Can ​God hear music without human ears?
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from the Whitehead Word Book by John Cobb

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No, says John Cobb in the Whitehead Word Book.  God's hearing of music, or any other sound heard by humans cannot occur until God shares in the experience of human listeners.  Yes, the very abstract possibility of hearing may have existed in God's mind prior to the evolution of human listeners, but the actual hearing of music, on God's part, happens only as God feels the feelings of human beings.  And if we humans find music beautiful, or powerful, or truthful, God's own experience is enriched, and derived from, our experience. As Cobb puts it: "For Whitehead all value is located in actuality, and all actuality is temporal, or in God's case, derivate from what is temporal."  This means that our listening to music adds something to God that was not there beforehand. And so it is with other kinds of beauty: acts of kindness, courage, and justice, for example.  They enrich God, and apart from them God's own ongoing life remains unfulfilled and abstract.

​- Jay McDaniel, August 19, 2021
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