4. A theology of Nature

4.      A theology of Nature

Why an evolutionary process

     Why there should be a world? The description of deity as actus purus meant that God had already actualized all possible values. This was one way of stressing deity’s total independence of the world.

     Process theology does not have this problem. Although the possible values all subsist in God, they subsist as merely possible values, not as actualized values. They are in God only conceptually or in mode of appetition, not physically, or the mode of enjoyment. Hence, here must be a world of finite actualities, or no values will be enjoyed.

     Why these actualities should be involved in an evolutionary process → there are gradations of value, and some actualities are capable of greater enjoyment than others. More complex actualities enjoy more value than simpler ones. → direction of evolutionary process is toward more complex actualities, resulting from God’s basic creative purpose, which is the evocation of actualities with greater and greater enjoyment.

     Why take over four billion years to get to the more valuable creatures if they could have been created at once? → God’s influence is always persuasive, and can only produce such order as is possible.  And more complex forms of order presuppose the simpler forms and hence can only come after them.

     The major steps in this evolution of more complex forms of order. →

     first the reason for the positive correlation between complexity and enjoyment must be made explicit. → the two variables involved in the degree of enjoyment are harmony and intensity.

     Intensity depends upon complexity, since intensity requires that a variety of elements be brought together into a unity of experience. To bring a variety of elements into a moment of experience means to feel these elements, to prehend them positively. → now the more complex an actuality is, the more element from its environment it can feel, and thereby take into itself.  Simpler occasions of experience must exclude from feeling more of the potential values in the environment. This is why intensity depends upon complexity. And hence why the higher grades of enjoyment finally depend upon complexity. Furthermore, a complex actuality is possible only on the basis of an ordered environment. This is why order is promoted for the sake of increased enjoyment.  

     These criteria of harmony and intensity (based on variety held in contrast) are taken form aesthetics.

     Process theology rejects the notion of creation ex nihilo, if that means creation out of absolute nothingness. That doctrine is part of parcel of the doctrine of God as absolute controller. → process theology affirms instead a doctrine of creation out of chaos (which was suggested not only by Plato but also by more Old testament passages than those supporting the doctrine of creation out of nothing). A state of absolute chaos would be one in which here is nothing but very low-grade actual occasions happening at random, I,e, without being ordered into enduring individuals.

     By transmitting identical characteristics from occasion to occasion they maintain individual identity through long periods of time.  In chaotic situation, on the contrary, each occasion would inherit equally from all the previous contiguous actualities.

     We normally have an enduring individual in mind when we speak of a thing; in this sense the primordial chaos contained no-thing.

     The living cell is evidently another story. It is not ontologically different from the actualities that came before it. however, it is significantly different. → in a sense, the difference between a living organism and the inorganic environment is only a question of degree; but is a difference of degree which makes all the difference – in effect, it is a difference of quality.

     All occasions of experience have at least the germ of mentality, for mentality is simply the capacity for self-determination: the mental pole introduces the subject as a determinant of its own concrescence. But in nonliving occasions, the mentality is merely the appetition towards, or form, whatever in fact already is.

     A living actuality is one in which the mental pole introduces a novel element into itself, one which was not derived from the past world. → cells can be so organized that a yet higher series of experience can emerge from them. The reference here of course, is to animals, especially those with a central nervous system. The higher stream of experience is the animal soul.

     On the basis of this correlation between novelty and increasingly complex order, on the one hand, and increased capacity for enjoyment, on the other, the evolutionary development of our world propounded by modern science can be interpreted in harmony with the character and purpose of God.  

//evolution을 위해 신이 존재하지는 않는다.

Why so much evil in the world.

     If God is perfect in power and loving goodness, why is there so much evil in the world?

     Traditional theism→ all apparent evil was really, from the ultimate perspective, a means to good, and hence was not genuinely evil. → “all things work together for good”

     Process theology → does not deny that there is genuine evil. → power of God is persuasive, not controlling.

     Process theology distinguishes between divine responsibility and blameworthiness on the basis of three central notions.

1)    The power of God is persuasive, not controlling. Finite actualities can fail to conform to the divine aims for them. So far as the conformity is incomplete, there is evil in the world. But the possibility for the deviation is necessary; hence the possibility of evil is necessary. ?

2)    Triviality and discord → two kind of experience that are equally evil, hence, to be avoided. → triviality, however, is only evil in some cases. A trivial enjoyment is not evil in itself; in fact as an enjoyment, it is intrinsically good, insofar as its harmony outweighs its discordant elements. two forms of nonmoral evil, then are discord and unnecessary triviality.

The evil of discord “is the half-way house between perfection and triviality

To be loving or moral, God’s aim must be to overcome unnecessary triviality while avoiding as much discord as possible. In other words, the aim is for the perfection of experience. Perfection is the maximal harmonious intensity that is possible for a creature, given its context. The more variety and hence intensity there is, the greater the possibilities for disharmony. But this is a necessary risk, if there is to be a chance for the perfection of experience to be attained. → the evil of discord is the half-way house between perfection and triviality.

3)    Clarifying this point requires the third major notion relevant to explaining why the possibility of so much evil is necessary →this notion is that there is a correlation among the following dimensions of experience 1) the capacity for intrinsic good; 2) the capacity for intrinsic evil: 3) the capacity for instrumental good: 4) the capacity for instrumental evil: 5) the power for self-determination.

The correlation among these dimensions of experience is positive, meaning that if any one of them increases, the orders also proportionally increase.

     Further, the correlation is necessary rather than contingent. It is not dependent upon a choice, even a divine choice. This rejection of uncreated and hence necessary principles fits with the doctrine that the existence of finite actualities is strictly contingent and that they were created out of absolute nothingness.

 How is an ecological attitude possible?

     The expression “ecological attitude has taken on two central connotations. Strictly speaking, the world ecology refers to the study of the interconnections among things, specifically between organisms and their total environments. An ecological attitude would thereby be one that recognized the interrelations and hence interdependencies among things. However, ecology has taken on an additional connotation, according to which one who has an ecological attitude has respect or even reverence for, and perhaps a feeling of kinship with, the other creatures.

     Ontological duality

     Organizational duality

     Democracy of value

     Hierarchy of values

     Intrinsic value of things

     Instrumental value

     Accordingly, working out an ecological ethic will be a gigantic undertaking. The main point of the present section is that process thought provides the theoretical basis for such an ethic.

//creation, natural law vs contingency, nature and God, spirit and energy, spirit and mind, quantum field. Theology of the nature가 다루는 항목들

//natural theology는 자연적 지식으로 신이 무엇인지 찾는 것이고, theology of nature는 주어진 신학의 설명을 과학적인 방법으로 설명하는 것이다.