Alfred North Whitehead’s analysis of present immediacy in
terms of a succession of acts of becoming, called “actual occasions,” focuses attention on the problem of subjectivity, particularly upon the
way it originates anew in every moment. In part this is understood in
terms of creativity, the ceaseless activity whereby many past occasions
are unified to form one actuality, itself in turn becoming one actuality
among many for the superseding occasions. But creativity by itself is
simply blind activity, supplying the drive but not the focus for such
convergence. Without an ideal possibility for the process to aim at,
there is no reason why creativity would not be just as divergent as
convergent, achieving unity only accidentally if at all. Subjectivity
is not merely sheer activity, for the activity must be capable of
unifying itself, and for this it must be purposive to some degree.
Whitehead therefore suggests that subjectivity is this purposive process
of unification guided by that ideal possibility at which it aims. This
subjective aim must be derived from somewhere, from an actuality which
is not anyone of the occasions of the past. Since it is the ultimate
source of all values, and hence properly worthy of worship, Whitehead
calls this nontemporal actuality “God.”
