Thursday, January 6, 2011

Whitehead, God, Propositional Function

For Whitehead, 'God' is the primordial creature, which, in Spinozistic terminology, is a Mode, not Substance, nor naturing nature. This entity is the actualization of the normative ordering of all the Eternal Objects, i. e. the exemplification of a perfect being. It is, in this respect, thus comparable to, for example, the 'Adam Kadmon' of Kabbalistic Judaism, and to 'ens realissimum' of Medieval Theology. What distinguishes Eternal Objects from Platonic Forms is that they are, according to Whitehead, essentially incomplete without applicability to actuality, and God's normative ordering of them transforms them into what in Principia Mathematica are called 'Propositional Functions', which range over concrete instances, in combination with which, Propositions are formed. A Heideggerian might thus interpret Whitehead's God as supplying propositions with a cupola. And, in terms of Christian Theology, Whitehead's concept of God implies that "in the beginning" is the Propositional Function.

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