"The power of God is the worship he inspires."- A N Whitehead
One of the most important things to remember about Alfred N Whitehead's philosophy of religion is that he does not think that religion itself is an unambiguous good. Religion is good or bad depending on how a particular religion conceptualizes God and His relationship with the world. For Whitehead religion itself is power, it is a particular example of the most important value in his system: zest. Zest, simply stated, is the joy of becoming, the joy of trying to be 'the most me' I can be. It is self-fulfillment, depth of experience. It is a matter of 'impressing' oneself into the world, of making my existence more real. This is done by acting upon others in significant ways, and by opening myself up to the present moment, making this moment more real and more substantive for me as an individual.
Such an act of impression, taken by itself, is not necessarily good. Without the additional awareness of oneness, that I am a part of a greater whole, this value of zest can easily be corrupted, becoming a kind of cancer on the rest of the universe. A serial killer who tortures his victims is actualizing this value, but he has no awareness of the interconnection between him and his victim. The two truths that Whitehead thinks are essential to life is the truths of zest or 'depth of experience' and the truth of oneness, or the idea that the greatest zest is found in my fulfillment of my 'true self' which is inclusive of the whole of reality.
Religion is one particular form of zest in the human condition. Other forms include play and art. In RELIGION IN THE MAKING, Whitehead lays out what I think is the best account of the development of religion in history both natural and cultural that can be found anywhere. I will comment on it in great detail at some later date, in another contribution to this series. Consider this extended passage:
"Flocks of birds perform their ritual evolutions in the sky. In Europe rooks and starlings are notable examples of this fact. Ritual is the primitive outcome of superfluous energy and leisure. It exemplifies the tendency of living bodies to repeat their own actions. Thus the actions necessary in hunting for food, or in other useful pursuits, are repeated for their own sakes; and their repetition also repeats the joy of exercise and the emotion of success.
In this way emotion waits upon ritual; and then ritual is repeated and elaborated for the sake of its attendant emotions. Mankind became artists in ritual. It was a tremendous discovery-how to excite emotions for their own sake, apart from some imperious biological necessity. But emotions sensitize the organism. Thus the unintended effect was produced of sensitizing the human organism in a variety of ways diverse from what would have been produced by the necessary work of life."
A hunter creates a game to re-experience the joy of the hunt. Having played the game his whole life, the joy of the hunt is increased when actually engaged in. Religion is power, it is a way to deepen our experience of the world. By attenuating that power a certain direction, by living out the zest that a particular religion represents, one creates a particular way of life. God's power is the seeding of the world with ideas, but ideas are more or less conducive to zest. Worship is our way of attenuating our lives to God, of seeking the very source of what makes life deep and meaningful. God's ability to inspire men to such a depth of experience as worship is the very power of God. The inspiration is the power, the worship is the expression of that power. But this power exists whether or not it is properly attenuated.
Whitehead, in that same book says, "Accordingly, what should emerge from religion is individual worth of character. But worth is positive or negative, good or bad. Religion is by no means necessarily good. It may be very evil. The fact of evil, interwoven with the texture of the world, shows that in the nature of things there remains effectiveness for degradation. In your religious experience the God with whom you have made terms may be the God of destruction, the God who leaves in his wake the loss of the greater reality.
In considering religion, we should not be obsesses by the idea of its necessary goodness. This is a dangerous delusion. The point to notice is its transcendent importance; and the fact of this importance is abundantly made evident by the appeal to history."
The action of worship is an action of supreme depth. But it is good or bad to the degree it reflects the character of the one one brought about the inspiration. Simply put, the emotional depth religion is capable of engendering is the real power of God in our lives. To the degree one's entire life becomes an act of worship, to that degree one's entire life will embody the quality of zest. But worship need not be attenuated to the source of the inspiration.
There is another level here that must be mentioned. Remember Whitehead's panpsychism. We are not the special recipients of freedom. Freedom is inherent in the things of the world: to be is to become, to become is to self-create. Thus the inspiration to worship in mankind manifests itself in other ways at other levels of organization. The birds mentioned earlier play in the air. Atoms dance in a display of beauty. Galaxies similarly express aesthetic value. All value-creation is, in part, the result of a will-to-zest, which all epochal occasions have to some degree or another. Reality itself, then, is an act of worship.
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