Twenty Key Ideas in the Process Worldview
By Jay McDaniel
Open Horizons
Twenty Key Ideas in the Process Worldview
"1. Process: The universe is an ongoing process of development and
change, never quite the same at any two moments. Every entity in the universe
is best understood as a process of becoming that emerges through its
interactions with others. The beings of the world are becomings.
2. Interconnectedness: The universe as a whole is a seamless web of interconnected
events, none of which can be completely separated from the others. Everything
is connected to everything else and contained in everything else. As Buddhists
put it, the universe is a network of inter-being.
3. Continuous
Creativity: The universe exhibits a continuous creativity on
the basis of which new events come into existence over time which did not exist
beforehand. This continuous creativity is the ultimate reality of the universe.
Everywhere we look we see it. Even God is an expression of Creativity.
4. Nature as Alive: The natural world has value in itself and all living beings
are worthy of respect and care. Rocks and trees, hills and rivers are not simply
facts in the world; they are also acts of self-realization. The whole of nature
is alive with value. We humans dwell within, not apart from, the Ten Thousand
Things. We, too, have value.
5. Compassion and
Justice: Humans find their fulfillment in living in harmony with the
earth and compassionately with each other. The ethical life lies in living with
respect and care for other people and the larger community of life. Justice is
fidelity to the bonds of relationship. A just society is also a free and peaceful
society. It is creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and
spiritually satisfying - with no one left behind.
6. Novelty: Humans find their fulfillment in being open to new ideas,
insights, and experiences that may have no parallel in the past. Even as we
learn from the past, we must be open to the future. God is present in the
world, among other ways, through novel possibilities. Human happiness is found,
not only in wisdom and compassion, but also in creativity.
7. Thinking and
Feeling: The human mind is not limited to reasoning but also
includes feeling, intuiting, imagining; all of these activities can work
together toward understanding. Even reasoning is a form of feeling: that is,
feeling the presence of ideas and responding to them. There are many forms of
wisdom: mathematical, spatial, verbal, kinesthetic, empathic, logical, and
spiritual.
8. Relational
Selfhood: Human beings are not skin-encapsulated egos cut off from
the world by the boundaries of the skin, but persons-in-community whose
interactions with others are partly definitive of their own internal existence.
We depend for our existence on friends, family, and mentors; on food and
clothing and shelter; on cultural traditions and the natural world. The
communitarians are right: there is no "self" apart from connections
with others. The individualists are right, too. Each person is unique,
deserving of respect and care. Other animals deserve respect and care, too.
9. Complementary
Thinking: The process way leans toward both-and thinking,
not either-or thinking. The rational life consists not only of identifying
facts and appealing to evidence, but taking apparent conflicting ideas and
showing how they can be woven into wholes, with each side contributing to the
other. In Whitehead’s thought these wholes are called contrasts. To be
"reasonable" is to be empirical but also imaginative: exploring new
ideas and seeing how they might fit together, complementing one another.
10. Theory and
Practice: Theory affects practice and practice affects
theory; a dichotomy between the two is false. What people do affects how they
think and how they think affects what they do. Learning can occur from body to
mind: that is, by doing things; and not simply from mind to body.
11. The Primacy of
Persuasion over Coercion: There are two kinds of power – coercive
power and persuasive power – and the latter is to be preferred over the former.
Coercive power is the power of force and violence; persuasive power is the power
of invitation and moral example.
12. Relational Power: This is the power that is experienced when people dwell
in mutually enhancing relations, such that both are “empowered” through their
relations with one another. In international relations, this would be the kind
of empowerment that occurs when governments enter into trade relations that are
mutually beneficial and serve the wider society; in parenting, this would be
the power that parents and children enjoy when, even amid a hierarchical relationship,
there is respect on both sides and the relationship strengthens parents and
children.
13. The Primacy of
Particularity: There is a difference between abstract ideas
that are abstracted from concrete events in the world, and the events
themselves. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness lies in confusing the
abstractions with the concrete events and focusing more on the abstract than
the particular.
14. Experience in
the Mode of Causal Efficacy: Human experience is not restricted to acting
on things or actively interpreting a passive world. It begins by a conscious
and unconscious receiving of events into life and being causally affected or
influenced by what is received. This occurs through the mediation of the body
but can also occur through a reception of the moods and feelings of other
people (and animals).
15. Concern for the
Vulnerable: Humans are gathered together in a web of
felt connections, such that they share in one another’s sufferings and are
responsible to one another. Humans can share feelings and be affected by one
another’s feelings in a spirit of mutual sympathy. The measure of a society
does not lie in questions of appearance, affluence, and marketable achievement,
but in how it treats those whom Jesus called "the least of these" --
the neglected, the powerless, the marginalized, the otherwise forgotten.
16. Evil: “Evil” is a name for debilitating suffering from which
humans and other living beings suffer, and also for the missed potential from
which they suffer. Evil is powerful and real; it is not merely the absence of
good. “Harm” is a name for activities, undertaken by human beings, which
inflict such suffering on others and themselves, and which cut off their
potential. Evil can be structural as well as personal. Systems -- not simply
people -- can be conduits for harm.
17. Education as a
Lifelong Process: Human life is itself a journey from birth
(and perhaps before) to death (and perhaps after) and the journey is itself a
process of character development over time. Formal education in the classroom
is a context to facilitate the process, but the process continues throughout a
lifetime. Education requires romance, precision, and generalization. Learning
is best when people want to learn.
18. Religion and
Science: Religion and Science are both human activities, evolving
over time, which can be attuned to the depths of reality. Science focuses on
forms of energy which are subject to replicable experiments and which can be
rendered into mathematical terms; religion begins with awe at the beauty of the
universe, awakens to the interconnections of things, and helps people discover
the norms which are part of the very make-up of the universe itself.
19. God: The universe unfolds within a larger life – a love
supreme – who is continuously present within each actuality as a lure toward
wholeness relevant to the situation at hand. In human life we experience this
reality as an inner calling toward wisdom, compassion, and creativity. Whenever
we see these three realities in human life we see the presence of this love,
thus named or not. This love is the Soul of the universe and we are small but
included in its life not unlike the way in which embryos dwell within a womb,
or fish swim within an ocean, or stars travel throught the sky. This Soul can
be addressed in many ways, and one of the most important words for addressing
the Soul is "God." The stars and galaxies are the body of God and any
forms of life which exist on other planets are enfolded in the life of God, as
is life on earth. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference
nowhere. As God beckons human beings toward wisdom, compassion, and creativity,
God does not know the outcome of the beckoning in advance, because the future
does not exist to be known. But God is steadfast in love; a friend to the
friendless; and a source of inner peace. God can be conceived as
"father" or "mother" or "lover" or
"friend." God is love.
20. Faith: Faith is not intellectual assent to creeds or doctrines
but rather trust in divine love. To trust in love is to trust in the
availability of fresh possibilities relative to each situation; to trust that
love is ultimately more powerful than violence; to trust that even the galaxies
and planets are drawn by a loving presence; and to trust that, no matter what
happens, all things are somehow gathered into a wider beauty. This beauty is
the Adventure of the Universe as One."
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