About This Special Issue
The crisis of faith in God in this 21st century makes it imperative to raise the question of whether God actually interacts with the world, or is everything about his relationship with the world a mere conjecture or imagination of the mind. Whitehead has argued that God’s primordial nature is eternally immutable while his consequent nature mutates with the world. Is this mutation of the consequent nature of God an element of change in his being? Has that mutation a necessary connection with the uncertainties and changes in the world? Looking at the problem of evil in the world today from wars, poverty, terrorism, the scandal of child abuse, hate, discrimination, to natural disasters, could we agree with Whitehead that God cannot be the creator of the world, contrary to Leibniz’s idea that God created the best possible world? If these evils are part of God’s mutable consequent nature, is the waning of religion among humanity part of his mutable nature probably for a higher aim? Do we agree with Whitehead that God does not create the world but only saves it through his patient operation of overpowering rationality? The world in the 21st century is experiencing many forms of atheism and rejection of the creation of the world by God. The primary goal of this special issue is to reflect anew on Whitehead’s dipolar idea of God which will provide humanity with a new way of looking at God in the contemporary world. We invite contributions that explore “God’s relationship with the world” with particular interest in Alfred N. Whitehead’s dipolar notion of God in the 21st Century.
We welcome original research articles, review articles, case studies, and the like. Through this special issue, we aim to address the problem of God’s relatedness and presence in the 21st-century world from Whitehead's perspective, which will enrich the “Philosophy of Religion” and, in a particular way, the International Journal of Philosophy. We welcome researchers from various disciplines to provide interdisciplinary perspectives on Alfred N. Whitehead’s dipolar notion of God in the 21st Century. Your contributions will play a crucial role in advancing knowledge in this field.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- The God of Whitehead in a secular world
- Can God’s dipolar accommodate the problem of evil?
- Is God the creator of the world?
- The world as the product of creation or evolution
- Compatibility of creation with God’s dipolar
- The extent of the mutability of God in Whitehead
- God’s consequent nature vis-à-vis his primordial being
- Immanentism and transcendence: A problem of harmony
- The God of Whitehead as a personal deity
- The relevance of belief in God in the contemporary world
- Can science provide an alternative answer to God’s existence?
- The viability of atheism in the 21st century
- Could God have created a better world?
- The compatibility of process philosophy with atheism