Creativism

To create is to create something, and any system the fundamental principle of which is creative can be called 'Creativism', not to be confused with 'Creationism', which has a very different connotation in contemporary parlance. Because to create is to create something, incessant energy or motion is not necessarily a creative process. Thus, Schopenhauer's 'Will', Nietzsche's 'Dionysian', and Bergson's 'Elan Vital', are each, in themselves, not Creativist principles. In contrast, Whitehead's 'Process' is Creativist, as is the Material Principle-Formal Principle combination, including its instance, the Will-Comprehension combination, that has been developed here. Similarly, for divine processes in Spinoza's system to be interpreted as Creativist, God's activity must be construed as exhaustively consisting in the production of Modes, and the essence of an individual Mode qua active must be to create. Plainly, either that interpretation is problematic, or Spinoza's system, as is, is an underdeveloped Creativism. Still, the actuality of a Mode as a discrete locus of divine activity distinguishes Spinoza's God from the cited principles of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Bergson.