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Dear Professor McDaniel,
Thank you so much for introducing me to open and relational (process) theology at the coffee shop. I’m left with a question. I was listening to a new work in classical music called Future Feelings. Its composer wrote the piece with the "future feelings" of his newborn son in mind. He wondered what the future feelings of his son might sound like. Or, more specifically, what sounds his son might hear, which evoke future feelings. This made me wonder: What are future feelings? Or, to generalize a bit, what is the anticipated future before it comes-into-existence? Is it nothing at all? Or is it a cluster of indeterminate possibilities that are actually felt in the present moment? If it'ss a cluster of possibilities, where are they? Or they just in our minds, which means they can't exist apart from our imagining them? Or are they, as it were, in the mind of God, albeit without God knowing which among them will be actualized. Rachel 
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Dear Rachel,
You ask about the ontological status of the future before it comes into existence. Let's ask some open and relational theologians. I'll post your note to me and see if we get a response. I'll add their responses to this page. As you know, I'm drawn to process theology, so I'll say a word about how it looks to me. First, a confession. I’m not sure what the future is. I’m not just saying that I don’t know what will happen in the future. I'm saying that I don’t know what kind of existence (if any) the future has before it happens. Open and relational (process) theologians tell us that the future isn’t actual until it comes-into-existence. Here actual means something like “has a determined or specific nature” and “has causal power.” So their point is that, before it comes into existence, the future lacks determinacy and causal power. So my question is, what is the non-actual future before it becomes actual. As far as I can tell, some open and relational theologians say “nothing,” while others say “possibilities.” I lean toward possibilities. This is because I experience the anticipated future as something with a unique kind of power. Sometimes it is ominous, sometimes inviting, sometimes hopeful, sometimes discouraging. Do you experience the future this way, too? If so, when you experience the future as ominous or inviting or hopeful or anxiety-producing, what is the datum – the object – of your experience? Those who think the future is “nothing” will say that the datum is merely a projection from the past. You are experiencing your own projection. Your experience would be what Whitehead calls an imaginative prehension and its datum would be some complex object created in and by the subject of experience in the present moment. You are creating in your mind an idea of the future. But the future seems more powerful than this to me. It seems like something that is given to experience, not just generated by experience, not unlike the way the past is given to experience, except that, when it comes to the future, the something that is given is indeterminate. It is an indeterminate object of anticipation. |
In this case your experience of the transcendent future would be what Whitehead calls an anticipatory feeling of the transcendent future. He speaks of:
"the transcendent future in its relation to immediate fact. This is the feeling of the objective immortality inherent in the nature of actuality. Such anticipatory feelings involve realization of the relevance of eternal objects as decided in the primordial nature of God."
So my question becomes: What is this transcendent future? Is it in God?
"the transcendent future in its relation to immediate fact. This is the feeling of the objective immortality inherent in the nature of actuality. Such anticipatory feelings involve realization of the relevance of eternal objects as decided in the primordial nature of God."
So my question becomes: What is this transcendent future? Is it in God?
Future Feelings was composed shortly after the birth of my first kid, and I was watching him slowly wake up to the world, especially to sound. During that time, I was experimenting a lot to figure out what kinds of sounds would comfort him, and some of those sounds found their way into the piece: white noise, synth pads, hypnotically repetitive rhythms and melodies. There is a kind of nostalgia or yearning for childhood that permeates the piece, but I am generally suspicious of nostalgia, so that suspicion is there, too. (Isaac Schankler)
Dear Future Feelings of My Young Son Jesus
Mary, the Mother of Jesus: Dear future feelings of my young son Jesus. As the new mother, I’m wondering if you might present yourself to me and let me know what he’ll feel as he grows up.
Future feelings: Mary, we are simply possibilities residing in the heart of Abba. We are real, but we're not actual until actualized by the world.
Mary: Does Abba know which of you will be actualized?
Future Feelings: No, the future is open, even for Abba. Abba knows everything that can be known, including all the possible feelings Jesus might have. But even Abba won’t know Jesus' feelings in their specificity until Jesus has them.
Mary: When Jesus suffers and enjoys the many feelings, will Abba feel them, too.
Future Feelings: Yes, all of Jesus’ feelings will affect Abba deeply, in a way similar to how they'll affect you.
Mary: Will Abba feel my feelings, too? And those of my other children?
Future Feelings: Yes, Abba feels everyone’s feelings and is affected by them. Abba is love.
Mary: Do you mean that we are all, everyone of us, Abba's children.
Future Feelings: Yes.
Isaac Schankler: "Future Feelings" for piano and electronics (2018)
Performed by pianist Nadia Shpachenko
From Schankler's album "Because Patterns"
Recorded at Cal Poly Pomona Audio by Barry Brian Werger-Gottesman
Videography by MediaVision
Filming by Trevor Henderson, Richard Garippo, Aaron Lowe, Kiernan McCloskey, Joshua Bloomer, and Anthony Ngo; Video editing by Alden Caterio
Program Note: "Future Feelings" looks backward to Romantic/teen angst and forward to a variety of alternate futures. The piano part recalls bits and pieces of various classical and Romantic composers, but in particular the melancholy of Chopin. The electronics present alternate versions of the material that appears in the piano part, processed and re-interpreted through a variety of ambient synths and filtered noise. "Future Feelings" was commissioned by and is dedicated to Nadia Shpachenko. (Isaac Schankler)