Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra
Like Alexander, Bergson also conceives God as a developing Being. Underlying matter and consciousness, there is one Principle that contains in itself two tendencies. Bergson calls it consciousness as "pure willing," the pure impulse from which our narrowed consciousness and perception of matter emerge. This principle of pure activity is the source and centre of all creation in the universe. Hence Bergson calls it God. As he says, "God thus defined has nothing of the already made; He is unceasing life, action, freedom[5]." God is the vital principle, the Elan Vital, dynamic and living
But energy presupposes Being. All phenomena, as Kant points out, is based on Noumena . The Elan-Vital of Bergson and the motionless Being of Parmenides are two poise of the same Reality. The will and impulse must be the will and impulse of some Being. God is Being as well as Becoming. As Sri Aurobindo points out, "The very coception of movement carries with it the potentiality of repose and betrays itself as an activity of some existence; the very idea of energy in action carries with it the idea of energy abstaining from action, and an absolute energy not in action is simply and purely absolute existence[6]."
Whitehead explains the nature of God in two senses; primordial and consequent, the source as well as the end of the universe. God is the creator, the sustainer as well as the destroyer of the world. The world, not only emanates from Him, but, also returns to Him. Whitehead believes that the evolution of the world is the evolution of God. The world also lives eternally and changelessly in His immediate experience. In the religious sense, as Whitehead interprets it, God thus immortalises or saves the world from destruction. But, again, as he says, "Neither God nor the world reaches a static completion. Both are in the grip of ultimate metaphysical ground, the creative advance into novelty. Either of them, God and the world is the instrument of novelty for the other[7]." Thus God is not Absolute. Both God and the world are subordinated to the principle of creativity. God is finite and determined.
As an actual entity experiencing the world, Whitehead's God is a person and subject with an aim and purpose to realise. Again, God is a kind companion to save man from ruin since He takes up every actual entity in His experience. He is "the poet of the world" since the creation of the world is the outcome of His vision of the possibilities. He is the inward directing and controlling force behind all creation. He is "the principle of concretion." "All harmony, order and progressive continuity of the world is due to Him. "He is the binding element of the world."
Whitehead quotes here [14] Aristotle’s principle that “apart from things that are actual, there is nothing—nothing either in fact or efficacy,” from which he derives his own ontological principle, namely, that “everything is positively somewhere in actuality, and in potency everywhere”. The ingression of the eternal objects into the temporal world of actual entities, therefore, requires a double process, namely, first, a concretion in the primordial God, by which they shed their abstract character. This concretion is ideal, because the primordial God, though actual, is not temporal. And secondly, there is the actual process of ingression, by which they shed their character as possibilities and become actualities in a temporal order.
Thus we see that apart from God the eternal objects would never be able to actualize themselves in the temporal world, just as in Plato’s system, apart from God the eternal ideas would never be in a position to bring themselves into connection with the world of space and time. As primordial, God is the unconditioned conceptual realization of the absolute wealth of potentiality. [15] But it is not possible for Him as primordial to have any actual realization. That is reserved for His other nature, the consequent nature, of which we shall speak presently. So also He has only “conceptual feelings” that is, feelings which have yet to be actualized, and totally lacks “physical feelings” or feelings that are actualized. And since conceptual feelings, apart from complex integration with physical feelings, are devoid of consciousness, He must be said to be unconscious. [16]
But God’s nature is not exhausted by calling Him primordial; He has also another nature, which is His “consequent” nature. If He lacks physical feelings and consciousness at the primordial stage, He obtains them in His consequent nature, which is the completion of His primordial nature and means the transformation of conceptual feelings into physical feelings, of unconsciousness into consciousness. This takes place through the objectification of the world in God, which means the realization of the actual world in His nature, its transformation through His wisdom. [17]
God does not create the world but saves it. He saves it by making it pass into the immediacy of His own life. As Whitehead puts it, “he is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty and goodness.” [18]
On account of the principle of relativity, God and the world act and react upon each other. By reason of this there is a polar relationship between the two. God’s nature is completed by the individual and fluent satisfaction of finite entities, while the nature of the finite entities is completed by their conformity with the eternal order, which is the absolute ‘wisdom’ of God. On account of this polarity between God and the world, there arises a number of antitheses in their relationship, which Whitehead has set forth seriatim [19] as follows:
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