Substance or System as Foundational Metaphor for a Contemporary Christian World View?

Abstract

ABSTRACTNatural scientists increasingly employ the notion of system, i.e. organized groups of individual entities in dynamic interrelation, as a controlling metaphor in their analysis of physical reality, thereby reflecting a new emphasis on ecology and a holistic approach to reality. A.N. Whitehead’s understanding of the reciprocal cause-and-effect relation between constituent actual entities and the governing structure of the “society” to which they belong provides philosophical grounding for this new methodology and removes the danger of regarding systems as completely deterministic rather than open-ended and self-organizing. Likewise, a systems-oriented approach to the Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation and Eschatology clears up residual ambiguities in the traditional understanding of those same beliefs.