Malhotra on Alfred North Whitehead

“What is surprising is Whitehead’s determination to attribute the origins of his thought solely to Western sources. While the Western precedents he cites are at best weak analogues, the Buddhist tenets from which his system derives are clearcut and extremely detailed. His arguments are strongest and most lucid when they are framed using Buddhist models; they become vague and confusing when he turns speculative and tries to appear original in both terminology and framework. Anyone knowledgeable in Buddhism would find his attempts very unconvincing in their attribution to Western philosophers as his theoretical predecessors.”

“Whitehead made his theory Christianity-friendly by superimposing God upon the process. From the Buddhist point of view, this is both gratuitous and inconsistent. His appropriation of Buddhism as a philosophy of science and then as a theology compatible with Christianity became very popular among Christian theologians. Several of them, including Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb, Karl Rahner, started advancing a curious blend known as Process Theology. This is now considered a mainstream Christian theology and pointing out its Indian origins is fiercely opposed, almost to the point of censorship.”