Author, Bruce Lerro, Co-Founder and Co-Organizer for Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism
Orientation
Why should you be interested in Neopagan process philosophy if you are a socialist/communist? I have written many articles and a book titled The Magikal Enchantment of Materialism: Why Marxists Need Neopaganism so I won't go into the Neopagan part here. But what might process philosophy have to offer? For one thing the direction in science over the last hundred years, beginning with quantum physics has been an emphasis on movement and indeterminism in physics. Second, general systems theory and complexity theory in both biophysical science and biology has been an emphasis on open systems and co-creativity in nature. Process philosophy more than either idealism or physical materialism is a natural match as a framework in which to ground the new science.
Additionally, in the second half of the 20th century the field of theology has been challenged by a new process "thealogy" that rejects the patriarchal, hierarchical, all-powerful, all-knowing God the Father. Instead, its divinity is incomplete, and depends on human beings to expand divinity. This kind of Promethean role for humanity fits very well with dialectical materialism. But its advantage is that it has an appeal to people who consider themselves spiritual the way liberation thealogy does. Dialectical materialism does not fit easily with any kind of spirituality. Process thealogy can bring a whole new crew of people into socialism.
Lastly, for fifty years radical feminists have rejected mainstream religion and embraced witchcraft or goddess spirituality. Process philosophy promises to incorporate a female goddess presence without reifying its goddesses. This might bring more women into socialism.
Why Has Most Philosophy Championed Statis Over Change?
Most of Western Philosophy has been static. Three of the four of Stephen C. Pepper's division of philosophies - formism (similarity), organicism (living present), mechanism (machine) - are all static whether the ultimate source is ideas, wholes or atoms. Process philosophy, on the other hand, is dynamic and always changing. This roughly corresponds in Pepper's system to "contextualism" (historical act). In Andrew J. Reck's system (in Speculative Philosophy) Idealism, materialism and realism are all static. Reck has a fourth category called process philosophy. But why has the static version predominated?
Historically the rise of philosophy goes with the evolution of society into classes. Philosophers themselves have generally been among the upper classes. Class societies produce strife and turmoil. It would make sense that both the rulers of these societies along with their "explainers" who representative them would, in their search for the origin of things, hope for the world to be calm. Their ideal would be for the ultimate reality to be still. Of course, they yet have to account for why some processes in the world are not still. However, change is generally treated negatively in the history of philosophy. Change is either an illusion (Parmenides) a derivative, a sign of evil or the result of false opinion.
Static vs Process Philosophy
In the history of philosophy the most famous substance philosophers were idealists like Plato, Plotinus, Leibniz, or Hegel. In the West process philosophy began with Heraclitus and then in the 18th century with Hegel. It was not until the 19th century with the pragmatists, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Henri Bergson, Samuel Alexander, Roy Wood Sellars, and Alfred North Whitehead that process philosophy came into its own. In the second half of the 20th century, process philosophy acquired a theological following through the work of Charles Hartshorne, David Ray Griffin, and John B. Cobb.
In static philosophy, the ultimate source or sources are substances or essences if you are an idealist and things (like atoms or particles) if you are a materialist. However for process philosophy events are primary and what is static is not a substance or thing but a congealed, fossilized event. In process philosophy there are three kinds of movement: mercurial (thin); middle grade (slow moving); and thick (which is extremely slow moving). Thick processes are mostly mistaken for a thing. Static philosophy is generally hierarchical. There is the ultimate source which everything comes back to and then there are the products of this source which are passive. In patriarchal religion God is the creator and humanity is relatively passive. But in process philosophy everything is moving at the beginning as in the early cosmos as matter and anti-matter clash. Later in cosmic evolution higher forms of matter emerge from the lower, but lower creates the higher. In process philosophy the lower forms of life are active, not passive.
In static philosophy the universe is usually conceived of as a plenum, or in the case of materialism, there are atoms and the void of Democritus. In process philosophy, everything is relational. Because process philosophy does not accept a mind-body dualism, in extreme cases process philosophers might argue that mind-matter polarity goes all the way down in evolutionary spiral and somehow there is mind even in subatomic particles. At the social level, in static philosophy, ends and means are separated. Good ends remain good regardless of means. In process philosophy if the tools and if the means you use are good the end will become good even if the ends were less than admirable. If the end is good but the means are questionable the outcome will be bad. Means are so powerful they become ends.
See Table 1: A summary of static vs process philosophy
Process Thealogy Meets the Goddesses
The leaders of process philosophy in the second half of the 19th century were not scientists or philosophers of science, but theologians: Hartshorne, Cobb and David Ray Griffin. They wanted to connect the dynamic movement of complexity theory in science and draw out its theological implications. It is very clear that process thealogy was very opposed to traditional western thealogy. Furthermore, patriarchal theologians thought that women were more part of the changing world than men. Hartshorne called process philosophy "neoclassical" philosophy to distinguish it from classical philosophy. But what does process thealogy have to offer feminist Neopagan movement? Carol P. Christ writes that what process philosophy has failed to recognize is that restoring the body and the world body has enormous consequences for women. Whitehead and Hartshorne were both sympathetic to women's issues. Why did Whitehead and Hartshorne not state explicitly that process philosophy is a feminist philosophy? Carol P. Christ says that Whitehead and Hartshorne did their work before second wave feminism hit the ground running. They were liberal men who probably saw no need to make an issue out of feminist spirituality. I will use Christ's book She Who Changes to bring a feminist perspective to process philosophy.
Static and Process Thealogy: God the Father vs Goddess(s) Process Thealogy
Creation out of nothing and arbitrary rule/eternal existence and lawfulness
For God the Father, the world was created out of nothing and before time and space. This is a huma projection of the separation between the mind and the body. The mind (God) creates out of itself with the body being either non-existent or corrupt. The divine has no body. Furthermore, this God rules arbitrarily and lawlessly. He can wipe out what was created at any time without any responsibility to anyone.
For Goddess(s) Neopaganism, Goddess are eternal and go all the way back to subatomic particles. Nature for Neopaganism works through a combination of chance and necessity. While there are laws of nature, chance events can occur, which are rifts on an underlying structure. For Neopaganism the world is the body of the Goddess and the mind of the goddess is never separated from the body. The world is immanent in the Goddesses.
All powerful vs limited power
In patriarchal religion, God is all powerful. The problems for patriarchal religion with this assumption are:
- If God is in control of everything, explaining human freedom becomes a difficult task.
- Either God determines everything both good and bad. This means God is completely irresponsible. The other possibility is that he determines some things and we determine others.
- Either God permits evil being unjust, or God is not all powerful. Why do the good suffer and the evil goes unpunished?
- God being all powerful means that somethings happen for no good reason.
To say that 'God works in mysterious ways' is not good enough for Neopagan process thealogy
It is here that Goddess process philosophy breaks radically with static religion. For one thing, Goddesses are not all powerful. Because the cosmos is co-creative, goddesses cannot prevent events in nature from taking an unexpected turn. In process philosophy, it is acceptable that God is not in complete control, but he co-creates with nature, especially humanity.
God as omniscient vs novelty in world
For patriarchal religion, God knows past, present and future. This also creates problems if we believe humans have the power to act. The history of the world for patriarchal religion is like a filmstrip or a video that can be fast-forwarded or reversed at the will of the divine power and the world would be the same. In conservative process thealogy God cannot know the future though he can know the past. In more radical interpretations of process thealogy, God cannot know the present since it is being co-created as we speak.
Co-creative novelty
Carol says that creation is not a capacity within individuals but rather a relationship between an individual and the world. Creation is always co-creation. However, because the world is co-creative, everything that happens does not have a purpose or a divine plan. Furthermore, human choices always result in mostly unintended consequences.
- Sometimes we recognized the consequences of our actions our actions and sometimes we do not.
- Sometimes we think we have done the right thing and only realize later we have not.
Chance also plays an important role in the universe.
The combined result of our two choices cannot be foreseen by either of us: you did not intend it; I did not attend it; but there it is. What we do with our chance meeting is our choice.
God as just but detached vs God as loving and involved
The god of monotheism claims to be just in reward and punishment but detached. However, this contradicts the claim that God's rule is arbitrary. Carol pictures Goddesses as like a loving mother, influencing, sympathetic but not controlling. Static patriarchal religion proposes that God is detached. This means God's love and involvement in the world is limited. God cannot really love the world without being involved and involvement requires limitation. The practice of asceticism is on a human scale while God's relationship to humans and the rest of nature is on a cosmic level.
Life after death vs finitude
All the world's universal religions have some concept of life after death. Besides Christianity, the Hindus propose reincarnation and the Chinese advocate care for the ancestors' graves. Carol P. Christ following Hartshorne says we must embrace finitude and death. Hartshorne argues strongly against the doctrine of immortality. In Rebirth of the Goddess Carol proposes limited and conditional survival of individuals after death as long as we are kept alive in the memories of others.
Revelation vs fragmentation
Hartshorne argues that belief in infallible revelation is incompatible with the fragmentariness of all knowledge that comes with human bodies. Process philosophy views all claims to authoritative or infallible knowledge as a denial of the inherent fragmentariness of life.
Social contract vs organic self
Patriarchal religion understands the central drama of religion as being between God and individuals. Social life is a derivative, a kind of divine social contract where social life is temporary, a kind of holding station for the last judgment. On the other hand, In process thealogy individuals are constitutionally social beings. In part because the world is co-creative, society is not a social contract but organically connected to its natural and social surroundings.
See Table 2, which provides another summary.
Controversies Within Neopagan Process Philosophy
Are the goddesses immanent, transcendent, both or more?
There is a problem for Neopaganism over the question of the characteristics of the ultimate sources. On the one hand, Neopaganism is a reaction against an otherworldly, transcendent, patriarchal God that is above, behind and beyond the material world. Goddesses immanent means that the nature is all there is with nothing left over and nothing new is ever produced. But if the world is co-creative then everything that had been created up to now (immanence) is not enough. There must be room for nature to be more than here and now. Some process philosophers have introduced the term panentheism to say that nature is both immanent and transcendent. I believe this is a mistake. The original meaning of transcendental is something beyond the material world that is completely foreign to it. A better substitute for transcendental is supersession. A supersession (according to Hegel) is where you preserve, criticize and then move beyond. Therefore, the Goddesses of Neopagan process philosophy have both immanent and superseding moments.
Are the powers of conflict, strife and destruction equal in power to love and convergence?
Carol points out that some feminists have asked if her process view of the Goddess as ultimately love for all of nature is too good to be true? Aren't Goddesses equally present in earthquakes and smallpox as they are in sunny skies? If Goddesses can express strife, anger and destruction as part of the transformation process, then aren't the images of the Indian Goddess Kali just as an appropriate symbol of divinity? I think Carol is too soft on the Goddesses here. Her Goddess is like a female version of Christ which ultimately wins at the end. This seems to contradict her co-creativity tendency of nature and society where strife, conflict and destruction are an inevitable part of the co-creative process.
What to do with titles of power among women?
In the history of class societies, humans have created hierarchies. Upper-class women have been given the titles of lady and queen. These class titles in turn have been projected into the sacred world of Goddesses. But if Neopagan process thealogy is building a new world of egalitarian societies, what place do Goddess titles such as lord and lady have in such as society? Carol rightly criticizes the continued use of these terms in Goddess thealogy because they are reflections of "power over" rather than "power with".
Retaining gender images of hierarchy work against the building of an egalitarian society now and in the future. For example, in Christianity we have the use of Sophia, goddess of wisdom. The problem is that this imagery comes through patriarchal traditions. It needs to be criticized and transformed rather than left as it is in order to be incorporated into Goddesses thealogy.
Conclusion: Comparing Process Thealogy and Socialism
In my introduction to this article, I named four reasons why the lay public might be curious and willing to explore process philosophy. First because it offers a more consistent framework for modern science-- quantum theory and complexity theory. Secondly, process philosophy offers a promethean role for humanity in cosmic evolution. Third, process thealogy invites people who consider themselves " spiritual" into atheist Marxism swelling our ranks. Lastly, process thealogy has been reinterpreted by goddess feminism. The very switch in process thealogy from male-centered to female-centered Goddesses that Carol insists on can reach out to liberal feminists and socialist feminist and introduce not only a female centered presence but a world of ritual and magic that can enchant socialism. Marxists unafraid to reach out to new audiences should not miss the opportunity to join forces with Neopagan feminists.
I have identified at least seven ways in which process philosophy and Marxism overlap.
First, process thealogy insists that events and novelty are at the heart of nature rather than eternal essences or substances. This has a parallel in Marxism to the labor process that creates all the wealth. The ultimate form of wealth is the process of working, not any particular result. The danger of philosophy of substance has its parallel in Marxism as the danger of reification and commodification. As Marx says commodities (things) are in the saddle. Substances and static philosophy are parallel in Marxism in reification and alienation.
Secondly, static substance mainstream philosophers look at God as the Creator out of nothing in a single act. Just as process thealogy claims that humanity has a role to play in as a co-creator in cosmic evolution, so Marxism goes to great pains to show how humanity is different from the rest of the animal kingdom (See Engels' essay on the role of the hand in the creation of human labor). Humanity creates its own nature, a "second nature".
Third, process theologies insistence on overcoming the mind-body dualism with a mind body continuum. This is parallel with the communist dream of overcoming the specialization of capitalists alienated work. Under capitalism we have mental workers without bodies (statisticians, religious authorities) and physical workers without minds (ditch diggers, fruit pickers). Remember Marx's dream of fishing in the morning, cattle rearing in the afternoon, criticizing in the evening. Well-rounded workers such as chemical engineers are the socialist embodiment of the process claim that there is no mind-body dualism in nature.
Fourth, in process thealogy the belief that events in nature occur through the interaction of natural laws combined with chance is very similar to the way Marxism conceives the individual's relationship to history. The history that humans make is their own history through chance and planning (we have grown beyond nature). However, we make history under conditions we do not choose (natural laws). That the particular person, Marat, existed in French history is chance but the French revolution was a necessary part of social evolution that would have happened with or without Marat.
Fifth, just as Carol makes the argument that the Goddess claims love as her ultimate characteristic, so too the human species under socialism is motivated by love. Remember Che's quote --at the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of "love". Also, the whole movement of socialism to grow around the world is driven by "agape", which is love for the stranger.
Sixth, process theologists insist that the self is not a social contract self of Hobbes and Locke but a constituent self that can only be social. So too, Marx and Engels' communist self draws from the deep roots of sociality that goes far down into the animal kingdom of bonobos, dolphins, crows and ravens. There can be no individuality distinct from society. Communist individuality appears as a late-developing product of society rather than its precursor.
Lastly, process thealogy wants replace the tyrannical God the Father's "power over" sledge-hammer approach to natural and social relation with Goddess "power with reciprocity between nature and society". So too, communists want to replace the power over of kings, landlords, capitalists with power with of communist associations, workers' assemblies and workers' councils.
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