UC Riverside

This effort shows the advantages of adopting a systems-based process perspective for use within the study of religion to connect religious understandings to social phenomena by drawing on a range of systems theorists. By articulating the issues with the static paradigm induced by Aristotelian substance ontology, the application of systems-based process philosophy for evaluating social phenomena is explained through a broader discussion of emergence with special emphasis on Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism. Highlighting the work of Islamic scholar Mustafa Ruzgar, this effort shows the ability for systems-based process philosophy to connect religious insights to secular studies through the language of process.