Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion 9781501725241

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Reenchantment without Supernaturalism

A volume in the series

Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion EDITED BY WILLIAM P. ALSTON

A full list of titles in the series appears at the end of the book.

David Ray Griffin

Reenchantment without Supernaturalism A Process Philosophy of Religion

c

Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2oor by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review. this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York I4850. First published 2001 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2001 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Griffin, David Ray, I939Reenchantment without supernaturalism : a process philosophy of religion/David Ray Griffin. p. em. - (Cornell studies in the philosophy of religion) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8014-3778-4 (alk. paper) -ISBN 0-8014-8657-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Natural theology. 2. Process theology. 3. Process philosophy. r. Title. II. Series. BLI 82 . G75 2000 2IO-dC21

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Contents

Preface

vii

Abbreviations

X

Introduction: A Process Philosophy ofReligion

I

I.

Religion, Science, and Naturalism

20

2.

Perception and Religious Experience

52

3.

Panexperientialism, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Relation

94

4·

Naturalistic, Dipolar Theism

I29

s.

Natural Theology Based on Naturalistic Theism

I69

6.

Evolution, Evil, and Eschatology

204

7.

The Two Ultimates and the Religions

24 7

8.

Religion, Morality, and Civilization

285

9.

Religious Language and Truth

320

Religious Knowledge and Common Sense

352

References

393

Index

417

IO.

To John Buchanan and Eugene Long, who both know why, and to the memory of George Nordgulen (I 9 3 3 -2000), who also may

Preface

By using the word reenchantment in the title of this book, I allude to Max Weber's well-known claim that modern thought has resulted in the "disenchantment" of the world, by which Weber meant that the world is no longer believed to contain any inherent meaning or normative values around which human beings should orient their lives. One implication is that at the same time that democracy has become almost universally accepted as the only legitimate form of political organization, many of the best-known cultural theorists, having thought through the implications of disenchantment, claim that democracy is not supported by any universally valid moral values. It is now widely held in intellectual circles that this disenchantment is irreversible-that it is not possible to overcome it, for example, by seeing that it was based on a set of intellectual mistakes. Among those who do believe that disenchantment is reversible, the majority opinion has been that the major mistake was the rejection of a supernatural creator. According to these thinkers, the way to reenchant the world, thereby providing a cosmic basis for morality, is to return to supernaturalism. My title, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism, signals that this is not my view. Completely rejecting supernaturalism-understood as the belief in the possibility of occasional interruptions of the world's most fundamental causal order-I present a worldview that, although saturated with values, is fully natural. This worldview does involve a form of theism, but it is a fully naturalistic theism, according to which divine influence is a natural dimension of the world's most fundamental causal order, never an interruption thereof

VIJI

Preface The term process philosophy in the book's subtitle points to the fact that the worldview presented here is based on the process philosophy developed primarily by Alfred North Whitehead. That this book is a philosophy of religion means, of course, that the focus is on those dimensions of process philosophy which bear directly on issues of religious concern. Considerable attention, however, is also given to other dimensions, especially the capacity of this worldview to provide a basis not only for morality-as the theme of reenchantment indicates-but also for science. The book can serve, therefore, as a general introduction to process philosophy. Because this book involves extensive quotations of others, especially Whitehead, I must add a comment about language. Besides employing male pronouns for God, Whitehead often used the term man for human beings in general, a practice that is now generally associated with sexist views. At the time Whitehead wrote, of course, this practice was virtually universal, among women as well as men. Whitehead himself, furthermore, was very critical of sexism. In addition to being active in the movement for women's suffrage (Lowe 1985, 314), he considered the "rule of men over women" in modem societies, along with the resulting "inequality of men and women," to be "a hang-over from barbarism" with its "rule of individual masters over slaves" (AI 83). In any case, although avoiding the use of male terms for divinity or humanity in developing my own thoughts, I do not change or comment upon the use of such language by people I quote. I have, of course, incurred many debts in the writing of this book. Most of them are indicated in my list of references at the end. More directly, I received helpful suggestions from Bill Alston, Richard Amesbury, John Cobb, Derek Malone-France, Gene Reeves, Robert Segal, Ted Vitali, John Woell, members of my 1999 class, "Whitehead's Philosophy and Its Religious Relevance," and some anonymous readers, to all of whom I hereby express my gratitude. I am also indebted to my wife, Ann, and our white-headed West Highland terrier, Evelyn ("Evey"), for their forbearance for many missed walks on the beach. Just before receiving page proofs, I learned of the death of George Nordgulen, who had retired from a long career of teaching, most recently at Eastern Kentucky University. Besides being a good friend, George is the one who-in conjunction \Vith Douglas Straton, whose class at the University of Oregon we were taking-introduced me to process philosophy. One of the reasons I especially regret his premature death concerns Chapter 5 of this book. George had always been unhappy that John Cobb and I, in our Process Theology, had suggested that arguments for the existence of God

Preface

IX

"are not an essential part of its work." George agreed with our main pointnamely. that process philosophy makes its primary contribution to theistic belief by presenting a credible idea of God. But he argued that it is important to emphasize the various reasons for believing in such a divine reality and that process philosophy provides a novel slant on what these reasons are. I wish that the fruits of my belated realization that George was right had been published while he was still with us. DAVID RAY GRIFFYN

Santa Barbara, California

Abbreviations

Although all other writings referred to in the text are cited by author and year, the writings of Alfred North Whitehead are cited by standard abbreviations (as employed in the journal Process Studies). AE

The Aims of Education and Other Essays. New York: Macrnillan,

AI

Adventures of Ideas (1933). New York: Free Press, 1967. Essays in Science and Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947. The Function (!f Reason (1929). Boston: Beacon Press, 1958. Modes