Edwina, List: ET: I would expect Jon S to disagree.
While I personally disagree with process theology itself, I actually agree with Clark that Peirce's writings can plausibly be interpreted from a process theology perspective. Peirce clearly rejected determinism--or necessitarianism, as he usually called it--but I think that he did view God as First Cause in the specific sense of *Ens necessarium*, since he said so explicitly in "A Neglected Argument," its additaments, and the associated manuscript drafts. ET: The vital importance of chance as an agential force in the emergence and evolution of matter/mind ... I do not see how we can attribute "agential force" to chance or Firstness, when in Peirce's thought--even in conjunction with Brute reaction or Secondness--it is *pure nothing* in the absence of continuity or Thirdness. CSP: Thus, when I speak of chance, I only employ a mathematical term to express with accuracy the characteristics of freedom or spontaneity. Permit me further to say that I object to having my metaphysical system as a whole called Tychism. For although tychism does enter into it, it only enters as subsidiary to that which is really, as I regard it, the characteristic of my doctrine, namely, that I chiefly insist upon continuity, or Thirdness, and, in order to secure to thirdness its really commanding function, I find it indispensable fully [to] recognize that it is a third, and that Firstness, or chance, and Secondness, or Brute reaction, are other elements, without the independence of which Thirdness would not have anything upon which to operate. Accordingly, I like to call my theory Synechism, because it rests on the study of continuity. (CP 6.201-202; 1898) CSP: We start, then, with nothing, pure zero … It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility—boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law … Now the question arises, what necessarily resulted from that state of things? But the only sane answer is that where freedom was boundless nothing in particular necessarily resulted. (CP 6.217-218; 1898) Chance as Firstness is "freedom or spontaneity," rather than randomness or inexplicability; and it is something upon which, along with Brute reaction as Secondness, continuity as Thirdness operates in exercising "its really commanding function." I thus equate it with *divine* freedom or spontaneity--but I do not insist that this is the *only *viable interpretation. CSP: Those who express the idea to themselves by saying that the Divine Creator determined so and so may be incautiously clothing the idea in a garb that is open to criticism, but it is, after all, substantially the only philosophical answer to the problem. (CP 6.199; 1898) Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote: > Clark, list: > > Agreed, that the term of 'god' in Peirce, at least in my interpretation, > is more akin to the god-in-process 'theology' [or I prefer > Nature-in-process'] rather than a priori determinism or First Cause. I > would expect Jon S to disagree. > > The vital importance of chance as an agential force in the emergence and > evolution of matter/mind - and of Thirdness as a process of habit formation > - and of complexity of interactions within the triadic semiosic network > can't be overlooked. > > Edwina >
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