Note: This is the first installment in a much longer piece that will, as the title states, present “A Constellation of Process Philosophy in Verse, Humor, Riddle, and Song.” And, yes, there will be entries in all of the categories I mention: Verse, Humor, Riddle, and Song.
In All Ways Wise
If God, in essence, cannot be otherwise,
Or cannot be other than wise,
God is, always and ever, other-wise.
That is, of each and every other,
In all ways wonderously wise;
Otherwise, God would be otherwise.
And so, as God is in nowise otherwise,
God is all-wise and everywhere other-wise.
This being said, one may go on likewise —
A Prhymer on Omniscience
Let us suppose
God only knows
All there is to know.
Does it, then, follow
That God can forever and in detail foresee
How the decisions we make turn out to be?
There is little in eternity that God does not know
But always a little that God can never foreknow
(How our decisions from here to entirety may go)
Because there is simply nothing yet there to know.
Process philosophy can without contradiction show
That this is the case and is, indeed, apodictically so,
And that within the divine and everlasting purview,
God is always everywhere, waiting for something new.
Whose Datum Is the Universe
If asked, “Is God relative?” — we must agree,
Yes, this is true, and then reply, “Absolutely!”
For other dipolar terms this is also a fact:
Such as finite & infinite, concrete & abstract.
To characterize God, both terms are required
But used in a manner unique and inspired.
This is Hartshorne’s idea of dual transcendence
That flashed in his mind in logical resplendence.
In all this, as in being both the first and the last,
God enjoys a metaphysical status unsurpassed.
So relational is God, that with all others he brims,
Is immanent in all actualities as they are in him,
In a never-ending flow of an interweaving stream
Wherein mutual influence is the universal theme.
Even in the farthest reaches of intergalactic space
A process guided by providence and grace
Begins with an initial aim, or the lure of a dance,
That guides all actualities in the creative advance.
And not only in the wide universe that we now see
But in any cosmic epoch that has been or will ever be.
Throughout the universe, from here to infinity,
God must first take account of each actual entity
Ascertain fully its internal and existential milieu
So as with the best aim for the future to imbue.
Consider the unimaginable complexity of this:
The ubiquity of subjects, infinitude of the abyss,
And yet—to each and every one, in perfect play,
God provides a providential aim to point the way.
From particle to atom and from molecule to cell,
To apes and humans, and to all creatures as well,
God is always there, in the beginning, to portend,
That each creature may choose a best way to wend.
To state this at once most amply and most terse,
It is God only whose Datum is—all the universe.
(So say Hartshorne, Whitehead, and C.S. Peirce)
The lowdown from highup, for better and for worse,
And so ends this, my (1st) process exposition in verse.
—HyC