Thus an actual entity has a threefold character: (i) it has the character 'given' for it by the past; (ii) it has the subjective character aimed at in its process of concrescence; (iii) it has the superjective character, which is the pragmatic value of its specific satisfaction qualifying the transcendent creativity.
In the case of the primordial actual entity, which is God, there is no past. Thus the ideal realization of conceptual feeling takes the precedence. God differs from other actual entities in the fact that Hume's principle, of the derivate character of conceptual feelings, does not hold for him. There is still, however, the same threefold character: (i) The 'primordial nature' of God is the concrescence of a unity of conceptual feelings, including among their data all eternal objects. The concrescence is directed by the subjective aim, that the subjective forms of the feelings shall be such as to constitute the eternal objects into relevant lures of feeling severally appropriate for all realizable basic conditions. (ii) The ‘consequent nature' of God is the physical prehension by God of the actualities of the evolving universe. His primordial nature directs such perspectives of objectification that each novel actuality in the temporal world contributes such elements as it can to a realization in God free from inhibitions of intensity by reason of discordance. (iii) The ‘superjective nature' of God is the character of the pragmatic value of his specific satisfaction qualifying the transcendent creativity in the various temporal instances.
This is the conception of God, according to which he is considered as the outcome of creativity, as the foundation of order, and as the goad towards novelty. ‘Order' and ‘novelty' are but the instruments of his subjective aim which is the intensification of ‘formal immediacy.' It is to be noted that every actual entity, including God, is something individual for its own sake; and thereby transcends the rest of actuality. And also it is to be noted that every actual entity, including God, is a creature transcended by the creativity which it qualifies. A temporal occasion in respect to the second element of its character, and God in respect to the first element of his character satisfy Spinoza's definition of substance, that it is causa sui. To be causa sui means that the process of concrescence is its own reason for the decision in respect to the qualitative clothing of feelings. It is finally responsible for the decision by which any lure for feeling is admitted to efficiency. The freedom inherent in the universe is constituted by this element of self-causation.
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, II.III.I.
