Whitney Discussion

Author(s): F. A. Matsen, Barry Whitney, Herb Vetter and Don Viney

Source: The Personalist Forum, Vol. 14, No. 2, The Hartshorne Centennial Conference (Fall
1998), pp. 170-171
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Society for the Advancement
of American Philosophy
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20708786
Accessed: 21-01-2019 23:19 UTC

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 170 Barry Whitney

Whitney Discussion

F. A. Matsen: This may be relevant. Two weeks ago, John Wheeler asked
me a question similar to the one you' ve been discussing. A broader question:
Why is science? That is a bigger question. I'm not sure it's relevant. But,
why is science at all?

Barry Whitney: I don't think I have an argument for you. But science is
based on the consistency?unproven assumptions?that the world is con
sistent, that it is rational, logical. That it's worth investigating. People, I take
it, make a pretty good case for the usefulness of science. Is that where you're
heading?

Herb Vetter: Speaking in terms of persuasion and coercion and the social
philosophy of both Whitehead and Hartshorne, I don't understand the need
for thinking in terms of either/or, as you're putting it. Neither of them was
a pacifist; they indicated that pacifism was actually, even though conscien
tiously, contributing to evil; they insisted on coercive power in order to
achieve freedom and justice. I don't know how you can take this either/or
position in a cosmological/ontological perspective, when you think about
applied politics, say, and international relations.

Whitney: Pure pacifism is dangerous. Hartshorne has spoken about that.

Vetter: Indeed.

Whitney: For God, persuasion is the only power, but for us coercion is often
necessary.

Don Viney: If each of us having a world is at least materially equivalent to

having natural laws that govern that world, then it would follow that none of
us chooses the natural laws. We don't choose to have a world?I think

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 Divine Persuasion and the Anthropic Argument 171

George said that last night, and I believe that, except in the sense that I might
choose to commit suicide. But I don't choose initially to have a world. If
that's equivalent to having natural laws that govern the world, then none of
us chooses to have those natural laws. So there has to be an important sense
in which?call it whatever you want?but it is something about which we
do not have a choice. Something analogous, I suppose, to when each of us
has a language that we are brought up with?most of us are brought up with
a single language. I was brought up speaking English. I didn't have any
choice about that. I only have a choice at a point at which there is an alter
native. But in the case of the world, there is no alternative. So it seems to me
that if Hartshorne and Whitehead or any process thinker is committed to that
claim, whatever you want to call it, if you want to call it persuasive power,
coercive power or whatever, it could almost be misleading to say that there
is some element of persuasion in my obeying natural laws. I don't choose to
obey the law of gravity.

Whitney: We don't have any choice in regard to the natural laws, but we
don't want to say that they are coercively imposed. We have to say, in theory
at least, that it's a persuasive act, even though on the far end, the far right or
far left, of very powerful persuasive activity. Once we say it's coercive, we
are denying that there is any meaning. I will just say in passing, I think we
have a serious theodicy problem once we talk about coercion in any way, but
we also have the creation ex nihilo problem which denies our relationship to
God. Once we use the term coercion, it [our relationship to God] seems
coercive. I think we can extend the system up and down for the sake of
consistency and for the lack of a clear alternative.

Viney: I'm suggesting a coercive element, not coercion per se. Like in the
language case, there is a sense in which I don't want to use the word
"coercion," but it's imposed on me.

Whitney: It is.

Viney: But I still have a choice about which sentences to say and whether
to speak it well or poorly.

Whitney: We may have to leave those two words [persuasion and coercion]
behind. Unfortunately, no one seems to want to.

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