God in the Philosophy of Alexander

Abstract

In the view of Alexander Space-Time or Pure Motion is the basic stuff of the universe, for it is Space-Time or Pure Motion that remains if one thinks out all that can be excluded through a rigorous act of abstraction short of annihilation. Alexander subscribes to the doctrine of emergent evolution and holds that the empirical world in all its ascending levels emerges out of the primal background of Space-Time. The first ascending level of emergence is that of matter with primary qualities; the next ascending level is that of secondary qualities; life emerges in the next ascending level and mind emerges in the next ascending level. Reductive materialism must be rejected, for each new quality emerging in the ascending level is irreducible to the previous level and there is always an explanatory gap between the previous level and the ascending level. The highest of the empirical qualities known to us is mind or consciousness; there is an empirical quality which is to succeed the distinctive empirical quality of our level, that new empirical quality is God or deity. We cannot tell what the nature of deity is; but we can be certain that it is not mere mind or spirit, for no new emergent quality can be reduced to the previous level. Rather deity is what mind or spirit deserves in the ascending order.