for duration, of course, is on the side of pure inextension. It is found most properly in consciousness. Here there is no question of repetition, reversibility, or predictability; they cannot be found (TFW 239; CE 8). Just as on the side of matter there is quantitative differentiation, approaching precise distinction, so on the side of consciousness there is qualitative differentiation approaching intensive unity. If one wishes to speak of a multiplicity of conscious states, they must surely be viewed as interpenetrating. If one wishes to regard consciousness as a unity, it must not be thought of as constant or unchanging. "Thus in consciousness we find states which succeed, without being distinguished from one another" (TFW 227). Like pure extension, a pure intensive consciousness is not concretely available.

Because concrete matter is something other than pure extension, the laws of determinism do not apply. Matter does not exclude the possibility of freedom as the Cartesians imagine. However, were matter to fulfill its tendency, pure extension would be realized, and hence to prevent this turn of events, it is necessary that a counter-tendency be introduced by way of explanation. The Elan Vital, which struggles with matter, frustrates its end. If not counteracted, the material tendency would provide determinism with its needed basis.

Èlan Vital. In Creative Evolution Bergson speaks of the "necessity . . . of a process the inverse of materiality" (CE 268)² Its necessity is based not only on the need to restrict the material tendency toward torpor, dissociation, and determinism, but also to bring into existence the material and conscious forms which permit the performance of truly free and creative acts. Freedom, for Bergson, in the negative sense of indeterminacy, must ultimately be regarded as the final cause, i.e., the principle which renders the evolutionary struggle intelligible and which accounts for the recurring forms of life.

Were the mechanistic theory correct, life itself, not to mention its higher, more complicated forms, could not possibly have appeared. "Life would be an impossibility were the determinism of matter so absolute as to admit no relaxation" (ME 13). Left to itself, matter should persist in a state governed solely by quantitative relationships, one would think. Given the mechanistic model, there is no explanation of why matter should have sought vital organizations. Moreover, it cannot explain why matter should of itself have sought organizations of particular types and then persist in maintaining these types. Bergson was forced to reject mechanism because both the appearance of life and the diverse forms of life could not possibly be a function of past material states. On the other hand, however, he had to reject a finalism of a metaphysical sort wherein all future developments are logically contained in the structure of the present as predesignated ends (CE 24,45). The qualitative leaps in the evolutionary process were not rationally preordained in some exact way.

As an alternative explanation, Bergson offers a finalism without complete determination of form (CE 46). What is required in his view and what is in fact found is a "continual changing in a definite direction" (CE 96, 132). An effort is being made along generic lines, efficacious within the germ material of the various individuals in the life process, toward the creation of certain forms. This effort is the Élan Vital. Its objective would ultimately explain why vegetative life would function to fabricate energy deposits only to have animal life use these deposits for its more sophisticated activities (CE 269). It would explain why progression has occurred and why similar organic structures appear on different evolutionary lines by dissimilar means (CE 62). If the vital thrust is shared by all living elements and if certain organic forms are sought as necessary for indeterminate activity, then one might imagine why the same forms tend to appear universally. Bergson explains: " When a tendency splits up in the course of its development, each of the special tendencies which thus arise tries to preserve and develop everything in the primitive tendency that is not incompatible with the work for which it is specialized" (CE 132; his italics). He explains elsewhere that this tendency is met with resistance. "The impetus of life . . . consists in the need of creation. It cannot create absolutely, because it is confronted with matter, that is to say with the movement that is the inverse of its own. But it seizes upon this matter, which is necessity itself, and strives to introduce into it the largest possible amount of indetermination and liberty" (CE 274). The conflict between materiality and the Élan Vital results in the creation of certain definite forms which serve as necessary conditions of indeterminacy. Freedom presupposes the success of the vital principle in organizing materiality properly.

II. Indeterminacy and its Presuppositions

In discussing the necessary conditions of the free act, no positive content is sought; in other words, what the free act is, is not as important as the fact that it is. Once freedom is accepted as a fact, one need not define it. One can just as well proceed instead to consider the conditions that make the free act possible. The question then becomes: "What structures or elements in reality, if eliminated, would render the free act impossible?" Within this context freedom and indeterminacy are virtually equivalent in meaning. Bergson begins with indeterminacy as his "true principle" (MM 21) and from that point develops the rest of his thought (MM 67). The progression entailed by this principle involves some degree of reciprocity, but the treatment of this progression here will be linear rather than dialectical.

Bergson begins with the indetermination of the will and attempts to derive conscious perception and memory. Other subjective forms such as space and the intellect can also be derived. On the side of materiality, indetermination requires the nervous system, which in turn implies the remaining systems -- digestive, circulatory, and so on. The subjective or spiritual forms take precedence over the material. Although the nervous system cannot be said to derive from human consciousness, it does, according to Bergson, "measure" the degree of consciousness. The nervous system is required for man to be conscious. Consciousness and the nervous system, Bergson prefers to say, "correspond" (MM 38, 309) or "coincide" (MM 71, 76, 295, 297). "Equally they measure, the one by the complexity of its structure and the other by the intensity of its awareness, the quantity of choice that the living being has at its disposal" (CE 286). He contends that the nervous system and human consciousness both are derivative of a more basic principle, that of indetermination (MM 35).

Bergson’s language suggests a deductive series. In Matter and Memory, he states that he is taking indetermination as his starting point and from there will deduce the "possibility and even the necessity of conscious perception" (MM 21). Conscious perception leads further to affection, as he later says; the "necessity of affection follows from the very existence of perception" (MM 57). Conscious perception also entails memory. "When perception, as we understand it, is once admitted, memory must arise" (MM 38). Although memory clearly follows from conscious perception, it can also be shown to follow directly from indetermination (MM 70, 303). In addition, concrete memory presupposes the perceptual apparatus and the intellect entails memory. We shall examine many, but not all, of these interrelationships.

Throughout his discussion, Bergson presupposes the material field familiar to science. Were the structure of physical matter other than it is, the organization of matter in its living forms would likely be different (CE 280). Our main task here will be to clarify the relationship between indetermination and the nervous system. According to Creative Evolution, the nervous system in higher organisms necessitates its support systems. "The more the nervous function is perfected, the more must the functions required to maintain it develop" (CE 138). Speaking to this same point a bit later, he notes that "the increasing complexity of the organism is . . . due theoretically . . . to the necessity of complexity in the nervous system" (CE 274). In Matter and Memory Bergson adds that indetermination is the cause of conscious perception as it is also the cause of the nervous system (MM 68). This is not to say that indetermination as such requires the nervous system, but that its true form, its higher degrees, do require such a system. In fact the latter’s complexity will symbolize the degree of indetermination available to the agent. Its increasing complexity appears "to allow an even greater latitude to the activity of the living being, the faculty of waiting before reacting, and of putting the excitation received into relation with an even richer variety of motor mechanisms" (MM 68). The verb "to allow" occurs frequently in these contexts. Furthermore, the complexity of the nervous system is called a "material symbol" of an inner independence. If these two terms are axiomatically significant as suggested before, then the implicative relation proceeds from indeterminacy to the nervous system.

A. Perception. "From indetermination accepted as a fact," Bergson claims that he can "infer the necessity of a perception, that is to say, of a variable relation between a living being and the more or less distant influence of objects which interest it" (MM 24). The interesting term here is "necessity." Why is perception required? Again the problem is materiality. The body is part of the material field, governed by laws which for all practical purposes are necessary. How is it possible for a body to exhibit itself as a center of indeterminacy under these conditioning circumstances? The need for conscious perception derives precisely from its function of liberating spirit from what would otherwise be predeterminable material movement (MM 332).

Bergson’s argument here again makes use of a continuum; at one extreme is pure memory wherein every detail of past experience is recorded and retained, and at the other extreme is pure perception wherein spirit is totally conditioned by movements in the material field. There is, however, a form of choice exhibited at this level of pure perception, embodied in the structure of the perceptual apparatus, not made by the individual but by organic life as a whole in terms of its basic needs and interests as reflected in the variety of its fundamental activities and functions (MM 46). In addition, the perceptual apparatus does not transmit all material movement proper to its functions, but only that which is ultimately necessary for the freedom of the agent (MM 30). Although the perceptual apparatus is selective, it remains an integral part of the material field, continuing movements imparted to it and transferring these movements to other elements. It is completely caught up in material relations which are necessary from a practical standpoint. Without the development of a further power, any form of spirit present in pure perception would be subject also to the same laws governing matter. Pure perception "is still in a sense matter" (MM 325). It "is the lowest degree of mind" and "is really part of matter" (MM 50).

The further power, memory, is necessary because it liberates spirit from matter and renders perception conscious. "Eliminate all memory, we should pass thereby from perception to matter, from the subject to the object" (MM 77). Memory contracts and interrupts material movement. Conscious perception is needed in order to reveal and permit a wide range of possible activity to the agent. However, for perception to be conscious, memory is required. Through memory the agent is able to contract material movement, restrict its influence, delay and control its own response. Concrete perception appears precisely at that point where the stimulation received by matter is not prolonged into a necessary action (MM 22). Consider, as Bergson does, the example of red light. He notes that red light exhibits 400 billion vibrations per second; according to Bergson’s estimation, the shortest interval of time consciousness can detect is 1/500 of a second. What renders this movement perceptible, Bergson claims, is memory, which compacts it into units noticeable to consciousness (MM 272f). Contraction permits material movement to be perceived by consciousness; it regulates external duration according to the needs of internal duration and thereby makes it possible for consciousness to act on matter. Without this contracting function of memory, the agent would be entirely subject to the action of matter.

In concrete perception, the material movement ordinarily continued as real movement by nonvital matter is continued as virtual or nascent action by living organisms. That selected movement, proper to the different senses, is received as usual, but instead of being immediately transmitted, there is a delay and a further selection. This selection is made not only in terms of the more general organic interests and functions, but also in terms of particular interests of the singular organism within a unique portion of its duration (MM 304). That movement of interest to the organism is extracted, reflected, and continued along motor tracts in the form of nascent activity. In fact, these motor tracts play an important role in the selection of the movement received; that movement which is not ordinarily continued is absorbed or disregarded.

The representation is a perception to the extent that consciousness is nascently aware of the bodily selection and concurs with it. Perception is a select movement representative of a larger whole. To the degree that consciousness, on this level of pure perception, corresponds to the movement of the body, to that degree is it part of things. "As the chain of nervous elements which receives, arrests, and transmits movements is the seat of this indetermination and gives its measure, our perception will follow all the detail and will appear to express all the variations of the nervous elements themselves" (MM 68). Bergson adds that the body does not cause the perception; it merely selects movement representative of various objects (MM 309). "The body extracts from the material . . . environment whatever has been able to influence it" (CM 55). For this representative movement to be a perception, consciousness must act. Representation at the point of selection is not the content of concrete perception. Consciousness here remains enmeshed in a relatively automatic selective process. It remains subject to the movement of bodily matter. The movement selected by the body in conjunction with the immediate particular consciousness must be contracted by memory (MM 76f). Consciousness is then liberated (MM 279). "Memory, inseparable in practice from perception, imports the past into the present, contracts into a single intuition many moments of duration, and thus by a twofold operation compels us, de facto, to perceive matter in ourselves, whereas we, de jure, perceive matter within matter" (MM 80). Instead of the initial action-reaction sequence involving a continuation of real action, it involves a continuation of virtual action as far as conscious perception is concerned, or nascent action as far as the body is concerned (MM 309, 313). To the extent that it renders this otherwise real action virtual, conscious perception reveals to the agent his possible action on things and inversely the possible action of things on him; this revelation, of course, allows for choice.

Thus within the entirety of the material field, there exist centers of indetermination which participate in and receive various forms of material movement just as any other material object does, but with one difference -- they fail to continue the movement with a necessary response. The effect of material action on these centers is diminished in direct proportion to their indetermination (MM 29). That movement in which these centers have no real interest is left to pass; that movement which can serve to reveal possible activity is reflected in the form of nascent or virtual responses. Through this selection, perception reveals the variety of activity available to the agent. The range of possible activity is determined by the complexity of the nervous system, both on a sensory as well as a motor level (MM 41) -- sensory in that with a system of low complexity, an organism is simply not aware of the vast variety of movements in the material field, motor in that the variety of responses necessary for free activity are not materially accessible (MM 19, 43). Since the quality of perception depends on this level of complexity, Bergson finds it to be an accurate measure of indetermination.

Representation and conscious perception derive from indetermination. Full presence of consciousness to matter would result in the enslavement of consciousness. "To perceive all the influences from all the points of all bodies would be to descend to the condition of a material object" (MM 46). Re-presentation in some form is needed in order for free activity to occur. Indetermination, then, is the final justifying cause.

B. Memory. Thus far conscious perception has been seen to be necessary to the extent that it reveals possible activity to the agent. For perception to be conscious, however, memory must contract a plurality of otherwise unobservable, external movements into recognizable internal movements. Memory ultimately accounts for the liberation of spirit from matter. However, there is another reason for the existence of memory; if the past were not retained, the action of a conscious agent would be considerably restricted. The requirement essential to indetermination is that all responses to life situations "be inspired by past experience" (MM 69) and that they be made in the light of previous, analogous states.³ If freedom is not to be confounded with caprice, then indetermination requires the preservation of the past in the two fundamental forms of motor mechanisms and independent recollections.

The recollective ability of memory is important in that it makes contraction possible; memory must retain the past in order to contract it into perceptible units. In addition, it must be able to deliver to consciousness those previous states which can serve to enrich present perception, indicate alternative courses of action, and enlighten the decision process. Bergson distinguishes between the contractive and recollective abilities of nonmotor memory. The former is required by the need to regulate external duration according to the inner (MM 25), whereas the latter is necessary for the regulation of the inner according to the outer (WD 54). The first is spoken of frequently as the tension of memory; the second is referred to as the attention of memory. Without memory tension, the free act could not be interjected into the material field. Without the attention of memory, there would be "but a passive juxtaposition of sensations, accompanied by a mechanical reaction" (MM 163);⁴ the latter is necessary in order that the response be chosen in accord with the present state of affairs. The first is more appropriately related to the sensory apparatus, while the second tends to be more associated with the motor sections.

The need for motor mechanisms or motor habits is clear when considering the conscious functions of recognition and generalization. Motor habits constitute a form of memory which is nothing other a complete set of intelligently constructed mechanisms that insure an appropriate response to the various possible demands addressed to the organism (MM 195). Generality and the recognition of different objects presuppose this form of memory, for both are initially based on an awareness of the likeness of bodily attitude or of a similarity of reactions in diverse situations. Also, these motor habits serve as a means whereby memory can insert itself into concrete consciousness. "Memories need, for their actualization, a motor ally, and . . . they require for their recall a kind of mental attitude which must itself be engrafted upon an attitude of the body" (MM 152). These motor habits are necessary not only to supply the basis for generalization, consequently, but also to enable memory to materialize itself (MM 197), presenting concrete consciousness with useful images. This system of habits serves as a governing principle to decipher the useful in memory and to act out the general in the extensive field. They bring memory to bear on the present and help fill conscious memory. What most people refer to as memory is the result of the configurating influence of motor habits.

C. Affection. Bergson also claims that perception necessarily indicates the presence of affection. The body, as was indicated, reflects excitations in order to reveal its possible action on things and the possible action of external objects upon itself. The possible action of external objects is associated with real action in two ways. Firstly, perception results from real movement in the material field but does not continue the movement it receives necessarily, directing it instead into nascent or virtual acts. In this sense, perception definitely presupposes real action, i.e., real action leads to virtual action, to perception. At the same time, virtual action leads to real action. In the case of affection this real action is localized within a definite portion of the body, never to extend beyond it (MM 61). Through perception the virtual or eventual action of things upon the body is noticed. The body is not indifferent to this eventual action; preparations are made immediately not only in motor tracts but in sensory tracts as well. Bergson speaks of the motor tendency of the sensory elements; this tendency is the material seat of affection (MM 56).

If affection is necessary for perception, we must explain why perception would not occur in the absence of affection. Ultimately Bergson’s explanation would base itself on the dependence of perception on the complexity of the sensory-motor system. A completed perception requires a real motor response to the sensory stimulus. From the physical standpoint, these motor responses are affection, specifically localized within varying, but definite, portions of the body. "Every pain is a local effort" (TFW 35). The intensity of affection is determined by the number of such motor responses which enter into the reaction induced by any given stimulus (TFW 36). Affection, consequently, is that element in the perceptual complex which completes the recognition of the object acting on the body either virtually or really. It occurs in those sensory areas wherein real movement is absorbed rather than continued, wherein it is repulsed rather than accepted. In a true sense, the capacity of the body for affection defines the capacity of the body for perception, since it is one with the capacity of the body to respond to its environment. Perception results both from the sensory stimulus received and from the nascent as well as real motor responses that follow; it is as much a response as it is a reception (MM 124). Perception could not occur with one of these ingredients absent. Affection, quantitatively speaking, is a real motor response to objects in the material field, expressed internally in sensory elements.

Perception implies affection in the same way that virtual action implies real action. Virtual action on the body elicits an immediate, estimative, real response which intensifies as the virtual action approaches real action on the body. At no time is the body indifferent to its environment. This lack of indifference is affection. In fact the degree of affection, whether it be pleasure or pain, is determined by the magnitude of this response to stimulation.

Affection too is expressive of indeterminacy. Instead of continuing the stimulus received automatically in nascent action, it responds to it, interpreting it through feeling. Affection measures the complexity of the perceptual apparatus since its response occurs in reference not only to real action present to the body, but also to future action. Affective sensation is "nascent freedom" (TFW 34). Free actions differ from automatic movements principally through the introduction of affective sensation between the initiating external action and the subsequent volitional reaction. Affection is that estimative aspect of perception which reflects the needs and interests of the organism through real although localized responses within the body to external action.

D. Space. The elements dealt with above relate specifically to perception whereas space and intellect relate more directly to conception. Space is a metaphysical as well as epistemological fixture in Bergson’s thought. Metaphysically speaking, it is the principle of exteriority and as such the limit toward which matter is tending. It is also the source of individuality, for space as pure extension individualizes. In another sense, however, as the form of human sensibility, space relates necessarily to indetermination. Homogeneous space expresses, "in an abstract form, the double work of solidification and division which we effect on the moving continuity of the real in order to obtain there a fulcrum of our action" (MM 280). Spatialization establishes within the perceptual field points in reference to which action can be decided. Ultimately it permits the introduction of real changes by the agent. Bergson refers specifically to the necessity of this operation on the perceptual current to allow for action (MM 188). The will cannot manifest itself without spatialization. Through abstract spatialization the agent masters the material continuity within which he finds himself. The agent can thereby decompose extensity according to the exigencies of his activity, recompose it, and establish the objectivity of things which perception has contracted into immobilities (MM 280, 274, 292, 308).

This process need not recognize the natural unity of reality as presented to concrete perception. The spatial diagram renders objectivity in general conceptually divisible according to the agent’s needs and desires. The agent can act in reference to a part of the perceived whole, a part of that part, or any other configuration, irrespective of where the natural lines might be drawn. Space as this homogeneous diagram is clearly presupposed by perception; before natural units can be deciphered, the extensive field must be first submitted to the spatializing function (MM 278). Space is concerned primarily with the divisibility and objectivity of the elements given in perception; it "enables us to externalize our concepts in relation to one another," and "reveals to us the objectivity of things" (TFW 236).

Since "to perceive means to immobilize" (MM 275), space is needed in order to reconstruct and localize objects. Once this operation takes place, the agent can function, for there are present to him focal points in the extensive field in reference to which he can make decisions. Moreover, once the positions x and y are defined, the agent can enter them into a whole variety of relations. If we view the spatial diagram in this manner, we come to recognize that the spatial form is also presupposed by the intellect. The work of the intellect in the anticipation and prediction of movement can occur only if space is first introduced into the perceptual context (CE 399). The intellect can relate elements only if these elements are first established as distinct, whether they be perceptual or conceptual.

E. Intellect and Language. As we have seen, Bergson envisions a conflict taking place between two tendencies at the basis of reality, that toward intensive existence and that toward extensive existence, the ascent and the descent (CE 14). Both are necessary. Both ultimately occur within the realm of consciousness, even the tendency toward pure matter. When and if this tendency were completed, consciousness would have reduced itself to an absolute minimum, expressing itself solely in the form of material recurrence. "Matter . . . will always appear to be a sort of consciousness infinitely diluted and relaxed."⁵ In order to master this tendency toward exteriority individual consciousness though the efforts of the Elan Vital has had to adapt itself to the material tendency to the extent of becoming almost exclusively intellect (CE 291,179). The adaptation is reciprocal. "Intellect and matter have progressively adapted themselves one to the other in order to attain at last a common form" (CE 225; CE 4011).

The intellect and matter are the same inversion of the life force expressing itself internally in the first instance and externally in the second (CE 225f). This same movement leads to distinct concepts in the human intellect and to material objects relatively exclusive of one another. The more consciousness is intellectualized, the more matter is spatialized. Logical exteriority and spatial exteriority tend to be identical (CE 232, 207). Given the character of the intellect as a function formed in conjunction with matter, it is clear why Bergson should discredit it as a cognitive avenue to freedom. Just as matter is involved in determined relationships, so the intellect can only conceive of its object as involved in similarly necessary relations. "The intellect, turning itself back toward active, that is to say free, consciousness, naturally makes it enter into conceptual forms into which it is accustomed to see matter fit. It will therefore always perceive freedom in the form of necessity" (CE 294). It is only through intuition that the agent is able to discern particular actions as qualitatively free.

The intellect is required by consciousness to master materiality; it does so through fabrication and anticipation, the formal relations for these operations being derived from action. The intellect’s main features indicate the general form of our possible action on matter; even the details of matter are "ruled by the requirements of action" (CE 205). It is said that given indeterminacy as a goal of the real, the form of matter itself has been conditioned from the start.

Fabrication extends the range of possible activity for the agent. The body remains limited in its possible activity. The fabrication of tools and instruments extends the range of possible activity from the limited to the virtually unlimited (CE 155f). The intellect, in other words, is required to increase the spectrum of materially possible choices. "Thus all the elementary forces of the intellect tend to transform matter into an instrument of action, that is, in the etymological sense of the word, into an organ" (CE 178; 201). In the course of time, matter becomes more and more reflective of human freedom.

The intellect also embodies the necessary formal condition for anticipation. If action is not to be misdirected or blind, consciousness must be able to extend itself beyond the immediacy of the present in order to determine future movement, i.e., to anticipate the consequences of one’s own action, the action of others, to pose ends, and the means of obtaining these ends (TSMR 139). "The essential function of our intellect, as the evolution of life has fashioned it, is to be a light for our conduct, to make ready for our action on things, to foresee, for a given situation, the events . . . which may follow thereupon" (CE 34).

To act adequately, the scope of perception must be expanded into the past as well as into the future (CM 131f; ME 10). The first task is completed by memory; memory in conjunction with intellect provides extension toward the future. Through an innate knowledge of materiality, expressed in intellectual categories and relations, consciousness can determine future material movement; the accuracy of this determination is furthered by personal memory in areas that require more than is furnished by a common physical condition. Bergson finds fabrication and anticipation functioning jointly in the invention of new instruments. This creates a material condition resulting in a liberation of man from his lower needs, permitting him to exercise a higher degree of free activity (CE 152f).

Even the formal character of the intellect can be shown to be necessary. From the postulation of action, Bergson claims, the form of the intellect can be deduced (CE 168). Generality results from the lived experience of acting out and among objective similarities, thereby creating certain general bodily attitudes. Generality is the sameness of attitude toward a myriad of objects. Its relation to action is clear; to act the agent must propose ends and the means of achieving them. "This latter operation is possible only if we know what we can reckon on. We must therefore have managed to extract resemblances from nature which enable us to anticipate the future" (CE 50). The more purely formal these resemblances are the less is the intellect confinable to a particular, unique material context. Pure forms can be used to analyze and systematize any context whatsoever (CE 166, 172f). Consciousness, as a result, is not confined to the present, nor is it at the mercy of irregular, random flux.

Language too relates to the liberation of the intellect. The formal character of ideas stems from consciousness having acted out resemblances over and over again. Intellectual forms, then, are spiritual habits. As habits, these forms constitute something from which consciousness must liberate itself. This liberation can occur because these intellectual forms are registered in language and thus are made an object for consciousness, upon which consciousness can reflect. Without language, consciousness would remain at a relatively crude level governed by patterns developed in its association with material movement. However, because language involves a whole series of motor mechanisms of its own, the agent is provided with a means of countering the motor patterns resulting from recurrent movement. "These habits [of language], stored in these mechanisms . . . can hold other motor habits in check, and thereby, in overcoming automatism, set consciousness free" (CE 201). Consciousness which otherwise would have been restricted to the object, or submerged in the performance of an act, is set free. "Without language intelligence would probably have remained riveted to the material objects which it was interested in considering" (CE 175). Released now from the habitual, it is free to pursue the possible. Secondly, language involves a series of objective signs wherein consciousness can materialize itself. As a result, inference is made possible. Distinctions are easily drawn. The content of consciousness is brought from the potential state of dark memory to the actual. Consciousness is able to observe and reflect upon its own internal workings (CE 175f).

F. Organized Matter Bergson maintains, as should be clear at this point, that matter in general must be of a certain form for free acts to be possible. In particular, the material form sustaining life must be of a definite type. Experience points to "the necessity of a certain cerebral substratum for the psychical state" (CE 385). The necessity spoken of here is of a practical sort. It is conceivable, for instance, that with a different concrete material substratum, life might have expressed itself in different forms, with the possible exception of the sensory-motor system (CE 279). It is conceivable too that perception could occur without a nervous system or sensory organs; however, Bergson would regard such a situation as practically impossible, for such perception would be useless to an agent. Hence it is practically necessary that certain organizations of matter exist. In the end the nervous system, together with its support systems, reveals itself as a necessary condition of indeterminacy.

Just as perception is required by indeterminacy, revealing possible activity, so the sensory-motor system is required for perception (MM 20f). If perception results from both sensory and motor elements, a sufficient sensory apparatus is needed to detect the variety of movement in the material field, and a sufficient motor system is called for in order to recognize generality (MM 111f) and to make a variety of responses materially possible. Both, then, are entailed by the free act. Without the former, one’s response to the material flow would not be adequate; without the latter, one’s response would be limited (CE 287). The lessening of both would decrease the range of possible activity, decrease the quality of perception and hence eliminate true indeterminacy (MM 36f).

Indeterminacy as such does not involve as a "necessary condition the presence of a nervous system" (CE 122). The more basic organisms exhibit a degree of indeterminacy without such a system. However, for the higher forms of indeterminacy, the sensory-motor system in its present design is clearly required, both because of the nature of materiality and indeterminacy itself (CE 122f). Indetermination minimally requires certain material structures which allow for the expression of nonmaterial functions. In the course of evolution these material structures gradually emerged. However, as a matter continues to grow in a definite direction, it also proceeds to divide (CE 281). Growth is achieved through division. What might have been one system becomes two, related through the original unity. Growth, in other words, expresses itself in a division of systems and functions.

The nervous system is one of the most important of the objectives of the Élan Vital. "A nervous system . . . is a veritable reservoir of indetermination. That the main energy of the vital impulse has been spent in creating apparatus of this kind is, we believe, what a glance over the organized world as a whole easily shows" (CE 140). The nervous system entails other systems as well: the respiratory, osteal, muscle, circulatory, digestive systems, and so on. These serve to "cleanse, repair and protect the nervous system, to make it as independent as possible from external circumstances, but above all to furnish it with energy to be expended in movements" (CE 274).

As Bergson suggests, a further function is called for to support the nervous system, the creation of energy deposits. These deposits are needed both for the independence of the organism from its environment, providing material for heat, for instance, and for the initiation and completion of movements (CE 134f). Spirit moves matter by using matter against itself. The matter used, of course, is found in sources containing captured solar energy which have been created by the chlorophyll function of plant life. "Two things only are necessary: (1) a gradual accumulation of energy; (2) an elastic canalization of this energy in variable and indeterminate directions, at the end of which are free acts" (CE 278; TSMR 255). The former function is found in plant life; the latter is present in animal life. Plant life, because it is essential to the creation of energy for motion, is the final material presupposition of indetermination. "Life is entirely dependent on the chlorophyllian function of the plant" (CE 269).

III. Conclusion

We have sought to show how and why the various epistemological and physical forms relate to one another in the thought of Henri Bergson, given indetermination as a basic axiom. Indetermination is immediately indicated by conscious perception. If conscious perception as equivalent to possible activity were eliminated, freedom would clearly cease to be a fact, almost by definition. Conscious perception liberates us from the bondage of material relations. This liberation would not occur without memory, whose function it is to contract matter, regulating it according to the requirements of an inner duration. There must also be a liberation from the immediacy of the concrete present. Here memory functions to retain the past, accumulating experience which can enlighten activity upon recall and which renders generalization possible. Spatial diagrammatization in turn permits the establishment of objectivity, the reconstruction of objects of which perception has immobile pictures, and the modification of matter. Spatialization allows for the distinguishing of concepts and percepts presupposed by the intellect. Lastly, the intellect itself functions to extend the range of awareness so that the agent can predict and anticipate the consequences of his own activity and the activity of matter. It also permits the agent to create a suitable material environment, one tailored to his interests.

None of these psychic phenomena would be possible without an adequate physical base. Presupposed is a sufficient nervous system. For this system to be truly independent from its environment, various support systems are needed, the most important of which are those which provide the nervous system with energy sources. This leads to the final element in the series, which concerns the manufacture of energy deposits. The implicative chain leads ultimately to plant life and its chlorophyllic function. Bergson’s initial acceptance of the fact of freedom finally includes the entirety of physical and psychic reality as its precondition.

References

BEP -- P.A.Y. Gunter, ed. Bergson and the Evolution of Physics. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969.

BPT -- Jacques Maintain. Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism, translated by Mabelle L. Andison. New York: Philosophical Library, 1955.

CE -- Henri Bergson. Creative Evolution, translated by Arthur Mitchell. New York: Modern Library, 1944.

CM -- Henri Bergson. The Creative Mind, translated by Mabelle L. Andison. Totawa, 1965.

ME -- Henri Bergson. Mind-Energy, translated by H. Wildon Carr. New York: H. Holt, 1920.

MM -- Henri Bergson. Matter and Memory, translated by Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer. London: G. Allen & Co., 1912.

TFW -- Henri Bergson. Time and Free Will, translated by F. L. Pogson. New York: Macmillan, 1960.

TSMR -- Henri Bergson. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, translated by R. Ashley Audra and Cloudesley Brereton. New York: H. Holt, 1935.

WD -- Henri Bergson. The World of Dreams, translated by Wade Baskin. New York: Philosophical Library, 1958.

Notes

1 "Allows" (MM 19, 296), "symbolizes" (MM 31, 37, 56; CE 326), "measures" (MM 23, 28, 30, 68), "must" (MM 55,87, 94, 278, 303), "requires" (MM 69; CE 172), "necessitates" (MM 24, 28, 57, 188, 192, 317; CE 166, 278).

2 Bergson claims that this process. which is inverse to that of matter, creates matter by being somehow interrupted.

3 Maritain is somewhat inexact in claiming that Bergson equates freedom with spontaneity or irresponsible activity, maintaining that in choice motive and reason have no role to play for Bergson (BPT 263-65). John M. Stewart also misinterprets Bergson in regarding the free act as motiveless: A Critical Exposition of Bergson’s Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1911), P. 247. Unsoeld is more correctly in line for saying that in the free act the agent would be responding to the thrust of his true inner self. If one were looking for a motive or reason, it would be the expression of this inner self which for Bergson could be equated with responsibility itself. Cf. W. F. Unsoeld, "Mysticism, Morality, and Freedom" (Dissertation, University of Washington, 1959), p. 22. Bergson explicitly objects to charges such as Maritain’s "Freedom is not hereby, as has been asserted, reduced to sensible spontaneity" (MM 243).

4 Some interpreters regard the Bergsonian self as a memory only, a collector rather than an agent. Again Maritain is one of these writers, maintaining that Bergson has eliminated efficient causality from the free act (BPT 260). Yet Bergson explicitly identifies efficient causality with the free act (CE 301)

5 Henri Bergson, "The Problem of Personality," Les Études 7 (Paris, 1966), 87.

I. Introduction

The construction of a theory of space-time structure is clearly a fundamental concern of Alfred North Whitehead in his early writings in the philosophy of natural science (see, for example, the "Prefaces" to PNK, CN, and R). There are important modifications in Whitehead’s theory in his later, more metaphysical, writings; but these modifications only serve to emphasize that the development of such a theory remains a major task in his attempts at philosophical analysis (see especially chapters IV and VII in SMW and part IV in PR).¹ In general, Whitehead constructs a theory that is reactionary in its analysis when compared with the theories of space-time structure in the special theory of relativity (STR) and in the general theory of relativity (GTR),² and that is in opposition to the theory of absolute space and absolute time in the Newtonian cosmology (see PNK 1-8; and PB part II, chapters II, III, and IV). In this article, the extent of ‘Whitehead’s opposition to the Newtonian theory is investigated. The focus of the investigation is on Whitehead’s analysis in Process and Reality, although important features of this analysis are derived from his earlier analysis in The Principle of Relativity.

Whitehead makes quite explicit the fact that his theory of space-time structure differs in two major respects from the Newtonian theory. First, the theory of space-time structure in the Whiteheadian cosmology is a relational theory as opposed to the "receptacle-container" theory in the Newtonian cosmology (PR 108f, 441). Space-time structure concerns relations between and sustained by the actual occasions of the universe; it is not an actual thing in which the real events of the world occur. Second, the extensive continuum, of which spatiotemporal extensiveness is a more specific determination, is a "real potential" factor of thc universe in the Whiteheadian cosmology as opposed to absolute space and absolute time continua as real and actual things comprising the universe in the Newtonian cosmology (PR 113f; cf. 101-06). The coming-to-be of present actual occasions actualizes -- specifically, spatializes and temporalizes -- an extensive order for the universe. These two points will be referred to again as this investigation concludes.

In as equally clear a manner Whitehead acknowledges that he incorporates in his cosmology certain of Newton’s notions about space and time structure. Three notions are mentioned. First, the quanta of spatiotemporal extensiveness, or the "regions," correlative to actual occasions and unique to each actual occasion in the Whiteheadian cosmology are to be identified with the absolute places of material objects at absolute instants of time in the Newtonian cosmology (PR 113; cf. 108f). Second, the nature of an actual occasion is such that the actual occasion is constituted by its relations, including extensive relations, with other actual entities; it, therefore, cannot be the actual occasion that it is and be "somewhere else" spatially and/or temporally. An actual occasion never moves, according to the Whiteheadian cosmology. This parallels the notion that absolute places and absolute times are immutable and immobile, according to the Newtonian cosmology. Newton’s absolute places and absolute times are places and times for themselves as well as for material objects, and thus it is not meaningful to say of them that they are moved out of themselves (PR 113; cf. 109f). And third, for each actual occasion there are other actual occasions which, because they occur in causal independence of that actual occasion, are its contemporaries. Within this nexus of contemporary actual occasions are multiple "durations," defined by the characteristic that any two actual occasions comprising it are contemporaries. A duration is thus a temporal cross-section of the universe, according to the Whiteheadian cosmology. This is analogous to the notion of the immediate present state of the universe, according to the Newtonian cosmology; with the exception that whereas in the Whiteheadian cosmology there are multiple durations associated with an actual occasion one of which -- the "presented" duration -- may have special significance, in the Newtonian cosmology there is one and only one immediate present state of the universe (PR 188-92; cf. 486-89).

The investigation below into certain features of the Newtonian and the Whiteheadian theories of space and time structure is an argument that other important and essentially Newtonian notions about space and time structure are fundamental to Whitehead’s theory. Specifically: the Whiteheadian cosmology embraces the notion of a uniform metric structure for the space-time continuum, that is independent of the material objects, commonly said to be "in" space-time, and especially that is independent of the material objects appropriated as standards of spatiotemporal measurement (see, for example, JR 58-59). The Newtonian cosmology sets forth the potions of absolute space "remaining always similar and immovable in its own nature" and of absolute time "flowing equably of itself and from its own nature," and the claim that the measurement of lengths in absolute space and of durations in absolute time is independent of any "sensible and external measures’ of them (PNP 6-8). There seems to be a clear and definite parallel here between the two cosmologies.

Simply noting this parallel is not sufficient to establish Whitehead’s theory as fundamentally Newtonian in important and essential aspects. However, it can be argued that Whitehead’s theory is fundamentally Newtonian if, in addition to noting the above parallel, it can be shown that Whitehead and Newton share a common understanding of the status and function of such a uniform and independent space and time structure in scientific inquiry. In the investigation to follow it is shown that both Whitehead and Newton maintain that such a space and time frame of reference is presupposed by any satisfactory scientific analysis of the physical nature of the universe. This common understanding of the status of space and time structure is reflected in similar treatments by Newton of gravitational forces and by Whitehead of what he terms "impetus" (a concept having gravitational and electromagnetic significance); both treat these as real physical phenomena against a framework of a uniform and independent space and time structure.

Before this investigation begins, it is to be noted that the immediate point of interest is not the soundness of the respective arguments that either Whitehead or Newton offers in defense of his position;³ the objective is to delineate within Whitehead’s theory of space-time structure what frequently is an overlooked but fundamentally Newtonian position.⁴

The argument that is presented here is not that Whitehead’s theory is simply a return to Newton’s theory. A clarification of a third difference between Whitehead’s theory and Newton’s theory, alluded to above, may serve to bring out the contrast of the two theories and yet show the fundamentally Newtonian position in Whitehead’s theory with which this investigation is concerned. In the Whiteheadian cosmology there are multiple durations associated with a particular actual occasion. Every other actual occasion included in these durations is a contemporary of that actual occasion; however, it is not necessarily the case that any two other actual occasions in these durations are themselves contemporaries (see PR 188-92). In this way the Whiteheadian cosmology incorporates the principle of the relativity of simultaneity, actually the principle of the causal independence of contemporary events, characteristic of modern theories of relativity. The Newtonian cosmology, in view of its affirmation of a unique time continuum, posits one and only one immediate present state of the universe, any two points of which are to represent places where contemporary events happen. The contrast of the two theories is clear on this point.

Whitehead’s theory is further articulated by the notion of the presented duration. Perception in the mode of presentational immediacy defines for a particular actual occasion one of the multiple durations associated with it, and this is its "presented" duration (PR 191f, 488-90).⁵ The actual occasions that might be said to actualize the presented duration are not perceived; however, the extensive relations within the presented duration are perceived (PR 95-97, 188). And, it is part of Whitehead’s theory that these extensive relations are such that a "systematic" geometry is sustained by them (PR 194-96, 497-99). Whitehead seems to mean by a systematic geometry that it is a geometry representing a structure of uniform curvature yet not a geometry identified as one of the particular uniform metric geometries.⁶ Further, this systematic geometry, exemplified within the presented duration, is taken to be a defining characteristic of the "geometrical" society, a basic member of a hierarchy of societies comprising the present cosmic epoch (PR 148-59K Thus Whitehead explains that the perceptive mode of presentational immediacy is of importance, for it exhibits a ". . . complex of systematic mathematical relations which participate in all the nexuses of our cosmic epoch, in the widest meaning of that term." And, "it is by reason of this disclosure of ultimate system that an intellectual comprehension of the physical universe is possible. There is a systematic framework permeating all relevant fact" (PR 498f). It is argued, as a result of the present investigation, that this is a fundamentally Newtonian position: there is a uniform and independent metric structure of the space and time continuum.

II. Space and Time Structure and Physical Analysis

Newton: It is evident that the "axioms," or "laws of motion," as stated by Newton, presuppose some determination of a spatial frame of reference and a temporal frame of reference prior to the use of those laws to analyze the physical motion of material objects:

It is not that Euclidean geometry fixes the meaning of "right line" for Newton that is important for present purposes; rather, it is that the notion of a "state of rest" or a "state of motion in a right line" presupposes some spatial reference, and "uniform motion" and "change of motion" presuppose some temporal reference.

More to the point, Newton’s "Scholium" which introduces the notions of "absolute, true, mathematical" space and time, and "relative, apparent, common" space and time (PNP 6-12), makes clear that absolute space and absolute time continua are thought to be necessary for a satisfactory theory of dynamics, that is, a theory of the forces which determine •the motion of material objects.⁷ The main idea in Newton’s position is that not all physical frames of reference are suitable for satisfactory analysis of the motion of material objects; in fact, no physical frame of reference is completely suitable for this purpose. A review of Newton’s position in the "Scholium" clarifies the status and function of absolute space and its relation to a theory of dynamics.

Newton defines "absolute motion" and "relative motion" using his previously introduced notions of absolute space and absolute time (PNP 7-8). All relative motions are said to presuppose absolute motions (PNP 9). Relative motions are readily perceived since such motion involves the translation of a material object relative to some perceived system of material objects. Absolute motions, however, present a major problem; they are not readily perceived since absolute space, relative to which such motion takes place, is not accessible to the senses (PNP 8). It is by reference to the causes and the effects of motions that absolute and relative motions can be distinguished and consequently that the notion of absolute space can be determined: ". . . we may distinguish rest and motion, absolute and relative, one from the other by their properties, causes, and effects" (PNP 8).

Newton’s position is detailed in two essential steps:

Absolute motion is not generated or altered except by a force that is exerted on the material object in motion. However, it is not possible to determine when a force is acting on a material object by simply noting the change in motion of that material object relative to a system of other material objects. Uniform rectilinear motion relative to some physical system is the classic example; such motion may be altered or terminated altogether by imparting motion not to the material object said to be in motion but to the physical system that is used as a frame of reference. The status of the material object relative to absolute space -- whether at rest or in motion -- cannot be determined. Rotational or circular motion (and accelerated motion in general), in contrast, does present the possibility, according to Newton, of determining absolute motion:

Rotational or circular motion gives rise to, for example, the familiar centrifugal force, the presence of which may be recognized without reference to changes in motion relative to any surrounding system of material objects.⁸ Newton illustrates the significance of this step in his position with his famous "bucket experiment" (PNP 10f).⁹

The details of the "bucket experiment" need not be specified for present purposes; the experiment uses a bucket filled with water, and the bucket is suspended from a rope so that when the rope is twisted, the rope is the axis of rotation for the bucket and eventually for the water. The point of this "experiment," as Newton understands it, is as follows :¹⁰ The shape of the surface of the water in the bucket -- either flat or concave -- is independent of the motion of the water relative to the sides of the bucket -- whether at rest or rotating. The concave shape of the surface of the water, considered by Newton as a deformation of its normal shape, is the effect of a force that is exerted on the water. The effect of a force exerted on a material object is to give it an accelerated motion; thus, the force that is exerted on the water gives rise to an accelerated motion of the water. Since the shape of the surface of the water -- the observed phenomenon showing the presence of a force -- is independent of the motion of the water relative to the sides of the bucket, the accelerated motion must also be independent of the relative motion of the water and the bucket. It is a motion that is accelerated relative to an absolute frame of reference, namely absolute space.

Recapitulating the crucial point: if all motions were relative motions, then the sides of the bucket would be a perfectly suitable frame of reference in terms of which to analyze the motion of the water. However, the concave surface of the water cannot be accounted for simply in terms of the relative motion of the water and the bucket. Newton maintains that the deformation in the shape of the surface of the water must be due to forces that give rise to accelerated motion relative to absolute space.

Now, given any system of material objects that might be considered as a frame of reference in a theory of dynamics, that system is either at rest, or in motion with uniform velocity, or in accelerated motion relative to absolute space. It is impossible to determine mechanically whether any such system is at rest or in motion with uniform velocity relative to absolute space; there are no forces present the effects of which reveal the status of the system relative to absolute space.¹¹ Frames of reference at rest or in motion with uniform velocity relative to absolute space (and hence in motion with uniform velocity relative one to another) are the "inertial frames" of classical Newtonian dynamics. Any system of material objects in accelerated motion relative to absolute space manifests forces -- the "inertial forces" -- that vary in accordance with the degree of acceleration; the centrifugal force discussed above is an example. Therefore, no system of material objects may serve as a frame of reference and be completely suitable for the purpose of analyzing in terms of laws the motions of material objects; for such laws of motion should be stated in such a manner that they are unaffected by the peculiar absence or presence of inertial forces in particular physical frames of reference. The laws of motion are to be stated, then, in terms of the one privileged, or "absolute," frame of reference, that is, absolute space. The uniformity of motion along a path in absolute space, or the lack of it, would require reference in like manner to the one privileged, or "absolute," frame of reference, that is, absolute time.

Thus, for Newton, absolute space and absolute time are presupposed by a theory of the dynamics of material objects in motion. It is only in reference to such continua that the motion of material objects can be analyzed without reference to the peculiar features of particular systems of material objects that might be taken a frames of reference.¹²

Newton himself acknowledges that he is not completely satisfied of material objects that might be taken as frames of reference.¹³

Newton does not believe that gravity is an essential property of matter, but he also denies that it can be a force that acts at a distance.¹⁵ Newton is clear on one point with regard to his analysis of gravitation; he is concerned with the mathematical treatment of gravitation, not with the nature or causes of gravitation or the manner in which gravitation acts but with the conditions under which gravitation acts (PNP 5f, 192). Thus, for Newton, the gravitational force due to the presence of some material object is analyzed as superimposed on an inertial frame of reference. Whenever a second material object is considered, then relative to an inertial frame of reference the two material objects attract each other with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating them. Though the presence of a gravitational force manifests itself by imparting an acceleration to a material object, the theories of inertial and gravitational forces are treated as distinct due primarily to the belief that the gravitational force is a special datum apart from the motion of material objects. By analyzing the action of gravitational forces against the background of an inertial frame of reference Newton is able to measure and to describe that action in terms of coordinates assigned to an inertial frame. Recalling that an inertial frame of reference is either at rest or in motion with uniform velocity relative to absolute space, and that the addition of a velocity to an acceleration does not affect the acceleration and hence would not affect the action of gravitational forces (accelerations due to gravity), Newton’s law of gravitation is, in effect, formulated relative to absolute space.

Newton’s theory of space and time structure is more detailed than is indicated in the preceding analysis; for instance, there is a theological dimension to Newton’s theory.¹⁶ For present purposes, however, only one further notion concerning the nature of absolute space and absolute time in Newton’s theory is of interest. Absolute space and absolute time have natures of their own, that is, extensional features which are independent of any external means of measurement as for example by measuring rods and pendulums:

What Newton wants to claim here is that absolute space and absolute time have intrinsic structures in terms of which measures such as equal lengths and equal durations may be determined. Physical measuring standards, such as measuring rods and pendulums, simply would function to reveal these structures of absolute space and absolute time which contain those standards. The difficulty, which Newton recognizes, is that there may be no physical motion whereby absolute time is accurately measured (PNP 8); and there may be no material object at rest in absolute space in reference to which absolute positions are determined (PNP 8). Nevertheless, Newton maintains that, for example, absolute time may be distinguished from relative time "by the equation or correction of the apparent time" (PNP 7f). His point is this:¹⁷ If the times marked out by (1) a carefully constructed pendulum and (2) the motion of the sun across the sky (the solar day) were both to be used as temporal frames of reference for scientific inquiry, then it would be discovered that certain physical phenomena would manifest unsuspected and unusual seasonal variations, for example in the motions of Jupiter’s satellites (and in the motion of the pendulum), if the solar day is taken as the standard but not if the pendulum is taken as the standard. Thus, the motion of the pendulum is taken as the standard, as a more suitable "approximation" to the uniform time flow of absolute time, and some physical explanation is then sought to account for the seasonal variation of the solar day relative to this standard.¹⁸ Were standards other than the pendulum chosen as operating "more uniformly," then the pendulum would be abandoned in favor of a "more uniform approximation" to absolute time.

Whitehead: The presence in Whitehead’s position of important notions about space and time structure which are essentially Newtonian becomes clear as one investigates the meaning of such representative claims as the following:

The immediate issue, for Whitehead, concerns a point of opposition to the Einsteinian formulation of GTR. Whitehead offers an alternative formulation and claims on behalf of his formulation that it can account for all experimental results accounted for by the Einsteinian formulation but that it represents a different interpretation of these results in terms of a more adequate concept of nature (PNK vi; CN vii, 182; IS 125-35).¹⁸The major theoretical difference between the two formulations is that whereas in the Einsteinian formulation the metric structure of the space-time continuum is variable from point to point and in differing directions (that is, heterogeneous and nonisotropic), in the Whiteheadian formulation the metric structure of the space-time continuum is uniform from point to point and in differing directions (that is, homogeneous and isotropic). The metric structure is dependent on, according to the Einsteinian formulation, and is independent of, according to the Whiteheadian formulation, the distribution of matter in the universe. It is this uniform and independent metric structure of the space-time continuum that Whitehead refers to as the "system of uniform relatedness" or the "systematic framework" in the quotations above. The uniformity of metric structure does not limit the geometrical description of this structure to a unique geometry. Whitehead did hold in his writings in the philosophy of natural science that Euclidean geometry provided the simplest analysis for the purposes of scientific inquiry:

"[O]ur experience requires and exhibits a basis of uniformity, and in the case of nature this basis exhibits itself as the uniformity of spatio-temporal relations." Whitehead’s "method of extensive abstraction" is used not only in his early writings in the philosophy of natural science but also in his later, more metaphysical, writings to abstract from the complexity of the relations which comprise the datum of sense-perception and to isolate by a conceptual analysis those relations which express a uniform metric structure, that is, to "exhibit" a basis of uniformity in nature.²¹ It is the sense in which this uniformity is "required" that is the crucial point for further investigation.

Whitehead considers this uniformity a requirement for measurement in the space-time continuum;²² and thus, as a presupposition of any physical analysis that would be considered scientific.

Whitehead’s position involves the following considerations. All experiments that might serve as bases for the construction of a physical theory or that might serve as tests for the confirmation of a physical theory are subject to the demand that standard conditions prevail or that suitable correction factors be introduced to ensure the consistency and the comparison of the experimental results. Otherwise, the experimental results would be one-time reports with no significance beyond isolated experiments, certainly not beyond the domain of the peculiar conditions that do prevail in the experiments Also, were there not an assumption of standard conditions, it would follow that theories would be constructed and confirmed with reference only to peculiar conditions prevailing in particular areas where the experimentation takes place (PR 194f, 499, 502f).

The establishment of standard conditions, or the introduction of correction factors, is particularly important to ensure the uniform operation of measuring standards (for example, measuring rods and pendulums) for it is generally in terms of measured results that the various experiments are evaluated for consistency and are compared. A presupposition of practical measurement is that a specified measuring rod, for example, is rigid; that is, that the rod does not undergo deformation in its length as it is transported from point to point or in differing directions during the process of measurement. In selecting a measuring rod, care is exercised to eliminate or to correct for thermal, electric, electromagnetic, and other physical influences which would result in a dependence of the rod’s length on its particular physical composition; that is, the influence of the so-called "differential" forces is eliminated. This may be accomplished by establishing standard conditions under which measurement is to take place or by introducing correction factors in the results obtained with the measuring rod.

Standard conditions may be shown to prevail in the space-time continuum, or the need for correction factors indicated, by a simple test. Select a measuring rod and construct a second measuring rod of a material differing from the first but otherwise identical; place the two rods together so that their endpoints coincide; and move the pair of rods about in the space-time continuum. If they coincide at every point and in every direction, standard conditions prevail, and the first measuring rod is not subject to deformation in its length due to its particular physical composition. If they fail to coincide, correction factors must be introduced to correct for deformation in its length due to its particular physical composition. The measuring rod is thus either free of the effects of the "differential" forces, or may be corrected to counterbalance the effect of such forces.²³

The question remains, even after "differential" forces have been taken into consideration, whether measuring standards remain self-congruent under transport from point to point and through a lapse of time. Whitehead disavows the thesis of geochronometric conventionalism, which maintains that this self-congruence is a matter of stipulation and affirms that this self-congruence must be established by referring the measuring standard to a uniform metric structure:

The uniform metric structure would serve as a framework in terms of which the self-congruence, or the lack of it, of a measuring standard could be determined. Once this self-congruence is determined, the measuring rod simply makes evident in a convenient manner the metric structure of the events with which it is compared (R 58).

The importance of the uniform metric structure to Whitehead is underscored by contrasting it briefly with the variable metric structure in the Einsteinian formulation of GTR. Suppose that a measuring rod is selected, and that this definition of "the shortest distance," or "a straight line" is given: "that path along which the measuring rod, under standard conditions or properly corrected, is laid down the least number of times." Utilizing the measuring rod, two rectilinear triangles are constructed in diverse regions with corresponding sides having the same lengths. In a space-time continuum of variable metric structure, the angle-sum of the interior angles of those two rectilinear triangles will generally not be equal, contrary to expectations derived from fundamental congruence theorems in the Euclidean geometry of a plane surface for example.²⁵ The failure of the interior angle-sums of the two rectilinear triangles to be equal suggests that the straight lines that arc the respective sides of the two triangles are different. In light of the definition of "a straight line," however, this would mean that in diverse regions of the space-time continuum under consideration the measuring rod, despite the prevailing standard conditions or the introduction of correction factors, undergoes deformation in its length as it is moved from point to point or in differing directions in the space-time continuum.²⁶ The extent of the deformation, according to the Einsteinian formulation, is dependent on the distribution of matter in the vicinity of the measuring rod. In a space-time continuum of uniform metric structure, the angle-sum of the interior angles of these two rectilinear triangles will be equal. The equality of the lengths of the respective sides and the equality of the interior angle-sums suggests that it would be possible to "move" one triangle out of its region and to transport it, without disturbing its spatial configuration, and superimpose it on the second triangle or bring the two triangles into coincidence. In light of the definition of "a straight line," however, this would mean that in diverse regions of the space-time continuum under consideration the measuring rod, under prevailing standard conditions or the introduction of correction factors, is not deformed in its length as it is moved from point to point or in differing directions in the space-time continuum. The measuring rod may be "moved freely" in the space-time continuum without deformation. This feature of a space-time continuum of uniform metric structure, which is familiar because of its association with fundamental congruence theorems such as in the Euclidean geometry of a plane surface, is not unique to Euclidean geometry. Two rectilinear triangles constructed on the surface of a sphere so that their corresponding sides have the same length represent a two-dimensional analogue of a space-time continuum of uniform metric structure having a Riemannian geometric structure. ²⁷ Geometries describing the uniform metric structure of space-time continua are frequently designated "congruence geometries" since they retain the traditional concept of congruence as involving superimposition, or embody the axiom of "free mobility."

Now, if measurement can be significant only if the measuring rod is free of all deforming influences, not simply those attributed to the influence of "differential" forces, then given a space-time continuum of variable metric structure, no set of conditions can be specified to ensure that the measuring rod does not undergo deformation in its length as it is transported from point to point during the process of measurement. And this is one of Whitehead’s objections to the Einsteinian formulation of GTR:

In the absence of a uniform frame of reference in terms of which the self-congruence of the measuring rod can be determined for all regions in the space-time continuum, Whitehead holds that the peculiar congruence behavior of that rod must be known for all regions in the space-time continuum, and this seems not to be possible.²⁸

The basis of uniformity that Whitehead maintains is required by scientific inquiry -- particularly for spatiotemporal measurement -- is not only a uniform system of relations but also is an independent system of relations (R 81; cf. PR 192-94). The sense in which it is independent will be specified below; it is sufficient to note here that it is not a substantial independence. The reason why Whitehead believes that it must be independent is that only if it is a system of relations independent of the changing, variable, physical characters of material objects can it serve as a frame of reference in terms of which the self-congruence of material objects under transport -- which makes them suitable as measuring standards -- can be determined.

The use to which Whitehead puts this uniform and independent metric structure is exemplified in an analysis of what he calls "impetus":

The "physical field" in the neighborhood of an event-particle, an event approximating to a point without spatial or temporal extension, is a means of expressing the complete sphere of influence due to the presence of that event and its specific character; in other words, the actual occasion that occurs at that point as it were. For both Einstein and Whitehead, this physical field is expressed by a mathematical function which represents physical magnitudes such as the density of matter at a point, the internal stresses of matter at that point, etc. According to the Einsteinian formulation of GTR, the physical magnitudes so represented define the metric structure of the space-time continuum, and fields of gravitational force are interpreted as inextricably intertwined with this structure.²⁹ According to the Whiteheadian formulation of 0TH, the physical magnitudes so represented define a physical characteristic, the "impetus," against the background of a uniform metric structure.³⁰ In effect, Einstein incorporates fields of gravitational force into a theory about the metric structure of the space-time continuum, whereas Whitehead retains such fields as special physical factors constitutive of the physical field associated with an event.

Whitehead’s position, as investigated above, is reflected in his explication in Process and Reality of the physical and geometrical order of nature in terms of "a hierarchy of societies" (PR 147-50, 506-08). Basically, a "society" is a grouping of events which manifest a common characteristic, the presence of that characteristic being guaranteed by the relations which the events sustain. The physical and geometrical order of nature is constituted by at least three societies, "the society of pure extension," "the geometric society," and "the electromagnetic society." The point to be noted is the relationship of the geometrical society and the electromagnetic society. The latter is embedded, so to speak, in the former, so that a determination of the variable physical quantities which characterize the electromagnetic society is obtained against a background of relationships which comprise a uniform metric structure:

III. Evaluation

The preceding investigation into the Newtonian and Whiteheadian theories of space and time structure suggests that there is a clear and definite parallel between the two theories and argues that the parallel is significant because Newton and Whitehead share a common understanding of the status and function of a uniform and independent space and time structure in scientific inquiry. This investigation supports the contention that for both Newton and Whitehead some privileged space and time structure is presupposed by any physical analysis that is to be considered scientific and, specifically, shows that in Newton’s analysis of gravitation and in Whitehead’s analysis of impetus this privileged space and time structure functions as the framework, or background, in terms of which definite physical characteristics are then analyzed. For Newton, absolute space and absolute time are presupposed by a theory of the dynamics of moving bodies and in particular are necessitated by the fact that no available physical frame of reference seems suitable for a satisfactory analysis of the accelerated motions of material objects. For Whitehead, a uniform and independent metric structure is presupposed by measurement in the space-time continuum and in particular is necessitated by any attempt, so it seems to Whitehead, to establish standard conditions or to introduce correction factors ensuring the self-congruence of measuring devices under transport.

It might be argued that all scientific inquiry, whether classical or contemporary, presupposes, perhaps in the sense that it makes some assumption with regard to, a theory of space and time structure, and that it obviously may be either an absolutist or a relational position. The various arguments for one or the other may be evaluated and the assumed theory may be modified. There would be nothing surprising about this and especially nothing of interest in the fact that two particular cosmologies might share this common presupposition. However. the crux of the argument in this investigation is not simply the common presupposition of a theory of space and time structure by scientific inquiry; rather, it is the common presupposition of a privileged space and time structure, and the use of this privileged space and time structure in subsequent physical analysis in a strikingly similar manner. Further, it is not simply an arbitrary decision to conduct physical analysis against the background of such a space and time structure; rather, both Newton and Whitehead maintain that this structure is a real factor within the universe -- it is there to be discerned, either through the analysis of forces as for Newton or through a method of abstraction as for Whitehead:

What this investigation means in terms of more comprehensive metaphysical issues is evident. Neither Newton nor Whitehead ascribes to a purely relative theory of space and time structure, that is, a theory which would maintain that any selected system of material objects may serve as a suitable framework in terms of which to analyze physical reality. Newton and Whitehead maintain, on the contrary, that there are important considerations presupposed by scientific inquiry which result in the selection of certain specific frames of reference, perhaps even a unique frame of reference, in terms of which the spatial and temporal relations of material objects are to be determined.

There is a difference in the considerations that influence Newton and Whitehead to assert the theories of space and time structure that they do. And this difference leads to a difference in approaches to questions about the content of physical geometry, that is, about the metric structure of space and time.³¹ The Newtonian approach is accurately described as "holistic"; it is an approach that envisions the fixing of geometrical structure by and within the confirmation of some satisfactory physical theory. In support of this, it is to be recalled that Newton’s argument for absolute space involves certain definite ideas about forces, their effects, and what constitutes a deformation of a normal situation. Consequently, for Newton there is no prior demarcation between physical geometry and physics. Supposedly then, Newton’s theory of absolute space and absolute time and his theory of dynamics would be confirmed, or disconfirmed, as a whole. The Whiteheadian approach may be characterized as affirming the "autonomy" of physical geometry; it is an approach that envisions the fixing of a uniform and independent metric structure regardless of the type of physical analysis that is conducted. Any and all measurement presupposes such a structure. Consequently then, for Whitehead physical geometry is the science of the uniform relatedness of events, and a physical theory is the science of their contingent relatedness (R v-vi).³²

This investigation certainly does not claim any innovative or original interpretation of the Newtonian theory; it is intended to be an accurate description of certain essential features of the Newtonian position. It is a result of this investigation, however, that one should be quite cautious in assuming an all-embracing endorsement by Whitehead of the concepts that define twentieth-century relativity science; Whitehead himself continually warns his reader of this fact. This investigation argues that indeed one may find that Whitehead retains certain important and essentially classical notions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century science.

A final note puts the Whiteheadian position, and this investigation of it, into proper perspective. Although both Newton and Whitehead claim that there is a uniform and independent metric structure of the space and time continuum, Whitehead’s claim is on behalf of a uniform and independent system of relations, not a substantial entity in its own right. This system of relations may be discerned within nature and is sustained by -- or actualized by -- the events or actual occasions and their relations that are the fundamental constituents of the universe. In Science and the Modern World, such a system is termed "an ideally isolated system":

It is an "ideal" system in that it is discerned by thought through abstraction, not through immediate sense-perception; it is an "isolated" system in that it has a completeness in its own right guaranteed by the sameness of the relations that it exhibits; but it is not a self-subsistent entity. In this respect the Whiteheadian theory of space-time structure is unmistakably different from that of Newton. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Whitehead credits Newton with recognizing the importance of the concept of an ideally isolated system to scientific inquiry (SMW 46).

Thus, Whitehead’s theory of space-time structure represents an interesting intermediary position in the controversy between the positions traditionally labeled "relational" and "absolutist"³³ Whitehead’s theory is "relational" with regard to the fundamental nature of space-time and is "absolutist" with regard to a structure exhibited within and sustained by the extensional relations of events.

References

PNP -- Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World (1686) trans. Andrew Motte (1729). Translation revised and annotated by Florian Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1934

Notes

1Some of the modifications of importance are: (1) the substitution of the relation of extensive connection for the relation of extension as the fundamental extensional relation; (2) the analysis of metric structure in terms of the geometric society instead of the relations of extension and cogredience; (3) the emphasis on the potential character of extensional relations.

2 Whitehead acknowledges this himself; see CN vii, and R v.

3 Ernst Mach’s criticism of Newton’s theory is well-known; see his The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development, trans. by Thomas J. McConnack (6th ed.; La Salle, Illinois; Open Court Publishing Company. 1960), chapter II, section VI, para. 2-6. See also Stephen Toulmin, "Criticism in the History of Science: Newton on Absolute Space, Time, and Motion, I and II," Philosophical Renew, 68 (January and April, 1959), 1-29 and 203-27, for a renewed evaluation of Newton’s theory. Adolf Grünbaum, especially in his Philosophical Problems of Space end Time, Borzi Books in the Philosophy of Science (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963) chap. 15, and Robert M. Falter, in his Whitehead’s Philosophy of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), chapters V and VI, are contemporary critics of Whitehead’s theory.

4 There is an evaluative task to be undertaken. Whitehead’s retention of certain fundamentally Newtonian notions about space and time structure puts him at variance with the theory of space-time structure in the Einsteinian formulation of GTR. The basic issue in question is philosophical; however, there is reason to believe that Whitehead’s reading of the Einsteinian formulation is not necessarily the most satisfactory. If an alternative interpretation is adopted, and one which seems more reasonable, then it is possible that Whitehead’s process metaphysics could be consistent with the Einsteinian formulation of GTR. It would involve the abandoning of the Newtonian notions about space and time structure investigated here. This will be presented and argued in a supplementary article.

5Actually, it is the "presented locus" that is defined by perception in the mode of presentational immediacy (PR 195f, 492), and Whitehead notes in several places that in keeping with the results of physical science the presented duration and the presented locus are not to be identified (PR 192-96, 492f). Another reason for this distinction is to emphasize that a duration signifies actual occasions in unison of becoming whereas presentational immediacy only reveals extensive relations of some contemporary actual occasions (PR 491-93). The exceedingly difficult discussions of "strains," "strain-feelings," and "strain-loci" are relevant (PR part IV, chapter IV), but comprehension of these notions does not seem to be crucial to the argument here.

A footnote to PR 196 indicates that this distinction between the presented duration and the presented locus is a change from the position in CN (also PNK and R, for that matter). This change is of tremendous significance as one attempts to understand the development of Whitehead’s theory of space and time structure (see the important "Notes’ to PNK). At issue is Whitehead’s account of the real individuality of events.

6 Grünbaum, in his Philosophical Problems of Space and Time, points out that to assert uniform curvature is meaningless without tacit reference to some particular metric geometry (p. 427). He finds Whitehead’s position untenable for this and other reasons. This issue is discussed briefly in the supplementary article mentioned above.

7 Newton concludes this "Scholium," PNP 12: "But how we are to obtain the true motions from their causes, effects, and apparent differences, and the converse, shall be explained more at large in the following treatise. For to this end it was that I composed it."

8 The forces involved are the familiar centrifugal force and Coriolis force, which on a rotating disk are the forces on a mass-particle pulling it towards the edge of the disk and pulling it sideways away from a simple straight line from the center to the edge. Also included is the force experienced by a mass-particle when a frame of reference is accelerated along a straight line -- a force holding the mass-particle back -- and is decelerated along a straight line -- a force pulling the mass-particle forward. The term "inertial forces" refers to all such forces associated with accelerated motions, whether rotational or rectilinear.

9 Toulmin, in "Newton on Absolute Space," pp. 25-27, argues that this experiment is designed to "illustrate" the distinction between absolute and relative motion which is essential to concepts relating to Newton’s theory of dynamics, and not to give evidence of the objective existence of absolute space as it is frequently interpreted.

10 See the very clear explication in Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc, 1961), pp. 207-09.

11 Newton assumed that appropriate optical and electromagnetic experiments might determine the state of uniform velocity, or of rest, of a mass-particle relative to absolute space. This was shown not to be the case, and this insight was incorporated in STR.

12 Ernest Nagel, in providing a contemporary evaluation of Newton’s theory of mechanics, emphasizes that there is an element of truth that can still be attributed to Newton’s position, an element closely related to the analysis given above. Newton’s second law of motion states that if a force is impressed on a body, then that body is accelerated with the magnitude of the force and the direction of the acceleration in the direction of the force. The forces referred to cannot in general be measured independently of the acceleration involved; consequently, if the fact that a mass-particle is accelerated must first be determined in order to know that a force is operative, then in those cases some frame of reference must be adopted relative to which the motion of that mass-particle may he analyzed. This procedure means, in effect, the assigning of a logical priority to the specification of a frame of reference for the purposes of subsequent physical analysis. Nagel, in The Structure of Science, (p. 214), comments on the significance of this procedure as follows: ‘Newton’s procedure in assigning logical priority to the selection of a frame of reference, with respect to which motions are to be analyzed in terms of his axioms, was thus entirely cogent, however faulty may have been his argument for absolute space.

13 This has been a point of emphasis in recent studies of Newton’s writings. See Alexandre Koyré, Newtonian Studies, A Phoenix Book (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 149-63.

14 Koyré’s suggested reading of "feign" instead of "frame" is used in the claim -- " . . . I frame no hypotheses."

15 See Koyré’s discussions in Newtonian Studies.

16 See the "General Scholium" to PNP 543-47. There may be points of similarity in Newton’s and Whitehead’s treatments of the relation of God to space and time, that is, God’s Omnipresence and Eternality. For a discussion of issues concerning Whitehead’s treatment see Lewis S. Ford, "Boethius and Whitehead on Time and Eternity," International Philosophical Quarterly, 8 (March, 1968), 38-67; and Lewis S. Ford, "Whitehead’s Conception of Divine Spatiality," Southern Journal of Philosophy, 6 (Spring, 1968), 1-13. Professor Ford has brought to my attention the recent discussion of Newton’s theory in Ivor Leclerc’s book, The Nature of Physical Existence (New York. Humanities Press, 1972), in which Leclerc argues that for Newton place and space are grounded in God’s activity. As Professor Ford noted, this is significantly different from the "Newtonian view of space and time that Whitehead criticizes in PR. I am not able to assess what directions an investigation of the possible similarities in Newton’s and Whitehead’s treatments of this topic might take.

17 Newton’s example is elaborated by Toulmm in" Newton on Absolute Space," pp. 15-17.

18 Toulmin, "Newton on Absolute Space," pp. 17, 21, uses the words "approximate" and "approximations" to describe Newton’s understanding of the distinction between "absolute time" and "apparent time."

Toulmin’s analysis is valuable and convincing to a certain extent. Toulmin argues that absolute space and absolute time are to be interpreted in Newton’s Principia as "theoretical ideals" or "mathematical ideals" in an axiomatic system. Consequently, it is incorrect to interpret Newton as maintaining that absolute space and absolute time can be measured without reference to some material objects, that absolute space and absolute time are real existents apart from all material objects, and that absolute space and absolute time are founded on essentially metaphysical considerations (see part I of Toulmin’s two-part essay).

Nevertheless, Toulmin himself must acknowledge that Newton does not consistently reflect such a view in the language he uses in the Principia, or in late additions to the Principia (for example, the "General Scholium"), or in other writings (for example, the Opticks) (see part II of Toulmin’s two-part essay). In view of the qualifications that Toulmin makes it would seem that Toulmin is arguing for a more satisfactory reformulation of Newton’s theory rather than for a more accurate reinterpretation. See Howard Stein, "Newtonian Space-Time," The Texas Quarterly, 10 (Autumn, 1967), 174-200. for another and perhaps more balanced interpretation of Newton’s absolute space and absolute time.

The theory attributed to Newton in the present investigation is believed to be a justifiable account of the comprehensive Newtonian position. But in spite of the above criticism of Toulmin’s analysis, the present investigation embodies his insistence on the relation in Newton’s Principia between his theory of dynamics and absolute space and absolute time. This is also a point of emphasis in Stein’s article.

19 Palter, in Whitehead’s Philosophy of Science, chapters VIII, IX, and appendix IV, discusses the specific scientific and mathematical differences between the Einsteinian and the Whiteheadian formulations.

20 Cf. PR 503, where Whitehead claims that the choice of a geometrical theory to describe the uniform metric structure is . . . to he found by comparing rival theories in respect to their power of elucidating observed facts."

21 The issues here are complex and detailed; nearly every commentator on Whitehead’s philosophy of natural science discusses and criticizes this method. The success of Whitehead’s method in exhibiting a uniform metric structure is a basic question but not an issue in this investigation. This question is raised in the supplementary article referred to above. It need only be remarked here that the method is not a deductive method, nor is it designed to isolate for immediate sense-perception the geometrical relations defined by the method.

22 Associated with both of the quotations, B 29, 59 and PR 498f, given on pages 246f above are examples involving the measurement of spatial distance and times of revolution; see R 58f and PR 499.

23 This is but one of several tests for the presence of differential forces, and the test itself is described in very simplistic terms; nevertheless, the point illustrated is correct, namely that the presence of "differential" forces may be ascertained without the use of instruments which themselves involve established measuring scales.

24 In fairness to Whitehead’s position it is to be noted that he disavows the "operationalist" understanding of self-congruence; yet, his position is also decidedly anti-conventionalist.

25 To simplify matters the measurement of the angle-sums can be performed with the specified measuring rod and expressed in "radians." One radian is the measure of the angle at the center of a circle, subtending an arc of the circle equal in length to the radius (approximately equal to 57.3_).

26 These deformations would be true of any measuring rod chosen regardless of its physical composition, for as is noted the deformation occurs despite prevailing standard conditions or the introduction of correction factors. It might be said that the deformation is the result of so-called "universal" forces, forces which influence every physical body in the same manner and are not dependent on their physical composition. The designation of forces as "differential" and "universal" is utilized extensively by Hans Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space & Time, translated by Maria Reichenbach and John Freund, A Dover Paperback (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1958), pp. 10-28.

27A two-dimensional analogue of a space-time continuum of uniform metric structure having a Lobachewskian geometric structure may be constructed as well; see Nagel, The Structure of Science, pp. 237-40.

28 It may seem plausible to introduce additional correction factors to correct for the deformation of the measuring rod by the distribution of matter. However, in order to avoid a vicious circle in this procedure, the extent of deformation must be determined without invoking additional measurements. It is difficult to see how this could be accomplished inasmuch as the extent of the deformation is dependent on the distribution of matter, a determination of which seems necessarily to involve the measurement of spatial intervals. See PR 506f.

The possibility of the circularity involved in practical measurement in a space-time continuum of variable metric structure is emphasized by C. I. Lewis, "The Categories of Natural knowledge," The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. by Paul Arthur Schilpp (2nd ed.; New York. Tudor Publishing Company, 1951), pp. 710-13.

It is to be recalled that the soundness of Whitehead’s argument (or of Lewis’s commentary on this point) is not the immediate point of interest in this investigation. A critical evaluation is contained in the supplementary article mentioned above, n. 4.

29There is reason to believe that it is not altogether accurate to interpret fields of gravitational force as consequences of the metric structure, although this is the understanding attributed to the Einsteinian formulation of CTR; see Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space & Time, p. 256f. This issue is an immediate point of interest in the supplementary article mentioned in n. 4.

30The use of the term "impetus" is probably intended to suggest analogies with a fourteenth-century theory of motion, formulated in opposition to the Aristotelian theory of motion (see Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800, A Free Press Paperback [rev. ed.; New York. The Free Press l957], chapter 1).

The Aristotelian theory maintained that a mass-particle continued in motion only so long as a moving-agent was in contact with the mass-particle and was imparting motion to it at every moment. The continued motion of a projectile was explained by the rush of air, which was compressed in front of the projectile, to the rear of the projectile, where the air then pushed the projectile. This rush of air was brought into effect by the initial motion of the projectile as it was put into motion. In contrast, the fourteenth-century theory of impetus maintained that the motion of a mass-particle was due to an "impetus" which it acquired either from the moving-agent or from the mere fact of being in motion. The impetus was a physical character attributed to the mass-particle itself, and the measure of mass was used as n measure of the impetus corresponding to a given velocity. The essential point was that given the theory of impetus, the continued motion of a projectile could be explained after contact with the moving-agent was terminated without appealing to a rush of air around the projectile, a phenomenon not easily made compatible with other empirical and theoretical aspects of the Aristotelian theory.

To the extent that an analogy is intended between the fourteenth-century theory of impetus and Whitehead’s formulation of GTR, the following observation may be made: the concept of impetus in both cases designates a physical characteristic attributed either to the mass-particle or to the physical field which it causes and in both cases is developed in opposition to theories which would attribute this physical characteristic to the surrounding air or to the spatiotemporal frame of reference and its metric structure.

31 The designations "holistic" and "autonomous" below are derived from Arthur Fine, "Reflections on a Relational Theory of Space," Synthese, 22 (1971), 450. Fine describes the Newtonian position as "holistic."

32 The specific task of physics for Whitehead is the analysis of the relationships of events with the goal ". . . to contrast the sphere of contingency by discovering adjectives of events such that the history of the apparent world in the future shall be the outcome of the apparent world in the past" (B 29, cf. PR 150).

33Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, The Cloister Library, Harper Torchbooks (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1957). p. 252, characterizes the Leibnizian -- or relational -- theory of space as "a lattice of quantitative relations" and the Newtonian -- or absolutist -- theory of space as "a unity which precedes and makes possible all relations that can be discovered in it." See Fine, "Reflections on a Relational Theory of Space."

In Process and Reality Alfred North Whitehead dealt extensively with God as an indispensable part of his metaphysical system, as that without which there would be no order or novelty and, hence, no world. He also insisted that God as an actual entity is not an exception to the metaphysical categories. God is actual by virtue of his being a whole actual entity rather than by virtue of any particular aspect of his nature. No aspect of God can exist apart from the whole which it characterizes. Nevertheless, Whitehead often dealt with God in terms of aspects abstracted from the concrete whole, frequently in isolation from one another. Thus, in a large portion of Process and Reality he speaks of God in terms of his "primordial nature," in the last ten pages discusses the "consequent nature," and in at least one place mentions the "superjective nature." This compartmentalized treatment and an occasional poor choice of words often results in the unintended suggestion that the various "natures" are genuinely separable and even independently actual. This problem has been noted by several commentators and even acknowledged by Whitehead.¹

The idea that the primordial and consequent natures are separate actual entities, each existing in relative independence from the other, has been generally laid to rest by Whitehead scholars. There remains a further issue, however, which needs more discussion: Are the natures of God to be understood as distinguishable parts which, added together, make up the unified actual entity, God? Although each part must rely upon the whole of God for its existence, does each part have its own distinctive functions, operating with some degree of independence from the other parts? Is it appropriate to say, "The primordial nature of God does A and B, while the consequent nature is the component that does C and D"? Indeed, some quite competent Whitehead scholars have written as if the natures of God were distinguishable parts each with its own peculiar functions. We read, for example: "God’s primordial nature is but one half of his being -- the permanent side" (UW 56). "The actual entity that is needed to order the possibilities is called the primordial nature of God" (UW 101). And: ". . . these components of the actual entity God . . ." (WTR 59). Expressions such as, "X orders A," "A is a function of X," "X is responsible for A," "A is affected by X," "X is the active element," or "X is the passive component" imply that X is not itself a function or mode of functioning, but, instead, is that which does the functioning. This language seems to be based upon the model of the eyes, hands, and liver of a body, each of which is a distinguishable part and has its distinctive functions. The result tends to undermine the unity of God as an actual entity and, especially, the unity of God’s functioning.

In contrast to the foregoing, our contention will be that the "natures" of God can better be understood, not as distinguishable parts, but as ways of indicating various interdependent modes of functioning by the whole actual entity, God. The words "primordial nature," "consequent nature," and "superjective nature" should not be taken as nouns referring to different elements of God, each of which is an agent with its own distinctive functions. Instead, they should be treated as adjectives describing the character of how God as a whole functions in relation to the world and to the eternal objects. This modification, while it is at variance with some of Whitehead’s statements about God, nevertheless provides an understanding of God more in harmony with the fundamental insights of his system. It is in accord with Whitehead’s emphasis upon the subjective unity of an actual entity, that an entity acts as a whole, and with the indivisible unity of polar opposites, particularly God and the world. In order to show this we shall first describe the functions Whitehead assigned to the various natures and then see if they can perform those functions in relative independence of one another.

The primordial nature of God receives the greatest attention from Whitehead. It is "the unconditioned conceptual valuation of the entire multiplicity of eternal objects" (PR 46). This unity of conceptual feelings is "a free creative act, untrammeled by reference to any particular course of things" (PR 552). It is thus nontemporal in that it is truly universal, not defined by reference to any particular historical event.

Whitehead claims three functions for the primordial nature of God. First, it grades the eternal objects in terms of their relevance to one another. "The general relationships of eternal objects to each other, relationships of diversity and of pattern, are their relationships in God’s conceptual realization. Apart from this realization there is mere isolation indistinguishable from nonentity" (PR 392). Second, it grades the eternal objects in terms of their relevance for inclusion in particular actual occasions. "By reason of the actuality of this primordial valuation of pure potentials, each eternal object has a definite, effective relevance to each concrescent process" (PR 64). It is this ordering and relating of eternal objects to actual occasions Whitehead says, that constitutes the metaphysical stability of the universe and makes possible both order and novelty in the world (PR 64). Third, the primordial nature of God makes this graded relevance effective in the world through providing the initial aim for each concrescent occasion. Thus, the initial aim "is a direct derivative from God’s primordial nature" (PR 104).

It is through these three functions that the primordial nature of God is manifested. As primordial, God is "the unlimited conceptual realization of the absolute wealth of potentiality" guided by a subjective aim toward the maximal actualization of the entire realm of eternal objects (PR 521, 47).

The consequent nature of God is "the physical prehension by God of the actualities of the evolving universe" (PR 134). Since the primordial nature of God by itself is deficient in actuality, the consequent nature is "the completion of God’s nature into a fullness of physical feeling . . . derived from the objectification of the world in God" (PR 523). Two things are claimed of God’s consequent nature. First, God prehends every component of the satisfaction of every actual occasion; nothing in the domain of finite actuality is excluded. This Whitehead expresses in the image of "a tender care that nothing be lost" (PR 525). Second, the consequent nature weaves all these feelings of the actual world into one unity of feeling. Just as in all other actual entities, God’s concrescence is a process by which he brings a diversity of prehensions into one fully determinate unity. The achievement of every actual occasion in the antecedent universe is preserved by its integration into the harmony of God’s satisfaction. We read, for example, that the consequent nature is "the realization of the actual world in the unity of his nature, . . . the weaving of God’s physical feelings upon his primordial concepts" (PR 524). "The consequent nature of God is the fulfillment of his experience by his reception of the multiple freedom of actuality into the harmony of his own actualization" (PR 530). This "weaving" into a "unity" or "harmony" is not something that can be accomplished in the conformal phase of pure physical feelings alone, but requires the integrative activity of the supplemental phases. Of course, as we shall see later, there is some question whether Whitehead can consistently assign this function to the consequent nature alone, but at least he appears to make that claim.

Finally, almost as an afterthought, Whitehead introduces the superjective nature of God. This is mentioned only twice in Process and Reality and then quite briefly. "The ‘superjective’ nature of God is the character of the pragmatic value of his specific satisfaction qualifying the transcendent creativity in the various temporal instances" (PR 135). "The perfected actuality [God’s satisfaction] passes back into the temporal world, and qualifies this world so that each temporal actuality includes it as an immediate fact of relevant experience" (PR 532). The second of these passages does not use the term "superjective nature," but it can be joined with the first since it clearly says the same thing: God’s satisfaction qualifies the temporal world. The superjective nature, then, is God exercising his objective immortality by laying down a datum which conditions the form of all subsequent creative acts. Whitehead then follows up this description with some puzzling words. He writes that the superjective nature is "the particular providence for particular occasions," but adds, "What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world" (PR 532). The first of these, indicating God’s persuasive guidance of each actual occasion, sounds like the function of the primordial nature in giving the initial aim. Yet the second statement, which indicates that God prehends the world and passes the result of that prehension back into the world, cannot refer to a primordial nature that is "untrammeled by reference to any particular course of things."

There is some question, then, about how the superjective nature is related to the primordial and consequent natures. At one point Whitehead seems to suggest that the primordial and consequent natures exercise their objective immortality separately: "Thus God has objective immortality in respect to his primordial nature and his consequent nature. The objective immortality of his consequent nature is considered later (cf. Part V); we are now concerned with his primordial nature" (PR 47). In what immediately follows, Whitehead writes of God’s urge toward the actualization of the eternal objects, an actualization which is effected by the giving of the initial aim. All this suggests, in a rather hazy way, that the primordial nature is objectively immortal in the giving of the initial aim while the consequent nature exercises its objective immortality in the superjective nature. Is God then objectified in two ways: in terms of his conceptual feelings and his physical feelings? Certainly the expression, "passes back" implies that the satisfaction of God is objectified at least partly in terms of his physical feelings of the world.

Whitehead’s precise understanding of the superjective nature is unclear and ambiguous at best. At any rate, the function that does seem relatively clear is that God conditions temporal actuality as a result of his prehension and harmonization of the antecedent world.

We must now return to the question, Are the natures of God distinguishable parts functioning with some degree of independence from the other parts? Can the various functions be consistently assigned to individual natures? As we noted, two functions are attributed to the consequent nature: in it God prehends every component of the satisfaction of every actual occasion and all these feelings of the actual world are woven into one unity of feeling. These functions, however are carried on with the help of functions attributed to the primordial nature. Temporal actual occasions are limited in their prehension of their antecedent worlds because of their limited capacity to integrate conflicting data. It is necessary for actual occasions to prehend much data negatively because they are unable to harmonize such data into their satisfactions. God, however, is not thus limited. His ability to integrate such a great diversity of feelings into one satisfaction is made possible by his primordial prehension of the "unlimited wealth of potentiality." The conceptual resources primordially available to God for the supplemental phases of his concrescence are boundless. Further, the all-inclusiveness of his physical feelings is made possible by this capacity for harmonization. If all can be integrated, nothing need be excluded by negative prehensions as occurs in actual occasions.

Another way in which the consequent nature in both its functions is wholly dependent upon functions of the primordial nature is in its need for subjective aim. God’s feelings, even in the conformal phase of physical feelings, must be guided by the subjective aim. As Whitehead points out, "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" (PR 523). Thus, because God’s prehension and harmonization of the world necessarily involves functions attributed to the primordial nature, we cannot distinguish the activities of the two natures and treat them as separate agents in this respect.

As we turn to the functions of the primordial nature, we find that most of them are dependent upon functions of the consequent nature. We noted three functions: grading the eternal objects in terms of their relevance to one another, grading the eternal objects in terms of their relevance for inclusion in particular actual occasions, and providing the initial aim for each concrescent occasion. The first of these would involve only pure conceptual feelings and thus would not require physical feelings of an antecedent world. This first function, then, would not require the functions of the consequent nature except as they are needed to complete the actuality of the entity (God) to which the function belongs.²

The second function of the primordial nature, however, does require functions of the consequent nature in grading the relevance of the eternal objects for particular actual occasions. Some help in understanding why may be found in Whitehead’s distinction between "general potentiality" and "real potentiality." He writes:

Thus, God’s grading of the eternal objects solely in terms of their relevance for one another provides general potentiality, while relevance for particular occasions constitutes real potentiality. General potentiality comprises the infinite number of ways that the eternal objects may be related to one another without regard to any specific historical entity, while real potentiality is that portion of general potentiality which is open to a specific historical entity, given the character of the actual world defined by its specific spatiotemporal locus. In other words, what has happened in the past of an actual occasion is of crucial significance in determining the specific relevance of eternal objects to its concrescence. Because, according to Whitehead, every actual entity has a degree of free self-determination, the future cannot be fully specified in advance. Therefore, God cannot grade the relevance of eternal objects for specific actual occasions in some absolute, non-world-prehending manner. Instead, at every stage of the creative process God must take account of the concrete world, a function normally attributed to the consequent nature.

The third function, providing the initial aim, also requires the functioning of the consequent nature. The only means provided for such transmission in Whitehead’s metaphysics is a hybrid physical prehension of God by the concrescent actual occasion. Since the initial aim is not just for any actual occasion, but for this actual occasion, it seems better to say that God is objectified by one of his propositional feelings than by one of his pure conceptual feelings. As John Cobb puts it:

A proposition refers to a specific logical subject but can do so only in relation to a concrete world.’ According to Whitehead, "This necessary indication of the logical subjects requires the actual world as a systematic environment. For there can be no definite position in pure abstraction" (PR 394). Thus, once more we return to the necessity of God’s prehending the temporal world in order to carry out a function attributed to the primordial nature.

One might still claim, however, that although the primordial and consequent natures of God are interdependent, they are nevertheless distinguishable parts of God. A. H. Johnson, for example, identifies the primordial and consequent natures with the mental and physical poles of God (WTR 58). William Christian suggests a similar identification when he writes, "And God’s nature includes as its mental pole an envisagement of the entire multiplicity of eternal objects" (IWM 269). Such a division might seem to be implied by Whitehead’s comment, "In each actuality there are two concrescent poles of realization -- ‘enjoyment’ and ‘appetition,’ that is, the ‘physical’ and the ‘conceptual.’ For God the conceptual is prior to the physical, for the World the physical poles are prior to the conceptual poles" (PR 528). Elsewhere he writes, "Thus, analogously to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar . . . The primordial nature is conceptual, the consequent nature is the weaving of God’s physical feelings upon his primordial concepts" (PR 524). Whitehead seems to be saying that God’s primordial valuation of the eternal objects is his mental pole and his enjoyment of the world is his physical pole.

If this is what Whitehead means (the passages are not entirely clear) it results in several problems. On the one hand, God’s mental pole might be taken to be his pure conceptual feelings and his physical pole simple physical feelings. This, however, would not be in accord with Whitehead’s usual understanding of the two poles. That is, the physical pole is normally understood as the initial phase of conformal feelings that merely receives what is given to it, while the mental pole is normally understood as the supplemental phases comprising pure conceptual feelings would leave out the various propositional feelings Even if this were a correct understanding of the mental and physical poles, it would still be inadequate, for the two poles would not include all of God’s feelings. The restriction of the primordial nature to pure conceptual feelings would leave out the various propositional feelings that are required for relating the eternal objects to specific actual occasions and giving the initial aim.

On the other hand, God’s mental pole might be taken to include all the feelings of the supplemental phases. This division might work fairly well in regard to the primordial nature, but it is inadequate for dealing with the consequent nature. As we noted earlier, Whitehead claims the consequent nature of God does more than merely physically prehend the world. It must also weave these feelings into a unity and achieve a satisfaction. This can only be done in the supplemental phases or mental pole of God.

Thus the primordial and consequent natures of God cannot be seen as distinct parts by identifying them with the mental and physical poles. Nor is there any other way by which they may be clearly distinguished as parts. The identification of the two natures with distinct phases of God’s concrescence would fall under the same criticism as given above. Distinguishing the two natures on the basis of their being composed of different kinds of feelings would be equally problematic because both natures must make use of comparative feelings. Neither can they be distinguished on the basis of their constituent prehensions having different kinds of objective data, that is, either other feelings or eternal objects. The prehensions of the primordial nature would involve eternal objects as objective data, of course, but so would many of the prehensions of the consequent nature. These latter prehensions would involve eternal objects by conceptual valuation from God’s physical prehensions of the world or would bring in eternal objects in the later phases of his concrescence in order to attain the unity of God’s satisfaction. There appears to be no way in Whitehead’s metaphysics by which the two natures can be clearly distinguished as different parts.

Finally, we must turn to the superjective nature of God. Its function, we said, is God’s conditioning of temporal actuality as a result of his prehension and harmonization of the antecedent world. There was some question whether Whitehead holds that God exercises his objective immortality in two different ways and that the giving of the initial aim is quite distinct from the superjective nature. In our examination, however, we have seen that there is considerable overlapping of the functions attributed to the primordial and consequent natures. The giving of the initial aim necessarily involves God’s prehension of the temporal world. Since the giving of the initial aim is a result of both God’s primordial envisagement of the multiplicity of eternal objects and his prehensions of the temporal world, it can properly be said to be an aspect of, if riot the entirety of, God’s superjective character. It is God’s immanence, God’s conditioning of the world. The superjective nature, then, is not a distinct part of God. Instead, it is the objective side of the combined functions of the primordial and consequent natures.

Another way of arriving at the same conclusion is to note that Whitehead explicitly identifies the superjective nature as "the pragmatic value of his specific satisfaction qualifying the transcendent creativity in the various temporal instances" (PR 135). In the Categories of Explanation xxv and xxvii, however, Whitehead says that there is only one satisfaction for an actual entity and that it contains all the prehensions of that actual entity. If the primordial and consequent natures are composed of different prehensions, they cannot have separate satisfactions nor can only one of them have a satisfaction. We conclude, then, that the superjective nature is the objective immortality of God as a whole.

In summary, the natures of God are not distinct parts, each with its particular functions. We have seen that the functions normally attributed to the various natures overlap considerably and that the natures cannot be distinguished as parts in any clear way. What is called for, then, is a clarification of our language about God. Perhaps it would be helpful to speak of the primordial, consequent, and superjective ways in which God relates to the world. That is, we should use these words as adjectives rather than nouns. Strictly speaking, it would be inaccurate and improper to say, "The primordial nature does this and the consequent nature does that." It would be better to say, "God does this and that." We should emphasize the unity of God and see the "natures" as abstractions, descriptions from particular viewpoints of how God as a whole functions in relation to the world and to the eternal objects.

This emphasis upon the unity of God as agent is very much in line with Whitehead’s emphasis upon the unity of an actual entity. As he writes in Category of Explanation xxii: "An actual entity by functioning in respect to itself plays diverse roles in self-formation without losing its self-identity. It is self-creative; and in its process of creation transforms its diversity of roles into one coherent role" (PR 38). Applied to God as an actual entity, this means that although God performs various roles, it is God as a unified actual entity that does the performing. The subjective aim leads toward one unified satisfaction, and it is this aim which gives an identity or center of agency to God’s functioning.

Are distinctions between the three "natures" then useless? By no means. They are still helpful when we wish to focus our attention upon the ways in which God is related to the world. The theme of the polarity of God and the world runs prominently throughout the concluding chapter of Process and Reality and crystallizes in the antitheses on page 528. With this relational emphasis in mind, we can take a fresh look at the "natures" of God. The term "primordial" is frequently used by Whitehead in the sense of "underived" or "presupposed," while consequent carries the connotation of "derived" or "resultant." (See, for example, PR 523, 529.) "Primordial" is contrasted with "derived" and even applied to both God and the world in the same context (PR 529). The relational character of this terminology helps to illuminate that key passage in which Whitehead compares the threefold character of an actual entity with the threefold character of God (PR 134f). Both God and other actual entities are characterized in terms of their relations to the transcendent world or creative activity. An actual entity has the character which is derived from its past world, the subjective character which is original or underived from its world, and the superjective character by which it influences the future world. In a parallel manner, "consequent nature" refers to the sense in which God’s character is derived from the world which he prehends. "Primordial nature" focuses upon the sense of originality or underivativeness in God. It emphasizes the fact that God is both independent of and presupposed by the world. "Superjective" refers to the way in which God affects the world. The three "natures," then, indicate that God is dependent upon the world, independent of the world, and affects the world.

This view of the "natures" of God may be summed up by saying that they indicate ways in which God functions in relation to the world. That is, we may speak of God as primordial in that, as a unified actual entity, he eternally and independently provides the entire realm of potentiality which makes possible order and novelty in the world. We may speak of God as consequent in that, as a unified actual entity, he preserves, unifies, and purifies the accomplishments of the world and, as a result of his prehension of the world, achieves his own satisfaction. We may speak of God as superjective in that, as a unified actual entity, he is present to and immanent in the world, luring it toward greater intensity of experience.

Although Whitehead does not mention the three natures of God in Modes of Thought, his description of God found there encompasses all three relations with the world. He is independent, affected, and affecting.

References

CNT -- John B. Cobb, Jr. A Christian Natural Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965.

IWM -- William A. Christian. An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.

UW -- Victor Lowe. Understanding Whitehead. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962.

WTR -- A. H. Johnson. Whitehead’s Theory of Reality. Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.

WM -- Ivor Leclerc. Whitehead’s Metaphysics. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1958.

Notes

1 See for example, CNT 177 ff., WTR 59, and WM 203. For Whitehead’s acknowledgement see WTR 214, 218.

2 This function would also be dependent upon the functions of the consequent nature if God were considered to be a personally ordered society of actual entities rather than a single actual entity. In that case, an actual entity of God would prehend the multiplicity of eternal objects through hybrid prehensions of his antecedent actual entity. Since such an antecedent actual entity would be part of the actual world of the subsequent actual entity, the prehension would be part of the consequent nature’s taking account of the world.

3 If the logical subject is a future actual occasion, it must be anticipated on the basis of the feeling of the objective immortality inherent in immediate fact (PR 425).

In a series of papers (3:1-10, 4:1303-20, 5:270-76, 6:313-23, and 7) Henry Pierce Stapp has argued that quantum mechanics is incompatible with the principle of local causes. According to this principle, the earlier of two events cannot affect the other if the distance between them is so great that a light signal cannot traverse it during the time interval separating the two events. Stapp arrives at this conclusion through a quantum mechanical analysis of the possible results of a double spin-measuring experiment, i.e., an experiment in which one measures the spins of each of two slow neutrons, say, which have just collided. (The "spin" of a particle like a neutron is roughly analogous to the spin of a top or a billiard ball.) He shows that a contradiction ensues if it is assumed that the possible results of measuring the spin of one of two such particles in various directions are independent of the direction chosen for measuring the spin of the other member of the pair of particles.

Stapp’s way of handling this difficulty is to postulate (1) that the fundamental events of which the universe is composed are well-ordered as regards their coming into being (which, according to Stapp, is not the same as their being well-ordered with respect to measurable time) and (2) that the character of all events prior to any given event is available to it regardless of whether or not a light signal could traverse the distance between them in the time interval separating them. It probably should be emphasized that these conditions apply only at the level of fundamental events and in no way contradict the limitations imposed by relativity theory upon the transmission of signals accessible to human beings. The application of these principles to the double spin-measuring experiment leads to the conclusion that one or the other of the measuring events came into being first and that the other is, indeed, not independent of it.

Charles Hartshorne (2) finds Stapp’s proposal noteworthy because making the assumption that the fundamental events of the universe are well ordered effectively disposes of a recalcitrant problem that has plagued theistic process philosophers for some time. If one accepts the relativistic view that all events are not temporally well-ordered (i.e., that in some cases the question of which of two events precedes the other has no unique answer), then it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to work out a consistent account in which God has a temporal aspect of the sort Hartshorne envisions, i.e., an awareness and enjoyment of the successive satisfactions attained by the actual occasions. According to relativity theory the question of which of two events precedes the other can only be answered (or asked) with respect to some frame of reference, all of which are on a par and have no claim to special status. Consequently, one is left with no clear answer as to the order in which events present themselves to God, and the problem is compounded by the stipulation that each actual occasion prehends God and thus has access to his awareness of other actual occasions (God’s "consequent nature"). Thus the different time-orderings are brought into confrontation with each other.

All these problems evaporate if the fundamental events of the universe are indeed well-ordered, even if relativistic considerations do prevent us human beings from determining what some of these orderings are. Of course, the crucial question is: what reasons are there for thinking that the fundamental events really are well-ordered? Stapp’s argument for this conclusion has two parts. He first presents a mathematical proof, inspired by Bell’s theorem, that a contradiction results if one assumes: (a) the principle of local causes, (b) an elementary theorem of quantum mechanics, and (c) what Stapp calls the "assumption of contrafactual definiteness" (roughly the assumption that measuring procedures which were not carried out would have yielded definite results had they been carried out and that these possible but unrealized results are restricted by the same laws that apply to the results of actual measurements). The second part of his argument is that the proper, if not the only, way to remedy this situation is to reject the principle of local causes.

The intent of this paper is twofold: (i) to present Stapp’s proof in a nontechnical form so that nonphysicists can be apprised of just what it is that he has proved and (ii) to draw out and examine the assumptions of the proof so that its significance for philosophy, especially process philosophy, can be assessed. Part I below addresses the first of these concerns; part II, the second.

I. Stapp’s Generalized Version of Bell’s Theorem

Stapp’s proof is a modified version of what is generally referred to as "Bell’s theorem." In its original form, this theorem is addressed to the question of whether it is theoretically possible for the statistical conclusions of quantum mechanics to be explained by a hypothetical, experimentally inaccessible realm of microevents characterized by a set of "hidden variables." Bell’s conclusion is that such an explanation is not possible as long as the principle of local causes is assumed. According to this rather common-sensical principle, if two physical systems (particles, for example) have ceased interacting or have never interacted, neither is affected by changes induced in the other. Thus, two widely separated systems which have interacted in the past would each be unaffected by measurements performed upon the other. The system considered by Bell and by Stapp is made up of two particles, neutrons, for example, whose "spin" directions have become correlated through some collision process -- in somewhat the same way that the axes of rotation of two spinning billiard balls might be correlated after they have sideswiped each other (with each spinning in a direction opposite to that of the other). According to the principles of quantum mechanics, two slow" neutrons which have brushed past each other would tend to have their spins in roughly opposite directions.

Stapp, unlike Bell himself, is not concerned with "hidden variables." He rather develops a version of "Bell’s Theorem" which is intended to show that, given certain very general assumptions, quantum mechanics itself, as it manifests itself in a simple theorem, is incompatible with the principle of local causes. Stapp’s argument rests directly upon a theorem in quantum mechanics concerning the behavior of a certain class of interacting pairs of particles, among which are neutrons. He focuses his attention upon the correlation that is established between the "spins" of two "slow" neutrons when they scatter off each other (collide with or brush past one another). It happens that the spins of neutrons are quantized, i.e., allowed to assume only certain discrete values. Indeed, the magnitude of the spin of a neutron is the same in every case, being absolutely fixed and unchangeable. However, the direction of the spin of a neutron can change, so that one can ask whether a neutron has "spin-down" or "spin-up" with respect to a given coordinate axis in much the same sense that one can ask whether a spinning top is rotating in a clockwise or a counterclockwise direction when viewed vertically downward. If it is ascertained that one member of a pair of neutrons, which have interacted in the above manner, has its spin up with respect to a given axis, then it is reasonably certain that the other member of the pair, if measured, will be found to have its spin down with respect to this same axis.

Stapp’s proof, however, requires that the effects of measuring the spins of the two neutrons along different axes be considered. It is easier to grasp what this involves if one employs the following model of the experiment. The model is not Stapp’s, but its use makes it easier to understand his arguments. The model is the following: think of the neutrons, after the scattering event, as traveling in opposite directions (away from each other) down a hollow axle or pipe at the ends of which spin-measuring devices are attached like thin wheels. These "wheels" thus lie in planes perpendicular to the line along which the neutrons are moving. When a neutron passes through the center of one of these devices, it measures the spin of the neutron along an axis coinciding with a radius of the "wheel." More specifically, it determines whether the neutron has spin-up or spin-down along this axis, which is, of course, perpendicular to the neutron’s line of flight. For convenience, let it be assumed that the tube through which the neutrons are traveling is lying horizontally and that initially both of the "wheels" are so turned that they will determine whether a passing neutron has spin-up or spin-down with respect to the vertical. Note that since it is with respect to a radius of a wheel that the spin is measured (and not with respect to a diameter), the "up" direction for any orientation is always well-defined: up is "outward" along the radius that is taken as a coordinate axis. In effect Stapp considers the results of employing two different orientations for each of the "wheel" spin-measuring devices for a total of four distinct configurations. In the first two cases, one of the wheels is left as just described (i.e., making spin-determinations -- "up" or "down" -- with respect to the vertical) while the second "wheel" is initially given the same orientation, to form the first configuration (1), and is then turned through an angle of 90_ to form the second configuration (2), in which the two axes along which spin-determinations are to be made are perpendicular. In the third configuration (3), the second "wheel" is returned to its initial orientation (so that it will make spin-determinations with respect to the vertical) while the first "wheel" is turned through an angle of 135_ -- in the same direction as the second "wheel" was turned in case (2). Leaving the first "wheel" in this position and also turning the second "wheel" through an angle of 900 results in a fourth configuration (4). The angle between the two axes (one in each "wheel") along which the spin-projections are measured is, in these four cases: (1) 0_, (2) 90_, (3) 135_, and (4) 45_

The convention followed here will be to assign a spin value of + 1 to a neutron if it is found to have spin-up with respect to a given axis and to assign a spin value of -1 if it is found to have spin-down with respect to that axis. For a given configuration of the two axes and for a given scattering event between two neutrons, the "wheel" spin-measuring devices will record a value + 1 or -1 for each neutron. From each such pair of numbers, one can then form a product, which itself can assume only the values + 1 and -1. The theorem from quantum mechanics which Stapp employs states that if one records the values of these products for a large number of neutron-scattering events (for the same configuration of the "wheels") and averages them, then the result will equal the negative of the cosine of the angle between the axes along which the spins are being measured. This is a statistical conclusion, and a large number of cases must be considered for it to be accurate. It is by applying this theorem to each of the four configurations described in the preceding paragraph that Stapp arrives at the conclusions which he calls the generalized Bell’s theorem.

In his analysis, Stapp considers a set of neutron-scattering events, N in number, and the possible results of measuring the spins of the neutrons involved along the four different sets of axes just delineated. It is easier to understand Stapp’s argument if one thinks of a set of N apparatuses like that described, in each of which a neutron-neutron scattering event has just occurred at the center of the horizontal tube and the two neutrons have ceased to interact and are on their respective ways down the opposite halves of the tube. Let it be supposed that the N apparatuses are all lined up with their long, horizontal tubes parallel and that they have been fitted with a control device that enables an experimenter stationed at either end of this array of instruments to control the orientation of the spin-measuring devices at his/her end of the tubes. Suppose one of the experimenters has the choice of selecting either the vertical orientation for all of the devices under his/her control or an orientation that is 135° away from the vertical. Suppose further that the experimenter at the opposite end of the array of horizontal tubes is allowed to choose either a vertical orientation for all of his/her spin-measuring devices or an orientation that is 90° away from the vertical. Finally, suppose that each experimenter has sufficient time after the neutron pairs in each apparatus have ceased interacting to choose between the two orientations allowed. Thus in each of the N scattering processes there is a period of time after the neutrons have ceased to interact during which it is possible that their spin-projections will be measured along any one of the four pairs on axes described above. Furthermore, according to the principle of local causes, the selection of an axis along which to measure the spin-projection of one of the neutrons should have no effect on the other neutron if the choice is made after the two particles have ceased to interact. Thus the set of N spin-measurements obtained by means of one of the spin-measuring devices should be the same no matter how the second spin-measuring device is oriented when it measures the spin of the other member of each of the neutron pairs.

There are thus two possible sets of spin-values for the neutrons coming down the tubes toward the first experimenter: one set A, (with a spin value of + 1 or -1 for each neutron) that will result if he/she chooses the vertical orientation for the spin-measuring devices under his control and another set B that will result if he/she chooses the orientation differing from the first by 135°. Similarly, there are two sets of possible spin-values for the neutrons approaching the other ends of the tubes: one set C that will result if the experimenter stationed at that end of the tubes chooses the vertical orientation for the spin-measuring devices under his/her control and another set D that will result if he/she chooses the orientation achieved by a 90° rotation from the vertical. Since by this time the neutrons have ceased interacting, the choice made by either of the experimenters should have no effect upon the values obtained by the other. Consequently, since there are two possible sets of spin measurements for the N neutrons that come down each end of the horizontal tube, there are four sets of the products that are formed by multiplying a possible spin value for one neutron by a possible spin value for the other member of the pair, one set of such products for each of the pairs of sets, A-C, A-D, B-C, and B-D. Obviously, one could form four such sets of products of possible spin-values -- not by considering N simultaneous double spin-measuring experiments, but by considering the possible outcomes of a set of N serial experiments yet to be performed, in each of which it is possible to decide upon the orientation of the spin-measuring devices after the two neutrons have ceased to interact. Either approach may be utilized in developing Stapp’s argument.

The next step in the proof is to note that each of the four sets of spin-value products must satisfy the quantum mechanical theorem referred to above. Since each set of possible spin-values is possible, it represents a set of results of measurements which may, indeed, be realized. If they are realized, these spin measurements would have to satisfy the quantum mechanical theorem, else the theorem would be false -- and there is good evidence available for the correctness of the theorem.

In the case of the first set of products of possible spin-values, the orientation of the axes of the spin-measuring devices is the same; the angle between them is zero; and the cosine of this angle is one (1.0). Consequently, according to the quantum-mechanical theorem in question, if one adds up the N products and divides the result by N, the result should be negative one (-1.0). In the case of the second set of such products, the angle between the relevant axes is 90° which has a cosine of zero (0.0). So averaging the second set of products should yield zero (0.0). And in the third case, since the cosine of 135° (the angle between the axes) is the negative reciprocal of the square root of two, the average of this set of products of spin-values must equal the positive reciprocal of the square root of two. Finally, in the fourth case, the angle between the axes is 45°, of which the cosine is the reciprocal of the square root of two. Consequently, the average of the last set of products must equal the negative reciprocal of the square root of two.

Now each statement to the effect that one of the averages just discussed equals the number given may be regarded as a mathematical equation relating the spin-values that are averaged. There would be four such equations. What Stapp shows mathematically is that these four equations lead to a contradiction. Proving this is a straight-forward exercise in algebraic manipulation. It cannot be reviewed here. The interested reader is advised to consult Stapp’s own treatment (4:1306-08). The vital question that must be addressed here is what is to be made of the fact of this contradiction. What is to be made of the fact that the four statements in the preceding paragraph about the four product averages cannot all be true?

II. The Assessment of the Proof

The immediate inference to be made from the fact that the four equations described just above lead to a contradiction is either (a) that one or more of the equations is false or (b) that it is somehow illegitimate to combine them algebraically in the way Stapp does in arriving at the contradiction. One can put aside, with reasonable confidence, the suggestion that all four of the equations are false. Given an experimental set-up like that described above, it is always possible actually to carry out the measurements for one of the possible configurations of the spin-measuring devices. Furthermore, experiments of this sort have been performed, and, as Stapp notes (1:938-41), their results obey the mathematical equations which are appropriate according to the quantum mechanical theorem Stapp uses in his proof. Thus, the theorem is experimentally well confirmed. But if one accepts the correctness of the theorem, is one not also obliged to accept the correctness of all four of the equations? They are all instances of the same general relationship, which is expressed by the theorem, and are thus on the same footing. Their common status is also shown by one’s being free to choose any one of the four for experimental test. As was explained in the previous section of the paper, under the right conditions, one can even make this choice after the pair of particles being considered have ceased to interact.

The unavoidable conclusion would seem to be that the second of the two alternatives mentioned at the beginning of the section must be correct: some error must have been committed in combining the four equations in the way required to reach the contradiction. This is the line of argument followed by Stapp. According to him, the error lies in assuming that one is dealing with the same set of possible spin-measurement results for the particles coming out one side of the apparatus described no matter what orientation one considers for the spin-measuring device (s) on the other side of the apparatus. Put more formally, this is the assumption that in averaging the first two sets of spin-value products one is dealing with the same set of possible spin-values A for the particles emerging from one side of the apparatus whether one combines them with the set Gin the first spin-averaging process or with the set D in the second averaging process. Stapp’s claim is that the set of numbers labeled by A in the first averaging process is not really the same as the set labeled by A in the second averaging process. In other words, the possible spin values (with respect to a given axis) for one member of a pair of until-recently interacting particles are not the same in case the spin of the second member of the pair is to be measured along one axis as they would be if the spin of the second particle were to be measured along another axis -- even if the selection of the axis for the second particle can be made after the two particles have ceased interacting.

Stapp’s thesis about possible spin-values must not be confused with similar claims about the results of actual measurements. Stapp is not suggesting that the actual results of spin measurements for one member of a pair of until-recently interacting particles will be affected by the choice of an axis for measuring the spin of the other member of the pair -- even if this choice is made after the particles have ceased interacting. Stapp’s thesis is quite compatible with its being determined experimentally that changes in the orientation of the spin-measuring device applied to one member of such a pair of particles have no significant effect upon the statistical make-up of spin-measurement results for the second member of such particle pairs.

In order to understand this seemingly paradoxical situation, one must keep in mind that, for a given collision event, it is theoretically impossible to carry out more than one of the four experiments corresponding to the four possible configurations of the spin-measuring devices described above. Of course, it is manifestly impossible to give either of these devices more than one orientation at a time, but the problem goes deeper than that. Given, as noted above, that the overall magnitude of the spin of the neutron is fixed, simultaneously measuring its spin in two different directions, like the two available to each of the spin-measuring devices, would violate the Heisenberg indeterminacy principle. Thus only one of the four possible sets of spin-value products discussed in part I could ever be formed from spin-values actually obtained from experiment. The four sets of spin values, A, B, C, and D, from which these products are formed are all possible, but they are not all simultaneously possible. Performing the measurements that yield the spin values making up sets A and C precludes in principle performing measurements that yield the spin values making up sets B and D. Furthermore, the principles of quantum mechanics also forbid postulating that a neutron really "has" definite spin values in two such different directions whether they can both be measured or not -- if these postulated spin values are taken as (possible) parts of a theoretical account of the neutron which has experimentally testable implications. Indeed, Stapp’s proof itself may be regarded as a demonstration of the incompatibility of quantum mechanics, as embodied in the theorem used in the proof, and the assignment of definite spin values for different directions to the neutron.

Accordingly, Stapp is careful to distinguish between (a) attributing definite spin values in more than one direction to a particle like the neutron and (b) asserting that if the spins of certain pairs of such particles are or were to be measured in this or that direction, a specific mathematical relation will or would be found to hold, on a statistical basis, between the spin values of the members of the pairs. Stapp argues that while the uncertainty principle does forbid ascribing such spin values to particles like the neutron, it does not rule out as meaningless or unphysical talk about the outcome of various possible measuring procedures, even if it is theoretically impossible for more than one of them actually to be carried out.

The argument here is subtle. It is clear enough that the spin values dealt with in Stapp’s proof are not intended as hypothetical characteristics of particles; but, taken as a class, they are not all possible experimental spin values either. Each corresponding pair of members of the sets A and B (as well as C and D) are alternative possible experimental spin values. One may choose to measure the spin of a given particle in either of the two relevant directions, but cannot choose to measure it in both. One may choose to determine the membership of set A or set B, but cannot choose to determine them both. The same may be said of sets C and D. Now, Stapp’s proof deals with the joint class made up of A, B, C, and D. It is upon the properties of this joint class that his conclusion rests. But from what has just been said it is clear that half of the quantities which make up this class are unknowable in principle. Stapp’s conclusion, then, is not about the results of actual measurements nor about a class of class of measurements that are all possible. It is rather about a class of measurements that are possible individually but not jointly: no more than half of them can ever be performed.

The assumption that it is meaningful and proper to employ symbols designating the results of unperformed and, in half the cases, unperformable measurements Stapp calls the "assumption of countrafactual definiteness," which he has defended in one of a series of lectures given at the University of Texas in the spring of 1977. In these lectures Stapp counters the suggestion that symbols which designate quantities that are unknowable in principle are meaningless by pointing out that philosophers of science have come to recognize the need for theories that have reference to such unknowable quantities. He cites as an example Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory with its postulated electric and magnetic fields propagating in a vacuum. The magnitude of these fields in a vacuum cannot be measured because any attempt to do so will destroy the vacuum. They are thus unknowable in principle. Stapp concludes that being unknowable in principle is not a fatal defect. He further notes that the consideration of alternative possibilities is surely meaningful and of considerable theoretical and practical usefulness.

Stapp is certainly correct in arguing that talk about quantities that are unknowable in principle is not necessarily meaningless, and the example he cites surely supports this claim. However, there appears to be an important difference between the unknowable quantities found in Stapp’s proof and the kind cited in his defense of the meaningfulness of such discourse. Consequently, this argument contributes very little either toward defending the cognitive significance of Stapp’s proof or toward clarifying the status of the unknowable spin values with which the proof deals; the same can be said of his argument defending the general significance of talk about possibilities. Stapp’s use of Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory as an example to illustrate the propriety of having reference to unknowable quantities is particularly unfortunate in that it beclouds the central issue of the proper status of the spin values dealt with in the proof. The notion of an electromagnetic field propagating in a vacuum is meaningful precisely because it is part of an elaborate physical theory which has numerous well-confirmed observable implications. Clearly, the basis for the meaningfulness of Stapp’s unknowable spin values must be of a different character. He goes to considerable length to distinguish his treatment of possible spin values from such a unified, theoretical account of the behavior of particles like the neutron. He does this in order to escape the strictures of the uncertainty principle, as explained above. Furthermore, he makes it quite clear that the view that he is advancing has no real implications as regards the outcome of actual experiments.

So the meaningfulness of talk about the joint class, A, B, C, and D, cannot be defended as being the same kind of theoretical talk as is found in such as Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. But can it be defended as nothing more than talk about alternative possibilities such as everyone engages in almost daily? Certainly, there is nothing particularly problematic about asserting all of the following: (a) if two classes of measurements A’ and C’ are performed, their results will be related in a particular way; (b) if the two classes of measurements A’and D’ are performed, their results will be related in a certain way; (c) if the two classes B’ and C’ are performed, their results will be related in a certain way; and (d) if the two classes B’ and D’ are performed, their results will be related in a particular way. Furthermore, no special problems would seem to be posed by the fact that only one of these four possibilities can be realized even in principle. (Only one member of the pair A‘, B’ and one member of the pair C’, D’ can be realized.) And one can certainly represent the relationship between the two classes of (possible) measurements in each of the four cases by a mathematical equation. Four equations would thus result.

But it does not follow from all this that one can then treat these four equations as a set of simultaneous equations expressing various relationships between the members of the joint class A, B, C, and D. Certainly, the four statements (a), (b), (c), and (d) do not in themselves provide a basis for treating the equations in this way. It is easy to see that this is so if one contrasts (1) merely affirming these hypothetical statements with (2) entertaining the possibility that the antecedents of two or more of them might be satisfied simultaneously. Now, each of the statements says that if certain conditions are met, certain measurements made, then the results of these measurements will satisfy a particular mathematical relation, one of the four equations in question. If it were possible simultaneously to satisfy the conditions mentioned in the antecedents of, say, the first two statements, (a) and (b), then one could form a compound statement of the following form: If conditions "a" and conditions "b" are satisfied, then equation "one" and equation "two" will hold between the results obtained. And one could then combine equations "one" and "two" by addition, subtraction, substitution -- by any of the ways that are appropriate for simultaneous equations.

This same point can be put in terms of possible spin-measurements: If the three classes of spin measurements A’, C’, and D’ are all performed, then (a) the average of the spin-value products formed from sets of spin- values A and C will equal negative one (-1.0) and (b) the average of the spin-value products formed from sets A and D will equal to zero (see the discussion near the end of part I). In such a case, one could combine the resulting equations by addition, subtraction, substitution, etc. But, of course, it is absolutely impossible, because of the indeterminacy principle, simultaneously to determine experimentally the spin values making up both set C and set D. Consequently, it is impossible to use this method to provide a basis for treating the two equations as simultaneous equations over the quantities contained in the joint class A, C, and D.

It should be clear from the above discussion that while entertaining the possibility that the antecedents of the hypothetical statements (a), (b), (c), and (d) might all be satisfied at once would permit the four equations under discussion to be treated as simultaneous equations, merely affirming the four statements themselves does not. The meaningfulness of talk about alternative possible measurements does not in itself ensure the propriety of conjunctively combining equations which each express relationships among the results of one of the four possible measuring procedures. And since Stapp has provided no further arguments for the meaningfulness of the joint class A, B, C, and D or for the propriety of treating the four equations relating the four sets of spin-value products as simultaneous equations, one can only conclude that both of these matters stand in need of considerable clarification and that any philosophical claims which depend upon the conclusion reached in Stapp’s proof are in jeopardy.

Quite obviously, the crucial question for those who favor a Whiteheadian type of framework is precisely what status do alternative possibilities like the two sets of spin-measurement results C and D have in such a scheme. This question is of great moment not only to those who, as Hartshorne, are interested in Stapp’s proof and the issues upon which it bears but also to all who recognize the importance of fitting quantum mechanics, one of the two absolutely fundamental theories of modern physics, into Whitehead’s scheme. Stapp has certainly demonstrated that this task is no trivial exercise but calls for some first class philosophical work. Indeed, his proof shows quite forcefully that quantum mechanics poses special problems for any view that, instead of regarding real (as opposed to pure or purely logical) possibilities as subjective fictions, accords them objective status and makes them independent of the observer. But Whiteheadians may very well wish to raise the following question: does granting that certain possible (but unperformed) experiments would have yielded definite results (had they been performed) commit one to admitting the propriety of treating these "possible" results as definite, but unknown, quantities governed by a set of simultaneous linear equations? Some Whiteheadians may want to reject talk about sets of spin-values that would have been obtained had certain experiments been carried out on the grounds that, in a Whiteheadian context, one can properly talk only about sets of such values that might have resulted. Thus some may wish to argue that one cannot assume that a certain set of spin-values would have been obtained no matter which of conditions a and conditions b are met -- on the grounds that the provisions for novelty in Whitehead’s system preclude such an assumption.

The very possibility of this line of argument calls attention to the fundamental question of this entire matter: even if the contradiction arrived at in Stapp’s proof does constitute a genuine problem, must one accept his method of disposing of it? Is Stapp’s postulation of a well-ordered set of fundamental events with effectively instantaneous communication or causation between them the only or even the best solution to the problem posed by his modified Bell’s theorem? This is a question which will surely need to be considered by philosophers who have an interest in the very significant issues raised by Stapp’s work.

References

1. Stuart J. Freedman and John F. Clauser, "Experimental Test of Local Hidden-Variable Theories," Physical Review Letters 23/14 (April 3, 1972), 938-41.

2. Charles Hartshorne, "Bell’s Theorem and Stapp’s Revised View of Space Time," Process Studies 7/3 (Fall, 1977), 183-91.

3. Henry Pierce Stapp, "Correlation Experiments and the Nonvalidity of Ordinary Ideas About the Physical World," LBL-5333, Berkeley, California, 1968.

4. Henry Pierce Stapp, "S-Matrix Interpretation of Quantum Theory," Physical Review D 3/6 (March 15, 1971), 1303-20.

5. Henry Pierce Stapp, "Bell’s Theorem and World Process," II Nuovo Cimento 29B/2 (October 11, 1975), 270-76.

6. Henry Pierce Stapp, "Theory of Reality," Foundations of Physics 7/5-6 (1977), 313-23.

7. Henry Pierce Stapp, "Quantum Mechanics, Local Causality, and Process Philosophy," edited by William B. Jones, Process Studies 7/3 (Fall, 1977), 173-82.

Support from the Old Dominion University Research Foundation is gratefully acknowledged by the author.

The focus of this essay is the process in which an actual entity arises out of its actual world. In particular, I want to suggest a paradigm which renders intelligible the notion of an "actual occasion prehending its past" in its primary phase of concrescence. I am obviously assuming that this notion needs to be rendered intelligible, in some sense or another. That such is the case may not be immediately evident, however. Thus it is necessary, first of all, to clarify the nature of the problem.

The fact that occasions prehend the past is made abundantly dear by Whitehead, of course, and plays a crucial role in his system. Criticizing the Humean presupposition of the "individual independence of successive temporal occasions," Whitehead says that

In other words, while Hume begins by assuming the total independence and isolation of the past from the present (so that the experienced phenomenon of temporal continuity becomes an inexplicable mystery), Whitehead begins with the assumption that there is a real connectedness between past and present. And this connectedness is explained in terms of "simple physical feelings" -- the prehensions of the past by the present.

To prehend something actual is to be influenced and shaped by it, and to be prehended is to enter into the constitution of the prehending occasion and become a determining factor in shaping it. Through the prehension of the past by a present concrescence, then, the past enters into the constitution of the present. Thus we can affirm that the past really is in the present: "this transference of feeling effects a partial identification of cause with effect, and not a mere representation of the cause" (PR 364).

But if Whitehead is not a nominalist, neither is he a simple realist. In the first place, actual occasions are not enduring substances which continue to exist, after they have created themselves, as independent concrete realities in the classical sense. An occasion s ‘birth is its end" (PR 124). Each occasion is an atomic creature which creates itself and then passes away: it goes though the "process of becoming and perishing and never really is" (PR 1.30; italics mine). It continues to "exist in the present" only in the sense of being a component in the experience of the present occasion which has prehended it.

And even then, it is not the occasion itself which is "in the present," but only its subjective form. "What Hume . . . is really doing is to appeal to an observed immanence of the past in the future, involving a continuity of subjective form" (AI 184). The occasion itself, which cannot be separated from the subjective process which brought it into being (except in the abstract; cf. PR 129), perishes as an atomic occasion of experience. And it survives only in the sense -- although a very real sense -- that it is reproduced (with partial equivalence of subjective form) by and in the occasion which prehends it (cf. PR 363).

Thus the doctrine of reproduction-via-prehension enables Whitehead to explain the experience both of continuity and of change, without explaining either of them away. It is a fundamental notion, by means of which he escapes the nominalist-realist dilemma.

But this notion seems to involve a dilemma of its own, which becomes apparent when we move from affirming the fact of the prehension of the past to elucidating it.

(1) On the one hand, we would be hard put to deny that an occasion must be past to be prehended. A new concrescence is logically able to prehend only what has already happened; only decisions already made can affect it. Hence only a past occasion, which has completed the process of making the decision of its life, can be taken into account by supervening occasions. Prior to the completion of that decision, the antecedent occasion is not yet there as a determinate unified reality which can be prehended.

Moreover, there is the fact that new occasions begin to come into being only with and by their prehensions of the past. Novel concrescences do not come out of nowhere. To be sure, every occasion is a self-creating creature; but it cannot create itself ex nihilo. It has to have "something to work with." And what it works with is its initial prehensions of the antecedent actual entities constituting its actual world. Thus, until those antecedent occasions have actualized themselves -- until the determinate decisions have been made which provide the data Out of which a new occasion can begin constructing itself -- there will be no supervening entity to prehend the past. Hence, again, an occasion must be past -- completed, finished -- in order for prehension to occur.

John Cobb is certainly correct, then, in saying that "all the causal influences on the present are past" (FC 150). And Donald Sherburne is right when he explains that

which is given as a matter of brute, unalterable fact.

(2) But on the other band, when an occasion "loses its subjectivity" it has lost everything. Actual entities, unlike melancholy human beings, do not linger after the party is over; they are their parties, and when the party is over, so are they. When an occasion passes away, there remains no "empty shell" of feeling to be prehended by new occasions as they come along. Whitehead explicitly repudiates the notion of vacuous actuality" -- i.e., the "notion of a res vera devoid of subjective immediacy" (PR 43). Thus a past occasion is not only a dead datum but a gone datum as well. "You can’t catch a moment by the scruff of the neck -- it’s gone, you know" (WEP 8). How then can it be a datum at all? How can something which is not there be given? How can that which does not exist exert a causal influence on its successors?

Cobb suggests it can do so because the nonexistence of past occasions is not the ordinary, run-of-the-mill brand of nonexistence which can be found in any old universe of discourse. No, it is "a very peculiar type of nonexistence, namely a causally efficacious nonexistence" (FC 150). A very peculiar type of nonexistence indeed (!), considering that "apart from things that are actual, there is nothing . . . either in fact or in efficacy" (PR 64; italics mine).

This is the dilemma, then: an occasion must be past (i.e., completed) to be prehended, but upon completion it dies and disappears; the only thing that can be prehended is not there to be prehended. How then is it prehended?

I. The Inadequacy of Certain Proposed "Solutions"

A. Nonexplanatory "explanations" based on axioms. One way of dealing with the problem of explaining how the past is prehended is simply to deny that the notion needs to be explained, or even can be explained, due to its axiomatic status. This is the sort of approach which Cobb takes, suggesting that the dilemma is a false one which will be cleared up immediately when we see that, according to Whitehead,

In effect, Cobb is claiming that "in organic philosophy the notion of repetition is fundamental" (PR 208) in the sense of being an axiom that is assumed in order to explain all else but therefore cannot itself be explained.

This claim seems plausible, since every metaphysics must have some such fundamental (s) and since Whitehead does make it clear that "repetition" (the causal influence of the past on the present) is indeed a given fact with which he begins and not, as in Hume’s case, an irritating and inexplicable remainder with which he is left at the end. But the right of fundamental notions to remain silent when asked to explain themselves extends only to demands for certain kinds of explanation. As William Christian has observed, we must take account of

We are not asking for proof, then, but for understanding. We are asking "how it is that the past is given now" (IWM 320), granted the scheme in which prehension of the past is assumed to take place. The dilemma may well be a false one; indeed, we assume it to be such. But it is not enough merely to assert that it is false; its falsity must be demonstrated. Otherwise, we may begin to have doubts -- not about the reality of the influence of the past, but about the ability of a Whiteheadian system to account for that influence.

Some have attempted to provide an explanation by pointing to another basic Whiteheadian notion, having to do with "creativity" and "the many and the one."

So it does. But this explains only why the many occasions in an actual world enter into the complex unity of the one new occasion; it does not explain how that happens. That is, the above statement does not provide an illuminating description of the process of reproduction-via-prehension, but merely asserts that creativity is the "ultimate principle" which accounts for that process. What we need to know, in order to solve our dilemma, is how this creativity enables the "many" -- which perish and disappear upon completion -- nonetheless to be prehended by and enter into the constitution of the one novel concrescence. How is it done?

Might this question be answered in terms of Whitehead’s fundamental "principle of relativity"? According to this principle,

With respect to actual occasions, the principle of relativity is expressed in terms of their inherent superjective character, which is "that character [an occasion] has as a dead datum functioning as a given object for the concrescence of subsequent generations of actual entities" (KPR 245f). Thus Whitehead speaks of an actual entity as being both subject and superject, by definition: it is the nature of the beast to be a potential component for inclusion in and by a concrescing occasion.

However, like the other "explanations" above, this is no explanation (i.e., no elucidation) at all, but only another assertion that "it lies in the nature of things" for the past to be prehendable and prehended by the present. And such "answers" merely beg the question of how a past, dead and gone occasion can do what comes naturally, or anything else. "Daddy, where do actual entities come from?" "From prehending their pasts. But how can they prehend their pasts?" "They just do, that’s all."

The basic flaw in such answers is that if we were to take them on faith, without asking any further embarrassing questions, we would end up trapped in Hume’s impasse: "repetition" or "derivation" would be something we were always citing but never discussing -- or, rather, always discussing but never explaining (cf. PR 208).

B. The explanation in terms of "objectification." This last statement requires qualification so far as concerns Whitehead’s explanation of the "mechanics" of reproduction in terms of the "objectification" of its actual world by a novel concrescence:

Sherburne has further delineated the notion of objectification -- even providing a diagram of one occasion prehending another (cf. KPR 10). The diagram depicts past occasion A with its various component feelings (M, N, 0) and novel occasion B with its feelings (X, Y, Z), showing how N is the "real component" in A by which A is objectified in B via B’s prehension (X) of A. The other components (M and 0) of A are negatively prehended by B -- i.e., are "relegated into irrelevance, or into a subordinate relevance."

This is how it happens, then. But the question remains, "How it is possible for this to happen?" The diagram referred to above assumes the availability of the past occasion (A) and presents it as being there for prehension. But that availability is precisely what needs to be explained, and not simply asserted. The diagram is akin to a picture of me shaking hands with Napoleon. One could draw such a picture, carefully explaining just what was involved in hand-shaking. What would not be clear, however, is how it would be possible for me to shake hands with the dead-and-gone Napoleon. It is no good having a recipe for rabbit stew if you are not told how to catch the rabbit -- particularly if there are no rabbits around to be caught.

C. God as the ground of the givenness of the past. William Christian’s solution is to have God catch the rabbit. But this solution solves nothing, as Sherburne has pointed out (cf. PPCT 308f; PS 1:105f), for God himself is an actual entity. To have God give the past to the present, though it solves the problem of how the present is able to prehend the past, only raises the similar problem of how the past can be prehended by God; before the past is completed, it is not yet a determinate prehendable reality, and after it has completed itself it has perished and disappeared and is not there to be prehended -- not even by God.

This difficulty can probably be overcome, however. For God is a nontemporal, eternal actual entity. Unlike other actual entities, God does not have to wait till the past completes itself before he begins to come into being; God is always in the process of becoming. Therefore God is always there, and is able to prehend the past at whatever point it becomes available for prehension. Nonetheless, it would still not be compatible with Whitehead’s system to have God prehend the past and then, in the next instant, give the past to the present. For God functions as the source of novelty, not continuity. If God is made the source of continuity as well, then he becomes the effective cause of all prehensions by the present -- which is to say that all the prehensions we have are of God. This would mean that there is no direct prehension of the past by the present. It would also mean that we had jumped out of Hume’s frying pan into Leibniz’s fire: the "illusoriness" of the experience of continuity between past and present would be mitigated "only by recourse to a pious dependence upon God" (PR 289).

D. Explanations based on the "immediacy" of the immediate past. Can we solve the dilemma by maintaining, as Sherburne does, that a novel concrescence does not prehend the "deep past" but only the immediate past? That is, can we hold that there is a significant difference in prehendability between what is "long gone and what "went" only an instant ago? This sort of solution would seem to have the support of Whitehead, who says of our immediate past -- "roughly speaking . . . that portion of our past lying between a tenth of a second and half a second ago" -- that "it is gone, and yet it is here" (AI 181).

But it is nonsensical to speak of something being both here and gone (in the same sense), just as it would be nonsensical to say, of some marvelous geometrical figure, that "it is round, and yet it is square." If something is here, then it has not left yet. If something is gone, then it is not still here (at least not in the same sense that it was here when it was really here). If it is past -- even though only "a tenth of a second" past -- then it is past, period. Being "just a little past" is like being "just a little pregnant."

Cobb has made the same point, albeit more prosaically: "If a past event of 1/10 second ago can exercise direct causal efficacy for me now, what of a past event of one second ago? Is there in principle any difference?" (FC 151). But Cobb takes this to mean that the remote past is just as available for prehension as the immediate past, whereas I take it to mean -- at least at this point in the discussion -- that the immediate past is just as unavailable for prehension as the distant past.

I say "at this point" because, in the final analysis, there is an important distinction to be made between the immediate and distant past. We have not yet seen anything that would support such a distinction, but this does not mean the matter is settled as conclusively as Cobb suggests:

I agree that once the causal efficacy of the past is really understood, the question of temporal proximity will be solved. But until it is really understood, we have no way to determine whether temporal proximity is only a secondary matter or not. All we can say at this point is that Sherburne has not yet supported his assertion that the immediate past is less past than the remote past, so far as concerns its availability for prehension.

He has tried to do so, offering the following explanation. The immediate past "stands out," unlike the distant past, and is available for prehension in that it has not yet been integrated into the whole -- into any whole. It still stands out as something to be dealt with and ordered into harmony in and by some percipient concrescing subject. This explanation has to do with the previously discussed principles of "creativity" and "the many and the one," according to which it lies in the nature of things for the many occasions constituting a given actual world to pass over into, and be creatively unified in and by, a new concrescence. When one understands this, Sherburne argues, it will also be understood that the many occasions "stand out" like sore thumbs in their disjunctive diversity, crying out to be prehended and unified in a new occasion. And since occasions in the remote past have already been unified (in and by their successor occasions), it is only the immediate past which "stands out" in this way.

At most, however, Sherburne’s argument succeeds only in establishing that, if any past is available for direct prehension, it is the immediate past. He fails to show how even the immediate past can be thus available -- i.e., fails to show how something which passed away only an instant ago is any less dead and gone than what died a year ago. We can see how the immediate past might "stand out" at the point of its completion in the way Sherburne describes; but the next instant it is gone. There is a law which decrees, "The occasion that attains satisfaction, it shall thereupon die." And no past occasion is allowed to be an exception to that rule, no matter how much it might desire and beg to be allowed to stay up for just a tenth of a second longer, until the present gets here" to prehend it and fulfill its yearning for unification in the future beyond itself.

So the dilemma remains, none of the proposed solutions having solved it. As experience testifies, the past is here, even though it is gone. We feel its presence. But it is not the past itself which is present, but our feelings of the past. And the question is, how did we ever get our present feelings of the past? That is, if the past perished before the present began to come into being, then how is it that our present feelings are of the past? The metaphysical situation seems to be one in which occasion A arises, pulses with life, and passes away; then, in the next instant, occasion B arises by prehending the now nonexistent A! A theoretical mystery.

II. A New Paradigm

As with many mysteries, however, I suggest that the solution to this one is relatively simple. If an occasion cannot be prehended the instant before it completes itself (since it is not yet a determinate prehendable reality) nor the instant after (since it then has perished and disappeared), it must be prehended at the same instant it attains satisfaction. Thus also, its successor begins to come into being neither before nor after but at the same instant the prior occasion completes itself. The end of the old, then, does not merely "make way for" the new; the end of the old is the beginning of the new.

In thus joining the two together, it may seem that I am "overlapping" them so as to make them indistinguishable. If the end of A’s process is the beginning of B’s process -- if B s concrescing follows immediately upon A’s act of becoming -- then it seems that we have, not two atomic processes at all, but only one continuous concrescing. Moreover, on this view it appears difficult to explain how anything ever becomes, since the situation seems to be one in which things are ever becoming (rather like God).

To this objection, two answers must be given.

(1) Insofar as the objection is based on my assertion that the past is prehended at the same instant it attains satisfaction, the answer to it involves recognizing the inadequacy of the language of "successive instants" to describe a fundamentally fluent process. The fact is that "all things flow" (PR 317) and that "instants" are only abstractions from that flow. Hence, just as the analysis of successive frames of a motion picture film will never yield an understanding of the fluent connection between them, so an analysis of the arising of a new concrescence in terms of successive instants will never yield an understanding of "what really happens."

For example, suppose we return to the "three-instant model" against which I have been arguing: (1) at one instant, A is still concrescing, but is about to complete itself; (2) the next instant, A completes itself; (3) the next instant, B prehends A and begins coming into being thereby. From one standpoint, this is an adequate model. It expresses the obvious fact that A must complete itself before it can be prehended. It also clearly "separates" the two occasions, so that the problem of "overlap" does not arise. But it fails to express the fluent connection between A and B; and when the process from which its instants are abstracted is not understood, it prompts the question of how the past can be prehended after it becomes past.

Hence we must not take the language of "successive instants" too seriously. We must look beyond such language, as it were, to the process which it is intended to point to.

(2) In the final analysis, however, we will find that the two occasions do "overlap," though not in any fundamentally objectionable sense. We must understand that

In other words, we must maintain that the past really does "enter into" the constitution of the present -- that the present occasion’s feelings are genuine and direct reproductions of the past and "not a stage-play about it" (PR 364). (Otherwise we cannot explain the solidarity of the world in terms of its individual actualities, but only by referring, e.g., to Leibniz’s God.) We must thus couple the two occasions together so that reproduction can take place. In fact, we must say that A, at the instant of its satisfaction, "belongs to B" and is "in B" as the initium (beginning) of B.

But we must also maintain the individuality of the actualities in the world. Otherwise we end up with a materialistic philosophy of enduring substances, rather than a philosophy of "organic realism" (of PR 471) involving the reproduction of atomic, self-creating occasions. Thus there must be some aspect of the relationship between past and present occasions from which that relationship can be conceived as a bond between divided things -- as a union of discrete entities. It is precisely this dual aspect of the relationship between past and present that I mean to express in saying that what is genuinely the endpoint of one discrete occasion’s process is at the same time the beginning of its successor’s concrescence.

A. Perishing and perishing (and perishing). In elucidating this last statement (and the process of reproduction), I begin with the fact that an occasion in its lifetime passes from becoming through being into nothingness. It is a process of self-creation, the end (both goal and terminus) of which is the one complex unified Feeling that the occasion becomes.² The endpoint of that process is a "dead-endpoint" in two senses. (1) At that point, the occasion is dead in that its internal process is over and done with; it is no longer becoming, but has become. (2) The occasion has "nowhere to go" from that point. And that is precisely where it does go: nowhere -- i.e., into nothingness. An occasion has the power to create itself, but not to sustain itself. Thus it does not remain in existence, but only passes though on its way to nothingness. It completes itself and disappears.

But it completes itself before it disappears. Thus we may say, so far as concerns its availability for prehension, that an occasion "perishes" in two stages. (1) It perishes as a self-creative process in attaining its satisfaction. But it does not disappear when it thus perishes. Rather, that is precisely the point at which it appears, as a determinate reality. At that point it is dead-past (completed, no longer becoming) but is not yet gone-past. It is at this point -- and only at this point -- that the occasion meets the two criteria of prehendability: it has become what it was becoming, and it is there to be prehended. (2) The instant following the attainment of its satisfaction, the occasion has "utterly perished" and disappeared, having completed its passage from becoming through being into nothingness.

It does not disappear without a trace, of course. But this is because it was prehended by its immediate successor at the prior instant -- after it had "perished" (as a self-creative process) but before it "utterly perished" and disappeared. As it became, it passed on its Feeling "to be reproduced by the new subject" (PR 362); and because it was felt at that instant, it continues to "live on" as a "dead fact" in the experience of the present -- and will also thus be available for prehension by the future -- even though it is gone. (Insofar as the occasion is negatively prehended, so that its subjective form or "family line" gradually fades away, this fading constitutes a third form of "perishing.")

B. Subject-Object-Superject. Focusing now on the occasion as it arrives at its endpoint -- i.e., at the instant it accomplishes its transition from becoming to being -- we see that, as it becomes, it becomes three "things" at once.

(1) It becomes a self-existent reality:

This is somewhat misleading, of course, for the term "satisfaction" refers to "the ‘entity as concrete’ abstracted from the ‘process of concrescence; it is the outcome separated from the process, thereby losing the actuality of the atomic entity, which is both process and outcome" (PR 129; italics mine). Thus we might better speak of the completed occasion as a "subject," which term refers to "the entity constituted by the process of feeling . . . including this process" (PR 135; italics mine).

In other words, as the outcome of a particular process, the completed occasion obviously requires that process in order to bring itself into being. But it requires nothing else. The "reason" for its instantaneous existence as a determinate Something is its own process which produced it.

(2) The occasion also becomes an object or datum, as it becomes a determinate Something. "It has become a ‘being’; and it belongs to the nature of every ‘being’ that it is a potential for" a new becoming (PR 71). And being a potential for a new feeling-concrescence is what it means to be an object: "the word ‘object’. . . means an entity which is a potential for being a component in feeling" (PR 135). This is also the definition of a datum: "data are the potentials for feeling; that is to say, they are objects" (PR 135).

When does the occasion go from being merely a potential for a new becoming to being an ingredient in that new becoming? At that instant. Which is to say that there are not two instants, one in which the past becomes available, as a dead datum, and a second in which it is given to the present. To become a datum is to be given. Moreover, to be given is to be received (prehended). A datum is "met with feelings" (PR 234) at the instant it becomes a datum, and not the instant afterward.

That every occasion will immediately be "met with feelings" is guaranteed, because it is the nature of every occasion, as it becomes, to give rise to those feelings which meet it or "spring from it."

(3) In other words, as it becomes Something, an occasion also becomes the creator of that which prehends it. In passing from becoming into being, it does not merely pass into being a dead object, but also "passes into its activity of other-formation" (AI 193). As, and insofar as, it becomes a determinate Feeling, it "provokes the origination" of the new feelings which feel it (AI 176). As it dies, it "hurl[s] itself into a new transcendent fact" (AI 177). This above all is the reason why, although an occasion exists at its endpoint as the outcome of its own process, its chief "ontological status" is that of the initium of its successor.

How can an occasion become active as it becomes dead? Because it thereby becomes part of an actual world, in conjunction with other occasions which reach their endpoints simultaneously (relative to the standpoint of the new occasion whose actual world they form).

To be sure, considered merely as the sum of its parts, an actual world is simply a collection of dead occasions which may be termed "objects" for the new occasion, or

Thus it is that an actual world, and the dead-past occasions in it, is not merely a "potentiality for" the new occasion but is

Here we find the explanation of those passages in which Whitehead asserts that "it lies in the nature of things" for the past, upon perishing, to become a component in the experience of its successors: it lies in the nature of things that an occasion, in attaining satisfaction, thereby becomes part of an actual world (in fact, many actual worlds, relative to many different standpoints). It also lies in the nature of things that the actual world thus formed is greater than the sum of its parts -- i.e., that the parts, though individually dead, should conjointly form a living organic whole which is "essentially the primary phase of a new occasion" (AI 179).

C. Two species of process. Insofar as an actual world is composed of past (dead-past) occasions, the factor of activity inherent in it may be termed the "activity of the past." Insofar as an actual world is essentially the initial phase of the new concrescence, this activity "belongs to" that new occasion. Indeed, this latter statement is surely more correct, for since occasion A perishes (qua self-creative process) in becoming determinate, any activity which follows immediately upon the cessation of A’s act of becoming must be referred to the becoming of its successor. Moreover, the activity in question is precisely the activity of "B prehending A."

But in another sense this creativity does not belong to either A or to B. That is, it does not belong to the self-creativity of either. It is obvious that it is not A’s self-creativity, of course. But neither is it B’s self-creativity. For the novel concrescence is passive in its initial phase.

When we speak of "B prehending A," our language suggests that B actively reaches out to seize and prehend the past. Thus Sherburne is led to write that an "actual entity initiates its process by prehending many other datum occasions in its causal past" (KPR 13). But this is misleading. An occasion does not so much initiate its own process as it is initiated as a process. Occasions do not ask to be born, nor do they decide to come into being without asking. The present has no more power to decide whether it will feel the past (and thus begin coming into being) than the past has to decide whether or not it will give itself to be felt. The decision in the matter is a "transcendent decision" (PR 248). Sherburne is more nearly correct, then, when he says that the

In short, the new occasion is constituted as a self-constituting entity. And its primary phase consists precisely in its being thus constituted -- i.e., in its being "thrown into existence" by the creativity inherent in its actual world. Not until its second phase does it begin genuinely creating itself, exercising the freedom it then has to arrive at its own determinate unity.

The creativity inherent in an actual world thus belongs neither to A’s self-creativity process nor to B’s, but to the process of transition. There are not one, but

"To sum up: There are two species of process, macroscopic process and microscopic process" (PR 326; italics mine), the latter being the self-creative process of an occasion becoming itself, and the former being the process of transition. We might also speak here of two modes of creativity: the self creativity of an occasion, and that "creativity whereby there is a becoming of entities superseding the one in question" (PR 129).

This transitional creativity is "not an external agency with its own ulterior purpose" (PR 339). It is not a "something" which is "outside" or "in between" the past and present which serves to give the past to the present (like God in Christian’s interpretation). But it is outside and in between the respective internal self-creative processes of the past and present occasions, and links the two. It is found in A at its final "lifeless" stage as A’s "activity of other-formation" (AI 193) and/or in B at its primary passive stage as the initial, founding activity of B’s process.

But however we characterize the transitional creativity, it must be seen that the process of transition effected by it is a macroscopic process involving the "whole world." If we focus only on the two respective microscopic processes, we will never be able to see the connection between the two.² The situation will always appear as one in which creativity comes to a halt when A attains its satisfaction (of IWM 29f) and does not start up again until an instant later, when B begins to come into being by prehending its now-nonexistent predecessor.

To sum up: An occasion in its lifetime passes from becoming through being into nothingness. But as it reaches its endpoint and becomes a single unified Feeling (just before it becomes nothing at all) it becomes part of an actual world composed of other occasions which have reached their endpoints simultaneously, relative to the standpoint of the new occasion whose actual world they conjointly form. The antecedent occasions "perish" (qua processes) as they become determinate Feelings, but the actual world they conjointly form as they "die" is an organic whole, alive with inherent creativity that marks the beginning of the new occasion, though the new occasion thus conceived is left to give birth to itself.

Focusing more specifically on "how" reproduction occurs, we might say that as occasions perish and become determinate Feelings, forming an actual world, the many Feelings in that world "flow together"; and at the "center" of this "bio-forcefield" there arises at that instant a novel concrescence which feels those Feelings, its own feelings being "conformal feelings" (i.e., genuine and direct reproductions of the Feelings in its causal past). Thus does every occasion, as it completes itself, become an initial datum from which a new concrescence immediately buds forth.

At the next instant, the actual world is no longer there, the occasions comprising it having completed their passage from becoming though being into nothingness.⁴ The only thing which is there at that point is the new occasion, now in its second phase: deciding what to do with its feelings of the past.

D. Postscript. With this model in mind, we may speak of "three instants" as follows. (1) At one instant, A is still becoming. (2) Next, as A ceases becoming and becomes, it becomes a datum for, and the initial phase of, B. In becoming determinate, it provokes and gives rise to the new feeling which arises from it at that instant as a reproduction of it and of the other occasions in B’s actual world. (3) The new occasion then begins making something of itself -- of the multiplicity of feelings that it is.

Referring to the initial passive phase of B, we can say that "B starts to become at the same instant A stops becoming," knowing that this does not mean that A never finishes its act of becoming or that the two are not discrete entities. And referring to B’s (second) self-creative phase, we can say that "B does not begin to create itself until the instant after A attains satisfaction (and has disappeared), "knowing that B nonetheless began coming into being the instant prior, when A was thrust upon it.

Indeed, there are a good many things we can say, using the language of "before and after" and of "successive instants" -- so long as we understand the process from which those instants are abstracted. It is only when we abstract from the process -- and forget that we are abstracting -- that we end up with the apparently insoluble problem of how to put it all back together again.

References

FC -- Dow Kirkpatrick, ed. The Finality of Christ. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1969. For John B. Cobb, Jr., "The Finality of Christ in a Whiteheadian Perspective," pp. 122-54.

KPR -- Donald W. Sherburne. A Key to Whitehead’s PROCESS AND REALITY. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966.

IWM -- William A. Christian. An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.

PPCT -- Delwin Brown, Ralph E. James, Jr., and Gene Reeves, eds. Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971. For Donald W. Sherburne, "Whitehead Without God," pp. 305-28.

WEP -- George L. Kline, ed. Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His Philosophy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963. For William Ernest Hocking, "Whitehead as I Knew Him," pp. 7-17.

Notes

1. In the passage cited here, Cobb is assuming that the unmediate past influences the present and is arguing that the remote past also influences the present, rather than making a case for the influence of the past in general. However, since he bases his argument on the assumption of the causal influence of the immediate past, and since the principle is the sanie for him in either case, I think I have not done him an injustice in quoting him slightly out of context.

2. I capitalize Feeling when referring to the complex unified Feeling that an occasion becomes at the end of its process. I use the term feeling to refer to one of the component feelings of that Feeling -- and especially to one of the yet-to-be-unified multiplicity of feelings that a novel concrescence initially is.

3. In PR, Whitehead’s approach is largely amdytical and his focus is primarily upon the individual occasion as it goes through its phases. He speaks of the macroscopic process of transition in PR, of course, but does not really elucidate it -- precisely because that process cannot be "seen" from the standpoint of an individual occasion. Thus any attempt to understand the flow from past to present on the basis of PR alone may easily lead to a variety of (mis)interpretations.

In AI, the approach is more synthetic and the process of transition from past to present is dealt with more illuminatingly, (especially in the chapters on "Subjects and Objects" and "Past, Present, Future’). Thus the weightiest quotations I have used in supporting and clarifying my position have come from AI (especially AI 179), and it is in their light that I have placed the bulk of the PR texts cited.

4. Once the immediate past disappears, there is no distinction between it and the distant past so far as concerns its availability for prehension. The world of the nineteenth century is no less gone than the world of one-tenth of a second ago. But at the point that the immediate past reaches completion, there is an important distinction between it and the distant past. For at that point, the distant past has already completed itself and disappeared, while the immediate past has completed itself and is "dead-past" but is not yet "gone-past." Thus it is only immediate past occasions which are available for direct prehension by, and form the actual world of, their immediate successors.

Of course, the distant past was prehended at the point of its completion by its immediate successors, and its Feelings have been reproduced and thus carried along by intervening occasions. Hence the distant past is "in" the immediate past, and in this sense it forms a part of the actual world of the new occasion and is available for prehension by that new occasion. Indeed, everything that has ever happened in the past (or at least in my past) is in some sense and to some extent in my actual world and prehendable (and prehended) by me. But the distant past is available for prehension only mediately through and in the immediate past. I have my grandfather’s brown eyes; but I got them through my father, and not directly from my grandfather, who died before I was born.

Many individuals and libraries have helped me in the preparation of this Bibliography and I am grateful to them all. I am especially grateful to the authors who sent me material. Please help me fill the lacunae by sending me information about items I should have included.

In this Bibliography references to Charles Hartshorne simply as Editor of the Peirce papers have been omitted. A list of dissertations and other unpublished material will follow in PS 3/4 (Winter, 1973).

A key to abbreviations for books frequently cited follows.

Books Written or Edited by Charles Hartshorne

AD Anselm’s Discovery. LaSalle: Open Court, 1965.

BH Beyond Humanism: Essays in the New Philosophy of Nature. Chicago Willett, Clark & Company, 1937. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press Bison Books, 1968.)

CPCSP (Edited with Paul Weiss.) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931-35. 6 volumes.

CSPM Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method. LaSalle: Open Court, 1970.

DR The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God. The Terry Lectures, 1947. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948.

LP The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics. LaSalle: Open Court, 1962.

MVG Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1941. (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1964.)

NTOT A Natural Theology for Our Time. LaSaIle; Open Court, 1967.

PPS The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934.

PSG (With William L. Reese.) Philosophers Speak of God. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953.

RSP Reality as Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion. Glencoe: The Free Press and Boston: The Beacon Press, 1953.

WMW (With Victor Lowe and A. H. Johnson.) Whitehead and the Modern World: Science, Metaphysics, and Civilization, Three Essays on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1950.

WP Whitehead’s Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935-70. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972.

OTHER BOOKS FREQUENTLY CITED

DCH William S. Minor, ed. Directives from Charles Hartshorne and Henry Nelson Wieman Critically Analyzed. Philosophy of Creativity Monograph Series, Vol. I. Carbondale: The Foundation for Creative Philosophy, Inc., 1969.

PD William L. Reese and Eugene Freeman, eds. Process and Divinity: The Hartshorne ‘Festschrift’: Philosophical Essays Presented to Charles Hartshorne. LaSalle: Open Court, 1964.

PI Beatrice K. and Sydney C. Rome, eds. Philosophical Interrogations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.

TPP Delwin Brown, Ralph E. James, Jr., and Gene Beeves, eds. Process Philosophy and Christian Thought. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971.

PT Ewert H. Cousins, ed. Process Theology: Basic Writings. New York: Newman Press, 1971.

PPCT Lewis S. Ford, ed. Two Process Philosophers: Hartshorne’s Encounter with Whitehead. AAR Studies in Religion, Number Five, forthcoming.

1929

Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, "Philosophical Worth of Santa Claus Conned at Meeting of Thinkers Here," Cincinnati, Ohio, March 31, 1929.

Dewey, John, The Quest for Certainty. New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1929, 249.

1931

Harvard Alumni Bulletin, Semi-Annual List of Books by Harvard Men 34,11 (1931), 317, 330.

1932

Cohen, Morris R., "The Founder of Pragmatism": Review of Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce (hereafter CPCSP), Vols. I and II, Nation 135, No. 3511 (Oct. 19, 1932), 370.

Dewey, John, "Charles Sanders Peirce"; Review of CPCSP, Vol. I, New Republic 69, 892 (1932), 220.

Kagey, Rudolf, "Exploring a Philosopher": Review of CPCSP, Vol. I, New York Herald-Tribune (1932).

Nagel, Ernest, "Philosophical Essays": Review of CPCSP, Vol. I, Saturday Review of Literature, March 12, 1932, 592.

Times Literary Supplement (London), "Peirce’s Logical Writings": Review of CPCSP, Vol. II, Sept. 22, 1932.

1933

Cohen, Morris R., Review of CPCSP, Vol. I, Ethics 43, 2 (Jan., 1933), 220, 226.

1934

Freeman, Eugene, The Categories of Charles Peirce. Chicago: Open Court, 1934, 3n, 49.

Healy, John Vincent, Review of The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation (hereafter PPS), Saturday Review of Literature, July 21, 1934.

Hunter, W. S., Review of PPS, Psychological Abstracts, Aug., 1934.

Monist, Review of PPS, 44, 2 (July, 1934), 312.

Monist, Review of CPCSP III and IV, 44,2 (1934), 313.

Ogden, C. K., Review of PPS, Psyche (England), 1934.

Raeymaeker, L. De, Review of PPS, Revue Neo-Scolastique de Philosophie (Louvain, Belgium), No.3 (1934), 260-262.

Times Literary Supplement (London), Review of PPS, Aug. 2, 1934.

1935

Bartlett, F. C., Review of PPS, Philosophy (England), Oct., 1935, 497f.

British Journal of Psychology (London), Review of PPS, 1935.

Carmichael, Leonard, Review of PPS, Ethics 45, 2 (1935), 244-246.

Dewey, John, "The Founder of Pragmatism": Review of CPCSP, Vol. V, New Republic 81, No. 1052 (1935), 339.

Healy, J. V., "The School of Donne": Review of The Metaphysical Poets by J. B. Leishman, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (Dec., 1935), 170f.

Kantor, J. R, Review of PPS, American Journal of Psychology 47, 4 (Oct., 1935), 716f.

Loyola Educational Digest, Review of PPS, May, 1935.

New Review (Calcutta, India), Review of PPS, 1935.

Parnassus, Review of PPS, March, 1935.

La Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, Review of PPS, Supplément de La Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, April, 1935, 11.

Revue Néo-Scholastique de Philosophie, Review of PPS, 1935.

Rivista di Psicologia (Italy), Review of PPS, 31, 4 (Oct-Dec., 1935), 287f.

Sprott, W. J. H., Review of PPS, Mind, July, 1935, 377-380.

1936

De Petter, D. M., Review of PPS, Bulletin de Philosophie (Belgium), Aug., 1938, 558f.

Northrop, F. S. C., ‘The Mathematical Background and Content of Greek Philosophy," Philosophical Essays for Alfred North Whitehead. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1936, 17n.

Smith, H. Jeffery, Review of PPS, Personalist (Jan., 1936), 89f.

1937

Ames, Edward Scribner, "Humanism Fulfilled"; Review of Beyond Humanism (hereafter BH), Christian Century 54, 35 (Sept. 1, 1937), 1075f. (Supplied by Gene Reeves.)

Blyth, John, "On Mr. Hartshorne’s Understanding of Whitehead’s Philosophy," Philosophical Review 46, 5 (Sept., 1937), 523-528.

Boddy, William Henry, "A Criticism of Humanism": Review of BH, Presbyterian Tribune (Aug. 19, 1937), 17.

Book Review Digest, Quotations from reviews of BH in Living Church, Christian Century, Nation, Book Review Digest (Oct., 1937).

Buckham, John Wright, "Naturalistic Theism": Review of BH, July 29, 1937, 13.

Chanter, William C., Review of BH, Christian Student, Nov., 1937, 28.

Christian Advocate, Review of BH signed N. C. M., Oct. 8, 1937.

Daily Palo Alto Times, "Chicago Educator to Talk on Esthetics and Social Living," Palo Alto, California, March 2, 1937, 6.

Daily Palo Alto Times, "Vacationers Return" [lists BH lecture at Deep Springs School, California, March 26], Palo Alto, California, March 31, 1937, 6.

Dewey, John, "Charles Sanders Peirce": Review of CPCSP, Vols. 1-VI, New Republic 89, 1157 (Feb. 3,1937), 416.

Greenleaf, Richard, "Brand-New God": Review of BH, N.Y.C. New Masses, July 27, 1937.

Gregory, W. Edgar, "Panpsychism": Review of BR, Advance, Aug. 1, 1937, 365f.

Hopper, Stanley Romaine, Review of BR, The Gateway, Drew Theological Seminary, Oct., 1937, 7.

Hutcheon, Robert J., "A Book to Be Lived Into": Review of BR, Christian Register 116,30 (Sept. 2, 1937), 501, 506.

Hyde Park Herald, "Smalley to Talk on Vocabulary," Chicago, III., Oct. 28, 1937, 3.

Kerr, Hugh Thomson, Jr., Review of BH, Presbyterian Banner, Aug. 12, 1937, 15.

Lemmon, C. E., Review of BR, Christian-Evangelist Nov. 25, 1937.

MacFarland, Charles S., "A New Naturalism"; Review of BH, Messenger, July 29, 1937, 2, 23.

Marhenke, Paul, Review of PPS, Philosophical Review 46, 2 (March, 1937), 214-219.

Miller, Randolph Crump, Review of BH, Pacific Churchman 74, 4 (Nov., 1937), 14.

New York Times, Review of BH, July 17, 1937.

Pittenger, W. Norman, "Dr. Hartshorne’s ‘Theistic Naturalism’": Review of BH, Living Church, Aug. 7, 1937, 163.

Randall, John Herman, Jr., Review of BH, Journal of Philosophy 34, 25 (Dec. 9, 1937), 691-693.

Religions Book Club Bulletin, "The May Book: BH." The Editorial Committee; Samuel McCrea Cavert, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Rufus M. Jones, Francis J. McConnell, Howard Chandler Robbins, May, 1937, 1-2.

Sherrill, Lewis J., Review of BH, Christian Observer, Nov., 1937, 7.

Southern California Daily Trojan, "Philosopher to Address Club," May 10, 1937, 1.

Speight, Harold E. B., "A New Philosophy of Nature": Review of BH, Christian Leader 119, Oct. 23, 1937, 1369.

Stanford Daily, "Hartshorne to Speak at Luncheon Club: Professor from Chicago Will Give Lecture on ‘Egyptian [Aesthetic] Philosophy,’" Stanford, Calif., Jan. 20, 1937.

Stanford Daily, "Hartshorne to Talk: ‘The Relation of Aesthetics to Social Living," Stanford, Calif., 91, 21 (March 2,1937), 2, 3.

Union Theological Seminary Alumni Bulletin, "Book Notes," 12., 3 (April, 1937), 5.

Van Leeuwen, L, C., Review of BH. May Publications Reviewed by Outstanding Ministers. Boston: The Judson Press, May, 1937, 1.

Van Schaick, John, Jr., "The End of Narrow Humanism"; Editorial. Christian Leader 119 (July 17, 1937), editorial page.

Van Schaick, John, Jr., "In a Nutshell" (quoting BH), Christian Leader 119 (May 29, 1937), 677.

Vivas, Elisco, "Professor Hartshorne’s God": Review of BH, Nation, July 3, 1937.

Whitchurch, I. G., Review of BH, World Christianity -- A Digest, 1, 3 (1937).

Whitchurch, I. G., Review of BH, Garrett Tower, July, 1937, 13-14.

Zion’s Herald, "A help to Faith": Editorial review of BR, July 7, 1937, 842.

1938

Burtt, E. A., Review of BH, Journal of Religion 17, 2 (April, 1938),225-228.

Calhoun, Robert L., "How Far Beyond Humanism?" Review Article, Christendom: A Quarterly Review" 3, 4 (Autumn, 1938), 554-565.

Chicago Daily News, "Atheist Likened to Religious Fanatic," June 8, 1938. Holmes, Roger W., Review of BH, Philosophical Review 47, 6 (Nov. 1938), 652f.

Rough, Lynn Harold, Review of BH, Religion in Life 7, 1 (Winter, 1938), 157f. (Supplied by Gene Reeves.)

Humanist Bulletin, "Humanism in Periodicals," 1, 1 (Feb., 1938), 4.

Humanist Bulletin, "Humanism in Periodicals," quotation from "The Philosophical Limitations of Humanism" in The University Review of the University of Kansas City (Symposium on Humanism, Summer, 1937), 1,2 (May, 1938), 4.

Humanist Bulletin, "Humanism in Periodicals," quotation from E. A. Burtt, Review of BH, 1, 3 (Dec., 1938), 3.

Poteat, Gordon, Review of BH, Crozer Quarterly, 1938, 145f.

Presbyterian Register (Edinburgh), Review of BH, 17, 5 (Feb., 1938), 154f.

Weiss, Paul, Reality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938, 43-44 n.

1939

Chicago Public Library Book Bulletin, June, 1939, 2.

Holmes, Roger W., Letter to the Editor, Philosophical Review 48, 2 (March, 1939), 243f.

Macintosh, Douglas Clyde, "Empirical Theology and Some of its Misunderstanders," Review of Religion 3, 4 (May, 1939), 388.

Searles, H. L., "Science and Humanism": Review of BH, Personalist 20, 1 (Jan., 1939), 107-109.

1940

Adams, Frank Durward, "Divine Purpose in a World of Chaos, II. The Condition Imperative," Christian Leader, (July 27, 1940), 684f.

Adams, Frank Durward, Divine Purpose in a World of Chaos. Boston: Universalist Publishing House, Aug., 1940, 19f.

Gotshalk, D. W., Metaphysics in Modern Times: A Present-Day Perspective. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1940, 35, 36.

Miller, Randolph Crump, "Theology in Transition," Journal of Religion 20,2 (April, 1940), 167.

Santayana, George, "The Philosopher Replies," The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 2, Evanston: Northwestern University, 1940, 535, 588-591.

Walker, Edwin Ruthven, "Can Philosophy of Religion be Empirical?" Journal of Religion 20, 3 (July, 1940), 245.

1941

Advance, Review of Man’s Vision of God (hereafter MVG), Sept., 1941.

Bennett, John C., Christian Realism. New York: Scribner’s, 1941, 23f, 182.

Bixler, Julius Seelye, "Whitehead’s Philosophy of Religion," The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead," ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 3, Evanston Northwestern University, 1941, 4971.

Church Management, Review of MVG, Oct., 1941, 36.

Dietz, David, "Universal ‘Mind’?: Philosophical Concept," World Telegram, New York City, Oct. 15, 1941.

Frank, R. Worth, "This Week’s Book." Review of MVG, Monday Morning: A Magazine Exclusively for Pastors 6, 47 (1941), 16.

Guerard, Albert, "The Lyrical Sphinx": Review Article -- The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. Washington Post (July 6, 1941), 10.

Horton, Walter Marshall, Review of MVG, Crozer Quarterly, 1938, 342f. Hoyt, Donald B. F., "A Good Test of Intellectual Stamina": Review of MVG, Christian Leader 123 (Aug. 23, 1941), 659.

Kozak, J. B., Review of Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1, 3 (1941), 368, 375.

Ledvina, Jerome Paul, "Hartshorne on Sensation: Criticism," Chapter Five of A Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation with Special Reference to Vision, According to the Principles of St. . Thomas Aquinas Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1941, 97-135. Miller, Randolph Grump, Review of MVG, Southern Churchman, Aug. 16, 1941.

Sanders, C. F., Review of MVG, Lutheran Church Quarterly, 1941, 79-81.

Sweet, Louis Matthews, Review of MVG, Presbyterian Tribune, Nov., 1941, 30f.

Thomas, John Newton, Review of MVG. Union Theological Seminary Quarterly Review 53,1 (Nov., 1941), 701. (Supplied by Gene Reeves.)

Tribble, H. W., Review of MVG, Review and Expositor, Oct., 1941, 448-450.

Weiss, Paul, Review of The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 2, 1 (Sept., 1941), 125.

Werkmeister, W. H., Review of Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, ed. Farber, Ethics 51,3 (April, 1941), 367.

Werkmeister, W. H., Review of The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp, Ethics 51, 3 (April, 1941), 362.

Westchester Features Syndicate, Review of MVG.

Whitchurch, I. C., Review of MVG, Garrett Tower 16, 4 (July, 1941), 13.

1942

Beck, Lewis White, Review of Science, Philosophy and Religion, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 3, 2 (1942), 253.

Bennett, John C., "Three Levels of Persuasiveness: Review of MVG," Christendom 7, 1 (Winter, 1942), 102-104.

Brightman, Edgar Sheffield, Review of MVG, Journal of Religion 22, 1 (Jan., 1942), 96-99.

Cerf, Walter, Review of Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl, Social Research 9, 2 (1942), 276.

Divinity School Bulletin, Harvard University, Review of MVG, 1942, 88-90.

Greene, Theodore M., Review of MVG, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 3,1 (1942), 96-98.

Hausheer, Herman, Review of MVG, Philosophic Abstracts 9 (Spring, 1942), 10.

Helsel, Paul R., "Religion and Change": Review of MVG, Personalist 23, 2 (April, 1942), 212-214.

Hooper, Sydney E., Review of The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Schilpp, Philosophy 17,67 (July, 1942), 274.

Kepler, Thomas S., Review of MVG, Journal of Bible and Religion 10, 1 (Feb., 1942), 48f.

Macintosh, Douglas Clyde, Review of MVG, Review of Religion 6, 4 (May, 1942), 443-448.

Meland, Bernard E., "God, the Unlimited Companion," Review of MVG, Christian Century 59,42 (Oct. 21,1942), 1289f.

Niebuhr, Reinhold, Review of MVG, Christianity and Society 7, 2 (Spring, 1942), 43f.

Nilson, Sven, Review of MVG, Philosophical Review 51, 5 (Sept., 1942), 424-426.

Sheldon, Wilmon H., America’s Progressive Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1942, 110, 1191., 143f.

Wellmuth, John J., Review of The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp, Thought 17, 66 (Sept., 1942), 547.

Williams, Daniel Day, "The Victory of Good," Journal of Liberal Religion 3, 4 (Spring, 1942), 185.

1943

Agar, W. E., A Contribution to the Theory of the Living Organism. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1943, 86n, 200.

Bixler, J. S., "God Without Benefit of Unreason": Review of MVG, Journal of Liberal Religion 5,2 (Autumn, 1943), 111f.

Fries, Horace S., "Hartshorne vs. Ely on Whitehead," Journal of Liberal Religion 5,2 (Autumn, 1943), 96f.

Gross, Mason W., Review of The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp, Journal of Philosophy 40, 10 (May 13, 1943), 276.

Meland, Bernard E., "The Religious Availability of a Philosopher’s God," Christendom 8, 4 (Autumn, 1943).

Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation. Volume II, Human Destiny. New York: Scribner’s. 1943, 71n.

Redman, Edward H., "Hartshorne’s Vision of God," Unity 129, 2 (1943),22-24.

1944

Bosley, Harold A., The Philosophical Heritage of the Christian Faith. Chicago; Willett, Clark, 1944, 47, 52, 63, 65, 66nn5,17, 67n35, 100, 101, 112n1.

Brightman, E. S., "Russell’s Philosophy of Religion," The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. Vol. 5, The Library of Living Philosophers. Evanston: Northwestern University, 1944, 549.

The Chicago Maroon, University of Chicago, Aug. 18, 1944. Public Lecture; The Social Theory of Reality" by Charles Hartshorne, 2; "Charles Hartshorne Discusses Clash of Philosophy, Science," University of Chicago, (Aug. 18, 1944), 4.

Johnson, A. H., "‘Truth, Beauty and Goodness’ in the Philosophy of A. N. Whitehead," Philosophy of Science 11, 1 (Jan., 1944), 24.

Meland, Bernard E., "Some Unresolved Issues in Theology," Journal of Religion 24, 4 (Oct., 1944)’ 284.

Nyman, Alf, "Sur le Système d’axiomes de la phychologie," Theoria, A Swedish Journal of Philosophy and Psychology, 10, 1 (1944), 18-23.

1945

Bertocci, Peter A., "panpsychism." An Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Vergilius Ferm. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1945, 557.

Brightman, E. S., "personalism." An Encyclopedia of Religion, see above, 576.

Elton, William, Discussion: "On Hartshorne’s Formulation of the Ontological Argument: A Criticism," Philosophical Review 54 (Jan., 1945), 63.

Elton, William, Discussion: "Professor Hartshorne’s Syllogism: Criticism," Philosophical Review 54 (Sept., 1945), 506.

Johnson, A. H., Discussion: "Whitehead and the Making of Tomorrow," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 5, 3 (March, 1945), 399n4.

Johnson, A. H., "Whitehead’s Theory of Actual Entities: Defence and Criticism," Philosophy of Science 12, 4 (Oct., 1945), 244n40, 254, 260f., 272, 274, 276, 277, 279.

Lillie, Ralph S., General Biology and Philosophy of Organism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1945, 72n.

Young, Frederic Harold, "Charles Sanders Peirce, America’s Greatest Logician and Most Original Philosopher"; A Paper delivered Oct. 15, 1945, at Milford, Pa., before the Pike County Historical Society. Privately printed, 8.

1946

Christian, William A., Review of An Encyclopedia of Religion, Journal of Religion 26, 3 (1946), 220.

Foss, Martin, The Idea of Perfection in the Western World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946, 32n.

Meehan, Francis X., "Efficient Causality: A Reply and a Comment," Journal of Religion 26, 1 (Jan., 1946), 50-54.

Nyman, Alf, Nya Vägar Inom Psykologien. Stockholm; P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1946, 101-117.

Tillich, Paul, "Two Types of Philosophy of Religion," Union Seminary Quarterly Review 1, 4 (May, 1946), 3-13.

1947

Bulletin Analytique (Paris ) PHILOSOPHIE, Fini et Infini. Absolu et Relatif." Review of "Relative, Absolute, and Superrelative," 136; Theologie et Sciences Religieuses, "Généralités." Review of "Theological Values in Current Metaphysics," 138. Vol. I, No. 2, 1947.

Meland, Bernard E., Seeds of Redemption. New York: Macmillan, 1947, 112, 113.

New Haven Journal-Courier, "Dr. C. Hartshorne to Deliver Yale Terry Lectures," April 17, 1947, 11.

Yale News, "Author-Professor to Talk Tonight in Law School. Hartshorne Lectures on ‘Divine Relativity’ in Three Day Series" [Terry Lectures], 68, 147 (April 21, 1947), 1.

1948

Hudson, Jay William, "Surrelativism": Review of The Divine Relativity (hereafter DR), Christian Register, Oct., 1948, 13.

New York Times, Review of DR, July 17, 1948.

Retail Bookseller, Review of DR, New York, Sept., 1948.

U. S. Quarterly Book List, Review of DR, Dec., 1948.

Wild, John, Review article: DR, Review of Metaphysics 2, 6 (Dec., 1948), 65-77.

Williams, Daniel Day, "Truth in the Theological Perspective," Journal of Religion 28,4 (Oct., 1948), 253.

1949

Auer, J. A. C. F., Review of DR, Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, April, 1949.

Bergenthal, Ferdinand, "Widerspricht die Zufälligkeit der Welt die Notwendigkeit ihres Schöpfers: Bemerkungen zum ‘theologischen Paradoxon’ Arnauld-Hartshorne-Scholz," Philosophischen Jahrbuch, 1949, 351-354.

Cailliet, Emile, "God Is a Personal God": Review of DR. Pastor, March, 1949.

Ferré, Nels F. S., Review of DR, Journal of Religion 29, 4 (Oct., 1949), 304f.

Hammond, William E., Review of DR, Advance, May, 1949.

Hutchison, John A., Review of DR. Westminster Bookman 8, 3 (Jan.-Feb., 1949), 12f.

King, Winston L., The Holy Imperative: The Power of God and the Good Life. New York; Harper, 1949, 43, 141, 157, 215n4, 217n1, 218nn15, 17.

MacLeod, J., Review of DR, Hibbert Journal 68, 1 (Oct., 1949), 90f.

Meland, Bernard E., The Reawakening of Christian Faith. New York: Macmillan, 1949, 35, 39-41. (Reprinted 1972 by Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, New York.)

Modern Schoolman, Short notice of DR. "Bibliography of Current Philosophical Works Published in the U. 5., Jan., 1949, 196.

Overholser, James, Review of DR. Interpretation, July, 1949, 362-364.

Phenix, Philip H., Review of DR, Journal of Philosophy 46, 18 (Sept. 1, 1949), 591-597.

Reese, William L., Review of DR, Scroll 46, 9 (May, 1949), 467-472.

Schilling, S. Paul, Review of DR. Journal of Bible and Religion 17, 2 (April, 1949), 136f.

Van Nuys, Kelvin, Science and Cosmic Purpose. New York: Harper, 1949, 90, 100, 198 ff., 235.

Ward, Leo R., Review of DR, New Scholasticism 23, 3 (July, 1949), 351f. Wieman, Henry N., Review of DR, Philosophical Review 58, 1 (Jan., 1949), 78-82.

1950

Arden-Close, Col. Sir Charles, "Life in a Living Universe," Hibbert Journal 48, 2 (Jan., 1950), 139.

Berndtson, Arthur, "Cognition and the Mystical Experience." Personalist 31,3 (Summer, 1950), 274.

Bixler, J. S., Review of DR, Review of Religion 14, 3 (March. 1950), 328f.

Bosley, Harold A., A Firm Faith for Today. New York: Harper, 1950, 46, 273.

Brightman, Edgar Sheffield, "Personalism (including Personal Idealism)" ch. 27 of A History of Philosophical Systems, ed. Vergilius Ferin. New York: The Philosophical Library. 1950, 342, 344, 347, 349, 352.

Collins, James, Review of DR, Modern Schoolman 27, 3 (March, 1950), 222-226.

Evans, D. Luther, Discussion: "Two Intellectually Respectable Conceptions of God" (Review of Garnett, God in Us, and DR), Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 10, 4 (June, 1950), 572-576.

Ferm, Vergilius, "Philosophies of Religion," A History of Philosophical Systems, ed. Vergilius Ferm. New York: Philosophical Library, 1950, 608.

Olds, G. A., Review of DR, Garrett Tower 25,2 (March, 1950), 17.

Rhoades, D. H., Review of DR, Personalist 31, 2 (Spring, 1950), 190f.

Weiss, Paul, Notes and observations: "Law and Other Matters," Review of Metaphysics 4, 1 (Sept., 1950), 132.

Wild, John, "The Divine Existence: An Answer to Mr. Hartshorne" Review of Metaphysics 4, 1 (Sept., 1950), 61-84.

1951

Bertocci, Peter A., Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1951, 274, 314n, 315, 326, 427n9, 461n.

Burtt, E. A., Types of Religious Philosophy. Revised Edition. New York; Harper, 1951, 368.

Capek, Milic, "The Doctrine of Necessity Re-examined," Review of Metaphysics 5, 1 (Sept., 1951), 17.

Ferré, Nels F. S., The Christian Understanding of God. London: SCM, 1951, 21, 49, 68, 109, 115, 152, 255n19, 256n23, 257n28, 259n43, 260n48, 261n8, 262n36, 265n27, 268n44.

Fisch, Max H., Classic American Philosophers. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951, 478.

Johnson, A. H., "Recent Discussions of Alfred North Whitehead," Review of Metaphysics 5,2 (Dec., 1951), 293, 295, 296f.

Lichtigfeld, A., "The Concept of God in Recent Thought," The Judean (Johannesburg, South Africa) 6, 21 (Sept., 1951), 69f. [DR reviewed inter alia.]

Robinson, Daniel S., "Hartshorne’s Non-Classic Theology," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12, 1 (Sept., 1951), 135.

Shariia, P. A., O nekotorykh voprosakh kommunisticheskoi morali (On Certain Question of Communist Morality), Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1951, 219, 224f, 227. (Supplied by George L. Kline.)

Williams, Donald C., "The Sea Fight Tomorrow," Structure, Method, and Meaning: Essays in Honor of Henry M. Sheffer, ed. Paul Henle, Horace M. Kallen, Susanne Langer. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1951, 294.

1952

Baylis, Charles A., Review of Structure, Method, and Meaning, ed. Henle, Kallen, and Langer, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12,3 (1952), 447.

Browning, Robert W., "Reason and Types of Intuition in Radhakrishnan’s Philosophy," The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. Vol. 8 of The Library of Living Philosophers. New York: Tudor, 1952, 257n.

Morgan, Douglas N., Symposium: "The Concept of Expression in Art," Science, Language, and Human Rights (American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, Vol. 1: Papers for the Symposia held at the Annual Meeting, 1952). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952, 163nn8, 9, l64n17.

Robinson, Daniel S., "La Théologie non classique de Charles Hartshorne," Les Etudes philosophiques: Revue trimestrielle (France), N.S.7, 1-2 (Jan.-June, 1952), Presses Universitaires de France, 57-61.

Smith, John E., "Religion and Theology in Peirce," Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Philip P. Wiener and Frederic H. Young. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952, 251.

Tillich, Paul, Reply to "Interpretation and Criticism" in The Theology of Paul Tillich, The Library of Living Theology, Vol. I, ed. Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall. New York: Macmillan, 1952, 329, 331, 332, 334, 339f, 347.

Tomas, Vincent A.. Symposium: "The Concept of Expression in Art" [q.v. under Douglas N. Morgan], 136, 138, 140, 144nn25, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39.

1953

Bamberger, Bernard J., Review of Philosophers Speak of God (hereafter PSG). Jewish Bookland, Dec., 1953.

Berndtson, Arthur, "Les grands courants de la philosophic americaine," Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles 4 (1952-1953), 2.

Blakemore, W. B., "Booknotes": Review of PSG, The Scroll: The Journal of the Campbell Institute 45,1 (1953), 31.

Church Times (England), Review of PSG, Nov. 8,1953.

Cunningham, G. Watts, Review of Reality as Social Process (hereafter RSP), Ethics 64,1 (Oct., 1953), 61.

Hocking, William Ernest, Foreword to RSP. Glencoe: Thc Free Press, and Boston: Beacon, 1953, 13, 15-16. Reprinted by Hafner (N.Y.) 1971, 13, 15-16.

Kensington Bulletin, Philadelphia. Review of RSP, Sept. 25, 1953.

Koppes, Alan W., Review of RSP, Daily News-Digest, Allentown, Pa. May 28, 1953, 12.

Lowe, Victor, "The Concept of the Individual," Methodos: A Quarterly Review of Methodology and Language Analysis (Milan) 5, 18 (1953), 115.

Meland, Bernard E., "Interpreting the Christian Faith within a Philo-Press, 1953, v, vi, 45. (Reprinted 1972 by Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.)

Meland, Bernard E., Higher Education and the Human Spirit. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953, 91, 125, 186, 187, 192, 193.

Meland. Bernard F.. "Interpreting the Christian Faith within a Philosophical Framework," Journal of Religion 33, 2 (April, 1953), 92.

Morgan, Raymond L., Review of PSG. Christian Evangelist, Aug. 25, 1953.

The Pastor, Review of RSP, July, 1953, 39.

Pastoral Psychology, Review of PSG, Dec., 1953.

Phillips, Charles W., "What Does ‘God’ Mean?" Review of PSG, Des Moines Sunday Register, Nov. 22, 1953.

BBC Bulletin (Religious Book Club), Review of RSP, 26, 7 (1953), 6.

Smith, John E., Review, of The Theology of Paul Tillich, ed. Kegley and Bretall, Journal of Philosophy 50, 21 (Oct. 8, 1953), 639, 643-645.

Thompson, Manley, The Pragmatic Philosophy of C. S. Peirce. Chicago:The University of Chicago Press, 1953, 285n21.

Thompson, Tyler, Review of PSG, Garrett Tower 29, 1 (Dec., 1953), 18.

U. S. Quarterly Book Review, Review of RSP, Sept., 1953.

Whittemore, Robert C., Review of PSG, Ethics 44 (Oct., 1953), 69f.

Wright, Sewall, "Gene and Organism," The American Naturalist 87, 832 (Jan.-Feb., 1953), 15, 18.

Ziegler, Albert F., Review of The Theology of Paul Tillich, Universalist Leader 135, 3 (1953), 87.

1954

Adler, Mortimer J., Biennial Report, Institute for Philosophical Research. "Appendix III, Research Reports," San Francisco, 1952-1954, 67.

Birch, L. Charles, "Interpreting the Lower in Terms of the Higher," Christian Scholar 37, 3 (1954), 403, 406.

Collins, James, Review of PSG, Modern Schoolman 31, 3 (March, 1954),228-231.

Flewelling, Ralph T., Review of P50, Personalist, Summer, 1954, 317-319.

Gilligan, B. B., Review of P50, Thought 28, 111 (Winter, 1953-1954), 632f.

Johnson, A. H., "Hartshorne and the Interpretation of Whitehead" Review of Metaphysics 7,3 (March, 1954), 495-498.

Kelley, Alden Drew, Review of PSG. Anglican Theological Review 36, 3 (July, 1954), 231f.

Kendzierski, Lottie H., "Commentary on Mr. McTighe’s Paper," The Existence and Nature of God: Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 28 (1954), 224-233.

King, Winston L., Introduction to Religion. New York: Harper, 1954, 448, 539, 543.

McTighe, Thomas P., "The Finite God in Modern Thought," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 28 (1954).

Meland, Bernard E., Faith and Culture. London: Allen & Unwin, 1955, 5, 49.

Menninger, Karl A., "Dr. Karl’s Notes on Current Reading" Discussion of "Mind, Matter, and Freedom" by CH, published in. Scientific Monthly May, 1954. TPR 15, 5. Mimeographed. Topeka; The Menninger Foundation, 1954, 127f.

Moody Monthly (Chicago), Review of PSG, March, 1954.

Pfuetze, Paul E., The Social Self. New York: Bookman Associates, 1954, 222n295, 281, 287n8, 296n152, 301f, 317, 327, 346f, 355n12, 360n80.

Plott, John C., "Ramanuja as Panentheist," Journal of the Annamalai University (Chidambaram, India) 18 (1954), 65-76, 79, 82, 85n56.

Price, F. Shirvell, "A Review of Beacon Press Publications" (includes RSP). Faith and Freedom 7, 21, Part 3 (1954), 144.

Robinson, Daniel S., Review of PSG, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 14, 3 (1954), 421f.

Rust, E. C., Review of PSG, Review and Expositor 51 (April, 1954, 253f.)

Shein, L. J., Review of PSG, Journal of Bible and Religion 22,1 (Jan., 1954), 50, 52.

Sheldon, Wilmon H., God and Polarity: A Synthesis of Philosophies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954, 248 ff., 270, 278, 293, 345.

Sophia (Italy), Review of PSG ,22,4 (Dec., 1954).

Taubes, Jacob, Review Article: PSG, Journal of Religion 34, 2 (April, 1954), 120-126.

Whittemore, Robert C., Review of RSP, Personalist 35 (Winter, 1954), 83f.

1955

Earle, William A., Objectivity. New York: The Noonday Press, 1955, Prefatory Note.

Garnett, A. Campbell, Religion and the Moral Life. New York: Ronald Press, 1955, 142n.

Hesketh, Ruth, Review of PSG, Duluth, Minnesota Herald, Feb. 5,1955.

Malinin, V., I. Shchipanov, and N. Tarakanov, "Protiv sovremennykh burzhuaznykh fal’sifikatorov istorii russkoi filosofii" ("Against the Contemporary Bourgeois Falsifiers of the History of Russian Philosophy"), Kommunist, No. 10 (1955), 75f. (Supplied by George L. Kline.)

Meland, Bernard E., Faith and Culture. London: Allen & Unwin, 1955, 49n3.

Nagley, Winfield E., Review of PSG, Philosophy East and West 4, 4 (Jan., 1955), 365f.

Robinson, Daniel S., Crucial Issues in Philosophy. Quincy, Massachusetts; Christopher, 1955, 118f.

Shchipanov, I., See Malinin, V.

Tarakanov, N. C., "Fal’sifikatory istorii russkoi filosofskoi mysli" ("Falsifiers of the History of Russian Philosophic Thought"), Voprosy filosofii, No. 3 (1955), 74, 81f. (Supplied by George L. Kline.)

Tarakanov, N. C. See also Malinin, above.

1956

McIntyre, John, "A Discussion of Some Problems Facing the Modern University," Sydney University Gazette (Australia), Sept., 1956.

Stallknecht, Newton P., Response to Comments, Reviews of Metaphysics 9, 3 (March, 1956), 482.

Whittemore, Robert, "Iqbal’s Panentheism," Review of Metaphysics 9 (June, 1956), 681, 694.

Whittemore, Robert C., "Prolegomena to a Modern Philosophical Theism," Tulane Studies in Philosophy 5 (1956), 91n, 92.

Williams, Donald C., "The Myth of Passage," American Philosophers at Work: The Philosophic Scene in the United States, ed. Sidney Hook. New York: Criterion, 1956, 318, 331n27.

Zuckerkandl, Victor, Sound and Symbol: Music and the External World. New York: Pantheon, 1956, 58n, 59.

1957

Aubrey, Edwin E., "Liberal Protestantism," Patterns of Faith in America Today, ed. F. Ernest Johnson. New York; Harper, 1957, 64n.

Birch, L. Charles, "Creation and the Creator," Journal of Religion 37, 2 (April, 1957), 85, 89, 92, 93, 97nn4, 11, 98nn14,18.

Emory Wheel (Georgia), News Roundup: "Hartshorne Selected Fulbright Lecturer," Oct. 24, 1957, 2.

Gluck, Samuel E., "Report on the Fifth Interamerican Congress of Philosophy," Journal of Philosophy 54, 21 (Oct. 10, 1957), 631.

Martin, William Oliver, The Order and Integration of Knowledge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1957, 355.

Ross, R. G., Review of American Philosophers at Work, ed. Sidney Hook. New Leader, 1957, 23f.

Wacker, Jeanne, "Hartshorne and the Problem of the Immanence of Feeling in Art," Journal of Philosophy 54, 21 (Oct. 10, 1957), 635-644.

Wegener, Frank C., The Organic Philosophy of Education. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co., 1957, 27, 38, 39, 103f, 149, 259-261, 330.

1958

Adler, Mortimer J., The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom. New York: Doubleday, 1958, 404, 425.

Brightman, Edgar Sheffield, Person and Reality. New York: Ronald Press, 1958, 332n.

Christopher, Thomas W., Introduction to "Charles Sanders Peirce: A Symposium," Journal of Public Law 7, 1 (Spring, 1958), 1.

Durfee, Harold A., "Albert Camus and the Ethics of Rebellion," Journal of Religion 38, 1 (Jan., 1958), 39.

Eslick, Leonard J., "Substance, Change, and Causality in Whitehead; Some Remarks in Reply to Professor Hartshorne," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 18, 4 (June, 1958), 503-13.

Farley, Edward, The Transcendence of God: A Study in Contemporary Philosophical Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958, 50, 72, 130-161, 236-239, 248f.

Johnson, A. H., Whitehead’s Philosophy of Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958, 205, 207.

Weiss, Paul, Modes of Being, Vol. One. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1958, 119, 232.

Whittemore, Robert C., "Panentheism," The American People’s Encyclopedia. New York: Grolier, 1958.

1959

Arnold, Harvey, "Under the Tower," The Chicago Theological Seminary Register, 49, 3 (May, 1959), 6.

Browning, Robert W., "Broad’s Theory of Emotion," The Philosophy of C. D. Broad, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, 10, 1959, 654.

Capek, Milic, "Toward the Widening of the Notion of Causality" Diogenes 28 (Winter, 1959), 69.

Collins, James, God in Modern Philosophy. Chicago: Regnery, 1959, 315, 439n1, 441nn28, 29, 34.

Peters, Eugene H., "The Isolated Ego in Modern Theology," Encounter 20, 1 (Winter, 1959), 31.

Pittenger, W. Norman, The Word Incarnate. London: Nisbet; New York: Harpers, 1959, 18, 122, 127 ff., 146, 147 ff., 157, 162, 169-175, 177.

Reese, William L., The Ascent from Below: An Introduction to Philosophical Inquiry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959, 452.

Suetsuna, Joichi, Kagaku to Gendai Bunka. Tokyo: Sogensha, 1959, 119.

1960

Ferrater Mora, José, Philosophy Today: Conflicting Tendencies in Contemporary Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960, 12.

Kaneko, Erika, Report on Group Session III. Proceedings of the 9th International Congress for the History of Religions. Tokyo: Maruzen, 1960, 753.

Hall, Everett W., Philosophical Systems: A Categorial Analysis. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960, 27 [a misquotation].

Martin, Gottfried, Leibniz -- Logic and Metaphysics, tr. Northcott and Lucas. Manchester University Press 1960, 188n5.

Martin, R. M., Discussion: "On Whitehead’s Concept of Abstractive Hierarchies," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 20, (1960), 374n2.

Parker, Francis H., "Head, Heart, and God," Review of Metaphysics 14, 2 (Dec., 1960), 328-352.

Scientific American, Short notice of CPCSP, reprinted by Belknap Press, Aug., 1960.

1961

Capek, Milic, "The Elusive Nature of the Past," Experience, Existence, and the Good; Essays in Honor of Paul Weiss, ed. Irwin C. Lieb. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961, 137, 142.

Capek, Milic, The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics. New York: Van Nostrand, 1961, 163, 186, 358.

Clarke, Bowman L., "God and the Symbolic in Tillich," Anglican Theological Review 43, 3 (July, 1961), 10.

Heinemann, F. H., "Survey of Recent Philosophical and Theological Literature. I. Philosophy" [The Relevance of Whitehead]. Hibbert Journal 59,4 (July, 1961), 364.

Kennick, William E., "On Proving that God Exists," Religions Experience and Truth, ed. Sidney Hook. New York: New York University Press, 1961, 264, 269.

Kline, George L., Review of The Relevance of Whitehead, ed. Ivor Leclerc, Journal of Philosophy 58, 26 (Dec. 21, 1961), 823, 824, 825,826.

Lowe, Victor, Review of William A. Christian, An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics. Philosophical Review 70, 1 (Jan., 1961), 115.

Ogden, Schubert M., Christ without Myth: A Study Based on the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann. New York: Harper, 1961, 131f, 146n, 147, 151f.

Pfuetze, Paul E., Self, Society, Existence. Harper Torchbooks. The Academy Library. New York: Harper, 1961, 222n295, 281, 287n8, 296n152, 301f, 317, 327, 346f, 355n12, 360n80.

Reck, Andrew J., "The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne," Studies in Whitehead’s Philosophy. Tulane Studies in Philosophy Vol. 10. New Orleans: Tulane University, 1961, 89-108.

Stokes, Mack B., The Epic of Revelation; An Essay in Biblical Theology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, 35, 231, 232.

Thomas, J. Heywood, Review of Pittenger, The Word Incarnate, Hibbert Journal 59, 4 (July, 1961), 390.

Wallraff, Charles F., Philosophical Theory and Psychological Fact: An Attempt at Synthesis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1961, 28, 156.

Weiss, Paul, "Thank God, God’s Not Impossible," Religious Experience and Truth, ed. Sidney Hook. New York; New York University Press, 1961, 87.

Whittemore, Robert C., "The Metaphysics of Whitehead’s Feelings," Studies in Whitehead’s Philosophy. Tulane Studies in Philosophy Vol. 10. New Orleans: Tulane University, 1961, 109-110n.

Wilcox, John T., "A Question from Physics for Certain Theists," Journal of Religion 41, 4 (Oct., 1961), 293-300.

Williams, Daniel D., "Deity, Monarchy, and Metaphysics: Whitehead’s Critique of the Theological Tradition," The Relevance of Whitehead, ed. Ivor Leclerc. London: Allen & Unwin, 1961, 364.

1962

Abernethy, George L. and Thomas A. Langford, eds. Philosophy of Religion: A Book of Readings. New York: Macmillan, 1962, 157, 220.

Bultmann, Rudolf, Critical Review of Christ without Myth by Schubert Ogden, Journal of Religion 42, 3 (July, 1962), 226.

Cobb, John B., Jr., Living Options in Protestant Theology: A Survey of Methods. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962, 51, 53, 87, 327.

Dickens, Robert S., "Thoreau and the ‘Other Great Tradition,"’ The Emerson Society Quarterly, No. 29 (1962), Mimeographed, 26, 28nn2,3.

Gillet, Leo, Review of The Logic of Perfection (hereafter LP). 17th Book List by Leo Gillet, Autumn, 1962.

Harvard Alumni Bulletin, Review of LP, 1962.

Harvey, Van A., "A Word in Defense of Schleiermacher’s Theological Method," Journal of Religion 42, 3 (July, 1962), 161, 1⁷0n42.

Hayward, John F., Existentialism and Religious Liberalism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1962, v, 100f.

Kegley, Charles W., "Landmark in Thought": Review of LP, Lutheran 45, 10 (Dec. 5, 1962), 34.

Kelley, Alden Drew, Review of LP, Anglican Theological Review 44, 4 (Oct., 1962), 414-444.

Lowe, Victor, Understanding Whitehead. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962, 14n, 25n, 48n, 108, 109n, 113n, 284n, 319n.

Meland, Bernard E., "Analogy and Myth in Post-Liberal Theology," Perkins School of Theology Journal 5 (Winter, 1962), 22.

Meland, Bernard E., The Realities of Faith. New York: Oxford, 1962, 158, 189, 277f.

Neville, Robert C., Review of LP, Review of Metaphysics 16, 1 (Sept., 1962). 165.

Persich, N. E., Review of LP, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 24 (July, 1962), 341f.

Richardson, Cyril C., "The Strange Fascination of the Ontological Argument," Union Seminary Quarterly Review 18, 1 (Nov., 1962), 1, 2, 5, 6-10.

Robinson, Daniel S., Review of LP, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 23, 2 (Dec., 1962), 283f.

Scher, Jordan M., Theories of the Mind. New York: Free Press, 1962, ix.

Wieman, Henry Nelson, "A Waste We Cannot Afford," Unitarian-Universalist Register-Leader 142, 9 (Nov., 1962), 11-13. (Supplied by Gene Reeves.)

Zabeeh, Farhang, Discussion: "Category-Mistake," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 23, 2 (Dec., 1962), 277f.

1963

Buber, Martin, "Bubers ‘Antwort,’" Martin Buber, Herausgegeben von Paul Arthur Schilpp und Maurice Friedman. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1963, 6141.

Clarke, Bowman L., "God, Time, and Human History," Anglican Theological Review 45, 4 (Oct., 1963), 4, 9,11, 12, 15.

Clarke, Bowman L., "Linguistic Analysis and the Philosophy of Religion," Monist 47, 3 (Spring, 1963). 379n24, 384.

Clarke, Bowman L., Review of LP, Emory University Quarterly 19, 1 (Spring, 1963), 541.

Cobb, John B., Jr., "‘Perfection Exists.’ A Critique of Charles Harts-home," Religion in Life 32, 2 (Spring, 1963), 294-304.

Comstock, W. Richard, "Further Fascination of the Ontological Argument Critical Response, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 18, 3, Part Two (March, 1963), 250n3, 251.

Durfee, Harold A., Review of LP, Journal of Bible and Religion 31, 1 (Jan., 1963), 76-78.

Findlay, J. N., Language, Mind, and Value: Philosophical Essays. London: Allen & Unwin, 1963, 81.

Fitch, Frederic B., "The Perfection of Perfection," Monist 47, 3 (Spring, 1963), 466.

Gibson, A. Boyce, "The Two Strands in Natural Theology," Monist 47, 3 (Spring, 1963), 335n, 363f.

Hartt, Julian, Review of LP, Review of Metaphysics 16, 4 (June, 1963),749-769.

Hick, John H., Philosophy of Religion. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963, 20n.

Hick, John H., Review of LP, Theology Today 20, 2 (July, 1963), 295-298.

Hocking, William Ernest, "Whitehead as I Knew Him," Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963, 11.

Johnstone, Henry W., Jr., Review of LP, Journal of Philosophy 60, 16 (Aug. 1, 1963), 467-473.

Kline, George L., Introduction to Alfred North White head: Essays on His Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963, 4, 5, 196.

Lapoint, George M., "How a Theist Thinks": Review of LP, Humanist #6, 1963, 188f.

Lowe, Victor, "The Concept of Experience in Whitehead’s Metaphysics," Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963, 125, 133n4.

McKinnon, Alastair, Review of LP, Dialogue 2, 2 (Sept., 1963), 229-281.

Macquarrie, John, Twentieth Century Religious Thought. New York: Harper, 1963, 273f, 275, 277, 386, 390.

Nelson, John O., "Modal Logic and the Ontological Proof for God’s Existence," Review of Metaphysics 17, 2 (Dec., 1963), 285-242.

Ogden, Schubert M., Review of LP, Perkins School of Theology Journal 17, 1 (Fall, 1963), 47f.

Ogden, Schubert M., "The Understanding of Theology in Ott and Bultmann," The Later Heidegger and Theology, ed. James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr., New York: Harper, 1963, 159, 171f.

Ogden, Schubert M., "What Sense Does It Make to Say ‘God Acts in History?’" Journal of Religion 43, 1 (Jan., 1963), 1, 7f, 9, 10, 11, 18nn18,22, 19nn 23 ,24-26,28. (Reprinted in The Reality of God,1966.)

Pepper, Stephen C., Review of LP, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Winter, 1963, 224f.

Pfuetze, Paul E., "Martin Buber und der Amerikanisehe Pragmatismus." Martin Buber, Herausgegeben von Paul Arthur Schilpp und Maurice Friedman. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1963, 465, 478nn 34,39.

Pike, Nelson C., Review of LP, Philosophical Review 72, 2 (April, 1963),266-269.

Reck, Andrew I., Review of LP, Journal of Religious Thought 20, 1 (1963), 74-76.

Reeves, Gene, Review of LP, Journal of the Liberal Ministry 3, 2 (Spring, 1963), 109-111.

Rorty, Richard, Comments, Journal of Philosophy 60, 21 (Oct. 10, 1963), American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, Sixtieth Annual Meeting, 606-608.

Rorty, Richard, "Matter and Event," The Concept of Matter, ed. E. McMullin, Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1963, 502n, 510n, 512n.

Rorty, Richard M., "The Subjectivist Principle and the Linguistic Turn," Alfred North Whitehead; Essays on his Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1983, 146, 154n4, 155n15.

Runyan, Mary Edith, "The Relationship between Ontological and Cosmological Arguments," Journal of Religion 63, 1 (Jan., 1963), 56-58.

Shields, Allan, Review of LP, Personalist 44, 2 (Springs, 1963), 252f.

Shuster, George N., Review of LP, Key Reporter, Autumn, 1963, 5.

Smith, John E., Feature Review of LP, Chicago Theological Seminary Register 53, 5 (May, 1963), 41-43.

Taylor, Richard, Metaphysics. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963, 104.

Yale Review, Review of LP, "Reader’s Guide," Summer, 1963.

1964

Barton, W. B., Jr., Review of Leclerc, Whitehead’s Metaphysics; Mays, The Philosophy of Whitehead; Christian, An Interpretation of Whiteheads Metaphysics; Lowe, Understanding Whitehead, Southern Journal of Philosophy 2, 4 (Winter, 1964), 192.

Bertocci, Peter A., Interrogation of Paul Tillich. Philosophical Interrogations (hereafter PI), ed. Sydney and Beatrice Rome. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 377.

Bibliography of Philosophy (R.E.W.), Review of LP, Bibliography of Philosophy Quarterly Bulletin, Item 799 (1964).

Bird, Otto, Review of The Relevance of Whitehead, ed. Ivor Leclerc, New Scholasticism 38, 1 (Jan., 1964), 121, 122.

Blackwell, Richard J., Review of LP, Modern Schoolman 41, 4 (1964), 387f.

Blanshard, Brand, Reply to Hartshorne, PI, 217f.

Capek, Milic, "Memini ergo fui," Actas del XIII Con greso Internacional de Filosofia. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1964.

Capek, Milic, "Simple Location and Fragmentation of Reality," Monist 48, 2 (April, 1964), 211f. Written for Process and Divnity (hereafter PD): The Hartshorne ‘Festschrift’: Philosophical Essays Presented to Charles Hartshorne, ed. William L. Reese and Eugene Freeman. LaSalle: Open Court, 1964.

Clarke, Bowman L., "The Assertive Character of Necessary Statements," Actas del XIII Congreso Internacional de Filosofia. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1964, 64.

Clarke, Bowman L., "Language and Whitehead’s Conception of Speculative Philosophy," PD q. v., 220.

Clarke, Bowman L., "Philosophical Arguments for God," Sophia 3, 3 (Oct., 1964), 4.

Dilley, Frank B., Metaphysics and Religious Language. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964, 43, 60f, 107f, 154n4, 156n10, 158n13, 159n21, 163.

Earle, William A., "Inter-Subjective Time," PD 285.

Findlay, John N., "Some Reflections on Necessary Existence," PD 515-527.

Fisch, Max H., "Bibliography of Writings about Peirce," Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, Second Series, ed. Edward C. Moore and Richard S. Robin. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1964, 496.

Fisch, Max H., "Was There a Metaphysical Club in Cambridge?" Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, Second Series, ed. Edward C. Moore and Richard S. Robin. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1964, 10f, 22.

Fitch, Frederic B., "The Perfection of Perfection," PD 529.

Freeman, Eugene, Introduction to PD, v, vi

Gibson, A. Boyce, "The Two Strands in Natural Theology," PD 491f. Hibbert Journal, Review of PSG, April, 1964.

Holmer, Paul L., Review of Religious Experience and Truth, A Symposium, ed. Sidney Hook, Theology Today 20, 4 (Jan., 1964), 585.

Kline, George L., "Whitehead in the Non-English-Speaking World," PD 238, 263, 266, 267.

Levi, Albert William, PD vi, 139.

Lichtigfeld, A., "Jaspers und Whitehead," Philosophia Naturalis Band 8, Heft 3 (1964), 306n39.

Lowe, Victor, "Peirce and Whitehead as Metaphysicians," Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, Second Series, ed. Edward C. Moore and Richard S. Robin. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1964, 431, 451, 453.

Martin, R. M., "Ontology, Category-Words, and Modal Logic," PD 273, 279.

Medlin, Brian, Review of Theories of the Mind, ed. Jordan M. Scher, Mind 73 (1964), 599.

Meland, Bernard E., "The Logic of Becoming," Review of LP, Religious Education 59 (1964), 351.

Meland, Bernard E., "New Perspectives on Nature and Grace," The Scope of Grace: Essays in Honor of Joseph Sittler, ed. Philip J. Hefner. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964, 152, 160.

Meland, Bernard E., "The Self and its Communal Ground," Religious Education 59, 5 (Sept-Oct., 1964), 368.

Mueller, David L., Review of LP, Review and Exposition, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 61 (Summer, 1964), 238f.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Beyond Supernaturalism," Religion in Life 33, 1 (Winter, 1963-1964), 13, 15-18.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Bultmann’s Demythologizing and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism," PD 493-513.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Theology and Philosophy: A New Phase of the Discussion," Journal of Religion 44, 1 (Jan., 1964), 3-16.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Zur Frage der ‘richtigen’ Philosophie," Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 61, 1 (April, 1964), 103-124.

Parsons, Howard L., "Religious Naturalism and the Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne," PD 533-560.

Philosophical Studies, Review of PSG. 1964, 334.

Price, H. H., "Response to Hartshorne," Faith and the Philosophers, ed. John Hick. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964, 33-37.

Reck, Andrew J., "Recent Interpretations of American Philosophy," Review of Metaphysics 18 (1964), 354, 355.

Reck, Andrew J., Review of LP, Journal of Religious Thought 20, 1 (1963-1964), 74-76.

Redmond, Howard A., The Omnipotence of God. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964, 70-73, 181nn83-89.

Reese, William L., "Non-Being and Negative Reference," PD 321n, 323. Reese, William L., Review of Divine Perfection by Frederick Sontag, Journal of Religion 44, 3 (July, 1964), 266.

Richardson, David B., ‘Philosophies of Hartshorne and Teilhard de Chardin: Two Sides of the Same Coin?" Southern Journal of Philosophy 2, 3 (Fall, 1964), 107-115.

Rome, Sydney C. and Beatrice K., Introduction to PI, 8, 10.

Silverman, David Wolf, Review of PSG, Conservative Judaism (Summer, 1964), 73f.

Smith, Huston, "The Death and Rebirth of Metaphysics," PD 37, 43n, 47.

Stokes, Walter E., "‘Whitehead’s Challenge to Theistic Realism," New Scholasticism, 38, 1 (Jan., 1964), 7n7.

Tillich, Paul, Reply to Hartshorne, P1, 376f, 378.

Tulloch, D. M., Review of LP, Philosophical Quarterly 14, 56 (July, 1964), 275f. (Supplied by Gene Reeves).

Vogel, Murel R., S. J., Review of LP, July, 1964, 409-411.

Weiss, Paul, "Experience," PD 307n.

Weiss, Paul, The God We Seek. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964, 28n.

Werkmeister, W. H., Review of LP, Personalist 45, 4 (Autumn, 1964), 557. The Western Humanities Review, "Lecomte du Noüy Award,’ June 4, 1964, 192.

Wild, John, ‘Devotion and Fanaticism, PD 445f.

Wild, John, Reply to Hartshorne. P1160-162.

Williams, Daniel Day, "How Does God Act? An Essay in Whitehead’s Metaphysics," PD 164n, 171n, 177.

Williamson, Clark M, Review of Alfred North Whitehead, Essays on His Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline, Journal of Religion 44, 4 (Oct., 1964), 345, 346.

Wright, Sewall, "Biology and the Philosophy of Science," Monist 48, 2 (April, 1964), 265,283,289. Also PD 101,118, 124.

1965

Austin American, "UT Prof. Honored on 65th Birthday," March 14, 1965.

Bernstein, Richard J., Preface to Perspectives on Peirce, ed. Richard J. Bernstein. New Haven: Yale, 1965, v-vii.

Birch, L. Charles, Nature and God. London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1965, dedication, 9f, 13, 49, 62, 67, 76f, 94f, 97, 112, 116 ff., 120 ff., 124f.

Browning, Douglas, Preface to Philosophers of Process, ed. Douglas Browning. New York: Random House, 1965, xxiii, xxv.

Choice, Review of PD 2, 3 (May, 1965).

Cobb, John B., Jr., A Christian Natural Theology: Based on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1965, Dedication, 16n, 20, 84n, 90f, 166n, 188n, ²60n, 282n.

Cobb, John B., Jr., "Christian Natural Theology and Christian Existence," Christian Century 82, 9 (March 3, 1965), 265.

Cobb, John B., Jr., "Christianity and Myth," Journal of Bible and Religion 33, 4 (Oct., 1965), 318.

Cobb, John B., Jr., Review of The Hartshorne Festschrift, Journal of Religion 45, 4 (Oct., 1965), 335-337.

Ferrater Mora, José, Dictionario de Filosofia. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1965, Vol. 1, 807f.

Gilkey, Langdon, "Dissolution and Reconstruction in Theology," Christian Century 82, 5 (Feb. 3, 1965), 135.

Harris, Errol E., The Foundations of Metaphysics in Science. New York: Humanities Press, 1965, 453.

Harvey, Van A., "The Nature and Function of Faith," Christian Century 82,31 (Aug. 4, 1965), 964.

King-Farlow, John, "Precosmological Hypotheses," Sophia (University of Melbourne, Australia) 4, 1 (April, 1965), 24.

Knight, Thomas S., Charles Peirce. New York: Washington Square Press, 1965, 193.

Lamont, Corliss, The Philosophy of Humanism, Fifth Edition. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1965, 161f, 295.

Love, Thomas T., "Theravada Buddhism: Ethical Theory and Practice," Journal of Bible and Religion 33, 4 (Oct., 1965), 307n.

Lyttkens, H., "Der ontologisehe Cottesbeweis in der modernen philosophischen Diskussion," Neue Zeitschrift fur Systematisehe Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 7, 2 (1965), 129-142.

Macquarrie, John, Studies in Christian Existentialism. London, SCM, 1966, 165, 191-192. American ed., 1965.

Meland, Bernard E., Higher Education and the Human Spirit. Paperback, Seminary Cooperative Bookstore, 1965, 91, 125, 186, 187, 192, 193.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Faith and Truth," Christian Century 82, 35 (Sept.1,1965). 1060.

Ogden, Schubert M., "The Possibility and Task of Philosophical Theology," Union Seminary Quarterly Review 20, 3 (March, 1965), 275, 277f.

Pittenger, W. Norman, Review of PD, Religion in Life 34, 3 (Summer 1965), 462f.

Priesthood and Leaders Journal, Review of PD, Sept., 1965.

Smith, John E., "Philosophy of Religion in America," Religion, ed. Paul Ramsey. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965, 359, 378, 382, 403, 406, 413, 419, 420, 424; 430, 431, 438-447.

Stokes, Walter E., S. J., "Is God Really Related to this World?" Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1965, 144-146.

Weiss, Paul, "Charles S. Peirce, Philosopher," Perspectives on Peirce: Critical Essays on Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Richard J. Bernstein. New Haven: Yale, 1965, 139.

Weiss, Paul, "Biography of Charles Sanders Peirce," Perspectives on Peirce: Critical Essays on Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. Richard J. Bernstein, New Haven: Yale, 1965, 12.

Welch, Claude, "Theology," Religion, ed. Paul Ramsey. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965, 261, 262.

Williams, James C., "Possibility in Principle and Possibility in Fact: A Criticism of Bultmann’s Distinction," Journal of Bible and Religion 33, 4 (Oct., 1965), 323n8, 325.

Zaslawsky, Denis, Review of PD, Revue de théologie et de philosophic (Lausanne), No. 3 (1965), 185f.

1966

Barbour, Ian G., Issues in Science and Religion. London: SCM, 1966, and Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966, 130n, 314n, 334, 444 ff., 457.

Baumer, William H., "Ontological Arguments Still Fail," Monist 50, 1 (Jan., 1966), 137-142.

Browning, Don S., Atonement and Psychotherapy. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966, 9, 154-161, 185, 278, 280.

Bultmann, Rudolf, "Reply," The Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, ed. Charles W. Kegley. New York: Harper, 1966, 273, 275.

Burkle, Howard, Review of The Omnipotence of Cod by Howard A. Redmond, Journal of Bible and Religion 34, 1 (Jan., 1966), 69.

Chicago Theological Seminary Register, "Editor’s Choice," Review of Anselm’s Discovery (hereafter AD) 56, 8 (June, 1966), 31.

Choice, Review of AD 3,7 (Sept., 1966), 530.

Clarke, Bowman L., Language and Natural Theology. The Hague: Mouton, 1966, 10, 69, 82, 100, 101, 106n, 108, 114, 116, 118, 119, 121.

Dillenberger, John, "Paul Tillich: Theologian of Culture," Paul Tillich:

Retrospect and Future. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966, 37, 38.

Ford, Lewis S., Review of A Christian Natural Theology by John B. Cobb, Jr., Journal of Bible and Religion 34, 1 (Jan., 1966), 62.

Glasse, John, "Doing Theology Metaphysically: Austin Farrer," Harvard Theological Review 59, 4 (Oct., 1906), 348.

Hammond, Guyton B., Review of AD, Religion in Life, Winter, 1966, 799f.

Hatchett, Marion J., "Charles Hartshorne’s Critique of Christian Theology," Anglican Theological Review 48, 3 (1966). 264-275.

Johnson, A. H., Review of The Hartshorne Festschrift, Dialogue 4 (1965-1966), 389-391.

Kantonen, T. A., Introduction, Paul Tillich: Retrospect and Future (see above), 3.

Kroner, Richard, Between Faith and Thought: Reflections and Suggestions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966, 32.

Lachs, John, "Two Concepts of God," Harvard Theological Review 59, 3 (July, 1966), 239.

Laszlo, Ervin, Beyond Skepticism and Realism: A Constructive Exploration of Husserlian and Whiteheadian Methods of Inquiry. The Hague; Martinus Nijhoff, 1966, 129f, 146f.

Macquarrie, John, Principles of Christian Theology. New York: Scribner’s, 1966, 43n6.

Macquarrie, John, Studies in Christian Existentialism. London: SCM, 1966, 191f.

Madden, Edward H. and Peter H. Hare, "Evil and Unlimited Power," Review of Metaphysics 20, 2 (Dec., 1966), 278-89.

Magee, John B., "God Talk," Alumnus of University of Puget Sound 8, 4, 10.

Martin, James Alfred, Jr., The New Dialogue Between Philosophy and Theology. New York: Seabury Press, 1966, 198, 199.

Nichi-Bei Foramu, "1966 Nendo Kyoto Amerika Kenkyu Kaki Semina," 13, 3. Tokyo: Bei Koku Taishikan Koho Bunkakyoku Shuppanbu, 1967, 2.

Ogden, Thomas, Review of The Meaning of Christian Values Today, Journal of Bible and Religion 34, 1 (Jan., 1966), 76.

Ogden, Schubert M., "The Christian Proclamation of God to Men of the So-called ‘Atheistic Age,"’ Is God Dead? Concillium 16 (June, 1966), ed. Johannes Metz. New York: Paulist Press, 1966, 97.

Ogden, Schubert M., The Reality of God and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1966, x, 21, 24, 43, 48, 50, 55, 56, 59f, 61, 63, 77, 83, 94 ff., 97f, 124, 125, 150, 163, 172, 175, 176, 178, 222, 223.

Ogden, Schubert M., "The Significance of Bultmann for Contemporary Theology," The Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, ed. Charles W. Kegley. New York: Harper, 1966, 123n36, 125f.

Peters, David, Review of PD, Journal of Bible and Religion 34, 1 (Jan., 1966), 57-60.

Peters, Eugene H., The Creative Advance: An Introduction to Process Philosophy as a Context for Christian Faith. The Library of Contemporary Theology. St. Louis: The Bethany Press (1966), 151 pages, passim.

Peters, Eugene H., "A Framework for Christian Thought," Journal of Religion 46, 3 (July, 1966), 377f.

Platt, David, "Some Perplexities Concerning God’s Existence," Journal of Bible and Religion 34, 3 (July, 1966), 246 ff., 249 ff., 252.

Purtill, R. L., "Hartshorne’s Modal Proof," Journal of Philosophy 63, 14 (July 14, 1966), 397-409.

Reinelt, Herbert R., "Necessity as Logical and Material," Pacific Philosophy Forum 4, 4 (May, 1966), 11n.

Robinson, Daniel S., Review of PD, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 26, 3 (1966), 461f.

Scharlemann, R. P., Review of PD, Personalist 47 (1966), 265.

Van Nuys, Kelvin, Is Reality Meaningful? Static Contradictions and Dynamic Resolutions Between Fact and Value. New York: Philosophical Library, 1966, 227f, 252, 275, 321f., 552 ff., 569, 589 fn., 592, 597 nn 16,17,18.

Wells, Robert Dalling and Constance Rodger Emerson, "God, Consciousness and Panentheism," Encompass: A Journal of Synthesis, a Project of the Foundation for Philosophic Understanding, Aug-Sept., 1966, 6-11, 55, 56.

Westphal, Merold, Review of AD, Review of Metaphysics 20, 1 (Sept., 1966), 152.

Westphal, Merold, "Temporality and Finitism in Hartshorne’s Theism," Review of Metaphysics 19, 3 (March, 1966), 550-564.

1967

Anderson, Robert T., Review of The Reality of God by Schubert M. Ogden, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 35, 3 (Sept., 1967), 296.

Barnhart, J. E., "Incarnation and Process Philosophy," Religious Studies 2, 2 (1967), 228n2, 232.

Bibliography of Philosophy (M.H.W.), Review of AD, 14 (1967), item

342.

Blumer, Frederick E., Review of Faith and the Vitalities of History by Philip Hefner, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 35, 3 (Sept., 1967). 301.

Brown, Delwin, "Recent Process Theology," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 35, 1 (March, 1967), 30n, 33, 34f, 39.

Brown, Norman, Review of AD, Dialogue 6, 2 (Sept., 1967), 248-52.

Buber, Martin, "Replies to My Critics," The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. The Library of Living Philosophers, 12. La Salle: Open Court, 1967, 717.

Capek, Milic, "Change," Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards. New York; Macmillan & The Free Press, 1967, Vol. 2, 79.

Capek, Milic, "Time and Eternity in Royce and Bergson," Revue internationale de Philosophie 101, 79-80 (1967, Fasc. 1-2), 36n14.

Clarke, Bowman L., Review of The Creative Advance, Eugene H. Peters, Journal of Religion 47, 4 (Oct., 1967), 375.

Cleobury, F. H., Return to Natural Theology. London: James Clarke & Co., 1967, 141, 142.

Cobb, John B., Jr., "Christian Natural Theology and Christian Existence," Frontline Theology, ed. Dean Peerman. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1967, 22.

Cobb, John B., Jr., "Speaking About God," Religion in Life 36, 1 (Spring, 1967), 35.

Cobb, John B., Jr., Review of A Natural Theology for Our Time (hereafter NTOT), Religious Education 42, 6 (Nov.-Dec., 1967), 533.

Devaux, André A., "Bibliographie des traductions d’ouvrages de Royce et des études sur l’oeuvre de Royce," Revue internationole de Philosaphie 101, 79-80 (1967, Fasc. 1-2), 170.

DeWolf, L. Harold, Review of Studies in Christian Existentialism by John Macquarrie, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 35, 3 (Sept., 1967), 297.

Diamond, Malcolm L., "Contemporary Analysis; the Metaphysical Target and the Theological Victim," Journal of Religion 47, 3 (July, 1967), 210f, 228-230, 231nn1,38.

Díaz Blaitry, Tobías, La Idea de Dios en Charles Hartshorne: Tesis para optar al titulo de doctor. Madrid, octubre de 1963. Extracto. Panama: Universidad de Panama, 1967, 169 pp.

Eddis, Charles W., "Bright New Theologian," Register-Leader, October, 1967, 17.

Edwards, Paul, "Panpsychism," Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Edwards, Editor-in-chief. New York: Macmillan and The Free Press, 1967, Vol. 6, 31.

Emmet, Dorothy M, "Alfred North Whitehead," Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 8, 295.

Farrer, Austin, Faith and Speculation: An Essay in Philosophical Theology. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1967,140.

Ferré, Frederick, Basic Modern Philosophy of Religion. New York: Scribners, 1967, 139n, 154, 431n.

Ferré, Frederick, Review of The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Schilpp and Friedman, Religion in Life 36, 4 (Winter, 1967), 628.

Ford, Lewis S., "Divine Persuasion and the Triumph of the Good, Christian Scholar 50, 3 (Fall, 1967), 235.

Gilkey, Langdon, "Dissolution and Reconstruction in Theology," Front-line Theology," ed. Dean Peerman, q. v. under Cobb, 29.

Gilkey, Langdon, "Social and Intellectual Sources of Contemporary Protestant Theology in America," Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 96, 1 ‘Winter, 1967), 85, 86.

Griffin, David, "Schubert Ogden’s Christology and the Possibilities of Process Philosophy," Christian Scholar 50, 3 (Fall, 1967), 292, 298n41, 301.

Hamilton, Peter N., The Living God and the Modern World: Christian Theology Based on the Thought of A. N. Whitehead. Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1967, 22f, 25, 43, 54, 83, 91, 133-141, 159, 167, 179, 242. English edition -- London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1967, same page nos.

Hart, Ray L. "Schubert Ogden on the Reality of Cod," Religion in Life 36, 4 (Winter, 1967), 508.

Hartman, Robert S., The Structure of Value: Foundations of Scientific Axiology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967, 323n40, 336n18.

Harvey, Van A., "The Nature and Function of Faith," Frontline Theology, ed. Dean Peerman, q. v. under Cobb, 112.

Hick, John, Introduction to "The Argument in Recent Philosophy," 218. "A Critique of the ‘Second Argument,’" 341, 348-353. Selected Bibliography, 367. The Many-Faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, ed. John Hick and Arthur C. McGill. New York: Macmillan, 1967.

Hick, John, "Ontological Argument for the Existence of God," Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 5, 540, 541, 542.

Hospers, John, "Problems of Aesthetics," Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. I, 56.

James, Ralph E., The Concrete God: A New Beginning for Theology -- The Thought of Charles Hartshorne. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967, 236 pp.

Kaufman, Maynard, "Post-Christian Aspects of the Radical Theology," Toward a New Christianity, ed. Thomas J. J. Altizer, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967, 357.

Kitagawa, Joseph M., "Primitive, Classical and Modern Religions," The History of Religions: Essays on the Problem of Understanding, ed. Joseph M. Kitagawa. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967, 64.

Lamont, Corliss, Freedom of Choice Affirmed. New York: Horizon Press, 1967, 10, 52f, 90, 106-108, 131f.

Lukanov, D. article "Realizm" ("Realism"), in F. V. Konstantinov, et al., eds., Filosofskaia entsiklopediia (Encyclopedia of Philosophy), five vols. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo "Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia," 1960-1970: IV (1967, 475. (Supplied by C. L. Kline.)

Macquarrie, John, "Subjectivity and Objectivity in Theology and Worship," Worship 41, 3 (March, 1967).

Marty, Martin E., "Introduction: American Protestant Theology Today Frontline Theology, ed. Dean Peerman, q. v. under Cobb, 22.

Mascall, E. L., Review of AD, Religious Studies 3, 1 (Oct., 1967), 4171

Matsunobu, Keiji, Introduction to The Social Conception of the Universe Charles Hartshorne. Tokyo: Aoyama, and New York: Macmillan 1967, iii, iv.

McGill, Arthur C. (see John Hick, 1967).

Montgomery, John Warwick, "A Philosophical-Theological Critique of the Death of God Movement," The Meaning of the Death of God, ed. Bernard Murchland, New York; Random House and Vintage Books, 1967, 46, 65n99.

Neville, Robert C., "Some Historical Problems about the Transcendence of God., Journal of Religion 47, 1 (Jan., 1967), 1, 6, 7, 9n17.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Faith and Truth," Frontline Theology, ed. Dean Peerman, q. v. under Cobb, 133.

Ogletree, Thomas W., "A Christological Assessment of Dipolar Theism," Journal of Religion 47, 2 (April, 1967), 87-99. (Reprinted in PPCT 331-46.)

Overman, Richard H., Evolution and the Christian Doctrine of Creation: A Whiteheadian Interpretation. Philadelphia; Westminster, 1967, 173-174n25, 276n203, 278n205.

Pailin, David A., "Some Philosophical Problems in Presenting the Gospel Today," London Quarterly and Holborn Review, Jan., 1967, 22-23, 27.

Pailin, David A., "Christian and Atheist? An Introductory Attempt to Understand the Theology of the ‘Death of God,’" London Quarterly and Holborn Review, Oct., 1967, 273, 298.

Parker, Francis H., "The Realistic Position in Religion," Religion in Philosophical and Cultural Perspective: A New Approach to the Philosophy of Religion through Cross-Disciplinary Studies, ed. J. Clayton Feaver and William Horosz. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1967, 78, 101f, 104, 105, 108f, 110n1, 111n26, 112nn 33,34,35,40,41,113.

Parkin, Vincent, Review of Issues in Science and Religion, Ian G. Barbour, London Quarterly and Holborn Review, Oct., 1967, 354.

Peters, Eugene H., "A Theological Typology," Hiram College Alumni Broadcaster 38, 2 (July, 1967), 11f.

Pfuetze, Paul E., "Buber and American Pragmatism," The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. The Library of Living Philosophers, 12. La Salle: Open Court, 1967, 53ln33, 532, 540.

Pittenger, W. Norman, God in Process. London; SCM, 1967, 78ff, 98.

Pittenger, W. Norman, "Some Implications, Philosophical and Theological, in John Knox’s Writing." Christian History and Interpretation:Studies Presented to John Knox, ed. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule and R. R. Niebuhr. Cambridge; The University Press, 1967. 4, 11f.

Pittenger, W. Norman, "Toward a More Christian Theology," Religion in Life, 36, 4 (Winter, 1967), 500.

Purtill, R. L., "Ontological Modalities," Review of Metaphysics 21, 2 (Dec., 1967), 297-307.

Rhodes, O. Thompson, "Your God Is Too Big," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 35, 1 (March, 1967), 48f.

Robinson, Daniel S., Review of AD, Philosophy and Phenonenological Research 27, 3 (March, 1967), 4461.

Robinson, John A. T., Exploration into God. London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1967, 77, 83n4, 95.

Schmidt, Paul F., Perception and Cosmology in Whitehead’s Philosophy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1967, 184.

Sherburne, Donald W., "Whitehead without God," Christian Scholar 50, (Fall, 1967), 255-257, 259, 264f 267 ff. (Reprinted in PPCT 2061, 309-12, 319-24.)

Smith, John E., Review of AD, Journal of Religion 47, 4 (Oct., 1967),

363-366.

Taylor, Richard, "Determinism." Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1967, Vol. II, 361, 363, 373.

Voskuil, Duane, "The Relation of Transmutation and Omniscience in Whitehead’s Cosmology," Dianoia (Graduate Philosophy Club, The University of Missouri, Columbia), No. 3, (Winter, 1967), 35, 41, 46, 48, 49.

Weiss, Paul, The Making of Men. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967, Dedication.

Williams, Daniel Day, "Psychological Insight"; Review of Atonement and Psychotherapy by Don S. Browning, Christian Century, 84, 24 (June, 14, 1967), 784.

1968

Abe Masao, "Christianity and Buddhism Centering around Science and Nihilism," Japanese Religions 5, 3 (July. 1968), 42-48.

Abernethy, George L. and Thomas A. Langford, eds., Philosophy of Religion: A Book of Readings. Second Edition. New York; Macmillan. 1968, vii, 165, 169, 247, 251, 321.

Bernhardt, William H., Review of BH [Bison Book] Christian Advocate. Dec. 26, 1968.

Bernstein, Richard J., Review of NTOT, Review of Metaphysics 22, 1 (Sept.; 1968), 146.

Bigger, Charles, Participation: A Platonic Inquiry. Baton Rouge; Louisiana University Press, 1968, 79, 150-151.

Braine, David, Review of AD, Mind 77 (1968), 447-450.

Browning, Douglas, "Creativity, Correspondence, and Statements about the Future," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 28,4 (June, 1968).

Cahn, Steven M., Review of NTOT, Journal of Philosophy 65, 8 (April 18, 1968), 231-233.

Choice, Review of NTOT, Jan., 1968.

Christian Century, Review of BH [Bison Book], Christian Century 85, 37 (Sept. 11, 1968), 1144.

Cobb, John B., Jr., ‘The Theological Task," Philosophy and Religion: Some Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Jerry H. Gill. Minneapolis Burgess, 1968, 203nn3, l4.

Collins, James, Review of NTOT, Modern Schoolman 45 (May, 1968) 359-360.

Desjardins, Rosemary, Review of Lamont’s Freedom of Choice Affirmed, Review of Metaphysics 22, 1 (Sept., 1968), 147.

Dobzhansky, Theodosius, "Teilhard de Chardin and the Orientation of Evolution: A Critical Essay," Zygon 3 (1968), 255.

Dürr, Karl, "Lewis and the History of Logic," The Philosophy of C. I. Lewis, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp, The Library of Living Philosophers 13. LaSalle: Open Court, 1968, 108.

Findlay, J. N., "Can God’s Existence Be Disproved?" Philosophy of Religion A Book of Readings. Second Edition, ed. George L. Abernethy and Thomas A. Langford. New York; Macmillan, 1968, 219.

Ford, Lewis S., "Boethius and Whitehead on Time and Eternity," International Philosophical Quarterly 8, 1 (March, 1968), 38. 51, 52, 60, 63f, 66.

Ford, Lewis S., "Is Process Theism Compatible with Relativity Theory?" Journal of Religion 48, 2 (April, 1968), 124, 125, 129, 130, 131.

Ford, Lewis S., "Whitehead’s Conception of Divine Spatiality," Southern Journal of Philosophy 6, 1 (Spring, 1968), 1, 4n5.

Gill, Jerry H., "Introduction; The Process Perspective." Philosophy and Religion: Some Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Jerry H. Gill, Minneapolis; Burgess, 1968, iii, 160.

Hick, John H., "The Justification of Religious Belief," Theology 71 (March, 1968), 573.

Hick, John, "Process Theology; A Critical View," recorded for the BBC London, May 1, 1968. Broadcast June 13, 1968.

Hoerr, Stanley O. Jr., Review of Philosophy of Religion, ed. C. L. Abernethy and T. A. Langford. Review of Metaphysics 22, 1 (Sept., 1968) 162.

Horosz, William, Review of NTOT, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 29, 1 (Sept., 1968), 130-133.

Kaufman, Gordon D., "On the Meaning of ‘Act of God,’" Harvard Theological Review 61, 2 (April, 1968).

Kitawaga, Joseph M., "Chaos, Order, and Freedom in World Religions" The Concept of Order, ed. Paul G. Kuntz. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968, 288n.

Kuntz, Paul G., Introduction to The Concept of Order, ed. Paul G. Kuntz. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968, xi, xiv, xviii, xxvii, xxx, xxxi.

Kuntz, Paul C., Review of NTOT, Religion in Life 37, 1 (Spring, 1968), 156f.

Le Fevre, Perry, ‘Theology and Philosophy in the Recent Past -- An Introductory Essay." Philosophical Resources for Christian Thought, ed. Perry Le Fevre. Nashville; Abingdon Press, 1968, 37n.

Lewis, C. I., "Autobiography" and "The Philosopher Replies," The Philosophy of C. I. Lewis, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, 13. LaSalle: Open Court, 1968, 16, 667f.

Madden, Edward H. and Peter H. Hare, Evil and the Concept of God. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1968, 46-51, 104, 115-125, 132, 134f Malone, Pat, Review of BH [Bison Book], 1968, Atlanta Constitution and Journal, Atlanta, Georgia, Sept. 8, 1968.

Meilach, Michael D., O.F.M., "God and Metaphysics in a World Come of Age; Review Article," The Cord, Monthly Review of the Franciscan Institute, St. Bonaventure University 18, 4 (April, 1968), 117, 120.

Meland, Bernard E., "The Structure of Christian Faith," Religion in Life 37,4 (Winter, 1968), 553f, 555.

Neville, Robert C., God the Creator: On the Transcendence and Presence of God. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968, 2, 11, 21n, 42, 78, 103, 108f, 131f, 144-147, 261, 266.

Ogden, Schubert M., "God and Philosophy: A Discussion with Antony Flew," Journal of Religion 48, 2 (April, 1968), 161-181 passim.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Theology and Objectivity," Philosophy and Religion: Some Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Jerry H. Gill. Minneapolis: Burgess, 1968, 214, 222, 225nn20, 21, 226nn41, 43, 44, 227nn46, 47.

Outler, Albert C., Who Trusts in God: Musings on the Meaning of Providence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968, 42.

Pailin David A., "Some Comments on Hartshorne’s Presentation of the Ontological Argument," Religious Studies 4 (Oct., 1968), 103-122.

Parmentier, Alix, La Philosophie de Whitehead et le Problème de Dieu. Bibliothèque des Archives de Philosophie -- Nouvelle Série 7. Paris: Beauchesne, 1968. passim.

Peters, Eugene H., "A Theological Typology," Lexington Theological Quarterly 3, 1 (Jan., 1968), 26f.

Phillips, Dewi Z., "Religious Belief and Philosophical Enquiry," Theology 71, 573 (March, 1968).

Pittenger, W. Norman, Process-Thought and Christian Faith. Welwyn, England: James Nisbet & Co., Ltd., 1968, Dedication, vii, x, 4, 8, 22, 55, 66-69, 74, 77, 79 ff., 85, 97f. American ed. New York: Macmillan, 1968.

Reck, Andrew J., "The Fox Alone Is Death: Whitehead and Speculative Philosophy," American Philosophy and the Future: Essays for a New Generation, ed. Michael Novak. New York: Scribner’s, 1968, 155, 159. 161f, 163f, 168nn93,94, 171nn133-141, 172n142.

Reck, Andrew J., The New American Philosophers: An Exploration of Thought Since World War II. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968, xvi ff., 77, 80, 291-314, 316, 346 ff. Also Delta Paperback.

Reck, Andrew J., "Paul Weiss’s Philosophical Journal," Review of Metaphysics 21, 4 (June, 1968), 712.

Richardson, David B., Berdyaev’s Philosophy of History: An Existentialist Theory of Social Creativity and Eschatology. The Hague; Martinus Nijhoff, 1968, Dedication, xx, xxi, xxii.

Rivista di Estetica, Review of "The Aesthetics of Birdsong," Fascicolo 3, 1968, Istituto di Estetica, Università di Torino (Turin, Italy).

Robinson, N. H. G., Review of NTOT, Scottish Journal of Theology 21, 3 (Sept., 1968), 345-347.

Schurr, A., Review Article; "Anselm’s Discovery," Philosophische Rundschau 15. Jahrgang, Heft 4 (Nov., 1968), 274-282.

Settle, T. W., Review of NTOT, Dialogue -- Canadian Philosophical Review 7, 1 (1968), 131-134.

Smith, John E., Experience and God. New York; Oxford, 1968, 94.

Towne, Edgar A., "Metaphysics as Method in Charles Hartshorne’s Thought," Southern Journal of Philosophy 6, 3 (Fall, 1968), 125-142.

Weedon, William S., "The Dialectic of Atomism," World Perspectives in Philosophy, Religion and Culture, Presented to Professor Datta by the Bihar Darshan Parishad, 30, ed. Ram Jee Siugh. Patna; Bharati Bhawan, 1968, 14.

Williams, Daniel Day, The Spirit and the Forms of Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1968, xii, 91, 105-107, 121, 124.

1969

Adams, Robert Merrihew, Review of NTOT, Philosophical Review 78 (Jan., 1969), 129-131.

Alston, William P., "Comment," Directives from Charles Hartshorne and Henry Nelson Wieman Critically Analyzed (hereafter DCH). Philosophy of Creativity Monograph Series. Vol. 1. Carbondale; The Foundation for Creative Philosophy, Inc., 1969, 15-18.

Baumer, William H., Review of NTOT, Bibliography of Philosophy, SUNY at Buffalo, June 23, 1969, item 1298.

Berndtson, Arthur, Art, Expression, and Beauty. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1969, 77-83, 130f.

Bertocci, Peter A., "The Person God Is," Talk of God: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Volume Two, 1967-1968. London: Macmillan, 1969, 193n.

Brown, Patterson (see Alan G. Nasser).

Buchler, Justus, "On a Strain of Arbitrariness in Whitehead’s System," Journal of Philosophy 61, 19 (Oct. 2, 1969).

Cauthen, Kenneth, Science, Secularization, and God: Toward a Theology of the Future. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1969, 96n13, 102n30, 106n38, 114n62, 149n20, 150f, 164-169, 177, 178, 182, 186f, 191n38, 224.

Connelly, Robert J., "The Ontological Argument; Descartes’ Advice to Hartshorne," New Scholasticism. 63, 4 (Autumn, 1969), 530-554.

Davis, John W., Comment, DCH 19-23.

Deegan, Dan L., Review of James, The Concrete God, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 37, 1 (March, 1969), 111f.

Dyer, J. W. (see Reeves, 1969).

Edwards, Rem B., Freedom, Responsibility and Obligation. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969, xi, 68, 80, 126.

Ferrater Mora, José La Filosofia actual. El Libro de Bolsillo. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1969, 22.

Ferrater Mora, José, "Metaphysics,Contemporary Philosophy; A Survey, ed. Raymond Klibansky. Florence: La Uuova Italia Editrice, 1969, 4,8.

Ford, Lewis S., Review of NTOT, Journal of Religion 49, 3 (July, 1969), 305, 306.

Garelick, Herbert M., Comment, DCH 27f.

Garrett, Leroy James, Comment, DCH 29f.

Gilkey, Langdon, Naming the Whirlwind: The Renewal of God-Language. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969, 76n, 186n, 187, 201, 205-206n14, 207, 211, 213n, 227.

Golightly, Cornelius L., Comment, DCH 28f.

Hahn, Lewis E., "Creativity in Hartshorne’s World View"; Response; Comment, DCH 3-14, 23, 26.

Hartshorne, Dorothy C., Comment, DCH 30f.

Hefner, Philip J., "Towards a New Doctrine of Man: The Relationship of Man and Nature," The Future of Empirical Theology, ed. Meland, q.v., 235.

Henry, Carl F. H., "The Reality and Identity of God: A Critique of Process-Theology -- First of Two Parts," Christianity Today 13, 12 (1969), 524. "The Reality and Identity of God, Part II," Christianity Today 13, 13 (1969), 13-15.

Keen, Sam, "Manifesto for a Dionysian Theology," Transcendence, ed. Herbert W. Richardson and Donald R. Cutler. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969, 44.

Kegley, Charles W., Comment, DCH 26f.

Klibansky, Raymond, Introduction, Contemporary Philosophy: A Survey, ed. Raymond Klibansky. Florence, La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1969, 4, 8.

Kuntz, Paul G., Comment, DCH 25.

Loomer, Bernard M., "Empirical Theology within Process Thought," The Future of Empirical Theology, ed. Meland, q. v., 167-169, 172.

Meland, Bernard E., The Future of Empirical Theology, ed. Bernard E. Meland. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969, 5, 40, 41, 42, 51, 56.

Minor, William S., Introduction, DCH xi f.

Nasser, Alan G., and Patterson Brown, Discussion: "Hartshorne’s Epistemic Proof," Australian Journal of Philosophy, 47, 1 (May, 1969),61-64.

Nobile, Philip, "Season for the Tender-Minded: A Review of New Philosophy Books," New Book Review, April, 1969, 26.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Theology and Metaphysics," Criterion 9 (1969), 18. Owen, H. P., The Christian Knowledge of Cod. London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1969, 105-107, 233-235.

Pailin, David A., "A Christian Possibility of Proclaiming the Death of God," Church Quarterly, Jan., 1969, 227-235.

Pailin, David A., "An Introductory Survey of Charles Hartshorne’s Work on the Ontological Argument," Analecta Anselmiana: Untersuchungen über Person und Werk Anselms von Canterbury. Band I. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva GMBH, 1969, 195-221.

Pailin, David A., The Way to Faith, An Examination of Newman’s Grammar of Assent as a Response to the Search for Certainty in Faith London: Epworth Press, 1969, 224.

Pittenger, W. Norman, Alfred North Whitehead. In Series "Makers of Contemporary Theology." London: Lutterworth; Richmond: John Knox, 1969, xiv, 10-12, 20, 32f, 35, 38. 45.

Pittenger, W. Norman, The Christian Situation Today. London: Epworth, 1969, 79

Plantinga, Alvin, Review of AD, Philosophical Review 78 (July, 1969), 405-408.

Reese, William L., Comments [on Wieman], DCH 72.

Reeves, Gene and J. W. Dyer, "Two Views of Panentheism," Faith and Freedom 23, 1 (Autumn, 1969), 15.

Richardson, Herbert W., Introduction, Transcendence, ed. Herbert W. Richardson and Donald R. Cutler. Boston; Beacon Press, 1969, xii xiv.

Ross, James F., Philosophical Theology Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1969, 63, 95, 176n.

Rust, Eric C., Evolutionary Philosophies and Contemporary Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969, 8, 17’K 178-201, 212, 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 225, 244n2, 245 nn 7-38246 nn 39-77, 247 nn 78,79.

Solon, T. P. M. and S. K. Wertz, "Hume’s Argument from Evil," Personalist 49, 4 (Summer, 1969), 391.

Thomason, Sister Adelaide, "An Explanation and Application of the Law of Contrast in Charles Hartshorne’s Panentheism." Diss. Fordham University, 1969. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc., 1969, Dedication, v-xi, 1-280.

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Book Notice: The New American Philosophers, Andrew J. Reck: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: A Journal in American Philosophy 5, 3 (Summer, 1969), 193.

Vesey, G. N. A., Foreword, Talk of God: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. Two. 1967-1968. London; Macmillan, 1969, xvii-xx.

Weinberg, Bennett, "Anselm’s Proof," Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy (Oberlin College), 1, 1 (May, 1969), 19, 20, 22, 24, 27, 28fn5. 29nn11,1S.

Whittemore, Robert C., "The Americanization of Panentheism," Southern Journal of Philosophy 7, 1 (Spring. 1969), 30-35.

Wieman, Henry Nelson, Conclusion, DCH 111.

Wieman, Henry Nelson, "Hartshorne’s Total Alienation," Religious Humanism 3, 1 (Winter, 1969), 43-45. (Supplied by Gene Reeves.)

Wieman, Henry Nelson, "Transcendence and ‘Cosmic Consciousness.’" Transcendence, ed. Herbert W. Richardson and Donald R. Cutler. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969, 15 f.

Williams. Daniel Day, Suffering and Being in Empirical Theology, The Future of Empirical Theology, ed. Meland, q. v., 176, 177, 190.

Williams, R. L., "Two Types of Christology: A Neoclassical Analysis, Journal of Religion 49 (Jan., 1969). 18-40.

1970

Allan, George, Review of Pittenger, Process Thought and Christian Faith, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 38, 1 (March, 1970), 124.

Altizer, Thomas J. I., "Response," The Theology of Altizer: Critique and Response, ed. John B. Cobb, Jr. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970, 199.

Barnhart, J. E, "Bradley’s Monism and Whitehead’s Neo-Pluralism," Southern Journal of Philosophy 7, 4 (Winter, 1969-1970), 399.

Beardslee, William A., "Hope in Biblical Eschatology and in Process Theology," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 38, 3 (Sept., 1970), 238.

Bertocci, Peter A., "The Perspective of a Teleological Personalistic Idealist," Contemporary American Philosophy: Second Series, ed. John E. Smith. London: Allen and Unwin, 1970, 248.

Brimmer, H. H., Review of Mix Parmentier La Philosophie de Whitehead, Southern Journal of Philosophy 7, 4 (Winter, 1969-1970), 474, 475.

Clark, Michael, "Discourse about the Future," Chapter 10 of Knowledge and Necessity: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures Volume Three. London: Macmillan, 1970, 170-179.

Curtis, C. J, Contemporary Protestant Theology. New York: Bruce, 1970, 60, 73.

Fontinell, Eugene, "Transcendent Divinity and Process Philosophy," New Theology No. 7: The Recovery of Transcendence, ed. Martin E. Marty and Dean G. Peerman. London: Macmillan, 1970, 177.

Ford, Lewis S., "On Genetic Successiveness: A Third Alternative" Southern Journal of Philosophy 7, 4 (Winter, 1969-1970), 421, 424. (See also p. 328).

Ford, Lewis S., "Whitehead’s Categoreal Derivation of Divine Existence, Monist 54, 3 (July, 1970), 379, 380, 391f.

Garland, William J., "The Ultimacy of Creativity," Southern Journal of Philosophy 7, 4 (Winter, 1969-1970), 361, 376n.

Gibson, A. Boyce, Theism and Empiricism. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1970, 3, 99-101, 122, 125-127, 248n.

Gier, Nicholas, "Process Theology and the Death of God," The Theology of Altizer: Critique and Response, ed. John B. Cobb, Jr. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970, 165, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 191 nn 15,16,17,18,19, 192 nn 27,28.

Hick, John, Headnote and Appendix, Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, Second Edition, ed. John Hick. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970,336, 544f.

Hocking, Richard, "Event, Act, and Presence," Review of Metaphysics 24, 1 (1970), 45.

Jacobson, Nolan Pliny, "Buddhism, Modernization and Science," Philosophy East and West 20, 2 (April, 1970), 165.

Johnson, J. F., "Introduction to Process Philosophy," Springfielder, Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Ill., 34 (June, 1970), 7-13.

Kitagawa, Joseph M., "Milcai-shukyo, Kotenteki-Shukyo, narabini Kindaisekai no Sho-Shukyo," Gendai no Shukyo-gaku, ed. Joseph M. Kitagawa, trans. by Ichiro Hon et al. of Thc history of Religions. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1970, 70.

Kuntz, Paul G., "The Ontological Argument and ‘God Is Dead’: Some Questions about God; Ways of Logic, History, and Metaphysics in Answering Them," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 38, 1 (March, 1970), 55, 58-60, 62, 63, 64f, 66f, 68, 76.

Martins, Antönio, Review of AD, Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia (Broga, Portugal), July 28, 1970.

Myers, Gerald E., "Introduction to Pluralism," The Spirit of American Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. with introductions by Gerald E. Myers. New York: Putnam, 1970, 298f.

Northrop, F. S. C., "The Relation Between Naturalistic Scientific Knowledge and Humanistic Intrinsic Values in Western Culture," Contemporary American Philosophy: Second Series, ed. John E. Smith.London: Allen & Unwin, 1970, 124n1.

Pailin, David A., "The Incarnation as a Continuing Reality," Religious Studies, 6, 4 (Dec., 1970), 304, 309f, 318, 325.

Peters, Eugene H., Hartshorne and Neoclassical Metaphysics: An Interpretation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970, 141 pp.

Pike, Nelson, God and Timelessness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, 149, 150, 151, 154, 156, 159-161, 166.

Pittenger, W. Norman, Christology Reconsidered. London: SCM, 1970, 2, 17, 109, 137, 150.

Pittenger, W. Norman, "Further Thoughts on Christian ‘Re-Conception’ Today," Church Quarterly 3, 2 (Oct., 1970), 118, 119f.

Pittenger, W. Norman, Goodness Distorted. London: A. R. Mowbray, 1970, 33-35.

Pittenger, W. Norman, The "Last Things" in a Process Perspective. London: Epworth, 1969, 20.

Reeves, Gene, "God and Creativity," Southern Journal of Philosophy 7, 4 (Winter, 1969-1970), 383, 384n.

Reitz, H., "Was ist Prozesstheologie? Analyse eines Neuansatzes in der nordamerikanischen Theologie der Gegenwart, Kerygma und Dogma 16, 2 (1970), 78-103.

Robertson, John C., Jr., "Rahner and Ogden: Man’s Knowledge of God," Harvard Theological Review 63, 3 (July, 1970), 383, 384, 390n, 395n, 396n, 397n, 398f, 402, 403, 404, 406n.

Ross, James F., Review Article, "God and the World," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 38, 3 (Sept., 1970), 312.

Shuster, George N. and Ralph E. Thorson, Preface to Evolution in Perspective: Commentaries in Honor of Pierre Lecomte du Noüy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970, xiv f.

Smith, John E., Biographical Notes in Contemporary American Philosophy, Second Series, ed. John E. Smith. Allen & Unwin, 1970, 18.

Smith, John E., Themes in American Philosophy: Purpose, Experience and Community. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper & Row, 1970, 128, 142, 150, 170, 174, 195f, 199, 206, 212 ff., 217, 223f, 232-242.

Solon, T. P. M. and S. K. Wertz, "Hume’s Argument from Evil," Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, 1, 1 & 2 (Spring & Summer, 1970), 205.

TeSelle, Eugene, Augustine the Theologian. London: Burns & Oates, 1970, New York: Herder & Herder, 1970, 350.

Thorson, Ralph E. (see George N. Shuster, 1970).

Tillich, Paul, "Two Types of Philosophy of Religion," Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion. Second Edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970, 315f.

Titus, Harold H., Living Issues in Philosophy. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970, 334, 444n, 457 [also refs. in earlier eds.].

Vesey, G. N. A., Foreword to Knowledge and Necessity: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Volume Three. London: Macmillan, 1970, xviii.

Westphal, Merold, "On Thinking of God as King," Christian Scholar’s Review 1, 1 (Fall, 1970), 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32.

Whittemore, Robert C., "The Americanization of Panentheism," Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 1, 1 & 2 (Spring & Summer, 1970), 244, 245-251.

Williams, Daniel Day. "A Philosophical Outlook," Contemporary American Philosophy: Second Series, ed. John E. Smith. London: Allen & Unwin, 1970, 230f, 238f, 240.

1971

Allan, George, "The Aims of Societies and the Aims of God," in Process Philosophy and Christian Thought, ed. Brown, James, & Reeves (hereafter PPCT), 470.

Allerton, John D., "Swan Song?" Review of Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (hereafter CSPM), Inquirer, London, Feb. 13, 1971, 6.

Allshouse, Merle F., Review of DCH, Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 63f, 66.

Beardslee, William A., "New Testament Perspectives on Revolution as a Theological Problem," Journal of Religion 51, 1 (Jan., 1971), 33n40.

Birch, L. Charles, "Purpose in the Universe: A Search for Wholeness Zygon 6, 1 (March, 1971), 5, 7, 14, 15f, 19, 20-23, 24f, 25-27 nn.

Brown, Delwin, "Process Philosophy and the Question of Life’s Meaning," Religious Studies 7, 1 (March, 1971), 22n.

Brown, Delwin, Ralph E. James, Jr., Gene Reeves, eds. Process Philosophy and Christian Thought (hereafter PPCT). Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971, vi.

Brown, Delwin, and Gene Reeves, "The Development of Process Theology," PPCT 25n, 27-33, 34f, 36-39, 41-47, 50-54, 58-59n137, 61, 63n158.

Capek, Milic, Bergson and Modern Physics: Boston University Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 7. New York: Humanities Press, 1971, 161, 399.

Donceel, Joseph, S. J., "Second Thoughts on the Nature of God., Thought 46, 182 (Autumn, 1971), 353f, 355.

Cell, Edward, Language, Existence, and God. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971, 211.

Choice, Review of CSPM, Nov., 1971, 180.

Clarke, Bowman L., "Modal Disproofs and Proofs for God," Southern Journal of Philosophy 9, 3 (Fall, 1971), 247-258. Cobb, John B., "Christian Natural Theology," PPCT 101n3.

Cobb, John B, Jr., "A Whiteheadian Doctrine of God," PPCT 223n30, 226n36.

Cobb, John B. and Lewis S. Ford, "The Prospect for Process Studies," Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 76f.

Cousins, E. H., Abstract of Hartshorne, "Whitehead in French Perspective," Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971) 76f.

Cousins, Ewert H., Introduction: "Process Models in Culture, Philosophy, and Theology," Process Theology: Basic Writings (hereafter PT), ed. Ewert H. Cousins. New York: Newman Press, 1971, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13-15. See also 16, 47, 67, 101, 118, 119, 353-356.

Craighead, Houston, "Non-Being and Hartshorne’s Concept of God," Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 9-24.

Diamond, Malcolm L., "Contemporary Analysis: The Metaphysical Target and the Theological Victim," PPCT 143, 144, 167-169,

Dobzhansky, Theodosius, "Teilhard de Chardin and the Orientation of Evolution: A Critical Essay," PT 244.

Evans, Robert A., ed. The Future of Philosophical Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971,68, 69, 84.

Ewing, A. C., Review of GSPM, Bibliography of Philosophy, A Quarterly Bulletin 19, 2 (1972).

Felt, James W., S.J., "Invitation to a Philosophic Revolution," The New Scholasticism 45, 1 (Winter, 1971), 87-109.

Ferré, Gustav, Presidential Address: "Philosophical Activity in a Revolutionary Age," Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 2, 1 & 2 (Spring & Summer, 1971), 224.

Ford, Lewis S., Abstract of C. J. Curtis, "Process Thought: Whitehead" and "Process Theology: Cobb and Ogden" in Contemporary Process Theology, Process Studies 1, 3 (Fall, 1971), 231.

Ford, Lewis S., "Divine Persuasion and the Triumph of Good," PPCT 287.

Ford, Lewis S., "God as King: Benevolent Despot or Constitutional Monarch?" Christian Scholar’s Review 1, 4 (Summer, 1971), 319, 320, 322.

Ford, Lewis S., and John B. Cobb, "The Prospect for Process Studies," Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 6, 7, 8.

Gibson, A. Boyce. Review of CSPM, Australian Journal of Philosophy 49 (May, 1971), 125-128.

Griffin, David, Abstract of "The Two Types of Christology," Ronald Williams, Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 87.

Griffin, David, ‘Is Revelation Coherent? Theology Today 28 (Oct., 1971), 285n23.

Griffin, David, "Schubert Ogden’s Christology and the Possibilities of Process Philosophy," PPCT 350, 355n41, 358f.

Griffin, David, "Whitehead’s Contributions to a Theology of Nature," Philosophy of Religion and Theology: 1971 (American Academy of Religion Section Papers), ed. David Griffin, 144.

Gunton, Colin, Review of CSPM, Religious Studies 7 (1971), 265f.

Hall, D. L., Abstract of "Whitehead as Teacher and Philosopher," A. H. Johnson, Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 77.

Hamilton, Peter N., ‘Some Proposals for a Modern Christology," PPCT 368, 378, 381.

Henry, G. C., Abstract of Hartshorne, "Ontological Primacy. A Reply to Buchler," Process Studies 1, 3 (Fall, 1971), 236.

Hospers, John, Artistic Expression, ed. John Hospers. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971, 112.

James, Ralph E., "Process Cosmology and Theological Particularity," PPCT, 402, 407.

Johnson, Woodbridge O., Other Christs: The Coming Copernican Christology. New York: Pageant Press International Corp., 1971, 20, 22, 36f, 64, 128f, 135, 174, 191.

Lichtigfeld, A., Aspects of Jaspers’ Philosophy, Second Enlarged Edition. Pretoria: Communications of the University of South Africa, 1971, 49f., 97nn202, 204, 100n241, 110-111n336.

Lichtigfeld, Adolph, "Leibniz und Whitehead," Akten des Internationalen Leibniz-Kongresses Hannover, 14-19 November, 1966. Band V, Geschichte der Philosophie. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1971, 180f., 189, 199, 203.

Lowe, Victor, "Whitehead’s Metaphysical System," PPCT 13n9.

Lueker, Erwin L., "Theology-Philosophy-Poetry: Toward a Synopsis," Concordia Theological Monthly 42, 7 (July-Aug., 1971), 439n58, 440n67.

Macquarrie, John, "Process Philosophy," Review of CSPM, Expository Times (Edinburgh), 82 (March, 1971), 186.

Madden, E. H. and P. H. Hare, "The Powers that Be," Dialogue 10, 1 (1971).

Martin, R. M., "On Hartshorne’s ‘Creative Synthesis’ and Event Logic," Southern Journal of Philosophy 9, 4 (Winter, 1971), 399-410.

Mascall, E. L., The Openness of Being. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1971, 11f., 32, 39. 48 ff., 117, 159, 162, 167, 171, 185, 196f.

Mascall, E. L., Review of GSPM, Journal of Theological Studies n. s. 22 (April, 1971), 315-317.

Montgomery, John Warwick, The Suicide of Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1971, 8, 95, 97, 117n100, 124, 222.

Myers, Gerald E., "Introduction to Pluralism," The Spirit of American Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. with introductions by Gerald E. Myers. New York: Capricorn Books (paper), 1971, 298f.

Oakes, Robert A., "Mediation, Encounter, and God," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 2, 3 (Fall, 1971), 153n.

Ogden, Schubert M., "A Christian Natural Theology?" PPCT 114.

Ogden, Schubert M., "The Reality of God," PT 120, 123 f.n4, 125n5, 127n8.

Ogden, Schubert M., Review of CSPM, Religious Education 66, 4 (July-Aug., 1971), 296.

Ogden, Schubert M., "The Task of Philosophical Theology," The Future of Philosophical Theology, ed. Robert A. Evans. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971, 68-71, 74, 84.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Toward a New Theism," PPCT 184.

Ogletree, Thomas W, "A Christological Assessment of Dipolar Theism, PPCT 331-346.

Overman, Richard H., Review of Science, Secularization, and God, Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 61.

Pailin, David A., Abstract of "An Introductory Survey of Charles Hartshorne’s Work on the Ontological Argument," q. v., Process Studies 1, 3 (Fall, 1971), 240.

Pailin, David K, Review of CSPM, Church Quarterly 4 (July, 1971), 92f.

Peters, Eugene H., Review of PPCT, Process Studies 1, 3 (Fall, 1971), 210, 211, 214, 215, 216, 219, 220, 221.

Pittenger, W. Norman, "Bernard E. Meland, Process Thought and the Significance of Christ," PT 206.

Pittenger, W. Norman, The Christian Church as Social Process. London: Epworth, 1971, 37f.

Pittenger, W. Norman, God’s Way with Man, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1971, 34. American ed. Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1971, 34.

Pittenger, W. Norman, "Process Thought: A Contemporary Trend in Theology," PT 25-29.

Platt, David, "Is Empirical Theology Adequate?" International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 2, 1 (Spring, 1971), 28-42.

Reeves, Gene, Review of Peters, Eugene H., Hartshorne and Neoclassical Metaphysics, Process Studies 1, 2 (Summer, 1971), 149-152.

Reeves, Gene, Abstract of "Two Views of Panentheism," Process Studies 1, 1 (Spring, 1971), 72.

Reeves, Gene (see Brown and Reeves, 1971).

Robertson, John C., Jr., "Does God Change?" Ecumenist 9, 4 (May-June, 1971), 61.

Rosenthal, Sandra B., "C. I. Lewis and the Paradox of the Esthetic," Aesthetics II: Tulane Studies in Philosophy Vol. 20. New Orleans: Tulane University, 1971, 112.

Sherburne, Donald W., "Whitehead without God," PPCT 306f., 309-312, 319-324.

Slaatte, Howard A., The Paradox of Existentialist Theology: The Dialectics of a Faith-Subsumed Reason-in-Existence. New York: Humanities Press, 1971, 53.

Smith, Perry, Review of LP, Journal of Symbolic Logic 36, 3 (Sept., 1971), 515.

Stokes, Walter E., S. J., "God for Today and Tomorrow, PPCT 253.

Stokes, Walter E., "A Whiteheadian Reflection on God’s Relation to the World," PT 138-140.

Towne, E. A., "Unfinished Agenda of Process Theology: A Review Article": James, The Concrete God, Peters, The Creative Advance, Peters, Hartshorne and Neoclassical Metaphysics, Encounter 32, 4 (Autumn, 1971), 319-327.

Whittemore, Robert C., "Panentheistic Implications of the Ontological Argument," Southern Journal of Philosophy 9, 2 (1971), 157.

Williams, Daniel Day, "Time, Progress, and the Kingdom of God," PPCT 448n, 458.

Wood, Forrest, Jr., "Hume’s Philosophy of Religion as Reflected the Dialogues," Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 2, 1 & 2 (Spring & Summer, 1971), 189.

1972

Ayers, Robert H. and William T. Blackstone, eds. Religious Language and Knowledge. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1972, viii.

Baker, John Robert, "The Christology of George Santayana," Southern Journal of Philosophy 10, 2 (1972), 275.

Baker, John Robert, "Omniscience and Divine Synchronization," Process Studies 2, 3 (Fall, 1972), 201, 202, 204-208.

Barbour, Ian G., "Attitudes toward Nature and Technology," Earth Might Be Fair, ed. Ian G. Barbour. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972, 158n22.

Beardslee, William A., A House for Hope: A Study in Process and Biblical Thought. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972, 16, 70f., 113, 143, 145, 187, 189, 190.

Bertocci, Peter A., "Hartshorne on Personal Identity: A Personalistic Critique," Process Studies 2, 3 (Fall, 1972), 216-221.

Bibliography of Philosophy, Review of CSPM, Bibliography of Philosophy, A Quarterly Bulletin 19, 2 (1972), item 383.

Birch, Charles, "Participatory Evolution: The Drive of Creation," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40, 2 (June, 1972), 148, 156, 158, 159, 162.

Blackstone, William T. (see Ayers, 1972).

Blaikie, R. J., "Being, Process, and Action in Modern Philosophy and Theology," Scottish Journal of Theology 25 (May, 1972), 129.

Brown, Delwin, Abstract of "The Development of Process Theology," Reeves and Brown, Process Studies 2, 2 (Summer, 1972), 178.

Castiglione, Robert L., Review of CSPM, Review of Metaphysics 25, 4 (June, 1972), 754f.

Colwell, C. Carter, Anecdote, Process Studies 2, 3 (Fall, 1972), 182.

Crocker, Sylvia Fleming, "The Ontological Significance of Anselm’s Proslogion," Modern Schoolman 50, 1 (Nov., 1972), 34 nn 1, 9,35.

Crosby, D. A., Abstract of "Modal Disproofs and Proofs for God" by Bowman L. Clarke, Process Studies 2, 2 (Summer, 1972), 170.

Crosby, D. A., Abstract of "On Hartshorne’s ‘Creative Synthesis’ and Event Logic" by R. M. Martin, Process Studies 2, 4 (Winter, 1972), 331-332.

Crosby, D. A., Abstract of "Panentheistic Implications of the Ontological Argument" by Robert C. Whittemore, Process Studies 2, 2 (Summer, 1972), 178-179.

Dart, John, "Buddhist Selflessness Called Christian Goal: Philosopher Hartshorne Cites Promise of Living for Future ‘Greater than Self.’" Los Angeles Times, Aug. 5, 1972.

Davis, William H., Peirce’s Epistemology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972, 3, 74.

Dupré, Louis, The Other Dimension: A Search for the Meaning of Religious Attitudes. New York: Doubleday, 1972, 363, 364f, 395, 402n, 410.

Earle, William A., The Autobiographical Consciousness. Chicago: Quadrangle Press, 1972, 126.

Edwards, Rem B., Reason and Religion: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1972, Dedication, v, 188 ff., 192-196, 201f, 205-211, 213-215, 224, 227, 248.

Farrer, Austin, Reflective Faith. London: SPCK, 1972, 182, 190.

Felt, James W., Abstract of "Invitation to a Philosophic Revolution" by James W. Felt, Process Studies 2, 2 (Summer, 1972), 171. Also Abstract of "Second Thoughts on the Nature of God" by Joseph Donceel, ibid., 171.

Fitzgerald, Paul, "Relativity Physics and the God of Process Philosophy," Process Studies 2, 4 (Winter, 1972), 251, 255, 257, 258, 274, 275.

Ford, Lewis S., "The Incarnation as a Contingent Reality: A Reply to Dr. Pailin," Religious Studies 8 (1972), 169f.

Ford, Lewis S., Review of PT, Process Studies 2, 2 (Summer, 1972), 165, 166.

Fost, Frederic F., Abstract of "Can Man Transcend His Animality?" by Charles Hartshorne, Process Studies 2, 2 (Summer, 1972), 173.

Freire, A., Review of NTOT, Revista portuguesa de Filosofía, Suplemento Bibliográfico No. 51 (1972), 125-127.

Hallman, Joseph M., Review of God Within Process by Eulalio B. Baltazar, Process Studies 2, 4 (Winter, 1972), 321.

Hare, Peter H. and Edward H. Madden, "Evil and Persuasive Power," Process Studies 2, 1 (Spring, 1972), 46, 47f.

Hartman, Robert S., "The Value Structure of Creativity," Journal of Value Inquiry 6, 4 (Winter, 1972), 275.

Jacobson, Nolan Pliny, "Buddhist Elements in the Coming World Civilization," Eastern Buddhist 5, 2 (Oct., 1972), 39.

Langbauer, Delmar, "Indian Theism and Process Philosophy," Process Studies 2, 1 (Spring, 1972), 16, 17, 21f, 26n6, 28n17.

MacCormac, Earl R., "Whitehead’s God: Categoreally Derived or Reformulated as a ‘Person,’ or Neither?" International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3, 2 (Summer, 1972), 66, 67, 73, 76f, 80, 81f.

Macquarrie, John, The Faith of the People of God: A Lay Theology. New York: Scribner’s, 1972, 69.

Martin, David, Art and the Religious Experience: The "Language" of the Sacred. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1972, 17, 107n.

May, W. E., Review of PT, Review of Metaphysics 26, 1 (Sept., 1972), 155f.

Meland, Bernard E., The Reawakening of Christian Faith. New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1972, 35, 39-41 (reissue).

Neville, Robert, "Experience and Philosophy; A Review of Hartshorne’s CSPM," Process Studies 2, 1 (Spring, 1972), 49-67.

Nordgulen, G. S., Abstract of "Mind and Matter in Ryle, Ayer, and C. I. Lewis" by Charles Hartshorne, Process Studies 2, 4 (Winter, 1972), 329-330.

Pailin, David A., "Theology, 1945-1965," The Twentieth Century Mind: History, Ideas, and Literature in Britain, ed. C. B. Cox and A. E. Dyson, vol. 3. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. 123-130.

Pardington, G. Palmer, III, "Transcendence and Models of God," Anglican Theological Review 54, 2 (April, 1972), 83, 90-92.

Pittenger, W. Norman, The Christian Church as Social Process. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972, 37f.

Pols, Edward, "Whitehead on Subjective Agency: A Reply to Lewis S. Ford," Modern Schoolman 49, 2 (Jan., 1972), 149f.

Power, William L., "Descriptive Language and the Term ‘God,’" International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3, 4 (Winter, 1972), 237, 238f.

Ramsey, Paul, "Author’s Response," Philosophy Forum 12 (1972), 158-164.

Reck, Andrew J., "Contemporary American Speculative Philosophy," Revue internationale de Philosophie 99-100 (1972), 167-169.

Robinson, Daniel S., Review of CSPM (with Peters, Hartshorne and Neoclassical Metaphysics). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 33, 2 (Dec., 1972), 271-273.

Sherburne, Donald W., Review of La Philosophie de Whitehead et le problème de Dieu by Alix Parmentier, Process Studies 2, 2 (Summer, 1972), 161, 163.

Sontag, Frederick and John K. Roth, The American Religious Experience: The Roots, Trends, and Future of American Theology. New York: Harper, 1972, 180-187, 189, 190, 193, 199 nn 3, 4, 389.

Spencer, J. B., Abstract of "Perspective on Providence" by D. E. D. Shaw, Process Studies 2, 4 (Winter, 1972), 334.

Vaught, Carl G., "Hartshorne’s Ontological Argument: An Instance of Misplaced Concreteness," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 3, 1 (Spring, 1972), 18-34.

Williams, Daniel Day, "Changing Concepts of Nature," Earth Might Be Fair, ed. Ian G. Barbour. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972, 60.

Williams, Daniel D., Review of Beardslee, A House for Hope, Process Studies 2, 3 (Fall, 1972), 241.

1973

Baltazar, Eulalio, "Evolutionary Perspectives and the Divine," Traces of God in a Secular Culture, ed. George F. McLean, O.M.I. New York: Alba House, 1973, 154-155, 165nn27,29.

Benardete, José A., Review of CSPM, Journal of Philosophy 70, 7 (April 12, 1973), 210-14.

Birch, L. Charles, "A Biological Basis for Human Purpose," Zygon (Sept., 1973). Forthcoming.

Blackstone, William T., ed., Philosophy and Environmental Crisis. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1973. Forthcoming.

Clarke, Bowman L., "God, Modality, and Ontological Commitment," Ontological Commitment, ed. Richard Severens. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1973. Forthcoming.

Esposito, Joseph L., "Synechism, Socialism, and Cybernetics," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 9, 2 (Spring, 1973), 69, 77n9.

Faber, Dorothy A., "Abortion View," Letters to the Editor, Austin American-Statesman, Feb., 11, 1973, B17.

Ford, Lewis S., "Process Philosophy and Our Knowledge of God," Traces of God (see above), 85-115, passim.

Ford, Lewis S., "Introductory Remarks" and "Whitehead’s Differences from Hartshorne," Two Process Philosophers: Hartshorne’s Encounter with Whitehead (hereafter, TPP)’ ed. Lewis S. Ford. AAR Studies in Religion, Number Five, forthcoming.

Fost, Frederic F., "Relativity Theory and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism," TPP. Forthcoming.

Gragg, Alan, Charles Hartshorne, in Series, "Makers of the Modern Theological Mind," ed. Bob E. Patterson. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1973, 11-127.

Griffin, David, "Hartshorne’s Differences from Whitehead," TPP. Forthcoming.

Griffin, David, "Whitehead’s Contributions to a Theology of Nature, Bucknell Review. Forthcoming.

Griffin, David R., A Process Christology. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973, 9, 87, 160f, 166, 182f, 187, 191, 233f, 256n1, 259nn7,8,10,11,12,260nn14.

Haney, Sister Dorothy A., Review of Whitehead’s Philosophy (hereafter WP), Library Journal 98 (March 1, 1973), 747.

Keeling, L. Bryant, "The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne," Philosophy of Religion: Contemporary Perspective, ed. Norbert O. Schedler. New York: Macmillan. Forthcoming.

Kegley, Charles W., Review of Art and the Religious Experience by F. David Martin, Journal of Aesthetics 31, 4 (Summer, 1973), 550

Leonard, Augustin P., O.P., "Classical Philosophy and the Meaning of God," Traces of God (see above), 237, 238, 239, 240, 250 nn 2,3, 251nn12,14.

Martin, B. M., "On the Whiteheadian God," God and Contemporary Philosophy, ed. S. Matschak. Louvain: Edition Nauewelaerts, 1973. Forthcoming.

McLean, George F., O.M.I., Foreword, Traces of God (see above), vi, x.

Nielsen, Kai, Traces of God (see above), 277.

Meynell, Hugo, "The Theology of Hartshorne," Journal of Theological Studies, n. s., 24,1 (April, 1973), 143-57.

Miller, John F., III, Review of Religious Language and Knowledge, Perkins Journal 26, 2 (Winter, 1973), 62, 63.

Ogden, Schubert M., "Response," Perkins Journal 20, 2 (Winter, 1973), 51f, 55.

O’Meara, William M., "Hartshorne’s Interpretation of Whitehead’s Methodology," TPP. Forthcoming.

O’Meara, William M,, "Whitehead’s Description of the Religious Intuition," Encounter. Forthcoming.

Pailin, David A., "Authenticity in the Interpretation of Christianity," The Cardinal Meaning: Buddhism and Christianity in Comparative Hermeneutics, ed. M. Pye and R. Morgan. The Hague: Mouton, 1973, 137f, 157.

Palm, David A., "Process Theology -- Why and What?" Faith and Thought 100, 1 (1972-73), 45, 55, 56-61, 62f, 64, 65, 66.

Pailin, David A., Review of PPCT, Religious Studies 57, 1 (March, 1973).

Pardington, G. Palmer, III, "Transcendence and Models of God," Anglican Theological Review, forthcoming.

Parmentier, Alix, Review of WP, The Thomist. Forthcoming.

Sessions, William Lad, "Hartshorne’s Early Philosophy," TPP. Forthcoming.

Sontag, Frederick, "Hartshorne as Idealist": Review of Peters, Hartshorne and Neoclassical Metaphysics, Journal of Religion 53, 2 (April, 1973), 247-250.

Stokes, Walter E., S.J., "A Whiteheadian Approach to the Problem of God," Traces of God (see above), 70, 83n34.

Vieth, Richard F., "Theology and Secularity," Perkins Journal 26, 2 (Winter, 1973), 34, 35, 38n39.

1. Introduction

Charles Hartshorne rests the case for his philosophy on its coherence and its adequacy to the facts of experience, including the well-established teachings of the physical sciences. And yet he has admitted over the years, and continues to admit in the Library of Living Philosophers volume (PCH), that there is one issue on which he has not reconciled his philosophy with physical theory. One of the problems raised in the essay by William Reese is, Hartshorne says, "a problem, even the problem, for me: how God as prehending, caring for, sensitive to, the creatures is to be conceived, given the current non-Newtonian idea of physical relativity, according to which there is apparently no unique cosmic present or unambiguous simultaneity" (PCH 616). In responding to Lewis Ford, Hartshorne says: "I also agree that relating the divine becoming to the problem of simultaneity in physics exceeds my capacity. . . . I feel incapable of solving the problem, and it seems clear that Whitehead did not solve it" (PCH 642; see also 724).

The failure to find a solution has not been for want of trying. As Frederick Post helpfully documented in 1973 in "Relativity Theory and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism," Hartshorne has been perplexed by this difficulty from the earliest period of his writing (TPP 89). And several other writers have joined the effort: John T. Wilcox stimulated much of the discussion with "A Question from Physics for Certain Theists" (JR 40) in 1961; Lewis Ford asked "Is Process Theism Compatible with Relativity Theory?" (JR 48) in 1968; Paul Fitzgerald published "Relativity Physics and the God of Process Philosophy" (PS 2) in 1972; then Hartshorne himself, after hearing lectures by, and having discussions with, Henry Stapp in 1977, wrote an essay in response (PS 7:183-91); the issue of Process Studies in which Hartshorne’s essay appeared also contained an essay by Stapp, which was "edited" by William B. Jones (PS 7:173-82). (After receiving Hartshorne’s essay, Lewis Ford hoped to obtain from Stapp a summary of his views understandable to non-physicists, so that readers would know something of the position to which Hartshorne was responding; upon failing to get a new essay from Stapp, Ford called upon Jones, who pieced together the essay for PS from some of Stapp’s writings.¹ In the next issue, Jones offered his own contribution to the discussion [PS 7: 250-61].)

Hartshorne’s response to Stapp’s views, which I will discuss near the end of this essay, constitutes a puzzling episode in the history of his thinking on this issue: In this response, Hartshorne seems to say that the problem has been overcome; and yet in PCH, which appeared over a decade later, he refers to it, as we have seen, as the problem, freely saying that he has no solution.

This admission by the world’s preeminent process theist that he cannot reconcile his doctrine of God with relativity physics, especially after considerable attention has been devoted to the problem by him as well as several other thinkers, constitutes a serious difficulty for process theism. Given Whitehead’s background in the physical sciences, process philosophy has been especially concerned to be adequate to and illuminating of those "facts" that are considered to be well established by the physical sciences. To be incompatible with the special theory of relativity would seem to be a serious failure. Indeed, some Critics lift up this incompatibility as a principal reason to reject process thought.² To be sure, Hartshorne is right to say that process philosophy need not solve every problem in order to have provided the best cosmology conceived thus far; it need only be superior to all the known alternatives (PS 7:187). Nevertheless, the idea that God as concretely actual temporally experiences the temporal world is so central to theistic process philosophy, especially in Hartshorne’s version, that advocates cannot rest content with an unresolved tension between this idea and relativity physics, so long as relativity physics itself is accepted. The same would be true, of course, of an apparent contradiction between process philosophy and any other apparently well-established result of the sciences. But Hartshorne’s testimony that the tension between relativity physics and his theism has been the problem for him is reason to consider this tension as at least one of the most serious theoretical problems now facing process theism.

Another reason to devote attention to this issue is that a possible solution might have significance beyond that of overcoming an internal problem within process theology. John Wilcox indicated a somewhat broader significance by pointing out that the problem exists not only for process theists, but for all "temporalistic theists" (JR 40: 294-97). And, indeed, others have been discussing this issue.³ A solution, furthermore, might have significance even beyond that of understanding how a temporal God might interact with the world. This would be the case if the solution took the form not of modifying or rejecting Hartshorne’s doctrine of God because of its apparent incompatibility with relativity theory (which has been the dominant approach taken thus far), but of relativizing relativity theory itself (which is the approach I will proffer).

2. The Problem

The problem arises from the fact that process theism (as well as other forms of temporalistic theism) seems to presuppose a cosmic "now," while the special theory of relativity has seemed, at least to most interpreters who have discussed the issue, to entail that no such "now" exists.

To begin with relativity physics: I will not repeat here the detailed explanations, which can be found in the articles by Wilcox, Ford, and Fitzgerald, as to why, according to special relativity theory, a cosmic "now" apparently does not exist. The main point is summarized nicely by Fitzgerald:

As Fitzgerald’s statement makes clear, the problem exists only with regard to spatially separated events, meaning ones that are contemporaneous with each other in the sense that they cannot be connected by a light signal. Every given event has an absolute past, which affects it, and an absolute future, which it affects. But an indefinite number of events are contemporary with the given event. Of these contemporaneous events, finite observer A will calculate that one set of them will be strictly simultaneous with the given event, observer B operating with a different coordinate-system will calculate another set of events as being simultaneous, observer C may provide yet another answer, and so on. As Wilcox summarizes: "There is physically no unique meaning for simultaneity in the case of causally separate events" (JR 40:294).

Process theism, by contrast, seems to require the existence of a universe-wide "now." Hartshorne, for example, has said: "I suppose God to have this cosmic now as his psychological simultaneity" (PI 324f). The reason for this requirement is the idea that God prehends only actual occasions that have, by completing their concrescences, achieved satisfaction. God does not prehend future actual occasions, because there are none to prehend (they exist at most as anticipated probabilities). And God does not prehend actual occasions that are presently concrescing: not yet being "beings," they have no determinate satisfaction to prehend. The divine experience, accordingly, divides the universe, or knows the universe to be divided, into the past universe, which causally influences the present divine experience, the future universe, which the present divine experience will influence, and the present universe, the "cosmic now," which the present divine experience neither influences nor is influenced by. ("Universe" here is taken to mean the totality of finite occasions of experience, even though in abstraction from God’s all-inclusive experience it would be more a multiverse than a universe.)

Fitzgerald well sums up the resulting problem: "[Relativity theory’s] teaching that the world lacks a unique cosmic advance of time makes it hard to see why a cosmic being like God should experience a unique one" (PS 2: 258).

Hartshorne’s form of process theism, according to which God is a personally-ordered society of divine occasions of experience, makes even clearer than Whitehead’s that a cosmic "now" is presupposed. In Whitehead’s view, according to which God is one everlasting actual entity, God is in "unison of becoming" with all worldly occasions and yet somehow prehends and is prehended by them. By thereby suggesting that God and contemporary occasions could prehend each other, Whitehead’s position does not make so acute the question of whether an unambiguous distinction between past, present, and future occasions could exist.

One difficulty with Whitehead’s position, of course, is that it renders problematic the interaction between God and the world. Whitehead had said that God should not be made an exception to general metaphysical principles (PR 343); and yet that contemporaries are causally independent seems to be a metaphysical principle of his system. This principle is not arbitrary, but rests on the fact that an occasion while in the process of concrescence is becoming determinate, so that, before reaching satisfaction, it has nothing determinate to offer. (As has been said of Oakland, there is no there there.) What is particularly hard to understand is how God, if always a becoming subject, could be prehended by worldly occasions. A. H. Johnson reports having asked Whitehead: "If God never ‘perishes’, how can he provide data for other actual entities? Data are only available after the ‘internal existence’ of the actual entity ‘has evaporated’ (PR 220/336)." In response, Whitehead reportedly said: "This is a genuine problem. I have not attempted to solve it" (EWP 9-l0).

It was partly to solve this problem that Hartshorne redefined God as a personally ordered society of divine occasions, so that God is alternatively subject and object. But in solving this problem, Hartshorne rendered more acute the problem of the compatibility of process theism with relativity physics.

Some critics of the Hartshornean societal view of God believe that it not only renders the incompatibility between God and relativity physics more acute but actually first creates this incompatibility. Lewis Ford, for example, argued in 1968 that if Hartshorne’s view is that "each divine occasion constitutes one particular duration of simultaneity, then God’s experience defines a privileged inertial system contrary to relativistic principles" (JR 48:128), and that Hartshorne’s attempts to avoid this conclusion result in a position lacking simplicity and elegance (130). Ford then suggested a solution based on Whitehead’s view of God as a single actual entity. In the meantime, however, Ford has decided that that solution is untenable, in part because the attempt to return to Whitehead’s view of God involves "insuperable difficulties" (PS 11:171). The chief of these is the one cited above: "Despite some very ingenious efforts to resolve or to avoid the problem, the central difficulty remains: in Whitehead’s philosophy two concurrent concrescences cannot prehend each other. If God is an everlasting concrescence, it is difficult to see how it could influence present concrescences." Nevertheless, while no longer using the clash between Hartshorne’s idea of God and relativity physics as a reason simply to return to Whitehead’s idea of God (rather than modifying it), Ford has continued to cite this clash as the chief problem with Hartshorne’s theism, saying that each Hartshornean divine occasion "defines a privileged meaning of simultaneity contrary to relativity physics" (PS 11:170; PCH 315).

The extent to which Hartshorne himself has felt the problem is shown by the fact that he has sometimes been tempted to try to solve it by giving up, or at least severely modifying, the notion of the divine individuality. Instead of speaking simply of "God," we would speak of "God here now." That this would be a drastic move is seen by Hartshorne: "If God here now is not the same concrete unit of reality as God somewhere else ‘now’, then the simple analogy with human consciousness as a single linear succession of states collapses" (CSPM 124). Fost points out that this would be no minor modification on Hartshorne’s part, given his earlier insistence that "the unity of our experience is the unity in which everything is initially found, and only by abstraction from or analogy with this unity can we understand any concrete unity" (TPP 91, citing WP 117). Although Fitzgerald has opined that a version of this view, which he calls the God of Infinitely Interlaced Personalities, "does the least violence to relativity theory and process philosophy together" of all the views he considers (PS 2: 273), Hartshorne and Hartshorneans would surely prefer another solution, if one is available.

3. A Possible Solution

The possible solutions surveyed by Fitzgerald, and in fact almost all of the published discussions of God and relativity physics, have assumed that relativity theory gives us the best clue currently available as to the nature of time. Fitzgerald, for example, says:

Hartshorne himself has generally proceeded on the basis of this assumption. Given this assumption, the question is how to make our idea of God compatible with the fact that physical interaction among worldly events provides no unambiguous meaning for past, present, and future.

But another way to solve the problem would be to suggest that Einsteinian special relativity physics does not provide metaphysical, or even final cosmological, truth about time. This suggestion has been made at least once by Hartshorne, who has said: "there is the haunting question, can physics, judging reality from the standpoint of localized observers, give us the deep truth about time as it would appear to a non-localized observer?" (CSPM 124f). Hartshorne’s way of putting the question suggests that the deeper truth about time might be discernible only by God, and this is likely true. But the question for us is whether we, from our standpoint as localized observers, can see some way in which a non-localized omniscient observer, knowing the universe truly, would know it to have a universal "now." If so, we could challenge the assumption that time as defined by relativity physics should be accepted as the ultimate truth about time, even in our cosmic epoch.

A crucial fact about the special theory of relativity, at least as usually interpreted, is that it assumes, in Fitzgerald’s words, "that no causal influence can be transmitted faster than the speed of light in vacuo" (PS 2: 254). It is this assumption that creates the famous "light cone," which contains an indefinite number of events that are "contemporaries" with any given event. For example, it takes about eight minutes for the light from the sun to reach the earth, and eight minutes for light released from the earth to reach the sun. Accordingly, all the events in the sun’s life for about sixteen minutes are said to be contemporaneous with the present moment of my experience, because those events can neither influence that experience nor be influenced by it -- assuming that no supraluminal influences occur.

But relativity physics can also be interpreted as simply not speaking to the issue of whether or not supraluminal influences occur. On this interpretation, if some such influence does occur, it would not necessarily contradict relativity physics. As James Devlin says, "relativity physics is concerned with influence as limited by maximum signal speed, that of light" (PCH 283). "Supraluminal" influence might not involve faster-than-light signals; the influence might be different in kind from that involved in "signals."

Whitehead suggested that some such influence occurs. He did, to be sure, announce his adoption of "the ‘relativity’ view of time," which entails, contrary to "the classical ‘uniquely serial’ view of time," that "no two actual entities define the same actual world" (PR 65f). In other words, there is no cosmic "now" that stipulates unambiguously what is past. His adoption of the relativity view is "based on scientific examination of our cosmic epoch" (PR 125); the classical view is rejected because "its consequences, taken in conjunction with other scientific principles, seem to be false" (PR 66).⁴ The "other scientific principles" here would seem to include the limitation of causal influence to the speed of light. And yet elsewhere Whitehead spoke of a kind of causal influence that would seem not to be thus limited. With light signals (and other forms of radiation), the influence between remote loci is transmitted (in Whitehead’s cosmology) through a series of contiguous occasions. The speed of light evidently puts an upper limit on the speed by which such causal influence can be transmitted. But Whitehead in places also refers to a kind of influence between remote occasions that is not transmitted through contiguous occasions.⁵

Such direct causal influence between noncontiguous events is implied in his discussion of the world as a transmitting medium.

Whitehead’s focus in this passage is on the way in which the remote actual occasions are felt through the mediation of occasions that are contiguous with the prehending subject; and yet in passing he mentions that this subject also prehends the remote occasions directly. There is, accordingly, causal influence at a distance. And, insofar as spatial as well as temporal distance is involved, there would be no reason to suppose that this direct influence at a distance would require the same time as that needed for influence transmitted through a sequence of contiguous occasions. The influence might, in fact, be instantaneous. By "instantaneous" here I mean that, as soon as the occasion had completed its concrescence, achieving satisfaction, it would exert a type of influence upon all immediately subsequent occasions, regardless of their spatial locus.

Whitehead discusses this issue more explicitly at PR 307-08. The focus of attention here is on the notion in science of "continuous transmission," which he says must be understood in terms of "the notion of immediate transmission through a route of successive quanta of extensiveness." The term "immediate" here refers, he had explained, to the (direct) objectification of contiguous occasions, in contrast with the (indirect) objectifications of the more distant past, which he calls "mediate." The "successive quanta of extensiveness," he explains, are the "basic regions of successive contiguous occasions." Thus far, in speaking of causal influence as transmitted through series of contiguous events, Whitehead seems to be endorsing what has been the dominant modern view, which is that there is no causal influence at a distance.⁶ But then he adds:

Having affirmed a type of causal influence at a distance, Whitehead then quickly adds two qualifications perhaps designed to assure the reader that this idea, while metaphysically heretical, should not be threatening to cosmologists. Here is the first qualification:

This qualification suggests that the implications of this idea of influence at a distance are almost entirely metaphysical, having little if any significance for science. Because this type of influence is probably "practically negligible" in our cosmic epoch -- assuming, of course, that physical science continues to find no evidence of it -- it can be practically ignored by scientific cosmologists. The second qualification involves a distinction between two species of physical prehensions: pure physical prehensions and hybrid physical prehensions.

This distinction enables Whitehead to allow for causal influence at a distance without contradicting the widespread scientific assumption that no such influence occurs with regard to the causal relations studied by physicists, which he identifies as pure physical prehensions.

The lack of revolutionary implications for physical cosmologists is further suggested by the illustrations of influence at a distance offered by Whitehead:

Because the only illustrations offered involve human minds, it would be easy for the reader to conclude, given the usual dualistic assumptions, that influence at a distance has no implications whatsoever for physical cosmology.

What Whitehead fails to bring out here, or anywhere else as far as I know, is that this idea might have at least one implication for physical cosmology. More precisely, while it might not have any direct implications for physical cosmology as such (at least if physical cosmology is understood to deal only with those types of causal influences that Whitehead calls pure physical prehensions, and if these are indeed effective only between contiguous occasions), this idea of causal influence at a distance would have implications for the status of physical cosmology insofar as it embodies the special theory of relativity. This implication would be that this physical cosmology with its understanding of time might not be assumed to be definitive for the ultimate nature of time. This scientific theory would not be assumed to have settled metaphysical (or even final cosmological) truth. That assumption, of course, is what has generated the apparent conflict between temporalistic theism and relativity theory. To cite Wilcox’s statement again: "There is physically no unique meaning for simultaneity in the case of causally separate events" (JR 40: 294). The conflict is generated by the assumption that because there is physically no such meaning for events that are causally separate (with "causality" defined in terms of light signals, and hence pure physical causality), there is metaphysically no such meaning.

This assumption can be seen as depending on what Whitehead has criticized as the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness." The main form of this fallacy is that of taking the abstractions about some actuality that are focused on by some particular science, due to its limited interests, for a complete description of the actuality in its concreteness.

Insofar as physical science, for example, abstracts from the fact that individual events prehend the past and anticipate the future, it has difficulty affirming the reality of time in the "physical world." The "scientific" accounts of time have, accordingly, generally regarded the "arrow of time" to have emerged only at that point in the history of our universe in which aggregates of atoms subject to entropy appeared. Time as we humans understand it, as an asymmetrical, irreversible process, is generally thought to be an illusion, or at best to have emerged only with the appearance of life.

Whitehead’s position, by overcoming the fallacy of misplaced concreteness involved in the materialistic conception of molecules, atoms, and subatomic "particles," can affirm that asymmetrical, irreversible time exists for individual atoms and electrons. By following Whitehead’s analysis of actual entities, accordingly, we need not assume that the usual scientific account of "time’s arrow," as depending upon the direction of entropic change (and thus as being in principle reversible), provides us with the ultimate or metaphysical truth about time.⁷ We need not, then, try to figure out how God as temporal could have interacted with a world that was nontemporal for billions of years (let alone try to figure out what that might mean).

A similar situation exists, I suggest, with respect to the relativistic view of time (even though, in this case, Whitehead himself, if my argument has merit, evidently failed to see the implications of his own ontology).

That is, the relativistic view of time could be said to result from that form of misplaced concreteness that involves equating, at least implicitly, an actual entity’s causal influence with that aspect of its causal influence that results from its physical pole, and thus with what can be called (by extrapolation from "pure physical prehension") its "pure physical causation." On the basis of this assumption -- combined with the correlative assumptions, of course, that all pure physical causation occurs between contiguous events, and that the speed of light in vacuo is the fastest that such causal influence can be transmitted over distances -- it would follow that there is no causal relation of any kind that exceeds the speed of light. The physical theory would then also state a metaphysical truth, or at least an ultimate cosmological truth.

But Whitehead’s more complete account of actual entities in their concreteness suggests that this would not be the case. He says that all actual entities have mental poles as well as physical poles. On the basis of this distinction, he suggests that there must be two kinds of causal influence between actual entities: (what I am calling) hybrid physical causation and pure physical causation. He then adds that, assuming that the pure form occurs only between contiguous events, there is no reason to assume the hybrid form to be thus limited. And, although Whitehead did not spell this out (at least in the published text), the implication would seem to be that this direct causal influence at a distance, not being transmitted through a chain of contiguous events, would "arrive" faster than the speed of light. Whitehead would thereby have seemingly affirmed supraluminal causal influence, so that events that are considered "spacelike separated" in physical relativity theory would not necessarily be causally separated in every sense. The ultimate truth about time, even in our cosmic epoch, would thus not be provided by special relativity theory. Whiteheadian relativity would include, but not be limited to, Einsteinian relativity.

If this is the implication of Whitehead’s allowance for direct prehension of noncontiguous events, why he did not see it is a puzzle. Perhaps it was because he came to the distinction between pure and hybrid physical prehensions late, while he was hurriedly finishing up Process and Reality. If that is the explanation, one might still think that he would, while reading proofs, have reversed or at least qualified his adoption of the relativity view of time. But Whitehead was not a careful proof-reader; and Lewis Ford’s reconstruction of the composition of PR suggests that Whitehead quite often let passages stand after he had developed a new doctrine. Even if such considerations can account for Whitehead’s failure to qualify his adoption of the relativity theory of time in PR. however, we could reasonably expect that some such recognition would appear in later writings. He does indeed, in Adventures of Ideas, reaffirm his belief in what he had in PR called hybrid physical feelings.

Speaking of the "relations of the mental poles to each other" was evidently carelessness, due to the fact that Whitehead in this passage was focusing on the element of "Appearance" in the experience of the prehending subject. More carefully phrased, the statement would have made clear that the direct relation is between the mental pole of the prehended and the physical pole of the prehender. In any case, Whitehead does not in this passage say that his doctrine undermines the assumption that special relativity theory gives us something like the truth about the relations between past, present, and future. He does, however, make explicit one point that was left implicit in the passage at PR 307-8: The fact that "measurable time" is irrelevant can be read to mean that the direct prehension of a remote event would result in a superluminal influence. If so, the undermining is somewhat more evident.

If superluminal influences occur, the next question would be: How "super" are they? Do they occur at a superluminal but still finite speed? Or are they instantaneous? The passage does not speak directly to this issue -- unless the reference to "immediacy" suggests an instantaneous relation. In any case, this would be a natural assumption to make. If the present subject directly prehends remote as well as contiguous events, then the influence from the remote and the contiguous events would be exerted on the prehending subject simultaneously. (It is generally assumed in parapsychological circles that paranormal influence, and paranormal influence in general, occurs instantaneously.)

To refer to an instantaneous causal relation between noncontiguous events would not, of course, be to speak of a causal prehension of "contemporaries" in the strictest sense, meaning occasions that are in "unison of becoming" with each other. The instantaneous influence at a distance would occur, as with any causal influence, only after the occasion’s concrescence had resulted in satisfaction. The "elbow-room" within the universe (AI 195) would still be preserved.

This instantaneous influence would mean, however, that most of those remote events that are considered contemporaries within special relativity theory would be connected by causal relations (of the hybrid physical sort) running in one direction or the other. For example, my present experience would be affected, even if negligibly, by all the events occurring on the sun from eight minutes ago up to a fraction of a second ago; and my present experience would exert causal efficacy -- surely of the most negligible sort -- upon events occurring on the sun over the next eight minutes (as well as beyond). Furthermore, if the influence is truly instantaneous, having no travel time, then the effect upon a location a million light-years away would occur simultaneously with that upon a location an inch away. This is a staggering thought, of course; but it would seem to follow, if there truly is some kind of instantaneous influence.

This view would not simply return us to a pre-relativistic universe, for the reason indicated in the next paragraph. But it would seem to give us what could be called a post-relativistic universe, in which all events are unambiguously either in the past of. in the future of, or contemporary with, all other events. There would be, accordingly, a cosmic "now," dividing all events into either the past, the future, or the present, with the present being comprised exhaustively of events in unison of becoming. The assumption behind all this is that, with regard to the kind of causality that is exerted instantaneously rather than with merely the speed of light, different inertial systems would not lead to different assessments of simultaneity. For example, three perceivers in three different parts of the universe and in motion with respect to each other would all agree, insofar as they could detect the subtle kind of influence in question, as to what set of events in the universe has just occurred.

If these assumptions and conclusions are valid, there would then be no conflict between cosmology and temporalistic theism. Special relativity theory could be retained as a theory with great significance, albeit limited scope. That is, it would be seen as specifying the implications of taking into consideration only that form of causal influence that is generally most powerful, namely, pure physical causation. But it would not be thought to carry the additional weight of indicating an ultimate metaphysical truth about the nature of time. We would come to understand it as a theory only about causality -- namely, the kind of efficient causality that does not (at least usually) occur at a distance and is by far the most powerful kind of efficient causality⁸ -- rather than as also a theory about time. This new interpretation would not, however, break the connection between time and causality altogether: The past, for example, would still be defined in terms of all those events that causally influence the present. The difference is that now it would be the instantaneous hybrid physical causation, rather than the slow-as-light pure physical causation, that would have the privileged position of defining the past, the future, and the present.

One would not need, accordingly, to revise temporalistic theism to make it compatible with cosmology by, perhaps, thinking of God as the chief exemplification of the multiple personality syndrome, or by putting God as a whole back outside of time, or by positing that God creates a cosmic "now" that would not otherwise exist, or by any other stratagem. One could assume, instead, that God knows a cosmic "now" simply by knowing reality as it is. That is, although God, as the all-inclusive perceiver, would be the only being who knows the cosmic "now," this cosmic "now" would not first result from God’s perception and/or activity.

I should add that, to overcome the charge that relativity theory rules out the possibility of a temporalistic theism, one need not prove the reality of an instantaneous influence that produces a cosmic "now." After all, no one has any proof that such an influence does not occur, and only with such a proof could one argue definitively that special relativity physics provides metaphysical, or even ultimate cosmological truth. The intelligibility of temporalistic theism with regard to this issue is defended if the idea of a cosmic "now" grounded in instantaneous influences can be made plausible.

The idea of instantaneous action at a distance is one that makes many intellectuals, including no doubt some Whiteheadians, very nervous. One of the chief aims of modern ideology has been to discredit this idea and anyone publicly admitting to accepting it,⁹ and this ideology has performed its task well. Two examples: most intellectuals still today cannot study the evidence for paranormal interactions with an open mind, if in fact they will study it at all; and the hostility with which Rupert Sheldrake’s hypothesis of formative causation has been greeted by much of the scientific establishment has been due mainly to the fact that influence at a distance is proposed.¹⁰

Nevertheless, things are changing rapidly with regard to this issue, especially in the physics community. Henry Stapp and David Bohm, two physicists known to readers of this journal, are both developing physical theories based on the notion of instantaneous action at a distance, and they have both expressed essential agreement with the proposal I have made above.¹¹

4. God-World Synchronization

I should perhaps add that this proposal is not necessarily burdened with an assumption that has generally been thought to be part and parcel of the Hartshornean view of God as a personally ordered society, and is sometimes used as a basis for rejecting it.¹² This is the assumption that the divine occasions must be extremely thin temporally.

Hartshorne himself is the source of this assumption. In 1941, after having stated his view that the divine present would be "an ‘epochal’ affair, not a mathematical instant," he continued:

This assumption was reiterated by Hartshorne in 1964 in a statement that was only partially quoted earlier: "the notion of a ‘creative advance of nature’ seems to imply a cosmic ‘front’ of simultaneity as short as the shortest specious present. I suppose God to have this cosmic now as his psychological simultaneity" (PI 324f).

The last sentence of the indented quotation above reveals Hartshorne’s awareness that difficulties are created by the reasoning that leads to his conclusion. A 1965 statement by John Cobb brings out the extent of the difficulties even more clearly while reinforcing the assumptions behind them:

One problem with this Hartshorne-Cobb assumption, especially in the light of the Bergsonian background of the Whiteheadian-Hartshornean ontology, is that it involves a reversal of what would seem otherwise to be a universal correlation. Henri Bergson, who anticipated Whitehead’s idea of matter as consisting of repetitions of events with finite durations (MM 178. 276, 279),I3 stressed that in different types of organisms the durations are different. In living organisms the durations are longer than those in subatomic individuals, and in human experience the durations are longer yet (MM 274f, 279f, 332). Bergson to my knowledge never explicitly says that there is a correlation between duration and spatial extensiveness, but the idea seems implicit. He suggests, for example, that photonic durations are to human durations as the latter are to the divine (CM 220f). Whitehead and Hartshorne seem to presuppose this dual idea that different levels of organisms have vastly different rhythms, and that a positive correlation obtains between spatial and temporal extensiveness. The latter idea seems even more clearly presupposed in Hartshorne, in that he has explicitly stated that events of greater complexity occupy a more extensive spatial standpoint. (The region of the living occasions of the cell includes the regions of all the subordinate constituents of the cell, and a human occasion of experience is co-extensive with the entire brain, or perhaps even the entire nervous system.) It is prima facie odd, accordingly, for Hartshorne to say that the divine occasions, while being far more extensive than all worldly occasions, are temporally as thin as, or even thinner than, the thinnest worldly occasions. One would, with Bergson, expect that the divine occasions, being co-extensive with the entire universe, would be of greater duration than any other events.¹⁴ Why is that normal expectation reversed?

The reasons, which are suggested in the above quotations from Hartshorne and Cobb, are brought out more explicitly by John Robert Baker, in an article devoted to showing that the question of the divine present’s temporal span is very problematic for a Hartshornean conception of God (PS 2: 201). Baker reconstructs the Hartshorne-Cobb argument thus:

Baker goes on to argue that, because (as the quotation from Cobb mentioned) the actual occasions of the world are surely not in phase, the divine occasions of experience must be temporally even thinner than those of subatomic entities.

Now that the assumptions are before us, they can be questioned. One of the assumptions is that, for God to be prehendable for each occasion of experience in a personally ordered society, such as an electron, there would have to be a divine occasion that occurred after one electronic occasion (call it A) had achieved satisfaction and before the next occasion (B) began. God would prehend A and then, on the basis of knowledge of A, provide an initial aim for B. It is this assumption (combined with the perfectly reasonable presupposition that the trillions of subatomic enduring individuals in the universe are not in phase with each other) that generates the conclusion that the divine occasions must be vanishingly thin. But why accept this assumption?

One reason to accept it would be the view of some -- held as the correct reading of Whitehead and/or as ontological truth -- that only contiguous occasions can be prehended. Accordingly, a divine occasion would have to be temporally (as well as spatially) contiguous with electronic occasion B for that occasion to prehend it; and that divine occasion would have had to have been temporally contiguous with occasion A to prehend it. But if that view is rejected, both ontologically and as a reading of Whitehead (as I have argued that it should be, and as it is by Cobb), then one need not suppose that a divine occasion occurs between every pair of events in the world. One would then be free to adopt what I above suggested to be the more natural position.

According to that position, the divine occasions of experience, being more extensive spatially than other occasions, would also be more extensive temporally. Let us arbitrarily suppose, for the sake of discussion, that a divine occasion occurs every second. This would mean, assuming that there are ten human occasions of experience every second, that after God has responded to me in one moment, I would have ten occasions of experience prior to God’s next response. In that response, God would become aware of those ten new occasions, then provide aims relevant to at least my next ten occasions. With regard to electrons, of course, the lag would be much greater: Something like a billion electronic occasions would occur between divine responses.

One reaction to this suggestion might be that it would make God’s guidance of the universe impossible. But an analogous situation exists, by hypothesis, in the mind-body relation. If every second there are, say, ten dominant occasions of experience and, say, one thousand living occasions in the cells in the brain, there would be one hundred cellular occasions between every dominant occasion. And yet the mind is able to provide tolerable guidance for the body.

A Hartshornean response to this suggestion of lengthier divine durations might be that it does not do justice to the idea of divine perfection, because it fails to portray God as the greatest conceivable being. Compared with a God who responds immediately to every new state of the world, a God who allows ten human occasions of experience, and a billion subatomic experiences, to go by before responding knows the world less perfectly and provides less intimate guidance for the world. (Indeed, when I suggested my view to John Cobb in informal conversation some years ago, he replied with a smile that it would certainly help explain why there is so much evil in the world.) Although what I am calling the more natural view might be more imaginable -- I am supposing the Hartshornean reply to be -- the other view is logically possible and hence conceivable, and thus must be maintained if God is to be portrayed as a being greater than which none is conceivable, and hence as God. The connection between divine perfection and extremely brief divine durations is found, incidentally, in the indented quotation from Hartshorne at the outset of this section, which speaks of "perfect perception," and in the closing line of the quotation from Baker.

But this connection can be questioned, and on Hartshornean principles. Classical theists have long criticized process theism’s God as imperfect because not capable of knowing the future and controlling the present. Hartshorne and his followers have long replied that "failure" to do the metaphysically impossible betokens no imperfection, and that, because of the creativity inherent in the creatures, no conceivable being could (completely) control the present or (infallibly) know the future. Likewise, one dimension of the problem of evil is the question as to why God did not make human beings less dangerous. A Hartshornean reply that I have developed¹⁵ is that a correlation between value and power is inherent in the metaphysical structure of reality, so that any creatures with our high-level capacity for the realization of values would necessarily have power comparable to ours, including our power to deviate from the divine will and our power to inflict suffering upon others. Because this correlation between value and power is part of the metaphysical essence of reality, the fact that God did not create a world with less dangerous human-like beings betokens no divine imperfection.

In the same way, we can suppose the normal correlation between spatial and temporal extensiveness to be metaphysical. Accordingly, if God is the chief exemplification of the metaphysical principles, rather than an exception to them, the divine occasions would necessarily have a longer duration than any worldly occasions. The fact that God does not know each occasion as soon as it has occurred, and does not provide a fresh creative influence between every pair of occasions, accordingly, betokens no imperfection.

This view, I should perhaps stress, is not an essential part of the proposal given in the previous section. I suggest it only as a possible view, to show that the Hartshornean idea of God as a personally ordered society of divine occasions of experience does not necessarily entail the idea that those occasions must be as temporally thin as, or even thinner than, the briefest worldly occasions. My proposal about a cosmic "now" known by God, accordingly, can be considered apart from the question of the duration of the divine psychological present.

5. Hartshorne and the Proposed Solution

My proposal is a way to develop Hartshorne’s suggestion that relativity physics perhaps does not give us the "deep truth about time." Hartshorne reports that he had at one time considered the idea of an unambiguously ordered world, but "could not quite believe it . . . since neither common sense (nor past philosophy) nor . . . physics . . . seemed to give any support for the idea" (PS 7:187). I have pointed out that at least one example of "past philosophy," that of Whitehead, did perhaps implicitly give support for the idea by referring to a type of causal influence that would not necessarily be limited to the speed of light, and that might in fact be instantaneous.

The reason that Hartshorne did not explore this option may be due in part to the fact that he has shown little if any interest in the idea of influence at a distance, even in telepathy at the human level. For example, in reply to William Reese’s statement that "philosophers agree [on] the lack of direct awareness of other minds" (PCH 194), Hartshorne does not follow Whitehead in referring to telepathy. (Besides the statements quoted earlier from PR 307f, Whitehead had said: "we must allow for the possibility that we can detect in ourselves direct aspects of the mentalities of higher organisms. The claim that the cognition of alien mentalities must necessarily be by means of indirect inferences from aspects of shape and of sense-objects is wholly unwarranted by this philosophy of organism" [SMW 150]. Less tentatively, Whitehead also said: "It is only when we are consciously aware of alien mentalities that we even approximate to the conscious prehension of a single actual entity" [PR 253].) Rather, Hartshorne refers only to one’s intuition of "one’s own bodily cells" (PCH 617). And, in comparing our interaction with the world to God’s, Hartshorne says that "our experiences directly and effectively influence, it seems, only a few billion of the hundred billion bodily cells, and the rest through these" (PCH 649). The possibility of a direct psychokinetic effect of the human psyche upon one’s body that is not mediated through the brain, or upon the physical world beyond one’s own body, such as the cells in another person’s body, is not mentioned. Accordingly, it may be that, partially because of a lack of interest in the idea of causal influence at a distance, it did not occur to Hartshorne to seek to solve the problem created for his theism by special relativity theory by developing Whitehead’s suggestion that hybrid physical prehensions might have a different relation to measurable time than do pure physical prehensions.

Another factor that could help account for Hartshorne’s failure to exploit this suggestion is that it depends upon Whitehead’s distinction between the physical and the mental poles of actual occasions: Hybrid physical prehensions objectify only the mental poles of the prehended occasions. But one of the features of Whitehead’s position that Hartshorne has eschewed is the idea of earlier and later phases within an occasion of experience, and this includes the idea of a physical pole followed by a mental pole (TPP 55-56). Hartshorne perhaps ignored Whitehead’s suggestion about influence at a distance in part because it was based upon what he regarded as an untenable distinction.

Whereas these considerations may help account for Hartshorne’s distress over the problem of relating his God to relativity theory for most of his career, they cannot by themselves explain his position since his essay in response to Henry Stapp’s ideas. I will first discuss Stapp’s ideas, as conveyed in the article created by William Jones, then discuss Hartshorne’s response thereto.

Stapp argues that Bell’s theorem demonstrates that the reality of nonlocal, supraluminal causation is implied by quantum theory. Stapp says: "Bell’s theorem shows that . . . spatially separated parts of reality . . . must be related some way that goes beyond the familiar idea that causal connections propagate only into the forward light-cone" (PS 7:174). Bell’s theorem specifies, incidentally, only that the principle of local causes must fail "in certain cases" (173). Stapp evidently believes it justifiable to assume that the nonlocal causality obtaining in those cases can be extrapolated to all cases. (I have made a similar assumption by assuming that, if hybrid physical prehensions occur between some events, they occur between all.)

In harmony with these ideas, Stapp proposes "a modified Whiteheadian theory of events." In this ontology, the creative process consists of a "well-ordered sequence" of creative events, in which "all that exists is unambiguously fixed." This view stands in contrast with "a relative concept of existence in which what exists depends on a space-time standpoint." Each event prehends all prior events in the creation, not only those that belong to the Whiteheadian "actual world," understood in harmony with relativity theory -- namely those "events whose locations lie in the backward light-cone" (PS 7:176). Stapp believes that Whitehead should never have tried to bring his ontology into conformity with the demands of relativity theory, and that his (Stapp’s) modification of the Whiteheadian view brings it more fully into accord with its own principles. In particular: "One of Whitehead’s chief aims was to fulfill the philosophical demand for unity of the world. This unity is destroyed if each event prehends. not all of creation, but only its own actual world [understood relativistically]. Thus Whitehead’s general philosophy should lead him to embrace the absolute concept of existence" (PS 7:176-77).

One of Stapp’s most interesting arguments is that relativity theory should never have been taken to have ontological implications. Having distinguished between "pragmatic science," which seeks only "to make predictions about what will be observed in different situations," and "fundamentalistic science," which seeks "to understand the fundamental nature of things" (PS 7:173), he suggests that the special theory of relativity is an example of the former.

This observation is one of the factors upon which Stapp seeks to develop a "fundamentalistic science" in which all the events of the world are well ordered.

Although Stapp’s article did not discuss the implications of his position for the issue of God’s relation to the world, that there are implications is obvious, and Hartshorne spells them out as he sees them. After citing Stapp’s statement that causal connections are not propagated only into the forward light-cone, Hartshorne says that the Einsteinian concept of space-time structure has at last been qualified. He cites the portion of Whitehead’s statement discussed above that states the qualification "provided physics keeps to its denial of action at a distance" (PR 308). and then comments: "It has not kept to it" (PS 7:184). Hartshorne does not refer to Whitehead’s two types of physical prehension (and hence of physical causation), but Hartshorne does refer to the idea that the kind of influences assumed in relativity theory -- "influences of the kind dealt with in ordinary life, such as those used to move macroscopic bodies, or to send messages" -- is not the only kind, and that Stapp’s idea that time has a "radical directionality," with each event conditioning all those coming after it, depends on "all types of influence (being] taken into account" (PS 7:187). He expresses the wish that Whitehead had never accepted the relativistic conception, "one of the strangest ideas ever introduced by science . . . . By accepting it as ultimate, Whitehead rendered the great doctrine of events as summing up the influences of the past distressingly ambiguous" (PS 7:184).

Hartshorne then hails Stapp’s doctrine as solving what had been such a difficult problem for him for so many decades, saying that it overcomes "the difficulty of seeing how the divine Consequent Nature can be compatible with the idea of its taking light years for spatially separated events to be together as data of one prehension" (PS 7:190). In another passage, Hartshorne says that Stapp’s revision of Whitehead’s cosmology

One question I hope Hartshorne can answer is how we can explain his comments about God and relativity physics in PCH, given what he had said in the 1977 comment on Stapp’s views. Why, after having so enthusiastically discussed the implications of Stapp’s extrapolations from Bell’s theorem, does Hartshorne mention this theorem only once in PCH? And in this mention Hartshorne is hardly enthusiastic, saying of James Devlin that "he does not mention my puzzle over Bell’s theorem in quantum theory or my admitted inability to relate what I call divine time to worldly time as known to us through physics" (PCH 631). In this statement, rather than seeing Bell’s theorem as providing a solution to the problem of God and relativity physics, Hartshorne speaks of it as one more puzzle to put alongside the puzzle of relating God to relativity physics. Furthermore, William Reese, in relation to his question about God and relativity, mentioned Bell’s theorem, saying that it goes beyond relativism with the assumption of "superluminal or instantaneous nonlocal interconnections" (PCH 191). And yet Hartshorne’s response, in which he says that Reese has raised what is the problem for him, makes no mention of Bell’s theorem.

What happened in the intervening years? Did Hartshorne forget what he had written in 1977? Did he come to believe that Bell’s theorem had been disconfirmed? Or that Stapp’s extrapolations from it were illegitimate? Or did he later come to conclude that Stapp’s position is not viable due to a feature of it that I have not yet mentioned, but that was the feature that most piqued Hartshorne’s interest in it? This last hypothesis seems most likely to me.

This other, previously unremarked feature of Stapp’s position involves a more precise understanding of what he means by a "well-ordered universe." He does not mean simply the view I suggested in my proposal, namely, that from the standpoint of a particular event, every other event is unambiguously either in that event’s past, or in its future, or contemporaneous with it (taking "contemporaneous" in the strictest Whiteheadian sense to mean in unison of becoming). Rather, for Stapp, every event is unambiguously either in the past or the future of every other event; there are no contemporaries.¹⁶

It is evidently this feature of Stapp’s position that was primarily responsible for Hartshorne’s initially enthusiastic response. Perhaps the major distress caused to him by relativity theory has been the idea that it entails that many pairs of events -- all contemporary events -- are related only externally, and he has long believed the idea of wholly external relations between actualities to be philosophically problematic. Hartshorne saw Stapp’s rejection of the relativistic theory of time as opening the way to the denial that any pair of events has this relationship of mutual externality. He said:

Hartshorne pointed out that this suggestion did not mean a return to his earlier view that contemporaries are (thanks to Allah) interdependent. Rather, he was suggesting, on the basis of the Bell-Stapp view, that there may be a relationship of one-way dependence between all events: "either an influence goes from A to B or from B to A" (PS 7:185). "What happens here now may condition what happens somewhere else without measurable temporal lapse, although what happens at the somewhere else does not condition what happens here and now (189-90). This view would allow Hartshorne to affirm what he has long wanted to affirm without any qualification: "asymmetry is king, the one-way dependence of creativity in each instance on its antecedent instances" (PS 7:190).

Hartshorne’s response raises questions. One is whether there really was a philosophical problem to be solved. That is, had Whitehead’s philosophy, Hartshorne’s interpretation notwithstanding, not already shown how two contemporaries, even though neither is causally objectified by the other, have a kind of mutual immanence, so that there are no relations between actualities that are sheerly external?’⁷ But the more germane question here is whether Stapp’s view is really one that Hartshorne could accept upon further reflection. I would think not. I see two ways in which Hartshorne might have interpreted Stapp’s position, and neither view would be one that Hartshorne could easily assimilate.

One way to read Stapp would be to take his statement that he is providing "a modified Whiteheadian theory of events" to mean that his ontology is essentially the same as Whitehead’s, except that he allows for no events that are, strictly speaking, contemporaries. Some support for reading Stapp this way comes from his own statement that "Heisenberg-type actual events are the counterparts in modern science of Whitehead’s actual occasions."¹⁸ This reading would have wild consequences. In Whitehead’s cosmology, every electron is a temporally ordered society of electronic actual occasions, with about a billion occasions occurring every second. The number of actual occasions in the universe in every second would be the sum of all the occasions occurring in all the temporally ordered societies, such as photons, mesons, neutrinos, atoms, molecules, and psyches, and in "empty space." Accordingly, with Stapp’s modification of Whitehead’s cosmology into a well-ordered universe, there would not only be literally trillions of trillions of events happening in every second; but also all of those events would have to be sequentially ordered, without any overlap, so that no two events would be in unison of becoming. If this is how Hartshorne read Stapp, it would be understandable that he might have come to consider the Bell-Stapp position, while not logically impossible, quite implausible.

But that reading of Stapp would be a mistake. When Stapp says that his "Heisenberg actual events" are analogous to Whiteheadian actual occasions, he does not mean that they are the same. There are far fewer "Heisenberg actual events." In speaking of "the Heisenberg actual events associated with measurements and collapses of the wave packet," Stapp explains:

The fact that Stapp’s example here involves measurement by physicists is merely incidental. His position is similar to Whitehead’s in being philosophically realistic: Heisenberg actual events do not depend upon human measurement, and have, accordingly, been occurring during the eons before humans appeared on the scene.²⁰ But his position differs from Whitehead’s in that "actual events" occur only when there are macroscopically discernible differences to be decided among.

In the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment cited above, for example,

One question about Stapp’s position, correctly understood, is whether it avoids the problem raised by the prior (false) interpretation, namely, that there would simply be too many actual events occurring per second for the idea that they are "well-ordered" to be plausible. This is still a problem because, although there would be relatively fewer actual occasions per second than in Whitehead’s cosmology, there would still be trillions. Stapp himself believes that the difference between the number of actual events in his cosmology and that of White-head makes this problem not insuperable,²³ but Hartshorne, on further reflection, may have decided otherwise.

Even if Hartshorne did not find this aspect of Stapp’s position implausible, however, the fact remains that Stapp’s ontology is, in spite of its philosophical realism, considerably different from the view of actual events that Hartshorne shares with Whitehead. Hartshorne may have decided that, whatever the difficulties in the idea of mutually external events, and whatever the difficulties in relating God to a universe without a physically defined "now," the difficulties that would be created by trying to assimilate Stapp’s position would be even more formidable.

There are, in sum, many possible reasons as to why Hartshorne, after having at first responded enthusiastically to Stapp’s position, may have, upon further study, lost interest. Besides the two possible reasons I have suggested, it may be that William Jones’ critique of Stapp’s position (PS 7) raised questions in Hartshorne’s mind about its viability.

In any case, whatever be the answer to this biographical question -- as to why Hartshorne, after having at one time praised Allah for the Bell-Stapp view, now hardly refers to it -- my main interest is in the response of Hartshorne and others to the tentative solution I have proposed.

6. A Simpler Solution?

Before concluding, however, I need to consider the possibility that there is a simpler solution. This possibility is raised by the assessment of special relativity given by Stapp (and also Bohm -- see note 11), according to which it is purely pragmatic, making predictions about what will be observed in different situations, and thereby has no ontological significance. Assuming that this is the correct interpretation of special relativity theory, then the fact that it provides no basis for specifying, or even giving meaning to, an unambiguous cosmic present says nothing about whether such a present exists. I have, by supposing that every worldly occasion, as soon as it achieves satisfaction, exerts an instantaneous ‘influence upon subsequent occasions, provided one way of understanding how such a cosmic "now" might exist. But might there be a simpler way -- at least one that would seem simpler to those who are squeamish about instantaneous influence at a distance?

One simpler possibility would be to suppose, on the basis of Whitehead’s realistic ontology (his own deference to special relativity notwithstanding), that all the events in the universe are unambiguously related to each other either as precedent to, subsequent to, or contemporaneous (in unison of becoming) with. This would apply also to spacelike separated occasions, even apart from any notion of instantaneous influence. Although, without that instantaneous influence between worldly occasions, no nondivine observer would be able to know, even in principle, what complete set of events constitutes the just completed past, that set would nonetheless exist, and would be knowable by divine omniscience.

The problem with this proposal is that it supposes that the temporal relation of "precedence and subsequence" has meaning apart from causal influence. But that supposition runs counter to Whitehead as well as Einstein. For them, to say that A precedes B, or is in B’s past, means that A exerts causal efficacy on B. The problem can also be stated in terms of the ontological principle. It entails that the relation "precedent to" must be in some actual entity. If A does not causally affect B, then the relation is not in B. One might suppose that it is in some other actual occasions, which would know that A happened before B. But that would simply bring us back to the problems of special relativity: Some observers would place A before B, but others would place it after B, and still others would consider it simultaneous with B. Without an instantaneous influence from both A and B to those other observers, they would not necessarily agree that A was prior to B. This simpler proposal, accordingly, will not fly.

The discussion of the problem inherent in it, however, points to another possibility that might be more acceptable, at least for those who find the Hartshornean God less problematic than instantaneous action at a distance. One could suppose that the causal efficacy that establishes what set of events is unambiguously in the past is exerted on God, on a divine occasion of experience. Some relations of "precedent to" and "subsequent to" that do not exist in (spacelike separated) worldly occasions would exist in God.

According to this proposal, any divine occasion of experience, being all-inclusive and hence omnipresent, would prehend all those occasions in the universe that have reached satisfaction. (The state of "having reached satisfaction" is an absolute fact about an occasion in itself; unlike the state of being "in the past," it is not a relation that can exist only in a subsequent occasion.) From the point of view of the divine occasion, all those occasions would unambiguously be in the past. Then that divine occasion, as soon as it had reached satisfaction, would be prehended by subsequent worldly occasions. Those worldly occasions would thereby be unambiguously in the future of the divine occasion in question, and would be known to have been such by later divine occasions.

Those worldly occasions, finally, that were contemporaneous (in unison of becoming) with the divine occasion in question would be known to have been such by the next divine occasion.

Within this set of worldly occasions that are contemporaneous with the divine occasion in question, there would be some, to be sure, that would not be strictly in unison of becoming with each other and yet would not be known by God to be in a relationship of precedence and subsequence (I am presupposing the suggestion in section 4, that the duration of divine occasions would be greater than that of worldly occasions, so that there would be sequences of events all of which are contemporaneous with a single divine occasion). A twofold fact would lie behind this ambiguity with regard to some events that are contemporaneous with a particular divine occasion. On the one hand, occasions that are spacelike separated from each other would have no relationship of precedence and subsequence in themselves, because, in the absence of any superluminal causal influence, they would have no causal relations of any kind. On the other hand, all of these occasions that had occurred during the duration of the divine occasion in question would be prehended simultaneously by the subsequent divine occasion, which would thereby not establish among these events contemporaneous with itself a relationship of precedence and subsequence that did not otherwise exist (as it would, by contrast, in prehending a limited selection from all the spacelike separated events of the universe, thereby establishing them as precedent to those events that are contemporary with or subsequent to that divine occasion).

It might be thought that, because no unambiguous cosmic "now" obtains within the set of worldly occasions that are contemporaneous with a divine occasion, this proposal would not really solve the original problem. That problem, as often stated, is that, unless there is an unambiguous cosmic "now," the divine occasions cannot accomplish their twofold task of unifying the past world and providing aims for the future. But thus to phrase the problem is subtly to misrepresent it. All that is necessary is that there be, for every divine occasion, a set of worldly occasions that is unambiguously in the past and another set that is unambiguously in the future. The only cosmic "now" that is needed is a divine "now." The twofold divine role can be fulfilled without establishing a "now" that also discriminates all worldly occasions whatsoever into either past, future, or unison of becoming with respect to each other. It was only, it seems, the assumption that the divine occasions would need to be inserted between every pair of successive events that created this more stringent requirement. With the more relaxed view of divine omniscience and providence, according to which each divine occasion can be contemporaneous with many (perhaps billions of) successive events, we can also have a more relaxed understanding of the requisite cosmic "now."

According to this simplified proposal, we would not need to assume instantaneous causal connections between worldly occasions to assume that the universe would, for God, be unambiguously (except for the qualification just noted) distinguished into past, future, and contemporary events. The role played by instantaneous events in the former proposal would be played in this account by God’s instantaneous prehension of all concresced occasions. (It can be instantaneous because, thanks to the divine omnipresence, there is no distance for the causal influence from any worldly occasion to travel.)

In this proposal, some of the truth about time would exist only because of God. A divine occasion would not, to be sure, make it true that those worldly occasions that it prehends have already attained satisfaction; in prehending them it would be learning something that was already true. But in knowing some spacelike separated events as precedent to others, it would be making something true that would have otherwise not been true. (It would have been true, by hypothesis, that some had already occurred and some had not, but not that the former and the latter had the relation of precedence and subsequence, because that relation does not exist apart from some kind of causal influence, either between the events themselves or upon an omnipresent observer.) Accordingly, if "The truth is nothing else than how the . . . organic actualities of the world obtain adequate representation in . . . the ‘consequent nature’ of God" (PR 12), as Hartshorne agrees, some of the truth about time would be due to God only in the sense that it is adequately known only by God, while some of the truth about time would be due to God in the stronger sense that it is first created by God.

This proposal -- that relativity physics has no ontological significance with respect to time, that there are cosmic "nows," but that those "nows" are knowable only by God and in fact exist only thanks to God’s all-inclusive standpoint -- is perhaps the kind of position Hartshorne had in mind in the moments when he asked: "Can physics, judging reality from the standpoint of localized observers, give us the deep truth about time as it would appear to a non-localized observer?" (CSPM 124) Perhaps Hartshorne was not then able to affirm this solution with much confidence partly because there was less support from physicists than there is today (from Stapp and Bohm [see note 11], among others) for the view that the special theory of relativity has no ontological significance with respect to time, and partly because of the difficulties created by Hartshorne’s assumption that the divine occasions would have to be unimaginably thin in duration. Or perhaps there are difficulties with this proposal that Hartshorne has seen that I have not.

In any case, although it seems to me a possible solution -- it is similar to positions taken by other temporalistic theists who understand special relativity physics far better than I²⁴ -- I favor the earlier proposal. One reason is that an understanding of a series of cosmic "nows" that does not depend upon a concept of God for its very meaning will have a greater chance of being perceived as relevant by physicists and philosophers of science. Also, although I am a theist, I find it, as a matter of taste, preferable to think of God as simply knowing the truth about the cosmic "nows" rather than having these "nows" dependent for their very existence upon the divine experiences. I prefer the former proposal, finally, simply because I suspect that it is something like the truth.

Summary

The idea that the special theory of relativity creates problems for temporalistic theisms, such as that of Whitehead and especially Hartshorne arises from a combination of a fact and an assumption. The fact is that this theory does not provide the basis for a cosmic "now." The assumption is that this theory has ontological implications for the truth about time. Combining the fact and the assumption creates the idea that special relativity physics rules out the possibility of a cosmic "now." And that idea, if true, would seem to rule out the possible truth of temporalistic theisms in which God and the world interact.

But we need not assume that special relativity physics has ontological implications for the nature of time. One way to relativize its status is to postulate a form of efficient causation that influences distant events instantaneously. In Whiteheadian terms, the principle that contemporaries do not interact causally is still affirmed, because the instantaneous influence is exerted only after an occasion achieves satisfaction. This proposal, which I prefer, is aligned with some positions currently proposed by physicists, in which a cosmic "now" based on instantaneous effects is affirmed. A second way to reconcile temporalistic theism and relativity physics is simply to see the latter as having no ontological implications about time whatsoever, so that the possibility of a cosmic "now" is left open, then postulating that a cosmic "now" does exist for God by virtue of God’s all-inclusive standpoint. This second proposal is in harmony with suggestions by temporalistic theists beyond the process camp.

This essay is presented to Charles Hartshorne, with a biographical question about his apparent about-face with respect to Stapp’s views, and a philosophical question (to him and others) about the two proposed solutions.

References

CM -- Henri Bergson. Creative Mind. New York: Philosophical Library. 1946.

CNT -- John B. Cobb, Jr. A Christian Natural Theology Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965.

CSPM -- Charles Hartshorne. Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method. London: SCM Press, 1970.

EWP -- Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy. Eds. Lewis S. Ford and George W. Kline. New York: Fordham University Press, 1983.

JR 40 -- John Wilcox. "A Question from Physics for Certain Theists." Journal of Religion 4014 (October, 1961): 293-300.

JR 48 -- Lewis S. Ford. "Is Process Theism Compatible with Relativity Theory?" Journal of Religion 48/2 (April, 1968): 124-35.

MM -- Henri Bergson. Matter and Memory. London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1929.

PANW -- The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Ed. Paul A. Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. III. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1941.

PCH -- The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne. Ed. Lewis Hahn. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XX. La Salle: Open Court, 1991.

PI -- Philosophical Interrogations. Eds. Sydney and Beatrice Rome. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.

PS 2 -- Paul Fitzgerald. "Relativity Physics and the God of Process Philosophy." Process Studies 214 (Winter, 1972): 251-73.

PS 7 -- Charles Hartshorne, "Bell’s Theorem and Stapp’s Revised View of Space-Time" (183-91); Henry Pierce Stapp, "Quantum Mechanics, Local Causality, and Process Philosophy," ed. William B. Jones (173-82). Process Studies 7/3 (Fall, 1977). William B. Jones, "Bell’s Theorem, H. P. Stapp, and Process Theism," Process Studies 7/4 (Winter, 1977): 250-61.

PS 11 -- Lewis S. Ford. "The Divine Activity of the Future." Process Studies 11/3 (Fall, 1981): 169-79.

TPP -- Frederic F Fost. "Relativity Theory and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism" (89-99); David R. Griffin, "Hartshorne’s Differences from Whitehead" (35-57). Two Process Philosophers: Hartshorne’s Encounter with Whitehead Ed. Lewis S. Ford. Tallahassee: American Academy of Religion, 1973.

WP -- Charles Hartshorne. Whitehead’s Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935-70. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1972.

Notes

11am indebted to a personal letter of April 13, 1992, from Lewis Ford and to a telephone conversation in July of 1992 with Henry Stapp, for this information. I also wish to thank David Bohm, John Cobb, Robert Russell, and Wesley Wildman, all of whom read an earlier draft of this paper and provided valuable suggestions for improvement.

2Royce Gordon Gruenler, who had once accepted process theism, says that process theism’s incompatibility with relativity theory was fundamental to his rejection of it in favor of a more classical theism (The Inexhaustible God: Biblical Faith and the Challenge of Process Theism [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 19831, 16, 75). Gruenler even devotes an entire chapter, "Process and Simultaneity in God: Logical Difficulties in the Process View of Time," to the issue.

3See John Randolph Lucas, The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality, and Truth (Oxford, U.K.. and Cambridge. Mass.: Basil Blackwell. 1989); Willem B. Drees, Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1990); and the essays by John Polkinghorne and C. J. Isham in a volume tentatively titled "Quantum Creation of the Universe and the Origin of the Laws of Nature," ed. Robert i. Russell, William Stoeger, and George V. Coyne (forthcoming from the Vatican Observatory and the University of Notre Dame).

41n one place Whitehead suggests that his adoption of the relativity view in place of the classical view is partly "because it seems better to accord with the general philosophical doctrine of relativity which is presupposed in the philosophy of organism" (PR 66). Elsewhere, however, he says that this adoption "is based on scientific examination of our cosmic epoch, and not on any more general metaphysical principle" (PR 125). My discussion will make clear that I think that Whitehead’s second statement more correctly portrays his position.

5John B. Bennett has argued that Whitehead’s statements on this topic are inconsistent. He cites most of the passages that refer to direct, unmediated prehensions of noncontiguous occasions (PR 63/98, 226/345, 284/435, and 307f/468), but believes that they contradict Whitehead’s comments at PR 120/183f., which, he believes. "rather clearly suggest that there is prehension of the past only through the mediation of contiguous occasions. . . . Objectification of noncontiguous occasions is effected only through the mediating occasions" ("Unmediated Prehensions: Some Observations," Process Studies 2/3 [Fall, 1972], 222-25, at 222). But this interpretation involves misreading. In this latter passage, Whitehead is dealing with the way in which data are transmitted from outside the animal body to the ultimate percipient within the body through chains of contiguous occasions. The issue of whether or not there is also a direct perception of external events, so that the percipient receives data from them that are not transmitted through a chain of contiguous occasions, simply does not come up in this passage. Accordingly, no "reconciliation" of this passage with the others is needed. (The position Bennett offers as a reconciliation, however, is one that I consider not only correct but also important.)

6Henry Stapp, in a personal letter to me of April 16,1992, has commented, with regard to a previous version of this passage: "In quantum theory, interpreted in terms of Heisenberg’s ideas of objective potentia and actual events, the influences are not normally transmitted via contiguous actual events . . . [Rather], the influences between actual events are normally transmitted via ‘potentia’. which are represented in quantum theory by the local quantum fields." This different view does not, however, mean that action at a distance is thereby implied: "In physics the normal causal interactions are carried by [local fields], and such causal connections are not considered to be action at a distance, since they are transmitted in a continuous way by a local process involving local quantum fields."

7 I have discussed this issue in "Introduction: Time and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness," Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time: Bohm, Prigogine, and Process Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press. 1986), 1-50, and in "Pantemporalism and Panexperientialism," forthcoming in a volume edited by Paul A. Harris.

8The statement that pure physical causation is more powerful than hybrid efficient causation requires qualification. The statement refers to the causal influence of a single event on another. Viewed in this light, the effect of hybrid physical causation is, in comparison with pure physical causation, probably vanishingly small, especially in the low-grade actual entities studied by physics, which have trivial mental poles (although David Bohm’s "pilot wave," which he uses to account for, among other things, the strange results of the two-slit experiment, is explained by him in terms of a weaker form of energy that is similar to Whiteheadian hybrid physical causation [as I learned in personal conversation with Bohm]). The pure physical causation is so much more powerful in terms of one event’s influence upon another because the physical energy of an actual occasion (i.e., the creativity embodied in its physical pole) has a compulsive power that is not exerted by its mental energy (i.e., the creativity as distinctively embodied in its mental pole). The statement that pure physical causation is far more powerful needs to be qualified, however, by the recognition that hybrid physical causation, while very weak in itself (i.e., in terms of the influence of one event on another), can have powerful cumulative effects. Whereas pure physical causation is evidently exhausted, at least normally, on contiguous subsequent events, hybrid physical causation can influence remote events as well, perhaps with undiminished intensity. Accordingly, when looking at the physical causation upon a present event from the entire past, the influence of the hybrid physical causation from the past may be as great as or greater than that of the pure. That is, trillions of events in the past in which the same form was actualized can reinforce each other indirectly, as well as indirectly, impressing that form upon the present event. This cumulative effect of a form of causation that is in itself very weak is, incidentally, at the core of Rupert Sheldrake’s hypothesis of "formative causation" (see my review article in PS 12/1 [Spring, 1982], 38-40); it can also be used to explain Jungian archetypes, which Jung himself sometimes accounts for in terms of innumerable repetitions in the past of a particular form (see my introduction to Archetypal Process: Self and Divine in Whitehead, Jung, and Hillman [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1989]).

9Brian Easlea, in Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy: An Introduction to Debates of the Scientific Revolution 1450-1 750 (Atlantic Highlands, N. J.: Humanities Press, 1980), esp. 93-95, 108-15, 121, 132, 135, has argued that the primary motivation behind the acceptance of the mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century was the desire to rule out the possibility of attraction at a distance. I have discussed this issue briefly in my introduction to The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals (Albany; State University of New York Press, 1988), esp. 10-12 and 40n.66, and more extensively in "Philosophy and Parapsychology: A Whiteheadian Postmodern Approach," Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (forthcoming April, 1993).

10The second edition of Sheldrake’s A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (London; A. Blond, 1985) reprints responses evoked by the first (1981) edition.

11In his letter of April 16, 1992 (see n. 6), Henry Stapp wrote: "I agree essentially with your views . . . . Physicists have never showed, or claimed to show, that there could not be a sequence of preferred global ‘nows’ that define absolute simultaneity. They simply abandoned the idea for practical reasons (abetted by a positivistic philosophy that is now in disrepute). If the laws of nature exhibit Lorentz invariance, as they currently appear to do, then it turns out to be impossible to ascertain the forms of these preferred global ‘nows’ from the empirical data available to physicists. Thus there was no compelling reason within physics to hang onto the concept of global ‘nows’, and a good practical reason for dropping it; the elimination of the concept made it technically easier to exploit the property of the Lorentz invariance of the laws of physics."

"Few if any physicists of today would claim that any deep metaphysical ontological conclusions could be deduced (with any high degree of confidence) from those practical considerations. For one thing, we are now aware of the 2.7^o blackbody background radiation, which appears to define a preferred reference frame within which massive objects tend to move ‘slowly’. For another thing, Kurt Gödel has noted that there are preferred definitions of global ‘nows’ in all the models in general relativity (see Albert Einstein: Philosopher/Scientist, ed. A. Schilpp, Tudor). Furthermore, the idea that there is no preferred sequence of global ‘nows’ seems to entail that the whole spacetime universe already exists, in some absolute sense. That conclusion is hard to reconcile with our psychological feeling of the unfolding of nature, and with the quantum mechanical idea of indeterminism, which says that things are not already all laid out."

"The simplest picture of nature compatible with quantum theory is the model of David Robin. It explains all of the empirical facts of a relativistic quantum theory, including, in particular, the impossibility of transmitting ‘signals’ (i.e., controlled messages) faster than light. In spite of this complete agreement with relativistic quantum theory at the level of observed phenomena, and the strict prohibition of all observable faster-than-light effects, Bohm’s model is based explicitly on the postulated existence of an advancing sequence of preferred global ‘nows’, which single out a preferred reference frame for defining absolute simultaneity. In this frame there is an instantaneous action-at-a-distance, which, however, does not disrupt the relativistic invariance at the level of observed phenomena. Bohm’s model provides physicists with the simplest way of understanding all of the puzzling features of quantum phenomena in a completely clear way, provided one is willing to accept preferred global ‘nows’ at the fundamental level."

"One of the most popular quantum ontologies of today is the model of Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber. This GRW model, like Bohm’s model, is based on an advancing sequence of global ‘nows’. It features a well-ordered sequence of Heisenberg-type actual events, each of which induces a large instantaneous action at a distance. Heisenberg-type actual events are the counterparts in modem science of Whitehead’s actual occasions."

"These remarks show that your proposals to accept, at the fundamental level, the concept of absolute simultaneity is very much in line with certain contemporary developments in physics. These developments have grown out of the need to extend quantum theory, in a rationally coherent way, beyond the domain of atomic physics. Hartshorne was, I believe, completely correct in recognizing the importance of this break with the positivistically inspired philosophical ideas of the past. Of course, some physicists remain wedded to the older idea, but the influence of positivism is on the wane: there is a growing feeling among physicists that it was wrong to dismiss the idea that science should provide, among other things, also ‘understanding’."

David Bohm, in a letter of May 17, 1992, responded to my proposal in these terms: "I think we are in basic agreement about relativity. However, I would go further and suggest that at a deeper level, relativity doesn’t hold even physically. More precisely, the idea is that relativity doesn’t hold for individual quantum processes, but is valid only statistically. (The validity would include the classical limit, which arises when there is a large number of quantum processes, as the movement of grains of sand approximates a continuous movement that is determined by a simple law of flow.) For individual quantum processes, there would be a unique space-time frame, in terms of which "simultaneous contact" would be specified. The latter frame would be determined by the line connecting any given point to the presumed origin of the universe. Empirically, this should be close to the frame in which the mean velocity of the 3^oK radiation background in space is zero."

"This means that matter and mind share nonlocality, and have a common frame determining simultaneity. So matter and mind both share in one universal process of becoming."

"I enclose a paper giving more details." (The paper is D. Bohm and B. J. Hiley, "On the Relativistic Invariance of a Quantum Theory Based on Beables," Foundations of Physics, 21/2 [19911:243-50. "Beables" is John Bell’s term for things more fundamental than measuring instruments and observables on which to base an interpretation of the quantum theory. An interpretation based on beables, in other words, would be a realistic, ontological interpretation. The concern of the Bohm-Hiley paper is how such an interpretation involving nonlocality can be reconciled with relativity. Their solution involves a new model of quantum processes" based on "a subrelativistic level of stochastic process which is also subquantum mechanical [in the sense that the details of the stochastic process can never be revealed directly in any quantum mechanical experiment]." This would mean "giving up the notion that relativity and quantum mechanics are universally valid" (249].)

12For example. Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, in The End of Evil: Process Eschatology in Historical Context (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), says that "the societal view . . . entails the problem that the number of unifications required in a series in order to match every single finite concrescence whatsoever defy [sic] probability" (171).

13I am indebted to Pete Gunter for this and the following references to Bergson’s writings.

14Some Whiteheadians will, no doubt, wish to exploit this principle to argue that, if the divine event is co-extensive with the entire universe spatially, and thus infinite, it should also be infinite temporally -- which would bring us back from Hartshorne’s view to Whitehead’s, which is that God is a single, everlasting event. (Although Bergson’s own view on this is unclear, he at least moved in this direction [see CM 220f].) But, besides the fact that to be co-extensive with the universe is not necessarily to be literally infinite, the correlation between spatial and temporal extensiveness would not, as far as I can see, need to be strictly proportional. In any case, my proposal as to the metaphysical principle involved is only that there must be a positive correlation between duration and spatial extensiveness. I do not include the further specification that this correlation would necessarily be strictly proportional. Whereas I can see some reason to think that such proportionality should hold universally, I find more reason to consider metaphysical the (conflicting) principle that contemporaries (in unison of becoming) cannot interact, and thereby to hold strictly to Whitehead’s judgment that "the notion of an actual entity which is characterized by essential qualities, and remains numerically one amidst the changes of accidental relations and of accidental qualities" is "in metaphysics . . . sheer error" (PR 79). Accordingly, I believe that the system requires for coherence the idea that God is a personally ordered society of divine occasions of experience, not a single, everlasting actual entity. Incidentally, although I suggest in the text below that there may be sixty divine occasions in a minute, that suggestion is purely arbitrary. One could well assume the divine occasions to have even greater durations, thereby moving somewhat closer to proportionality. (Of course, the greater the divine durations, the less specific the divine initial aims for worldly occasions would need to be. But many Whiteheadians have already adopted, on other grounds, a highly general view of initial aims.)

15See God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (1976; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991), 291-300, and Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), ch. 1.

161n his letter of April 16 (see n. 6), Stapp says: "the actual events are, at the basic ontological level, organized in a specific linear sequence. This arises automatically from the Heisenberg ontology if one adopts the so-called "Heisenberg picture," in which the differential causal equations of motion (the so-called von Neumann process II) are equations relating the Heisenberg local quantum fields at neighboring spacetime points, and the discrete quantum jumps (the so-called von Neumann process I, followed by a choice of one of the separate possibilities) are jumps in the Heisenberg state of the universe. Because there is only one Heisenberg state of the universe, at any stage of the evolution of the universe, there ,must be a well-ordered sequence of quantum jumps. Each such jump represents a new state of "God’s knowledge of the universe," and a new set of potentialities for the next actual event. There are no contemporaneous events, in process time." (By "process time," Stapp means "simply the sequential ordering of the actual events"; it is to be distinguished from the "temporal order," meaning "the time of spacetime.") Leaving no ambiguity, Stapp says: "Thus there is, in the Heisenberg ontology, no unison-in-becoming."

17Jorge Nobo has provided a strong textual and systematic argument that, in spite of the fact that an occasion cannot be immanent in a contemporary in the mode of causal objectification, contemporaries do have a kind of mutual immanence (White head’s Metaphysics of Extension and Solidarity [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986], 21-23, 50f, 55-58, 221). Nobo believes, accordingly (399-400), that Hartshorne is wrong to think that Whitehead, in speaking sometimes of the mutual immanence of occasions, was simply careless. Whatever one thinks of the details of Nobo’s interpretation of the extensive continuum, the textual evidence he marshals, showing that Whitehead at least intended a kind of mutual immanence between contemporaries, seems irrefutable. It may be, then, if the concept is coherent (and Nobo presents a strong case that it is), that one of the chief difficulties Hartshorne has had with Whitehead’s position, that it entailed sheer mutual externality between contemporaries, was never there.

18 This statement occurs in the letter from Stapp of April 16. 1992 (see note 6).

19 Ibid.

20Letter from Stapp of June 21, 1992.

21Ibid.

22Ibid

23 In his letter of June 21, Stapp says: "There are, of course, trillions of choices between discernible differences to be made each second in the universe as a whole. But I think nature can handle that. But if choices between indiscernible differences are added, the job might get too burdensome."

24John Randolph Lucas, who has written A Treatise on Time and Space (London: Methuen, 1973). Space, Time and Causality: An Essay in Natural Philosophy (Oxford and New York; Clarendon, 1985), and (with P. E. Hodgson) Spacetime and Electromagnetism: An Essay on the Special Theory of Relativity (Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), has said in The Future (see note 3, above): "The divine canon of simultaneity implicit in the acquisition of knowledge by an omniscient being is not incompatible with the Special Theory of Relativity, but does lead to there being a divinely preferred frame of reference . . ." (220).

 I appreciate Professor Pike’s lengthy critique of a central chapter of my book, God, Power and Evil: A Process Theodicy (henceforth GPE) and the invitation by the editor of Process Studies to respond to it. Of the numerous issues his critique raises, I will respond to those which seem most important.

Theodicy as Hypothesis

Pike’s summary of my position in parts I and II of his paper is quite accurate. But it, along with later comments [under III (2) (ii)], suggests a distorted understanding of the spirit in which my theodicy was offered, so I will begin with a clarification of this. The theodicy is offered as a hypothesis, with this question: Does not this hypothesis do justice to and even illuminate the reality of evil while portraying a God who is believable and worthy of worship? The metaphysical claims that are made are made within this context of hypothesizing. One of my central aims within the chapter Pike critiques is to point out that other discussions of the problem of evil, both theistic and antitheistic, make metaphysical assumptions, usually implicitly. The central one is contained in what I labeled Premise X: "It is possible for one actual being’s condition to be completely determined by a being or beings other than itself." The metaphysical assumption is that there can he beings who are actual who nevertheless have no power of self-determination that cannot be completely controlled by something other than themselves. If the theologians and philosophers would explicitly make that claim, it could be seen as the very dubious metaphysical claim that it is. How does anyone know that such actualities are possible? Has anyone encountered one? If not, why make such a metaphysical claim, with its far-reaching consequences for the possibility of believing that we and our world are in relation to a creative spirit whose intentions and activities are beyond reproach?

Then beyond pointing out that most philosophers and theologians (including Pike) who have dealt with the problem have made this dubious metaphysical assumption, I suggest that we see what would happen if the contrary metaphysical idea were true, viz., that any world would necessarily be composed of actual beings having two-fold power such that their self-formation and their influence on others could not in principle be totally determined by anything other than themselves. Furthermore, I presented some reasons why we should consider this metaphysical claim true. One of these is the fact that we experience ourselves as having this two-fold power, so we know at least that actualities with this two-fold power are possible. Also, Whitehead has shown us how we can understand our world as composed exclusively of actualities that can be understood in analogy with an occasion of human experience. Finally, the theodicy itself, insofar as people found it successful, was to be a verification of the soundness of the original hypothesis. In sum, I was not proceeding a priori, I did not claim to know all sorts of metaphysical truths, and I did not by my definition of actuality imply that those who have given contrary definitions were guilty of semantic confusion.¹

In the next three sections I will discuss three issues raised by Pike: a historical question about traditional theodicy, the relation between logical and metaphysical possibility, and the relation between individuals and their activity. In the concluding section I will comment upon the approach to theodicy that Pike finds "more promising."

Traditional Theodicy

One of the claims I make is that traditional theodicy said, either explicitly or implicitly, that God has a monopoly on power. Pike disputes this, saying the view that God has a monopoly on power has "no theological significance," since the claim in Christian theological texts that God is all-powerful never means that God "has all the power." The idea it does is a "misconstrual on Hartshorne’s part." That is a rather serious charge, for it would mean that Hartshorne, I, and other process thinkers (and others besides) had been battling against straw opponents all these years. And if anyone could so misread the tradition, it would throw his or her analytical acumen into serious doubt.

What I find especially puzzling about Pike’s claim is that he makes it in critiquing a book a good portion of which is devoted to an analysis of traditional Christian theologians and which gives ample evidence for the claim in question, and yet Pike makes no reference to any of this evidence. The claim was: "The traditional theodicy has said in effect -- although often denying it verbally -- that one being could simply have all the power" (OPE 268). I deal with Augustine and Aquinas as ones who deny it verbally, for the most part, and Luther and Calvin as ones who affirm it quite openly. Luther, for example, says that we have no power of free will, since God predestines and does all things. Power belongs to God’s nature, and free will is no more properly attributed to us than is divinity (GPE 103-05). And Luther’s famous assertion of the Alleinwirksamkeit Gottes (sole efficacy of God) is echoed in the description of God by Emil Fackenheim, the contemporary Jewish theologian, as the "sole power" (GPE 221). Calvin argues that no creatures have any intrinsic power with which they can harm us -- God is the cause of their motion (GPE 117).

Pike likes to distinguish between the possession of power and its exercise, and he assumes that this belongs to the "standard view" of omnipotence that he holds along with the traditional Christian theologians. But I had cited Calvin’s rejection of the view of omnipotence as an ability to do all things which sometimes sits idle (GPE 116); and Calvin rejects any distinction in God between "doing" and merely "permitting," saying that those who make this distinction "babble and talk absurdly" (GPE 116f.). Also, the doctrine that God is "actus purus" is a denial that there is any unactualized potency in God. Furthermore, the doctrine of divine "simplicity" counters Pike’s contention that his is the standard view. This doctrine entails that there is no distinction in God between, say, knowing and doing; hence Thomas points out that God’s omniscience causes all things (OPE 76); Karl Barth echoes this view in our century (GPE 151).

So much for this historical point. But I should point out that it has more than historical importance. The force of tradition is such that the assumptions these traditional theologians made about the meaning of such terms as "God," "power," and "actualities" greatly condition the current discussion of the problem of evil. Pike claims that the polemic against the monopolistic view of power has no relevance to the "positions taken in the contemporary, philosophical literature on the problem of evil." My chapters on John Hick and James Ross, and the discussions I cited by Flew, Pucetti, and Hoitenga (GPE 159f), show this to be untrue.

Metaphysical and Logical Truth

One of the differences between Pike and me that becomes clear only at the end of his essay, but whose influence runs throughout, involves the relation between metaphysical and logical truth. Because of his different understanding, he thinks I waver on whether Premise X is logically or metaphysically false -- two possibilities which he considers contradictory.² He has misunderstood my argument. My whole point in the passage which he found unclear (GPE 265f) is that logical possibility about actualities cannot be discussed apart from some metaphysical assertions as to the nature of actualities. For example, if the question is whether it is "logically possible" for one actuality’s activities to be totally determined by some other being, one simply cannot answer the question apart from some account of what one means by an "actuality." And to give such an account is a metaphysical task. There are not two kinds of possibility involved here. If one answers the question in the affirmative (saying, "yes, it is logically possible for one actuality’s activities to be totally determined by some other being"), one has already, willy-nilly, given a metaphysical answer to the nature of actuality. And if one begins, as I do, by explicitly taking a metaphysical position on the nature of actuality, there is no further question of "logical" possibility to answer. That is, logical possibility involves the absence of contradiction among propositions. If the propositions are biological ones, dealing with the nature of living things on our planet, logic tells us what is possible for living things on our planet, given the initial propositions about the nature of earth life from the science of biology. If the propositions are metaphysical ones, dealing with the nature of actual beings qua actual beings, then logic tells us what is possible for actual beings in this and any world, given the initial metaphysical propositions about the nature of actuality. Logic tells us which arguments are valid; but whether or not we think the argument is sound depends upon our judgment as to whether the metaphysical propositions are sound.

So, one cannot ask simply whether Premise X is logically false as opposed to metaphysically false. If it is the conclusion of a valid argument, it is "logically false" if and only if one of the premises ms metaphysically false.³ This all seems very elementary. It therefore came as a shock to see Pike assuming I meant that Premise X is "only metaphysically false (and not logically false)." On this basis he concludes that, from my contention that it is (only) metaphysically impossible for the activities of any actual being to be totally determined by some other being or beings, it does not follow that a being with perfect power could not completely determine the activities of all the actualities in the world. God can do things that are metaphysically impossible as long as they are not also logically impossible.

How could Pike assume that something could be metaphysically impossible and yet really possible? Evidently because of two beliefs, which he evidently thinks I share. First, he thinks that the class of "logically possible worlds" is wider than the class of "metaphysically possible worlds." This is affirmed on the grounds that a metaphysical principle is logically contingent since its negation is not self- contradictory. Second, he evidently holds that what is really possible is defined by what is logically possible; it is not limited to what is metaphysically possible.

Regarding the first belief: I have already stated my reason for rejecting the notion that one can talk about worlds that are logically possible apart from talking about metaphysical possibility. Also, I do not agree that metaphysical statements are contingent. Here I follow not only Hartshorne but also Whitehead (PR 258/ 441) and others in holding that metaphysical propositions are without conceivable alternative. Of course, we must distinguish between properly formulated metaphysical propositions and our feeble attempts; also, we must bear in mind our great fallibility in being able to determine what is genuinely conceivable and what is not (ESP 133). Only an Omniscient being could formulate them accurately -- and clearly intuit that they are without conceivable alternative. But metaphysical statements, as I use the term, are in intention not contingent. (Whether or not this means they are logically contingent, I will leave up to Pike.)

Regarding Pike’s second belief: I would reject it even if Pike could defend the first. If metaphysical truths are truths that hold in any world that could be actualized, then nothing is really possible that is metaphysically impossible. If something is metaphysically impossible, it cannot be done by an omnipotent being, no matter how "omnipotence" is defined (unless it is defined as the power to do what is impossible, and here all discussion would have to stop).

Given Pike’s understanding of the difference between logical and metaphysical possibility, his interpretation of my position in the introduction and part II of his paper needs modification. He interprets my position to be that God has the "logical limit of power." If that is taken in Pike s sense of having the power to do things that are "only" metaphysically but not logically impossible (whatever that might mean), then it is not my position (or Hartshorne’s). From Pike’s point of view I have taken the straightforward route he expected process thinkers to take, that of simply saying that "God has limited power so that "although God is perfectly good and thus would prefer a world devoid of evil, it is not within his power to bring such a world about." But from my (Hartshornean and Whiteheadian) point of view, according to which things that are metaphysically impossible are not somehow really possible (even to perfect power), it is not correct to say that God’s power is "limited," as if it were somehow less than it could be. It is because I think it important to maintain the perfection of God, including God’s power, that I have to maintain that it is impossible in principle for any conceivable being to guarantee an evil-free world. That is the importance of rejecting Premise X. Hence Pike is right to say I reject the suggestion that God’s power is limited; he is wrong if he is suggesting that I endorse the idea that God has the "logical limit of power" in Pike’s sense.

Actuality and Power

In the first section I argued the historical point that Pike’s view of omnipotence is not really the "standard view." But the possibility remains that it might be a perfectly acceptable view. His central claim is that an actual being can have power and yet be completely determinable by another being. Accordingly, one need not embrace the monopolistic view in order to say that an omnipotent being can totally determine the activities of all worldly beings. Pike tries to support his central claim (which is a rejection of Premise X) by giving some examples. The examples reveal that he employs, evidently without realizing it, a different notion of actual being than the Whiteheadian notion I lay out.

For Whitehead, a good deal of our metaphysical problems have resulted from what can be dubbed the "fallacy of misplaced individuality." The error consists in taking things that are really societies of individuals to be the genuine individuals (or actual entities) themselves. This would be a type of "category mistake." It is extremely serious, since our ideas of "power" and "action are usually correlated with our ideas of individuals -- individuals (actual entities, substances) are the things that act and exercise power. Since societies of individuals may have quite different characteristics than the individuals themselves (e.g., a crowd of people does not have the unity of experience or the power of self-determination possessed by the individual members), quite erroneous notions of the characteristics of individual actual entities and all sorts of philosophical difficulties can result from this confusion. For example, Descartes took visible material objects such as rocks to be examples of actual entities or substances (in the formal sense of res verae, finally real things). Since he also took his own soul as providing an example of an actual entity, and since souls and rocks quite obviously have different characteristics, this gave him an insoluble problem of explaining how these two ontologically different types of actual entities could relate to each other. Had he anticipated Leibniz in thinking of the rock (and his own body) as composed of actual entities (monads) conceived in analogy with that one and only individual he knew from direct experience, his own soul, he would not have had the insuperable problem of understanding the power relations between the soul, on the one hand, and the body and the surrounding world, on the other hand. At least this would have been the case if he had not defined actual entities as totally independent of each other and consequently would not have made his monads windowless.

Another modification Whitehead suggests to Descartes is that the soul itself should not be considered a single actual entity, but a serially-ordered society of actual entities. The momentary occasions of experience are the most concrete individuals; it is the present moment that I directly experience and which has indivisible unity. In his "working hypothesis," Whitehead takes a moment of his own experience as the standard of actuality. If anything else is to be considered an actuality, it must be conceivable in analogy with this experiential basis from which the meaning of "actuality" is derived. Accordingly, in his conjectures about the world in which we find ourselves, Whitehead lists as possible further examples of individual actual entities only those things whose behavior suggests that they have a unity of response to their environments. That is analogous to that self-determining and anticipatory response which one moment of our experience makes to its environment -- in the first place to God and its body. Accordingly, he conjectures that cells, molecules, atoms, electrons, and protons are analogous to the soul, with the cell being composed of a series of cellular occasions, the atom a series of atomic occasions, and so on.

Whitehead’s understanding of power and activity are correlated with this understanding of individuals. Consequently, he does not think of individuals as essentially existing independently from acting and exercising power. An individual is its activity, and its activity is its exercise of power. This powerful activity is two-fold: the power of determining itself out of the influences upon it from previous individuals, and then the power of acting upon subsequent individuals which, willy-nilly, will have to take account of it in their own self-determining activity.

Now to bring this Whiteheadian understanding into relation to Pike’s apparent views. The crucial issue here concerns the status of the whole human being: is this entity an individual, a serially ordered society of actual entities, an aggregate (like a rock), or something else? It is something else, what Whitehead calls a structured society with a dominant member (the soul). Because of this dominant member, which receives data from all parts of the body in each moment and in turn exercises a partial but quite dominating control over the rest of the body, the total psychophysical organism does in each moment have an overall unity of responsive action that rocks and plants lack. By virtue of the dominant occasions of experience constituting the soul, the total human being (along with other animals, especially those with a central nervous system) is, especially in moments of conscious awareness, an individual in a much fuller sense than either rocks or plants. Nevertheless, in the strictest sense it is the dominant occasions themselves that are the individuals, the actual entities. They are ontological individuals relating to neighboring individuals -- first of all God (who is in everyone’s neighborhood) and the brain cells, and through these cells to the rest of the bodily members and through them the surrounding world. The body, in other words, is simply the most intimate part of the world for the soul. The activity of one of its occasions is, first of all, its activity of self-determination by which it constitutes itself in response to its own past occasions, God, and the data pouring in from the bodily members. This is the activity Whitehead labels "concrescence," as the occasion is becoming a concrete individual. In this activity the occasion determines, among other things, its emotional responses to the influences upon it, and it decides how it will try to influence future individuals. Its secondary activity is called "transition," which is its influence upon subsequent individuals. This influence, insofar as it depends upon the occasion itself, will depend upon how the occasion formed itself during its concrescence; it does not now make additional efforts to be influential in particular ways. What its influence actually is will depend partly upon factors beyond its control: first, the subsequent individuals will also be influenced by myriad other actual entities that were determining themselves contemporaneously with the actuality in question; second, the subsequent individuals will have their own power of self-determination, by which they can be somewhat selective in allowing things to influence them.

Pike seems to oscillate between two views of the human being and hence between two views of human action. He sometimes seems to think of the total psychophysical organism as a unified agent which acts upon the exterior world. He is this total organism. Hence, he says, "It is within my power to shatter the glass on my desk." At other times he seems to think of himself as an agent distinct from his body whose primary activities consist in moving his bodily parts. His favorite activity seems to be moving his arm. My main point in making this comparison is not that Whitehead’s ontology is superior to the one implicit in Pike’s discussion (although I do believe this). Rather, the problem is that Pike, evidently being unaware that his understanding of an individual and hence of activity and power differs considerably from the Whiteheadian understanding I was employing,⁴ overlooks in his arguments precisely the issues that are most crucial from my perspective. They are also, incidentally, ones that have been crucial in the debates down through the centuries about divine power and human responsibility. I will illustrate.

Pike wants to support the claim that one entity (B) could be completely determinable by another entity (A) without thereby being devoid of power to determine its own activities. One case of this, he says, would be when B has the power to determine its own activities but chooses not to. For example, a father has the power to move his arm, but allows his daughter to move it. Does this provide an illustration in which A is able "to completely determine the activities of B"? Not by a long shot. In the first place, "moving an arm" is a very abstract description of all the processes going on in the body when that arm is moved. The daughter would have to be able to determine, for example, all the activities of the muscles, the blood vessels, and their constituent molecules, etc., in her father’s arm and the rest of his body. In the second place, and more importantly, we are told that the father "chooses" not to exercise his arm-raising power, and "allows" his daughter to raise it for him. That decision-making power is the primary kind of power Whitehead has in mind when speaking of the inherent power of an individual. Only if the daughter could control her father’s choices would we have an example of one individual’s being able "to completely determine the activities" of another actuality. Because of the model of individuality and hence activity Pike uses, he fails to include as an "activity" precisely that kind of activity that was uppermost in mind in my discussion.⁵

Pike’s model also leads him to distinguish between "having" and exercising" power. He sees an individual as being able to have power without exercising it, since one can have the power to raise an arm without exercising it. But from a Whiteheadian point of view, individuals are essentially active; it belongs to their essence to exercise their power of self-determination. They must use the power of choice, as Pike’s example unwittingly shows: whether the father chooses to raise his arm, or chooses not to, he is still choosing. (As the poster reminds us: "Not to decide is to decide.") What Pike takes as a primary example of self-determining activity, from which he concludes that such activity is optional for an individual, is from a Whiteheadian perspective an example of efficient causation, i.e., an example of one individual (the dominant occasion) influencing other things (the arm muscles via the central nervous system). Although this power to influence others is inherent in individuals, the nature of the influence is somewhat optional, especially for the high-grade individuals constituting the human soul which can consciously decide upon the power they want to exert on others. I can decide either to tighten my arm-raising muscles, or keep them relaxed. So, I am not deciding whether or not to exercise power on others, but only how to exercise it. From this perspective, if one’s activities were totally controlled by another being, one would not have any power. The ontological individuals are the momentary occasions of experience whose very actuality consists in their activity.

Pike provides another case designed to show that one entity could be completely determinable by another without being devoid of power. In this case, A may have the power "to completely determine the activities of B" but choose not to exercise it, thereby leaving B the power to determine its own activities. His example is that a father may have the power to restrain his daughter’s arm and may yet allow her to move it. The same problems arise here as with the previous example. Restraining an arm hardly constitutes completely determining all her bodily activities. And the really interesting question would be whether he could control her desire to move her arm, and this not with threats but by causing her not to want to move it. If the father could really control all her activities -- all her desires, all her emotional reactions to events, all her decisions, as well as all her bodily movements -- we would not attribute to her any power of her own, at least not while he was controlling her. And, if he had the power to turn her off and on like that, we would be reluctant to say she had power of her own even in those times when he was not controlling her. All the power in the relationship would essentially belong to him; the situation would be essentially monopolistic. While he was not completely controlling her, she would not be operating under inherent power but under bestowed or loaned power. She has no power of her own if it can be totally turned off by another, and if she has no power over when she "has" power. Accordingly, I argued: "If one holds that B’s condition can be totally determined by A, this implies that B really has no power in relation to A. And if B represents the totality of the world, and A represents God, this means that God has all the power, while the world has none" (GPE 268). (It is possible that Pike’s rejection of the analysis here is based on not seeing that the claim is that, if God can totally determine our activities [including our very willing and desiring], we have no power in relation to God.)

Pike’s central contention is to maintain that there can be an intelligible doctrine of omnipotence that says God can completely determine our activities but that does not deny that we have power. His key idea is that God can overpower our power.

He states that the following "strengthened version of Premise X" is presupposed in his view of omnipotence: "It is possible for A to completely determine all of the activities of B even in the case where B is making whatever effort it can to determine its own activities for itself’ (Pike’s italics). Pike rightly assumes that I will find this premise contradictory. But this is not because it contradicts some other principle I would affirm, as he suggests, but because it is self-contradictory. From my perspective, if A is completely determining all of B’s activities, then B cannot be making any effort of its own to determine its own activities for itself. Any "effort" it exerted would be part of its "activities" and hence by hypothesis would be completely determined by A. Since Pike says that this "strengthened premise is presupposed by his so-called "standard view" of omnipotence, I can only consider that view incoherent.

Pike’s "strengthened premise" reflects as clearly as possible the differences between our ontologies, in particular the different understandings of the relation between actuality, power, and activity. Pike evidently thinks an individual’s activities are nonessential to its actuality. Hence the individual’s activities could be completely overpowered and hence restrained by some other being and yet that individual would still be an actuality. It has its actuality in some kind of being that preexists its activity. And in this being it has power that may or may not be exercised; it is power in the sense of potency. Accordingly from Pike’s perspective it is not worrisome to think of God as being able completely to control our activities, and even doing this from time to time. We still have our actuality, and even our power. There is no suggestion that God’s omnipotence means monism, or even a monopolistic concentration of power. At least Pike can think this way as long as he distinguishes between an individual’s "activities" on the one hand and its "choice" on the other. If he would include an individual’s choices in its activities, he perhaps would not be so certain that our actuality and power could survive our being overpowered by God.

From my Whiteheadian point of view, an individual is its activity, and its activity is its power. To think of God as (per impossible) completely determining its activities would be to think of God as obliterating its power and hence its actuality. There is no "substance" underlying the activity that would remain, waiting to exercise its power once God quit butting in.

The contrast can be clarified in terms of the notion of the "material" cause of things, in Aristotle’s sense. If all things are thought to share in "being" which is distinct from creative activity, then it seems intelligible to attribute being to us even if our activity can be totally controlled by God. And this being can be thought to have its power, just waiting to be exercised. But if the material cause of all things, including God, is creative activity, so that that is the very stuff of which we are made, then a system that says that God can completely determine our creative activity is saying that God is essentially all in all.

To some extent all of Pike’s argumentation, that we can still be said to have power even if God can overpower us, is beside the point, since part of what I meant by the metaphysical hypothesis that all actualities have inherent power of their own is precisely that their activities cannot be totally determined by some other being, even God. To say that some other being or beings could completely determine their process of concrescence would be to deny that they had any "inherent power of self-determination," as I intended that phrase. Accordingly, although some important issues have surfaced in this discussion, and hopefully some illumination as to why Pike’s intuitions run counter to mine, the issue may be finally semantic. Perhaps Pike, even if he were to see the distinction between one’s "choosing" and one’s "activities" to be untenable, would want to maintain that we would have "power of our own" even if God could completely determine all our activities (including our choices). But, if so, he would not be talking about "power of our own" as I understand it, so there would be no substantive conflict on that point.

The only conflict would be on whether a being with perfect power could completely determine every aspect of any other actuality. Since Pike says yes, an approach to theodicy on the basis of his metaphysical position would have to be totally different from mine. I turn now to this issue.

Pike’s "More Promising" Approach

Our perception of the worthwhileness of the approach someone else takes to a problem is often colored by whether we think we already have an acceptable solution of a different sort. My approach is to focus on the question of power, asking what even perfect power might not be able to do. Pike believes that the more promising approach is the more traditional one of focusing on the question of goodness. The premise to attack, he holds, is that "God is opposed to evil in such a way that a (perfectly) good being always eliminates evil if it can." One should follow Augustine in holding that God permits or causes evil to exist because it contributes to "the ultimate good." Pike says that this theodicy is free of any logical contradiction between "God exists" and "evil exists."

Of course it is, because it denies that there is any genuine evil; the "evil" that "exists" is said merely to be apparently evil. Since I spent a good deal of my book (including the chapter on Augustine and the chapter that Pike critiqued) pointing out that this was the major tendency of the traditional theodicies (GPE 21-23,69-71,252-54,256,260, and passim), I will say nothing more about it here. Except this: the task of philosophical theology is presumably not merely to find positions that are free from logical contradiction, but to find positions that are also believable and livable. In the face of Auschwitz, of burning and starving children, of agonizing lingering deaths, of brutality to children and minorities beyond belief, of animal suffering uncompensated for by any possible moral growth, of lives stunted from childhood from inadequate protein -- in the face of all these and countless other forms of evil, can Pike really believe, and live in terms of the belief, that everything that happens contributes to the ultimate good? If so, that is the ultimate issue on which we diverge.

Notes

1 Pike asks if my (substantive) "definition" of actual being as involving the power of self-determination implies that Descartes. who thought there were material actual beings without such power, was guilty of semantic confusion about the meaning of "actual being." No, since the semantic issue involves the formal meaning of actual being (res vera, substance). Descartes, of course, had his own substantive definition of substance (as "that which requires nothing but itself to be").

2 Pike also initially says my claim that the term "powerless actualities" is meaningless (because not rooted in direct experience) is contradictory to the claim that any statement presupposing this term is false. But Pike then provides a resolution based on the distinction between the "surface meaning" and the "ultimate meaning-status" of a term. In other words, one can understand what someone means by a term without agreeing that that term is ultimately a meaningful one. Also, if it is correct that metaphysical truths are without conceivable alternatives, as I state later in the paper with clarifications, then there is no tension involved in saying of metaphysical statements that they are false and meaningless -- these would ultimately (i.e., for omniscience) be identical.

Pike, in calling my view of meaning "naively empirical," seems to assume that by "experience" I mean only sense perception, which, of course, I do not. And my view is not un-Whiteheadian. For example, Whitehead said Hume’s claim that ‘causation" had to be experienced to be meaningful, was "entirely justifiable" (PR 166/ 253). Pike’s suggestion that a "powerless actuality" might be reached by a method similar to that of the extensive abstraction which Whitehead used to arrive at the meaning of a "point" founders on the irreducible difference between actuality and possibility.

3 It is because the argument about metaphysical impossibility is not distinct from the argument about logical possibility that Pike finds no separate argument for it in the text.

4 In the chapter Pike criticized, I explained that whenever! said "a being" I meant "an individual actual being" (GPE 268). What exactly this means in a Whiteheadian context was explained on another p age to which Pike refers (GPE 277).

5And, in theological debates about "grace and free will," the central question has been whether we have any freedom vis-á-vis God to decide for or against God’s will. According to Luther, for example, we cannot even choose to believe the gospel unless God has predestined us to believe it (GPE 106). Augustine said that "God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts" (GPE 64f.).