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Becoming

This morning I watched an extraordinary half hour conversation between Jordan Peterson and Iain McGilchrist. I have previously reviewed McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary, a book which has profoundly influenced my thinking on cognition and behaviour. It was a priviliege to listen to these two influential men discussing the brain, freedom and choice, good and evil, chaos and order, mythology, being, and becoming. I was bowled over by something that McGilchrist said late in the interview, when discussing his yet to be finished new book that "God is becoming," and here the word "becoming" is a noun, not a verb.

I am well used to thinking of God as Being. Since my days in San Francisco Theological Seminary, I have prescribed to the view that there are no things, but rather processes, and that the Universe and all it contains is in process. I have long been grateful to Charles Birch for clarifying for me the term purpose,with regard to the universe, and helping me understand how the seemingly random process of evolution can be purposed without being directed or preordained. I am grateful to David Bohm for his ideas of the implicate and explicate order, and for giving a scientific undergirding to the idea of the unity of the Universe. And here in this simple phrase, McGilchrist pulled it all succinctly together.

So, the process of the rose's reproduction involves this particular flow of energy, the movement from bud to flower, which is fast enough for me to witness and slow enough for me to capture in a photograph. This single rose which is a part of a bigger process - the plant - which is itself part of bigger and more encompassing processes which include, ultimately, me, and my thoughts about it and these words I write. And you, as you read them.

Photo: Nikon D7100; Micro Nikkor 105 F4; 1/160 f7.1; iso200 
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Anonymous said…
Yes creation constantly, and miraculousy, coming into being, simultaneously arising and manifest. And the intrinsic nature of it?

I'm a big fan of St Julian of Norwich.

...Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two comes a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is love...

...God is love everlasting and eternal...

The inexpressible wonder of consciousness of a consciousness posessing spiritual creativity. Wondrous enough that there is anyrhing here at all in the first instance, and inexpressible that the intrinsic nature of it is as St Julian of Norwich witnesses. Her shrinein Norwich UK got bombed in the war then rebuilt,and still retains an atmosphere.Mysteries of the universe!
28 November 2018 at 18:23
Kelvin Wright said…
Hi. Thanks for your insights.

My brother lived in Norfolk for a while and I visited St. Julian's cell on a couple of occasions. As you say, it has a profound atmosphere,despite the room being a modern recreation. Some things are more powerful than mere bricks and mortar. Norfolk isn't short of holy places. Walsingham is odd but in it's own way quite a transformative place. And theres St William of Norwich. And of course the beautiful cathedral and its impressive close.
28 November 2018 at 18:52
Alden Smith said…
The musings of these two learned gentlemen was very interesting to listen to and the follow up possibilities endless. I will do some reading.

I find the idea of ‘God as process’ intriguing yet paradoxically both enlightening and limiting - in a similar way to the Buddhist concept of ‘Non Self’.

In the Buddhist context the question arises as to what exactly is observing the state of ‘Non Self’? Who or what experiences this state. An answer based on notions or feelings from subjective mystical experience is not an answer that fits within the linguistic framework in which we discuss these ideas.

In terms of the idea of ‘God is Process’ and Process being a noun, it is a useful concept to be put alongside all the other nouns relating to God - Love, Truth, Justice, Mercy, Alpha and Omega etc, etc. We can examine the process - but it doesn’t bring us any closer to the idea as to why there is something rather than nothing. What use is the Cosmos to Omnipotence? Would not ‘God as Process’ be a form of Pantheism.

28 November 2018 at 22:26
Kelvin Wright said…
I find Meister Eckhart's concept of The Ground helpful in helping in think about Non Self. The ground is the "place" where observation is made from,(note the inverted commas. We're at the edge of language here) and cannot therefore be observed itself, any more than you can bite your teeth. It is not the self (which can be observed) and so can't easily fit the term often used of True Self, as opposed to False Self.Our ground, says Meister Eckhart is God's ground, though he strongly emphasises that we are not God.

He also says that God is no-thing. The trouble is we determinedly make God into a thing, and in some senses have to if we want to conceptualise and talk about God. So God as prime mover, Lord, Father, The Alpha and the Omega, all these are things - some of them admittedly very fancy and sophisticated things, nonetheless. Our linguistic tangles over God usually come because we have confined God to thingness and are caught in the various paradoxes which then arise. Process is also a thing, I suppose, and so I've got to be very careful in how I apply that term. But roughly, how I see it is:

The universe is a process and every "thing" in it is also a process. Or rather, a smaller part of the greater process. Everything is in a state of flux and change, but things which change slower than we do seem to be permanent and we can be deluded into thinking they are eternal. Not so - they are in process. It is all a great flow as Heraclitus said. So the questions we ask about the universe are things like: is the flow going somewhere? Is it purposeful? How did it begin? Where and when will it end? Why am I part of it? Why am I aware enough to even ask all these damn silly questions? "God" is the answer we give to all these. That is not to say God is some big thing who has set all this going, and is busy manning (sic) the pumps to keep the flow happening. That is not to say that God has a great master plan and we are all slavishly following along as the universe is moulded into the great preordained pattern. That is not to say that the universe and God are the same things. But the process of change itself; the great movement; the flow; the path of redemption and transformation which I see in my own soul - these are the beginning of the universe. ie these are God.

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks."

I will be queuing up, elbowing old ladies out of the line, to get my copy of McGilchrist's new book the instant he finishes writing it, but in the meantime I'm finding Whitehead and the Process theologians very helpful.
29 November 2018 at 12:13
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