Greetings!

So far I am aware of three interpretations of "creativity" in Whitehead's thought: (1) It is the most general of all generalizations; (2) it is a phenomenological description of being as such, considered apart from the instantiations in which it is exclusively actual; and (3) it is the ultimate efficient as well as material cause of all actualities. Have I understood these three interpretations correctly? Are there others that I have overlooked?

Likewise, I am now aware of three ways in which it makes sense from the point of view of process thought to say that God creates out of nothing:
(1) the primordial and trivial chaos out of which God nudges all else possesses no enduring objects, hence "no thing;" (2) no actual occasion can concresce, or come into being out of its past, apart from the divine initial aim which is not a "thing" but a relevant hierarchy of possibilities even though the One who offers it is either a single actual entity or a sequence of them; (3) every occasion of experience is partly self-determining and in this sense is created out of no "thing." Again, have I understood these correctly? Are there other possibilities that I have overlooked?

A more general question: Is it usually better to reject expressions such as "miracle," "omniscience," "omnipotence," and "creation-out-of-nothing" or to accept them and then to specify their appropriate meanings? I fear that I can be quoted both ways. Would it be better to be consistent one way or the other?

Thank you!

David,
You pose some interesting questions. I am wondering whether you are suggesting that "chaos" is in fact a kind of nothingness. In this case the divine places an aim with possibilities to become. Then it is both the divine aim and the choices chosen in progression which creates. In Process/Relational the entity along with the divine aim co-creates. Perhaps this might suggest that an entity needs the divine before it can co-create. In other words, for instance, chaos without the divine aim cannot create itself into being. Perhaps this means onlt the divine can create out of nothingness and then co-creation continues.
Jim

Hi Jim!
Thank you for your thoughtful observations. I regret that I have not responded before now because I have been out of town. I am leaving very shortly for another trip; therefore, this response will be brief. It is my impression that you are moving in the right direction. There are several meanings of the expression "creation-out-of-nothing" that process thought can and should affirm, if I understand it correctly. One of these is that whatver prevailed when the earth was "void and without form" (Genesis 1) was so elementary as to comprise "no things." As you indicate, a combination of divine influences plus more or less positive responses to them was required to transform this chaos into creation. Thus, I don't think process thought has to reject entirely the notion of "creatio-ex-nihilo." It must specify what the expression means in its conceptuality, however. Let's keep talking! I'll be back next week. Thanks again!

David Larson
Loma Linda, California