"Charles Hartshorne and the existence of God" by Donald Wayne Viney,1985

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PROCESS THEOLOGY
PROCESS THINKING
HERACLITUS

The intellectual movement with which Hartshorne is associated is generally referred to as process theology.
The roots of process thinking can be found in the Greek philosopher Heraclitus.

CONTEMPORARY PROCESS PHILOSOPHY
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

Contemporary process philosophy arose from the work of Alfred North Whitehead, while Hartshorne is identified as the seminal influence on process theology that emerged after World War Two.

The key motifs of process philosophy are:
a.empiricism,
b.relationalism,
c.process and
d.events.

The motif of empiricism in process thought :
refers to the theme that experience is the realm for defining meaning and verifying any theory of reality.
Unlike classical empiricism, process thought takes the category of thinking beyond just the human senses of perception. Experiences are not confined to sense perception or consciousness, and there are pre-sensual, pre-conscious experiences from which consciousness and perception derive.

The motif of relationalism :
refers to both experiences and relationships.
Humans experience things and also experience the relationship between things.

The motif of process :
means that all time, history and change are in a dynamic evolutionary process.

The final motif of events :
refers to all the units (organic and inorganic) of the world.


While Hartshorne acknowledges the importance of Whitehead's philosophy on his own ideas, he did not entirely agree with Whitehead.

DI-POLAR DEITY

In Hartshorne's process theology God and the world exist in a dynamic, changing relationship.
God is a 'di-polar' deity.

By this Hartshorne meant that God has both abstract and concrete poles.

The abstract pole refers to those elements within God that never vary,such as God's self-identity,
while the concrete pole refers to the organic growth in God's perfect knowledge of the world as the world itself develops and changes.

CREATIO EX MATERIA

Hartshorne did not accept the classical theistic claim of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing), and instead held to creatio ex materia (creation out of pre-existent material).

PAN-EN-THEISM
KARL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH KRAUSE,1828
ALL IS IN GOD

One of the technical terms Hartshorne used is pan-en-theism, originally coined by Karl Christian Friedrich Krause in 1828.

Panentheism (all is in God) must be differentiated from
Pantheism (all is God).

In Hartshorne's theology God is not identical with the world,
but God is also not completely independent from the world.
God has his self-identity that transcends the earth,
but the world is also contained within God.

A rough analogy is the relationship between a mother and a fetus. The mother has her own identity and is different from the unborn, yet is intimately connected to the unborn. The unborn is within the womb and attached to the mother via the umbilical cord.

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
ANSELM
GOD IS THAT THAN WHICH NO GREATER CAN BE CONCEIVED

Hartshorne reworked the ontological argument for God's existence as promulgated by Anselm. In Anselm's equation, "God is that than which no greater can be conceived." Anselm's argument used the concept of perfection.
Hartshorne accepts that by definition God is perfect.


CHRISTIAN THEISM
However, Hartshorne maintains that classical Christian theism has held to a self-contradictory notion of perfection.
He argues that the classical concept of God fails.
Hartshorne posited that God's existence is necessary and is compatible with any events in the world. In the economy of his argument Hartshorne has attempted to break a perceived stalemate in theology over the problem of evil and God's omnipotence.

For Hartshorne, perfection means that God cannot be surpassed in his social relatedness to every creature. God is capable of surpassing himself by growing and changing in his knowledge and feeling for the world.

DEISM - PANDEISM

Hartshorne acknowledged a God capable of change, as is consistent with pandeism, but early on he specifically rejected both deism and pandeism in favor of panentheism, writing that "panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations".

IMMORTALITY OF HUMAN SOULS

Hartshorne did not believe in the immortality of human souls as identities separate from God, but explained that all the beauty created in a person's life will exist for ever in the reality of God.

This can be understood in a way reminiscent of Buddhism, namely that a person's identity is extinguished in one's ultimate union with God, but that a person's life within God is eternal. Hartshorne regularly attended services at several Unitarian Universalist churches, and joined the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Austin, Texas.

"Reason and Existenz" by Karl Jaspers,1935

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No description of Existenz is possible ;
Existenz can be clarified only by reference to concrete situations.
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Existenz is the freedom of an individual,the possibility of decision ;
because man exists in this special sense,he is that which he can become in his freedom.
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The Encompassing is that which man encounters ;
considered as Being-in-itself,
the Encompassing appears only in and through the Being-which-we-are.
-We know what confronts us only in terms of what we are because of it.-
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Reason and Existenz develop mutually and are interdependent.
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In existential communication the self first comes to full consciousness of itself as a being qualified by historicity -determination in time-,uniqueness,freedom,and communality.
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"Being and Time" by Martin Heidegger,1927

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The world,existentially and phenomenologically understood,
is a region of human concern ;
man is being-in-the-world,in that by participation and involvement the world becomes constitutive of man's being.
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Man has being in an environment ;
and his world is a world he shares with others.
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Man is a creature of concerns ;
in relation to environment,his concerns are practical ;
in relation to the communal world,his concerns are personal.
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The three fundamental features of man are :
factuality -he is already involved in the world-,
existence-iality -he is a project and a possibility,that which has been,but also that which can become-,and
fallenness -he has the tendency to become has a mere in the world,failing to make the most of his possibilities because of gossip,curiosity,and ambiguity-.
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Through anxiety man encounters nothingness and becomes aware of his finitude and the necessity of death ; but through resolution man,who moves in time from past to future through the present,appraises himself,chooses with the whole of his being,and thereby achieves authentic existence.
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Physical Realism

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Human beings know external objects by being affected sensibly by them.

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By means of the organs of sense the brain is stimulated by objects

in such a manner that particular sense-events occur.

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The object is disclosed in the act of perception,

and human knowledge in not mere inference but actual knowledge.

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Only individual things are real ;

there are no universals.

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Substance is a self-existent continuant which can enter into relations

with other self-existents.

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Consciousness is an emergent feature of a brain-mind process.

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Values are understandable in terms of the power of things

to become important to human beings.

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Republic by Plato

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'' What is Justice ? ''
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Thrasymachus suggests :
'' Justice is whatever is to the interrest of the stronger party
-since the stronger party makes the laws and enforces them- ''.
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Socrates argues :
'' Rulers sometimes err and that,in any case,
the art of government,
like other arts,
is directed to the interests of those to be affected,
the people themselves ''.
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Socrates claims :
'' The just man,
provided he has knowledge,
can rule both himself and others,
and that concern of the just man is not for himself alone ''.
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To clarify the idea of justice and to prove its worth,
Socrates leads a discussion concerning justice in the state ;
he constructs the idea of an ideal state,
one which exhibits justice.
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Any state needs :
1.guardians - rulers,
2.auxiliares - soldiers,and
3.workers .
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Each class does its proper business without interfering with the others ;
analogously :
..The just man is one in whom the three elements of his nature,
1.the rational,
2.the spirited,and
3.the appetive,
are harmonized.
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The IDEAL REPUBLIC is one in which,
the classes are carefully built up by
1.controlled breeding,
2.education,and
3.selection ;
Society is communized in order to eliminate quarrels about personal property.
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The guardians of the state should be educated as philosophers,
having been prepared by training in music and gymnastic.
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Either,Or

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The aesthetic mode of existence is exemplified

by both romantic hedonism and abstract intellectualism ;

both the sensualist and the intellectual fail to commit

themselves decisively and thereby to achieve existence

and selfhood.

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Only through choise is authentic selfhood attained ;

life is a matter of either/or.

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The aesthetical way leads to boredom,melancholy,

and despair.

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In turning towards decision and commitment because of despair ;

the self passes from the aesthetical stage to the ethical.

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In the ethical stage,

in virtue of having chosen itself,

the self becomes centralized,

unified,

and authentic.

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The third stage of development is the religious ;

but no stage is suffient by itself ;

the ethical stage transfigures the aesthetical,

and the religious transfigures the ethical.

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Of learned ignorance

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GOD is the absolute maximum and also the absolute minimum ;

HE is in all things,and all things are in him.

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If man makes his own ignorance the object of his desire for knowledge,

he can aquire a learned ignorance ;

although God cannot be comprehended,

some knowledge of him can be acqired by reflection on our limitations.

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The absolute maximum -GOD- is absolute unity,

for unity is the minimum -and GOD is the absolute minimum- ;

GOD,as a unity excluding degrees of more or less,is infinite unity.

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The visible world is a reflection of the invisible ;

man mirrors the eternal and the infinite by his conjectures.

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GOD is best studied through the use of mathematical symbols.

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In the Providence of God contradictories are reconciled.

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The world is the absolute effect of the absolute maximum ;

it is a relative unity.

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Jesus is the maximum at once absolute and restricted ;

HE is both GOD and MAN brought to perfection.

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Reality is what true ideas represent.

ACTION :

A belief is a habit of action ;
different beliefs give rise to different modes of action.

IDEAS :

Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects ;
objects are distinguished according to the difference they made practically.

TRUE IDEAS :

True ideas are those to which responsible investigators,
were they to push their inquiries far enough,
would finally give assent ;
reality is what true ideas represent.

TENACITY-AUTHORITY-PRIORI JUDGMENTS-SCIENCE :

Of the four methods of fixing belief
-the method of tenacity,
of authority,
of a priori judgments,
and the method of science -
the scientific is preferable as providing critical tests of procedure.

INDIVIDUAL QUALITY-RELATEDNESS-MEDIATE :

By the conceptions of Firstness,Secondness,and Thirdness,
a metaphysics of cosmic evolution can be developed ;
Firstness is the individual quality of a thing,
Secondness is the relatedness of a thing to something other than itself,
and Thirdness is the tendency to mediate,to contribute to law.

TYCHISM-SYNECHISM-AGAPASM :

There is chance in the universe (tychism) ;
the universe begins in a chaos of unpersonalized feeling
and develops habits or patterns of action (synechism) ;
finally,as laws develop,
the universe moves toward a condition of perfect
rationality and symmetry (agapasm).

Logos

There is a Logos,
a Rationale,
by which all things are ONE.

Opposites are the same.
Although opposites are unified
by their interdependence,
they exist in a state of constant strife.

Everything is FIRE
in that everything is involved
in an eternal process of change
and exchange.

Failure to understand the Rationale
is the root of all evil.

The World as Will and Idea

The world is my idea.

This is a truth for every man,

since the world as it is known depends for its character and

existence upon the mind that knows it.

By his understanding man forms the world of phenomena,

and by his reason he achieves harmany in a world of suffering.

The entire world of phenomena,including the human body,

is objectified will.

The will is a striving,yearning force which takes various forms

according to its inclinations.

By losing oneself in objects,

by knowing them as they are in themselves,

one comes to know the will as Idea,

as eternal form.

The Champion of Being

Being is never excausted by any of its phenomenal aspects ;
no particular perspective reveals the entire character of Being.

Being-in-itself is fixed,
complete,
wholly given,
absolutely contigent,
with no reason fot its being ;
it is roughly equivalent to the inert world of objects and things.

Being-for-itself is INCOMPLETE,
FLUID,
indeterminate ;
it corresponds to the being of human consciousness.

Being-in-itself is prior to Being-for-itself ;
the later is dependent upon the former for its origin ;

Being-for-itself is derived from being-in-itself by an act of NIHILATION,
for being-fot-itself is a nothingness in the HEART OF BEING.