Ever Ancient, Ever New
An Augustinian Process Theology
An Augustinian Process Theology
- Another name for God is infinite Beauty: ever ancient, ever new.
- The universe itself is a complex expression of beauty, lured by the infinite Beauty.
- We humans are part of, not apart from, the universe.
- We are feelers before we are thinkers.
- God is within each of us as an object of desire.
- Sometimes we desire finite goods as if they were infinite goods, turning them into false gods.
- When our loves are disordered in this way, tragedy emerges. We harm others and ourselves.
- The need is to order our loves, and love the infinite beauty with the whole of our hearts and minds, and to love the finite goods in an honest, non-grasping way.
- As we try to order our loves, there is still a deeper yearning; out hearts are restless and yearn for Peace consummates the journey of our lives.
- The source of Peace - the Harmony of Harmonies - is ever ancient and ever new.
- The realization of Peace entails a release from acquisition, tension and self-preoccupation.
- Peace is not an achievement; it comes when we let go; it come as a gift.
Quotes
God is Beauty, ever ancient, ever new. (Augustine)
"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all.
-St. Augustine, Confessions
God calls, God shouts, We hunger and thirst for God (Augustine)
"You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."
Our Hearts are Restless until they Rest in God (Augustine)
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” It is also sometimes translated in the plural: “our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
- St. Augustine, Confessions
God is the Initial Object of Desire at Each Moment (Whitehead)
He is the lure for feeling, the eternal urge of desire. His particular relevance to each creative act as it arises from its own conditioned standpoint in the world, constitutes him the initial ‘object of desire’ establishing the initial phase of each subjective aim.
- Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality
The Soul seeks Peace - a Harmony of Harmonies. In Peace there is a removal of stress from acquisitive feeling and the soul's preoccupation with itself drops away. (Whitehead)
I choose the term ‘Peace’ for that Harmony of Harmonies which calms destructive turbulence and completes civilization...The Peace that is here meant is not the negative conception of anaesthesia. It is a positive feeling which crowns the ‘life and motion’ of the soul. It is hard to define and difficult to speak of. It is not a hope for the future, nor is it an interest in present details. It is a broadening of feeling due to the emergence of some deep metaphysical insight, unverbalized and yet momentous in its coordination of values. Its first effect is the removal of the stress of acquisitive feeling arising from the soul’s preoccupation with itself. Thus Peace carries with it a surpassing of personality. There is an inversion of relative values.
- Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas
Peace is trust in the efficacy of Beauty; it comes as a gift. (Whitehead)
It is primarily a trust in the efficacy of Beauty. It is a sense that fineness of achievement is as it were a key unlocking treasures that the narrow nature of things would keep remote. There is thus involved a grasp of infinitude, an appeal beyond boundaries. Its emotional effect is the subsidence of turbulence which inhibits. More accurately, it preserves the springs of energy, and at the same time masters them for the avoidance of paralyzing distractions. The trust in the self-justification of Beauty introduces faith, where reason fails to reveal the details. The experience of Peace is largely beyond the control of purpose. It comes as a gift.
- Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas
God is the Poet of the World (Whitehead)
He does not create the world, he saves it: or, more accurately, he is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.
- Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality
The Universe Aims at Beauty
The teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty.
- Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas
Six Spiritual Affinities between
Whitehead and Augustine
1. Another Name for God is Beauty
For Augustine of Hippo, God is the supreme Beauty--pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova—“Beauty ever ancient, ever new.” Beauty is not ornamental; it is ontological. It names the radiance of divine order, harmony, and goodness.
For Alfred North Whitehead, beauty is likewise ultimate. In Process and Reality, he describes the aim of the universe—and of God—as the production of “intensity of experience” harmonized into contrasts. Beauty is the telos of becoming. God is not merely true or powerful; God is the lure toward richer, deeper, more integrated forms of experience.
Both thinkers therefore converge on a striking claim: the ultimate reality is aesthetic in character. God is the source and fulfillment of Beauty.
For Alfred North Whitehead, beauty is likewise ultimate. In Process and Reality, he describes the aim of the universe—and of God—as the production of “intensity of experience” harmonized into contrasts. Beauty is the telos of becoming. God is not merely true or powerful; God is the lure toward richer, deeper, more integrated forms of experience.
Both thinkers therefore converge on a striking claim: the ultimate reality is aesthetic in character. God is the source and fulfillment of Beauty.
2. We Are Feelers Before We Are Thinkers
Augustine’s Confessions is not a treatise in abstraction but a drama of longing, memory, grief, joy, and desire. Knowledge begins in the heart. The human being is not first a detached intellect but a lover—a feeler.
Whitehead radicalizes this insight metaphysically. Reality itself is composed of moments of experience. Each actual entity “prehends” its world—it feels it and desires its own satisfaction. Cognition is derivative; feeling is primary.
In both visions, the foundation of human life is affective. We are not primarily rational calculators. We are centers of response and valuation. We feel our way into truth.
Whitehead radicalizes this insight metaphysically. Reality itself is composed of moments of experience. Each actual entity “prehends” its world—it feels it and desires its own satisfaction. Cognition is derivative; feeling is primary.
In both visions, the foundation of human life is affective. We are not primarily rational calculators. We are centers of response and valuation. We feel our way into truth.
3. God is Within Each of Us as an Object of Desire
Augustine’s famous inward turn--“You were within me, but I was outside myself”—expresses a profound theological anthropology. God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. God is the deepest object of our desire.
Whitehead offers a parallel in his notion of the “initial aim.” At the core of each moment of experience is a lure toward wholeness, intensity, and harmony. This lure is God’s presence in the becoming subject. God is not externally coercive but internally persuasive.
Thus in both thinkers, God is not merely an external ruler but an indwelling attraction—an eros at the heart of becoming.
Whitehead offers a parallel in his notion of the “initial aim.” At the core of each moment of experience is a lure toward wholeness, intensity, and harmony. This lure is God’s presence in the becoming subject. God is not externally coercive but internally persuasive.
Thus in both thinkers, God is not merely an external ruler but an indwelling attraction—an eros at the heart of becoming.
4. When Our Loves Are Disordered, Tragedy Emerges
For Augustine, sin is fundamentally disordered love (amor perversus). We turn good things into ultimate things. We cling to finite goods as if they were absolute. From this misordering comes injustice, violence, and personal fragmentation.
Whitehead, though not using the language of sin in the same way, recognizes a parallel dynamic. When intensity is pursued without harmony, experience becomes destructive.
The drive for satisfaction can turn acquisitive, self-enclosed, or blind to wider relations.
In both accounts, tragedy arises not because desire itself is evil, but because desire becomes misdirected—cut off from the deeper lure toward Beauty.
Whitehead, though not using the language of sin in the same way, recognizes a parallel dynamic. When intensity is pursued without harmony, experience becomes destructive.
The drive for satisfaction can turn acquisitive, self-enclosed, or blind to wider relations.
In both accounts, tragedy arises not because desire itself is evil, but because desire becomes misdirected—cut off from the deeper lure toward Beauty.
5. Our Hearts Are Restless and Yearn for Peace
Augustine’s opening confession--“Our hearts are restless until they rest in You”—captures the existential condition of the human being. Restlessness is not a defect but a sign of transcendence.
Whitehead speaks of “Peace” as a profound spiritual state: a release from frantic acquisition and self-preoccupation, grounded in participation in a wider harmony. Peace is not passivity but depth—an awareness that one’s life participates in something larger than itself.
For both, peace is gift. It is not manufactured by willpower. It comes from alignment with the deeper order of reality—what Whitehead calls the “Harmony of Harmonies.”
Whitehead speaks of “Peace” as a profound spiritual state: a release from frantic acquisition and self-preoccupation, grounded in participation in a wider harmony. Peace is not passivity but depth—an awareness that one’s life participates in something larger than itself.
For both, peace is gift. It is not manufactured by willpower. It comes from alignment with the deeper order of reality—what Whitehead calls the “Harmony of Harmonies.”
6. The Source of Peace is Ever Ancient, Ever New
Augustine’s phrase—“ever ancient, ever new”—holds together transcendence and immediacy. God is the source beyond time and yet intimately present in each moment.
Whitehead similarly distinguishes between God’s primordial nature (the eternal valuation of possibilities) and God’s consequent nature (the responsive, temporal participation in the world’s unfolding). God is both beyond the flux and deeply involved in it.
Thus both thinkers refuse a static deity. God is faithful yet dynamic; eternal yet responsive; ancient in depth, new in every becoming.
Whitehead similarly distinguishes between God’s primordial nature (the eternal valuation of possibilities) and God’s consequent nature (the responsive, temporal participation in the world’s unfolding). God is both beyond the flux and deeply involved in it.
Thus both thinkers refuse a static deity. God is faithful yet dynamic; eternal yet responsive; ancient in depth, new in every becoming.
Reading Augustine & Whitehead Together
Reading Augustine and Whitehead together does not reduce Augustine to a proto–process thinker, nor does it assimilate Alfred North Whitehead into Latin theology. Their philosophical differences are real and significant. Augustine affirmed that God created the world out of nothing; Whitehead emphasized the self-creativity of each moment of experience. Augustine spoke of predestination; Whitehead held that the world participates in shaping its own destiny. Augustine maintained that God eternally knows all events—past, present, and future—in a timeless present; Whitehead argued that the future does not yet exist to be known. Augustine believed God is timeless; Whitehead affirmed both the temporality of God (in God’s consequent nature) and the non-temporality of God (in God’s primordial nature).
Yet both thinkers placed Love at the very heart of God, and both understood this Love as the source of life’s deepest meaning. Reading them together can therefore be illuminating. There are genuine resonances and shared sensibilities between them, and each offers resources for a creative appropriation of the other without collapsing their differences.
We can readily imagine an Augustinian rendering of process philosophy and theology and, conversely, a Whiteheadian rendering of Augustinian philosophy and theology. The first would deepen process thought through Augustine’s profound analysis of love, memory, interiority, and the restless heart; the second would reinterpret Augustine’s theological vision through a relational metaphysics of becoming, creativity, and divine persuasion. Neither would subsume the other. Rather, each would open new pathways of thought in which ancient Christian wisdom and modern process philosophy illuminate one another.
What follows are six spiritual affinities between Augustine and Whitehead, with suggestions as to how they might be further developed.
Yet both thinkers placed Love at the very heart of God, and both understood this Love as the source of life’s deepest meaning. Reading them together can therefore be illuminating. There are genuine resonances and shared sensibilities between them, and each offers resources for a creative appropriation of the other without collapsing their differences.
We can readily imagine an Augustinian rendering of process philosophy and theology and, conversely, a Whiteheadian rendering of Augustinian philosophy and theology. The first would deepen process thought through Augustine’s profound analysis of love, memory, interiority, and the restless heart; the second would reinterpret Augustine’s theological vision through a relational metaphysics of becoming, creativity, and divine persuasion. Neither would subsume the other. Rather, each would open new pathways of thought in which ancient Christian wisdom and modern process philosophy illuminate one another.
What follows are six spiritual affinities between Augustine and Whitehead, with suggestions as to how they might be further developed.
1. Beauty as a Name of God
When Augustine cries, “O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,” he performs a theological reversal. God is not first named as omnipotent will or moral legislator but as Beauty—the radiant depth that awakens and orders desire.
Whitehead, working in a different idiom, converges at this point. In Adventures of Ideas he says that the teleology of the universe is “the production of Beauty" and uses the phrase "Harmony of Harmonies" to name what, in Process and Reality, he calls "the consequent nature of God." Beauty is not ornamental; it is ontological. It names the very aim of becoming and the very nature of God. Defined technically as harmony with intensity—contrast integrated into pattern, richness disciplined by order—beauty becomes the criterion of value.
Moreover, in Process and Reality, Whitehead speaks of God as an object of desire. God is not merely the source of valuation but also that toward which desire is directed. The divine reality functions both as primordial ground and as lure—both origin and attraction. In this respect, Whitehead’s metaphysics unexpectedly echoes Augustine’s confession: the heart seeks what ultimately seeks it.
From a Whiteheadian standpoint, Augustine’s invocation is not devotional excess but metaphysical insight. If every concrescing subject seeks aesthetic satisfaction, and if God both grounds and attracts that striving, then God as Beauty is the ultimate horizon of desire. Augustine’s prayer becomes cosmological
Whitehead, working in a different idiom, converges at this point. In Adventures of Ideas he says that the teleology of the universe is “the production of Beauty" and uses the phrase "Harmony of Harmonies" to name what, in Process and Reality, he calls "the consequent nature of God." Beauty is not ornamental; it is ontological. It names the very aim of becoming and the very nature of God. Defined technically as harmony with intensity—contrast integrated into pattern, richness disciplined by order—beauty becomes the criterion of value.
Moreover, in Process and Reality, Whitehead speaks of God as an object of desire. God is not merely the source of valuation but also that toward which desire is directed. The divine reality functions both as primordial ground and as lure—both origin and attraction. In this respect, Whitehead’s metaphysics unexpectedly echoes Augustine’s confession: the heart seeks what ultimately seeks it.
From a Whiteheadian standpoint, Augustine’s invocation is not devotional excess but metaphysical insight. If every concrescing subject seeks aesthetic satisfaction, and if God both grounds and attracts that striving, then God as Beauty is the ultimate horizon of desire. Augustine’s prayer becomes cosmological
2. Desire as the Real Internal Constitution of the Self
Augustine’s anthropology begins with desire. Human beings are lovers before they are thinkers. Sin is misdirected love; redemption is reordered love--ordo amoris.
Whitehead’s philosophy begins with the idea that subjects of experience have at their very core—their "real internal constitution" to quote Whitehead—a desire for satisfaction, a lure toward fulfillment, a subjective aim at beauty understood as intensity of experience. Each actual entity is animated from within by this aim. It is not imposed externally; it belongs to the very structure of concrescence.
This subjective aim is the inward drive toward a completed unity of experience, toward intensity integrated into harmony. Thus Augustine’s restless heart is not merely spiritual autobiography. It discloses something metaphysically basic. Restlessness belongs to finite process itself. Every occasion seeks satisfaction; every life seeks intensity ordered toward unity. Desire is not accidental to reality; it is constitutive of it.
Whitehead’s philosophy begins with the idea that subjects of experience have at their very core—their "real internal constitution" to quote Whitehead—a desire for satisfaction, a lure toward fulfillment, a subjective aim at beauty understood as intensity of experience. Each actual entity is animated from within by this aim. It is not imposed externally; it belongs to the very structure of concrescence.
This subjective aim is the inward drive toward a completed unity of experience, toward intensity integrated into harmony. Thus Augustine’s restless heart is not merely spiritual autobiography. It discloses something metaphysically basic. Restlessness belongs to finite process itself. Every occasion seeks satisfaction; every life seeks intensity ordered toward unity. Desire is not accidental to reality; it is constitutive of it.
3. God Within: The Initial Aim and Interior Awakening
“You were within me, but I was outside.”
Augustine’s inward turn is not merely mystical introspection; it is ontological reorientation. In a Whiteheadian framework, God is always already “within” us—not spatially, but constitutively. At the heart of each moment of experience is what Whitehead calls the initial aim: the divine lure toward the best possible realization of beauty in that situation.
This initial aim is not a neutral suggestion. It includes God’s own animating energy, God’s own desire that the possibilities be actualized. The aim carries both fresh possibilities for responding to the situation at hand and the persuasive vitality that beckons us toward wholeness. In this sense, God is our innermost aim for unity of experience.
And yet we can be alienated from this aim. We can live outwardly dispersed, absorbed in external matters, inattentive to the lure that arises from within our own becoming. Augustine’s confession names this condition: “You were within me, but I was outside.” The problem is not divine absence but human inattention.
Whitehead provides the metaphysical structure; Augustine provides the existential diagnosis. The divine lure is always present, but we can be out of touch with it. To “look within” is not to retreat from the world; it is to become attentive to the divine aim operative at the core of experience.
Immanence, in this light, is not sentiment but structure. God is not occasionally present. God is constitutively active in each moment’s possibility for beauty.
Augustine’s inward turn is not merely mystical introspection; it is ontological reorientation. In a Whiteheadian framework, God is always already “within” us—not spatially, but constitutively. At the heart of each moment of experience is what Whitehead calls the initial aim: the divine lure toward the best possible realization of beauty in that situation.
This initial aim is not a neutral suggestion. It includes God’s own animating energy, God’s own desire that the possibilities be actualized. The aim carries both fresh possibilities for responding to the situation at hand and the persuasive vitality that beckons us toward wholeness. In this sense, God is our innermost aim for unity of experience.
And yet we can be alienated from this aim. We can live outwardly dispersed, absorbed in external matters, inattentive to the lure that arises from within our own becoming. Augustine’s confession names this condition: “You were within me, but I was outside.” The problem is not divine absence but human inattention.
Whitehead provides the metaphysical structure; Augustine provides the existential diagnosis. The divine lure is always present, but we can be out of touch with it. To “look within” is not to retreat from the world; it is to become attentive to the divine aim operative at the core of experience.
Immanence, in this light, is not sentiment but structure. God is not occasionally present. God is constitutively active in each moment’s possibility for beauty.
4. Disorder and Tragic Beauty
Augustine diagnoses evil as disordered love—finite goods loved as ultimate. Whitehead articulates a parallel diagnosis in aesthetic terms. Evil appears as intensity without harmony, destructive excess; or harmony without intensity, triviality; or discord, fragmentation of value. In both instances evil "misses the mark" of the inwardly felt initial aim, itself the primordial object of desire.
These analyses are not rivals but complements. Augustine supplies moral grammar; Whitehead supplies cosmological articulation. Both refuse sentimental optimism. Discord is real. The tragic dimension is woven into becoming itself. Yet neither thinker concludes in nihilism. Disorder is distortion within a deeper aim toward beauty.
These analyses are not rivals but complements. Augustine supplies moral grammar; Whitehead supplies cosmological articulation. Both refuse sentimental optimism. Discord is real. The tragic dimension is woven into becoming itself. Yet neither thinker concludes in nihilism. Disorder is distortion within a deeper aim toward beauty.
5. Peace Beyond Tragedy
Augustine speaks of being touched by God and burning for peace. Peace is not sedation but rightly ordered love resting in its source.
Whitehead’s later reflections in Adventures of Ideas describe Peace as a profound trust that value is not finally lost, that the universe includes God's reception of tragedy into the divine life, but also God's weaving of what is received into a beauty that is more than tragedy. This means that live is not ultimately tragic. Peace arises from confidence in the divine life that preserves and harmonizes all achieved values.
For Augustine, peace is rest in God. For Whitehead, peace is trust in the Harmony of Harmonies. Both affirm that tragedy is real but not final. The act of resting in God, within the depths of the heart, is not static or anaesthetic; it is refreshing. It leads to a zest that is both adventurous and restful, active and contemplative.
Whitehead’s later reflections in Adventures of Ideas describe Peace as a profound trust that value is not finally lost, that the universe includes God's reception of tragedy into the divine life, but also God's weaving of what is received into a beauty that is more than tragedy. This means that live is not ultimately tragic. Peace arises from confidence in the divine life that preserves and harmonizes all achieved values.
For Augustine, peace is rest in God. For Whitehead, peace is trust in the Harmony of Harmonies. Both affirm that tragedy is real but not final. The act of resting in God, within the depths of the heart, is not static or anaesthetic; it is refreshing. It leads to a zest that is both adventurous and restful, active and contemplative.
6. Ever Ancient, Ever New — Process and Permanence
Augustine’s paradox finds metaphysical articulation in Whitehead’s doctrine of God. The primordial ordering of eternal objects reflects the “ever ancient” dimension of divine valuation. The consequent reception of the world’s unfolding novelty reflects the “ever new.”
Whitehead’s God is not static perfection; nor is Augustine’s Beauty inert. Both affirm that ultimate reality is living plenitude. Whitehead resists coercive omnipotence; Augustine resists autonomous self-sufficiency. Both insist that fulfillment is relational—beauty is participatory, not imposed.
Whitehead’s God is not static perfection; nor is Augustine’s Beauty inert. Both affirm that ultimate reality is living plenitude. Whitehead resists coercive omnipotence; Augustine resists autonomous self-sufficiency. Both insist that fulfillment is relational—beauty is participatory, not imposed.