process studies articles @ religion online...
Volume 14 (1984-5)
- Number 1, Spring 1984
- Atom, Duration, Form: Difficulties with Process Philosophy by Wolfhart Pannenberg
- Charles Hartshorne and the Ontological Argument by Eugene H. Peters
- Discussion Upon Fundamental Principles of Education (1919) by Alfred North Whitehead
- Is the Past Finite? On Craig’s Kalam Argument by George W. Shields
- Mystical Consciousness in a Process Perspective by Ernest L. Simmons, Jr.
Dr. Pannenberg gives a critique of several Whiteheadian concepts: actual entities, atomism, prehension, subjective aim, superject, objective immortality.
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.
This brief statement by Whitehead is introduced and edited by Robert S. Brumbaugh. It introduces the reader to some correspondence on Whitehead’s educational theory: 1. The development of genius; 2. The failure of classical education; 3. Some aspects of Whitehead’s interest in education.
Process theism might be judged cognitively superior over the classical type kalam model, not because it involves no paradox, but because it involves the least paradox in comparison with the formally possible theological alternatives, when all issues are considered.
The author analyzes the mystical experience of Sri Aurobindo and the "Nirvana Experience." From a Whiteheadian perspective, yogic meditation involves the silencing of symbolic reference, so that the two pure modes of perception are experienced directly.
- Number 2, Summer 1985
- Faith and Justice: A New Synthesis? The Interface of Process and Liberation Theologies by Joseph A. Bracken, S.J.
- Liberation Theology and Social Justice by Matthew L. Lamb
- Points of Contact Between Process Theology and Liberation Theology in Matters of Faith and Justice by John B. Cobb, Jr.
- The Metaphysics of Faith and Justice by Schubert M. Ogden
- Weaving the World by Marjorie Suchocki
Liberation theologians should take seriously the metaphysical framwork for a praxis-oriented theology implicitly offered to them by process theology. Process thinkers must come to grips with the urgent social justice issues raised by liberation theologians.
In this lecture the author outlines the major social justice issues to which various forms of liberation theology are responding. Then he sketches, in an historical retrospect, the dead-ends of classical sacralism and of modern secularism.
The points of contact between process thought and liberation theology. Collaborative and complementary work by process theologians and liberation theologians can contribute to the realization of South American Indian social justice.
Can there be any such thing as proper metaphysical analogy, that is, the kind of thinking and speaking on which any categorial or speculative metaphysics necessarily depends? This is one of the issues that Christian theology must resolve if it is to carry out its task of explicating and defending the metaphysics of faith and justice.
Suchocki’s goal is to "weave" together feminist theology and process theology. The "weaving" is the vision of a world woven together in full community. The "weaving" of our ideas and the "weaving" of our world are finally only two aspects of the same task.
- Number 3, Fall 1985
- The Misapprehension of Presentational Immediacy by James E. Lindsey, Jr.
- The Value of the Dialogue Between Process Thought and Psychotherapy by David E. Roy
The body inherits conditions from the physical environment according to the physical laws. Thus Whitehead elaborated on the general continuity between human experience and physical occasions.
A dialogue between process theology and psychotherapy is needed on both a theoretical and a applied basis. Such a dialogue will further psychotherapy’s evolution thus improving the human condition.
- Number 4, Winter 1985
- Evolutionist Theories and Whitehead’s Philosophy by George R. Lucas, Jr.
- The Critique of Pure Feeling: Bradley, Whitehead, and the Anglo-Saxon Metaphysical Tradition by James Bradley
- The Problem of God in Whitehead’s System by Ivor Leclerc
- Whitehead and German Idealism: A Poetic Heritage by Antoon Braeckman
- Whitehead and Locke’s Concept of "Power" by Ernest Wolf-Gazo
- Whitehead’s Misconception of ‘Substance’ in Aristotle by James W. Felt
Dr. Lucas argues that evolution and evolutionist theories play no significant role in Whitehead’s metaphysics, and that there is no evidence in his major works of any significant influence from earlier process-oriented "evolutionary cosmologies."
In determining the nature and status of Whitehead’s thought in the history of modern philosophy one must refer to F. H. Bradley’s Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay. Whitehead’s Process and Reality is a critical reworking of Bradley.
Whitehead was the scientist who in the twentieth century most clearly perceived the fundamental unsatisfactoriness of the scheme of materialist mechanism and who develops an alternative philosophical basis.
The author examines the historical relationship between German idealism, Wordsworth and Whitehead.
The author suggests that Lock’s basic thesis, as he presents his main epistemological theory in his celebrated An Essay on Human Understanding, is transformed into a metaphysics by Whitehead in his Process and Reality.
Whitehead’s misunderstanding of Aristotle’s memorable sentence concerning "what being is…what is substance?" proved a powerful factor in Whitehead’s ultimate adoption of an atomic or epochal theory of becoming.