Chen, Shih-chuan. "Whitehead and the Book of Changes."
Ed. Zang, Yanyang. Hebie, China: Hebie University Press, 2003. 238-263.
Abstract
Alfred N. Whitehead's' conception of "creativity" is deficient from the
standpoint of the Book of Changes or I Ching (c. 1000BC) that takes
"creativity" as the fundamental function of the universe. Whitehead
classifies "creativity" together with the notions of the universe.
Whitehead classifies “creativity” together with the notions of “many”
and “one” to the Category of the Ultimate. It is the ultimate truth
behind individual facts of all creatures, while all creatures remain
with it. In the creative advance creativity is a synthesis of many into
one, by which the diverse many coalesce into a novel unity, as
Whitehead says, “The many become one, and increased by one.”
“Creativity” is the principle of novelty, and the “objective
immortality” of the actual world is its shifting character. Accidental
novelties always presuppose “objective immortality” and vice versa.
However, when comes to the idea of God, “creativity” is virtually not
the ultimate notion. In Whitehead’s metaphysical system God assumes the
highest positions as “the unconditioned conceptual valuation of eternal
objects” and the introducer of order and novelty. God is not only the
provider of the initial aims from which an actual occasion starts its
self-creation, but also the aboriginal condition of creativity.
“Creativity” as “the universal of universals” eventually does not
create at all.