Çѱ¹È­ÀÌÆ®ÇìµåÇÐȸ ȨÆäÀÌÁö¿¡ ¿À½Å °É ȯ¿µÇÕ´Ï´Ù.
Á¦   ¸ñ  
ÀßÃ÷ºÎ¸£Å© ±¹Á¦ È­ÀÌÆ®ÇìµåÇмú´ëȸ ¹ßÇ¥³í¹® (ÁÖÀç¿Ï)
[ 2007-01-17 17:08:56 ]
±Û¾´ÀÌ  
¿î¿µÀÚ
Á¶È¸¼ö: 1541        
Process Philosophy and Unification Thought: On the Nature of the World and God

Jaewan Joo (Sun Moon University, Korea)

I
Recently Whitehead¡¯s process philosophy was studied often in comparison with Eastern religious thoughts. For example, it was compared with Buddhism, Hinduism and Neo-Confucianism. It was also compared with several Korean religious thoughts, such as Wonhyo¡¯s and Chinul¡¯s Buddhist thoughts, Yee Lee¡¯s and Hwang Lee¡¯s Neo-Confucian thoughts, and Chewoo Choi¡¯s Dong-Hak thought.  They were compared with process philosophy because their views of the nature of the world have some significant commonalities with those of process philosophy. I found that the thought of a new religious movement originated in Korea also could be compared meaningfully with process philosophy. It is the thought of unification movement or Unification Church. The movement¡¯s basic thought is generally called ¡°unification thought.¡± Process philosophy and unification thought share some common insights into the world. Of course, they disagree on some issues and in detailed logics at the same time. I think that the fact that the Center for Process Studies at Claremont held a conference with the theme ¡®process theology and unification thought¡¯ on June 1982 shows well this.
In this short essay, I will attempt a very basic comparison between process philosophy and unification thought. This attempt does not include a systematic discussion of each of them. My comparison will focus only on the following two issues: first, on the nature of the fundamental elements of the world in terms of mind and matter; second, on the nature of God. The highlighted points in the comparison between process philosophy and unification thought are different from those highlighted in the comparison between process philosophy and other Eastern or Korean religious thoughts.

II
According to process philosophy, the fundamental element of the world is not non-sentient matter as substance but experiencing actual entity (or actual occasion) as spatiotemporal event. Actual entity experiences or feels the world and, based on it, decides what to become, and finally becomes so. Right after actual entity actualizes what it wants to, it loses its present subjectivity and becomes past object, a stubborn fact, which in turn is experienced or felt by the following actual entities. Actual entity experiences the world through non-sensory perception, which Whitehead calls prehension.
In other words, actual entity has ¡®mentality.¡¯ But mentality here does not mean conscious mentality. In the process framework, consciousness is simply a particular subjective form that might appear in the very late phase of concrescence in very special circumstances such as human brain. Actual entity feels and decides mostly without consciousness. Actual entity with such mentality is neither simply material stuff nor simply mind, but has both mental and material sides at the same time. This view can be seen as a kind of ¡®neutral monism.¡¯ The fundamental entity with such character is a fact before the dichotomizing mind-matter perspective arises.
Unification thought has a very similar view of the nature of the fundamental element of the world. According to unification thought, in my understanding, the fundamental element of the world (and therefore all individual beings) has sungsang (àõßÓ), mental side, and hyungsang (úþßÒ), material side. In unification thought, sungsang and hyungsang are said to be unified as one. This feature is called ¡°dual characteristics.¡±  The fundamental element with dual characteristics is neither simply matter nor simply mind, but a single realty that has both sides. This position may be called ¡°unification monism.¡± Unlike process philosophy, however, unification thought does not assume metaphysically a fundamental element like actual entity. It seems that unification thought accepts as the fundamental elements of the world the fundamental particles that science discovers. Those particles are understood to have the dual characteristics (both mental and material sides). The fundamental element of the world in unification thought is subject to the further scientific discoveries in the future.
Unification thought does not explicitly explain whether each element¡¯s experience is conscious or unconsciousness, and sensory or non-sensory. In my inference, unification thought also can admit unconscious and non-sensory experience of fundamental elements. At least, it is sure that they do not have conscious sensory perception as defined in process framework.
It seems to be clear that, in spite of some differences, process philosophy and unification thought share the view that the fundamental constituents of the world are neither mind nor matter, but neutral entity having the mental and material bipolarity, or, in unification thought¡¯s terminology, dual characteristics. This view does not mean that the preexisting mind and matter are combined into one existence. The entity cannot be dichotomized into mind and matter; there is no such entity as pure mind or pure matter. The entity with the mental and material dual characteristics is a fact that precedes the modern mind-matter dualism.
The fundamental entities with bipolarity are internally related to all other entities. Unlike Leibniz¡¯s idea of windowless monad, in both process philosophy and unification thought, the basic entity experiences its outer world and, based on the experience, exists. How the element exists relies on the whole world. In both frameworks, we can say that the world is like a giant organism; all the constituents of the world are related with each other. In both thoughts, the experience of the world includes not only the objective data from outer world but the entity¡¯s subjective free response to the data. Mentality implies essentially freedom. Freedom is necessary to the fundamental entity in both thoughts. Due to its freedom, the entity¡¯s future is not wholly determined by the past; its future is open. The experience depends on both the determined past and open freedom. Mentality also implies emotion. Naturally, emotion plays a crucial role in the experience in both process philosophy and unification thought. It is emotion that drives entities. Unification thought has a very unique concept regarding emotion. It is ¡°shimjeong (ãýï×),¡± which could be translated roughly into ¡®heart.¡¯ Heart in unification thought is defined as ¡°emotional impulse to seek joy through love.¡±  It is the core of sungsang, the mental side of entity. Therefore, according to unification thought, in the internal relationship among the entities, there is always a flow of love stimulated by heart.
Process philosophy and unification thought also share an important view that experience is quantized or unitized. In experience, an entity opens to the world and receives the objective data of it, and then it closes its window and makes a subjective decision based on the data. Finally, the experience creates a result and then one unit of experience is finished. All experiences happen in the same pattern. At this point, however, the two thoughts show a significant difference at the same time. In process philosophy, one unit of experience results in one unit of being. In process philosophy, as mentioned above, actual entity is a spatiotemporal event. One experience brings about one actual entity, and right after the actual entity reaches satisfaction (i.e., accomplishes its goal), it perishes into the past. It does not exist through time and space. The nature of reality is process not substance. On the contrary, in unification thought, the subject of experience exists through time and space. The entity continues to exist through time and moves through space. The series of the unit of experience happen in the same entity. The experience of the outer world may cause some change to the experiencing entity, but the change cannot disturb the original identity of the entity. This may seem to return to substance ontology, but it actually does not, because, unlike substance, the basic entity in unification thought can have internal relationship to other entities essentially. This ontology could be viewed as a mid-position between substance ontology and process ontology. Process philosophy and unification thought provide two different alternative views to materialism and substance ontology. They share a similar macroscopic conclusion, but their microscopic logics for the conclusion are contrasted.

III
Another productive comparison between process philosophy and unification thought would be the comparison on the nature of God. I will first discuss the common aspects between the process God and the unificationist God. First of all, in both thoughts, God is composed of the mental and material sides. In process philosophy, God is an actual entity and therefore naturally has the mental and material bipolarity. In unification thought, too, God has dual characteristics, sungsang, mental side, and, hyungsang, material side: i.e., dual characteristics.
Second, as expected from the above discussion, in both thoughts, God feels the world and responses to it very emotionally. According to the traditional Christian thought, which was influenced by Greek philosophy, God is not supposed to be effected by the world. For example, God cannot have suffering and sorrow caused by the world. The process God, however, feels the world and, based on the feeling, reacts to the world. The process God feels the world¡¯s suffering and sorrow, and lures the world toward its happiness. Emotion plays a crucial role in God¡¯s relationship with the world. Likewise, in unification thought, the emotion grounded on ¡®heart¡¯ is the center of God¡¯s sungsang, God¡¯s mind. The emotion centering on heart is the primary drive of God. God suffers from the suffering and sorrow of the world. God¡¯s heart stimulates God to love and work for the world.  In both thoughts, emotion primarily moves God.
Now let me point out two differences between both views of God. In process philosophy, God is not the ultimate reality. The ultimate reality in process philosophy is creativity that is defined as ¡°the universal of universals.¡±  God is the ¡®ultimate actuality¡¯ through which forms enter the world.  In this view, the ultimate source of the material side of actual entities is creativity. Unlike this view, in unification thought, God is the only source of all the entities. God¡¯s hyungsang, the material side of God, is the ultimate source of the world. God is the only ultimate reality and ultimate source of the world.
On the other hand, in unification thought, God also has a different kind of bipolarity, or dual characteristics besides sungsang and hyungsang dual characteristics. It is the dual characteristics of yin and yang. This bipolarity is God¡¯s another intrinsic nature in unification thought. It is very unique that the unificationist God has the mental -material bipolarity and the yin-yang bipolarity at the same time. The unificationist view of God incorporates the western philosophy¡¯s major issue, the problem of mind and matter, and the oriental philosophy¡¯s major categories, yin and yang. How is the yin-yang dual characteristics related to the sungsang-hyungsang dual characteristics? The former is the attributes of the latter. Therefore, the world is created necessarily to have the yin-yang bipolarity.  In process philosophy, however, the yin-yang bipolarity, although it is well recognized in the world, is regarded as contingent. It is because the process God does not have any intrinsic nature causing the yin-yang bipolarity. The yin-yang bipolarity is just one possibility that was actualized and prevails in this cosmic epoch. The world could have not the yin-yang bipolarity. Whitehead simply says that our cosmic epoch is characterized by the societies of electromagnetic occasions.  That is, the electromagnetic society, which has positivity (+) - negativity (-) bipolarity, a type of the yin-yang bipolarity, is not a necessary phenomenon but a contingent one. In a different cosmic epoch, the world without the yin-yang bipolarity is possible. According to unification thought, there cannot be a possibility of the world without the yin-yang bipolarity.

IV
For concluding, I will summarize the above discussions. First, process philosophy and unification thought share the view that the fundamental constituents of the world have both mental and material sides. The fundamental entities have experiences and freedom to decide to some extent. The entity has the internal relationship with the world. The experience is unitized. But, in process philosophy, one unit of experience means one unit of entity, whereas, in unification thought, one entity can have series of unit of experience. Second, the two thoughts share the view that God has the mental and material bipolarity, and God reacts emotionally to the world. But, in process philosophy, creativity, which is not God, is the source of the world, whereas, in unification thought, God¡¯s material side is the source of the world. In unification thought, God also has the yin-yang bipolarity as an intrinsic nature. In process philosophy, the yin-yang bipolarity of the world is contingent. God is not supposed to have any intrinsic nature that causes the bipolar pattern of the world.