About the Author - A.B. Kelly gained his PhD at Flinders University, South Australia, in 1999. He was a mature age student at the University, having spent 40 years working in Industrial Relations, Personnel and the Northern Territory Police. Kelly has published his thesis as The Process of the Cosmos: Philosophical Theology and Cosmology (1999) Dissertation.com, and have had the following papers published in Quodlibet,

"Rethinking Christianity in the Light of Process Thought", July 1999, and "Aristotle, Teilhard de Chardin and the Explanation of the World", January 2000.

You may see more of Dr. Kelly's work at http://members.dingoblue
.net.au/~abkelly

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A self-existent entity is the best explanation of the existence of contingent entities. I will call this self-existent entity X, and call contingent entities, collectively, Z.

What motive could X have for initiating anything at all? The most reasonable supposition is that X wants there to be another entity similar to X. However Z is not similar to X. There is a significant difference between them. The essential dissimilarity is in their mode of existence, X being spirit and self-existent and Z being matter and totally contingent. Can this gap be bridged?

The only possibility of bridging the gap is for X to initiate Z in such a way that Z, or more accurately some part of Z, has the potential to become engaged in a process through which it could develop a similarity to X. X must therefore initiate time as well as matter. Time is a necessity for any process.

Such a process has to open the possibility of the development of a third mode of existence, one that is closer to the self-existent mode of X than to the totally contingent mode of Z. Self-creation would be such an intermediate mode of existence. As nothing can be self-created ex-nihilo, the only possible intermediate entity between X and Z is therefore an entity that is partly contingent and partially self-created. Call this semi-self-created entity Y.

As there is a significant ontological distance between X and Z, any process that could bridge this distance, and possibly produce Y, would probably entail a series of stages of ever increasing self-creation. The final stage, or stages, would have to freely self-create in relation to the particular characteristics that identify X, if Y was ever to be able to become similar to X.

I use the symbol X rather than the word God, as the concept of God always carries a lot of baggage. Let us not carry any more of that baggage than necessary, and accept only that X is spirit, self-existent, creative and good. Y would have to be able to freely become similar to X in mode of existence, in spirit, in creativity, and in goodness.

The first stage of the cosmic process is Z, the stage of matter. The physical and chemical laws of matter are deterministic, but they interact to produce contingency. At some stage, given unlimited time, a planet that is capable of supporting life will develop from this contingent process.

Additional information then has to be inserted into the process of the cosmos to initiate life, and to provide it with the potential to freely evolve more complex forms, including the evolution of rational consciousness. As we are aware, primitive Homo sapiens, an entity with a rational potential, eventually evolves from this process.

Homo sapiens then evolves culturally. It is self-evident that the cultural process involves free self-creation. Humans make cultures and cultures, to a significant extent, make humans. Human cultures have the ability to increase in rationality. As free processes, all cultures develop differently. The responsibility for the type of development that occurs rests solely with the people of the culture.

When and if, through this cultural self-creation, any human culture achieves a sufficiently high degree of rational consciousness, the people of the culture can begin to develop their moral, or spiritual, consciousness. They can then further develop both their creativity and their moral standards, through the process of cultural self-creation. Moral development is probably the most important aspect of this process of self-creation, as it is essential if humanity is to become like X. Moral development is a fully free stage of self-development, as moral imperatives command but cannot compel.

The historical development to date indicates that there is a cosmic process that operates through a series of stages. Each stage is initially relatively simple. Each stage then appears to increase in complexity, ultimately providing a platform for the next stage. While the process appears to have a direction towards greater complexity at each stage, it does not appear to be externally directed. It seems to be a free process, involving increasing self-creation at each stage. There may be other explanations of the historical evidence, but a process involving free self-creation appears to be the most likely explanation of the evidence.

The greatest barrier to the acceptance of this simple explanation of the process of the Cosmos, comes from traditional Theology. Theologians remain attached the ancient idea that God intervenes in the world. But clearly any interference by God in the process of human self-creation would frustrate the possible achievement of a self-created entity similar to God. To achieve the apparent purpose of the cosmos, both evolution and cultural self-creation have to be able to operate freely and without external assistance or constraint. Why then should Theologians adhere to an interventionist idea of God? Trevor Ling suggests an answer.

In his "History of Religion East and West" (1968) Ling argues that the Jewish, Christian and Islamic ideas of God have all been adversely affected by a concept of God that is based on the actions of an arbitrary oriental potentate. He traces the development and growth of this concept of God within Israel, and argues that this was not the original Hebrew concept of God. (1968, 71-2) He also maintains that Jesus sought to restore the original compassionate concept of divinity and to overturn "the Near Eastern potentate conception of the divine being" (1968,159) Ling claims that there are signs that "Christian theology is at last beginning to divest itself of this ancient pagan encumbrance" in favour of "the coming into being of a humanity whose nature has been briefly glimpsed in Christ" (1968, 426-9). I have argued that the production of this form of humanity is the reason why there is anything at all.

Ling has distinguished three main types of religious beliefs, the "theology of the omnipotent", typified by Islam; the "anthropology of the awakened" typified by Buddhism; and the "Christology of Jesus, or the new man" typified by Christianity. In the first two types there is little or no sense of historical development. It is only in Christianity that the time-process is "of primary importance". (1968,425) But it is clear that the "theology of the omnipotent" is still alive and well not only in Islam but also in Judaism and Christianity.

© copyright, 7 January 2002, Dr. A. B. Kelly, Flinders University