Whitehead's View Of Religion

Along with the development of science, as a background knowledge of the religion, the cosmology brought a significant change, some philosophers' concept of religion also gave birth to subsequent changes. As a history of the fruit, Whitehead's concept is based on Christian religious beliefs, and benefits from the latest developments of the 20th natural sciences. Studies on his religious thinking can help us to understand the role of religion correctly, and grasp the relationship between religion and science thoroughly.So this paper attempts to discuss the Whitehead's concept of religion fully from the following aspects, in order to reveal the religion's positive significance to humanity, thus promotes the healthy development of human civilization..The first part of the paper explains the philosophic basis of the Whitehead's concept of religion. The Whitehead's religious views take its process philosophy as the logical starting point. He changed the premise of the traditional philosophy which was the entity, and put forward the first-principles of the incident. And he pointed out that the process was the most fundamental, to become a reality means becoming a process. Although the process is integrated by the rheological and eternal, multiplicity and unity, the concrete facts and abstract forms, but the dynamic aspect is more fundamental than the static side. The reality is the process, this process philosophy essence not only has the profound religious significance itself but also runs through the religious thought of Whitehead.The second part deals with the core of Whitehead's religion: the concept of God. Whitehead re-started the discussions on God. He refused the traditional thinkings which considered God rulled the world, and particularly opposed to those concepts which believed a full-Almighty God controlled all things in the world but not affected by them. Whitehead interprets the God's unidirectional subjective creation in the world as the interaction between God and the myriad things, by amending God's basic nature, so that God's goodwill appears in a derivational form and his compulsively dominating consciousness has been weakend. The third part analyses the Whitehead's elaboration on the religion's factors, essence,and belief's composition. Whitehead studied the formation mechanism of religion specifically, and analyzed the religion's four elements and their order.He believed the development that from the ritual, emotion, belief to rationalization was a process towards to the individual spirit. Religion was not social facts but personal situation of Ioneliness,religious activities were not necessarily good. At the same time, Whitehead believes that religion has a dual structure, it is the combination of intuition and teachings. The doctrine conflict is the evidence of its openness and development, the original intuition is the root of faith.The four section discusses Whitehead's understanding of the relationship between religion and science. For the conflict between religion and science, Whitehead took a tolerant attitude. He considered that religion and science were complementary and that the essence of science was a kind of fallacy which was "abstract misplaced concrete ", and "Religion is the response of human nature's seeking God",they were activities which against their own personal loneliness. As an inner strength of faith, religion has the meaning of deciding the value of life.The fifth part summes up the influence and significance of the Whitehead's concept of religion. Whitehead's concept of religion not only gave a direct impact on the following process philosophy and constructive post-modern philosophy, but also can help us to get out of the "conflict" model, understand the tremendous impact that religion brings to the science,and overcome the cultural plight made by the scientism.