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Theological Originality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

T. E. Burke
T. E. Burke
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Reading
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Extract

In contemporary discussion of the philosophy of religion, or for that matter of any branch of philosophy, the names of Whitehead and Wittgenstein are not often linked. Whitehead's later work is, for the most part, treated as a rather specialized interest, an attractively under-cultivated field for the enterprising thesis-writer perhaps, but well away from the main centres of current philosophical activity. And what he has to say about specifically religious or theological issues (apart from the often quoted or misquoted ‘Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness‘)1 becomes simply one ramification of an ingenious but somewhat eccentric system. Nonetheless, there is at least this much justification for considering it in relation to the much more influential and widely discussed views of Wittgenstein. Whitehead has some original things to say about God, Wittgenstein some original reasons for thinking that Whitehead's brand of originality is here radically misplaced. And the possibility or otherwise of such theological originality is an issue of very considerable importance for the philosophy of religion.

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Type
Research Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1976, pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 1 note 1 Religion in the Making (Cambridge, 1926), p. 16.Google Scholar

page 2 note 2 Process and Reality (Cambridge, 1929), p. 492.Google Scholar

page 3 note 1 Process and Reality, pp. 28f.

page 3 note 2 A brave attempt at a general outline of the Whiteheadian philosophy can be found in Professor Dorothy Emmet's article on Whitehead in The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (New York and London, 1967), VIII, 290ff.Google Scholar Longer treatments can be found in, for example, her Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism (London, 1932)Google Scholar, Lowe's, V. ‘The Development of Whitehead's Philosophy’ in The Philosophy of A. N. Whitehead, ed. Schlipp, P. A. (Evanston, 1941), pp. 15ff.Google Scholar, or Leclerc's, I.Whitehead's Metaphysics (London, 1958).Google Scholar For an interesting study of Whitehead's theological views (and a comprehensive bibliography) see Thompson, K. F. Jr, Whitehead's Philosophy of Religion (The Hague, 1971).Google Scholar

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page 14 note 1 Job 11: 7.

page 14 note 2 Ecclesiastes 5: 2.

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