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Whitehead on Tenderness
Seven Quotations
It dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love; and it finds purpose in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world. Love neither rules, nor is it unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as to morals. It does not look to the future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate present. (Whitehead, Process and Reality)
The image— and it is but an image— the image under which this operative growth of God's nature is best conceived,, is that of a tender care that nothing be lost. (Whitehead, Process and Reality)
He saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved. It is also the judgment of a wisdom which uses what in the temporal world is mere wreckage. (Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality)
God, tenderly saving the turmoil of the intermediate world by the completion of his own nature. The sheer force of things lies in the intermediate physical process: this is the energy of physical production. God's rôle is not the combat of productive force [526] with productive force, of destructive force with destructive force; it lies in the patient operation of the overpowering rationality of his conceptual harmonization. (Whitehead, Process and Reality)
It is the business of philosophical theology to provide a rational understanding of the rise of civilization, and of the tenderness of mere life itself, in a world which superficially is founded upon the clashings of senseless compulsion. (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas)
Something is still lacking. It is difficult to state it in terms that are wide enough...Apart from it, the pursuit of ‘Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art’ can be ruthless, hard, cruel...The notions of ‘tenderness’ and of ‘love’ are too narrow, important though they be. We require the concept of some more general quality, from which ‘tenderness emerges as a specialization. We are in a way seeking for the notion of a Harmony of Harmonies, which shall bind together the other four qualities. (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas)
The life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of his agency the world . . . The Mother, the Child, and the bare manger: the lowly man, homeless and self-forgetful, with his message of peace, love, and sympathy: the suffering, the agony, the tender words as life ebbed, the final despair: and the whole with the authority of supreme victor. (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas)
The image— and it is but an image— the image under which this operative growth of God's nature is best conceived,, is that of a tender care that nothing be lost. (Whitehead, Process and Reality)
He saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved. It is also the judgment of a wisdom which uses what in the temporal world is mere wreckage. (Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality)
God, tenderly saving the turmoil of the intermediate world by the completion of his own nature. The sheer force of things lies in the intermediate physical process: this is the energy of physical production. God's rôle is not the combat of productive force [526] with productive force, of destructive force with destructive force; it lies in the patient operation of the overpowering rationality of his conceptual harmonization. (Whitehead, Process and Reality)
It is the business of philosophical theology to provide a rational understanding of the rise of civilization, and of the tenderness of mere life itself, in a world which superficially is founded upon the clashings of senseless compulsion. (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas)
Something is still lacking. It is difficult to state it in terms that are wide enough...Apart from it, the pursuit of ‘Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art’ can be ruthless, hard, cruel...The notions of ‘tenderness’ and of ‘love’ are too narrow, important though they be. We require the concept of some more general quality, from which ‘tenderness emerges as a specialization. We are in a way seeking for the notion of a Harmony of Harmonies, which shall bind together the other four qualities. (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas)
The life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of his agency the world . . . The Mother, the Child, and the bare manger: the lowly man, homeless and self-forgetful, with his message of peace, love, and sympathy: the suffering, the agony, the tender words as life ebbed, the final despair: and the whole with the authority of supreme victor. (Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas)
Observation
Whitehead had a soft spot in his heart for tenderness. Tenderness came to mind when he thought about God and about what is most important in life. It is almost as if tenderness became, for him, a metaphysical category in its own right—or at least an ultimate value, alongside Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. And if we recall that, for Whitehead, values belong to the very makeup of the cosmos and are not merely human projections, then perhaps tenderness is indeed a metaphysical category of a kind. We might think of tenderness as a form of goodness—or, more provocatively, think of goodness itself as a form of tenderness.
In any case, it is worth emphasizing that tenderness is profoundly important for Whitehead. And if we think of God, in his words, as exercising “a tender care that nothing be lost,” then perhaps one of our most important callings is to honor the role it plays in life, gathering together vulnerability, hope, transience, and felt relations, in the miracle of a single moment.
In any case, it is worth emphasizing that tenderness is profoundly important for Whitehead. And if we think of God, in his words, as exercising “a tender care that nothing be lost,” then perhaps one of our most important callings is to honor the role it plays in life, gathering together vulnerability, hope, transience, and felt relations, in the miracle of a single moment.