Religion, Reason and God: Essays in the philosophies of Charles Hartshorne and A. N. Whitehead

Religion, Reason and God

Contributions to Philosophical Theolog1 Edited by Gijsbert van den Brink, Vincent Brlimmer and Marcel Sarot

Advisory Board: David Brown Paul Helm Eberhard Herrmann Werner Jeanrond D. Z. Phillips Christoph Schwobel Santiago Sia Alan Torrance Nicholas Wolterstorff

Vol. 10

PETER LANG Frankfurt am Main • Berlin • Bern • Bruxelles • New York • Oxford • Wien

Santiago Sia

Religion, Reason and God Essays in the Philosophies of Charles Hartshorne and A. N. Whitehead

PETER LANG Europaischer Verlag der Wissenschaften

Bibliographic Information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at .

ISSN 1433-643X ISBN 3-631-50855-7 US-ISBN 0-8204-6432-5 © Peter Lang GmbH Europaischer Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2004 All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Printed in Germany 1 2 3 4 www.peterlang.de

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To all those who have accompanied and supported this intellectual journey— family, friends, students and scholars my sincerest

thanks

Other books by Santiago Sia

God in Process Thought Process Thought and the Christian Doctrine of God Charles Harts home's Concept of God (with Marian F. Sia) From Suffering to God (with Andre Cloots) Framing a Vision of the World

(with Marian F. Sia) The Fountain Arethuse: a Novel

Table of Contents

Preface

xi

Introduction: Faith and Reason: a Process View 1 Fides et Ratio: Some Observations 2 Another Look at the Relationship between Faith and Reason 3 Exploring the Philosophies of Charles Hartshorne and A.N. Whitehead

1 1 4 7

1. On God, Time and Change 1 Introduction 2 God's Timelessness and Worshipfulness 3 God's Worshipfulness and Perfection 4 God as Related to Us 5 God's Immutability 6 The Abstract and the Concrete 7 God as Creator 8 Anthropomorphism? 9 Conclusion

11 11 12 13 15 17 18 21 23 24

2. A Process Concept of God 1 Our Concept of God 2 The Process Approach 3 Hartshorne's Idea of God 4 Comments

25 25 27 29 34

3. Hartshorne on Describing God 1 Introduction 2 Ways of Speaking about God 3 Metaphysical Knowledge 4 The Status of Hartshorne's God-talk

39 39 39 43 45

4. Evil and Creativity: Hartshorne on the Problem of Evil 1 Evil as a Problem 2 Hartshorne's Solution 3 Creativity and the Practical Challenge of Evil

51 51 53 61

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5. Suffering and Theism: Towards a Praxis-based Response to Hume's Challenge 1 Suffering and Theism 2 Another Kind of Challenge 3 Another Look at David Hume's Challenge 4 Towards a Response 5 God as Co-Sufferer 6 God as Liberator 7 Concluding Comment 6. Hartshome's Interpretation of Human Immortality 1 Objective Immortality 2 Hartshome's Criticisms of Traditional Understandings of Immortality 3 God as Recipient of Values 4 Immortality of the Past 5 Personal Identity 6 A Suggestion

67 67 68 70 71 73 77 81 83 83 83 87 89 94 96

7. Religion, Science and Hartshome's Metaphysics 1 Paradigms 2 Reality as an Unbroken Whole 3 The Status of Human Beings 4 The Dialogue between Science and Religion 5 The God-World Relationship 6 God's Involvement in the World 7 Some Observations

101 101 102 105 109 111 118 121

8. The Function of Religion in Human Life and Thought: a Whiteheadian Exploration 1 The Function of Religion 2 Whitehead's Conception of Religion 3 Religion and Experience

125 125 126 134

9. Concretising Concrete Experience: Some Comments on Process Methodology 1 The Methodology of Process Thought 2 Turning to the Concrete 3 Literature and Philosophy: a Whiteheadian Nexus 4 Two Suggestions for Process Thought

141 141 142 145 157

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Appendix A: Excerpts from M.S. Sia, The Fountain Arethuse: aNovel 1 Evil as a Problem 2 An Experience of Evil 3 Approaches to the Challenge of Suffering 4 The Pursuit of Wisdom 5 The Concrete and the Abstract 6 Lessons from Nature and Literature 7 The Quest as Process 8 Nature, Evil and God

159 159 160 163 167 171 178 180 181

Appendix B: Notes on Hartshorne 1 Biographical Note 2 Review of Charles Hartshorne's The Darkness and the Light 3 Small in Stature but a Giant of a Thinker: Personal Recollections on Hartshorne

187 187

1.9.1

Primary Bibliography of Philosophical Works of Charles Hartshorne. Compiled by Dorothy C. Hartshorne. Revised and Updated by Donald Wayne Viney and Randy Ramal

195

Index

225

189

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Preface

In their article 'Contemporary Philosophical Theology', which opened this series in Contributions to Philosophical Theology, Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot noted how the general philosophical climate for the major part of the twentieth century did not favour philosophers with a serious philosophical interest in religious belief.1 Fortunately, according to them, the tide has turned. Serious questions dealing with religion are now being addressed and scrutinised with the same sort of criteria that one would expect in philosophical discussions. One of those admirable and creative philosophical minds that have consistently and persistently turned to religious issues has been the American philosopher, Charles Hartshorne. Early on in his career he had made up his mind 'to trust reason'. He has seen that trust through in his investigations of religious beliefs. The result of his commitment to use reason in religion is a corpus of work that has become very influential in philosophical theology.2 His very recent death deprived us of a vigorous and active mind who took pride in what a critic said of him: 'he may be a theologian, but at least he argues!' The passing away of Hartshorne as well as the appearance of the encyclical Fides et Ratio have prompted the publication of this collection of essays. It represents my indebtedness to Charles Hartshorne in my exploration of the general issue of Christian faith and reason. Over the years since I first came across his writings, his philosophical insights into matters of religion have continued to challenge and stimulate me. Through him, I have also delved into A.N. Whitehead; but since my interest lay primarily in philosophy of religion, Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot (eds.), Understanding the Attributes of God, Contributions to Philosophical Theology, Vol. 1 (Peter Lang, 1999), p.9. For the most comprehensive bibliography of Hartshorne's writings, see 'Charles Hartshorne: Primary Bibliography of Philosophical Works' compiled by Dorothy C. Hartshorne, revised and updated by Donald Wayne Viney and Randy Ramal in Process Studies, XXX, 2 (Fall-Winter 2001), 374-409, and included in this work with the kind permission of Don Viney, Randy Ramal, and Barry Witney, editor of Process Studies. A number of recent special issues of journals have appeared dedicated solely to essays on Hartshorne, among them: The Personalist Forum (1998), The American Journal of Theology and Philosophy (2001), and Process Studies, XXX.2 (Fall-Winter, 2001). A particularly useful assessment of Hartshorne's work is provided by Donald Wayne Viney in his 'Philosophy After Hartshorne,' Process Studies XXX, 2 (Fall-Winter, 2001), pp. 211-236. XI

to which I believe Hartshorne has made a major contribution, it should not come as a surprise that most of the essays here are based on Hartshorne's philosophy. I am grateful to the editors of this series in philosophical theology: Vincent Brummer, Marcel Sarot, and Gijsbert van den Brink, for their continued interest in and support of my work. I want to express my thanks to the editors/publishers in whose journals/books some of these essays first appeared for permission to include them here: Chapter 1 'On God, Time and Change' in The Clergy Review, LXII, 10 (October, 1979), 378-387; Chapter 2 'A Process Concept of God' in The Clergy Review, LXIX, 8 (August, 1984), 289-296; Chapter 3 'Hartshorne on Describing God' in Modern Theology, III, 2 (January, 1987), 193-203; Chapter 4 'Evil and Creativity: Hartshorne on the Problem of Evil' in Ultimate Reality and Meaning, XII, 3 (September, 1989), 210-220; Chapter 5 'Suffering and Christian Theism: Towards a Praxis-based Response to Hume's Challenge' in Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 40, 4 (October 1993), 265-275; Chapter 6 'Hartshorne's Interpretation of Human Immortality' in Bijdragen: Tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie, 54 (1993), 254-270; Chapter 8 'The Function of Religion in Human Life and Thought: a Whiteheadian Exploration' in Marcel Sarot and Gijsbert van den Brink (eds.), Identity and Change in the Christian Tradition (Peter Lang, 1999), 57-71; Chapter 9 'Concretising Concrete Experience' in Darren J.N. Middleton (ed.), God, Literature and Process Thought (Ashgate Publishers, 2002), 47-61; extracts from the novel (co-authored with Marian F. Sia), The Fountain Arethuse (Lewes, UK: The Book Guild Publishers, 1997); 'Hartshorne, Charles' in New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, Vol. 6 (Thompson Gale/Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 657-658; Book review in Process Studies, XXI, 4 (Winter 1992), 259260. Ferdinand Santos, with whom I collaborated on the previously unpublished essay (Chapter 7 'Religion, Science and Hartshorne's Metaphysics') deserves my sincere thanks. I am grateful to Donald Wayne Viney, Randy Ramal, and Barry Whitney for permission to include in this work the primary bibliography of Hartshorne's philosophical works which first appeared in Process Studies 30.2 (Fall-Winter 2001), 374-409. I also want to thank the Philosophy Department of Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski and the Faculty of Theology of Uniwersytet Im.Adama Mickiewicza, Poznan, both in Poland, for inviting me to give lectures based on the material in this book. I very much appreciate the honour of delivering the 2003 Aquinas Lecture at the University of Malta, which was extended to me by the Faculty of Theology of that university. The occasion provided me with the opportunity to revisit some of the issues discussed in this book. Also in this xn

connection, I want to put on record my sincere thanks to the Archdiocesan Seminary of Malta for their hospitality and to the committee members of the Theology Students' Association of the University of Malta for hosting my visit. I am also grateful to the numerous scholars and students in various countries with whom I have had the pleasure of discussing many of the topics dealt with in these essays. Ryan Kukol, Alex Seal, and Ana Alicia Garza have provided a muchappreciated help in preparing this work for publication. I acknowledge with gratitude the help and support of Peter Lang Publishers and their staff. As always, I am more than happy to acknowledge sincerely my indebtedness to my wife, Marian, for her constant support and encouragement in all my endeavours.

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Introduction Faith and Reason: A Process View

1. Fides et Ratio: Some Observations The recent papal encyclical, as its title makes clear, deals with the relationship between faith and reason. It starts with the observation that faith and reason are 'like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.'' It acknowledges the indispensable contribution that philosophy has made and continues to make to 'a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it.' 2 Given the centrality accorded to philosophy in this encyclical and the acknowledged importance of philosophical thinking in matters of faith, it seems to me appropriate to reflect on this document as a way of setting the context for the essays in this volume. Let me first comment on a point that recurs throughout the encyclical, i.e. the need for philosophical thinking in our attempts not only to understand but also to live out our faith. It is always a temptation to ignore the challenge to probe deeper into faith through the use of reason. After all, facing up to perplexing issues which demand a lot of thinking can be an onerous task. For some it may even seem like a useless exercise since it could lead nowhere; that is to say, it results in no clear-cut answers or any so-called significant conclusions. Worse, it doesn't have any 'cashability'. But the danger with unexamined assumptions or claims, including those in matters of faith, is that they have the greater tendency to lead us astray.3 Although the pursuit of truth, which is what the encyclical is all about, does not always lead to indisputable conclusions, we can at least be less unclear and inconsistent if we make the effort to reflect on our assumptions, especially those we value because of our faith.

Fides et Ratio, Salutation. Ibid., sec. 5. As the encyclical puts it, 'faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition.' (sec. 48).

I

But thinking through what we accept in faith has its risks, too. It implies change, not all of which is welcome to some believers. We may discover that all along we have entertained beliefs which have to be discarded because they do not stand up under scrutiny or that given more information we may have to reshape our understanding of those beliefs. Or we may even continue to uphold them, but at least this time on more sustainable grounds. But whatever the outcome may be, we do need to take seriously the challenge to think through our presuppositions in faith. Too often we forget that like every other aspect of our lives, there is a need to mature in the way we think about our faith. It is disappointing to come across people who have developed intellectually in other spheres but still cling to infantile religious beliefs. It is not surprising when they feel bound to abandon these beliefs which they cannot reconcile with their more developed ways of thinking. We are beginning to appreciate that education does not end with schooling, but we often ignore that this also applies to the way we think and live our faith. The encyclical rightly laments the separation of faith and reason, which came about from late medieval times and is seen in the development of the most part of modern philosophy. The legitimate distinction between them, which according to the encyclical had been noted by Aquinas himself, issued into a fateful separation. Chronicling the unfortunate consequences if this separation were to continue and citing its reasons,4 the Pope issues an appeal that 'faith and philosophy recover the profound unity which allows them to stand in harmony with their nature without compromising their mutual auto-nomy.'5 On the issue of the relationship between faith and reason itself, the encyclical traces and comments on Christianity's early encounter with philosophy and shows its acceptance of the positive role of reason in the According to the Pope, there were two reasons for this unfortunate situation: 1) exaggerated rationalism, 2) deeper mistrust of reason. He gives as examples of the first scenario, this over-emphasis on reason: idealism which has transformed faith and its contents into merely rational structures; atheistic humanism, which regards faith as alienating and damaging to the development of a full rationality; and scientific positivism, which has abandoned the Christian vision and rejects every appeal to a metaphysical or moral vision. In the second scenario, namely the extreme mistrust of reason that led to the separation between faith and reason, we have the case of nihilism. According to it, there is no possibility of ever attaining the goal of truth since everything is fleeting and provisional. Here the Pope regrets, and regrets deeply, this present state of affairs, including the marginalisation of the role of philosophy in our times. Rationality has been interpreted, misguidedly so in the Pope's view, in forms which are directed towards the promotion of utilitarian ends. As a consequence, the search for truth itself, the encyclical alleges, has been abandoned. Cf. sees. 45-47. . See sec. 48.

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development of the Christian faith.'1 St. Paul, for instance, entered into discussion with certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. His action was an acknowledgment that it was possible to have natural knowledge of God. He also affirmed the belief that the voice of conscience is present in every human being. The Fathers of the Church on their part regarded the rational analysis provided by philosophical thinking as helpful in purifying the concept of divinity. The Pope points out that to claim that the first Christians were not interested in philosophical thinking is therefore not true. Admittedly, their first and foremost concern was the proclamation of the good news. But they certainly did not ignore the task of deepening the understanding of faith and its motivations. He cites Justin, for whom Christianity is 'the only sure and profitable philosophy', and Clement of Alexandria who regarded the Gospel as 'the true philosophy' and who turned to Greek philosophy for the defense of the Christian faith. An even more robust example that he mentions is St. Augustine. In Augustine's work one can see the first great synthesis of philosophy and theology, which the Pope describes as 'a great unity of knowledge, grounded in the thought of the Bible, confirmed and sustained by a depth of speculative thinking'. Furthermore, in the Pope's mind, the ways in which the Fathers engaged with philosophy was not limited to transposing the truths of faith into philosophical categories. Rather, their intensity in living the content of their faith led them to the deepest forms of speculation. Philosophy enabled them to disclose more completely what was merely implicit and preliminary in their faith. Moving ahead in time, the Pope then reminds us of Anselm's concept of intellectus fidei: faith is to be understood with the help of reason while reason at its summit acknowledges the significance of faith. Considerable attention is given to what the Pope describes as 'the enduring originality of Thomas Aquinas'. In Aquinas there is harmony of faith and reason. Both are gifts from God, so there can be no contradiction between them. Aquinas is said to exemplify the Christian believer who seeks truth wherever it might be found, thus demonstrating its universality. Moreover, Aquinas saw how faith itself can enrich reason. He maintains that through the work of the Holy Spirit, knowledge matures into wisdom. This kind of wisdom is higher than philosophical wisdom, which is based upon the capacity of the intellect to explore reality. It is also distinct from theological wisdom, which has its source in Revelation and which explores the content of faith. The wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit is explained as presupposing faith but

The entire Chapter IV provides a historical survey.

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eventually formulating, with the use of reason, its right judgment on the basis of the truth of faith itself. On further reflection, however, I find that the interpretation of the relationship between faith and reason adopted by the encyclical leaves one with a number of philosophical concerns. Its understanding of faith is still rather too intellectualised and its interpretation of the function of reason in relation to faith, despite disclaimers and modifications, still gives reason a rather subservient role. Moreover, one could question the conception of truth that the document takes for granted. The document merges the understanding of truth set out in Vatican I (truth as eternal and timeless) with that of Vatican II (the historicity of truth), two understandings which are not, at first glance, compatible. In addition, any attempt to reconcile two distinct and autonomous realities—and in this context faith and reason are so regarded—begs the question: what is it that enables us to harmonise them, is it faith or is it reason? The document gives faith priority yet interprets and justifies that status and the attempted reconciliation philosophically.

2. Another Look at the Relationship between Faith and Reason In the hope of furthering the discussion of this topic, I would like to suggest that one could view faith as an awareness of transcendence. It is an implicit human experience that can be made explicit in various ways. A religious context is one such way. But it is the exercise of human reasoning that enables us to interpret it in a certain way whether religiously or not. In other words, there is more unity and continuity between faith and reason despite their respective qualities. Let me try to develop this suggestion a little further.7 The exercise of reason within the context of faith is actually a process which involves the stages of rejection, recognition, re-adjustment and response. By describing it in this way it is possible to liken our efforts to develop our faith, which is called for by the encyclical, to the work done by the early Christians. Furthermore, it means that this task is a continuous challenge and that the use of reason is not being restricted to the philosophical discipline. An early stage in making explicit our experience of transcendence and in arriving at a satisfactory conceptuality or doctrine is the rejection of alternatives. To some extent, it may be a matter of being clearer as to what something is not, rather than of what something is. In the case of the first Christians who A more detailed development of this point will be found in the essay 'The Function of Religion in Human Life and Thought: a Whiteheadian Exploration'.

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had the important task of formulating Christian doctrine which was faithful to what had been experienced by the believing community, they had to weed out at the same time doctrines which could not be considered part of the Christian experience. The encyclical notes that adoption of philosophy by the early Church was cautious. Paul himself warned against esoteric speculation, while other writers, especially Ireneus and Tertulian resisted the temptation to subordinate Revelation to philosophy.8 Moreover, the early Christians rejected the customary belief in 'gods' since 'god' was used by the popular religious cults of the day. When these Christians spoke of their God, they did not want their concept of God to be associated with the gods of popular religion.9 Rejecting something, even within the context of religious faith, does not necessarily mean 'being negative'. It could, in effect, be a genuine search for something better. The philosophical questions we ask about our faith, even if they sometimes lead to rejecting accepted beliefs, could be a healthy step towards a deeper understanding and appreciation of our faith. The next stage in this process is that of recognising or becoming aware of the value of a particular conceptualisation. Here there is partial acceptance, and some similarities are noted. This stage in the process of describing God's reality, for example, reveals the reasons why the early Church opted in favour of a particular philosophical framework, that of Stoic philosophy, in its attempts to conceptualise its faith-experience. The first Christians belonged to the Greco-Roman world and were concerned to speak to it. They wanted to convey the Christian message to their neighbours. Greek philosophy was an excellent medium then. Moreover, they wanted to show the reasonableness of Christianity and the ability of Christian teachings to withstand a thorough examination by philosophy. Philosophy, understood as a search for truth, was critical of the mythical interpretation of reality. There was a parallel, therefore, between the philosophers' task and that of the first Christians. Both wanted to differentiate their beliefs from those of popular religions which they regarded Reflecting on our own time, the Pope adds that Christians today must likewise beware the widespread existence of various kinds of esoteric superstition. He also notes the lack of a proper critical sense among some believers. Whitehead criticises and rejects idolatrous images of God formed in theistic traditions: imperial ruler, personification of moral energy and ultimate philosophical principle, against the background of what he calls a 'brief Galilean vision of humility' which 'flickered through the ages, uncertainly'. 'The Galilean origin of Christianity dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operates by love: and it finds purpose in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world.' Cf. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, Gifford Lectures, corrected ed. by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (The Free Press, 1978), pp. 343f.

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as superstitious. The early Christians furthermore found that philosophical categories helped them understand Christian revelation even more deeply than had been possible with biblical images. Philosophy met the need to achieve greater clarification of terms and ideas. Aquinas found much in Aristotelian philosophy to help him clarify, deepen and defend Christian beliefs. On this point, however, one could ask whether a different conceptuahty, compared to what the early Church and Aquinas found helpful, would not be better suited to meet the needs of our faith today. It is for this reason that I am suggesting that we search for other conceptualities. Process thought, the conceptuahty that I turn to in the essays in this volume, is a good example. One does not simply take over a favoured formulation. There is need for the third stage: that of re-adjustment. One has to reshape what one has recognised as helpful. Thus, there is adaptation prior to adoption, transformation before acceptance.10 Despite aligning itself with philosophy (thereby rejecting popular religion) the early Church did not completely identify its teachings with those of the philosophers either. For example, the philosophers' God, in spite of its acceptability as the ground of all being, did not have any religious significance. This God was absolute perfection and the culmination of one's intellectual pursuit, but one could neither pray to nor establish a personal relationship with this God. Thus, some transformation was called for. But one wonders how satisfactory the early Church's transformation of philosophical ideas was, particularly in its conception of God. One suspects that the present demand for more relevant and adequate concepts of God harks back to this period in Christian history. The fourth stage, that of response, is the acceptance of the transformed conceptuahty. It is really a further development. But it should not be regarded as a final stage if by that is meant that no improvement can be expected." As time goes by, certain intellectual expressions or formulations of our faith can become irrelevant or even misleading. Thus, the search for newer formulations is in reality an attempt to recover what has been obscured.12 The dissatisfaction In Whitehead's view, 'philosophy finds religion, and modifies it, conversely religion is among the data of experience which philosophy must weave into its own scheme' PR, pp. 15-16. Thus the relation of philosophy to religion, according to Whitehead, has two aspects of purification and of enrichment. The encyclical expresses this point in this way: 'In effect, every philosophical system, while it should always be respected in its wholeness, without any instrumentalisation, must still recognise the primacy of philosophical enquiry, from which it stems and which it ought loyally to serve.' (section 4) Whitehead observes that 'a dogma—in the sense of a precise statement—can never be final; it can only be adequate in its adjustment of certain abstract concepts.' Religion in the Making, Lowell Institute Lectures (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1926), pp.126. The inspi-

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felt by some with the conceptuality worked out by the early Church has led to calls for more appropriate and contemporary expressions of the «m»Christian experience of the faith and of God. 3. Exploring the Philosophies of Charles Hartshome and A.N. Whitehead To a certain extent the essays in this volume represent the journey over the years—to take up the metaphor used by the encyclical—or the process that I undertook towards a greater understanding of certain aspects of the Christian heritage.13 Moreover, this journey, which has been characterised by the stages that I have described above, provides the unifying theme to these explorations into the conceptuality developed by Charles Hartshorne and A.N. Whitehead.14 In Chapter 1 'On God, Time and Change' I respond to an article written by Brian Davies who discusses these issues from the Thomistic perspective. Inasmuch as he criticises Charles Hartshorne's handling of the same issues, I offer some clarifications and a defense of Hartshorne's position. My main concern in this essay is to address the question as to whether the affirmation of God's immutability leads to a denial of any change in God. A more systematic discussion of the concept of God developed by Charles Hartshorne can be found in Chapter 2 'A Process Concept of God'. Here I point out the need to take into account the approach adopted by Hartshorne if one wants to do justice to his claims about God. I then examine the concept of God which one will find in his many writings. Hartshorne's God-talk is the subject matter of Chapter 3 'Hartshorne on Describing God'. In this essay I argue that while we can appreciate Hartshorne's reasons for wanting to talk about God in a positive and literal manner, there are certain problematic areas in his God-talk.

ration of religion, he claims, lies in the historical facts upon which religion is founded, that is to say, the primary expression of the intuitions of the finest types of religious lives. The sources of religious belief are always growing, though some supreme expressions may lie in the past. But records of these sources are not formulae. Whitehead illustrates this when he states that the Gospel evokes in us 'intuitive response which pierces beyond dogma'. Ibid., pp.138-9. As Whitehead puts it, 'it is for the Christians to discern the doctrine.' Ibid. 55 Interestingly enough, Whitehead refers to Christianity as a 'religion in search of a metaphysics'. On this point, see Hartshorne, 'Process Philosophy as a Resource for Christian Thought,' in Perry LeFevre (ed.), Philosophical Resources for Christian Thought (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968), pp. 44-66; also, his 'Process Theology in Historical and Systematic Contexts,' Modern Schoolman, LXII (1985), pp. 221-231.

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The problem of evil has always been a challenge to theism. In Chapter 4 'Evil and Creativity: Hartshorne on the Problem of Evil' I investigate Hartshome's solution to this problem. For Hartshorne there is evil because there is universal creativity. I discuss the metaphysical underpinnings of this claim. Chapter 5 'Suffering and Theism: Towards a Praxis-based Response to Hume's Challenge' takes up again the problem of evil. Here, however, I argue that Hume's challenge, given the existence of evil, leads us to re-think what we say about God, rather than to deny God's existence. Drawing on Hartshome's philosophy, I claim that our responses to the existence of suffering can give us an insight into a more adequate conception of God. In Chapter 6 'Charles Hartshome's Interpretation of Human Immortality' I first discuss the metaphysical principles that support Hartshome's notion of objective immortality. I also argue that due to the internal difficulties in his metaphysics and the inadequacy of his solution to the human quest for ultimate meaning, Hartshorne could be more open to the traditional notion of personal immortality. Chapter 7 'Religion, Science and Hartshome's Metaphysics' (co-written with Ferdinand Santos) makes a case for Hartshome's metaphysical system as a mediating paradigm between religion and science. Despite certain problems, his metaphysics, inasmuch as it is informed by contemporary science and offers a holistic view of reality, can facilitate a fruitful dialogue between religion and science. The next two chapters turn to A.N. Whitehead's philosophy. In Chapter 8 'The Function of Religion in Human Thought and Life: a Whiteheadian Exploration' I discuss Whitehead's notion of religion and show its connection with reason and with life. Whitehead's claim that Christianity is a 'religion in search of a metaphysics' is explored through a discussion of a number of definitions of religion that will be found in his writings. Chapter 9 'Concretising Concrete Experience' focuses on process methodology. In this essay, I discuss the importance of concrete experience and of the task of preserving the concreteness of that experience. For this reason, I urge process thinkers to heed Whitehead's own advice to turn to literary writers for insights into concrete reality. I also suggest communicating process themes in more literary modes (while continuing with the theological and philosophical tasks already undertaken). This is particularly true regarding the issue of our relationship with God. It is a suggestion that I have tried to take upon myself in writing (with Marian F. Sia) the novel, The Fountain Arethuse. The Appendix is comprised of excerpts from The Fountain Arethuse and Notes on Charles Hartshorne. The excerpts from the novel are those which in some way or the other deal with process themes, specifically discussed in the 8

preceding essays. In the second part, 1 have included a short biographical note on Hartshorne, a review of his autobiographical book (The Darkness and the Light), and a personal recollection of my encounters with him. In order to preserve both the context (an intellectual journey over the years) and the content (the development in my own thinking as I interacted with the philosophies of Hartshorne and Whitehead), I have retained the texts of the essays as they were first published. I have, however, added other references in the footnotes. I am grateful to the editors of the series and an anonymous reader for suggesting such a structure for this collection of essays. It will be obvious from these essays that in my journey I have turned more to Charles Hartshorne rather than to Whitehead. Since Hartshorne was very much in dialogue with classical theism, the background from which I was coming, this preference on my part is probably understandable. As I probed deeper into Hartshorne's neoclassical metaphysics to help me understand the Christian heritage, my journey led me to reject some classical interpretations, recognise the value of Hartshorne's alternative interpretation but re-adjust some aspects of it. My hope is that in doing so, I can give a more adequate response to the call, made by the encyclical, for more philosophical thinking in matters of Christian faith.

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1. Oil God, Time and Change

1. Introduction In his essay, Brian Davies makes some interesting comments on how the notions of 'timelessness' and 'changelessness' affect our understanding of God.1 His view, as I see it, may be summarised in three statements: 1) for some good reasons we must uphold the doctrine of God's changelessness; 2) this can be done without having to affirm at the same time that God is timeless, especially since the latter teaching is quite problematic; 3) while insisting on God's changelessness or immutability, we can, nevertheless, talk of change with reference to God. Before elaborating on these points, Davies writes that there is a 'vastly complicated range of problems' associated with the notions of timelessness and changelessness; but since these notions are basic to our understanding of God, the task of clarifying them becomes a challenge. It is a task which must be taken seriously if we do not wish to be guilty of confused and erroneous thinking about God. Along the same lines—awareness of the complexity of the problems yet of the importance of this task—I would like to compare Davies's position with that of Charles Hartshorne.2 Inasmuch as Hartshorne has devoted much of his time to this very topic and has written extensively on this subject,3 it would be helpful to our God-talk to discuss his analysis of these issues. Although Davies criticises Hartshorne in the brief reference which he makes to him, I wish to suggest that Hartshorne's stance is worth a closer investigation. In comparing the two positions, I will be concerned primarily with the question of whether the affirmation of God's immutability leads to a denial of any change in God.

Brian Davies, 'God, Time and Change,' Clergy Review (February, 1978), pp. 68-72. Charles Hartshorne is regarded as a leading figure in process thought. Although he acknowledges his debt to Whitehead and others, he is very much an original thinker. Cf. his intellectual biography, The Darkness and the Light: a Philosopher Reflects Upon his Fortunate Career and Those who Made it Possible (SUNY, 1990), and my review of it (see Appendix). For a more detailed and systematic treatment of this topic, see my God in Process Thought: a Study in Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God (Martinus Nijhoff, 1985).

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2. God's Timelessness and Worshipfulness According to Davies, to say that God is timeless is to say that God has no temporal extension, i.e. that there is no 'before' and 'after' with God. When we attribute timelessness to God, we could be said to maintain that 'whatever is possibly true of objects which exist at some time or in time cannot be true of God, then he would cease to be the being that he is... he would cease to be God.' Time, which is predicated of creatures, cannot be predicated of God, without God losing his status as God. Davies then goes on to say that this doctrine of God's timelessness has great religious attractiveness as it is useful in bringing home the idea of God's worshipfulness. If God is regarded as beyond or outside time, it becomes easier to appreciate God's immeasurable superiority and independence or aseity. Such a concept of a timeless God accentuates, in a seemingly effective way, the enormous gap between God and objects in time which seem to be transient and subordinate. In spite of the above-mentioned advantage, Davies himself seems to have some misgivings about this doctrine. Later on in his article he explains that it is not necessary for understanding God's immutability, about which he is more concerned. He stresses that even if there are difficulties in affirming God's timelessness, these should not lead us to reject the claim that God is changeless simply 'because we do not have to regard changelessness as equivalent to timelessness.' This argument calls for some comment; but before proceeding to that, we should perhaps ask first whether the notion of timelessness is really essential to grasping the idea of God's worshipfulness, whatever the connection between 'timelessness' and 'immutability' may be. For while the notion of timelessness may 'fire our imagination' and is therefore useful, it may be a misleading interpretation of God's worshipfulness. If the doctrine of God's timelessness was meant to be a way of expressing the latter belief, then it may be possible to express the same belief in another way, one which does not involve us in the difficulty highlighted by Davies in his article (Davies explains how it is very difficult to reconcile timelessness with the belief that God is a person). Needless to say, the new doctrine may land us in a different set of problems, but that would be a further consideration. How then could one interpret God's worshipfulness? Hartshorne claims that all that follows from the idea of God's worshipfulness is God's unsurpassability.4 God is the 'worshipful one' because God is exalted beyond any actual Cf. Charles Hartshorne, 'The Idea of a Worshipful Being,' Southern Journal of Philosophy, II, 4 (Winter 1964), p.165. For a development of the idea of God's worshipfulness along Hartshornian lines, cf. David R. Mason, 'An Examination of "Wor-

12

or possible rivalry; God can be admired, respected or reverenced without limit, being superior to anyone, now or ever. I'luis, God is unsurpassable not only by beings actually in existence but also by any conceivable reality. Since this rules out any individual who could conceivably equal or surpass God, rivalry with God is logically and not merely factually excluded. It is this strict logical incomparability of God which constitutes worshipfulness, i.e. God can be worshipped without incongruity by any individual no matter how exalted that individual is or will ever be. Hartshorne expresses this point succinctly: 'To be worthy of worship a being must not be (conceivably) surpassed by another, but it need not, in all respects, be unsurpassable absolutely for it may, indeed it must, in some respects be se/f-surpassable.'5 The point that is of interest to us at the moment is that for Hartshorne not only is God's worshipfulness explainable without conceiving God to be outside or beyond time but that there is no need to do so. (It will be shown later in what way God is timeless; but it should be noted at this stage that, according to Hartshorne, the notion of timelessness is a misleading way of conceiving God's worshipfulness.)

3. God's Worshipfulness and Perfection But in saying that God's worshipfulness consists in God's unsurpassability, Hartshorne seems to be defining the former idea in a comparative sense. And since worshipfulness implies some kind of perfection—a point to be explained below—then Hartshorne appears to be saying that God is only relatively perfect, i.e. perfect in comparison with others. In fact, the quotation above would seem to bear this out. But surely, if God is worshipful, this is because God is perfect in Godself and not merely in comparison with others. To maintain the latter position is to say that God can grow in perfection and if this is so, then it can be argued that God was not perfect in the first place. Hartshorne's reply to this objection is that we should analyse the very meaning of 'perfection' before we apply it to God. If God, he says, is to be conceived at all, and if 'perfect' is to be properly attributed to God, then we must ask whether this means 'perfect in all ways', 'perfect in some ways', or 'perfect in no way'. This is a formal analysis of the

ship" as a Key for Re-examinng the God Problem,' Journal of Religion, LV, 1975, pp.76-94. Hartshorne, 'Idea of a Worshipful Being,' p.165.

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word 'perfect'. Hartshorne uses this method to clarify the meaning of the statement that 'God is perfect'.6 The third alternative 'perfect in no way', however, runs counter to the very idea of worshipfulness. Hartshorne equates worship with 'loving with all one's being'. A God who is perfect in no way cannot be worshipped, i.e. cannot be a proper object of worship, since God would be subject to every imperfection and alteration and would therefore be totally unreliable. A God who is perfect in no way is imperfect in every way—hardly an object of anyone's total devotion. So in saying that God is worshipful, we are implying that God is not 'perfect in no way'. Worship implies that God, as the term of worship, is perfect, whether in all ways or only in some ways being left open. On the other hand, although we tend to equate God's worshipfulness with absolute perfection (i.e. 'perfect in all ways') Hartshorne insists that the latter concept does not have a consistent meaning. 'Perfect in all ways' is selfcontradictory because there are what Hartshorne terms 'incompossible values'. 7 To hold that God is perfect in all ways is equivalent to saying that that God contains all values as actual. But this cannot be, argues Hartshorne, because some values exclude one another.8 To regard all possible values as actual in God is to eliminate the very meaning of actualisation, which is precisely that one does or is this and for that reason not to do this or be that.9 Since this is what 'perfect in all ways' would amount to, Hartshorne asserts that the phrase does not have a consistent meaning and cannot therefore be predicated of God meaningfully. What remains for our consideration is the phrase 'perfect in some ways'. But since, as we have already seen, God's worshipfulness means for Hartshorne God's unsurpassability by others, 'perfect in some ways' cannot mean that in some cases God will be surpassed by others. It means rather that, 6

9

14

Cf. Hartshorne, Reality as Social Process (N.Y.: Hafner, 1971), pp.155-157 and 182183. Hartshorne also arrives at the same conclusion by analysing Anselm's definition of a perfect being as 'that than which none greater can be conceived' in his Man's Vision of Clod and the Logic of Theism (Archon Books, 1964), pp.6f. and his The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neo-Classical Metaphysics (La Salle: Open Court, 1962), p. 35. Hartshorne's stand that there are 'incompossible values' can be copiously footnoted. See, among others, his Creative Synthesis and Philosophical Method (SCM Press, 1970), p.235; 'Love and Dual Transcendence,' Union Seminary Quarterly Review, XXX, 2-4 (Winter-Summer, 1975), p.97; 'The Dipolar Conception of Deity,' Review of Metaphysics, XXI, 2 (December 1967), p.280 and Aquinas to Whitehead: Seven Centuries of Metaphysics of Religion. The Aquinas Lecture, 1976 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Publications, 1976), p.32. Cf. the next essay, 'God in Process Thought'. Hartshorne, RSP, pp.117-118.

while God is unsurpassed by others, God can surpass Godself, grow in perfection, and has potential states. (That is in direct contrast to the philosophical doctrine that God is 'pure act'.) Thus, what this third alternative amounts to is that God is perfect in relation to others, but not in relation to Godself. Insofar as there is further actualisation in God, God changes, concludes Hartshorne. But in conformity with God's unsurpassable nature, God changes eminently—and only eminently. In God there is no decay or decrease in value. The notion of decay or deterioration is not implicit in the notion of change for, according to Hartshorne, it depends upon what kind of change is involved or upon how the being is subject to change. Since he is talking of eminent change in the context of unsurpassability, he rules out the notion of corruptibility as applied to God. Otherwise, it would be possible for a being to exist who would not be subject to decay. This would then contradict God's unsurpassability. Divine process is such that it excludes any corruptibility or decrease. In a word, God is strictly all-surpassing.10

4. God as Related to Us To recapitulate what has been said so far, we see that Hartshorne's interpretation of God's worshipfulness as unsurpassability means that for him God is relatively perfect. God's perfection so interpreted can allow for change in God. The same stance enables Hartshorne to claim that if God is regarded as relatively perfect and can therefore change, then it makes sense to say that God is truly related to us and that we have an effect on God. His definition of God's perfection leaves open the possibility of taking into account a personal relationship with God, a relatedness that means something not only to us but also to God. That God is one with whom we are able to enter into a personal relationship is an important feature of the religious idea of God. Davies has rightly, I think, emphasised this point. As he puts it, this belief provides powerful reasons for rejecting the notion of God's timelessness since the latter cuts across any understanding of God as a person and poses difficulties to any conception of a personal relationship with God. But while Davies would not conclude from this that we must posit change in God, Hartshorne, on the other hand, asserts that God is truly changed by such a relationship. Hartshorne takes the

Hartshorne (with William L. Reese), Philosophers Speak of God (Midway Reprints, 1976), p.509 and his Natural neology of Our Time (La Salle: Open Court, 1967), p.127.

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statement that 'God is love' to mean literally that God finds joy in our joys and sorrow in our sorrows. Love, as Hartshorne uses the word even in its application to God, means sympathetic dependence on others." God, as the God of love, is one of understanding and sympathy and one to whom we can appeal. God is truly the all-loving and efficacious friend of all. This can only mean, in Hartshome's way of thinking, that God is really affected by what we do or what we are. In this way we can indeed talk of being related to God and God to us. On this point, Hartshorne criticises Anselm for maintaining that God is compassionate in terms of our experience but not so in terms of God's own reality. Anselm's God, according to Hartshorne, does not give us the right to believe that God sympathises with us. It is a mockery to claim that we feel the effects of God's compassion since the supreme effect of compassion is to give the awareness that someone really and literally responds to our feelings with sympathetic appreciation. Compassion implies that one is truly, and not merely apparently, touched by our plight. Hartshorne anticipates a possible objection that being affected in response to a situation reveals a certain imperfection in that person, and that it is precisely for this reason that God cannot be said to be affected. His reply is that there is an extreme way of responding or of being affected, and this is what constitutes an imperfection or a defect, not responding or being affected as such. Hartshorne cites the case of a father and a child. A father who has no regard for the will and welfare of his child is not considered to be an ideal parent. If whatever the child does—be it good or bad—fails to elicit some response from the father, then he cannot be a father who wins our admiration. The ideal in this case is not that he should remain unmoved or that he should be swayed by every whim of his child. Rather, the ideal is that the father should be influenced in appropriate, and only appropriate, ways by the child's desires and fortunes. Likewise, we do not admire a man who is equally happy and serene and joyous regardless of how men and women suffer around him. Nor would it be admirable of him if he were to be dragged down into helpless misery by the sight of suffering in others. Such a response would be equally inappropriate. What is admirable and ideal is appropriateness in one's response, not no response. Applying this to God, Hartshorne says that: If God is not better satisfied by our good than by our evil acts, and less satisfied by the acts we do perform than he would have been by those better ones we might have achieved, then it is simply meaningless to say Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity: a Social Conception of God. The Terry Lectures, 1947 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), p.48.

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that he loves us; and the problem of what the value and purpose of our existence are is without religious answer. Thus, in showing that God can and does change, Hartshorne wants to give support to the religious doctrine that God is someone personally related to us. In Hartshome's view, it is essential that we conceive this relationship as involving some change in God.

5. God's Immutability

. ^" ,

So far the stress on God's relativity (God as changing and as related to us) may have given one the impression that Hartshome's God changes in every respect. But this is not so. God changes, really changes, but not in every aspect. In other words, there are aspects in God which do not change. In this sense God is immutable or absolute. For one, God's superiority is immutable. God remains superior to all others, no matter what. And because God is not only actually but also logically superior, that superiority is one in principle. Secondly, God's capacity to be affected by creatures does not prevent God from having aspects which are independent of and unchangeable by the creatures. In this, God is completely independent of any given creature. Davies is concerned with affirming God's immutability because the Bible stresses God's fidelity and justice. To affirm that God changes would seem to contradict this biblical teaching for it would be equivalent to saying that God cannot be relied upon. God's constancy in the loving and just concern for us would be held in jeopardy were we to predicate change in God. Hartshorne agrees that one must indeed affirm God's immutability regarding God's goodness. He goes along with the belief that God's goodness is completely reliable, for no matter what changes there may be in conditions, God's concern will not waver. God is all-good and always good. There can be no change in God in this sense. Thus, Hartshorne concurs that if one wants to be faithful to the biblical account, one must talk of constancy or unchangeableness of God; but he would add that this should be understood in the context of God's goodness. It is at the ethical level that the Bible speaks of God's immutability.13 Hartshome's contention is that this specific teaching does not, however, justify a general conclusion as to God's immutability.

Hartshorne, 'Philosophy and Orthodoxy,' Ethics, LTV, 4 (July 1944), p. 295. Hartshorne, MLVT, p.159.

m

6. The Abstract and the Concrete Hartshome's doctrine of a changing-immutable God is based on his doctrine of a dipolar God. God in Hartshome's philosophy has two aspects or poles, an abstract pole and a concrete pole. Neither can be comprehended apart from the other. The abstract aspect of God is what is absolute, immutable and independent while the concrete aspect is what is relative, changing and dependent. The concrete aspect includes the abstract and not the other way around. Unless one appreciates this distinction and this asymmetrical relationship between the two poles or aspects, much of what Hartshorne has to say regarding God's relativity and immutability will fail to enlighten us. It should be noted that Hartshorne does not mean a concrete way of talking and an abstract way of talking. He insists that the distinction is ontological: God is dipolar, not just our way of referring to God. However, the abstract aspect exists in the concrete; that is, the abstract is real only in the concrete.14 Hartshorne is echoing the Aristotelian doctrine that the concrete contains the abstract. When Hartshorne says therefore that God is dipolar, he is referring to only one entity but is taking into account the two aspects of the same entity. Although he is attributing contrasting predicates to the same individual, he is predicating them in diverse ways. When he expresses the view that God is immutable and changing, he means that God is immutable as far as God's abstract aspect is concerned; God changes as far as concreteness is the point of reference. Since he is predicating these contrasting predicates in diverse ways, he maintains that there is no contradiction. To quote his exact words, 'No rule of logic forbids saying that a thing has a property and also its negative, provided the positive and the negative properties are referred to the thing in diverse aspects. The same reality may in one aspect be universally closed to influence.'15 To go back to our discussion of God's goodness, Hartshorne would say that God's goodness, in the abstract, is immutable. In that respect God cannot change. But this is so because we are excluding other considerations, e.g. how God feels towards us. In the concrete relationship with us, however, God is affected by what we do. It is precisely because God is all-good that God rejoices at the good we do and is sorrowful if we do evil or omit to do something good. God's goodness, in the concrete, is sympathetic dependence: in response to the

Hartshorne, 'Absolute Objects and Relative Subjects: a Reply,' Review of Metaphysics, XV, 1 (September 1961), p.175. In his book, A W, p.23, he reiterates this position but adds that 'the two aspects are not on the same ontological level' for one is abstract and the other is concrete. Hartshorne, CSPM, p.233. Chapters VI and XI deal with this topic at length.

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changes in the world process, the states of a loving, wise and concerned God changes each moment. God's love, in the concrete, wants our well-being and responds to both our obedience and waywardness. The same distinction obtains as regards God's knowledge. Omniscience or infallibility is abstract: it is statable without mentioning any particular facts. Hence, as omniscient and infallible, God is immutable. Being omniscient, God knows everything there is to know; being infallible, God's knowledge is adequate, as adequate as possible, to the object. God knows and will know as actual whatever is actual, as potential whatever is potential and in the most adequate fashion possible. Infallibility or omniscience thus is clear, certain, adequate knowledge whose content is all that is as it is. But God's concrete knowledge, i.e. knowledge of a given object in a given situation, is dependent on the existence of that object. Otherwise, if that object did not exist, yet God knew it as actual, God would be in error. In this sense, God's knowledge grows inasmuch as the content of that knowledge grows. According to Hartshorne, we should therefore talk of real change in God's knowledge.16 Davies would not agree with the above conclusion although he admits that 'at some time a given proposition with "God" as subject can be true and at other times it can be false.' For instance, the statement that 'God knows that Churchill is Britain's Prime Minister.' In 1945 this would have been true, but today it is clearly false. Though Davies concurs that in one sense this would imply that God undergoes change in the sense that God becomes something different, he denies that this is so as this would contradict the doctrine of divine immutability. The position which he takes up is that: One is just affirming that some statements are now true of God which were not always true while some statements which were true of God are now false. The only thing that could plausibly be said to change form here would be the circumstances justifying (making it true) what is said about God. These, one supposes, could be various. They will also be sometimes unpredictable and contingent.17 Unless I am misinterpreting Davies, his position may be summed up in this way: what can and does change is our talk of God. God remains totally external to all change. But if this is so, then God's whole reality must after all be time-

Cf. Hartshorne, 'The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy,' Talk of God: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. II (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 163 and RSP, p.206. 17

Davies, 'God, Time and Change,' p.71.

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less. For if someone or something is completely outside change, is he or it not by that fact timeless? From a previous quotation which stated that 'we do not have to regard changelessness as equivalent to timelessness,' Davies, it would appear, would not accept my argument. He finds support in a reference to something which is changeless in two temporal beings which change: the universe and John. But one could go along with his view provided the following observation is made: when we mark out what is changeless in that which is temporal (temporal, I take it, implies change), we avoid contradicting ourselves only because we are indicating different aspects of the same entity, i.e. what is changeless is an abstract aspect of the universe or of John while that which is temporal is the concrete aspect of the two entities in question. We could be said to hold that although the universe and John themselves change, something in them does not, but that something is not the whole of the universe nor of John. To this I would add that that abstract element which does not change is itself timeless even if the universe and John themselves are temporal. That element is timeless because in referring to it, we are thereby putting aside all considerations of time. Hence, the changeless activity of the universe and John's identity are not only immutable but are also timeless. In other words, that which is changeless in these entities is ipso facto timeless. Changelessness is equivalent to timelessness—both of these being abstract—although it is true that a temporal being may have an immutable and therefore nontemporal (or timeless) element. From what has been said in the preceding paragraph, one can conclude that the abstract aspect of Hartshorne's God must be timeless. But God is timeless in that respect only, not in God's entirety. Davies's conception of God, on the other hand, strikes me as reducible to that of a timeless God after all, inasmuch as God is regarded as outside all change! If my argument is right, then I would find it difficult to understand how Davies's version of the doctrine of God's immutability escapes the problematic area of God's timelessness and how it can do justice to the belief that God is a personal being with whom we can relate in a personal way. For how can someone who is immune to all change and is unaffected by what we do be a personal being? Such a description seems to fit in with our commonsense idea of a cold, detached and therefore impersonal being.

7. God as Creator A second reason which Davies puts forward for upholding God's immutability is the doctrine that God as creator entails that God is perfect. If God is perfect, Davies argues, God cannot acquire further perfection, otherwise God would not 20

be perfect in the first place. If God changed, God would be part of creation and hence not God. Davies maintains that the relationship between God as creator and creation is asymmetrical, i.e. while God causally affects creatures, God cannot be causally affected by the creatures. I have already remarked on how Hartshorne understands 'perfection' as applied to God. Davies's position regarding God and creation, however, needs some comment in the light of what Hartshorne has to say. Once again Hartshorne's distinction between God's abstract and concrete aspects or poles may be helpful. To put it briefly, God as creator, insofar as this refers to God's concrete aspect which changes, is indeed part of creation. However, in God's abstractness, God remains independent of any given creation. Hartshorne has labeled his view as panentheistic: in one sense God depends on the world and is therefore inclusive of it, in another sense God is independent of the world and consequently transcends it. This position may be conveniently described as midway between the orthodox theistic view which maintains that God is the independent universal cause or source and the universe is God's extrinsic effect or outcome (that is, the universe is 'outside the divine actuality', not a qualification or constituent of it), and the pantheistic view which holds that God is the inclusive reality and that there is no ultimate cause distinct from and independent of the cosmic totality (that is, the universe is within the divine actuality and qualifies its very essence or irreducible nature). To the question therefore as to whether God is or is not independent of the universe of entities other than God, capable of existing without them, the orthodox theist would reply in the affirmative while the pantheist would answer negatively. Hartshorne for his part would say 'yes and no' depending on which aspect of God's nature was meant. How does Hartshorne explain his answer? An effect, he explains, is generally understood to imply a cause. That is, the world as effect implies a creator. But the converse relation as applied to God does not obtain for orthodox theists: God as creator or supreme cause does not imply an effect. This means that while the world is qualified by its utter dependence upon God, God could have been exactly as God is, without any world whatsoever. Such a description is intended to underline the difference between any ordinary cause (with a correlative effect) and God as supreme cause (who needs no effect whatsoever). The difference is asserted to be one in principle. What Hartshorne is suggesting, on the other hand, is that 'God's existence [in so far as God is cause] would make it inevitable that there be a world but only possible that there be just this sort of world. [God] would be independent of (would not require or necessitate) any particular world, but he

21

would not be independent of world-as-such.'18 I gather from this that Hartshorne means that just as the word 'cause' implies a certain effect, God as creator implies a certain creation but not a particular creation. God did not have to create this world or any given world, but had to create some world if the term 'creator' is to mean anything. In this way God remains independent of us inasmuch as it is not necessary that we exist. It is not essential that our world exists either, for God is independent of this particular world. As an independent supreme cause, God 'will exist and will be himself (and would have existed and been himself) no matter what particular world exists (or had existed) or fails (or had failed) to exist.'19 The doctrine affirming God's independence of us remains, though in a modified version. Here Hartshorne is referring to the abstract aspect of God's creative nature. In the concrete, however, God is effect as well as cause. God may interact with the world, receiving and imparting influence. While God is supreme power, God is merely one power among other, albeit lesser, powers. God thus requires others to be just what God concretely and in fact is. In this sense, God is indeed part of creation and depends on us—as has been explained already in our discussion of God's concrete love and concrete knowledge. To the doctrine then that God is creator, Hartshorne introduces a distinction which is supposed to help us see how in his way of thinking God can be independent of creation and yet be an integral part of it. He claims that 'it is no absurdity to hold that "God is truly independent and truly dependent of creation" unless by "truly" one means, in all that he is, rather than in something that he is.' 2 " It must be remembered that Hartshome's God is dipolar which means that 'truly' for Hartshorne should read 'in something that God is'. In short, God is independent, and truly so, as far as God's abstract pole is concerned. God is also dependent, and truly so, if by this we mean God's concrete pole.

8. A nthropomorphism ? One of the accusations against Hartshome's treatment of these issues is that it smacks of anthropomorphism. Owen, for instance, writes: Hartshorne and Reese, PSG, p.501. See Hartshome's article, 'Pantheism and Panentheism,' in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. XI (Macmillan, 1987), pp. 165-171. PSG, p. 501. Ibid., p.505.

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Because change and growth, in response to environment, characterise human personality, it does not follow (hat they also characterise the personality of God. On the contrary, their presence in our form of personality is an obvious sign of our finiteness. They are not essential to the spiritual qualities of which they are (in the finite case) conditions. The most perfect form of spiritual being would be one from which these conditions are absent.2' To come up with anything like an adequate answer to this charge, one would have to go deep into Hartshorne's metaphysics.22 We cannot do that here.23 But a brief answer may be in order. If by the accusation is meant that we cannot apply anything observable in human experience, then this is to leave ourselves open to the objection that we have no other way of knowing about anything, including God, except through and in human experience. As Hartshorne puts it, 'Factors common to all world states can be known by human beings only through human experiences'24 and 'any thinking a human being can do is human thinking.'25 But if by anthropomorphism, one is accusing Hartshorne of attributing something peculiarly human (i.e. non-divine or creaturely), then one would really have to contend with the fundamental thesis of Hartshorne's metaphysics. For according to his metaphysics, change and growth—which is predicated also of God's concrete pole—are universal traits. To show and defend this has been one of Hartshorne's main philosophical tasks. Accordingly, for Hartshorne what distinguishes finite beings from God is not that the former change and grow and the latter does not. Rather, the former change and grow in a limited or finite way while God does so in an unsurpassable way. 'Unsurpassable' in this context is not just a matter of degree, but of principle.

21 22

23 24

25

H.P. Owen, Concepts of Deity (Macmillan, 1971), p.85. Hartshome sets out his metaphysical system most fully in his Creative Synthesis and' Philosophic Method (London: SCM Press, 1970; La Salle: Open Court, 1970; reputv lished by University of America Press, 1983), and more recently by Open Court. Cf. the essay 'Hartshorne on Describing God'. Hartshorne, 'The Centrality of Reason in Philosophy,' Philosophy in Context, Supplement to Vol. 4 (1975), p.6. Hartshorne, 'Can Man Transcend his Animality?' Monist, LV, 2 (April 1971), p.208.

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9. Conclusion It goes without saying that a number of questions which would have to be considered in a more extensive treatment of this topic have remained unanswered.26 An essay of this scope cannot possibly do justice to the—as Davies acknowledges—'vastly complicated range of problems' connected with any God-talk. My main concern in writing this essay was to investigate the possibility of affirming God's immutability without having to deny that in some respects God can and does change. Since I have based my investigation on Hartshome's writings, the answer to that problem rests on the tenability of Hartshome's position. This, of course, would have to be examined more critically. But if Hartshome is right (and if I have succeeded in interpreting him correctly), then Davies's position would have to be qualified by an insight which, in my opinion will do more justice to our conviction that, despite the immeasurable gulf between God and us, we can still claim to be able to enter into a truly personal relationship with God and to our belief that we really matter to God. Davies's fear that 'if affirmation of a real change in God's being results' from our investigation, 'then something is wrong' may actually mean that what is wrong, i.e. deserves a careful re-examination, is a concept which excludes all change from God's reality.

The other essays in this book do attempt to discuss these. 24

2. A Process Concept of God

1. Our Concept of God One of the controversial issues which have recently come into prominence among philosophers and theologians is the meaning of the term 'God'. It seems that, largely due to different interpretations of this word, theists and atheists have been misunderstanding one another. It is true, of course, that one can trace a certain idea of God operating in the minds of many, if not most, people. 'God' is generally taken to refer to a supreme Being, the Creator, who is perfect and self-existent, holy, personal and loving. This understanding of 'God' corresponds to what many have either been brought up to believe in or have come to accept as the meaning of this word. Nevertheless, theists seem to be defending a certain idea of God and to be accusing atheists of attacking another, one which does not correspond to the theistic meaning of 'God'. Cardinal Maximos IV, for instance, is quoted as having said, 'The God the atheists don't believe in is a God I don't believe in either.' On the other hand, atheists down through the ages have been challenging believers to explain clearly what they mean by 'God' because these critics cannot see how that idea can have any acceptable meaning. Furthermore, this controversy regarding the meaning of 'God' is far from being merely between the two camps. Even among believers themselves, the question of how one should properly understand 'God' is not a fully settled issue. H.P. Owen, in his book Concepts of Deity, shows quite convincingly that there is a 'bewildering variety of concepts of God' among theists.' One has only to ask around to confirm this. One reason that has been suggested for controversies such as those mentioned is a discrepancy between one's basic experience of God and the conceptualisation of that experience. In articulating a basic intuition or direct experience, one runs the risk of not doing full justice to it. Sometimes what results at the conceptual stage is quite different from what took place at the experiential level. Hence, there can be a conflict between experience and conceptuality. Pascal illustrated this when he spoke of 'the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—not the God of Philosophers'. For Pascal there was a marked difference between the philosophers' concept and the believers' concrete experience of God. Thus, if our attempts to articulate what we believe God to be do not lead H.P. Owen, Concepts of Deity (Macmillan, 1971), p.vii.

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to a concept which is consistent with our basic experience, we will encounter problems that may lead to controversies. Moreover, there will be difficulties when we try to reconcile our concept of God with other aspects of our experience. For instance, if we regard God as all-good and all powerful, then we would have to face the formidable task of defending such a concept of God in the presence of so much evil in the world. For it is alleged that such a God could not possibly wish for or allow the many evils we find around us. Thus, our experience of the reality of evil challenges the idea of an all-good and powerful God. The disparity between direct, concrete experience and our concepts has led to a critical discussion on the meaning of the word 'God'. In fact, there is some justification for saying that there has been a shift in emphasis from debating whether or not God exists to evaluating the meaningfulness of 'God'. Many have argued that the task of clarifying what is meant by God must be undertaken first before we can set about the seemingly fruitless work of proving whether there is a God or not. In short, it is the concept of God which seems to have become problematic today.3 In this essay we shall examine the contributions made by Charles Hartshorne to this debate on the meaningfulness of 'God'. In his writings he has developed a concept of God which he claims does more justice to religious belief.4 Hartshorne is regarded as a leading figure in process philosophy. He is very closely associated with A.N. Whitehead although he himself is very much an original thinker.

Cf. the essays 'Evil and Creativity: Hartshorne on the Problem of Evil' and 'Suffering and Theism: Towards a Praxis-based Response to Hume's Challenge'. See also Marian F. Sia and Santiago Sia, From Suffering to God: Exploring our Images of God in the Light of Suffering (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 1995). For a comprehensive resource on this topic, see Barry Whitney, Theodicy: an Annotated Bibliography on the Problem of Evil 1960-1990 (N .Y.: Garland, 1993). Anthony Flew puts this point forcefully. He argues that it is up to the theist first to introduce and defend his proposed concept of God and, secondly, to provide sufficient reason for believing that this concept of his does have an application. Flew insists that the first of these stages needs to be emphasised even more strongly than the second. Cf. his, The Presumption of Atheism and Other Essays (London: Elek/Pemberton, 1976), p. 15. Hartshorne is a very prolific writer. A bibliography of his writings was published by his wife, Dorothy, in Process Studies XI, 2 (Summer, 1981), pp.108-112. Many of these present and develop his concept of God. This bibliography was revised and updated by Donald Wayne Viney and Randy Ramal and published in Process Studies, XXX, 2 (Fall-Winter 2001), pp.374-409 and is included in this volume by kind permission.

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2. The Process Approach But first, a word on the approach of process thinkers to this problem. In general, the process approach may be compared with that of the Jews who sought the help of philosophy in articulating their religious experience. These Jews who had come to accept Christianity turned to Hellenistic philosophy to supply them with categories which served the purpose of expressing their personal experience of God. Thus, the expression and amplification of their beliefs were influenced by Greek philosophy. In reformulating their scriptural view of God philosophically, they hoped to make it fully intelligible to themselves, and at the same time to communicate to the Greek Gentiles. They turned to philosophy because they wanted to show that their faith was fully compatible with reason. Thus, they carried out their theologising with a view to satisfying the demands of philosophical speculation. What the early Christian Jews did centuries ago is what process thinkers are attempting today. Like them, process thinkers are grappling with the problem of finding a satisfactory framework with which they can logically, consistently and adequately understand what religion means by 'God'. Their reason for embarking on what to some is a perilous journey is the claim that the classical concept of God which presents God as absolute, infinite, immutable, and so on is a one-sided translation of this central religious insight into philosophical categories. In other words, they believe that classical theism, which makes use of Greek categories, does not do full justice to what religion really believes God to be.5 They are not proposing a different God but an alternative way of understanding what is religiously meant by 'God' just as what the early Christian Jews wanted to put forward when they turned to Hellenistic philosophy was not a rival to Yahweh but a concept that was acceptable to their demand for logical sense. That the combination of Jewish religious insights with Greek categories was not entirely successful has led a number of believers to agree with Pascal that there is a vast difference between the God of the philosophers and the God of faith. What process thinkers are suggesting in our Process thinkers have sometimes been accused of not making clear what exactly they mean by classical theism. After all, there are important differences among those whom they group together as classical theists. But it seems that they refer primarily to Thomas Aquinas and his philosophy. See, among others: Hartshorne (with William Reese), Philosophers Speak of God (University of Chicago Press, 1953; Aquinas to Whitehead: Seven Centuries of Metaphysics of Religion. The Aquinas Lecture 1976 (Marquette University Publications, 1976); 'Thomas Aquinas and Three Poets who do not Agree with Him,' Process Studies, XXX, 2 (Fall-Winter, 2001), pp.261-275. For an exposition of the Thomistic concept of God, cf, among others, H.P. Owen op.cit., Chapter I.

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time is that another philosophical system may provide us with a more acceptable philosophical structure, one that would be more consistent with our basic, religious experience of God. Whether or not they are right in holding this view is, of course, another matter that demands a more thorough investigation. But what is process philosophy? Briefly, it is the metaphysical system developed by A.N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne and those influenced by them. Process thought attempts to interpret the whole of reality in terms of the categories of becoming and relatedness. This interpretation is based on our experience of the world as constantly changing and socially structured. It should be noted that process philosophy does not deny the categories of being, permanence or absoluteness, but it does claim that becoming and relatedness are more fundamental than being and absoluteness. According to process thinkers, if we recognise this primacy of becoming and relatedness over being and absoluteness, then we can make more sense of our experience of reality. In their God-talk—and this is what interests us here—process thinkers claim that just as we can understand reality better if we give priority to becoming and relatedness, we will meet with more success in our attempts to articulate what religion believes God to be if we say that God becomes and is relative, i.e. that God is really related to us. God is regarded, therefore, as supreme Becoming. God is also alleged to be supremely related to the world. In other words, they argue— contrary to classical theism—that God must be said to change. God is not an exception to but the exemplification of the metaphysical categories of becoming and relatedness. But God is also held to exemplify the categories of being and absoluteness. Thus, it is just as true to say that God is supreme Being and is absolute. (However, as we shall see, not in the sense of actus purus.) But why predicate change and relatedness of God? Because as far as process thinkers are concerned, the ideas of change and relatedness are inherent in the religious belief in a personal God.6 Hartshorne is of the opinion that, despite the differences among the major religions, it is possible to put forward a definite, coherent, and universal idea of God which can be regarded as the religious meaning of God whether one calls that reality God or Ishvara, Allah or the Holy One. God is held by these religions to be the Worshipful One who is

Hartshorne's analysis of what religion means by 'God' can be found scattered throughout his writings, particularly when he is arguing his case for 'dipolar theism'. See, among, others: Man 's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (Chicago: Willet, Clark 7 Co., 1941; rep. Anchor Books, 1964); 'The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy,' Talk of God: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol.11 (Macmillan, 1969), pp.152-167; 'Two Forms of Idolatry,' International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, I, 1 (Spring, 1970), pp.3-15. Cf. also my God in Process Thought: a Study in Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God (Martinus Nijhoff, 1985), pp. 9-18.

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the object of all our love and attention, who is present in everything because God embraces all, but who is unique because unsurpassable in goodness, power and knowledge. Hartshorne notes that religion does not speak of God's happiness as absolute for we are told that God is displeased by sin and sympathises with us because of God's love for us. It would seem then that the religious idea of God highlights our relationship with God as well as God's relationship with us. This interaction between God and us is an integral part of religious belief. There is talk of sacrifice and of serving God because the different religions believe that our good acts and happiness have a value to God which our bad acts and misery do not have. Since God is love, God cannot remain unmoved by the attempts of worshippers to please God. Likewise, God cannot be but saddened by their misery and sin. This way of talking about God may sound very anthropomorphic and, given the fact that religions tend to use concrete and picturesque language, one could object to Hartshorne's interpretation of the religious idea of God. But to raise this objection is really to miss Hartshorne's point. What he is more interested in stating is that religion talks of a real relationship existing between God and man. It is a mutual relationship that is being described in anthropomorphic terms.

3. Hartshorne's Idea of God So far I have been talking of the need for examining the concept of God and of the process approach which emphasises becoming and relatedness. Let us now see how Hartshorne develops the idea of God in his philosophy.7 Charles Hartshorne is regarded as the process thinker who has contributed most to this issue. According to Hartshorne, if God is regarded as the object of our worship—and God is so regarded in religion—then God must be perfect for only someone who is perfect can be admired, respected and reverenced without Hartshorne has developed his concept of God in many of his writings. See, among others, The Divine Relativity: a Social Conception of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948); The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics (La Salle: Open Court, 1962); Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1941; N.Y.: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1948; reprinted by Archon Books, 1964); Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (SUNY Press, 1984), 'Thoughts on the Development of my Concept of God,' The Personalist Forum, 14 (1998), pp. 77-82; 'God as Composer-Director, Enjoyer, and, in a Sense, Player of the Cosmic Drama,' ed. D.W. Viney, Process Studies, XXX, 2 (2001), pp. 34-45.

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limit. But God's perfection has been interpreted by classical theism to mean 'non-relative or devoid of any relations and is therefore incapable of change or increase'. It was felt that in order to uphold God's perfection consistently, one must say that God is absolute, completely immutable and totally independent. Hartshorne maintains that although one can find this insistence on God's unchangeableness in religious teachings, it is God's goodness which is affirmed never to change or to be 'without a shadow of turning'. Religion considers God to be all-good; God is completely reliable for no matter what changes there may be in us, God's concern for our well-being will not waver. There can be no change whatsoever in God in this sense. But this talk of God's constancy in goodness does not justify a general conclusion to God's immutability or absoluteness. To support his view, Hartshorne reminds us that religion also emphasises God's social and personal nature. For religion, God is the highest ruler, judge and benefactor who knows, loves and assists us with a view to sharing happiness with him. All this would indicate that God is definitely related to us. How then should one understand God's worshipfulness which implies perfection and at the same time take account of God's social nature? According to Hartshorne, this can be done by using the philosophical category of 'unsurpassability' rather than of absoluteness. For God to be worshipful, God must be unsurpassable. God's status excludes any rivalry or superiority on the part of any other individual, actual or potential. God is a 'being than which nothing or no one is or could be greater'. Because only God is unsurpassable, God is qualitatively different from everyone else. But while God cannot be surpassed by others, God can surpass Godself. While there can be no change whatsoever in God's status, there can be change in God. God can surpass Godself, not in the sense of becoming more God but in the sense of being affected by what others do. But surely, if God is worshipful, God must be perfect in Godself and not merely in comparison with others. To say that God can surpass Godself and can change is equivalent to saying that God can grow in perfection. If this is true, then God must not have been perfect in the first place. Therefore, according to classical theism, God's perfection must be considered absolute i.e. 'complete and incapable of enhancement'. Absolute perfection means the actualisation of every potentiality. In classical theism God was described as being perfect in this sense, hence the phrase 'actus purus'. Because God possesses everything that is in accordance with the nature of a supreme Being, nothing can be contributed to God. God is necessarily all that God is capable of being. Unlike ordinary or imperfect individuals which fail to actualise some of their potentialities, God was conceived to be pure actuality, that is, to have no unactualised aspect of God's reality. Classical theism argued that if God did not already possess all possible values,

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God would not be God. God as the absolutely perfect being was considered to lack no possible value. Hartshorne objects to this interpretation of God's perfection because he considers it contradictory (aside from his claim referred to earlier that it fails to take cognisance of a basic feature of the religious idea of a personal God). 'Absolute perfection' is contradictory because not all values can co-exist, he argues. To say that God's perfection means that everything in God is fully actualised is to forget that some values contradict one another. There are incompatible values so that the notion of 'all possible values, fully actualised' is nonsensical. For instance, God cannot be said to know me as going out for a walk and at the same time as writing this essay. Both are positive values. If I am going out for a walk, then God knows me in that state. But in knowing me in that state, God is excluding from the content of God's knowledge the other value (knowing me as writing this essay). God cannot know me as doing the two things together at the same time—not because of any limitation on God's part, but because the two simply cannot co-exist. The second value, given the actuality of the first, is a potential value for me as well as for God. To say that all possible value is actual in God because God is God is to make possibility and actuality co-extensive and for all purposes identical. But this would empty 'actualisation' of all meaning whereas it means that one does or is this and for that reason not to do this or be that. Thus, if the notion of absolute perfection understood in the sense of actus purus is contradictory, then we cannot affirm it of God. Even God cannot be said to have all values actualised because this is nonsensical. Hartshorne's other objection, which we have briefly touched on, to the classical interpretation of God's perfection as absolute and therefore incapable of any change whatsoever is that the denial of change in any form in God makes it impossible to make sense of religious beliefs. The doctrine of total immutability cannot be reconciled with the religious stress on God's love and our duty to serve God. Religions teach that what we do makes a difference to God. Because God cares for us what we do matters to God. But if all possible values were already actualised in God, then there is no point in our doing anything at all. There would be no sense in serving God. If God is unaffected by the acts of creatures, God would hardly be described as sympathetic. Hartshorne argues that an important feature of the religious idea of God is that God is one with whom we are able to enter into a personal relationship. And this is understood as mutual relationship. Mutual relationship means being moved by whatever happens to the other party. To love is to be really affected by what the other does. If God is the God of compassion and understanding, then it must mean that God really and literally responds to our feelings with sympathetic appreciation. Compassion implies that one is truly, and not merely 31

apparently, touched by our plight. An unmoved mover or, worse still, an unmovable mover is hardly our model of love, compassion and sympathy. God's relationship with us, understood religiously, points to a certain receptivity or passivity on God's part. But this means that there must be some change in God. According to Hartshorne, God must therefore be regarded as capable of change. But in conformity with God's nature as unsurpassable, God changes eminently—and only eminently. This means that one cannot attribute decay or decrease in value to God. Thus, while ordinary individuals may change by increasing or decreasing in value, God can only increase. God cannot become inferior, even to Godself, but can and endlessly does surpass Godself as well as all others. For Hartshorne, then, God's perfection understood as 'unsurpassability' is relative rather than absolute. Such an interpretation allows for change in God. Hartshorne maintains that it also leaves open the possibility of taking seriously any claim of a personal relationship with God, a relationship that means something to us as well as to God. In conformity with God's supreme nature, God is supremely moved by everything that happens whereas none of us is universally or fully moved by everything. In showing that God can and does change, Hartshorne wants to give support to the religious doctrine that God is someone personally related to us. Hartshorne is thus maintaining that the categories of becoming and relatedness also apply to God though in an eminent way. For Hartshorne, then, God changes, really changes. But God is also said to be immutable and absolute in some respects. For instance, God's unsurpassability is never-changing. There is no question of God's identity being threatened by anyone. No matter what anyone does, God's superiority cannot be challenged. It remains constant. God possesses an absolutely immutable quality, the quality of being universally superior, of surpassing absolutely all others. Whatever non-divine creatures do, they cannot alter God being God. Thus, while God in God's relatedness is responsive to every item of reality, God's identity is infallibly secure or non-touchable. In this respect, God is absolute and immutable. For this reason, God is different from us in principle and not just in degree. This claim that God is relative and absolute, immutable and changing, leads Hartshorne to say that God is dipolar: God has a concrete pole (aspect) and an abstract pole.8 God is related and changing in God's concreteness while

John Polkinghorne describes this notion of divine dipolarity as 'a gift from the process theologians that has found much wider acceptance among many twentieth-century

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in God's abstract aspect God is absolute and unchanging. Neither aspect can be comprehended apart from the other. The concreteness of anything (which Hartshorne refers to as its actuality) is how that something exists. It is to be contrasted with its abstract existence, that it is. How something exists is far richer and more complex than the bare fact that it is. Concrete actuality therefore is more than bare existence. This distinction between concrete actuality and abstract existence is of such vital importance in Hartshome's doctrine of God that we should clarify it further by using the human person as an example. When I refer to John's concrete actuality, I am referring to John who is constantly changing. He grows up, he does this or that, he is affected by the things and people around him—in short, he changes in so many ways. The actual or the real John constantly changes and is related. However, if I were to exclude all these changes and the social and the personal side of John, what I have is the bare fact that there is a John—devoid of all the colour and all the richness which make up the person John. John is real in his concreteness. His existence is merely an abstract aspect of him. What Hartshorne does when speaking of God is to use the same distinction between concrete actuality which constantly changes and is related, and abstract existence which does not undergo any change and is therefore outside any relationships.9 When Hartshorne says that God is related, changing yet absolute and immutable, he has in mind God's 'dipolarity', i.e., the distinction between God's concrete actuality and God's abstract existence. He is referring to only one entity but is taking into account the two aspects of the same entity. There is only one God but there are two aspects in God. Although he is attributing contrasting predicates to the same individual, he is predicating them in different ways. When he says that God is immutable but also changing, relative yet absolute, he means that God is immutable and absolute as far as his abstract existence is concerned; God changes and is really related as far as God's concrete actuality is the point of reference. Since he is predicating these contrasting predicates in diverse ways, he maintains that he is not violating the principle of non-contradiction which holds that one cannot affirm contradictory predicates of the same reality at the same time. Hartshorne says that 'absolute-

theologians' in his Belief in God in an Age of Science (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 69. This importance of this distinction can be seen in that it has been adopted as the title of a book dedicated to Hartshome's thought, Existence and Actuality: Conversations with Charles Hartshorne, edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. and F.I. Gamwell (University of Chicago Press, 1984).

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ness' and 'relatedness' are being predicated of God in diverse ways since these predicates refer to different aspects of God.10

4. Comments It should be obvious from the above exposition of Hartshorne's idea of God that we are being presented with a philosophical understanding of God which differs considerably from that of classical theism." For this reason, one would really have to delve much deeper into it to do it justice. There are a number of important issues which ought to be raised in connection with such a concept of God, and which need further attention.12 In his numerous writings Hartshorne has tried to elaborate on his concept of God.13 Other process thinkers have For a more extensive discussion of this doctrine, see Chapter 3 of my God in Process Thought. For an application and development of the doctrine of dipolarity to our understanding of God's knowledge, power and goodness, see chs. 4-6 of the same book. There have been a number of writings comparing the process concept of God with the Thomistic one. See, among others, John J. O'Donnell, S.J. 'The Impasse of Whitehead's Novel Intuition for Christian Theology,' The Heythrop Journal, XX, 1979, pp.267-278; Illtyd Trethowan, 'God's Changelessness,' The Clergy Review (January, 1979) pp. 15-21; Joseph Donceel S.J., 'Second Thoughts on the Nature of God,' Thought, XLVI, 182 (1971), pp.346-370; Walter Stokes S.J., 'Is God Really Related to the World?' Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (CUA, 1965); John Moskop, Divine Omniscience and Human Freedom: Thomas Aquinas and Charles Hartshorne (Atlanta: Mercier UP, 1984); Norris Clarke S.J., 'A New Look at the Immutability of God,' in R. Roth (ed.), God Knowahle and Unknowable (Fordham University Press, 1973); W. Norris Clarke, 'Charles Hartshorne's Philosophy of God: a Thomistic Critique,' in S. Sia (ed.), Charles Hartshorne 's Concept of God: Philosophical and Theological Responses (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), pp. 103-123; Lewis Ford, 'Process and Thomistic Views Concerning Divine Perfection,' and W. Norris Clarke, 'Comments on Professor Ford's Paper,' in Gerard A. McCool, The Universe as Journey: Conversations with W. Norris Clarke, SJ (Fordham University Press, 1988). H.P. Owen has raised some questions on process theology, particularly on its concept of God, op.cit., pp.75-89. See also E. Mascall, The Openness of Being (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971); Hugo Meynell 'The Theology of Hartshorne,' Journal of Theological Studies, N.S. XXIV, 1 (April, 1973). A critical account on this conceptually will also be found in Colin Gunton, Becoming and Being: The Doctrine of God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth (OUP, 1978). Among the more readily available sources of the process concept of God, aside from Hartshorne's own works are: Norman Pittenger, God in Process (SCM, 1967); his Picturing God (SCM, 1982); Schubert Ogden, The Reality of God and Other Essays (Harper & Row, 1966); John Cobb and David Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Christian Journals, 1976); Geoffrey B. Kelly, 'The Nature of God 34

likewise developed what to them are significant implications of this conceptuality. On the other hand, critics of process thought have underlined what they consider to be its weaknesses. Some of these critics have been quite insistent on their rejection of process thought while others have been rather cautious. The debate is going on, a debate which is necessary if process thought is to contribute anything worthwhile to the important task of reflecting critically on the religious experience of believers. Although there has been much critical work done in this field, more is called for.14 In my presentation of process thought I tried to show that the acceptability of the process idea of God depends to a large extent on the argument that one can make a distinction between one's basic concrete experience and the articulation, particularly in an intellectual sense, of that experience. It will be recalled that this distinction plays an important role in the process approach to the topic under consideration. It will also help us assess the significance of the process concept of God. For one would have to consider whether the process conceptuality is an adequate as well as meaningful articulation of what God is held to be religiously. Thus, it is not just the relevance or the consistency of this way of thinking that requires scrutiny, but also its adequacy. Process thinkers insist that what they are proposing is an alternative framework for understanding the believers' concrete experience of God. Believers, therefore, will have to judge for themselves whether they find in process thought a fuller and a more faithful expression of their basic insights compared to, say, classical theism.15 But whatever conclusion one draws, it should be borne in mind that a in Process Theology,' Irish Theological Quarterly, XVI, I (1979), pp.1-20. For a useful introduction to process philosophy, see the anthology of writings by process philosophers, edited by Douglas Browning and William T. Myers, Philosophers of Process (N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 1998). For a study on Hartshorne's defense of God's existence, see Donald Wayne Viney, Charles Hartshorne and God's Existence (SUNY Press, 1985). A list of secondary writings on Hartshorne's thought was published by Dorothy Hartshorne in Process Studies, III, 3, (Fall 1973), pp. 179-227, and brought up to date in Process Studies, XI, 2, (Spring, 1981), pp.112-120. Several other studies on Hartshorne's thought and influence have appeared since then. A good source is the website of the Center for Process Studies at Claremont, www.ctr4process.org. What I am referring to may be compared with the way Thomas Aquinas made use of Aristotle's philosophy to present and synthesise his Christian beliefs, or with the way the early Fathers turned to Hellenistic conceptualities. It was not just a question of adopting but of adapting. It must be borne in mind that Christian belief affirms a triune God. Cf. Introduction to this book. What Vincent Briimmer maintains is particularly relevant here: 'Religious traditions like Christianity are not timelessly immutable but constantly require translation, reconceptualisation and re-interpretation in order to maintain their relevance and adequacy, as well as their intelligibility and

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philosophical expression is not to be confused with one's basic experience. Some philosophical expressions will be found to be much more suitable than others in conveying what one intuitively holds. But the expression is not the same as the intuition. It would be regrettable if the philosophical expression were to replace the fundamental experience. I believe that the process idea of God should be seen in this light: it is a philosophical or conceptual expression. If process thinkers were to regard thejr concept of God as the religious experience of God, then they would be guilty of the same fault that they accuse classical theists of having committed. An analogy, albeit an inadequate one, may be useful to clarify my point. A particular dress can accentuate the beauty of a model, drawing out her admirable features. There is no question here of hiding her less-than-presentable side or of pretending that she is more beautiful than she really is. Let us, for the sake of argument, accept that she is beautiful. Sometimes one particular dress 'does her justice' or 'really suits her' while another, although it may be more expensive, fashionable or elegant, does not. Care regarding her dress is called for because the beauty of the model can be lost simply because the dress chosen was not the most appropriate. The criterion here is the model's beauty; one judges the dress against it. The dress is not what really makes the model beautiful, it simply highlights it. In the same way, the philosophical expression of an experience is not the experience. Process thought is one of many philosophical expressions of our religious idea of God. Whether it is the most adequate or suitable is for the different believers to decide. Process thinkers claim that their God-talk is based on our experience of reality in general. Thus, they have been accused of affirming creaturely characteristics of God. The objection has been made that they do not clearly distinguish God from creation. This criticism deserves a more careful consideration than can be given here because it really strikes at their approach to the Godproblem on which their concept of God is based. But a brief comment on this point will not be out of place here. Process thinkers turn to our experience of the world around us to help us understand God in a more meaningful way. Hume and Kant have argued—quite conclusively in the opinion of many—that ideas which are not grounded in experience are bereft of meaning. The old notion of going 'beyond experience' resulted in the disrepute of metaphysics. The God-talk that process thinkers are engaged in is one that is alleged to have taken serious account of this objection: their concept of God is rooted in our experience of reality. In process metaphysics, the whole of reality is held to be credibility.' 'The Identity of the Christian Tradition' in Marcel Sarot and Gijsbert van den Brink (eds.) Identity and Change in the Christian Tradition (Peter Lang, 1999), p. 24.

3$

constantly changing and yet having certain unchanging aspects. Becoming and relatedness as well as being and absoluteness are universal traits. To talk of God as unchanging and really related to us is not to limit God but to show God's continuity with our everyday experience. God is the exemplification of, rather than the exception to, metaphysical principles. By metaphysical here is meant 'universally true'. Were God to be regarded as 'outside any metaphysical category', it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to say anything about God that would make sense. The only consistent conclusion is to remain silent. It should be noted however, that in maintaining that God is the exemplification of metaphysical principles, process thinkers point out that God is not just another instance of these principles. God exemplifies them; only God has that status and this is what makes God unique. Thus, God is radically different from everyone and everything else. But is it true that change and relatedness are truly universal? One could argue, as indeed some have done, that to change and to be related are creaturely characteristics. To predicate these of God—even if God is said to exemplify them—is ultimately to blur the distinction between Creator and creatures. God, as tradition apparently holds, is completely immutable whereas everything else changes. So what justification do process thinkers have for predicating change and relatedness to God? I have already explained some of their reasons. But a number of process thinkers seek further support in the doctrine of the Incarnation, presuming that we accept it. According to them, Christians believe that Jesus Christ has taught us what God is really like: someone who is generally concerned with our welfare. His teachings describe God as a loving father, in language that leaves no doubt as to what God's nature is. Furthermore, Christians believe that Jesus is God, that he is God incarnate. Whitehead once said that Jesus is the 'revelation in act' of that which Plato and other thinkers have discerned in theory. He discloses God not in mere speculation but in a concrete historical act. In him we have begun to appreciate the manifest expression of the character of God: that God is immanent in the world, that God is love and is really related to us and is concerned with and involved in our daily lives. In Jesus we have the true key to our understanding of God and of God's way with human beings. If one* therefore, were to ask what God's nature is, one has only to turn to Jesus Christ. This is not to say that everything that is true of Jesus Christ can be said to apply to God. Only Jesus Christ, for instance, suffered physically. As Daniel D. Williams explains: We miss what is involved in the question about God's suffering if we think primarily of physical pain, mental torment or death. These are forms of human suffering to be sure. In Christ, God has in some ways experienced them. But 'suffering' has a broader meaning. It signifies to 37

undergo, to be acted upon, to live in a give and take with others. To say that God suffers means that he is actively engaged in dealing with a history which is real to him. What happens makes a difference to him. He wins an actual victory over the world through a love which endures and forgives. It means that the world's sorrow and agony are real to God, indeed in one way more real to him than to us, for only an infinite love can enter completely into sympathetic union with all life.16 Surely, process thinkers argue, the incarnation presents us with the true picture of God. If we take serious account of it, we should see—it is claimed— further justification for thinking of God in the way process thinkers conceive God to be.

Daniel D. Williams, What Present-Day Theologians Are Thinking (Harper, 1952) quoted by Bernard E. Meland, 'The New Creation,' in Ewert H. Cousins (ed.), Process Theology (Newman Press, 1971), p. 198. The claim that God suffers is usually rejected because of the doctrine of divine impassibility. In his book, God, Passibility and Corporeality (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992), Marcel Sarot provides a brief discussion of the reasons for, and biblical sources of, this doctrine. He also puts forward arguments in favour of the view that God is passible. Sarot maintains that a passibilist theology can nevertheless do justice to the most important motives behind traditional impassibilism.

II

3. Hartshome on Describing God

1. Introduction In his writings Charles Hartshome has been emphatic in his claim that we can know, and therefore describe, God. Although Hartshome accepts that there is much about God that is describable only in negative terms, he nevertheless puts much stress on the possibility of positive or affirmative God-talk not only in the form of symbols and analogy but also of literal language. He rests his claim on a certain understanding of metaphysics which for him is the search for the general traits of reality. God in this scheme of things is said to exemplify metaphysical categories. It is within this metaphysical set-up that Hartshome locates positive and literal God-talk. This essay will, first of all, present Hartshome's position. It will then examine his claim critically. I wish to argue that while we can appreciate Hartshome's reasons for wanting to talk about God in a positive and literal manner, there are certain problematic areas in Hartshome's own God-talk. If my argumentation is right then Hartshome's description of God's nature as dipolar will have to be interpreted in a different light.

2. Ways of Speaking about God Hartshome acknowledges different ways of speaking of God: symbolic, literal (ox formal) and analogical. One is talking of God in a symbolic way when one calls God a rock, a king, a shepherd or a parent. Hartshome also calls this kind of predication 'material' because the implied comparison is in terms of a concrete species of reality, a particular part of the psychophysical universe. God is As has been noted in the previous essays, it is Hartshome's contention that many of the contradictions associated with the traditional notion of an absolute God can be resolved by conceiving of God as dipolar. For an account of this reinterpretation of God's reality, see among others, his Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (SCM Press, 1970), chapter XIII. His recent book, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (SUNY Press, 1994), written for a more general readership continues to defend the notion of a dipolar God. For an assessment from different philosophical and theological perspectives, cf. S. Sia (ed.), Charles Hartshome's Concept of God: Philosophical and Theological Responses (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990).

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being compared with a parent, a rock and so forth; but it is understood that God is not on the same level as these entities nor is God really a rock or a parent.2 Hartshorne explains symbolic (or material) predication by contrasting it with literal (or formal) predication. In formal predication no specific entity like parent or rock serves as a basis for comparison. Instead, purely abstract and general philosophical categories such as space, time, and becoming are employed. Thus, symbolic predication, since it resorts to specific images, is logically in a different class from formal predication which makes use of purely abstract categories. The two types of predication differ from each other also in their application. The categories of formal predication have a literal meaning, i.e. they may be asserted or denied of a thing in a given aspect. In contrast, symbolic terms like 'father' admit of more definite alternatives than 'not being a father'. Hartshorne explains that not being literally a father opens up all sorts of possibilities having next to nothing in common with one another such as not being alive, conscious, or sentient at all, on the one hand, or being the unsurpassable form of living, conscious creator, on the other. The alternative to being a ruler or shepherd covers a vast number of other possibilities. But not to be necessary is simply to be contingent. The same can be said about the other abstract forms, e.g. finite, relative. There are not a variety of possible forms of reality which would constitute an alternative to being relative, other than to be nonrelative or absolute. Thus, unlike symbolic predication, literal or formal predication is not a matter of degree but of all or none.4 When one comes to literal predication itself, Hartshorne talks of two forms: negative and positive. Negative God-talk uses literal language but denies its applicability to God. In saying that God is in no way corporeal or temporal, one is maintaining that these literal concepts are inadmissible in the case of God. The other type of literal God-talk, in contrast, advances farther by

Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics (Open Court, 1962), p. 134. Hartshorne, however, adds that 'not contingent' may mean necessary or impossible (necessarily false or non-existent), 'not finite' can have several meanings as mathematicians know. But all of these are very abstract, not like being a mother or brother as cases of not being a father. Hartshorne, Tillich and the Non-theological Meaning of Theological Terms,' Religion in Life, XXXV, 5 (Winter, 1966) p. 677. See also, 'Tillich and the other Great Tradition,' Anglican Theological Review, XLIII, 3 (July 1961), p. 251; 'The Idea of God-Literal or Analogical?' Christian Scholar, XXIX, 2 (June, 1956), p.134; 'A Dual Theory of Theological Analogy,' American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, X,3 (1989), pp. 171-178.

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stating that one can speak of God not only literally but also positively. Hartshorne is convinced that literal knowledge of the positive kind can be achieved. He has persistently held this view in the face much opposition. In his book The Logic of Perfection he puts this on record: 'I wish now to emphasise my conviction that the formal predicates of deity are not exclusively negative, and accordingly, some positive properties of deity can be connoted by nonsymbolic designations.' Much of his time has been devoted to exploring the positive formal characterisations which seem to him compatible with the religious meaning of the term 'God'. It is Hartshome's contention that the most completely abstract general terms applicable to God are quite literal and positive. True, there is a difference in principle between the way they pertain to God and the way they apply to others; but the difference itself can be literally stated. In other words, there does not have to be a blurring of the distinction between God and non-divine realities. Hartshorne considers it a mistake to hold that no concepts describe God at all. He argues that unless there are definite common aspects between God and creatures, there can be no definite contrasts, either. That is to say, if we do not talk of God literally and positively, we cannot talk of God even negatively for then we would have no point of reference for our negative talk.6 He adds that the dogmatic refusal to consider positive formal properties of God results in the impossibility of making even decent symbolic sense out of such religious terms as love or purpose without covertly abandoning the formal negation. Unless one accepts that some categories are predicable of God in a literal and positive manner, there is no basis for either negative comparison or for symbolic talk. Both of these forms of talking about God actually presuppose literal and positive talk. Hartshorne consequently stresses that in its own interest, if not in that of religion, philosophy should not lightly renounce the hope of speaking logically and even literally of God.7 Besides symbolic language and literal predication (both negative and positive) there is a third type of God-talk discussed by Hartshorne. He calls it 'analogical' because here one describes God in a way which depends partly pp. 134-135 Hartshome's main criticism of negative theology is that it is being one-sided in negating only some, instead of all, concepts in their application to God. See, for example, 'Love and Dual Transcendence,' Union Seminary Quarterly Review, XXX, 2-4 (Winter-Summer, 1975), p. 96. Hartshorne, 'The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy,' in Talk of God: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. II, 1967-68 (Macmillan, 1969), p. 162. See also his 'Metaphysical and Empirical Aspects of the Idea of God,' in Philip E. Devenish and George I. Goodwin (eds.), Witness and Existence: Essays in Honor of Schubert M. Ogden (University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 177-189.

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upon one's philosophical beliefs. Hartshorne explains that, for instance, God is symbolically ruler, literally necessary, but analogically conscious and loving. This last description arises from our inability to say definitely how divine knowledge or love differs qualitatively form ours. We can express the difference quantitatively: God knows and loves all creatures, we know only some. But we cannot have a literal grasp of how God knows and loves all creatures for we cannot know and love anything as God does. The psychological conceptions, then, such as love, will, knowledge in the context of God-talk are analogical and not literal. They rely to some extent on how we understand human knowledge, will and love. However, Hartshorne also maintains that there is a strange sense in which analogical concepts apply literally to God and analogically to creatures. In comparing creatures with God, we come to an awareness of our defects only in so far as we know the divine standard. We do not first know our defects independently and then, by eliminating them, think of God's perfection. At times we actually use our awareness of God to furnish us with a criterion forjudging one's imperfections. Our understanding of human knowledge—and the same can be said of the other psychological conceptions—is a derivative one, produced by drastically restricting the idea we have of God's perfection. Given the variety of theories on the nature of human knowledge, Hartshorne is inclined to doubt whether anyone really knows what it is. 'Know' in the human case turns out to have a rather indefinite meaning whereas in the divine case one can state simply what God's infallible knowledge means: God has absolutely conclusive evidence concerning all truths. If knowledge is possession of evidence as to the state of affairs, then God simply knows. That is all there is to it, says Hartshorne, whereas no such plain definition will work for human knowledge. Thus, he insists that there is room for the belief that we are enabled to learn something about the creatures by our knowledge of the divine.9

LP, p. 134f. In Hartshorne's case these philosophical beliefs refer to his pansychism or psychicalism, a view which holds that all of reality 'feels' or 'prehends', each in its own way. He expounds and defends this view in many of his writings. Hartshorne, 'Are Religious Dogmas Cognitive and Meaningful?' Journal of Philosophy, LI, 5 (March 4, 1954), p. 149. See also LP, p. 141; 'Tillich and the other Great Tradition,' p. 255; 'God and Man not Rivals,' Journal of Liberal Religion, VI, 2 (Autumn, 1944), p. 11. In 'True Knowledge Defines Reality: What was True in "Idealism",' Journal of Philosophy, XIII, 21 (1946), p. 573. Hartshorne explains further his reason for saying that we know more of God's reality than our own, inasmuch as God is the ideal.

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3. Metaphysical Knowledge As was stated previously, what provides Hartshorne with the basis for his literal descriptions of God is the way he understands the nature of the metaphysical inquiry. Metaphysics for him is the study of the general features of experience.' This definition in some ways resembles that given by Whitehead: metaphysics is 'the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted'." One of the first points which will be noticed in Hartshorne's definition is that metaphysics is not, as is sometimes mistakenly conceived to be, the study of what is wholly transcendent or supersensible. It implies that what is metaphysical is not behind or above the physical or the observable but is itself included in the physical and the observable as well as everything else. He has affirmed in many of his writings that the pursuit of metaphysics is rooted in experience and that the analysis that metaphysicians conduct is related to experience. Hence, it is misleading to think of metaphysicians as seeking the object of their study 'behind' the objects of empirical science, if by this is meant that in their search for the ultimate causes of things or for essences, for example, metaphysicians are looking for something over and above experience. But what distinguishes metaphysics from other disciplines which likewise take experience as their starting point is its search for strict generality or universality. Unlike other disciplines, metaphysics examines the extremely general features of experience or its universal traits. It is the attempt to clarify those ideas (or categories) which are so general that no conceivable facts and no conceivable observations could fail to illustrate them.12 By virtue of the generality of these ideas, they are said always to be embodied in any experience; that is, they are exemplified in every experience. Any experience must not only be compatible with these metaphysical ideas but it must also corrobo-

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This definition of metaphysics is a paraphrased one. That it is definitely Hartshorne's understanding of metaphysics can be concluded from his various writings on this subject. See, for instance, CSPM, chapters II-VIII. On metaphysical knowledge of God, see his, 'Metaphysics and the Dual Transcendence of God,' Tulane Studies in Philosophy, 'Hartshorne's Neoclassical Theology,' ed. Forrest Wood, Jr. and Michael DeArmey, XXXIV (1986), pp. 65-72; also, 'Some Principles of Procedure in Metaphysics,' in G.F. McLean and Hugo Meynell (eds.), The Nature of Metaphysical Knowledge (Lanham: UP of America; 1988), pp. 69-75. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality (corrected ed. 1978), p. 13. There are, however, important differences between Hartshorne's and Whitehead's understanding of metaphysics. Cf. David Griffin, 'Hartshorne's Differences from Whitehead,' in Lewis S. Ford (ed.), Two Process Philosophers: Hartshorne's Encounter with Whitehead, AAR Studies in Religion, No. 5, (1973), pp. 45-48. CSPM, pp. 20-22.

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rate them. To quote Hartshorne, 'Metaphysical truths may be described as such that no experience can contradict them, but also such that any experience must illustrate them.'13 He cites as example the truth, which he maintains is metaphysical, that 'the present is always influenced by the past'. No possible experience could come into conflict with it. We cannot know that we are uninfluenced by the past since to know the past is to be influenced in one's state of knowledge by it.14 When Hartshorne therefore states that metaphysics is the study of the general features of experience, he means not only that metaphysical ideas are derived from experience but also that they are so general that they are true of all experience, actual or possible. This extension of the study of truly general features to include possible experience leads him to bring out another characteristic of the metaphysical task: the search for necessary truths. Metaphysical truths are necessary in that, unlike empirical truths or facts, they cannot be otherwise since they are about what is common to all possible facts. They are not just about this world but about reality in general, about any and all possible worlds. Hartshorne maintains that the validity of metaphysical ideas is in principle for all cosmic epochs.15 Consequently, the metaphysical search is more than the mere observation of reality (the method used by empirical sciences) since observation only shows what goes on in the actual world with its particular regularities or natural laws. Observation does not and cannot show what must go on or what principles would be valid in any viable, truly possible, world. Metaphysics, in contrast, tries to show that the features that distinguish the actual state of reality from conceivable or possible ones are the only ones worth knowing about reality. Or to put it in another way, the universality of metaphysical truths reveals their necessity. Since God is regarded by Hartshorne as within the metaphysical structure, these metaphysical truths apply to God although in an eminent manner.16 This position is reminiscent of the principle of eminence used in the classical tradition. But whereas that principle is employed in an analogical sense, Hartshorne's metaphysical standpoint endeavours to show which categories are applicable to God univocally or literally. In earlier writings Hartshorne referred

14

LP, p. 285. See also his, 'In Dispraise of Empiricism,' American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, X (1989), pp. 123-126. LP, p. 285.

15

Hartshorne, Beyond Humanism: Essays in the New Philosophy of Nature (Bison Book Edition, 1968), p. 260. Also, 'Can Man Transcend his Animality?' Monist, LV, 2 (April, 1971), pp. 210-211. Hartshorne, however, also insists that there is an important sense in which God is and must be an exception to metaphysical categories. See, A Natural Theology for Our Time (Open Court, 1967), pp. 33-65 and CSPM, p. 140, 144.

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to his use of the 'law of polarity', but he now prefers the phrase 'the principle of dual transcendence' since the latter makes explicit not only that God is to be described as embodying metaphysical contraries, e.g. relative/absolute, contingent/necessary, mutable/immutable, etc., but also that these metaphysical pairings are true of God in a uniquely excellent form.

4. The Status ofHartshorne 's God-talk Hartshorne's insistence on positive God-talk is understandable, given the apparently insurmountable difficulties facing the negative theologian. As he has shown us, negative God-talk is negative only on the surface, that is, it actually makes a positive or affirmative statement. A close examination of the ground on which such a discourse is taking place will unearth at least one affirmative statement; namely, that God is beyond our grasp. This positive content is presupposed. For one is in a position to evaluate something negatively only if one has access to some positive understanding against which certain statements are judged inappropriate. A positive understanding of God is assumed by any talk which considers certain attributes to be incompatible with God. It could also be added that if God were to be characterised entirely in negative concepts, then God would not be discernible from pure nothingness.17 The argument that all we can say is what God is not, results in a complete blank. Even Hartshorne's challenge that we should make the attempt to speak of God literally, while it may cause a stir, can nevertheless be appreciated. For pure symbolism in religious discourse risks being identified with meaningless chatter or elitism. This is because when one uses symbolic or metaphorical language, one is not yet telling us what one really means. What is required is that we try to spell out the exact sense of the symbols if they are to have any communicable meaning at all. It is for this reason that symbolic language really presupposes the use of literal language. Otherwise, it would have no meaning even for those using it. The same is true of analogical language which has to be made explicit if it is to have any intelligibility at all. If a term means something partly different when applied to God and if we cannot through literal language state how different its meaning then becomes, any argument in which analogy plays a part is unreliable.18 Anthony Flew makes this point in his God and Philososphy (Harcourt, Bruce & World, Ltd., 1967), p. 118. It seems to me that much of postmodernist talk of God is open to this criticism. Cf. H. Palmer, Analogy: a Study of Qualification and Argument in Theology (Macmillan, 1973), p. 26. Schubert Ogden identified certain difficulties with this aspect of Hartshorne's God-talk and suggested a way forward in his article, 'The Experience of

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Hartshorne's turn to experience as the basis of his metaphysical descriptions of God is an attempt to take those who have argued that ideas which are not grounded in experience are bereft of meaning. His approach rightly shows that we have no other way of knowing about anything, including God, except through and in human experience.19 We have only human experience to appeal to. Even revelation, it appears, must be referred to human experience for it to be intelligible by human beings. But there are areas in Hartshorne's God-talk, given his version of metaphysics, which remain problematic. For instance, to steer clear of gross anthropomorphism, Hartshorne depicts God as being different in principle. There are, we are told, qualitative differences between God and us. In fact, Hartshorne points to a 'unique form of logical type distinction' between God and any other individual being.20 Yet in distinguishing God from us in this fashion, Hartshorne runs the risk of being accused either of equivocation or of ambiguity. He would not, of course, accept that 'different in principle' means that God has been totally set apart and that as a result no comparison is possible. In fact, he maintains that God-talk can only be rooted in human experience. Thus, we start with human notions which are subjected to a test to see whether any of our characteristics are shared by non-human creatures. If they are, then they are not typically human categories. Consequently, they can be said to apply to others. If they are extremely general, they could even be extended to include God. But if Hartshorne is not being equivocal, how clear are his attempts to distinguish God from us? One example he resorts to in illustrating the difference in principle between God and everyone else is to say that God and only God is unsurpassably relative. Our idea of God as being unsurpassably relative, he says, is based on our experience of being relative. The qualification attached to God's form of relativity marks God out from everyone else since the rest of us are surpassable in our relativity. But 'surpassable relativity' is the only type of relativity that we are or will ever be familiar with. We have and can have no God: Critical Reflections on Hartshorne's Theory of Analogy' in Existence and Actuality: Conversations with Charles Hartshorne edited by John B. Cobb, Jr., and Franklin I. Gamwell (University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 16-37. See also Hartshorne's reply in the same publication. 'The Centrality of Reason in Philosophy,' Philosophy in Context Suppl. to Vol. 4 (1975), p. 6. Cf. also 'Can We Understand God?' Louvain Studies, VII, 2 (Fall 1978), p. 82. 20

CSPM, p. 140, 144. Hartshorne has been criticised for being anthropomorphic in his God-talk. See Colin Gunton, Becoming and Being: The Doctrines of God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth (OUP, 1978), p. 222; H.P. Owen, Concepts of Deity (Macmillan, 1971), p. 85. The problem, as I see it, is not anthropomorphism because Hartshorne does distinguish God from non-divine realities.

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experience of what 'unsurpassably relative' means. Although we may have some idea of it, that idea is actually that of being 'surpassably relative'. Even the attempt to define God's difference from us in terms of 'unsurpassability' is still unclear for its touchstone is our concrete experience of 'being surpassed' and its negation. In other words, there is no positive content to the idea of 'unsurpassable relativity'. If this is the case, then we are left wandering about in murky waters. But Hartshorne would probably counter that this is precisely why he has insisted on positive and literal descriptions of God. I suspect that this is one reason for his regarding God as also the supreme instance of metaphysical categories. For if God is indeed part of the metaphysical structure, then positive and even literal God-talk may be possible. But how does one show that God is within our metaphysical reach? This leads me to a second problematic area in Hartshorne's God-talk. It is Hartshorne's view that concrete experiencing establishes the correspondence between God and our God-talk. Knowledge, as he puts it, is always knowledge of something, i.e. it corresponds to something external to the knower. He maintains that metaphysical knowledge which gives us access to God, though in an abstract way, is gained through concrete experiencing. Without the latter there can be no abstract metaphysical knowledge. However, what all this amounts to in the present context is that empirical knowledge will lead us to an abstract knowledge of reality. To assert that it also helps us to know God is actually to pre-define the applicability of the metaphysical categories to include God. Instead of showing conclusively that it is indeed God we are talking about, Hartshorne's metaphysical route is reducible to an explanation of how we can know God, provided God is regarded as coming within metaphysics.21 But even if the assertion that God exemplifies the metaphysical set-up can be supposed, it is still not clear how Hartshorne's understanding of metaphysics enables us to apply our metaphysical judgements to God. Hartshorne himself is aware of the problems of really achieving what he calls metaphysical judgements. Because these are non-particularised or universal existential judgements, they are claimed to be necessary. Although a statement such as 'something exists' may assert the existence of something particular (e.g. 'something' could refer to the chair beside me) as a strictly generalised statement it is not restricted to any one particular object. And because it applies to everything and anything, it cannot but be true. It is, in brief, necessary. Hartshorne, however, would admit that it is in all cases only probable that we have Hartshorne's answer to this, I suspect, is that God is an all-inclusive reality. Therefore, in knowing any instance of reality, we already know God. But again this is really to predefine God's nature to meet the difficulty.

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approximated to a correct understanding of necessary truth. Granted that the most general ideas cannot possibly be untrue, it is nevertheless possible that we have confusedly grasped their meaning. Or to express it differently, while a metaphysical judgement seeks to express something which is universally and necessarily true, our apprehension of that truth may not always be correct. Mistakes can and often do occur. For this reason the metaphysical inquiry is an on-going process, a search to discover what is universally and necessarily true. Unlike mathematics, metaphysics cannot claim absolute certainty since the results arrived at in metaphysics lack the definiteness of purely mathematical ideas. The above observation simply means, Hartshorne would say, that we can be hasty in drawing up metaphysical conclusions since what we took to be a metaphysical truth turns out not to be so. But does it not show rather that any such conclusion can only be tentatively held and that, consequently, references to God, even those which we now regard as metaphysical ones, may not after all apply to God? This point should become clearer when we find out from Hartshorne how we arrive at such a generalised knowledge of reality. In his view it is not necessary to have all possible experiences but only some experiences coupled with the capacity to abstract or explicitly generalise. What creates problems for the would-be metaphysician is not the process of generalisation since even outside of metaphysics we are prone to generalise. The real difficulty in the kind of generalisation demanded in metaphysics is in distinguishing metaphysical concepts from non-metaphysical ones. Hartshorne explains this point by contrasting metaphysics with natural science. In natural science one pays attention to the details of experience and then generalises these details so as to arrive at the total system of details which distinguish the actual world from the rest of the cosmos. In metaphysics one turns to the generic traits of human experience which one then generalises in order to arrive at the generic traits of all experience, actual and possible, and from here to discover the abiding features of the entire cosmos.21 But since the metaphysician must be concerned with the adequacy of his findings, he must evaluate them by deducing their consequences and comparing them with the relevant data of experience. One can enlist the aid of the natural sciences in this task since they can discredit generalisations which one is claiming to be valid for all time and all existence. Natural sci-

Hartshorne, 'Metaphysics for Positivists,' Philosophy of Science, II, 3 (July, 1935), p. 293. BH, p. 268; Also his, "The Structure of Metaphysics: a Criticism of Lazerowitz's Theory,' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XIX, 2 (Dec, 1958), p. 226.

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ences can bring up instances which would falsify such a generalisation. Metaphysical ideas and judgements must be referred back to experience to test their generality. Therefore, it is important for these ideas and judgements not just to be coherently linked up but also to be adequate to other experiences, i.e. not to be falsified by them. For if they are falsified, then they are not really metaphysical. Hartshorne's criterion then for what is truly metaphysical is: unfalsifiability. He adopts and adapts Karl Popper's argument that a hypothesis is scientific if it cannot be observationally falsified, not if it can be verified. Hartshorne explains that it is doubtful if, strictly speaking, any scientific generalisations have been verified in the sense that it has been shown to be true exactly as it stands. The really crucial experiments are not those which stand a chance of proving some theory but those which can disprove it. As he puts it, 'One instance clearly not in accordance with a supposed law refutes the law, but many instances in conformity with the law still do not prove it.'25 Hence, he supports Popper's view that falsification rather than direct verification is the more viable criterion; but he adds that in metaphysics falsification must be a priori}6 This means, a metaphysical claim must not only be unfalsifiable by fact but also by reason. In the attempt to discover absurdity one can turn to logic and mathematics. Hartshorne regards logic as the search for alternatives, the exploration of the possibility of formulating an alternative to one's initial idea or statement. In a way the initial idea or statement is a hypothesis which needs to be tested. By constructing a logically complete classification of possible ideas, one can avoid a question-begging procedure. In this respect mathematics too is useful because through mathematically possible combinations the definiteness and completeness of the possibilities along which the truth must lie-so long as the truth can be expressed through concepts initially proposed-can be certified. What these mathematically possible combinations cannot certify is the truth of that statement. Hartshome brings out the importance of conducting a mathematical survey of possibilities by making the observation that we do not adopt philosophical positions because they are beyond question nor because conclusions are deemed to be completely satisfactory but because they seem to be stronger or 24

25

BH, p. 292. Hartshorne, 'The Modem World and a Modern View of God,' Crane Review, IV, 2 (Winter, 1962), p. 76. 'Twelve Elements of My Philosophy,' The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, V, 1 (Spring, 1974), p. 10. See also CSPM, ch. 2, and 'The Development of my Philosophy,' in John E. Smith (ed.), Contemporary American Philosophy: Second Series (Allen & Unwin, 1970), p. 220.

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more satisfactory than alternative positions. It is, he believes, a matter of preference and not of absolutely sun-clear evidence and perfect understanding. 7 Granting this way of looking at metaphysics and of testing the validity of our conclusions, one is inclined to ask: at what stage can we justifiably claim that our ideas or judgements are truly metaphysical, that is, universal and therefore necessary? Hartshorne's criterion of 'a priori unfalsifiability' which leads to the elimination of alternatives merely establishes the unsoundness of those alternatives. It does not yet show that the remaining alternative possesses the characteristics of universality and necessity. To say that we can regard something as metaphysical until it is falsified is really to admit that it is provisionally held and therefore not necessary. The necessity and universality which Hartshorne recognises in 'metaphysical statements' are logical or analytical traits. In other words, if a statement is metaphysical, then by definition it is universal and necessary. If it is universal and necessary, then it is by the same factor metaphysical. But what we need to be shown is that our conclusions merit the label 'metaphysical'. Until this is done then it is hard to see how one's God-talk truly applies to God since such a conclusion depends on our previous acceptance of the claim that metaphysical statements do extend to God. It is a claim which in my opinion remains uncertified. If the above argumentation is right, then Hartshorne's reference to God's nature as dipolar-as he has done in so many of his writings-should be interpreted not so much as a description of what God is really like but rather as an attempt to provide us with excellent reasons why we should think of God's nature as dipolar. It is a less ambitious claim regarding our descriptions of God, but I think it is a more defensible one.28

27

28

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Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (Archon Books, 1964 rep.), p. 34. See also his 'Can Philosophers Cooperate Intellectually: Metaphysics as Applied Mathematics,' The Midwest Quarterly, XXXV (1993), pp. 8-20. I am grateful to Professor Schubert Ogden for his comments and criticisms of an earlier version of this article.

4. Evil and Creativity Hartshorne on the Problem of Evil

1. Evil as a Problem The existence of evil has always been a source of serious and often perplexing questioning. When confronted with the miseries and the agony of people around us, especially those of the innocent and of our loved ones, we inevitably wonder why there is so much suffering in the world. At times we may know the immediate cause, for instance, someone's foolish act; but this is small consolation because the knowledge of how something has resulted in a person's affliction is not sufficient to justify his or her plight. In other words, the reality of suffering demands not just an explanation but also a justification. This is why the traditional distinction between moral evil (the consequence of human free acts) and natural evil (natural disasters which are considered to be outside our reasonable control) can sometimes be unhelpful. Even when we know how the suffering came about, its very existence will continue to trouble us. For it does not make sense that creatures should be prey to such suffering.2 But why does evil cause such existential questioning? Why is it problematic? Usually the reality of evil is presented as a theistic problem in that its existence is allegedly irreconcilable with the belief in a truly benevolent and omnipotent God. It is held that an entirely righteous and loving God who has the power to abolish suffering would not wish to inflict it on creatures. On the other hand, while theists should indeed expect to feel threatened on this point, it ought not to be forgotten that whether we believe in a God or not, we will still find evil problematic and to a large extend absurd.3 We will There is an important distinction between 'evil' and 'suffering' since not all suffering would be considered evil. However, in the context of this essay, I am referring to those kinds of suffering which lead us to raise the problem of evil. John Polkinghorne puts it even more strongly when he writes, 'The problem of suffering is not simply a rational conundrum; it is a deep existential challenge to human trust in the value and victory of goodness.' Belief in God in an Age of Science (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,1998), p. 43. Marcel Sarot expresses this rather graphically when he writes, 'models of the good life often collapse in the face of the harsh realities of evil and suffering.' Living a

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continue to ask the same fundamental question simply because evil cuts across our understanding of 'how things ought to be'. Human nature is such that we are sensitive to and disposed towards certain standards, e.g. moral or aesthetic. We may not always pursue these standards or even want to do so especially since we are not always clear as to what they are. But basically we are creatures who can distinguish between what we believe ought to be and what in fact is the case. It is this capacity to distinguish between the two and the realisation that evil is an impediment to the fulfillment of that which ought to be that makes us wonder why it is not otherwise. Even the atheist or non-believer who challenges the theist sees the problem in terms of this distinction. Hence, we all ask: what stops the fulfillment of what ought to happen? What is the reason for its non-fulfillment? Why is the situation the way it is and not otherwise? That the reality of evil is just as much a humanistic as a theistic problem should help us to see that some theistic explanations, such as suffering is part of God's plan as if it is deliberately willed by God, are not only misguided but also insensitive. They are misguided because they give the wrong idea of God and insensitive because they belittle the tragedy of suffering. In any attempt, therefore, to meet the challenge of evil we should be conscious that evil poses difficulties for us all insofar as we are human beings and not merely because some of us believe that there is a God. Evil mars our understanding of how reality should be, an understanding that arises from being the kind of creatures that we are. Evil, as has already been noted, contradicts the theistic claim of a good and powerful God and undermines our awareness of how reality ought to be. Hence, we need to find an answer. In this sense, the search for an answer is really a search for a solution, i.e. an explanation that would establish the logical soundness of our claims. However, we are not just thinking beings who have the need to reconcile contradictions in our thinking, to untangle knots as it were. We are also agents. This is why the reality of evil demands a practical answer from us; that is, a response to change the situation.4 Neglect of this side of the problem can result, as indeed it unfortunately has, in an endeavour to meet the intellectual challenge of suffering by saying that we need not be overanxious about its presence here because everything will be rectified in the next world. Although this may not have been intended by the belief in an afterlife, it conveys nevertheless the mistaken impression that we do not have to Good Life in Spite of Evil (Peter Lang, 1999), p. 31. Sarot offers an analysis of different kinds of evil and discusses how one is to cope with life, given all the evils. H. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (London: Pan Books. 1982), p. 154.

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face up to our responsibility to make this world a happier place for everyone to live in. As agents, we ought to do something about the suffering, misery and sad plight of many. And many times we are in a position to remove the causes of such suffering. Especially where it is the consequence of injustice and selfishness, then we must not only alleviate suffering but we must also actively seek to uproot it. Accepting the fruits of the wicked deeds of people will only reinforce their greed and perpetuate their crime. We should—because we often can—reduce the gravity and extent of suffering also brought about by the action of other creatures and by natural phenomena. At times, however, taking up the practical challenge of suffering will take the form of siding with the victim. For Tarrou in Camus' novel The Plague, this is the only possible response to the suffering in the world. The amount of good that results from the way some people react to tragedies is one way of meeting the practical challenge of suffering and of rising above its absurdity.5 The lives of many people have testified to what can be done. It is to their credit that what initially was a handicap becomes the means for transforming their own and other people's lives.

2. Hartshome's Solution So far I have indicated that evil is not just a theistic but also a humanistic problem and that it presents theoretical difficulties and practical demands. Now I would like to examine how Charles Hartshome deals with the problem of evil. Hartshorne's solution to the problem of evil as discussed earlier makes use of the concept of 'creativity' and is in line with his pansychism.6 He can perhaps be regarded as dealing with the theoretical dimension of the problem inasmuch as he attempts to explain why there is evil in the world and to recon-

Here I cannot but reflect on the worldwide reaction to the tragedy, known as 9/11, that rocked America. Hartshome, 'Panpsychism: Mind as Sole Reality,' Ultimate Reality and Meaning. 1 (1978), pp 115-129. See also his 'Creativity as a Value and Creativity as a Transcendental Category,' in Micheal H. Mitias (ed.), Creativity in Art, Religion and Culture (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1985), pp. 3-11; 'Mind and Body: A Special Case of Mind and Mind,' in Marcus Ford (ed.), A Process Theory of Medicine: Interdisciplinary Essays (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), pp. 77-88. He also uses the term 'psychicalism'. Cf. Ch. 8 of his Zero Fallacy and Other Essays in Neoclassical Philosophy, ed. Mohammad Valady (Open Court, 1997) and 'Why Psychicalism: Comments on Keeling's and Shepherd's Criticisms,' Process Studies, VI (1976), pp. 6772.

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cile its existence with the belief in God. Although Hartshorne himself is primarily concerned with defending his theistic position, much of what he says about the existence of evil, i.e. that it is due to the clash of creativities, a statement that will be examined below, also deals with what has been referred to previously as the humanistic side of the problem. Evil occurs, according to Hartshorne, because there is universal creativity. Each actuality in the world possesses some amount of creative power or freedom; and when actualities exercise their creativities, the result can be good or evil. There is genuine chance at the points of intersection between diverse free acts. What Hartshorne means is something like this: if my decisions and your decisions interconnect, the result is something neither of us can completely determine. It simply happens. No one can entirely influence the consequence. This chance coming together of various free acts is the cause of all our woes, aided here and there undoubtedly by wickedness and carelessness, but never attributable to these alone. Since in Hartshorne's view all creatures have some freedom,7 evil can and should be regarded as deriving from unfortunate (and not necessarily or in general, wicked) cases of creaturely creativity. Hartshorne puts it rather bluntly when he states that if what x decides harmonises with what y decides, it is good luck; otherwise, it is bad luck. It comes down to luck since neither x nor y nor a third party can simply determine that harmony shall reign. We can, of course, aim for a more satisfactory outcome; but no one ultimately can guarantee it. To understand Hartshorne's view, it is necessary for us to examine more closely the concept of'creativity' or, as he sometimes calls it, 'creative synthesis'. The concept is a metaphysical description of the workings of reality in that it is said to be applicable to the whole of reality. In every happening or event there is an old as well as a new (or creative) element. The old consists of previous happenings or experiences which give rise to and which persist in the new. There is permanence since in the synthesis the prior data are preserved, the synthesis being the holding together of data. The many become one which in turn produces a new many, and so on. It is an accumulation of these prior acts or a 'putting together' of factors into a whole. But the resulting synthesis is a new actuality or experience because a different kind of experience has emerged from the coming together of past experiences. Previously there was the separate existence of the included realities, but now there is a unity. Furthermore, Cf. his 'Indeterministic Freedom as a Universal Principle,' Journal of Social Philosophy, XV (1984), pp. 5-11; 'A Metaphysics of Universal Freedom,' in George Nordgulen and George W. Shields (eds.) Faith and Creativity: Essays in Honor of Eugene H. Peters (St. Louis: CBP Press, 1987), pp. 27-40; 'Freedom as Universal,' Process Studies, XXV (1996), pp. 1-9.

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the synthesis is spontaneous or free because none of these experiences—individually or collectively—dictated the exact unity that would arise.8 A synthesis emerges rather than is determined. Hence, an experience or happening cannot be fully described in its total unitary quality merely by specifying what its constituents are. Each experience enriches the totality of reality by being an additional member. The concept of 'creativity' or 'creative synthesis' is really Hartshorne's interpretation of causality. Every act is viewed by him as creative. However, each creative act is influenced by its past acts and does require them even if it cannot be determined precisely or fully by these antecedent acts, which are simply earlier cases of freedom. These acts, those of ourselves or of others, restrict the freedom of the new act, establishing and limiting the possibilities for an otherwise free and creative activity. On the other hand, they never determine them fully. Thus, Hartshorne defines causality as the way in which any given act of creativity is influenced or made possible, but yet not completely determined, by previous acts.9 Because past free acts narrow down any creative act, there can be a certain measure of prediction. Hartshorne uses the analogy of the banks of the river which give the flowing water its direction but does not entirely determine its movement. As he puts it, 'Causality is the boundary within which resolution of indeterminacies takes place. Causal regularities mean not the absence of open possibilities but their confinement within limits.'10 Hartshorne thus repudiates the deterministic version of causality. In his view, absolute determinism regards a happening as already completely predefined in its antecedent causes, each state of the world described as containing in effect an absolute map, as it were, of all subsequent and all previous states. Absolute determinism does admit that humans will never be able to read the maps except in radically incomplete and inaccurate ways. But Hartshorne regards this doctrine as an incorrect reading of the universality of causation because it is too strict an interpretation. Causes, as far as he is concerned, never determine the effect in all its details. A cause is necessary in the sense that without it, there can be no effect. But when all necessary conditions for an event have been fulfilled, it does not follow that the event will take place in precisely the way it is predicted, merely that it may take place. A cause is necessary, but not Cf. Hartshorne, 'Religion and Creative Experience,' Unitarian Register and Universalist Leader, 141 (1962), pp. 9-11; Creative Synthesis and Philosophical Method. (London: SCM, 1970), ch. 1; 'Process and the Nature of God,' in G. McLean, (ed.), Traces of God in a Secular Culture, (Staton House: Alba House, 1973), pp. 117-141. Hartshorne, 'Philosophy after Fifty Years' in P. Bertow (ed.), Mid-Twentieth Century American Philosophy: Personal Statements (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1974), p. 143. Hartshorne, 'Can Man Transcend His.Animality?' Monist. 55 (1971), p. 216.

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the effect. There will be an effect but not a specific or a fully determinate effect. The creative aspect of a particular effect, therefore, lies in that it is never literally anticipated. According to Hartshorne, 'To ask "why may not the antecedent cases completely determine the given?" is to show that one has not grasped the meaning and pervasiveness of creativity or spontaneity.' ' There is a certain originality or freshness in every effect. Inasmuch as it is creative, it is partly unpredictable, undetermined in advance. Returning now to the question of the existence of evil in the world, we can see why for Hartshorne the root of all the tragedy in the world is the clash of creativities. It is not so much the abuse of freedom (as defenders of human free will have traditionally expressed it) as the unfortunate and unforeseen coming together of different creativities. In other words, each exercise of creativity can result in evil because the outcome can never be fully controlled. And because the world consists of active, creative individuals, there will always be evil. It is the price we pay for creativity, ours and others'. On the other hand, the good that is in the world is also due to creativity. Without freedom and its perils there would be neither evil nor good. Creaturely freedom which gives rise to evils is an essential aspect of all good acts so that the price of a guaranteed absence of evil would equally be an absence of good. Risk of evil and opportunity for good are, in Hartshome's view, two facets of one thing—multiple freedom. The justification of risk is the opportunity for good of which the risk is an inseparable aspect. The less freedom there is, the fewer the risks with a corresponding lessening in the number of opportunities for good. This is why to trivialise risks by reducing freedom is, in the last analysis, to trivialise opportunities for good. By explaining evil and suffering as the unfortunate consequence of creative acts, Hartshorne may be regarded as setting forth a possibly humanistic solution to the problem. While what has been presented thus far is perhaps germane to a humanist's way of thinking, Hartshome's main concern is the theistic aspect of the problem. To the dilemma, therefore, of how God could conceivably be defended as all-good and all-powerful in the face of so much tragedy in the world, Hartshome's answer is to reformulate the concept of God's omnipotence in line with the pervasiveness of creativity. Hartshorne believes that God's power ought not to be considered as absolute control. Only if it is so assumed do we have the classical problem of evil. He suggests instead that God's power should be designated as 'unsurpassable power over all things' inasmuch as this recasting of the concept would merely state that God's power is the maximal degree or kind of power compatible with a real plurality

Hartshorne, 'Philosophy after Fifty Years,' p. 143. 56

of powers.12 God's power is absolutely maximal, the greatest possible; but even the greatest possible is still one power among others. It is, in brief, not the only power. To hold that there is a real plurality of powers is not to downgrade God's unique status, Hartshorne maintains. God can do everything that can be done by a being with no conceivable superior." God is able to maintain the world. God has the power, which Hartshorne describes as 'adequacy of cosmic power', to do for the cosmos all desirable things that could be done and need be done by one universal or cosmic agent who is unmatched by anyone. In this sense God's power is absolutely adequate. God is depicted by Hartshorne as being uniquely able to maintain the society of which God is a member, the only social being unconditionally able to guarantee the survival of that society. God's power is sufficient to preserve the society of the cosmos, no matter what others may do. But God's power does not entail power to do for the cosmos what could only be accomplished by non-universal agents. Such deeds are really theirs, not God's. This is because God's power, although perfect in form, is still social. Looked at in this way, it is power to set limits to the freedom of others, but not to destroy it. Hartshorne is challenging the notion of a power that determines all decisions and controls everything. The perfection of God's power is shown, not by taking away or preventing the freedom of others, but by fostering and inspiring that freedom. Hartshorne likens God to the creative orator, thinker and artist who inspires creative responses in others.14 Hartshorne's God is the supreme or perfect artist who encourages appropriate degrees of artistic originality in all creatures. 'God is the unsurpassable inspiring genius of all freedom, not the self-determining coercive tyrant, or (if possible) even worse, the irresistible hypnotist who dictates specific actions while holding his operations from the hypnotised.'15 God is also compared to rulers who are held in high esteem for their wisdom and benevolence in placing others in a position to make fruitful decisions of their own. These are the ones who awaken creativity in others. God then governs the world by inspiring us, by providing us with opHartshome, 'Process and the Nature of God,' p. 136. Hartshorne, Divine Relativity: a Social Conception of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), p. 138. This view is voiced by Aisling in the conversation she has with Richard in The Fountain Arethuse: a Novel, see Appendix, pp. 184-185. Cf. Hartshorne, 'Thomas Aquinas and Three Poets Who do not Agree with Him,' Process Studies, XXX, 2 (2001), pp. 53-67, and 'God as Composer-Director, Enjoyer, and in a Sense, Player of the Cosmic Drama,' Ibid., pp. 34-45. Hartshorne, 'Divine Absoluteness and Divine Relativity' in H. Richardson and D. Cutler (eds.), Transcendence (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), p. 169.

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portunities and by fostering creativity in us. If supreme power is understood in this way, it can only impose limits on the disagreements, conflicts or confusions among lesser powers; it cannot simply eliminate these confusions for this would require its becoming the sole power. Yet the supremacy of divine power is not being downgraded since the meaning of power is not, as is frequently held, controlling but eliciting responses which are partially self-determining or free. The ideal form of power, Hartshorne maintains, does not monopolise power, but allots to all their due measure of creative opportunity. Hartshorne adds that not only can it be shown that there is no monopoly of power on God's part, but it can also be argued, presuming God's goodness, that God is not desirous of such a monopoly. In fact, God surpasses others in generous willingness to delegate decision-making to others. God, we are told, inspires freedom in others, thus enabling them to act freely yet in such a way that a coherent and in general harmonious world comes about. To concede all power to God is not only to misunderstand God's nature but also wrong because 'unqualified monopoly is always bad, even in the eminent case'. 16 There is nothing ideal about longing to possess total control and to reduce others to powerlessness. On the contrary, such a longing is symptomatic of weakness. It is only the inferior, weak being who yearns to be able to manipulate everything. 'The Eternally Secure has no fear of letting others do some of the deciding. Eminent generosity in delegating decision-making to others and taking loving possession of the results, that is real Eminence.' 7 A concentration of decision-making in the one being is in principle undesirable because the values of life, as Hartshorne sees them, are essentially social, involving the interactions of more or less free individuals. In other words, Hartshorne gives the priority to creativity and interprets divine power in terms of the existence of this value. Power that would violate such a value is judged wrong. As he sees it, a monopoly of power is itself 'the most undesirable thing imaginable; or rather it is the most unimaginable and indeed inconceivable absolutising of an undesirable direction of thought'.18 Power cannot therefore be maximised by supposing a being who decides beforehand or eternally what happens since this would be assigning every power to that being. That would be attributing something basically immoral. Hartshorne, 'The Dipolar Conception of God,' Review of Metaphysics, 21 (1967), p. 281. Hartshorne, 'Religion in Process Theology,' in J. Feaver and W. Horosz (eds.), Religion in Philosophical and Cultural Perspectives (Princeton: D. van Nostram, 1967) p. 263. 18

Hartshorne, 'A New Look at the Problem of Evil,' in F. Dommeyer (ed.), Current Philosophical Issues: Essays in Honor of Curt John Ducasse (Springfield, IL: Charles C.Thomas, 1966), p. 202.

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Pursuing the question of God's governance of the world, Hartshorne says that God can take each successive phase of cosmic development and make unsurpassably good use of that phase in God's own life and furnish the creatures with such guidance or inspiration as will optimise the ratio of opportunities and risks for the next phase. God sets the best or optimal limits to freedom. By 'optimal limits' Hartshorne means that they are such that, were more freedom allowed, the risks would increase more than the opportunities, and were less freedom permitted, the opportunities would decrease more than the risks. God sets optimal limits for our free action by presenting Godself as essential object. God moulds us by moulding Godself thereby presenting at each moment a partly new ideal which influences our entire activity. 'Only he who changes himself can control the changes in us by inspiring us with novel ideas for ideal occasions.'19 God's power does not guarantee a perfection of detailed results, for no power, as Hartshorne understands it, could insure the detailed actions of others. There is no complete determination of any action by one will. Rather, all realities form themselves and form each other within limits. It is the setting of these limits which constitutes the divine ordering of the world. As we have seen, causality for Hartshorne is not a rigid occurrence but an approximate and statistical pattern which allows for all sorts and levels of freedom. In affirming that God sets boundaries to the freedom of creation or establishes a general order, Hartshorne is refuting the view that the various forms of experience scattered through nature miraculously restrain or control themselves and each other and thus preserve a measure of harmony or mutual compatibility. They do not simply cooperate together to guarantee world order. Instead, there is a superior form of freedom, God's, which furnishes a directive which ordinary forms of freedom accept or obey. God guides all of creation, and through this universal guidance lines of demarcation are established to discord and confusion. Without such guidance, order would not be possible.20 The benevolent God guides creation in an eloquent and appealing fashion. 'God "speaks" to creatures so eloquently, beautifully, wisely, and hence relevantly to their natures that they cannot, except within narrow limits, even wish not to respond'.21 Despite divine eloquence, however, the creatures themselves are free

Hartshorne, Divine Relativity: a Social Conception of God, p. 142. Hartshorne, 'Religion and Creative Experience,' Unitarian Register and Universalis! Leader, 141 (1962), p. 10. Hartshorne, 'Religion in Process Theology,' in J. Feaver and W. Horosz (eds.), Religion in Philosophical and Cultural Perspectives (Princeton: D. van Nostram, 1967), p. 261.

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to follow their own initiatives. God does not coerce anything, but inspires it to act in a certain way. God persuades it.22 But Hartshorne does not deny that chance plays a certain role in creation. 'Chance,' he writes, 'is just as real as some of the atheists have been telling us during the centuries.'23 Providence is not the prevention of chance but its optimisation. It checks chance occurrences. These cannot be done by chance for chance limited by chance is the same as chance not limited at all. The end result would be total chaos. Surprisingly, Hartshorne affirms the reality of chance in order to show the significance of God's providence. Through the laws of nature God puts restrictions within which the lesser agents can effectively work out the details of their existence. These limits ensure that universal creativity does not end in universal chaos and frustration. But because of chance, there will still be elements of chaos and frustration; but they remain subordinate to the general order and harmony. Hartshorne thus tackles the theistic aspect of the problem of evil by reminding us that God's governance of the world cannot be conceived of as totally determining any part of it. The making of the world is not a simple act of God, but a fusion of divine and lesser acts, all in their fashion self-determining, creative or free. The world is not divinely decreed as to its details but is the result of the divine decisions plus innumerable creaturely decisions. If all creatures are free, then no divine directive, argues Hartshorne, could do more than set boundaries to the possibilities of discord and disorder in the world. Absolute order could in no way be guaranteed, not because God is weak but because it would not be strength to abolish creaturely freedom. Thus, in Hartshorne's view, it is meaningless to ask why God does not control the world so that evils could not happen. Such a question would arise only if God is understood to have a monopoly of decision-making. Nor can any amount of evil prove that God has willed evil since it is the chance coming together of creaturely acts which actually produce it. In spite of God's guidance then, some conflict and misfortune and thereby suffering do arise. But God's love for creatures would not allow God to deprive even the least creature of its due amount and kind of John Polkinghorne is critical of this interpretation of God's power. He writes: 'The God of process theology works solely through "persuasion". There is a divine participation in each event but, in the end, the event itself leads to its own completion. (It is difficult to write about process ideas without a continual lapse into pansychic-like language.) I think this places God too much at the margins of the world, with a diminished role inadequate to the One who is believed to care providentially for creation and to be its ultimate hope of fulfilment..' Belief in God in an Age of Science, p. 56. See also the next essay, "Suffering and Theism: Towards a Praxis-based Response to Hume's Challenge." Hartshome, Divine Relativity: a Social Conception of God, p. 137.

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freedom. As Hartshorne expresses it: 'Love cannot be less than the wish to have others exist as genuine actualities, and this means as partly self-deciding agents, whose fortunes depend therefore in part upon themselves and their neighbors.'24 > 3. Creativity and the Practical Challenge of Evil In presenting the concept of creativity or creative synthesis as developed by Charles Hartshorne, my primary interest lay in showing how he deals with what has been referred to earlier on as the theoretical dimension of the problem. But there is a practical challenge to be met. The presence of so much misery and pain should motivate us to transform the situation. Many times we ourselves are responsible for contributing to that unfortunate situation. Although in some cases the unwanted consequences are indeed unintended, we must nonetheless be made aware of how our actions are affecting the lives of others so that, where possible, preventive and even corrective measures can be adopted. Hartshorne's discussion of the concept of creativity is helpful in showing that sometimes suffering is truly the result of unforeseen and genuinely random happenings. To look for a scapegoat is to forget that chance and luck are an integral part of our lives. Opportunities or lack of them are sometimes the real causes of the kind of lives that we live. Unfortunately, these opportunities are not always traceable to a specific agent or factor nor to ourselves. And this is what make certain forms of suffering even more tragic: we cannot even blame anyone or anything. It would be pointless to do so. But Hartshorne's analysis needs to be placed in a wider context if we are not to neglect the other side of the problem. That is to say, the root cause of the misery of many people is not that they happen to be at the wrong end of the turn of events. They have been placed there—at times deliberately, at other times less so—by the unjust actions or policies of other people. Nowhere is this more true than in the deprivation and poverty that so many in developing countries are experiencing. The fate of a starving nation and the fight for freedom to live a more humane existence by oppressed groups should remind us that we need to look much more carefully at the causes of their plight and the structures which perpetuate their misery. This point demands a more thorough sociological and economic analysis than is possible here. I simply wish to state that it would be misleading to think that suffering is simply the unwanted but unpredictable consequence of the clash of creativities. Hartshorne, 'Love and Dual Transcendence,' Union Seminary XXX (1975), p. 9.6.

Quarterly

Review.

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As a theist, Hartshorne deals with the issue of God's involvement with a world that is full of affliction and pain. But on this point he has had some criticisms. For example, D. Luther Evans argues that Hartshorne is unable to explain God's activity. In fact, he claims God's causality has been reduced to passivity. In repudiating the notion of God as a completely independent, transcendent and self-sufficient Being, Hartshorne is alleged to have gone to the opposite extreme of interpreting the concrete richness of the divine Being as dependent upon the particular, finite, changing aspects of total reality. Hartshorne may have freed God from the responsibility of causing imperfect beings, but he has given us no satisfactory idea of how God can create anything.25 Colin Gunton carries this criticism even further. According to him, Hartshorne's definition of cause is noteworthy for the fact that it lacks any reference to agency. Gunton's objection can be summed up in this way: if God is essentially 'effect', then God can only be 'cause' in abstraction from this. If cause and effect in God are polar opposites and if God as effect is concrete, then God as cause, however that would be understood, must be abstract. Gunton finds it difficult to see how a cause can be abstract in any recognisable meaning of the term. Thus, instead of the unmoved mover, Hartshorne presents us with an equally ineffective deity: the moved unmover.26 The criticism, it seems, springs from the Law of Polarity which lists one set of categories, e.g. absolute, infinite, immutable, cause, etc. on the other hand, and relative, finite mutable, effect, etc. on the other.27 On this understanding, cause (like absolute, infinite, and so on) would be abstract and effect would be concrete. Gunton takes 'abstract' to mean a mental construct. Consequently, it would be difficult to envision how a mental entity could be an agent. But as Hartshorne uses the word, it means a partial description of an entity so that activity could still be ascribed to what is referred to as abstract. Moreover, in Hartshorne's metaphysics there is no such thing as pure cause nor pure effect. Every actuality is both cause and effect. Effect, being concrete, is the more inclusive category while cause is included in the notion of effect. This is why 'cause' is said to be abstract. But it does not mean that actuality—and God is the eminent example—is ineffective or inactive. Since every actuality is creative, it does initiate activity even if it does not fully determine the outcome. But the problem remains of accounting for God's active involvement in the world since in Hartshorne's metaphysics, effect is the more basic category. 25

D.L. Evans, 'Two Intellectually Respectable Conceptions of God,' Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 10(1950), p. 575. C. Gunton, Becoming and Being: the Doctrine of God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 37f. S. Sia, God in Process Thought: a Study in Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God (Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985), pp. 46-49.

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This may be the case with non-divine realities, but should God be characterised more by receptivity rather than by activity? The question is particularly relevant in the context of suffering if it is assumed that it ought to be overcome. Hartshorne's version of causality may not make God ineffectual, but it does give the emphasis to passivity insofar as it regards cause as an included rather than inclusive category. Yet should God not be characterised more as active if God is to eliminate the suffering and tragedy of the world? It is not enough for God to share in our miseries. John Cobb and David Griffin are aware of the need to show that the concept of God articulated by Hartshorne should present God to be creative love and not just responsive love. 'If sympathetic responsiveness is an essential aspect of Christian love, creative activity is not less essential. Whether it be considered a theme or a presupposition, the notion that God is active in the world, working to overcome evil and to create new things, is central to the Biblical tradition.'28 They add that the social programmes aimed at alleviating human misery and injustice have been influenced by the belief that God not only loves all persons equally and hence desires justice but is also directly acting in the world to create just conditions. On the other hand, they point out that this is the notion of divine creativity in the world which has been most problematic and misunderstood in recent centuries. God has sometimes been presented as intervening here and there or even as causing all events, directly or mediately. Alternatively, they suggest that God's activity should be conceived along Hartshornean lines: divine creative love as persuasive. Cobb and Griffin rule out the idea of God's power in terms of controlling others. In fact, they argue that not only is it a mistaken interpretation but it has also brought about much suffering. 'Much of the tragedy in the course of human affairs can be attributed to the feeling that to control others and the course of events is to share in divinity.'29 However, it seems to me that the idea of controlling power in the sense of overriding others is not in itself objectionable. Much depends on who is exercising the controlling power. What makes it unacceptable is that many of those who assume such powers do not have the traits which are essential for a legitimate recourse to controlling power; namely, full knowledge and goodness. The ambition to be in total control is not matched with a loving and knowledgeable nature. But a God who is entirely unsurpassable cannot be accused of lacking these attributes. Such a God would exercise overriding control only when circumstances demand it and when it is for the benefit of all. One J. Cobb and D. Griffin, Process Theology: an Introductory Exposition (Belfast: Christian Journals Limited 1977), p. 48. Ibid., p. 53.

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reason why it is argued that God ought not to be regarded as dominating is partly due to our experience of the tyrannical way of wielding power by people in history or in our immediate experience. Because such an attitude indicates an imperfection, it is said not to be ascribable to God. But the same source of our thinking about God, that is, our experience of reality, can reveal healthy examples of dominant power, particularly over non-humans. Progress and development occur not only because humans have been persuasive but also because at times they have taken over the course of history. Significant changes which led to the improvements of people's lives and of the environment are traceable to a more decisive use of power rather than simply luring and appealing to others. The fact that there have been other ill effects as well only means that we have not been totally successful. But this is due to our ignorance and even malice, not necessarily to the use of controlling power. Circumstances may also demand that for the protection of more fundamental rights, such as the right to life, we must overpower others or override their less basic rights. Particularly if the suffering of others has been due to and is being perpetuated by the wickedness of others, then we have the moral obligation to take strong measures—even if it means curtailing the freedom of others—to rectify the situation. This defense of controlling power should not be taken to mean that God's omnipotence is to be completely identified with it.30 All it means is that it ought not to be excluded, as Hartshorne, Cobb and Griffin do. If the horror of suffering is not to be trivialised then we must take seriously the need to eliminate it. If sometimes we can lessen suffering through the use of forceful measures, can we expect less of God?11 Admittedly, we cannot say when such In his article, 'Capable of Anything?: the Omnipotence of God,' Gijsbert van den Brink offers a helpful analysis and theological interpretation of God's omnipotence. Cf. Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot (eds.), Understanding the Attributes of God (Peter Lang, 1999), pp. 139-159. van den Brink claims that process thinkers have not really done justice to the traditional doctrine of omnipotence or to the conceptual relation between omnipotence and freedom Vincent Briimmer makes a somewhat similar point when he asks, 'But if human persons can intervene in the course of nature in this way, why cannot God do so as well? Divine action in the world need not necessarily take the form of miraculous intervention in violation of the natural order, any more than human action need do so.' Briimmer maintains that 'the view of the natural order implicit in quantum theory does not exclude the concept of mediate divine agency according to which God could perform contingent acts by means of the natural order and not in violation of it. God can act by means of the natural order in a way analogous to that in which we do.' He does admit, however, that 'the analogy between divine and human action breaks down since unlike human agents, God is not an observable agent in the world.' Vincent Briimmer, 'Science, Religion and the Agency of God,' in Andre Cloots and Santiago

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power will be exercised by God as, given our finite nature, we cannot always be sure whether the use of coercive force is the most appropriate response to particular situations or people. But it could also be the best response at a given moment. It ought not to be resorted to frequently not because it is a suspect form of power but because we do not always have full knowledge of the situation nor are we beyond malice. We are limited agents in our knowledge and morality. Nonetheless, it is one effective way of combating suffering. Moreover, the idealisation of power as persuasive assumes that we live in a world where all are morally mature, hence open to appeals and persuasion. Unfortunately, for various reasons, this is not true. Hence, we have systems and structures which, though at times inadequate and faulty, recognise this factor. God's activity in the world, including controlling power, does not lessen our responsibility to make this world more liveable and less tragic. We are cocreators, as Hartshorne correctly points out. As creative agents we can bring about changes which hopefully will benefit all of reality. Our exercise of creativity may often result in undesirable suffering, foreseen or unforeseen; but it is also the same creativity that can alleviate it. Often it is our creative reaction to suffering, ours or others', that helps us to rise above the absurdity of suffering. One does not have to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of war, to the desperate plight of the starving or to the undeserved poverty of whole nations to recognise the laudable action of many to rectify the situation. We can and must do something because we are creative agents.

Sia (eds.), Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion (Leuven University Press, 1999), p. 8-9.

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5. Suffering and Christian Theism: Towards a Praxis-based Response to Hume's Challenge

1. Suffering and Theism The reality of suffering has sometimes been regarded as constituting a classic argument against those who uphold a theistic explanation of life. It sets up, in the words of John Hick, 'an internal tension to disturb [their] faith' and lays upon it 'a perpetual burden of doubt'.1 It has been vigorously argued that the belief in an all-good and almighty God, persistently upheld by theists, is incompatible with the reality of so much unnecessary and unmerited suffering in the world. Consequently, believers have felt particularly vulnerable on this point. It has given some credibility to atheism as a more realistic option in life. What is surprising, however, is that theists continue to believe in their God. They have developed arguments to try to resolve the contradictions in their beliefs caused by the dark side of life. It has even been pointed out recently that we must hope that there is a God for only then can there be meaning to the suffering of the innocent.2 More significantly, the testimonies of those who have suffered considerably and who continue to uphold their faith or who have even discovered God in their suffering seem in practice to give the lie to atheism.3 For them—and for countless others—it seems that suffering, far from being the occasion when they turn their back on God, becomes the vehicle which brought them to know the kind of God they had always relied on. It would appear then that suffering, though indeed a challenge, does not necessarily contradict theistic conduct—at least, for those people. Such a positive understanding of suffering, however, does not mean that for these theists there is no absurdity in some kinds of suffering. The sight of people in agony, the unexpected loss of a loved one or the fate of a starving nation where thousands are condemned to die horribly remind us that this kind of suffering goes contrary to what we can reasonably expect of life. We then '

John Hick, Evil and the God ofLove (Collins, 1979), p. 3. Richard Creel, Divine Impassability: an Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 146f. Professor Malachowski expresses this sentiment when he reflects on his parent's religious belief in the novel The Fountain Arethuse. Cf. Appendix.

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realise that what is happening ought not to happen. Nor should we belittle the pain, whether physical, mental or emotional, that many individuals have had to experience. Comforting them by showing that others are worse off than they are can be more hurtful than helpful. It is also unfortunate when the victim is told to bear the burden patiently either because it is alleged to be a punishment from God or because there is a greater reward awaiting him or her after life. Such comments neglect to take into account that there is much undeserved misery in the world and that we cannot rule out the issue of injustice. Moreover, we should be particularly alert to any attempt to cover up the miserable plight of people and other creatures which is the consequence of the greed and malice of others. Violation of human rights, for instance, has to be checked. Perpetrators of policies which cripple others, individuals or nations, have to be made aware of their crime. The form of suffering that results from their actions cannot be justified. The challenge, therefore, to remove the causes of much of the suffering in today's world is as real as the need to face the theoretical challenge that confronts Christian theists.

2. Another Kind of Challenge The claim that suffering has been a route to God for some people, together with the observation that we also have the obligation to remove as much as possible the causes of certain forms of suffering, highlight a side to the problem of evil which does not often get much attention. Earlier on we noted that what has generally concerned theists is the threat presented by the reality of suffering to the belief in an all-good and almighty God.4 It is regarded as a stumbling block to theistic belief and has therefore led to some people denying God's existence. Jiirgen Moltmann claims that the question 'why do I suffer?' is the rock of atheism.5 Consequently, questions such as: 'Why is there suffering in the first place?' or 'How can there can be a God amidst so much misery?' demand the serious attention of believers. Nevertheless, while admitting the validity of these concerns and the difficulty of justifying belief in God's existence and the need for a more convincing theodicy, I should like to argue that there is another kind of challenge to Christian theism due to the presence of so much suffering in the world. It is a challenge that arises precisely because of the persistence of Christian theism since, contrary to atheism, God continues to be real to many Understanding the challenge of suffering to theism in this way has led to the formation of theodicies. Others, however, view the reality of suffering as a practical demand that calls for action, not explanation, on our part. Jiirgen Moltmann, Hope and Planning (Harper & Row, 1971), p. 32.

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victims of suffering and oppression.6 That oilier kind of challenge is the question: what kind of God can we still believe in despite the presence of so much suffering? This challenge is not new of course since the author of the Book of Job has wrestled with this problem within the context of his Jewish faith. He presents the character Job as starting out with certain presuppositions about the God of his tradition. But his experience of undeserved suffering made him not only doubt the truth of traditional claims but also to articulate with more urgency and force a different question: Who is this God he was dealing with? For Job, God was real, but he needed to discover the character of this God. The answer to Job's question came in the form of a revelation: the God he was involved with was a mysterious person whose ways are not our ways. Thus, for Job the proper attitude in the face of undeserved suffering towards this God can only be one of humility and faith. But some will find Job's conclusions rather unsatisfactory. Should we be resigned to the mysteriousness of God? Can we not say more about this God? Who is this God in whom believers continue to hope? What does the evidence of suffering tell us about God's nature? Closer to our time we find that these are the questions which concern' theological writings coming from countries experiencing widespread poverty,' oppression, and dehumanisation. For them the crucial issue that emerges from ' the challenge of suffering is not whether atheism is the more logical option. Since the cultural background of these countries, e.g. those in Latin America, theistic belief is a given, the real threat is not a denial of God's existence but idolatry.7 Is the reality to whom we give the name 'God' really the true God? Or is it merely the summit of human wishes? Is the God we speak of not really an attempt to perpetuate the status quo? The challenge for these believers in the face of suffering, desperation and poverty is how we continue to speak credibly of the true living God and stop talking of idols.8

This is certainly the more important issue in Latin American theological thinking today. Cf. The Idols of Death and the God of Life (Orbis, 1983), and Juan Segundo, Our Idea of God (Orbis, 1974). Also, Philip Berryman, The Religious Roots of Rebellion: Christians in the Central American Revolution (London: SCM Press, 1984), p. 377f. See, for instance, Juan Luis Segundo, Our Idea of God (Gill and Macmillan, 1980); Gustavo Gutierrez, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (Orbis, 1987), and The God of Life (Orbis, 1991); Antonio Perez-Esclarin, Atheism and Liberation (SCM Press, 1980); Victorio Araya, God of the Poor: The God of Life (Orbis, 1983); Ronaldo Muftoz, God of Christians (Orbis, 1992). Dr. Fuentes in the novel, The Fountain Arethuse, makes this very point. Cf. Appendix.

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3. Another Look at David Hume's Challenge David Hume is usually portrayed as the philosopher whose writings on religion gravely undermined Christian belief. Hume had argued, among other things, against the principle of causality on which the traditional proofs for the existence of God had been based. He pointed out that if the principle were valid, the kind of God which emerges is a rather undesirable one: imperfect or finite. Hume is thus often presented as challenging the classical theistic idea of God as all-good and almighty, an idea which did not fit in with the reality of evil. It led theists therefore to think that what was demanded was a justification of their belief in God's existence. But Hume was in fact presenting another challenge through the character of Philo. Philo's reference to Epicurus' questions9 and Philo's own statement10 must be interpreted within the context of Philo's argumentation. He accepts that //we had another way of knowing that it is indeed true that God is omnipotent and benevolent then it may be possible to reconcile these attributes with the suffering in the world. As he puts it: '...I will allow, that pain or misery in a man is compatible with infinite power and goodness in the Deity, even in [Cleanthes'] sense of these attributes...'" But Philo insists that if one proceeds from human experience of the world, one would be mistaken in attributing these traits to God. His direct challenge then to Cleanthes is: 'You must prove these pure, unmixed, and uncontrollable attributes from the present mixed and confused phenomena, and from these alone.' 12 Philo of course was adopting the position that not only is it not possible to reach the theistic conclusion but that an inference from human experience yields the opposite results. Not even an acknowledgement of the limitations of human knowledge can help the theist's case. Philo's exact words are worth quoting here: But supposing, which is the real case with regard to man, that this creature is not antecedently convinced of a supreme intelligence, benevolent, and powerful, but is left to gather such a belief from the appearances of things; this entirely alters the case, nor will he even find any reason for such a conclusion. He may be fully convinced of the narrow limits of his David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (the edition used is David Hume, Writings on Religion edited by Anthony Flew), (La Salle 111.: Open Court, 1992), p. 261. Ibid., p. 264. Ibid.; see also p. 274. Ibid., p. 264.

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understanding but this will nol help him in forming an inference concerning the goodness of superior powers, since he must form that inference from what he knows, not from what he is ignorant of. To strengthen his own case, Philo marshals the evidence against the theistic position. He calls these 'the four circumstances, on which depend all, or the greatest part, of the ills that molest sensible creatures'.14 He accepts that these may be necessary and unavoidable; but, given what human reason can know, Philo doubts their necessity and unavoidability. These 'circumstances' are: 1) capacity for pain 2) the general laws of nature 3) the frugality of Nature 4) the inaccurate workmanship of Nature.15 Philo then considers what he regards as the most probable conclusion to the process of inferring from what can be observed from the state of affairs in the world: the first causes of the world have neither goodness or malice.16 In short, one cannot know the moral character of God in this way.

4. Towards a Response Hume's challenge inevitably touches" on other relevant and equally important issues, including God's existence. But the need to provide some kind of response to the challenge of the credibility of our conception of God is called for not only for the reasons stated earlier but also because much atheism actually revolves around questionable concepts of God.17 The challenge confronting many of us today is to outgrow or overthrow these false notions of God and to provide more defensible alternatives. Hume's challenge also raises the question of the possibility or impossibility of describing God's nature. Some would view the task to be preposterous since it would be dragging God down to our level. According to them, whatever we can say about God would be anthropomorphic. Others will even argue that the finite nature of human language makes the exercise a futile one. In fact, Philo himself had made these observations. While acknowledging these difficulties, I still think that we do not have much choice. We do make attempts to describe God. Even the concern to preserve God's transcendence and otherness is one description of God. Or the ap13 14 15 16

Ibid., p. 267. Ibid., p. 268. Cf. Ibid., pp. 268-274. Ibid., p. 275.

17

See the previous essay, 'God in Process Thought*.

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peal to revelation is itself an endeavour to say something about God. However, the limitations of human resources, as Philo was quick to point out, should make us cautious about our claims regarding God. Any such claim made will always be provisional and to some extent subjective. This is why the pursuit of more valid statements about God is a continuous one.18 But can the experience of suffering, our own or that of others, disclose anything about God? Granting that Philo is right in arguing that the state of affairs in the world militates against the theistic claim of a benevolent and omnipotent God, are there areas of human experience, accessible to human reason, which could be more fruitfully explored in the interest of theism? It seems to me that Philo focuses mainly, and even exclusively, on 'how things are and how they ought to be'. 19 What I am suggesting is that we look elsewhere: at what theists are doing in response to the reality of suffering. In other words, by taking into account the ways in which they deal with suffering in us and around us, we could explore the theoretical affirmations which lie behind those responses. The problem then, taking into account Hume's challenge is: what descriptions of God emerge as we reflect on Christian praxis? Latin American liberation theology has been closely associated with the term 'praxis'. It has developed a theology that is based on and rooted in the commitment to the poor. What is surprising, however, is that in dealing with the God-question within the context of suffering it adopts what is called 'dialectical thinking'.20 It is claimed that the reality of the Latin American liberation theologians' dehumanised, oppressed and impoverished society certainly does not lend itself to theologising based on the kind of wonder that marvels at the beauty in the world. Instead their experience and the experience of their people remind them of what God is not. But it seems to me that this method of thinking makes Latin American liberation theology open to Hume's attack on the theistic position.21 Do we not have to pursue further what it is that causes us to engage in God-talk sub specie On this point, see the previous essay 'Charles Hartshorne on Describing God'. Philo's argumentation deals with natural evils, but he claims that the same applies to moral evil. It seems, however, that Hume does not do full justice to the sphere of human activity, which is where a praxis-oriented alternative would be based. Hume's other challenge in this context is of course the principle of causality (see also his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Part XI). See Araya, God of the Poor, pp. 29-31; Roger Haight, 'The Logic of the Christian Response to Social Suffering,' in M.H. Ellis and D. Maduro (eds.), The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutierrez (Orbis, 1989), pp. 139-153. Anthony Flew's criticisms of negative theological thinking (to which dialectical thinking can be compared) would be applicable. See his God and Philosophy (Harcourt, Brace & World, Ltd., 1967).

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contrarii? What makes God so different from our experience of oppression and deprivation? I am suggesting thai we need to develop our positive beliefs regarding God. It seems that a theological reflection which is based on praxis should regard dialectical thinking as an early stage in our attempts to speak of God in the midst of suffering.22 Thcologising about God which is praxis-oriented should focus, not on the state of poverty and oppression (which is what Hume could be said to have done and what Latin American liberation theologians are engaged in), but on what we are doing or should be doing about it. Praxis is an activity, not a state. We will know more about God by examining our human responses to the challenge of suffering. In looking at grief, rather than wonder, Latin American theologians, it seems, are still looking at what is rather than on praxis itself.

5. God as Co-Sufferer Let us now turn to these practical responses to the existence of suffering around us in the hope of discovering something about the God that theists believe in. One such response to that challenge is to show solidarity with the victims. The Jobs of this world—and we all are at one time or another—call for some comfort. Being united with them can be a healing process for both the comforter and the sufferer. It is surprising that many times tragedies do unite people and bring out the good in them. Even when a kind gesture does not always last, the instantaneous response of goodwill has a way of easing the burden. When it is followed by practical measures, the relief can be more effective. There is some truth in the belief that much comfort is derived from the realisation that one is not alone in one's distress. Psychologists tell us that the deepest need for a human person is the need to overcome separateness.23 That need is intensified in moments of misery. The lack of companionship in affliction adds greatly to one's unfortunate situation whereas when others come to one's aid, the burden is less onerous. One is given hope. Because people can be touched, much good work occurs. If love means caring about what happens to others, then caring implies being affected by them. Our feelings for them motivate us to respond positively.

Cf. the Introduction 'Faith and Reason'. For an interesting psychological study of the relationship between the experience of suffering and certain images of God, see Dirk Hutsebaut, 'Why Does God Allow This?: an Empirical Approach to the Theodicy Question through the Themes of Suffering and Meaning,' Ultimate Reality and Meaning XV (1992), pp. 286-295.

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Communities, whether primitive or sophisticated, have realised the value of putting people in touch with one another at times of misfortunes. For example, various rituals, religious or not, taught people to share experiences with one another at times of sorrow, such as someone's death. As Rabbi Kushner explains, the Jewish custom of sitting shiva, the memorial week after a death, like the Christian wake or chapel visit, grows out of our need to share our fears and our grief. It reminds us in our moments of need that we are part of a com25

munity, that there are people who care about us. The knowledge that others care, made explicit through rituals or concrete help or mere presence, can be therapeutic. All this is made possible because we can sympathise, that is, share the unpleasant feelings that others are experiencing and the pain that they are undergoing even if not always on the same scale or intensity. We are after all co-sufferers. Hence, the more we have suffered, the more we can sense the agony of others and the more likely we are to help. If we put so much value on sympathetic compassion as a way of dealing with the suffering around us, could we also say that God ought to be conceived as capable of sharing in our sorrows?26 Sympathy is usually distinguished from empathy. Empathy means putting ourselves into the inner world of others, recognising their needs but without letting their suffering overwhelm us. In so distancing ourselves we are said to be in a position to help. This distinction is often employed by some defenders of God's impassability.27 God is said to empathise rather than sympathise with us. According to them, to claim that God sympathises with us is to bring God down to our level. Thus, the idea of

In his book, Understanding Grief (SCM Press, 1957), Edgar N. Jackson shows how religious practices sustain the grief-stricken. Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Pan Books, 1982), pp. 126-127. Simon Weil analyses suffering in terms of its three essential dimensions: physical, psychological and social. The third dimension which turns suffering into affliction is isolation. 'The Love of God and Affliction,' Waiting for God, trans. Emma Craufurd (New York 1951), pp. 117f. Quoted by Dorothee Soelle, Suffering (DLT, 1973), pp. 13-14. On this point, cf. William J. Hill, 'Does Divine Love Entail Suffering In God?' in Bowman L. Clarke and Eugene T. Long (eds.), God and Temporality (Paragon House Publishers, 1984), pp. 55-71. For a helpful review of the debate on God's impassibility, cf. Marcel Sarot, 'A Moved Mover?:the (Im)passibility of God' in Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot, Understanding the Attributes of God (Peter Lang, 1999), pp. 119-137. See also his, God, Possibility and Corporeality (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992).

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God, at least in some Western theists, tended to exclude sympathetic suffering in God.28 On the other hand, does compassion not imply that one is truly, and not merely apparently, moved by our plight? And if compassion, i.e. sympathetic suffering, is a value which prompts us to alleviate the suffering of others, it is hard to see why ascribing it to God is seen as limiting God. Rabbi Kushner makes an eloquent point: I don't know what it means for God to suffer. I don't believe that God is a person like me, with real eyes and real tearducts to cry and real nerve endings to feel pain. But I would like to think that the anguish I feel when I read of the sufferings of innocent people reflects God's anguish and God's compassion, even if His way of feeling pain is different from ours. I would like to think that He is the source of my being able to feel sympathy and outrage, and that He and I are on the same side when we stand with the victim against those who would hurt him.29 Kushner believes that his offer of sympathy became acceptable when people realised that he too had suffered (from the death of his son) whereas as a young rabbi, healthy, gainfully employed, his efforts to aid people in sorrow were resisted. Now that he was really a brother in suffering, they were able to let him help them. There is a strong tendency in us to think that those who have had similar experiences are in a better position not only to understand us but also to offer help.30 Why then is there a reluctance to extend that observation to our understanding of God's character?3' Kazoh Kitamori in his book The Theology of the Pain of God argues, basing himself on his Japanese background, that pain is the essence of God, not merely in the sense of sympathy or empathy with the miseries of human be28

29 30

31

For example, St. Anselm, Proslogium; Monologium; An Appendix in Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilo; and Cur Deus Homo, trans. S.N. Deane (Open Court. 1945), pp. 1314. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, pp. 92-93. Dorothee Soelle's remark is enlightening: 'Gratuitous solidarity with the afflicted changes nothing; precise knowledge that such suffering could be avoided becomes our defense against addressing it. Only our own physical experience and our experience of social helplessness and threat compel us "to recognise the presence of affliction.'" Suffering, p. 15. Richard Swinburne, despite his support of classical theism, argues that there is a logical connection between love, loss and suffering. God, as a loving person must experience suffering because of the sufferings of God's creatures. Cf. his, 'The Problem of Evil,' in Stuart Brown (ed.), Reason and Religion (Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 81-102.

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ings, but in the sense that it is constitutive of the Godhead. He affirms not only divine sympathy but also divine pain, different from human pain, but just as real. Moreover, divine pain, he says, is God's response to human sin. Jung Young Lee, a Korean, maintains that the idea of a God who suffers is the logical conclusion of an Asian metaphysics. In his God Suffers for Us, therefore, he develops the idea of divine empathy based on the / Ching (Book of Changes).33 He writes that God does not merely feel with (sympathise with) the human situation. God feels into (empathises with) the human situation and actively participates in it. The relevant point here is that since one valuable response that we make to the presence of suffering in others is to have sympathetic feelings towards them, then ought we not to say that God too must be affected by all the suffering around us? Is it a particular metaphysical development that leads us to deny compassionate feelings in God? If indeed we are to portray God as one of love, must God not be said to be capable of identifying with our plight to the extent that God too suffers? This should not, however, be mistaken to mean that God suffers in exactly the way we do.34 After all, even our own sympathetic feelings vary in accordance with the kind of person that we are. God is affected in a way which corresponds to God's nature, as the worshipful reality-35 A possible objection here is that we seem to be implying that even God must accept the inevitability of suffering. Surely God's perfection is being threatened. Is God not competent to abolish it in the first instance? A Schillebeeckx observes, 'A God who only shares our suffering leaves the last and definite word to evil and suffering.'36 The question then which demands our further attention is: how can a sympathetic God also be said to abolish suffering? Another possible criticism is that by conceiving God as affected by suffering, we are conceding that there is such a definite reality capable of Kazoh Kitamori, Theology of the Pain of God (John Knox Press, 1965). Jung Young Lee, God Suffers for Us (Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). It is not specific forms of sympathetic suffering which are at issue but simply being touched or moved. How God will be touched or moved will depend on God's nature. This understanding of God's nature as worshipful follows Hartshorne's. That is to say, only God is worthy of total devotion. This is what constitutes God's perfection. Cf. the previous essay 'God in Process Thought'. E Schillebeeckx, For the Sake of the Gospel (SCM Press, 1989), p. 90. Schillebeeckx's criticism is directed against those who, following Bonhoeffer, stress God's defenselessness and powerlessness. He prefers to speak of God's vulnerability, arguing that experience shows us that those who make themselves vulnerable can sometimes disarm evil. (p.93).

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making God suffer. This is an objection that requires a nuanced answer. There is no such thing as suffering itself as if il had an independent existence challenging God in the way some dualistic systems portray the reality of evil. It is people and other creatures who suffer (as well as rejoice). Insofar as they are real, they are capable of touching God in their sorrows and in their joys.

6. God as Liberator Let us now examine the issue of God's work of liberating us from suffering. How can a sympathetic God be said to abolish suffering? Job wanted to be taken out of his misery. The suffering of countless others calls for some form of liberation. Previously, it was pointed out that certain forms of suffering are dehumanising. To try to justify them is to turn a blind eye to the hurt and pain which can sometimes lead to what can only be described as an inhuman kind of existence. This is particularly true of the misery and the degradation experienced by the poor. We may try to impart a theological, biblical or spiritual meaning to their plight, yet we cannot escape the economics of it. Nor can we ignore its psychological consequences. Poverty is extreme need or destitution. It means the way of life of the slum-dwellers or the homeless of Latin America or of the Philippines, of over-populated India, of the ghettos of America and elsewhere, of famine-stricken Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. Poverty hurts and oppresses people because it deprives them of the necessities of life. It creates the gap between the rich, over-fed landlord and the hungry, grief-stricken tenant. It makes a parent worry over the next crumb for the family. It forces a man or a woman to stand in a queue at employment agencies in spite of the very slim chance of getting a job. Poverty is what causes grim-faced children to peer into glass-paned restaurants to watch the more fortunate ones partake of life's bounties—as if the mere sight of food is enough to ease the hunger they feel. Poverty is certainly not a welcome word, and its effects are to be dreaded and avoided.37 Hence, it is crucial that we work towards the removal of the causes

Two qualifications are necessary here. One is the observation by some Latin American liberation theologians that poverty is an abstract word. They rightly claim that what is at issue are poor people. Cf. Araya, God of the Poor, pp. 114f. The other qualification is the distinction made by Aloysius Pieris in An Asian Theology of Liberation (Orbis, 1988) between 'voluntary poverty' and 'forced poverty,' pp. 20f. What I mean here is 'forced poverty'.

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of this kind of suffering. We ought to use every resource at our disposal to transform the situation.3 In claiming that we must root out the causes of this kind of suffering whenever possible—as another practical response to the challenge of suffering—I am asserting that God is not its cause. It is unfortunate when poor people are simply encouraged to 'accept their poverty' as the lot assigned to them by God. This is really to ignore that often the real causes are the actions and policies of people. The most appropriate loving response then is to identify and remove these causes as part of our struggle to construct a just and peaceful society in which all—and not just the powerful few—can live in dignity and be masters of their own destinies. Third-world writers, for instance, are becoming increasingly conscious of the obstacles put forward by certain economic and social aspects of Western society to the complete fulfillment of their people as human beings. They are critical of the growing dehumanisation brought about by structures which are in fact structures of domination. These structures may bring about an accelerated pace of development but it benefits only a small minority. They speak therefore of the need to liberate those who are its victims, the oppressed majority.39 It is understandable that in these countries there is a conscious effort to respond to suffering in terms of 'setting the poor free'. Gustavo Gutierrez puts this point across: The poor person is the byproduct of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. He is the oppressed, the exploited, the proletarian, the one deprived of the fruit of his labor and despoiled of being a person. For that reason the poverty of the poor person is not a call for a generous act which will alleviate his misery but rather a demand for building a different social order.40

Aloysius Pieris notes that in an Asian situation the issue is not so much poverty vs. wealth as much as acquisitiveness or avarice. Thus, he claims, 'The primary concern, therefore, is not eradication of poverty but struggle against mammon-that undefinable force that organises itself within every person and among persons to make material wealth antihuman, antireligious, and oppressive.' An Asian Theology of Liberation, p. 75. 39

See, for example, Juan Luis Segundo, Our Idea of God; Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation (Orbis, 1973). Gustavo Gutierrez, 'Faith as Freedom: Solidarity with the Alienated and Confidence in the Future,' in Francis A. Eigo (ed.), Living with Change, Experience, Faith (Villanova University Press, 1976), p. 25.

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The experience of Latin Americans (and various groups in different countries who are experiencing oppression and exploitation) has helped focus on the image of God as Liberator. The challenge for them—but one may add, to us all no matter where we are—is 'how to find a way of speaking about God that springs from the situation created by unjust poverty in which the great majority of the people live' and 'to find language that talks of hope which buoys up a people struggling for its liberation.'41 They have turned for an answer to God the Liberator who favours the poor and the oppressed and assists in their struggle. Such a turn necessarily entails the repudiation and removal of false gods.42 The reality of poverty and oppression, it seems, demands that we go further than Kitamori's and Lee's answers to the question of how God liberates us from our suffering. For Kitamori, a recognition of the pain of God will overcome human pain. He writes: 'When the pain of man becomes the symbol of the pain of God, man's pain is in turn healed. What heals our wounds is the love rooted in the pain of God.'43 Lee holds that God overcomes our suffering through God's suffering. 'Faith,' he maintains, 'emancipates us from suffering alone to suffering with.'44 As we have already noted, there is a sense in which such a reaction can be liberating, particularly if its prevention is beyond our reasonable control. However, it could also lead to the kind of passivity and even fatalism that characterises the thinking of some who regard suffering to be inevitable since it balances the good to produce harmony.45 Unfortunately, the reality in Latin America and in Asia (and in other countries) is that much of the suffering is counterproductive. According to Virginia Fabella, Peter K.H. Lee and David Kwang-sun Suh, even though Asians have known suffering to be conducive to spiritual growth, 'suffering becomes a constructive element in liberation spirituality only if it strengthens the character and spirit of the one who suffers, and at the same time transforms the forces that cause that pain.' 46 Noting that in Gustavo Gutierrez, 'Speaking about God', Concilium 171 (1984), p. 30. Cf. The Idols of Death and the God of Life, p. 1. Theology of the Pain of God, p. 64. God Suffers, p. 81. Lee's use of the terms 'sympathy' and 'empathy' is the opposite of the definitions given in the text. This is not true of Minjung theology which speaks of 'dan' which is used to resolve 'han' described by David Kwang-sun Suh as 'the feeling of anger of the people brought by injustice inflicted upon them' in his 'Shamanism and Minjung Liberation' in Virginia Fabella et al. (eds.), Asian Christian Spirituality: Reclaiming Traditions (Orbis, 1992), p. 33. Cf. Minjung Theology (Orbis,1983), and Jung Young Lee's introduction to An Emerging Theology in World Perspective: Commentary on Korean Minjung Theology (Twenty-Third Publications, 1988), pp. 3-29. Asian Christian Spirituality, p. 8.

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Asia there exists two worlds, that of the privileged and that of the marginalised, these writers correctly note that: No spirituality that claims to be Asian can disregard the plight of these marginalised and suffering millions, for they are the majority of Asia's people. To be relevant, spirituality in Asia cannot be an elitist or a 'pie in the sky' spirituality, but one that responds to people's needs and situations. It must concern itself with people's struggles against dehumanising economic and political conditions, as well as with their aspirations for a more humane and egalitarian society. It must concern itself with countering those cultural and psychological elements that demean and subjugate, and with creating new patterns of relationships that make life worth living. In a word, spirituality in Asia must be a liberating spirituality.47 Given these realities, what is implied when we speak of God as Liberator, as one who gives life and hope in the midst of suffering? It seems to me that it is to recognise that a task lies ahead of us to change the situation whenever it cripples and even kills rather than frees people. Theodore Walker makes this point from the perspective of black theology: '... [Bjlack theology knows, from the data of human experience, that the experience of suffering from oppression entails a desire to be liberated from such suffering. Hence, it follows that the God who experiences the suffering of the oppressed also desires their liberation.'48 It means that siding with the victims of suffering does not mean inaction. Instead, it should spur on us to participate in God's work of liberating us from all kinds of oppression. Or as Gustavo Gutierrez puts it, 'Yahweh too has limits, which are self-imposed. Human beings are insignificant in Job's judgement, but they are great enough for God, the almighty, to stop at the threshold of their freedom and ask for their collaboration in the building of the world and in its just governance.'49 Victorio Araya echoes this point: 'The true God does not replace human beings in the task of re-creating and transforming the world.'50 Here too Schillebeeckx's words are particularly apt: 'What is at stake here is not simply the ethical consequence of the religious or theological life; rather, ethical praxis becomes an essential component of a life directed to God, of "the true knowledge of God"... God is 47

48

50

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Ibid., pp. 1-2. Theodore Walker, 'Hartshorne's Neoclassical Theism and Black Theology,' in S. Sia (ed.), Charles Hartshorne 's Concept of God: Philosophical and Theological Responses (Martinus Nijhoff, 1990), p. 1. Gutierrez, On Job, p. 79. Araya, God of the Poor, p. 150.

accessible above all in the praxis of justice and love.' 5 ' In short, it is through us and with us that God liberates others from their miserable situation just as it is through others and in others that we experience the reality of God's sympathy.52 How and to what extent we are called upon to participate in God's work of liberation will, of course, vary depending on our circumstances. This question of how to talk of God's work of liberating will continue to challenge us.53 No doubt, it is a difficult task since any attempt to answer this question seems to be betrayed by the facts. That is to say, in trying to describe God's activity we will have to reckon with the need to show plausibly and realistically that God is actively working for our liberation from oppression despite the obvious presence of so much undeserved suffering in the world. This is not, of course, a new challenge but as we become more and more aware of unjust and dehumanising situations all over the world we need once again to face the issue.

7. Concluding Comment In this essay, I have proposed a praxis-based response to what I believe is another kind of challenge coming from Hume. In a way it is a response that results in a reformulation of the belief in God's goodness. Instead of merely defending this belief, I have followed through the claim that it means a God who truly participates in the grieving process, a God who is indeed moved by the suffering of all creatures. This description of God stems from our own human reaction to a lot of the suffering around us. This praxis-based response has also led to the description of a God who liberates. Again it is really a different way of looking at God's power. This alternative understanding refuses to regard God as the scapegoat for many of the ills in the world. In many cases we—our actions, our policies, our structures—are responsible for our own suffering and that of the innocent. It is also an understanding that demands our participation in the task of transforming this world into a more liveable one. Once again the description of God as liberator arises from the way we react to some forms of suffering.

Schillebeeckx, For the Sake of the Gospel, pp. 101-102. As Aisling in the novel The Fountain Arethuse puts it in reply to Richard: 'That God works through us. And God is as effective or as powerful, in the sense that I have described it, as we allow God to be.' Cf. Appendix, p. 186. Victoro Araya provides a helpful answer to this question in his God of the Poor, pp. 125-152. On the question of how God can be said to actively liberate us from our suffering, see the previous issue 'Evil and Creativity'.

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6. Hartshome's Interpretation of Human Immortality

1. Objective Immortality Charles Hartshorne has defended a version of immortality which he refers to as 'objective immortality'. It consists in 'being remembered by God'. At the same time he has been critical of other philosophical interpretations of immortality, particularly the traditional concept of personal immortality. The purpose of this essay is not so much to answer his criticisms as much as to show that Hartshome's own interpretation of immortality rests on certain metaphysical principles that have been questioned by others. These principles are: God as the recipient of values, the immortality of the past, and personhood understood as a series of events rather than a substantial self. Hartshorne argues that these metaphysical principles, which maintain a nondualistic psychicalist understanding of reality, have led him to reject the idea of post-mortem existence in favour of the doctrine of the retention of human existence in God's memory. I will try to argue, however, that due to the internal difficulties of Hartshome's version of immortality and the inadequacy of his solution to the human quest for ultimate meaning, Hartshorne could be more open to the traditional notion of personal immortality.

2. Hartshorne's Criticisms of Traditional Understandings of Immortality In Hartshome's view, one of the reasons for the doctrine of personal immortality is the belief that final justification of the good can take place only after death. According to this belief, the good will ultimately be rewarded while the evil ones will be punished. Thus, even if evil deeds seem to reap rewards rather than punishments in life, it is held that this imbalance will be rectified in the next world. Full justice will be meted out and the scales of justice will be tipped over in favour of the good and the deserving. Hartshorne takes issue with this interpretation; he disagrees with the form of human immortality presented here and with the underlying understanding of God's goodness and justice. He firmly believes that this life is our opportunity for doing good and for loving God and others. It is also where due rewards and punishments take place. For Hartshorne the intrinsic value for good and disvalue of evil should motivate us, rather than the fear of punish-

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ment or the hope of reward in the afterlife. He thinks that this is a more appropriate understanding of God's love and justice. As he puts it, 'If love is not its own reward, then God is not love.'1 In the view that he is criticising, God becomes simply the dispenser of awards and demerits. Yet Hartshorne's rejection of post-mortem rewards or punishments is not a denial that the possible good or bad consequences of our actions will outlast us. All he wishes to emphasise is that our reward is now while we are performing the actions. Neither does Hartshorne deny the possibility of a future reward, e.g. benefit to someone who survives us. But he points out that what constitutes our reward in this case is this present aiming at something in the future. In one respect, the future good accruing to us will be our reward; but it is one which we can enjoy only in anticipation as we could be gone before it happens. In short, our participation in that good is now rather than later. Thus, Hartshorne cannot accept the argument that since many do not have a fair lot in this life, justice demands that they should have another and better opportunity elsewhere. He adds that in any sphere there will be chance, hence good and bad luck due to creativity. The demand for justice, i.e. to each according to one's deserts, is not an ultimate axiom valid cosmically or metaphysically. Hartshorne carries his criticisms further by attacking the doctrine of personal immortality itself, on which the belief in post-mortem rewards and punishment stands. According to him, his view on initial inspection may be seen as contrary to religious sentiment but upon closer look the so-called rift may not now be as wide.2 He has some harsh words for the doctrine of personal immortality, especially when it is closely linked with the notion of divine justice expressed as the apportioning of post-mortem rewards and punishments for human actions. He sees in it 'substantial elements of irrationality, not in the sense of doctrines above reason but of doctrines below and contrary to it.'3 In an approving tone he quotes Berdyaev who refers to it as the 'most disgusting mortality ever conceived'.4 Hartshorne looks on the doctrine of personal immortality as actually a rival to belief in God rather than a logical consequence of it

Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics (La Salle: Open Court, 1962), p.254. Hartshorne, 'Philosophy After Fifty Years,' in P. Bertocci (ed.), Mid-Twentieth Century American Philosophy: Personal Statements (N.Y.: Humanities Press, 1974), p. 147. Hartshorne, 'A Philosopher's Assessment of Christianity,' in W. Leibrecht (ed.), Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich (NY.: Harper, 1959), p.175. Hartshorne, 'Religion and Creative Experience,' Unitarian Register and Universalist Leader 141 (1962), p.ll.

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since it seems to enshrine self-interest as ultimate.5 The believer is led to expect an everlasting award in comparison with which nothing on earth would or could be as significant. Hartshorne also finds fault with this doctrine because one cannot talk of an identical self reaping rewards or punishment. Here his criticism is based on his metaphysics. 'Each momentary agent and sufferer,' he says, 'is numerically new, from which it follows that the I which now acts never can receive either reward or punishment, beyond the intrinsic reward or punishment of acting and experiencing as it does now. The account is immediately closed. Anything one demands for the future is demanded for another, even though this other is termed "one's self'.'6 Hartshorne adds that the concept of personal 'substance' has been the backbone of the questionable theory of heaven and hell. Evidently, Hartshorne's counterargument depends on the acceptability of his own interpretation of personal identity. To this point we shall return later. Another form of immortality that Hartshorne considers is social immortality: ultimate value is preserved by posterity rather than by an individual who continues to exist after death. But Hartshorne does not think that this form of immortality answers the quest for ultimacy either. Our acts will in a sense live on in future human beings (for example, in the readers of books which we may have written, the spectators of the buildings which we may have erected, or our children who will benefit from our efforts). These will furnish the actual or at least potential realisation of our future reality as individuals who have existed. But for Hartshorne this is an unsatisfactory solution to the quest for immortality. Since no one can know us fully while we live, more so will we be forgotten after our deaths. Many details about our lives are missed even by the closest of our contemporaries and not surprisingly by posterity. Generations are frequently almost wholly unconscious or unappreciative of the deeds of previous generations. The simple fact is that we, individually and collectively, forget. Our experiences seem to perish almost as fast as they occur because we fail to Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (SUNY Press, 1984), pp. 97-99. For the ethical implication of this point, cf. his 'Ethics and the Process of Living,' in Jorge J.E. Gracia (ed.), Man and His Conduct: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Risieri Frondizi (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Universitaria, 1980), pp. 191-202; 'Beyond Enlightened Self-interest: a Metaphysics of Ethics' ch. 12 of his The Zero Fallacy and Other Essays in Neoclassical Philosophy ed. Mohammad Valady (Open Court, 1997). Hartshorne, 'Religion in Process Philosophy,' in J.C. Feaver and W. Horosz (eds.), Religion in Philosophical and Cultural Perspective (Princeton: D. van Dostrand, 1967), p.264. See also: his 'Toward a Buddhist-Christian Religion,' in Kenneth K. Inada and Nolan P. Jacobson (eds.), Buddhism and American Thinkers (SUNY Press, 1984), pp. 1-13.

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remember much about them. At any moment everything, except a tiny portion of our past life, is erased from our memories. If this is so now, future generations will hardly be better in this respect. Hartshorne asks, what will most of our lives mean to those who come after us, who will know little of these lives and care less?7 Besides, there does not seem to be much evidence that humankind will continue forever. It is doubtful whether the human species is literally immortal even if species do last longer than individuals.8 Over every generation hangs the apparently inevitable doom that theirs could be the last generation. When that happens, then the question of the ultimate value of our lives and deeds resurfaces. Thus, even if one grants that our lives may leave their mark long after we ourselves are gone, we nonetheless cannot suppose that humanity would be capable of preserving for all time this monument of ours. To suppose so is to ignore the known traits of humanity.9 Hartshorne, therefore, sees the question of ultimacy or immortality as pressing us toward the theistic solution. ° After all, it is God, not humans, who never dies. The fact of death reminds us that beings who are limited in time cannot live forever. Deathless existence is God's prerogative. Moreover, since God is the only knower whose knowledge is fully adequate and is thus able fully to grasp and evaluate the qualities, richness and beauty of everything," only God can be the final recipient of our achievements and the ultimate beneficiary of our values. For this reason, Hartshorne argues that values are permanent not as human but as divine possessions.12 Our achievements have eternal significance only if there is an inclusive consciousness, such as God's, which enjoys and appreciates their having occurred. God's continued existence and unsurpassable memory mean that God will cherish us no matter how long we have been dead. In acquiring us as we are on earth God acquires us foreverHartshornc, Reality as Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion (Glencoe: The Free Press, and Boston: the Beacon Press, 1953), p.49. Hartshorne, 'The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy,' Talk of God (London: Macmillan, 1969), p.157. Hartshorne brings out the ethical implication of this point in his 'The Ethics of Contributionism,' in Ernest Partridge (ed.), Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental Ethics (N.Y.: Promotheus Books, 1981), pp. 103107. Hartshorne, A Natural Theology for our Time (La Salle: Open Court, 1967), p.57. For a comparison between Hartshome's interpretation of immortality and that of Karl Rahner, see J.N. King and B.L. Whitney, 'Rahner and Hartshorne on Death and Eternal Life,' Horizons 15 (1988), pp. 239-261. Hartshorne, 'A Metaphysics of Individualism,' in G. Mills (ed.), Innocence and Power (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965), p.145. Hartshome, 'Process Philosophy as a Resource for Christian Thought,' in LeFrevre (ed.), Philosophical Resources for Christian Thought (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968), p.48.

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more. As Hartshorne himself expresses it: 'If wc will have value in the memory of friends and admirers who survive us, how much more can we have value in the consciousness of God, who endures forever, and who alone can fully appreciate all that we have been, felt or thought.'" Hartshorne can therefore say that very literally we exist to enhance, and not just to admire and enjoy, the divine glory. Ultimately, we are contributors to the ever-growing divine treasury of values. Serving God means that our final and inclusive end is to contribute to the divine life. Because of this, there is something perpetual in each entity in that it will be preserved in God.14

3. God as Recipient of Values To understand Hartshorne's theistic yet non-conventional version of ultimacy, it should be noted that for him reality contributes to God's actuality. God for Hartshorne is dipolar: God has an abstract aspect and a concrete aspect.15 God's concreteness means that God is really related to us, affected by what we do and thus changed in actuality. Since the claim is made by Hartshorne that God's concreteness (which is relative) loves and genuinely becomes or acquires novel values, Hartshorne's God has relevance to human aspirations that an absolute and changeless deity cannot have. A God who cherishes us and is not once-for-all complete, but is ever enriched with new values can and will acquire values from the awareness of our experiences as these occur. There is no futility in our existence, Hartshorne consoles us, if indeed all human living as actually lived has passed into the imperishable reservoir of enjoyed experiences which is God's concrete actuality. Hartshorne's dipolar God is, as it were, 'the cherisher of all achieved actualities'. Hence, all of one's life can be a 'reasonable, holy and living sacrifice to God'. The value of this 'sacrifice' depends on the sort of life we have lived. We would be a poor gift to God if we lived a life that is characterised by a lack of generous openness to others or to the beauty of the world and the divine harmony pervading all seemingly insignificant things. How we conduct our lives will decide what God will remember of us. Hartshorne is quite graphic in his description: 'One might say that we mold the picture that hangs in the living mansion. God will make as much out of the picture in beholding it as can Hartshorne, 'The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy,' p.156. Hartshorne, 'The Dipolar Conception of God,' Review of Metaphysics 21 (1967), p.288. 15

See the previous essays, 'God in Process Thought' and 'On God, Time and Change'. Cf. Hartshorne, 'Thoughts on the Development of My Concept of God,' The Personalist Forum, XIV (1998), pp. 77-82.

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be made, but how much can be made depends upon the picture and not merely upon the divine insight in seeing relations and meanings.'16 Thus, although the privilege of living everlastingly is not ours but God's, we can at least ensure that our lives have been well-lived within God's own life. In Hartshorne's philosophy then, the final significance of all we do is in the contribution our lives make to God, in whom all experiences once they have occurred, are perpetuated. Thus, it matters a great deal whether we have done well or not, or whether we have lived happy lives or not since in the final analysis it matters to God. Hartshorne adds that if we love God, then it matters to us now; we would care about what we do because of the impact we have on God.17 According to Hartshorne then, our immortality is no other than God's memory of us. Because God knows us adequately God can appreciate totally the worth of each moment of our lives. God, who does justice to all the beauty and value in the world, captures forever each passing moment. Because our memories are faint and selective we can never be in that position. Yet our forgotten experiences are not lost since they are additions to the experiences of God, the cosmically social and all-cherishing being, to whom all hearts—not only as they are but also as they have been—are open. Hartshorne describes the essential meaning of our immortality as 'the everlasting transparency of our lives to the divine'.18 A possible objection to Hartshorne's interpretation of our immortality is that it seems to enshrine God's memory of us rather than us. Hartshorne replies that this objection bares a secret egotism since it shows that what we have really wanted is to be the Immortal Person ourselves, or that we have regarded God, not as the end of ends, but as a means to our own ends, namely, the achievement of permanence. We wish, it would appear, to set ourselves up as immortal gods, rivaling God. As Hartshorne points out, 'If we claim immortality for ourselves, then God is needed only as support for our self-fulfillment.'19 Hartshorne finds this blasphemous. On a more philosophical level, Hartshorne counters this objection to his position by arguing against the idea of an immortal 'self which is implied by this objection. In Hartshorne's metaphysics, as will be seen later, there is no substantial or underlying self, merely a series

Hartshorne, A Natural Theology for our Time, p.257. Hartshorne, 'Man's Fragmentariness,' Wesleyan Studies in Religion 41 (1963-64), p. 23. Hartshorne, 'Religion in Process Philosophy,' 1967, p.265. Cf. also his, 'God and the Meaning of Life,' in Leroy S. Rouner (ed.), On Nature. Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 6 (University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), pp. 154168. Hartshorne, 'Man's Fragmentariness,' p.23.

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of experiences which comes to an end upon death but is retained in God's memory. Because life is contributory, ultimately to God, Hartshorne admits that there is some truth in the doctrine of social immortality despite his reservations already noted earlier. It would be one sided, he says, to contrast social immortality (the non-religious form of everlasting life) with theistic immortality (the kind he is espousing) for the two need not be regarded as incompatible. Instead, he redefines social immortality in theistic terms: God whose future is endless and who alone fully appropriates our ephemeral good is the social being who is neighbour to all of us. Social immortality, as Hartshorne sees it, is literal immortality in God as the neighbour. Since God alone is exempt from death and able to love all equally, God is the 'definitive posterity'.20 If it is true that our abiding value is what we give to posterity, to the life that survives us, then the permanence of life's values cannot consist simply in what each of us does for our human posterity. In the long run, this must be God. Supporters of Hartshome's idea of a God who is sensitive to our needs and who treasures forever all our achievements have argued that such a God can be said to be truly sympathetic and personally related to us. But how adequate and consistent a conception of God is it in the context of Hartshome's own interpretation of human immortality? To clarify this question further and possibly answer it, let us first turn to another of the metaphysical principles which that interpretation makes use of.

4. Immortality of the Past Hartshome's interpretation of immortality is complemented by his doctrine of the immortality of the past which asserts that what once existed but now seems to have ceased to exist is not reduced to nothingness. Strictly speaking, something cannot become nothing. Once something has taken place, it cannot be undone; it continues to exist in another way. Hartshorne firmly holds that events do not cease to have status just because they are over. On the contrary, they become part of something else by becoming constituents of the events whose past they constitute. Nothing ceases to be once it has been actualised; instead, it becomes included in a new actuality. Pastness thus is not unreality since past events become part of the total reality.

Hartshorne, 'Beyond Enlightened Self-interest: a Metaphysics of Ethics, in H. Cargas and B. Lee (eds.) Religious Experience and Process Theology (N.Y.: Paulist Press, 1976), p.309.

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In Hartshorne's metaphysical system the past is regarded as indestructible. Hartshorne holds that if the past were reduced to nothing at all, then propositions about it would be empty for they would have no referents. The truth 'about x' is impossible without x; if x had been obliterated, it would be meaningless to refer to it. As Hartshorne puts it: 'Truth is a relational function; if a proposition about x is true, its truth consists in the relation between itself and x, if it is nothing at all, then so is the relation of which it is said to be a term.'21 Does Hartshorne then deny destruction? The answer here is a qualified one. Events or occurrences cannot be annihilated; things and individuals, however, can be. But the annihilation of things and individuals consists not in the destruction or removal from reality of the events forming their histories up to the moment of destruction but only in the prevention of additional events belonging to this history. That is, no more such events will be created. Hartshorne explains that people and trees and cities can be destroyed. But what this really means is that an event-sequence with a certain persistence of character and with peculiarly intimate relationships among the member-events may have a final member. Or to use one of Hartshorne's favourite metaphors, the book itself is not destroyed just because the number of chapters has been limited due to the appearance of a last chapter. Neither is a life, properly seen as an eventsequence, turned into naught by virtue of the limited number of its experiences and behavioural occurrences.22 In short, the past does not consist of unrealities or of nothing but of the very events which have happened.23 The past continues in existence by being preserved in the present. This is exemplified by memory. For Hartshorne memory is one way that we know and retain the past. 24 But our memory is so feeble that the events that we remember are not fully preserved for us even if we do remember them. But the events we best remember are the ones most nearly preserved as real. For instance, we can remember a certain wonderful moment so well that the beauty of it is almost fully embodied in the present by that memory. For the past to be fully preserved, Hartshorne argues that there must be a perfect memory such as a divine memory. The past is contained in the present to the extent that it is retained absolutely in God.25 God's perfect knowledge means that all the past must still be before God without loss of any detail or quality. For this memory neither joy Hartshorne, 'The Logical Structure of Givenness, Philosophical Quarterly, 8 (1958), p.310. Hartshorne, 'Religion in Process Philosophy,' p.251. Hartshorne, 'Duality versus Dualism and Monism,' Japanese Religions 5 (1969), p.59. Hartshorne, Reality as Social Process, p. 160. Hartshorne, 'The Divine Relativity and Absoluteness: a Reply to John Wild,' Review of Metaphysics 4 (1950), p.56.

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nor pain, once experienced anywhere in the world, can ever be wiped out. ' Thus, Hartshorne finds support for the doctrine of the total indestructibility of the past in the supposition that there exists a divine memory. Since human memory, whether individual or collective, cannot contain all that has happened and since the past must be regarded as nevertheless real, Hartshorne turns to a memory which, by definition, meets the need to preserve all events. Experience shows that the past is deficiently continued in human memory, and yet the notion of truth seems to demand the persistence of past events in all their details about which there is truth. The only possible reconciliation of these two is to posit a memory that is able to perpetuate the past completely. According to Hartshorne, one senses the existence of such a memory—a memory which is perfectly conscious, clear, vivid and retentive—by contrasting it with one's own imperfect memory. Such a model memory would possess the whole quality of the past, all its joys and sorrows, contrast, harmony, and discord.27 Returning to the topic of human immortality, one can see that for Hartshorne the death of a human being then is not total annihilation. While that human being's capability of acquiring more experiences has been curtailed, his or her past experiences continue to live on in God's memory. The true basis of that person's permanence is God's complete memory. In Hartshorne's view then, only an ideally perfect memory could constitute the adequate conservation of experience in full vividness and value. We can, in the profoundest sense, 'live forever' if and only if we are cherished by an imperishable and wholly clear and distinct retrospective awareness which Hartshorne calls the memory of God. What Hartshorne has to say on human immortality, therefore, implies that death is not the final end although it is 'the fixing of the concluding page to one's book of life'.29 That there is death is not an indication that God does not love us despite the persistent feeling among many people that if God loves us God will not suffer us to be destroyed. But, as far as Hartshorne is conHartshorne, Reality as Social Process, p. 160. Hartshorne, 'The Immortality of the Past: Critique of Prevalent Misinterpretations,' Review of Metaphysics, 7 (1953), pp.103-104. Hartshome, 'The Buddhist-Whiteheadian View of the Self and the Religious Traditions,' Proceedings of the 9fh International Congress for the History of Religions (Tokyo: Maruzen, 1960), p.301. Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics, p.253. Cf. also, Hartshorne, 'The Acceptance of Death,' in Forence M. Hetzler and Austin H. Kutscher (eds.), Philosophical Aspects of Thanatology, Vol.1 (N.Y.: MSS Information Corporation, 1978), pp. 83-81 and 'A Philosophy of Death,' Ibid. Vol. 2, pp. 81-89.

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cerned, this cannot be true because death does not represent destruction but only the setting of a definitive limit. It is not the obliteration of what has existed. Thus, for him death does not militate against the belief in God's goodness. While Hartshorne's arguments for the immortality of the past are persuasive, it is difficult nevertheless to understand how the past can be said to be retained in God's memory. John Wild, for instance, criticises Hartshorne for saying that the past is contained in the present through memory since this is really to destroy the distinction between the two. Noetic presence before the mind should not be confused with physical possession or inclusion. It is not really correct, Wild maintains, to assert that the past exists in the present because existence refers to physical presence. The kind of presence that is in question in the process of knowledge is noetic or mental. To have the past so present before the mind is not to give it physical presence or existence. Wild also points out that that which includes versus that which is included is evidently not the same as present versus past. Moreover, if pastness is simply being included as a part, then the present will also become past. He asks, 'Where does the distinction between past and present lie then?' 30 Another criticism of Hartshorne's claim that God immortalises all events by being included in God's memory is whether it is consistent in view of the fact that Hartshorne has changed his position regarding contemporary occasions. F.F. Fost first noted the problematic area into which this shift places Hartshorne. By relinquishing his earlier position concerning the mutual immanence of contemporary occasions and adopting the view that contemporaries are causally unrelated to one another, Hartshorne has undermined his doctrine that God literally includes all reality. Essentially, Frost's criticism is that part of the real world, that which is in unison of becoming with God, is not known by God. Hence, God cannot be said to be a//-inclusive (and for that matter, allknowing) since God can be said to know something only after it is past. In other words, the contemporariness of any event is outside God's knowledge.31 Similarly, Jerry Clay Henson wonders whether Hartshorne can consistently claim that God's knowledge corresponds with reality and that all the objectives of divine knowledge are everlastingly preserved in the divine memory. Taking account of Hartshorne's view that to preserve past events is to preserve them as complete and past, Henson asks how that can be complete when the quality of J. Wild, 'A Review-Article: Hartshorne's Divine Relativity,' Review of Metaphysics 2 (1948), p.71f. F. Fost, 'Relativity Theory and Hartshorne's Dipolar Theism,' in L. Ford (ed.), Two Process Philosophers: Hartshorne's Encounter with Whitehead (AAR Studies in Religion, 1973), pp. 95-96.

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presentness is lost. On the other hand, if entities are to be preserved in subjective immediacy, then they must continue as subject in process. This would in turn invalidate Hartshorne's notion ol" objective immortality. Henson's criticism is worth quoting here at some length: It is not at all clear how God might 'perfectly preserve' a person if God does not preserve that which makes the person who he is, namely, the integrating force which gives identity to the millions of discrete momentary occasions that the person is—his immediate awareness of himself as a self. Without such awareness how could one be 'himself, and how could one be preserved in subjective immediacy? ... does God experience my experiences or does God experience my experiencing of my experiences? [The latter would mean] that God also experiences me, my self-conscious subjective self. This would mean, however, that what persists beyond death is not just my heap of experiences, a billion or so discrete selves, but the full and complete self that I am in both concrete and abstract aspects.32 Henson thus creates a dilemma for Hartshorne: if personal experiences are perfectly preserved without loss, then subjective, self-conscious persons are also preserved. But Hartshorne disclaims this. If, on the other hand, only actual occasions are preserved, then something very significant is lost—self-conscious personhood. The preservation that Hartshorne talks of is therefore not really complete.33 One could defend Hartshorne against these criticisms by arguing that subjectivity must be said to lie outside the grasp of any kind of knower. Hence, even God should not be considered present in the subjectivity of actualities (or in the contemporariness of actual occasions). After all, in personal relations— and we could possibly use this as an analogy for understanding God's relationship with us—there is always an element in the other person which escapes our knowledge of him or her. It eludes us, not because we are non-divine knowers but because this is the whole meaning of subjectivity. This is what constitutes the uniqueness of every person. Existentialists have rightly put much emphasis on this. There is a very important sense in which an individual is a world unto himself or herself and a centre of consciousness which no one may strictly penetrate. To say that this is outside God's knowledge is not to limit God's power. In this case, we would have to say that subjectivity or contemporariness J.C. Henson, 'Immortality in the Thought of Charles Hartshorne,' Ph.D. diss. Baylor University, 1975, p.124. Ibid., p. 125.

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means that aspect which remains unknowable until it becomes actualised or is past. Since in Hartshome's metaphysics no reality is totally subjective or past, then no reality can be outside God's knowledge. That is to say, no reality in its actuality is completely present or contemporary. There is always an element of the past in it. Contemporariness is only one aspect of every actuality. God can still be said to be really related to us in knowledge, provided this is taken to mean in their pastness. But no actuality can be outside God even if one aspect of it is. In other words, it merely means a redefining of God's inclusiveness to mean 'inclusion by knowledge', not surrendering of it. This has to be done, I believe, if Hartshorne is to answer the criticisms noted above.

5. Personal Identity Earlier on it was noted that Hartshome's doctrine of immortality assumes a certain understanding of personal identity. According to Hartshorne, any changing yet enduring thing has two aspects: the aspect of identity (what is common to the thing in its earlier and later stages) and the aspect of novelty. A being which changes through all time has an identical aspect which is exempt from change. It is in this sense immutable.34 However, this unchanging identity should not be confused with a substantial soul. For Hartshorne, personal identity is an abstract aspect. He writes: 'The same-self ego is an abstraction from concrete realities, not itself a concrete reality.'35 This is not to say that it is unreal, but it is real within something richer in determination than itself. Hartshorne explains that the T spoken by me is distinct from the T uttered by someone else because there is a different referent of the pronoun in each case. In the same, though subtler, way the 'F which I say now has a different referent from the T which 1 uttered earlier. The reason for the difference is that the pronoun T (or any of the personal pronouns) is a demonstrative and is contextdependent or token-reflexive; that is, the meaning changes each time it is used. There is, of course, an enduring individuality or a specific subject with definitive experiences. But each new experience which the subject undergoes means a new actuality for that subject. The persistent identity itself is abstract while the actual subject having these experiences is concrete. Thus, there is a new I every moment and the 'I' really means not just 'I as subject here' but also 'I now'. In short, spatial and temporal considerations are intrinsic to one's concrete reality. The concreteness of the subject is due to the society or sequence See the previous essay, 'On God, Time and Change'. Hartshorne, "The Development of Process Philosophy," in E.H. Cousins (ed.), Process Theology: Basic Writings (N.Y.: Newman Press, 1971), p.56. 94

of experiences of which the subject is composed. The referent of T is usually some limited part of that sequence of experiences. As Hartshorne puts it, 'Personal identity is a partial, not complete, identity: it is an abstract aspect of life, not life in its concreteness.'36 This is why it would be erroneous to hold that each of us is always simply the same subject or the same reality even if we must admit that we are the same individuals. We are identical through life as human individuals, but not so in our. concreteness. Concretely, there is a new man or woman each moment. To recognise the sameness of that man or woman, we must disregard that which is new at each moment. Hartshorne furthermore differentiates personal identity from strict identity. Identity in its strict meaning connotes entire sameness, total non-difference, in what is said to be identical. If x is identical with y, then 'x' and 'y' are two symbols but with one referent. The difference between them is only the symbols or the act of symbolisation, not in the thing symbolised. It follows that x does not have any property which y does not have and vice versa. Personal identity, on the other hand, is literally partial identity and therefore partial nonidentity, the non-identity referring to the complete reality while the identity to a mere constituent. Personal identity is the persistence of certain defining characteristics in a very complex reality which constantly changes.37 Peter Bertocci agrees with Hartshorne that identity is never a strictly logical identity as attested by personal experience since one is self-identifying unity-continuity in change. Nevertheless, he has reservations over Hartshorne's statement that 'reality is the succession of units' (i.e. actual entities or experient occasions). In Bertocci's view, this statement cannot be rendered coherent with personal self-conscious experience. Instead he argues that he experiences himself as a unity, a self-identifying continuant who can recognise and recall his own experiences as successive. He writes, 'There is nothing in my synthesis of successive moments. I am indeed active in any moment, but I am neither a collection of moments nor a "synthesis".'38 Bertocci is voicing a basic epistemological and ontological disagreement. He questions the validity of Hartshorne's doctrine that the present contains the past—this doctrine, it was noted, complements Hartshorne's interpretation of human immortality and forms the basis for his version of personal identity—because there does not seem to be an experiential basis for this. Simply put, the past does not come into the present Hartshorne, 'Beyond Enlightened Self-interest: a Metaphysics of Ethics,' p.302. Hartshorne, 'Strict and Generic Identity: an Illustration of the Relations of Logic to Metaphysics' in H.M. Kallen et al. (eds.), Structure, Method and Meaning: Essays in Honor of Henry M. Sheffer (N.Y.: Liberal Arts Press, 1951), p.26. See also his, "Personal Identity from A to Z," Process Studies, II (1972), pp. 209-215. P. Bertocci, 'Hartshorne on Personal Identity: a Personalistic Critique,' Process Studies, II (1972), p.217.

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for it is gone forever. When it comes to personal identity, therefore, one cannot say that one is in one's past, but only in one's present. 'The burning, present experience is a present complex unity that is able to identify itself as changing and successive... In a present [experience] I recognise aspects I describe as past, but my present is never an accumulation of pasts (hidden, distinct, or clear).'39 In short, Bertocci claims that one knows the past but this does not mean that the past itself exists. Bertocci, it would appear, is equating experience with the substance theory. He himself wonders whether his present uneasiness with Hartshorne's theory is due to an obstinate residue of the psycho-logic of substantive metaphysics. In this respect, one could indeed ask whether Bertocci is justified in regarding the substantive theory as our experience of personal identity. After all, many others, notably the Buddhists, would have a different interpretation of their sense of personal identity. One suspects that the Western mind has been shaped mainly by Greek conceptions which makes it easy for some Westerners to accept them as indeed their experience. Robert Neville does acknowledge this point. In his criticism of Hartshorne's account of continuity, Neville writes that Hartshorne's event pluralism which is intended to account for continuity does not articulate 'the Western's sense of individual continuity'.40 Both critics accuse Hartshorne's theory of not having a basis in experience. What is surprising about their criticism is that some have rejected the substance theory precisely because it does not seem to square with personal experience. The Buddha had rejected the Hindu doctrine of Self (although this is not the same as the substantial self) because he could only experience momentary, transitory states, which he regarded as constituting 'the self. David Hume was critical of the classical notion of 'soul' since according to him there was nothing in our experience to support it. The point at issue here is: which aspects of our experience can justifiably serve as the basis for philosophical thinking? The more crucial question then is: what exactly do we mean by experiencing ourselves as subjects? The answer to that question will shape our response to Hartshorne's theory of personal identity. Henson is of the opinion that Hartshorne has not really explored the possibility of a notion of self-identity that is not the same as the substantial self that he is critical of. He claims that Hartshorne 'seems to be in danger of making selfhood, a concrete dimension of experienced reality, into an empty— hence unreal—abstraction'.41 Henson's question as to whether one cannot upIbid., p.219. R. Neville, 'Neoclassical Metaphysics and Christianity,' International Philosophical Quarterly, X (1969), p.56. Henson,'Immortality in the Thought of Charles Hartshorne,' p. 142. 96

hold a third alternative to the classical notion and to Hartshome's interpretation of personal identity remains.

6. A Suggestion In a joint article, Lewis Ford and Marjorie Suchocki offer what they consider to be a Whiteheadian reconstruction of the notion of 'subjective immortality'. 42 Similarly, Jan Van der Veken undertakes a re-thinking of the meaning of 'personal immortality' by reinterpreting Whitehead.43 Hartshome's own interpretation of human immortality likewise calls for another look since the issues raised by Hartshome's critics point to certain unresolved aspects of his position. Given these difficulties (and ambiguities as when he says: 'A conscious state of life cannot become an unconscious state of being dead. Consciousness is consciousness, unconsciousness is unconsciousness, the one cannot be the other'44 and 'there is nothing impersonal about being remembered by God since there is no loss of individual distinctiveness',45 I should like to suggest that, presuming that any philosophical interpretation of human immortality has to be based on the way we experience ourselves as subjects, Hartshorne could be more open to the possibility of personal immortality. In fact, one can even make use of his own distinction between concreteness and abstractness to pave the way to such an openness. Hartshome's view supports the belief that there must be immortality as borne out by his discussion on the immortality of the past. This is the abstract aspect of immortality, a partial description of it. To specify the form of immortality beyond this very general and abstract description of it is to raise the question of the concreteness of immortality. To designate the concrete form of immortality is to stretch beyond the limits of metaphysics, understood as the search for the general traits of reality.46 By relying on this distinction one can Lewis S. Ford and Marjorie Suchocki, 'A Whiteheadian Reflection on Subjective Immortality,' Process Studies (1977), pp. 1-13. See also: Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, 'Charles Hartshorne and Subjective Immortality,' Process Studies, XXI, 2 (Summer, 1992), p. 121, and Randall Auxier, 'Why One Hundred Years is Forever: Hartshome's Theory of Immortality,' The Personalist Forum, XIV (1998), pp. 109-140. Jan Van der Veken, 'Talking Meaningfully about Immortality,' in S. Sia (ed), Process Theology and the Christian Doctrine of God (Petersham: St. Bede's Publications, 1986), pp. 95-108. Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (SUNY Press, 1984), p.32. Hartshorne, Wisdom as Moderation: a Philosophy of the Middle Way (SUNY Press, 1987), p.62. See the previous essay, 'Charles Hartshorne on Describing God'.

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at least leave open the question of personal immortality or of any other kind of immortality. Because metaphysically one is not in a position to show the validity of a claim to personal immortality (which is really the essence of Hartshorne's objections) does not mean it can be discounted. It seems Hartshorne himself senses this as he accepts that personal immortality is not an absurd notion, only that he cannot validate it in his metaphysics.47 The reason why, it seems to me, Hartshorne should be more open to the traditional notion of personal immortality is that his doctrine of immortality does not really answer the human quest for ultimate meaning. I am referring to what has traditionally been described as 'metaphysical evil'. Is it sufficient to calm the Angst experienced by human beings confronted by the threat of death and even utter destruction that the ultimate meaning of our existence is to live a life that will be well remembered by God?48 Granted that Hartshorne's doctrine forces us to be more God-centered rather than anthropocentric in our search for ultimate meaning, has he not ignored this deep-seated existential concern? Hartshorne claims that we should accept our finitude: we are humans limited in space and time. But do we not transcend that finitude somehow? In becoming aware of our finitude have we not in a way transcended our limitations? Otherwise, we would not know that we are limited. In the very act of raising the question regarding the ultimate meaning of human existence, are we not somehow pointing to the possibility of its ultimate reality beyond Hartshorne's doctrine of 'being remembered by God'? 49 Hartshorne believes that it is more certain that there can be no subtraction. That there can be no addition, however, he is less sure, saying that personal survival after death with memory of personal life before death is 'hardly an absurdity'. He finds that the analogy to a butterfly with its succession of bodies, while remote and implausible, is not necessarily strictly inapplicable. What looks to him like a genuine impossibility is the view that there can never be any end, that the chapters of our book will be infinite in number. Cf. his Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics, p. 253. My reading of Hartshorne on this point is that he is really indefinite about the validity of personal immortality. He is inclined to deny it, as has been noted, because he wants to argue that human fragmentariness means temporal as well as spatial limitedness. John Polkinghorne makes the following observation: 'I would go beyond the Kantian assertion that belief in God, and in an afterlife, is necessary in order to confirm the moral order of the world, to the claim that the integrity of personal experience itself, based as it is in the significance and value of individual men and women and the ultimate intelligibility of the universe, requires that there be an eternal ground of hope who is the giver and preserver of human individuality....' Belief in God in an Age of Science (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 21-22. I agree with Polkinghorne when he remarks: 'I cannot think that mere remembrance, such as process theology's notion of our lives contributing to the filling of the reser-

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Hartshome is definite in his rejection of post-mortem rewards and punishments. But this is really to deny the idea of ultimate justice, whatever one may say regarding the concrete form of post-mortem rewards and punishments (which I have already indicated is outside the grasp of metaphysics). In his philosophy Hartshome accepts the notion of ethical responsibility. But full justice is not and cannot be meted out in this life, not even in the way Hartshome presents it. Is justice not an ultimate value?50 It seems to me that it is precisely the need to explain justice ultimately that has led many theists to posit postmortem rewards and punishments and not, as Hartshome believes, egoistic reasons. Hence, God is described not only as good but also as just. Hartshome appears to acknowledge this point when he writes: 'While I have the notion that the theory of heaven and hell is in good part a colossal error and one of the most dangerous that ever occurred to the human mind, I also think that it was closely associated with certain truths and that it requires intellectual and spiritual effort to purify these tmths from the error.'51 Since Hartshorne's own version of human immortality does not adequately explain this need for ultimate justice—which I maintain is the truth behind the doctrine of post-mortem rewards and punishments—one should indeed purify but not dismiss the doctrine of personal immortality.

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voir of divine experience, is an adequate account. It confuses the preservation of the past with the perfection of the future and it gives a diminished description of God's love for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for you and me.' Ibid., 23. My reservation on this point is related to Hartshorne's solution to the problem of evil. If evil is the unwelcome result of the clash of creativities and there is no resolution of this 'unfortunate situation' after one's death, then it could encourage the attitude of 'making the most of the present situation'—and not always in the positive sense. Hartshome, The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics, p.254.

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7. Religion, Science and Hartshorne's Metaphysics*

1. Paradigms Throughout history, there has been a succession of at least two major paradigms that have reflected different notions of cosmic order and views about the nature of reality: the older Graeco-Judaeo-Christian paradigm and the modern paradigm of Newtonian mechanism.1 More recently there has been a felt need for another paradigm that corresponds more to contemporary challenges. This essay attempts to show that Hartshorne's metaphysics is an intellectually credible one in terms of both the findings of contemporary science and the basic intuitions of religion. Consequently, it is a viable alternative to Newtonian mechanism which results in the fragmentation of reality, and to the older paradigm that has become increasingly untenable with contemporary find-ings in science and developments in religion. Hartshorne's metaphysics is an attempt to mediate between a radically pluralistic notion and a radically monistic view of reality. He offers as an alternative the notion of reality as an 'unbroken whole' characterised, not by discrete particles or entities understood in the old substantialistic sense, but by levels of organisation, approached from two distinct but related levels of analysis. In this way he wants to provide a middle ground where dialogue between science and religion can take place.2 While Hartshorne's metaphysics may not be totally free from problems or difficulties,3 we maintain nevertheThis essay was co-authored with Ferdinand Santos. We have followed Ian Barbour's adoption of the Kuhnian notion of a paradigm as a theoretical framework expressive of the essential spirit of its time. We are not equating science with radical pluralism nor religion with radical monism. Rather, the Newtonian mechanistic paradigm that has been adopted by modern science is given to a 'fragmentation' or a 'dissection' of reality (as Whitehead points out). On the other hand, religion, Hartshome says, attempts to enable human beings to come to terms with their 'fragmentary' status. As such, religion attempts to restore a view of the whole. Its paradigm is essentially 'whole-oriented'. There are several areas within science and theology where Hartshorne's system encounters difficulties. Cf. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1966), pp. 447, 457-58. Also, Alan Gragg, Charles Hartshome, Makers of the Modern Theological Mind, ed. Bob E. Patterson (Waco: Word Incorporated, 1973), pp.112-13. In response to an article by William Reese, Hartshome says that relativity

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less that it is a more faithful representation, i.e. a rendering intel-ligible, of a reality that is increasingly viewed by both contemporary science and religion as a unified and dynamic whole. Moreover, by being a more extensive and inclusive view of reality, Hartshorne's alternative paradigm can indeed facilitate a fruitful dialogue between science and religion.4

2. Reality as an Unbroken Whole Hartshorne's metaphysical system denies any impassable gulf or discontinuity between living and non-living entities. Rather, in his view, there is a continuity of levels from the humble electron to the entire universe. In contrast to the prevailing view that experience is a human prerogative, he regards it to be a

physics is 'a problem, even the problem for me; how God as prehending, caring for, sensitive to, the creatures is to be conceived, given the current non-Newtonian idea of physical relativity, according to which there is apparently no unique cosmic present or unambiguous simultaneity.' See Lewis Hahn, ed. The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, Vol. XX of The Library of Living Philosophers (La Salle: Open Court, 1991), p. 616. See also John Wilcox, 'A Question from Physics for Certain Theists,' Journal of Religion, 40.4 (October 1961), pp. 293-300.; Lewis S. Ford, 'Is Process Theism Compatible with Relativity Theory,' Journal of Religion, 47. 2 (April 1968), pp. 124 135.; Paul Fitzgerald, 'Relativity Physics and the God of Process Philosophy,' Process Studies II, 4 (Winter 1972), pp.251-273.; Charles Hartshorne, 'Bell's Theorem and Stapp's Revised View of Space-Time,' Process Studies VII, 3 (Fall 1977), pp. 183-191; Frederic F. Fost, ' Relativity Theory and Hartshorne's Dipolar Theism,' Two Process Philosophers: Hartshorne's Encounter with Whitehead, AAR Studies in Religion, ed. Lewis S. Ford (Tallahassee: American Academy of Religion, 1973), pp. 89-99. David Ray Griffin, 'Hartshorne, God, and Relativity Physics,' Process Studies XI.l (Summer 1992), pp. 85-112. Jiirgen Hilbrier, 'Science and Religion Coming Across,' in Jan Fennema and lain Paul (eds.), Science and Religion: One World- Changing Perspectives: Papers Presented at the Second European Conference on Science and Religion (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), p. 178. Hartshorne's position would be opposite to that of Arnold Benz, who in his The Future of the Universe: Chance, Chaos, God? (N.Y.: Continuum, 2000) is critical of any attempt to integrate and harmonise science and religion if these are to be taken seriously. It would seem that Vincent Brummer would take the same line of thinking in his 'Science, Religion and the Agency of God' in Andre Cloots and Santiago Sia (eds.), Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion. Louvain Philosophical Studies 14 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999), p. 5. On the other hand, Brummer denies that interpreting the relation between science and religion in this way excludes all dialogue between science and religion. Cf. note 8, p. 19 of his essay. 102

universal principle of reality.5 On the other hand, he also insists that there are categories proper to each of these levels. Hartshorne does not view the distinction between the entities in terms of the old substantialistic notion of entities enduring through time but in terms of emergent wholes, i.e. integral 'events' with a hierarchy of organisation. Thus, while agreeing with atomistic mechanism that entities are composed of parts, Hartshorne stresses nevertheless that such an 'emergent whole' should not be viewed simply as the sum of these parts. A human being, for instance, may be analysed in terms of molecular and cellular structure so long as he is not reduced to nothing more than an aggregate of constituent molecules and cells. As an 'emergent whole', a human being has emergent properties that are not reducible to, and hence not predictable from, the properties of his constituents. A human being exhibits complex hierarchies of organisation so that his over-all behaviour is several levels removed from the cellular and molecular levels. The level of subordination of part to whole varies greatly. Hartshorne puts forward a hierarchical scale of beings from the smallest to the most expansive. Each entity on the scale is a 'society', in the sense that it interacts with either its constituent parts (the universe has constituent parts but no 'neighbours' to which it could respond) or with other entities that belong to the scale (the smallest conceivable particle has no constituent parts but has 'neighbours' to which it could respond). It is also a society in the sense that it interacts with its past constituent 'selves' or 'events'. 6 On this scale of beings, every entity is characterised by a degree of both order and creativity. Since both creativity and order are found among all events on the scale, the scale itself can be viewed as an 'unbroken and seamless web'. The notion of levels or degrees is one of Hartshorne's basic metaphysical assumptions. It permeates Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (London: SCM Press, 1970), pp. 6-8. It is in this sense that panpsychism (or ' psychicalism,' which is his preferred term), escapes the criticism of veering perilously close to an extreme case of idealistic monism. See also Barbour, Issues, p. 346. Here Barbour's defense of a similar Whiteheadian terminology could also be applied to Hartshorne's notion of panpsychism. See Hartshorne, Reality a Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion (N.Y. Hafmer, 1971,), pp. 31-32. See also Arthur Peacocke, Intimations of Reality: Critical Realism in Science and Religion (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), pp. 34-35. Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis, p. 8. The image of a 'seamless web' to describe a 'continuity of levels' as found in Barbour, is also used by Bohm and Peacocke. See Bohm, 'The Implicate Order' in David L. Schindler (ed.), Beyond Mechanism: the Universe in Recent Physics and Catholic Thought (N.Y.: University Press of America, 1986), p. 33. See also Arthur Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 57.

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his entire theory such that despite the fact that organisms can very well be distinguished from the so-called 'inorganic' parts of nature, there is no absolute line of demarcation between these two. Hartshorne's view of the continuity, with distinctions, in reality finds support in Barbour, who delineates three reasons based on scientific evidence:8 (i) Biology does hold that there are distinctive characteristics of life, which include reproduction (self-duplication), growth (by reorganisation of environmental materials), irritability (response to stimuli), and self-regulation (active self-maintenance and adaptation). Nonetheless, analogies of these properties— but not all of them together—can be found in systems usually regarded as inanimate. There is no sharp dividing line between living and nonliving, however; and the distinction seems to be meaningless in the border zone.9 (ii) The second law of thermodynamics cannot be used to draw a sharp line of demarcation between living and nonliving processes. This law holds that disorder (or the so-called entropy) tends to increase in any closed system. It could very well seem that living things are not subject to this law since they are not given to disorder in the same way that the inorganic entities are, and more importantly, living things also show an increase in order. Nevertheless, careful analysis of this increase in order will show that it is compensated by an increase in disorder somewhere else.10 The increase in order exhibited by a growing plant, for instance, is accompanied by the using up of solar energy and soil nutrients. This 'using up' has to be included in the system of the growing plant if the second law is to be applied. Hence, an increasing degree of order is never unaccompanied by a correlative increase of disorder (a 'continuous sucking out of orderliness'") from some other area of an organism's environment, (iii) Active self-maintenance and adaptation have been put forward as distinctive character traits of living things. Nonetheless, in this self-regulating activity of living things, DNA molecules play a central role. DNA is, of course, a chemical structure that, by the spatial arrangement of its parts, carries the genetic information or 'instructions' for all forms of life. This leads most biologists to believe that life processes are in principle explicable Barbour, Issues, pp. 318-19. He illustrates this by citing the fact that 'viruses' (a) can be stored indefinitely with no evidence of life, being unable to reproduce in most environments; (b) can replicate within specific host cells and thus half an hour after a virus enters, the host cell may burst and release 200 newly formed viruses; (c) can undergo mutation and hence are capable of evolutionary development; and hence, (d) can be said to bridge the gap between animate and inanimate in most of their properties. Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (London: Penguin, 1983), pp. 64-66. Erwin Schrodinger, What is Life? And Other Scientific Essays (New York: Doubleday, 1956), p. 72.

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in physico-chemical terms without invoking any distinctive vital substance or life force (such as the 'entelechy' of 19th century vitalism), and that although bio-engineering is still a long way from even the lowest single cell, there appears to be no obstacle in principle to the laboratory synthesis of life.12 The analogy of a continuous scale of events is the most appropriate way of understanding Hartshorne's metaphysical view of reality.13 As has already been pointed out, events are subject to varying degrees or levels of structural complexity; but there is no such thing as a zero degree of complexity (or zero creativity, for instance), or its extreme (absolute freedom). Barbour's framework, using the same analogy of 'levels' ('levels of organisation', 'levels of activity', and 'levels of analysis')14 supports Hartshorne's own framework whereby the events belonging to the unbroken scale vary in complexity of organisation and levels of subordination. Much depends on whether these possess a central agent that provides functional unity to the activities of all members or whether these are 'democratic societies' without a dominant activity-unifying principle. A human being, for instance, is an organism that must be approached as an integrated system (a dynamic sub-whole of nature) possessing dynamically interrelated parts. In an analogical way, the universe can be seen as the most integrated system made up of integral sub-wholes that have complex structures of varying degrees. And just as the minute components of a human being possess a complexity proper to their level so the parts that make up the universe are dynamic and integral sub-wholes possessed of varying degrees of complexity appropriate to their level.

3. The Status of Human Beings In the Newtonian mechanistic paradigm a human being is nothing more than the product of the molecular and cellular processes of the body, a product of the same processes of nature that have formed non-human entities. Hence, he is subject to the same law-like regularities that govern these entities. Viewed This not to denigrate humans to the level of their constitutive components, or the reduction of life to physico-chemical terms. It is rather that the presence of complex organisational structures at higher levels of existence such as human beings and other living organisms do not preclude that these complex organisational structures are already potentially present in the lower levels. Cf. Barbour, Issues, p. 330. Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, pp. 65-66. Peacocke says that we can take it for granted as the agreed view of informed, professional biologists of all creeds, that there is overwhelming evidence for 'the interconnectedness through time of all living organisms originating from one or a few primeval simple forms.' Barbour, Issues, pp. 335-37.

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with these atomistic 'spectacles' of Newtonian mechanism, a human being is nothing more than a 'fragmented fragment', a component of nature composed of even smaller externally-related particles. Nature itself is viewed as a mere collection of discrete particles in configurations of varying complexity. Such a view of nature as fragmented resulted in an attitude whereby ways of thinking that are valid and useful only to a certain extent became absolute and final divisions.15 A methodology was transformed into a metaphysics. Furthermore, the 'map-making' endeavours were sharply divided into those that study nature (science), and those that study non-nature (metaphysics and theology). Thus did fragmentation become complete and over-arching. Dividing up reality into discrete parts is an efficient way of studying reality; it produces clear and, to a certain extent, even swift and long-lasting results.16 It is such a methodology that has heaped success upon success on the scientific enterprise.17 It has made science what it is today, robust and ascendant. Yet, however successful this method may be, it remains primarily a method, a way of thinking, a way of evaluating 'that is convenient and useful mainly in the domain of practical, technical, and functional activities.'18 Interestingly enough, Hartshorne himself describes a human being as a 'fragment' of reality and religion as the 'acceptance of our fragmentariness'.19 He writes that 'each of us is but a fragment of reality, a fragment in space, in time, in any way you please.'20 However, he adds: 'We human beings are fragments, but self-creative fragments, and not mere external products, of the higher Creativity. The fragments can deeply enjoy their fragmentary status, all the better if they accept it gladly without self-deception.'21 In Hartshorne's notion of 'event', understood as related in sympathetic bonds with all other 'events', i.e. non-human organisms as well as 'inorganic' nature, a human being is a part of nature. He belongs to the 'unbroken scale' of entities that comprise nature. Nonetheless, he is also a dynamic whole who is just as unique as are all the other dynamic wholes that make up the spectrum. Thus, despite the common vocabulary there are major differences between Hartshorne's view and the Newtonian one since for Hartshorne human beings Bohm, Beyond Mechanism, p. 36. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1925), p. 72. Whitehead, Ibid., p. 75. Bohm, Wholeness: the Implicate Order (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 2

Hartshorne, Wisdom as Moderation: a Philosophy of the Middle Way (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987), pp. 83-94. Ibid. p. 84 Ibid, p. 94.

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are more than mere fragments of this reality, for they are also integral, unified, and dynamic sub-wholes whereas in the Newtonian view human beings, as fragments made up of fragments, are totally subject to the same laws that govern the rest of nature. Again Hartshorne's view finds echoes in Barbour. Stressing the reality of the unity of human beings with nature, Barbour states: Man is kin to all creatures, sharing a long evolutionary history and participating in the same creative process. He is part of the interwoven fabric of life. He is quite literally dependent on plants that give out the oxygen he breathes, and on bacteria that purify the water he drinks.... [Hjuman qualities of mind and.spirit have remarkable parallels in higher animals. A contemporary doctrine of man must represent his historical continuity with other forms of life, as well as his distinctive capacities for language, reflective thought, and culture. Man, in short, is both a biological organism and a responsible self.22 This means that the human being is not simply an object of science in the same way that other natural entities are. He is also, and more importantly, the one who conducts scientific inquiry, the one who seeks to understand natural entities (including himself) through scientific means. He is, to be sure, like the rest of non-human nature, an object of science not only because he is subject to natural laws, but also because he is—on account of this subjection to these laws—subject to much of the same methods of inquiry and analysis utilised by science. However, he is also the subject of the scientific enterprise; he is the scientist. He sets up the parameters of the experiment, discovers the laws of nature, formulates hypotheses, and comes up with theories to be tested. As such, a human being is truly more than a mere fragment. On the one hand, a human being belongs to the realm of what science calls 'observable phenomena'. He is matter, body, flesh, sinews, bones, cartilage, and so on. He bleeds when wounded, gets ill when exposed to sickness-inducing situations, and dies when his biological system breaks down. On the other hand, a human being is also more than matter, body, flesh, sinews and bones. He feels pain when he bleeds, and cries when the pain becomes unbearable. He gets depressed, anxious, perplexed, happy and sad. He enjoys pleasure and avoids displeasure. Most of all, he is the only creature who is known to fear the termination of his own existence; there are no detectable signs of fear of death in plants and lower animals. Furthermore, only a human Barbour, 'Introduction,' Earth Might be Fair: Reflections on Ethics, Religion and Ecology, ed. Ian G. Barbour (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp. 7-8.

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being is capable of faith, confidence, and trust. He alone is that fragment of nature who is capable of religious belief. He has experiences that are neither reducible to, nor fully explainable by science. At that level where human reality reveals itself as most capable of science, human reality is also revealed as that entity which surpasses the competence of science. Hartshorne says that acceptance of our fragmentariness is constitutive of religion. It is the second part of his definition of 'worship', the first being 'loving God with all one's heart and mind and soul and strength'.23 One's religion is good if it enables one to accept one's relative insignificance, i.e. as a 'pebble on the cosmic beach, a passing incident in the great world drama'.24 Hartshorne explains that acceptance of our fragmentariness has two components: (a) forsaking any claim to 'more than fragmentary status'; and (b) not debasing ourselves by claiming 'even less than fragmentary status'. The first one says that we are parts of a greater whole, we are fragments subject to the same laws of nature and the method of scientific analysis while the second says that we are not mere fragments, say, in the same way that an atomic particle is. In this notion of human beings as fragments of reality, Hartshorne's metaphysics can be a true mediating paradigm between science and religion. On the one hand, there is the recognition of the truth of mechanism's view of the human being as a true constituent of nature. Human beings are, in a very real sense, parts of nature. On the other hand, there is also the recognition of the inadequacy of the mechanistic view. Human reality transcends nature. A human is more than a true constituent of nature. There is no denying the experiential datum concerning the human search for meaning, a search which properly belongs to what is usually called 'religion'. What is disclosed in Hartshorne's view is that despite the differences in methodology, goals, and understandings of reality, science and religion, in the final analysis, are not absolutely compartmentalised undertakings. They are not two absolutely separate approaches, but unique approaches (to a single reality) situated on two distinct but related levels. These levels meet in the human person who is regarded as a dynamic and unified 'sub-whole' of nature, an 'event' bound in organic sympathy with all other 'events' that make up the whole of nature. The human being, therefore, becomes the very locus of encounter between science and religion. It is in the human person, regarded as a dynamic and unified 'event' that the notion of 'fragment' and 'whole' eventually meet. It is therefore to the human person that Hartshorne's theory directs us in our search for the locus of concordance between religion and science. The level of fragment belongs properly to science whereas religion attempts to restore the Hartshorne, Wisdom as Moderation, p. 83. Ibid..,p. 91.

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whole picture. Science, as Hartshorne points out, 'has enough to do if it seeks to trace out the mechanisms which underlie and limit creativity. The creative as such is perhaps outside the sphere of science.... What we should, as scientists, avoid doing may be the very thing that, as philosophers, or as human beings, we ought to do. Science is specialisation, abstraction; philosophy and religion exist to restore the total perspective, taking all interests into account.'25 Moreover, if the acceptance of fragmentariness constitutes good religion, adoption of fragmentation as method makes for progress in science. Just as to accept our fragmentary status in religion does not mean that we are simply fragments and nothing more, so adoption of fragmentation as a method in science does not mean that there is nothing that we can gain by moving towards a more balanced consideration of reality.26

4. The Dialogue between Science and Religion So far, we have shown how Hartshorne reconciles the notion of 'fragment' with the notion of the 'whole' in his understanding of the status of human beings. Moreover, we have identified a iocus' of encounter between science and re-ligion, namely, the human person as a unified and dynamic 'event' who is both kin to nature as well as an 'other' to it. In this unified and dynamic 'event', what we have arrived at is neither a final harmony of truth27 nor a final resolution (or dissolution) of the differences between science and religion. Rather, we are suggesting that here is where science and religion could meet, not as combatants but as mutually relevant, illuminating, and credible approaches to reality Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis, p. 4. ' Man is a natural part of the universe, and one of his characteristic activities is the exercise of religion ... . When man is exercising himself in his religious and worshipping activities, he is in fact operating at a higher level in the hierarchy of complexity that is more intricate than any of the levels studied by the individual natural, social, and other human sciences.' Cf. also Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 36 Balance here means a more holistic view of whatever is under scrutiny. Our basic epistemological model is itself based on the tentative and emergent character of truth. We are using the phrase 'tentative and emergent character' in Whitehead's sense of 'progress in truth', i.e. the character of both scientific and religious truth, consisting in 'a progress in the framing of concepts, in discarding artificial abstractions or partial metaphors, and in evolving notions which strike more deeply into the root of reality.' Alfred North Whitehead, Religion in the Making (New York: Macmillan, 1926), p. 127. See also Gemot Bohme, Coping with Science (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), p. 49. Bohme puts it in terms of a 'piecemeal' approach towards truth.

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We would now like to turn our attention to the dialogue between science and religion itself. Just as the Hartshornean 'contraries' stand or fall together, so do science and religion as interacting and equally necessary means by which we are able to come to grips with the world and with our life in this world.28 Both are necessary, one being merely a truncated view of reality and of human re-lationship with other human beings, with nature and with God. There may not be any final convergence and no returning to the pre-mechanistic stage of the science-religion relationship; but there can be no absolute dichotomy between science and religion either. There is a real distinction in method, aim, and frame-work; but there can be no final discrepancy either, for ultimately, science and re-ligion converge in the human being himself for whom science and religion are attempts to understand reality and find meaning in it. Scientific and religious paradigms are at best, 'candidates for reality',29 which, on account of their ability to picture reality, are as close as we can get to speaking accurately of it. Moreover, a continuous discovery and intelligibility mark the formulation of scientific and religious paradigms. Science is characterised by a continuous improvement and refinement of its understanding of entities and structures found in the natural world. Religion finds ever new and richer ways of expressing its understanding of the basic phenomena of human lived experience, and our response to the search for meaning and intelligibility in the context of nature, fellow human beings and God. Since religion refers to a higher level in the hierarchy of complexity, it will have to take into continuous account the paradigms developed to expound the ever-growing knowledge of the sciences of the less complex levels below. It will have to listen and adapt, but not become subservient, to such new scientific discoveries concerning the realities of the natural world. In a similar vein, science, which is an exercise of human creativity and an attempt to understand nature and which has repercussions that can even be destructive at times, will have to be more willing than in the past to see its paradigms as partial and applicable at restricted levels only in the multiform intricacies of the real. On this point, it would be interesting to note Whitehead's stress on the importance and the urgency of such a dialogue: 'When we consider what Hartshorne's notion of a two-way, yet asymmetrical relationship that characterises the polar structure of reality states that the two poles stand or fall together, and that although each pole is ultimate, the two poles are not in every sense on the same level. One side forms, in the given context, the whole reality, while the other consists of constituents or aspects that are nonetheless independent. Cf. Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis, p. 99. Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 42.

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religion is for mankind and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them.'30 Philosophy has a role to play here. Philosophical thinking, such as Hartshorne's, is capable of mediating between the scientific and religious enterprises, not as a judge or final arbiter of truth, but as a bridge and an instrument of dialogue. Hartshorne's metaphysics overcomes the fragmentation set out by the Newtonian paradigm by providing a new paradigm that can do justice to the dynamic and integral character of the whole and its constituent sub-wholes. Moreover, the very overcoming of this fragmentation is tied to an overcoming of radical transcendence and the restoration of a fuller and more viable view of the interface of transcendence and immanence.

5. The God- World Relationship Hartshorne claims that there are three notions concerning the relation of God and the world:31 (i) the notion that identifies God with the world, in the sense that God is in all aspects inseparable from the sum or system of dependent things or effects; (ii) the notion that identifies God with the world but at the same time stresses God's independence of it and its limited independence of God; (iii) the notion that does not only differentiate God from the world but also holds that God is in all aspects independent of it, and the world independent of God. Hartshorne's own view, which is the second one, is a panentheistic one. God, for Hartshorne, is not merely an eminent cause. God is also an eminent effect in the sense of 'taking into his own life all the currents of feeling in existence'.32 God synthesises creaturely experience and hence is the supreme recipient of all their acts. God, in Hartshorne's view, is 'forever new' in the sense that God is forever being enriched by the experiences of creatures. Taking into Godself the experiences of every creature is continuously enriching God. As eminent cause and eminent effect, God continuously creates the world, but is also continuously being 'created' by the world.33 The foetus growing in the mother's womb could very well be a possible analogy to explain God's continued involvement in the creation of the world. Just as the fetus is nourished by, through, and in the mother, so is the world Whitehead, Science, p. 180. Also, Hilbrier, 'Science and Religion Coming Across,' Science and Religion, p. 179. Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity: a Social Conception of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), p. 90. Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity, p. xvii. Cf. the essays 'On God, Time and Change' and 'God in Process Thought'.

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continually being created and recreated within the divine body. And just as the fetus growing in her womb enriches the life of a woman by constituting her as a mother, so the world growing within the 'womb of the Creator' contributes to the divine life by enriching it with new experiences. Arthur Peacocke in Intimations of Reality, uses the same analogy in his explanation of how God's action in the world could be understood in the light of the knowledge provided by the natural sciences. 'A feminine image of God as Creator proves to be a useful corrective to purely masculine images by its ability to model God as creating a self-creative world within God's own Being.'34This image of the Creator that attempts to move away from a strict masculine orientation mirrors well both the notion of immanence understood as God's continued action in nature and participation in creation, and the process-oriented character of divine creativity. Indeed, the newly emerging paradigm of contemporary science represents the universe as manifesting an element of dynamic emergence and novelty.35 The Graeco-Judaeo-Christian paradigm that gave birth to atomistic mechanism assumed an essentially static view of nature, with all things created in their present forms. With the rise of the new physics as well as evolutionary bio-logy, atomistic mechanism has been superseded by atomic indeterminacy, and the static view of life was displaced by evolution.36 Hence, some scientists like the biologist Charles Birch point to the fact that indeterminacy, seen as a characteristic of the evolutionary process, has important implications for any attempted reformulation of our understanding of God.37 Indeed, Hartshorne says: 'The renunciation of strict determinism, which does no real work in science anyway, opens the door to a new form of theologising, purified of the taint of divine tyranny, which disfigured classical theology.'38 The demise of strict determinism and the fact that physics proposes the notion of atomic Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 79. Hartshorne, for instance, says: 'Physics has given up the dream, the pseudo-category, of a causality which in principle excludes chance.' Hartshorne, Reality as Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion (N.Y.: Hafner, 1971), p. 97. As one goes up the scale of biological evolution the open-ended character, unpredictability, and creativity of the process becomes more and more focused on the activity of the biological individual. For in the biological sequence, the increase of complexity, which also occurs in the non-living world of molecular systems, in the living becomes increasingly accompanied by an increase in consciousness, the power of language, and rationality. This aspect of the process reaches its apogee in human creativity and his sense of freedom in taking responsibility for his decisions. Cf. Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 71. Charles Birch, 'Creation and the Creator,' Journal of Religion 37.2 (April 1957), p. 85. Hartshorne, Omnipotence, p. 71.

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indeterminacy has much to say with regard to 'a world in which there is much looser coupling between any two given events and in which science sees rather interlocking networks of statistical relationships, both at the subatomic level... and in the macroscopic world of biology and the cosmos.' The static world-view of classical science is being reformulated to present a more dynamic process, 'a nexus of evolving forms, essentially incomplete, inexhaustible in its potential for change, and open to the future.'40 Hartshorne sees this reformulation as presenting a similar opportunity for revising certain religious articulations that view divine action in the world as a 'tyrannical' ordering of nature and history or as nothing more than an unraveling of a once-and-for-all predetermined plan that is essentially complete to its minutest detail.41 The open-ended character of the history of evolution makes Hartshorne's idea that providence is really the optimisation, rather than the prevention of chance, a viable alternative to the notions of foreordination or predestination. However, contrary to the atheistic conception of random occurrences providing their own impetus towards order—chance itself providing its own optimisation—Hartshorne asserts that the laws of nature are themselves, God's way of creating order out of chaos. God guides all of creation by providing lines of demarcation, not simply to limit freedom, but also and more importantly, to limit disorder and discord. Without this guidance, there would be nothing but chaos.42 But what does indeterminacy have to do with the interface of immanence and transcendence, or with the God-world relationship? In answer Hartshorne uses the analogy of the mind-body (however, not in the dualistic sense). From the notion that it is the body over which a human being has immediate knowl-edge and control, he proceeds to the idea that mind is in fact creative of its own body. 43 He then explains that a person is said to be, in a Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 65. Peacocke, Ibid., p. 58. Hartshorne, Omnipotence, pp. 69-70. Hartshorne, Philosophers Speak of God. With William L. Reese (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 501. Hartshorne sees the reality of chance and freedom as the true reasons behind the existence of what is called 'evil'. Cf. the essays, 'Evil and Creativity' and 'Suffering and Christian Theism'. He asks, 'Does human experiencing in any sense create its brain cells? Here neurophysiologists disagree somewhat but there are experts who hold that experiences exercise a creative influence upon the development of brain cells. Our every thought and emotion does things to those cells, which at birth are far from fully developed. Hence it is that an infant cannot even begin to learn to speak or to think (in the way made pos-sible by language) until some months have passed. The human individual to some ex-tent presides over the coming to be of its cells' Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (Albany: SUNY Press, 1984), p. 60.

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certain but very real sense, immanent in the cells of his body. His body is that of which he has immediate knowledge, and that over which he has immediate power. On the other hand, a person's relationship with other persons cannot have the same immediacy as his relationship with his bodily sub-wholes. He is, to a very large extent, an 'other' to his fellow human beings and to nature as well. He does not possess the same degree of knowledge or power over other humans and over nature as he does over the constituents of his body. Hartshorne's analogy fully explicates the whole contrast and not merely one pole or the other. Immanence and transcendence are bound in much the same kind of relationship as the other metaphysical contraries; they stand or fall together. The human person, experienced and understood as an integral and dynamic whole, is himself the locus of immanence and transcendence; he is the ground of the interface or interpenetration of immanence and transcendence. Like the Hartshornean cosmic variables that cannot be understood apart from the manner in which they are found in human experience,44 immanence and transcendence also find their spatio-temporal locus in the human person. Since, according to Hartshorne* the cosmic variables are realised in their supreme value in God, the conceptions of human immanence and transcendence in relation to his body, can likewise be applied to God in a supremely eminent way.45 Human creativity as both immanent in and transcendent to the body is analogically applied to God as supreme creative agent among many creative agents. God 'makes things make themselves'.46 For Hartshorne, God is not the sole creative power in the universe, God is a power among other real powers. Just as a human being can be said to be both creative of his body (and thus, 'immanent') and an 'other' both to his body, 47 as well as other parts of nature (and thus 'transcendent'), so God can be regarded as Hartshorne, Beyond Humanism: Essays in the Philosophy of Nature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1937), p. 121. Hartshorne, Ibid., p. 122. Hartshorne, Omnipotence, p. 73. As Peacocke puts it: 'How can the mental events, which seem to be identical with the neurophysiological events, include a sense of selfhood and of agency with respect to the very body which experiences it? ... How can I as experiencing myself mentally as an agent, initiate processes within the chain of physical events constituting my body, processes which themselves are my intended action? I am not another cause alongside my body but simply my body in a reasoned and intended action. Nevertheless in my experience of self as agent, 1 transcend any particular action, e.g., raising my arm, can express many different intentions in various contexts. In my actions, I am a transcendental causal agent expressing myself in and through the physical structure of my body.' Intimations of Reality, p. 75.

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both creative of the divine body (and llicrclbrc, immanent in the world) and at the same time, also an 'other' to the world (and thus, transcendent). Peacocke gives a vivid account of how the findings of contemporary science provide clarifying instantiations to the religious notion of God's transcendence and immanence. It is worth quoting him at some length: The sense of God's transcendence is itself reinforced by the demonstration through physics and cosmology that vast tract of matterenergy-space-time have, and probably will, exist without any human being to observe them—and this will be further compounded if it indeed turns out to be the case that this 'present' observable universe is but one of a 'run' of possible universes. The excessively anthropocentric cosmic outlook of medieval, and even Newtonian, man is thereby healthily restored to that more sober assessment which characterises the Psalms and Wisdom literature, and some of the prophets. For, when God finally answers Job in the whirlwind, it is not to justify his actions with respect to him, but simply to point to the whole range of the created order and to ask Job if he, as man, took any part in the nonhuman processes of creation, both past and present ... So a new stress is required on the immanence of God (the 'sacrament of the present moment') in the light of the scientific understanding of the world, and this demands to be reconciled with our profound and not-to-be-set-aside intuition of God's otherness in himself, his transcendence.48 Thus, given this scientific view, Hartshorne's analogy applied to the Godworld relationship would seem to provide us with a more appropriate way of explaining the relationship of transcendence and immanence and a better formulation of how God can be both transcendent to and immanent in creation. 49

48 49

Peacocke, Ibid., pp. 61-63. Peacocke who is partial to the notion of panentheism, commenting further on this relationship of immanence and transcendence, says: 'However much we may regard God as immanent in and expressing himself as agent through the world process, he is, ultimately, beyond all such describing and experiencing of himself, he is the perpetual Creator of that process and never ceases to be such ... Perhaps one should say that in one aspect, or mode of his being, God is transcendent Creator, but in another aspect he is, by analogy to human agency, transcendence-in-immanence and in this mode he acts within persons, being immanent in the whole physical nexus. If we go on to say that this is eternally true of God's being then we here come very close to the formulations of classical trinitarian doctrine.' Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, pp. 76-77.

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Just as there is a two-way, yet asymmetrical relationship between the cells of a human body and the person himself, so too is there a two-way, yet asymmetrical relationship between God and the human being. This constitutes the meaning of Hartshorne's notion of our 'contribution' to the divine life,'50 a contribution that is best explicated by the Hartshomean notion that love, fully generalised, is the ultimate cosmic category: 'Cosmic being is cosmic experience, is cosmic sociality or love.'51 The love that can be said to exist between a person and the cells of his body is generalised, expanded and extended to its utmost to arrive at the concept of God's love for the 'cells' comprising the analogical 'body'. 52 This love can be explained by using the analogy of 'levels'. On the highest level conceivable, namely, the level of God as the all-inclusive whole, love can be viewed in terms of God's treasuring all of human experience, and all experience in general. As the all-inclusive whole, God possesses a love that can be characterised as 'absolutely adequate to the object'.53 This is a notion that can be explained by the 'synthesis of knowledge and love', 54 found in an integrated personality, and applied to God as the most-integrated personality of all. It is on this level that all of life is found to be important, valuable, and hence, meaningful. God needs and cherishes the intrinsic beauty and the happiness of creatures; and in this cherishing, God is not once and for all complete, but is ever-enriched with new values and experiences. Hence, there can be no ultimate absurdity to human existence and to existence as a whole, for 'whatever good qualities of experience we enjoy, or help others to enjoy, will be indestructible elements in the Life, love for which is, so far as we understand ourselves, our inclusive concern.'55 The first level provides the foundation of the second level, namely, the level of the 'inclusive concern' of which Hartshorne speaks. This is the level of human response to divine love—understood in terms of 'interdependence'. With this level the generalisation of social organism explicated in terms of love comes full circle. It is indeed, a variable of cosmic proportions. The human-divine relationship, explicated in terms of divine love and human contribution to the divine life, provides us with a theory of what human life

51 52 53 54 55

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Charles Hartshorne, 'God and the Meaning of Life,' in Leroy Rouner (ed.), On Nature (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 162. Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God, p. 347. Hartshorne, 'God and the Meaning of Life,' p. 168. Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God, 165. Ibid. Hartshorne, Omnipotence, p.122. See the essay 'Hartshorne's Interpretation of Human Immortality.' See also J.C. Polkinghorne, 'A Revived Natural Theology,' Science and Religion, p. 96.

ultimately contributes to reality. It also provides a theory that enables us to explain some basic features of reality itselfSh One of these features is the interdependence of all the entities which compose the all-inclusive whole, much in the same way that the cells of the human body are interdependent. Love as a model to understanding the God-world relationship sheds light not only on the question concerning the relationship of part and whole, but also on the relationship of part and part (internal and external relations). As we have seen earlier, Hartshorne's depiction of the God-world relationship clarifies both transcendence and immanence: while stressing transcendence, and hence, independence, freedom, external-relatedness, it also emphasises immanence, dependence, and internal-relatedness. Thus, it elucidates the relationship that humans have with fellow human beings, with all entities comprising the cosmos, and with God. It is in this sense that the first result of the paradigm of fragmentation is overcome. The relationship of the human person with fellow human beings, with nature, and with God, need no longer be a fragmented kind of relationship. Rather, in a very real sense, human relationships can be characterised by both internality and externality: 'There must be both: without dependence or internal relations no part of the world implies any other part and all inference from here to there or from now to then lacks intelligible basis; without independence or external relations there are no distinguishable world parts, everything is an aspect of the whole, and only ignorance makes it seem a distinguishable thing at all.' 57 Thus, as only the existence of a mind—understood as that which provides functional unity to the integral person—can fully account for the relationship of the human person with his or her bodily cells and the relationship of the bodily cells with one another, so only the existence of an immanent super-mind, i.e. a 'super human but man-including organic whole,' 58 providing functional unity to its constituent parts can fully elucidate the interdependence of all the members composing the all-inclusive whole. Hence, God's sociality, explicated in terms of love as 'absolute adequacy' to the creatures is indeed that which provides meaning to creaturely sociality, understood in terms of a synthesis of independence and dependence, giving and receiving, and of transcendence and immanence.

56

57 58

Hartshorne, 'God and the Meaning of Life', p.163. Ibid. Hartshorne, Beyond Humanism, p. 35.

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6. God's Involvement in the World An understanding of the world that is progressively revealing a picture, the basic characteristic of which is its unity and inherent dynamism, has to a very great extent superseded the paradigm of atomistic mechanism. It is through and through an integral world in process of becoming, 'a cosmos which has always been in the process of producing new emergent forms of matter',59 a creatio continua. In this world-in-process, creativity understood in terms of an interfusion of chance and necessity is a universal reality, so much so that there is both order and novelty, indeterminism and continuity: 'It is the very meaning of becoming as creative synthesis that it puts together antecedent factors in a new unitary reality. To put together is not to create what is put together, but it is to create the new inclusive togetherness or synthesis itself as a single entity.'60 The demise of strict determinism brings with it consequences and implications for the paradigms of science and religion; in fact, of any paradigm whatsoever that seeks to represent reality as faithfully as possible. In place of absolute predictability and control is the reality of risk; and this means risk on a cosmic scale. The term has often been correlated with peril, loss, and even injury; and this is reasonable and true. Hence, risk is something no one tries to take willingly. However, in any undertaking, especially those wherein risk is an unavoidable factor, what is usually attempted is the minimalisation of risk. If we cannot do away with it completely, we can at least attempt to lessen its impact. Risk, for Hartshorne, is an element that is built into the very fabric of universal creativity and becoming. This has implications for the way Hartshorne describes God's influence on the world. For Hartshorne it is a true case of sociality, for divine power is shared among a plurality of powers. This notion coincides with Peacocke's suggestion: 'If we were right tentatively to see God, as it were, exploring in creation, exploiting opportunities, then we begin to get here a hint of an involvement by God in his creation that involves putting his purposes at risk—an involvement that, in a human context, might well be described as suffering.'61 Given Hartshorne's notion of creativity, we could say that whereas the non-divine variety is characterised by originality and spontaneity, divine creativity is first and foremost, a receptive form of creativity: 'Our new philosophical doctrine is that even God's creativity is his higher form of emergent experiential synthesis, or response to stimuli. He influences us supremely because he is supremely open to our influence. He Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 63. Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis, p. 14. Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, p. 67.

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responds delicately to all things, as we respond more or less delicately to changes in our nerve cells.'62 As a 'suffering' reality, the divine creativity is both active and passive, these being inseparable aspects. As active, it has subjected itself to risk insofar as it is not an absolute power determining non-divine creativity but simply a limiting influence that is necessary if the order of the universe is to be preserved. It is a creative influence that harmonises and orders nature toward the good, not through coercion but through allurement; it is the super-eminent form of love that 'makes control self-control by communicating desires'. As passive, it is supremely open to creaturely influence. Hence, God in Hartshorne's philosophy becomes the locus of all creativity. God 'does not have any external 'and' connecting him with the natural process; rather he must literally and absolutely embrace his own togetherness with it... he is the place of all things, and all things are, in the most utterly literal sense "in" him.' 64 As supremely active, the divine creativity 'suffers' in the sense of 'bearing up' (subferre). God puts God's purposes at risk by preferring a universe suffused with real creativity and freedom to a static and pre-determined one. God lures creation towards the maximal value, without precluding refusal of its influence on account of creaturely freedom. As Peacocke states: At man, biological evolution passes a critical point, for this evolved creature can attempt to act independently of the intentions of the Creator. It follows that in evolving man God was taking a risk in giving him this hazardous, yet potentially creative, ability to be free .... In other words, God in creating man was acting with supreme magnanimity on behalf of the good of another existent—what in human life would be regarded as an expression of love. Is it not reasonable to go further and to conclude that the creative loving action which operates in the universe, eventually bringing forth man, is not incorrectly described as that of a. suffering Creator?65 As a compassionate reality, the divine creativity also 'suffers' in the sense of 'bearing with' (cum-passus). The image of the world that contemporary science portrays, i.e., an indeterministic world-in-process, reveals a creation imbued with freedom and creativity. As such it is a world in which risk, pain, suffering, and death are inescapable realities: Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis, p. 12. Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God, p. 292. Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis, p. 17. Peacocke, Intimations of Reality, pp. 77-78 (italics added).

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The law of 'new life through death of the old' is inevitable in a world composed of common 'building blocks'... death, pain and the risk of suffering are intimately connected with the possibilities of new life, in general, and of the emergence of conscious, and especially human life, in particular. Moreover, the very order and impersonality of the physical cosmos which makes pain and suffering inevitable for conscious and self-conscious creatures is, at the same time, also the prerequisite of their exercise of freedom as persons.06 These two forms of suffering, just like the two forms of relationship (transcendence-immanence) are inseparable aspects of but one reality, namely, God as the all-inclusive whole.67 The pain and suffering of my cells, are not simply the pain and suffering of my cells; rather, in the most utterly literal sense, 'my pain and suffering'. In the God-world relationship understood in terms of the mind-body analogy, the suffering of creatures is not simply theirs, but is also, and more properly, the suffering of God.68

7. Some Observations Since we have taken science and religion to be approaches-on-two-levels to a single reality, a paradigm that would fulfill Barbour's criteria would have to be relatively adequate to what science and religion reveal about this one reality.69 Moreover, since the new paradigm should be capable of elucidating the whole of reality and human experience in its diversity, it must in some way, enable contemporary human beings to find religious experience credible once more. In his Belief in an Age of Science, John Polkinghorne shows how a scientific understanding of reality lends iself to a profound appreciation of religious faith. But it seems to us that Polkinghorne is in search of a metaphysics that can ground that claim, and we believe Hartshorne's metaphysical system does that. Despite some limitations, including those true of any paradigms, Hartshorne's holistic framework provides a locus of dialogue between science and religion and clarifies the notion of God's immanent activity in the world.

Ibid., p. 69. Hartshome, Creative Synthesis, p. 17. See the essay 'Suffering and Theism: Towards a Praxis-based Response to Hume's Challenge'. Thus, we would disagree with Benz whose stated position in The Future of the Universe leads once again to the fragmentation of reality itself.

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As we have already noted, the reality that contemporary science portrays is a unified reality-in-process, in which newer forms of complex organisations are emerging, with the higher-level ones not simply reducible to the lower. The process of evolution is a continuous process in which threshold transitions are nevertheless present from lower-levels to higher levels, with the rudiments of higher levels already present in the lower. The open-endedness that has characterized science from its very early stages has been made even more intense by the rise of 'the new physics' and its discoveries about nature. On account of this, scientific frameworks will be all the more flexible and dynamic. Since religion cannot be fully isolated from pronouncements about reality, and since the object of its concern, i.e., the human person in relation to fellow-humans, nature and God, is situated within the world that science speaks about, it too will also be tinged with a dynamism, although differently from science. To put it more simply, scientific and religious paradigms as ways of understanding a reality-in-process cannot but be paradigms-inprocess, albeit in varying degrees. This dynamic character of both scientific and religious paradigms implies that any 'map-making' attempt, such as what Hartshorne's theory is, must itself be a dynamic and open-ended activity. As an attempt to provide a locus of concordance between science and religion, any 'cosmic map-making' is a never-ending task. The 'maps' or paradigms themselves, because they are human constructions—attempts to understand, and nothing more—must be provisional rather than final. There can no longer be an imposition of a static metaphysical system which can not only hinder scientific progress, but can also lead to a de-personalisation of religion which ultimately ends in a disregard for much of the good that religion can offer. The realisation of the need to adopt a paradigm, in the sense of a 'provisional' framework that elucidates the whole of reality, could very well lead to a 'renewal' of the metaphysical enterprise.71 This renewal will certainly be of a more cautious and sober type, for there is no glossing over the unfortunate experiences of the past. First, the experiences of the past in which certain rigid philosophical systems were imposed, to the extent that they hindered both theological and scientific development, make us aware of the need for extreme caution with regard to any present or future 'cosmic map-making' attempt. The way in which See the essays 'Hartshorne on Describing God' and 'The Function of Religion in Human Life and Thought: a Whiteheadian Exploration'. On the renewal of the metaphysical enterprise, see the Proceedings of the International Conference on Metaphysics for the 21s' Century held in Rome in September 2000. Also, Andre Cloots and Santiago Sia, eds. Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion (Leuven University Press, 1999).

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metaphysics is to be used necessitates careful consideration. In our attempts to formulate metaphysical systems that are both unified and coherent, we must be always mindful of the exploratory character of our endeavours. Secondly, the very urgency of going beyond atomistic mechanism (however successful it may be as a methodological device), and of coming up with a more holistic paradigm, lends much credence to our assertion concerning the tentative and provisional character of any world-view or paradigm. One could of course ask: considering the fact that what human beings are ultimately searching for are stability, certainty and lasting security, and if all our map-making activities are in a perpetual state of change and revision, does this not make the enterprise itself, nothing more than a futile exercise at coming to grips with reality which ultimately eludes our grasp? Does this not make agnosticism the view of reality itself, and hence the ultimate paradigm?72 Questions such as these bring us face to face once more with the dilemma concerning that basic human intuition of importance and the precarious and fleeting character of existence itself. Such dilemma results in a perplexity and anxiety that could lead us to either of two things. We could take it upon ourselves to attempt, not necessarily finally, to resolve the dilemma, but more importantly, to make sense out of it, as countless thinkers like Hartshorne have done. Or we could attempt to take flight from the perplexity and anxiety altogether by dismissing or undermining the source of the perplexity and anxiety itself. There is a certain horror that is felt at the thought that reality could, after all, be based on an irredeemable surd. Hartshorne speaks of this reality in the comparison he makes between the fawn who could very well be struck down and devoured by a wolf, and yet continues with its existence without the anxiety that a man who finds himself lost in the forest and open to the attack of wild animals would experience. The man is superior to the fawn because he is aware of the dangers, and this enables him to act in such a way as to avoid them. However, this very awareness also produces an anxiety in him that is not found in the fawn. Reflection on the inevitability of death, especially if it is deep enough, leads to questions about the real value of human existence in particular, and existence as a whole. We have tried to show that Hartshorne's framework is more adequate to the findings of contemporary science and the reformulations of the religious notion of God. Nonetheless, there remains that nagging sense of its inadequacy to fully elucidate the richness and complexity73 of the religious experience of the human person, however capable it is in overcoming atomistic mechanism See Prof. Malachowski's obersvations in The Fountain Arethuse regarding his quest for the truth. Cf. Appendix, pp. 180-181. Cf. the essay 'Concretising Concrete Experience'.

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and however whole-oriented we may have presented it to be. As a way of speaking about God, the Hartshorncan paradigm inevitably and implicitly recognises in its very use its own inherent limitations, namely, that the reality of God that a person of faith depicts is in itself beyond the power of metaphysical language to express. Statements about nature do have an important place in speaking about God's relation with the world. Hence, science, metaphysics and theology cannot be 'sheltered' from one another. At its very limits, however, Hartshorne's metaphysics always has secondary place in the articulation of the human person's experience of God. Furthermore, this inadequacy is also true with regard to metaphysics' relation with the scientific enterprise. Metaphysics can neither be a completed version nor a competitor of science. Rather, metaphysics is a mediating paradigm, a bridge between science and religion; and as a bridge, it must not seek to adjudicate questions that belong properly to either domain. The metaphysical endeavour of building bridges is therefore neither a deprecation of metaphysics nor an attempt to impose it upon domains that do not belong properly to its sphere of competence.

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8. The Function of Religion in Human Life and Thought: A Whiteheadian Exploration

1. The 'Function of Religion' Any attempt to discuss the function of religion in human life and thought—the title assigned to me—will inevitably call for some preliminary comments.1 For one thing, there is the obvious need for an initial explanation of how 'religion' is to be used in the present context. This is to be expected because that term has been, and is frequently, defined and developed in many ways. It has even been suggested that 'religion' itself is a historical invention. In addition, the term 'religion' carries such a variety, sometimes even a divergence, of connotations that it would be more misleading rather than helpful to talk about its function since its so-called function would be dependent on the particular understanding of religion that one has. Moreover, certain manifestations, expressions, or practices which are alleged to be 'religious' would be regarded as questionable or even objectionable by those who do regard themselves as sincere believers or practitioners of religion. The word 'function' can be just as problematic here. For in ordinary contexts one gives it a rather pragmatic or utilitarian meaning as when one talks about the function of the motorcar or even the function of an association.2 To link religion with such a usage of the word is not only to devalue religion, giving it a subservient role, but it is also to be rightly accused of perpetuating the objectivist understanding of religion. After all, it is claimed by many, if not most, religious followers that a more appropriate way of appreciating the connection between religion and human life and thought would be to discuss it in terms of 'the relationship to' or 'the significance for' or even 'the role of, This paper was given at the International Research Colloquium organised by the Research Group in Philosophy of Religion of Utrecht University in October 1997. In his comment on my paper Marcel Sarot provides another meaning of the word 'function': as 'proper activity', 'appropriate behaviour' or 'role'. My use of the term 'function' here, leading to my misgivings about it, is restricted to the utilitarian meaning.

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rather than in terms of 'function in', human life and thought. It is a claim that should alert us to the existence of much subjectivity and of the personal dimension in religion, which makes an exploration such as the one we are undertaking more difficult or even doubtful. There is still another consideration that needs to be addressed at this stage. Despite the variety of understandings and connotations, religion seems to be so intimately related to human life and thought that it would appear to be superfluous to discuss this topic. In fact, some would even claim that religion is not just about a particular way of living and thinking but it is human life itself (which implies practice and thought). Consequently, there has always been a very close connection between religion and morals, between religious belief and human hopes, between religions and world-views. Given this assumption, it would seem odd to still talk of the function of religion in human life and thought. At most, one would be expected merely to provide a version of how religion—in whatever way it is understood—and human life and thought are significantly associated rather than still defend the argument that religion has any close links with human life and thought.3 It is an issue that is somehow related to the debate as to whether religion can be explained or only interpreted.4 In this essay, taking these preliminary remarks into account but without being sidetracked by the controversies, I want to explore a specific philosophical conception of religion. Religion here will be understood as arising from our experience but grounded in rational reflection. It is a conception that highlights the need for a response, and the kind of response one makes will determine how religion helps to make sense of human living. Furthermore, since a significant factor in our consideration of religion in human life and thought is the extent to which a specific understanding of religion can support the integration of these two, it will be necessary to show how this is possible.

2. Whitehead's Conception of Religion' We have noted already that the use of the term 'religion', given the complexity of its meaning and use, requires some clarification. A popular illustration of this complexity can be seen in discussions as to whether Buddhism should be regarded as a religion insofar—at least as generally understood—it does not This would seem to be in line with the task of philosophical theology discussed by Vincent Briimmer in his Speaking of a Personal God: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1992), Ch.l. He adds, however, that philosophical reflection is not merely descriptive but also innovative. Robert A. Segal, Explaining and Interpreting Religion: Essays on the Issue. Toronto Studies in Religion 16 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992).

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believe in a transcendent god. Compounding that difficulty of classifying Buddhism as a religion is the fact that there are different kinds of Buddhism. Again, as is well known, there has been some claim that Marxism, because of its demands on its followers, is a religion except in name. Additionally, the sophistication of the more established religions such as Christianity or Islam has led at times to the suspicion that native religions found in Africa or Asia are nothing more than superstitious beliefs—to the annoyance of those who regard them as genuine, if undeveloped, religions. More recently, we have been faced with the rise of what are labeled as 'cults' rather than religions despite the fact that in some cases their present development appears to parallel the early stages in the growth of the more established religions. It is not surprising therefore that Wilfred Cantwell Smith would question the validity and the helpfulness of the concepts 'religion' and 'religions'. Because the concept of religion in the West has evolved and because religion itself has been reified, he claims that these concepts are not only unnecessary but also much less serviceable and legitimate than they once seemed.5 The existence of many general interpretations of religion leads John Hick in his recent book, An Interpretation of Religion, to opt for dividing them into 'naturalistic', i.e. religion as a purely human phenomenon, or 'religious', i.e. confessional. In contrast to these two groups Hicks offers what he considers to be a theory of religion that is not confessional but one that acknowledges its plurality of forms. Focusing on belief in the transcendent, he bases his interpretation on 'a family-resemblance understanding' of religion.6 Likewise, the variety of competing definitions of religion and the difficulty of judging their correctness cause Peter Clarke and Peter Byrne to turn to the 'family resemblance definition' of religion as a looser, more informal mode of definition. They believe that there can be no finality in the definition of religion because the phenomenon of religion keeps developing as illustrated by the New Religions, which have disclosed fresh insights into the relationship between religion and our present culture.7 The 'family-resemblance understanding or definition' of religion can be useful in stressing the commonality amidst the diversity of religions. At a time when inter-religious dialogue is particularly called for, such an understanding of religion can help set the appropriate context. It is also important in distilling what is essential in the different religions. But it seems to me that Alfred North Whitehead's understanding of religion has the advantage of being more diWilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion: A Revolutionary Approach to the Great Religious Traditions (London: SPCK, 1978), p. 121. John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989). Peter B. Clarke & Peter Byrne, Religion Defined and Explained (Basingstoke: Macmillan/N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1993).

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rectly relevant to the topic under discussion. As Dorothy Emmet observes, religion for Whitehead has great significance for the ordering of life: it inevitably issues in propositions with a bearing upon the conduct of life.8 It is therefore his definition of religion which will serve as the focus of this exploration. Whitehead's account of religion is contained principally in his Religion in the Making. But this is complemented by shorter discussions in Science in the Modern World, Adventures of Ideas and other writings. Commenting on Whitehead's discussion of religion, John Cobb notes that Whitehead depended heavily on secondary sources with which he had limited familiarity. Nevertheless, he adds that Whitehead's discussion is valuable not only because it throws light on his philosophy but also because he develops his understanding of the relationship between philosophy and religion, a point that will be of particular interest to us here.9 Cobb also observes that Whitehead was not really preoccupied with religion, despite returning to this topic again and again. Whitehead's attention was more focused on what have become known as penultimate questions. But religion remains in the background, securing the importance of these questions; however, it is rarely itself at the centre of the stage. ° Thus, it seems even more worthwhile to explore his conception of religion further. Religion, Whitehead writes, is 'what the individual does with his own solitariness'." He states that the essence of religion is to be discovered, not in public dogmas, practices, or institutions, but in confrontation with 'the awful ultimate fact, which is the human being, consciously alone with itself, for its own sake.' 12 This association of religion with solitariness will no doubt strike many as highly suspect and therefore unlikely to be of much help to us after all. Indeed in an article developing this definition of religion, Donald Crosby observes that Whitehead's description of religion has been frequently quoted and usually disparaged. However, he argues—and I agree with him—that it is seldom understood in anything like the way Whitehead intended.13 One of the misconceptions of Whitehead's definition of religion is that he is championing an individualistic interpretation of religion, which seems to

12

13

Dorothy Emmet, Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism 2" ed. (Basingstoke: Macmillan/N.Y.: St. Martin's Press. 1966), p. 245. John Cobb, Jr., A Christian Natural Theology: Based on the Thought of A.N. Whitehead (London: Lutterworth Press 1966), p. 216. Cobb, Christian Theology, p. 223. Alfred North Whitehead, Religion in the Making (Cambridge University Press, 1926), p. 17; also, p. 47. Ibid. p. 16. Donald A. Crosby, 'Religion and Solitariness,' in: Lewis Ford & George Kline (eds.), Exploration in Whitehead's Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 1983),p.l49.

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contradict the teaching of many an established religion. Admittedly, Whitehead does place great importance on individuality insofar as he maintains that religious consciousness does not arise until one has risen above what he calls 'communal religion', that is, beyond the stage in one's development that is informed by the myths, collective rituals, emotions and beliefs of one's society. As Whitehead puts it, 'The moment of religious consciousness starts from selfvaluation.'14 One becomes 'religious' when one stands out as an individual, breaking out of the confines of the traditions and mores of inherited culture. One needs to loosen the strong grip of tradition upon oneself, thereby removing the sense of being at the mercy of arbitrary power.15 Only then will that individual be confronted with the concerns which are of utmost importance and depth. Only then will he or she become aware of the inadequacy of social custom and authority to answer the most fundamental of questions and be forced to turn elsewhere. Stripped of one's sense of belongingness, experiencing solitariness, one begins to ask: 'What, in the way of value, is the attainment of life?'16 One discovers then one's uniqueness rather than one's society as the focus and source of freedom and value. For Whitehead religiosity, it would seem, really stems from the exercise of one's individuality, particularly as experienced in solitariness. It is important, however, to contextualise what Whitehead says regarding solitariness. Although Whitehead does stress that religion is primarily individual, the solitariness that one experiences is due to the detachment from one's immediate surroundings. This in turn leads one to search for something permanent and intelligible to throw light on one's immediate environment.17 Religion expresses, according to Whitehead, 'the longing of the spirit that the facts of existence should find their justification in the nature of existence.'18 The detachment or disconnection from immediate surroundings is thus a prerequisite for 'the emergence of a religious consciousness which is universal, as distinguished from tribal, or even social.'19 Whitehead in fact sees a close connection between solitariness and universality. Although the moment of religious consciousness starts from self-valuations, as we have noted already, 'it broadens into the concept of the world as a realm of adjusted values, mutually intensifying or mutually destructive.'20 Whitehead denies that there is such a thing as absolute solitariness: 'Each entity requires its environment. Thus man can14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Whitehead,/?e%!OH in the Making, p. 59. Ibid. pp. 39-40. Ibid. p. 60. Ibid. p. 47. Ibid, p. 85. Ibid, p 47. Ibid. p. 59.

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not seclude himself from society... But further, what is known in secret must be enjoyed in common, and must be verified in common.'21 Elsewhere Whitehead describes religion as 'the reaction of human nature to its search for God.'22 I will return to Whitehead's conception of God later. But at this point, it is worth noting, by way of explaining the phrase 'reaction of human nature', that Whitehead does not believe human nature to have a separate function which could be regarded as a special religious sense. Nor does he hold that religious truth is something other than the highest form of knowledge, which had been first acquired with our ordinary senses and then developed by our intellectual operations. As he puts it succinctly, 'religion starts from the generalisation of final truths first perceived as exemplified in particular instances.'23 What follows then is the amplification of these truths into a coherent system and the amplification of them to the interpretation of life. This interpretation serves as the criterion for the success of these truths. Although in this manner religious truths can be judged like any other truth, they are peculiar in that they explicitly deal with values. By this claim Whitehead means that religious truths make us conscious of what he calls the 'permanent side of the universe which we can care for'. In this way religion enables us to discover meaning in our own existence against the background of the meaning of the wider scheme of things.24 Inasmuch as Whitehead's description of religion as 'a human reaction' involves knowledge, it invites comparison with Plato's. Plato, it will be recalled, regarded religion as the culmination of the search for truth. Plato differentiated and distanced his conception of religion from the more anthropomorphic versions, which were prevalent in his time. In contrast, Whitehead, while regarding 'communal religion' with its myths, practices and beliefs as merely a stage in the development of religious consciousness, nevertheless prefers to discuss religion in the context of what he refers to as 'the great rational religions'. For him these religions are 'the outcome of religious consciousness which is universal, as distinguished from tribal, or even social'.25 Furthermore, Whitehead's definition needs to be qualified by what he says elsewhere; namely, that the immediate reaction of human nature to God is worship.26 In this 21

22

23 24 25 26

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Ibid. pp. 137-138. It should also be borne in mind that in Whitehead's metaphysics (as it is in Hartshorne's) 'relatedness' or 'the social' is more fundamental and inclusive than individuality. A.N. Whitehead, Science in the Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 1926), p. 266. Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p 124. Ibid. Ibid. p. 47. Whitehead, Science in the Modern World, p. 192.

sense it is much closer—and further removed from Plato—to Charles Hartshorne's conception of religion as essentially worship by which Hartshorne means 'devoted love for a being regarded as superlatively worthy of love'. Hartshorne maintains that what distinguishes true religion from primitive ones is the worshipful attitude which it inspires.27 Although the definitions from Whitehead provided thus far do not explicitly mention human life, there is no doubt but that Whitehead sees an intimate link between it and religion. In fact, Whitehead claims that 'justification' is the basis of religion. By justification he means that one's character is developed according to one's faith. For him this is the preliminary inescapable truth. 'Religion is force of belief cleansing the inward parts.' 2 Consequently, he maintains that sincerity is the primary religious virtue. In terms reminiscent of Kant, Whitehead holds that even the doctrinal side of religion, i.e. the system of general truths, will transform one's character so long as these truths are sincerely held and vividly apprehended. Religion also promotes the transformation of society through its moral energy.2 On the other hand, unlike Kant, Whitehead also maintains that while religion is valuable for ordering one's life, conduct is merely an inevitable by-product. It is not the mainstay of religion. In fact, the overemphasis on rules of conduct can be detrimental to religion. What should emerge from religion is individual worth of character. But Whitehead warns us that worth is positive or negative, good or bad. Thus, in a rather startling observation, but perhaps a more realistic one, he points out that religion is by no means necessarily good and therefore that it may be evil.30 Along similar lines Hartshorne, who describes human beings as fragments of reality, maintains that our reaction to that fragmentariness is what characterises our religion. Our religion is good if we accept our relative insignificance in the best possible way, poor or non-existent if we close our eyes to this situation. We could persuade ourselves into thinking that our limitation in space and time is only of slight importance or we could consider ourselves the centre of the universe, with everything else revolving around us.31 See, among others, Charles Hartshorne, A Natural Theology for Our Time (La Salle, III: Open Court, 1967). Cf. the essay, 'God in Process Thought'. I have discussed this point in some detail in God in Process Thought: A Study in Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985), pp. 9-18. Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p. 15. Ibid. Ibid. p. 17. Charles Hartshorne, 'The Modern World and the Modern View of God,' Crane Review 4.2 (Winter 1962), p.73. See also his 'Man's Fragmentariness,' Wesleyan Studies in Religion 41.6 (1963-64), 17-28. Cf. the essay 'Religion, Science and Hartshorne's Metaphysics'.

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Whitehead's conception of religion also clearly establishes its link with human thought not only because of his constant recourse to the word 'rational' but also because of his distinction between religion and mere sociability. Religion, he says, emerges from ritual, emotion, belief, and rationalisation. But it is only when belief and rationalisation are well established that solitariness itself is discernible as of essential religious importance.32 Without these, religion is in decay and returns to mere sociability.33 Thus, religion as a human reaction is a conscious reaction. Furthermore, it is a conscious reaction to the world we find ourselves in. While religion appeals to the direct intuition of special occasions and emanates from what is special, it encompasses everything through conceptualisation.34 This is accomplished with the help of human reason. Progress in religious truth, Whitehead tells us, is 'mainly a progress in the framing of concepts, in discarding artificial abstractions or partial metaphors, and in evolving notions which strike more deeply into the root of reality.'35 For this reason, Whitehead shares the tendency, rooted in Western philosophical tradition but criticised in some quarters, to connect religion with a metaphysics. It must be noted, however, that metaphysics for Whitehead is understood and developed differently from the dominant metaphysical schools of thought in the West. He describes metaphysics as 'the science which seeks to discover the general ideas which are indispensably relevant to the analysis of everything that happens'.36 Whitehead argues that rational religion—and as we have already noted, rationality for Whitehead is an integral part of religion— must have recourse to metaphysics. Metaphysics enables religion to scrutinise itself. Whitehead regards the dispassionate criticism by metaphysics of religious beliefs to be of utmost necessity. 'Religion will not regain its old power' he points out, 'until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of these principles requires continual development.'37 He strongly insists that the foundations of dogma must be laid in a rational metaphysics which criticises meanings, and endeavours to express the most general concepts adequate for the all-inclusive universe.38 Moreover, for Whitehead the dogmas of religion are 'clarifying modes of external expression', signaling the return of individuals from solitariness to society. Since there is no absolute

34 35 36

Whitehead, Religion in the Making, pp. 18-19. Ibid. p. 23. Also, his Adventures of Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 1942), p. 207. Ibid. p. 32. Ibid. p. 131. Ibid. p. 84. See also, pp. 88-89. Whitehead, Science in the Modern World, pp. 189.

38

Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p. 83.

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solitariness, everything taking place in an environment, religious dogmas as modes of expression are thus important. The interaction between religion and metaphysics is regarded by Whitehead as one great factor in promoting the development in religion of an increasing accuracy of expression, disengaged from adventitious imagery.39 At the same time, however, metaphysics can benefit from its connection with religion by taking into account the evidence furnished by religion. While religion must reckon with metaphysics in formulating and developing its teachings, it makes its own contribution of immediate experience to that pool of knowledge.40 In this way, metaphysical knowledge becomes truly all-inclusive. Thus, metaphysics and religion are not only related but also, and more importantly, mutually beneficial. Whitehead offers yet another definition of religion, which incorporates what has been presented so far and adds another dimension:

i

Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within, the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realised, something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.4'

John Cobb explains that religion for Whitehead is not a means to any end beyond itself, not even to the good of society. Instead religion is a vision of that whose possession, although unattainable, is the final good. Cobb adds that the reason for worshipping—we have already heard that the reaction to this vision is worship—is not to achieve some good, but because that which one dimly apprehends evokes worship.42 In other words, religion is the attempt to see beyond the ephemeral, and what one sees, although not too clearly, inspires a worshipful attitude. This last definition also gives us an indication of how Whitehead conceives the object of religion to be. God is the object of that vision. Yet Whitehead, not just in this passage but generally, is quite reluctant to refer to God in his discussions on religion. Lewis Ford offers an explanation: 'Whitehead acWhitehead, Science in the Modern World, p. 266. Whitehead adds that the interaction between religion and science also promotes religion's development. Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p. 79. Whitehead, Science in the Modern World, pp. 267-268. Cobb, ,4 Christian Natural Theology, pp. 217-217.

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cords great importance to religious vision, but at the same time finds a great hindrance in the particular image of God being proposed in the existing religious community, on two grounds: it stifles the adventure of inquiry, it perpetuates an outworn psychology of tyranny.'43 Ford observes that Whitehead presumably did not yet have a clear idea of God at the time of his writings. Consequently, Whitehead's description is 'an intuitive, proleptic statement of what he was searching for, deliberately couched in paradoxical terms since he did not yet have the conceptual warrants to justify these claims.'44 But, Ford points out, they serve as a lure towards which his thought was moving.45 This 'vision' that Whitehead mentions in the quotation above has an effect on one's life. John Cobb makes the observation that Whitehead's own general mood in life was of quiet confidence in the worthwhileness of living. But this confidence was not derived from any assurance about history or about nature.46 Indeed, Whitehead maintains that the worship of God, which is the outcome of this vision, is 'not a rule of safety—it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.'47 He accepted that there is perpetual perishing, loss as well as gain, sorrow as well as joy. In rather poetic terms, he refers to human life 'as a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience.'48 And yet, whatever may be its temporal outcome, what guarantees the worthwhileness of life for Whitehead, remarks Cobb, is the vision of God. When we respond positively to that vision, contributing our share to the world, then it is a vision that indeed can give meaning to life. 'The vision of God was for Whitehead,' as Cobb sums it up, 'the basis for all reality of meaning and all depth of feeling.'49

3. Religion and Experience No doubt, Whitehead's conception of religion raises some important questions: To what extent is this helpful in determining what could be classified a religion? Does it nullify the claim that special experiences are themselves religious? Is religion a merely human phenomenon? Does this mean that while Lewis Ford, The Emergence of Whitehead's Metaphysics 1925-1929 (New York: SUNY, 1984), pp. 107-108. Ford, Emergence, p. 108. See the last chapter of Process and Reality titled 'God and the World.' Cobb, Christian Natural Theology, p. 218. Whitehead, Science in the Modern World, p. 276. Ibid. p. 275. Cobb, Christian Natural Theology, p. 223.

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solitariness is universal, religion itself is not so insofar as one may not reach, for whatever reason, that state of doing something about one's solitariness? How does this conception of religion relate to the major religions of the world?50 These are fundamental concerns which need to be addressed carefully. However, in exploring Whitehead's understanding of religion, my present interest has to be limited to dealing with the specific issue—the question assigned to me—as to how religion can help in our attempts to grasp the meaning or significance of human life. Although Whitehead accepts that there are special occasions which can lead to religious consciousness, religion as far as he is concerned emerges from ordinary human experience.51 He refers to 'the human search' or 'the longing of the spirit' for something which transcends everything, but the search or the longing for it is deeply rooted in mundane matters, in everyday experience. This search or longing results in solitariness. Solitariness, however, is more than just the common experience of loneliness. Solitariness is the sense of separateness, the initial experience having been that of belongingness. It enables one to become aware of one's individuality, which is a further stage from one's previous pre-conscious experience of sociality and relatedness. Since religion is a response to solitariness, it means that solitariness itself is actually 'pre-religious,' despite being a further stage in one's search for the transcendent. Strictly speaking then, religion is not to be equated with individuality. And unlike the sense of solitariness, religion is more than a stage. There has been an evolution in one's experience and not just a prolongation. In addition, there has been a development since there is an active element: religion after all is what one does with one's own solitariness. It is the response to one's search or longing. There is a purposeful consciousness in religion that is merely latent in solitariness but is developing as one becomes aware of one's individuality. It is interesting that Whitehead should regard the human experience of longing and searching, which leads to solitariness, as the fundamental context in which religion can emerge. Some of the modern critics of religion had attacked it for preying, as it were, on such experiences. Freud, tracing religion back to the need for emotional comfort, especially relief from disasters, accidents, sickness, and other natural evils that surround us, accused religion of See also, D.Z. Phillips' comments on this paper in his 'Introduction: Reflecting on Identity and Change' in Marcel Sarot and Gijsbert van den Brink (eds.), Identity and Change in the Christian Tradition. Contributions to Philosophical Theology 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1999), pp.15, 22. According to Whitehead, 'experience' is one of the most deceitful words in philosophy. He provides a brief analysis of it in his Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 19f. For a more extensive and technical discussion, see his PR, particularly Part III.

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perpetuating human immaturity through its teachings and practices. He regarded religion as an infantile neurosis that ought to be cured before we can grow into mature, healthy adults. Once cured of such a sickness, human beings, he alleged, can achieve maturity as a race. It will then no longer be necessary to invent fanciful beings personalised by religion for us to be able to face this impersonal and at times brutal world of ours. Marx criticised religion for enslaving people through its preaching of acceptance of one's miserable lot in life and its championing the virtues of patience, humility and self-denial. Religion, he claimed, misleads us in not recognising the real causes of our alienation and suppresses our desire to improve the economic and political conditions of life. Both of these influential thinkers would hardly agree with Whitehead that true religion stems from the human experience of longing and searching. If anything, such an experience in their view is being misinterpreted and misled by religion. But these experiences of life, as our pre-reflexive starting point, are part and parcel of human life itself. While agreeing with Freud that religion is based on emotional needs, Jung rightly criticised him for not taking into account that they are basic to human nature and that we cannot deny them without inducing neurosis. What is called for therefore is not the abandonment of religion as demanded by Freud. Rather, it is our response to those needs that is really in question. It will determine the kind of religion that we have in mind, as Whitehead clearly states. Our response to human longing or yearning for something more does not have to be, and should not be, in the form severely criticised by Freud and Marx. Unless religion embarks on its journey with our everyday experiences, including emotional ones, as the place of departure, it can easily become so abstract as to be rendered irrelevant. Worse, it makes nonsense of many religious practices and customs, which have arisen in response to specific life-situations. Religion cannot ignore deep-felt hunger or yearning for 'something more' even if it is not always clear what that 'something more' is or even if the expression of this desire is simplistic or unreflective. Whitehead correctly underscores this point whereas Plato neglects it. In the Western world Plato led the way in freeing religion from the particularistic, anthropomorphic expressions of it as exemplified by the Greek divinities. He insisted that true religion is concerned with fundamental and comprehensive questions rather than with emotional concerns. His own theory of religion was grounded in his desire to understand the universal attributes of reality, far removed from the transient, everchanging environment which surrounded him. But by sharply establishing a line of demarcation between the established interpretation of religion in his day—understandably so, given its crudities—and his own one, Plato unfortunately cut off an important link with concrete life. He wanted to construct a 136

theory of religion that had left behind the world of sense experience. While there were good reasons for dissociating genuine religion from the so-called religious practices and beliefs of his time, Plato's hard-line attitude resulted in a rather intellectualised, and even elitist, version of religion. Whitehead's conception of religion, on the other hand, rightly shows that it is in the midst of everyday life, experienced in various fashions and expressed in concrete ways, that we begin to ask questions which take us beyond the particular situation that we find ourselves in and lead us to what he refers to as 'solitariness'. And our reaction, also part of human living, to that solitariness shapes religious thought.52 Our further attempts to make sense of our experiences of and in life lead to something more general and more complex as we yield to the urge for something more. There is in human life what Whitehead calls 'a noble discontent', which is 'the gradual emergence into prominence of a sense of criticism, founded upon appreciations of beauty, and of intellectual distinction, and of duty.'5 Such a discontent distances us from particular experiences and inevitably prods us to seek conceptual expressions and rational support. Whitehead outlines the process in this particularly helpful passage: Our consciousness does not initiate our modes of functionings. We awake to find ourselves engaged in process, immersed in satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and actively modifying, either by intensification, or by attenuation, or by the introduction of novel purposes. This primary procedure which is presupposed in consciousness I will term Instinct. It is the mode of experience directly arising out of the urge of inheritance, individual and emotional. Also, after instinct and intellectual ferment have their work, there is a decision which determines the mode of coalescence of instinct with intelligence. I will term this factor Wisdom. It is the function of wisdom to act as a modifying agency on the intellectual ferment so as to produce a self-determined issue from the given conditions.54

52

53 54

In From Suffering to God (Basingstoke: Macmillan/N.Y. St. Martin's Press, 1994), we tried to illustrate how the experience of suffering leads to the question regarding what we can say about God. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 12. Ibid. p. 58. Whitehead sets this out for the purpose of understanding social institutions, but I have used it in this context because it also shows how he understands the process from experience to conceptualisation. He does add that this division must not be made too sharply.

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Whitehead reminds us that 'religion is concerned with our reactions of purpose and emotion due to our personal measure of intuition into the ultimate mystery of the universe,' and that here we must 'not postulate simplicity.'55 Rational thinking has a major contribution to religion. Situations in life have a way of pressing challenging questions on us, and for the sake of intellectual credibility in religion, these questions cannot remain ignored. While religion is not, and should not be, a purely rational enterprise, it does involve careful, deliberate and logical thinking. Whitehead frequently uses the phrase 'rational religion'. On this point his reference to the obvious link between religion and metaphysics is especially notable. It is obvious not in the sense that the link is generally accepted since there are those who do not wish to associate religion with metaphysics or with any other kind of philosophical trappings but even argue that such an association is detrimental and dangerous. Rather, there is a clearly recognisable tradition which closely connects the two even if the kind of the connections is variously interpreted. As we have already seen, Whitehead, following in that tradition, accepts and defends that linkage. For him both religion and metaphysics are based on human experience and represent a common search for ultimacy. They help shape human thought and influence human life. Whitehead's understanding of the relationship between the two indicates that for him the formation of religious thought is inevitably connected to a metaphysical view of reality.56 One area where metaphysics features in religion is in the development of religious doctrines.57 We have seen that Whitehead maintains that progress in

Ibid. p. 207. Whitehead maintains that history and common sense have testified that systematic formulations are potent engines of emphasis, of purification, and of stability. Without resorting to reason, Christianity would have sunk into superstition. It is also grounded in his theory of knowledge. Whitehead rejects 'mere knowledge'. He claims that knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose and that there are grades in the generality of ideas (Cf his Adventures of Ideas, p. 5). All knowledge, according to him, is derived from, and verified by, intuitive observation. All knowledge is conscious discrimination of objects experienced (Cf Ibid. pp. 227-228). He regards ideas as explanatory of modes of behaviour and of inrushes of emotion dominating our lives. Although ideas do modify practice, practice mainly precedes thought; and thought is mainly concerned with the justification or the modification of a pre-existing situation (Cf. Ibid. p. 140; also, p. 127). There has been talk of course of the demise of metaphysics, particularly during the era of logical positivism. However, it is probably more accurate to speak of the decline of certain metaphysical ways of philosophising rather than of metaphysical thinking itself. It should be noted that Whitehead's notion of metaphysics and his metaphysical view of reality are quite distinctive. Cf. Process and Reality. Because of its emphasis on becoming (as well as relatedness and events), his metaphysical system has been re-

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religious truth comes about 'in the framing of concepts, in discarding artificial abstractions or partial metaphors, and in evolving notions which strike more deeply into the root of reality,'™ all of which are achieved with the aid of metaphysics. But it is also useful to recall that for Whitehead religious truths are generalised truths, which originated in particular instances, expanded into a coherent system and then applied to the interpretation of life. The criterion for acceptance or rejection of these truths is their success in the interpretation of life.59 Whitehead's well-known metaphor to describe speculative philosophy as the flight of the aeroplane is equally applicable to the discovery and formulation of religious truths: after taking off from life's experiences and being borne aloft by rational thinking, religion must touch down in life's fields again. Religious doctrines represent a further stage in the process of making more explicit what one has held implicitly or has experienced. Ideally, they should express faithfully these pre-reflexive experiences. If they do, then one's appreciation of religion becomes richer and possibly more profound. But sometimes the process of conceptualisation does not do justice to the earlier stage; hence the need to rethink and re-interpret doctrines. As Vincent Brummer observes, 'Changes in the circumstances and demands of life bring about changes in cultural and hence also in the conceptualisation forms that people find adequate, including the concomitant beliefs that they hold to be true. Because of changes in the demands of life, our conceptual forms cannot remain eternally adequate.'60 This is why the task of formulating religious doctrines is an on-going one. It is not surprising then that an urgent challenge today is to formulate religious doctrines which are not only based on concrete life but also, in an intellectual and systematised manner, express adequately the realities of life. What is called for therefore is the integration of religion with both human thought and life. The following quotation from Whitehead is particularly appropriate here: Religion is an ultimate craving to infuse into the insistent particularity of emotion that non-temporal generality which primarily belongs to conceptual thought alone. In the higher organisms the difference of tempo ferred to, among other descriptions, as 'process metaphysics' although he himself referred to it as the 'philosophy of organism'. Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p. 131. Cf. my 'Process Thought as Conceptual Framework,' Process Studies 19, 4 (Winter 1990), pp. 248-255. For a very useful discussion, based on Whitehead's thought, on the relationship between doctrinal beliefs and experience, see John B. Cobb Jr. & David Ray Griffin, Process Theology : An Introductory Exposition (Belfast: Christian Journals Ltd., 1977), pp. 30-40. Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p. 124. Brummer, Speaking of a Personal God, p. 20.

13#

between the mere emotions and the conceptual experiences produce a life-tedium, unless this supreme fusion has been effected. The two sides of the organism require a reconciliation in which emotional experiences illustrate a conceptual justification, and conceptual experiences find an emotional justification.61 Despite some questions which will remain, Whitehead's conception of religion does, in my view, result in a clearer understanding of the role of religion in human life by showing how religion arises in the first place and how it also serves as the criterion for religious truths. At the same time it underlies the need to transcend our experiential starting point through rational thinking and to integrate the doctrinal expression with concrete human life. In this paper—in the light of my preliminary comments—I have tried to show through an exploration of Whitehead's conception of religion how in itself a particular understanding of religion can disclose its close connection with human life and thought.

Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 16. Italics added.

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9. Concretising Concrete Experience

1. The Methodology of Process Thought Contemporary process thought has emphasised the contributions of Whitehead and Hartshorne in providing an alternative conceptuality in understanding and articulating our experience of reality. These contributions, rooted in a metaphysical scheme, seem to disclose a certain understanding of the role of philosophy and to illustrate an attempt to meet the challenge of the times. It is therefore understandable that, given this direction in its development, process thought would be regarded as particularly attuned to some of the concerns in theology and receptive to a dialogue with Buddhist thought, contemporary science, feminism, environmental concerns, and other areas. Process thought is indeed a fertile field in which one can conduct a dialogue. Even more significantly, it provides a vision or a framework, including the formulation of a new language, to articulate that vision.1 Process thinkers seem to have heeded Whitehead's call that we should 're-create and re-enact a vision of the world, including those elements of reverence and order without which society lapses into riot, and penetrated through and through with unflinching rationality.' The development of a conceptuality requires sustained and concentrated thinking. Neglecting this demand leads to superficiality and narrowness. It is therefore to be expected that process thinkers would engage in abstract thinking in their attempts to further Whitehead's and Hartshorne's legacy and would respond to contemporary issues to show the relevance and the appropriateness of their insights. To use Whitehead's well-known metaphor of the flight of an aeroplane to describe speculative philosophy, the thrust of process thought has been mainly with the flight itself and with the landing.

In a paper presented at the Japanese Society for Process Thought in Tokyo and published as 'Process Thought as Conceptual Framework' in Process Studies, XIX, 4 (1990), pp. 248-255,1 indicated how the metaphysical vision of Whitehead and Hartshorne has enabled many of us to articulate our religious experiences. The argumentation in the present essay complements the one made in the earlier work. A.N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 1942), p. 126. Cf. Andre Cloots and Santiago Sia (eds.), Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion, Louvain Philosophical Studies 14 (Leuven University Press, 1999).

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It would of course be a mistake to claim that there has been a neglect of the first stage of the flight of the aeroplane.3 In fact, some analysis of experience and its role in providing data for speculative thinking has concerned process thinkers. But it seems that, while process thinkers have always stressed the concreteness of experience, the methodology followed has always run the risk of losing the very concreteness of experience itself. This comes as no surprise insofar as the development of process thought has been at the philosophical level ('philosophical' understood both in the strict as well as in the broad sense), a level that cannot be forsaken without damaging the credibility and the forcefulness of its metaphysical vision. It would, however, be equally damaging were process thought, in its important task of strengthening its conceptual framework and showing its relevance, to forget the need to preserve the very concreteness of experience. There is after all a difference between analysing 'concrete experience' or applying the process metaphysical scheme to 'other concrete experiences', and appreciating experience 'in its very concreteness'. Admittedly, the last task would seem to take us back rather than forward. To be engaged in preserving the concreteness of experience would hardly be called 'development' since it would be pre-philosophical. And any exploration at the pre-philosophical stage is always subject to vagueness, subjectiveness and inconsistency— features which undermine the development of a conceptuality. Despite these dangers, however, I would argue that the very methodology of process thought demands that time and effort be spent also at the initial stage of the flight of the aeroplane.

2. Turning to the Concrete In this context of turning to the more concrete expressions of our experiences of reality, Whitehead himself has some interesting observations. He regards, among others, literature (and poetry in particular) as such a concrete expression and a source for philosophical thinking. Here Whitehead manifests a closeness, even if rather implicit, not only with the rich European literaryphilosophical tradition, but also with certain concerns of contemporary European philosophers.4 There is an interesting passage which provides some One has only to note the different entries under the heading 'Literature and Process Thought' in the bibliography compiled by the library of the Center for Process Studies at Claremont. Parts of this essay are based on a discussion paper presented at the European Society for Process Thought Conference held at Kortrijk, Belgium and Lille, France.

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insight into Whitehead's understanding of the relationship between poetry and philosophy. In his Modes of Thought, he writes: 'Philosophy is akin to poetry. Philosophy is the endeavour to find a conventional phraseology for the vivid suggestiveness of the poet. It is the endeavour to reduce Milton's "Lycidas" to prose, and thereby to produce a verbal symbolism manageable for use in other connections of thought.'5 And in another work, Adventures of Ideas, he acknowledges that what philosophy does is to build on what is a strong foundation, explaining that philosophy expresses 'flashes of insight beyond meaning already stabilised in etymology and grammar.'6 Despite the famous wish of Plato to banish poets from the Republic and the ancient quarrel between poets and philosophers, there has always been a close, if at times tense, relationship between the art of poetry and the act of philosophising. Western philosophical tradition, at least in its dominant form, may not be as keen, compared to the Asian philosophical heritage for instance, on regarding literature in general and poetry in particular as a rich source of philosophical insight. In fact, many would maintain a certain distinction, with clearly described features, between what is literary and what is philosophical. There is in certain quarters of European philosophy, which insists on criticism, depth and comprehensiveness, a rather negative attitude towards poetry. Heidegger in his essay 'What are Poets For?' bemoans the fact that philosophers consider a dialogue with poetry as 'a helpless aberration into fantasy'.7 This rather negative attitude can be traced back to Plato, the great European philosopher. As Whitehead puts it, the emergence of the critical discontent with the poets is exemplified by Plato.8 Nonetheless, there has also been an acknowledgement by some European philosophers that Plato's understanding of poetry vis-a-vis philosophical thinking was too restricted. Much poetry contains a great deal of philosophical insights and some philosophical writings, in so far as these are the works of well-respected philosophers, are in genres which are more literary. (One can readily recall the writings of many of the existentialist thinkers.) Romanticism, which upholds spontaneity, emotion and individuality, A.N. Whitehead, Modes of Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1938), pp. 49-50. On this point, cf. Robert E. Doud, 'A Whiteheadian Interpretation of Baudelaire's Poetry,' Process Studies, XXXI, 2 (Fall-Winter, 2002), pp. 16-31. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 291. Heidegger does warn that scholars of literary history consider the dialogue to be 'an unscientific violation of what such scholarship takes to be the facts'. Cf. his Poetry, Language and Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 96. For a helpful anthology on this topic, see Hazard Adams (ed.), Critical Theory Since Plato (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1971). Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 12.

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arose in reaction to the perceived inadequacy of the kind of theoretical reason upheld by the Hegelian system. The Romantics felt that poetry provides the most adequate path to truth. In the essay cited above, Heidegger maintains that the course of the history of Being will lead thinking into a dialogue with poetry. Gadamer's recent book, Literature and Philosophy in Dialogue, promotes that exchange of views between literary writers and philosophers. The relationship between literature (particularly poetry) and philosophy appears to be an issue in contemporary European philosophical debates, especially in the context of philosophical hermeneutics. Paul Ricoeur's conviction that there is always a Being-demanding-to-be-said (un etre-a-dire) which precedes our actual saying prods him on to the poetic uses of language. Towards the end of Being and Time Heidegger had stated that the propositional form in which he had been writing was not really adequate to capture his thought. (It is an observation reminiscent of Kierkegaard who refers to a mode of communication in which the writer uses all the artistic means at his disposal to awaken the reader to what can only be indicated, not stated.) The later Heidegger becomes more specific. Pre-occupied with language as the 'house of Being', he pointed to the inextricable connection between our conception of the world and our language: language alone brings beings as beings into the open for the first time. Maintaining that poetic language is the purest form of language speaking, he considers that in poetic language, language speaks itself (Die Sprache spricht) and unfolds its true essence. The essence of poetry is 'the founding of truth' (as Heidegger understood it). He had confidence in poetic language's ability to evoke the nature of things whereas he had grave reservations about the form of writing that he had himself adopted. In fact, he regarded the poet, whose 'projective saying' enables new aspects of Being to reveal themselves, as the true philosopher.9 Given the claim made by process thinkers that concrete experience serves as the basis of the process scheme of things and the interest of process thought in Europe to contextualise its development in the European scene, surely an important area that needs to be explored further by European process See, among his other writings, Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1971) and On the Way to Language, trans. Peter D. Hertz (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1971). Heidegger maintains that the purity of poetic language is such that it is not important to know anything about the poet or the origins of the poetic work. Poetic language which reveals the essence of being, and not ordinary language, is the truly original manifestation of human language. Reference to Heidegger here is not meant to be an agreement with his methodology as will be evident in what follows in the main text. While Heidegger's dissatisfaction with philosophical discourse leads him to poetic language, what I am claiming is that poetry and other literary forms are a valuable source for philosophical thinking.

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thought is the relationship between poetry (and literature in general) and philosophical reflection.10 Hartshorne had carried out such an inquiry regarding the role of religious texts and practices in his development of philosophical theology. It seems that the current interest in philosophical hermeneutics can provide the scene for investigating and developing further Whitehead's thoughts on literature and poetry and in relating his contributions to what European philosophers are debating.

3. Literature and Philosophy: A Whiteheadian Nexus In this section, I should like to suggest how the dialogue between literature and philosophy can be grounded in Whitehead's thought. In doing so I also hope to indicate why the methodological task of preserving the concreteness of experience, specifically in literature, is an important one for process thought. Whitehead regards the word 'experience' as 'one of the most deceitful in philosophy'." Nonetheless, he maintains that what philosophy describes or discloses through the system of general ideas is 'our experience'. This means that for him the primary datum for philosophical analysis is no other than subjective experiencing. This 'subjectivist bias' is for Whitehead an ontological principle (referred to as 'the reformed subjectivist principle'). As he puts it, 'apart from the experiences of subjects there is nothing, nothing, nothing, bare nothingness.'1 Insofar as it is an ontological principle, experiencing is not, as is commonly understood, limited to human experiencing. Whitehead rejects any sharp distinction between humans and other beings, living and non-living. To make such a sharp distinction,

This is meant to complement the work that is being done to relate Whitehead and Hartshorne to main European thinkers like Kant, Hegel and others and to the other issues of interest to Continental philosophy. Jan Van der Veken provides a useful survey in his 'Process Thought from a European Perspective,' Process Studies, XIX, 4 (1990), pp. 240-247. Hartshorne himself has published on the relationship between literature and his philosophy. See, among others, 'In Defense of Wordsworth's View of Nature,' Philosophy and Literature, TV (1980), pp. 80-91; 'Some Theological Mistakes and Their Effects on Literature,' Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New Series 1 (1987), pp. 55-72; 'Thomas Aquinas and Three Poets who do not Agree with Him,' Process Studies, XXX,2 (2001), pp. 53-67. A.N. Whitehead, Symbolism: its Meaning and Effect (Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 19. A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, corrected ed. by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (The Free Press, 1978), p. 167.

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according to him, is too vague and hazardous. He therefore universalises experience, extending it to all realms of reality. What makes human experience distinctive is that it includes thinking. But thinking itself does not constitute the generic nature of human existence since humans live even when asleep and are unconscious. Whitehead regards thinking as derived from sensation; however, not in the sense in which that is interpreted by the sensationalist theory of the empiricists, who maintain that 'perception is the conscious entertainment of definite and clear-cut sensa.'14 According to Whitehead, experience cannot be identified with clear, distinct and conscious entertainment of sensation, explaining that the unborn child, the baby in its cradle, or one in the state of sleep, and so on have a vast background of feeling which is neither conscious nor definite. 'Clear, conscious discrimination is an accident of human existence. It makes us human. But it does not make us exist. It is of the essence of our humanity. But it is an accident of our existence.'15 On the other hand, the structure of human experience discloses the structure of reality itself. As he puts it, 'We construct the world in terms of the types of activities disclosed in our intimate experience.'16 One can find therefore in descriptions of human experience what Whitehead refers to as factors which also enter into the descriptions of less specialised natural occurrence.17 Whitehead describes every occasion of experience, human or otherwise, as dipolar; that is to say, it has an aspect of subjectivity and another aspect of objectivity, an aspect of process and another aspect of permanence.' 'It is mental experience integrated with physical experience. Mental experience is A.N. Whitehead, Science in the Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 1926), p. 79, also his. The Function of Reason (Oxford University Press, 1929), p. 5. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 228. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, p. 116. In Function of Reason, p. 62, Whitehead explains, 'The equating of experience with clarity of knowledge is against the evidence. In our own lives, and at any one moment, there is a focus of attention, a few items in clarity of awareness, but interconnected vaguely and yet insistently with other items in dim apprehension, and this dimness shading off imperceptibly into undiscriminated feeling. Further, the clarity cannot be segregated from the vagueness. The togetherness of the things that are clear refuses to yield its secret to clear analytic intuition. The whole forms a system, but when we set out to describe the system direct intuitions play us false. Our conscious awareness is fluctuating, flitting, and not under control. It lacks penetration. The penetration of intuition follows upon the expectation of thought. This is the secret of attention.' Whitehead, Modes of Thought, p. 115. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 237. Dipolarity is a metaphysical principle in both Whitehead's and Hartshorne's metaphysical systems. Cf. the essay 'God in Process Thought'.

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the converse of bodily experience.'''' His reformed subjectivist principle is thus a claim that the final fact is a subject experiencing objects which in turn are determined subjects. Subject and object are thus regarded as interlinked in the same final fact. This claim amounts to a rejection of the extreme realist position of the sensationalist principle of the empiricist tradition which holds that 'the primary activity in the act of experience is the bare subjective entertainment of the datum, devoid of any subjective form of reception.'20 As Whitehead explains it, experience is not purely a private qualification of the mind. He adds that 'if experience be not based upon an objective content, there can be no escape from a solipsist subjectivism.' ' Accordingly, he affirms that 'the world within experience is identical with the world beyond experience'22 and that what Descartes discovered on the side of subjectivism 'requires balancing by an "objectivist" principle as to the datum for experience.'23 Turning now to human experience itself, Whitehead describes two modes of experience, independent but each contributing its share of components into one concrete moment of human experience.24 He calls the clear, conscious, sensory mode 'perception in the mode of presentational immediacy'. But this mode of experience is based upon and derived from a more elemental form of experience, which is vague and unconscious and Whitehead, Function of Reason, pp. 25-26. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 157. Ibid., p. 152. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 293. On page 268 and the following pages, Whitehead discusses the dichotomy within the objective content of an occasion of experience in terms o f appearance and reality'. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 160. The following passage is a particularly helpful summation by Whitehead: 'An occasion of experience is an activity, analysable into modes of functioning which jointly constitute its process of becoming. Each mode is analysable into the total experience as active subject, and into the thing or object with which the special activity is concerned. This thing is a datum, that is to say, is describable without reference to its entertainment in that occasion. An object is anything performing this function of a datum provoking some special activity of the occasion in question. Thus subject and object are relative terms. An occasion is a subject in respect to its special activity concerning an object; and anything is an object in respect to its provocation of some special activity within a subject. Such a mode of activity is termed a 'prehension'. Thus prehension involves three factors. There is the occasion of experience within which the prehension is a detail of activity; there is the datum whose relevance provokes the origination of this prehension; this datum is the prehended object; there is the subjective form, which is the affective tone determining the effectiveness of that prehension in that occasion of experience. How the experience constitutes itself depends on its complex of subjective forms.' P. 226. In Symbolism, p. 20, Whitehead actually mentions three modes, the third being 'the mode of conceptual analysis'.

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which he calls 'perception in the mode of causal efficacy'. The mode of causal efficacy, which Whitehead describes as heavy and primitive, dominates primitive living organisms.26 He explains that in human experience, this elemental form of perception is exhibited by the 'withness of the body': 'it is this withness that makes the body the starting point for our knowledge of the circumambiant world.'27 Senses are specialisations of the withness of the body: 'we see with our eyes, we do not see our eyes' while our body is 'that portion of nature with which each moment of human experience intimately cooperates.'28 For this reason Whitehead maintains that it is difficult to determine accurately the definite boundary of one's body and that it is very vaguely distinguishable from external nature.29 He regards the body as united with the environment as well as with the soul.30 Causation then, as far as Whitehead is concerned, is not an a priori category within the mind alone, as in Kant, but an element in experience. ' As he puts it, 'The notion of causation arose because mankind lives amid experiences in the mode of causal efficacy.'32 Thus the elemental form of perception is causation, it being an element of the very structure of reality. Whitehead defines the mode of presentational immediacy, the other mode of experiencing, as 'our immediate perception of the contemporary external world, appearing as an element constitutive of our own experience.'33 It expresses how contemporary events are relevant to each other while preserving

27

29 30

31

Whitehead, Function of Reason, pp. 78-79. Whitehead, Symbolism, p. 52. '

Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 112. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, p. 115. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 161. Whitehead, Process and Reality, pp. 166-167. Ibid., p. 175. The term that Whitehead uses to describe this is 'prehension'. Cf. Process and Reality, p. 19.

33

By 'presentational immediacy' Whitehead explains that he means what is usually termed 'sense perception' but not as having exactly the same connotations as that term. Cf. Symbolism, p. 25. He maintains that 'presentational immediacy is only of importance in high-grade organisms, and is a physical fact which may, or may not, enter into consciousness. Such entry will depend on attention and on the activity of con-ceptual functioning, whereby physical experience and conceptual imagination are fused into knowledge,' p. 19 and that 'the reason why low-grade purely physical organisms cannot make mistakes is not primarily their absence of thought, but their absence of presentational immediacy.' p. 24. Also for most events, he presumes that their intrinsic experience of presentational immediacy is so embryonic as to be negligible. 'This perceptive mode is important only for a small minority of elaborate organisms.' p. 29. 148

a mutual independence.34 In this mode contemporary things are 'objectively' in our experience. No actual thing is objectified as such but only an abstraction. Among these abstract entities are those called sense-data; for example, colours, sounds, tastes, touches, and bodily feelings.35 Compared to the mode of causal efficacy, presentational immediacy leads to knowledge that is vivid, precise, and barren. It is also to a large extent controllable at will; that is to say, that one moment of experience, through various modifications, can predetermine to a considerable extent the other characteristics of the presentational immediacy in succeeding moments of experience.36 The fusing of these two modes into one perception is called by Whitehead 'symbolic reference'. He explains that in symbolic reference 'the various actualities disclosed respectively by the two modes are either identified, or are at least correlated together as interrelated elements in our environment,' the result being 'what the actual world is for us, as that datum in our experience productile of feelings, emotions, actions, and finally as the topic for conscious recognition when our mentality intervenes with its conceptual analysis.'37 This linking of the two modes, which leads to human symbolism, shows that there are common structural elements since they are perceptions of the same world. However, there are gaps, which means that their fusion is indeterminate. Whitehead adds that 'intellectual criticism founded on subsequent experience can en34

35 36

37

Whitehead, Symbolism, p. 19. He cites the main facts about presentational immediacy to be: '(i) that the sense-data involved depend on the percipient organisms and its spatial relations to the perceived organisms, (ii) that the contemporary world is exhibited as extended and as a plenum of organisms, (iii) that presentational immediacy is an important factor in the experience of only a few high-grade organisms, and that for the others it is embryonic or entirely negligible,' p. 26. Ibid. p. 30. Whitehead provides a useful summary with the following passage: '...the intervention of any sense-datum in the actual world cannot be expressed in any simple way, such as mere qualification of a region of space, or alternatively as the mere qualification of a state of mind. The sense-data, required for immediate sense-perception, enter into experience in virtue of the efficacy of the environment. This environment includes the bodily organs. For example, in the case of hearing sound, the physical waves have entered the ears, and the agitations of the nerves have excited the brain. The sound is then heard as coming from a certain region in the external world. Thus perception in the mode of causal efficacy discloses that the data in the mode of sense-perception are provided by it. This is the reason why there are such given elements. Every such datum constitutes a link between the two perceptive modes. Each such link, or datum, has a complex ingression into experience, requiring a reference to the two perceptive modes. These sense-data can be conceived as constituting the character of a many-termed relationship between the organisms of the past environment and those of the contemporary world.' Ibid. pp. 62-63. Ibid. p. 21.

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large and purify the primitive naive symbolic transference.' He contrasts symbolic reference with 'direct recognition' insofar as the latter is 'conscious recognition of a percept in a pure mode, devoid of symbolic reference. ' 39 As a matter of fact, however, there is no complete ideal purity of either perceptive experience without any symbolic reference.40 Error may arise in symbolic reference inasmuch as direct recognition may disagree in its report of the actual world. In symbolic reference mental analysis is rather at a minimum. On the other hand, it compensates for this in its imaginative freedom. Symbolic reference precedes conceptual analysis, but the two promote each other. One may be inclined to associate symbolic reference with mental activity, but Whitehead holds that it is a matter of pure convention as to which of our experiential activities we term 'mental' and which 'physical' since, as we have already noted, for Whitehead there is no proper line to be drawn between the physical and the mental constitution of experience. Moreover, much of our perception is subtly enhanced by a concurrent conceptual analysis. There is no conscious knowledge without the intervention of mentality in the form of conceptual analysis. Symbolic reference is a datum for thought in its analysis of experience. Our conceptual scheme of the universe should generally and logically be coherent with it and should correspond to the ultimate facts of the pure perceptive modes. But when this does not happen, we then should revise our conceptual scheme to retain the general trust in the symbolic reference, while accepting as mistaken definite details of that reference.42 Whitehead also defines symbolic reference as 'the organic functioning whereby there is transition from the symbol to the meaning,' when some components of experience, i.e. symbols, elicit consciousness, beliefs, emotions, and usages, respecting other components of its experience, i.e. meaning. It is 'the active synthetic element contributed by the nature of the percipient.'4 Symbolic reference is, as Whitehead defines it in another context, 'the interpretative element in human experience'. In this sense, symbolic reference is related to language. In language we have a fundamental type of symbolism: 'The word is a symbol, and its meaning is constituted by the ideas, images and emotions, which it raises in the mind of the hearers.'45 But in addition to the bare meaning, words and phrases carry with them an inclusive Ibid. p. 35. Ibid. p. 22. Ibid. p. 64. Ibid. p. 23. Ibid. p. 64. Ibid., p. 9. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 73. Whitehead, Symbolism, p. 2.

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suggestiveness and an emotional efficacy associated with the way they had been used in history.46 Whitehead explains this point: 'A word has a symbolic association with its own history, its other meanings and with its general status in current literature. Thus a word gathers emotional signification from its emotional history in the past; and this is transferred symbolically to its meaning in present use.' 47 He maintains that the whole basis of the art of literature is 'that emotions and feelings directly excited by the words should fitly intensify our emotions and feelings arising from contemplation of the meaning.'48 Given the above consideration by Whitehead on experience and our expression of that experience, what Whitehead has to say on literature is particularly relevant: 'It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression. Accordingly it is to literature that we must look, particularly in its more concrete forms, namely in poetry and in drama, if we hope to discover the inward thoughts of a generation.'49 We have already noted that he holds that the ultimate appeal is to experience, and now he adds his reason why he puts much stress on the evidence of poetry: 'My point is, that in our sense-experience we know away from and beyond our own personality, whereas the subjectivist holds that in such experience we merely know about our own personality.'50 Whitehead points out that one function of great literature is to evoke a vivid feeling of what lies beyond words.51 Literature manages to combine what Whitehead considers to be a curious mixture of 'tacitly presupposing analysis, and conversely of returning to emphasise explicitly the fundamental emotional importance of our naive general intuitions.'52 It is interesting to compare Whitehead's observations with the poet Goethe's comments on poetry. Goethe holds that it is reality that provides, as it were 'the points to be expressed'. According to him, reality is the kernel. It

46 47

49 50 51 52

Ibid., p. 79. Ibid. p. 99. In Adventures of Ideas, p. 5, Whitehead actually points out that there is no 'mere knowledge' since knowledge is always accompanied by emotion and purpose. Whitehead, Symbolism, pp. 98-99. There is a certain vagueness in symbolism. Compared to direct experience which is infallible in that what one has experienced has been experienced, symbolism is very fallible 'in the sense that it may induce actions, feelings, emotions, and beliefs about things which are mere notions without that exemplification in the world w/c the symbolism leads us to presuppose.' Ibid. p. 7. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 106. Ibid. p. 125. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, p. 7. Ibid. p. 6.

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also supplies the motive.53 And Goethe's advice to the poet is: 'Only have the courage to give yourself up to your impressions, allow yourself to be delighted, moved, elevated; nay, instructed and inspired for something great: but do not imagine all is vanity, if it is not abstract thought and idea.'54 As he reflects on his own role as poet, Goethe has this to say: It was in short not in my line, as a poet, to strive to embody anything abstract. I received in my mind impressions, and those of a sensuous, animated, charming, varied, hundred-fold kind—just a lively imagination presented them; and I had, as a poet, nothing more to do than to round off and elaborate artistically such views and impressions, and by means of a lively representation so to bring them forward that others might receive the same impression in hearing or reading my representation of them.55 Although in a different context, the novelist-philosopher Iris Murdoch makes a similar observation regarding literary modes of expressing our concrete experiences. She points out that literary modes are an everyday occurrence: they arc naturally close to ordinary but reflective life. She remarks that we are beings who constantly use words, employing language to make interesting what is originally dull or incoherent. Thus, we are immersed in a literary atmosphere, where we live and breathe literature. We all are, as she describes us, 'literary artists'. Literature or art of any sort emerges because of 'the desire to defeat the formlessness of the world and cheer oneself up by constructing forms out of what might otherwise seem a mass of senseless rubble.' 56 53 54 55 56

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This text is included in Adams' anthology, p. 514. Ibid. Ibid. p. 515. Iris Murdoch, Existentialist and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature (London: Chatto & Windus, 1997), p. 6. Murdoch maintains that despite the fact that philosophy and literature are so different, they are both truth-seeking and truthrevealing activities. They are cognitive activities, explanations. She adds that 'how far re-shaping involves offence against truth is a problem any artist must face.' p. 10. For Whitehead, philosophic truth is to be sought in the presuppositions of language rather than in its express statements. He maintains that this is why philosophy is akin to poetry in that both of them seek to express that ultimate good sense which we term civilisation. 'In each case there is reference to form beyond the direct meaning of words. Poetry allies itself to metre, philosophy to mathematical pattern.' Modes of Thought, p. viii. See also, Martha Nussbaum, Love's Knowledge (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1990).

For Whitehead, literature is a way of capturing the concreteness of experience. In addition, the poetic rendering of our concrete experience, according to him, reminds us that 'the element of value, of being valuable, of having value, of being an end in itself, of being something which is for its own sake, must not be omitted in any account of an event as the most concrete actual something.'57 By 'value' he understands the intrinsic reality of an event. It is an element that permeates through and through the poetic view of nature. He illustrates this point by referring to the nature-poetry of the romantic poets, which he regards was a protest not only on behalf of the organic view of nature, but also against the exclusion of value in the description of reality. As he puts it rather succinctly, 'The romantic reaction was a protest on behalf of value.' 58 Whitehead furthermore notes the significance of literature in its description of nature. Citing the works of Wordsworth, he compares the poet's view of nature with the strained and paradoxical view which modern science offers to us: 'Wordsworth, to the height of genius, expresses the concrete facts of our apprehension, facts which are distorted on the scientific analysis. Is it not possible that the standardised concepts of science are only valid within narrow limitations, perhaps too narrow for science itself?'59 Whitehead bemoans the over-emphasis on the intellectual, an attitude that he considers prevalent in the learned world. Such an attitude, he claims, 'sterilises imaginative thought, and thereby blocks progress.'60 Similarly, the Irish poet W.B.Yeats remarks in a rather forceful fashion: 'By reason and logic we die hourly, by imagination we live.'61 Whitehead reminds us that all productive thought has resulted from and developed because of the poetic insight of artists, or by the imaginative elaboration of schemes of thought capable of utilisation as logical premises62 while philosophical thought has created for itself difficulties by dealing exclusively in very abstract notions.63 In this connection, what Whitehead has to say about the advance of ideas is particularly significant: Now, so far as concerns beliefs of a general character, it is much easier for them to destroy emotion than to generate it. In any survey of the adventure of ideas nothing is more surprising than the ineffectiveness of Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 131. Ibid. p. 132. Ibid. p. 118. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, p. 59. Quoted in J.M. Cocking, Imagination: a Study in the History of Ideas (London & N.Y.: Routledge, 1991), p. viii. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 9. Ibid. p. 18.

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novel general ideas to acquire for themselves an appropriate emotional pattern of any intensity. Profound flashes of insight remain ineffective for centuries, not because they are unknown, but by reason of dominant interests which inhibit reaction to that type of generality.64 On the other hand, Whitehead points out that 'the language of literature breaks down precisely at the task of expressing in explicit form the larger generalities—the very generalities which metaphysics seeks to express.'65 One then needs to go further than literary language to philosophical language which uses reason. Whitehead regards reason as a factor in experience, one that directs and criticises the urge towards the attainment of an end which has been realised in imagination but not in fact.66 He adds that 'the essence of Reason in its lowliest forms is its judgments upon flashes of novelty, of novelty in immediate realisation and of novelty which is relevant to appetition but not yet to action.'67 Explaining further his point, he states that: In its lowliest form, Reason provides the emphasis on the conceptual clutch after some refreshing novelty. It is then Reason devoid of constructive range of abstract thought. It operates merely as the simple direct judgment lifting a conceptual flash into an effective appetition, and an effective appetition into a realised fact.68 Whitehead assigns to reason, and thus to philosophy, the task of understanding and purging the symbols on which humanity depends.69 As we have already noted in our discussion of the modes of perception, Whitehead maintains that consciousness itself does not initiate the process of knowledge. Rather, we find ourselves already engaged in it, 'immersed in satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and actively modifying, either by intensification, or by attenuation, or by the introduction of novel purposes' but that 'after instinct and intellectual ferment have done their work, there is a decision which deter-mines the mode of coalescence of instinct with intelligence.'70 Here reason acts as 'a modifying agency on the intellectual ferment so as to produce a self-determined issue from the given conditions.'71 Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 220. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 11. Whitehead, Function of Reason, p. 5. Ibid. p. 15. Ibid. p. 18. Whitehead, Symbolism, p. 8. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 58. Ibid.

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Reason has a tremendous effect in selecting, emphasising, and disintegrating data.72 In this sense one can say, according to Whitehead, that thought is mainly concerned with the justification or the modification of a pre-existing situation.73 While all knowledge is conscious discrimination of objects experienced, this conscious discrimination—to return the point already discussed earlier—is 'nothing more than an additional factor in the subjective form of the interplay of subject with object.... All knowledge is derived from, and verified by, direct intuitive observation.'74 Whitehead also insists that it is the business of rational thought—which brings us back to the issue regarding methodology in process thought—to describe the more concrete fact from which abstract thought has been derived.75 Literature, which conveys meanings through rich and concrete images, powerful metaphors and engaging analogies, is a fertile field for philosophical reflections, which with the aid of reason make such literary language more explicit. Philosophy for Whitehead is intended to regain an undivided world, to think together all aspects of reality.76 Its aim is to disclose 'a complete fact' in all its scientific, aesthetic, moral, religious, etc. aspects. His well-known definition of speculative philosophy is: 'the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.'77 Whitehead states that the rationalists failed to disclose a complete fact because of their chief error of overstatement.78 They overstated abstraction and landed in a dogmatic fallacy. Understanding as a function of philosophy, 'to harmonies, refashion, and justify divergent intuitions as to the nature of things', Whitehead then argues that philosophy must 'insist on the scrutiny of the ultimate ideas, and on the retention of the whole of the evidence in shaping our cosmological scheme. Its business is to render explicit, and—so far as may be—efficient, a process which otherwise is unconsciously performed without rational tests.' 7 Philosophy makes the content of the human mind manageable by adding meaning to fragmentary details, by disclosing disjunctions and conjunctions, consistencies and inconsistencies.80 Moreover, Whitehead regards philosophical reflections Ibid. p. 127. Ibid. p. 140. Ibid. p. 227. Ibid. p. 239. On this point, see Andre Cloot's essay, 'Thinking Things Together: the Concept of Metaphysics,' in Framing a Vision of the World, pp. 67-84. Ibid. p. 285; also, Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 3. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 11. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. ix. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, p. 67.

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as ongoing. Philosophy is an 'endeavour', an 'essay'—an adventurous attempt or search. As Whitehead so often puts it, 'Philosophy is the search for premises. It is not deduction.'81 It is not surprising then that he describes philosophy as 'descriptive generalisation'82 inasmuch as it should describe, rather than explain, reality. He is critical of traditional philosophy which explained things and whose preoccupation was on the principles which constitute the concrete things, thereby ignoring the very concreteness of reality.83 Whitehead also uses the term 'imaginative generalisation' to refer to philosophy84 highlighting the point that by an imaginative leap the philosopher attempts to capture those aspects of reality which logical technicalities cannot reach.8 The following passage sums up Whitehead's conception of the philosophical task in the context of what has been said so far: Philosophy is the critic of abstractions. Its function is the double one, first of harmonising them by assigning to them their right relative status as abstractions, and secondly of completing them by direct comparison with more concrete intuitions of the universe, and thereby promoting the formation of more complete schemes of thought. It is in respect to this comparison that the testimony of great poets is of such importance. Their survival is evidence that they express deep intuitions of mankind penetrating into what is universal in concrete fact. Philosophy is not one among the sciences with its own little scheme of abstractions which it works away at perfecting and improving. It is the survey of sciences, with the special objects of their harmony, and of their completion. It brings to this task not only the evidence of the separate sciences, but also its own appeal to concrete experience. It confronts the sciences with concrete fact. 6 In our philosophical discussion about our experience of reality, Whitehead reminds us of a 3-fold distinction of what we need to keep in mind: '(i) our direct intuitions which we enjoy prior to all verbalisation; (ii) our literary modes of verbal expression of such intuitions, together with the dialectic deductions from such verbal formulae; (iii) the set of purely deductive sciences, which have been developed so that the network of possible relations 81 82 83 84 85 86

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Ibid. p. 105. Whitehead, Process and Reality, pp.15-16. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 143. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 7. Ibid. p. 6. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 122.

with which they deal are familiar in civilised consciousness.'87 He warns us that the chief danger in philosophy are dialectic deductions from inadequate formulae which exclude direct intuitions, such as those found in literature. 8

4. Two Suggestions for Process Thought If indeed the above observations reflect Whitehead's concerns, two areas in methodology seem to suggest themselves for further development in process thought, particularly in the European context: 1. The construction of a process methodology which is more consistent with its claims regarding the role of concrete experience: more inclusive of poetic and other literary insights as the foundation for more abstract reflection. I am not advocating the kind of methodology associated with Kierkegaard's 'subjective truth of human life or existence', the pursuit of which calls for a radical break with cognitive or theoretical reason. Nor do I have in mind the juxta-positioning of the two fields in the way that Dilthey did. While appreciating both the need for rationality, objectivity and rigour and the fullness of human life, he advocated a doctrine of knowledge—although the context was the human and natural sciences—which separates Erkldren and Verstehen. Husserl rightly rejects this dualism of explanation and understanding, maintaining that it is the task of genuine philosophy to bridge that gap. Nor is this methodology being suggested a matter of simply quoting from poetry to illustrate or expand a philosophical point. Rather what seems to be called for is genuinely 'listening' to what poets say, in the way described by Heidegger in his 'What are Poets For'.89 It is a method which gives poets 'their own space', pace Plato, not only in the Republic but also in the philosophical arena. Whitehead acknowledges that, 'literature preserves the wisdom of the human race' 90 and that it is 'the storehouse of that crude evidence on which philosophy should base its discussion.'91 It is a method that demands listening Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 177. Ibid. pp. 177-78. Whitehead refers to what he calls 'third chapter of evidence' delivered by language, which concerns 'meanings beyond individual words and beyond grammatical forms, meanings miraculously revealed in great literature.' Ibid. p. 291. We have tried to implement this suggestion in a recent book: M. F. Sia and S. Sia, From Suffering to God: Exploring Our Images of God in the Light of Suffering (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 1994). Theodore Walker's review in Process Studies, 28, 1-2 (Spring/Summer 1999), pp.147-148 refers specifically to the methodology followed in this book. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, p. 247. Ibid. v.29\.

m

to the poets and other literary writers, inquiring as to the meaning of their words, reflecting critically on the lines of the poem or the texts and developing further, even correcting, their insights. Undoubtedly, there is the issue of which poems and which texts can be used. But that problem arises, because of the demands of selectivity, no matter in what context we turn to for sources in our philosophical reflection. 2. The use of more literary modes of communicating process insights to complement, rather than replace, the strictly philosophical writings which advance Whiteheadian and Hartshornean scholarship. Philosophy is explanatory of abstraction, not of concreteness.92 Whitehead's insistence that fresh insights should not be burdened by the baggage of connotations led to his introduction of an original glossary. While this has the distinct advantage of achieving a clarity and preserving a novelty which would not be possible with the use of a more traditional vocabulary, it has nevertheless not only created obstacles to a more extensive dialogue with non-Whiteheadian philosophers, but it has also prevented others from profiting from the richness of process thought. The method of sharing the results of the process journey in the aeroplane becomes important. I am not referring here to 'popularising' process thought—with the connotation of'watering down' its insights. Rather, I am talking of the need to disseminate process insights more widely. W.B. Yeats's remark that we should 'think like wise men, but communicate in the language of the people' is particularly apt. The European philosophical tradition has always made use of, among others, various literary forms: poetry, novels, plays, dialogues and so on, to reach the minds—and hearts—of the public. It is a tradition that process thought could well participate in and benefit from.93

92 93

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Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 20. In the novel, The Fountain Arethuse (Lewes, U.K: The Book Guild, 1997), we made use of process insights in developing both the plot and the dialogues. See W. Beardslee's review of it in Creative Transformation, 7, 1 (Fall 1997), p. 23 and that of Theodore Walker in Process Studies, 28, 1-2 (Spring/Summer 1999), pp. 148-149. See also Aliman Sears's essay, 'Suffering and Surrender in the Midst of Persuasion' in Darren Middleton (ed.), God, Literature and Process Thought (U.K.: Ashgate Publishers, 2001), pp. 79-102. Extracts from the novel are included in the Appendix.

Appendix A: Extracts from: M.S. Sia, The Fountain Arethuse: aNovel

Set mainly in the university town ofLeuven, Belgium (as well as in Dublin and Los Angeles), this novel deals with the responses by fictitious academics to the challenge of suffering in their personal and professional lives. Richard Gutierrez hopes to complete a book on the problem of evil so as to gain tenure at his university in Southern California. Aisling O'Shea from Ireland, a lecturer in Irish literature, has tragically lost a much-loved husband. Jennifer Sydney, a theology lecturer from England who wants to forget a painful past, turns to her academic pursuits. Prof Malachowski, an eminent Polish professor of philosophy and son of victims of the internment camp at Majdanek, is in search of a way of understanding his life that has been fed by the bitter experiences of the past. Fr. Miguel Fuentes, a seminary professor from the Philippines, has aligned himself with the oppressed and the poor in the Philippines. What starts as an academic sojourn for these individuals becomes a life-changing experience as their paths cross in Leuven and they learn about each other and themselves—and about the search for wisdom! The following extracts—the page references included are those of the original publication—explore some of the themes discussed in the previous essays in this book:

1. Evil as a Problem(pp. 38-39) Richard kept thinking about his uncompleted manuscript. How could he credibly write on the problem of evil? He had been approaching this as a philosophical issue, and indeed it was, but whatever he had written was unconvincing in the arena of widespread human suffering. He could discuss various theories and the merits and weaknesses of each, but in the hard reality of suffering, whether it was the unexpected loss of a loved one, the sight of the malnourished and skeletal bodies of the children in the Sudan and Somalia, the victims of the violence in Bosnia or the long lines of the unemployed, every single

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one of these theories was bankrupt. Each one was shipwrecked on the hard rocks of reality. As he tinkered with his pen, which he had lifted from its holder, he recalled with grief a talk he gave to a small group of educators. After his presentation on Aquinas's solution to the problem of evil, one member of the audience asked him how that would help her cope with the tragedy of her handicapped sister. Her vivid description of the agony and desperation both her sister and her family had been experiencing was sufficient to shake the foundation on which a theoretical answer, particularly the one he was defending, was built. Initially he consoled himself by saying that he was not writing a book intended to provide comfort to those who were suffering nor to offer solutions to remedy the situation. His notes for his introduction clearly stated that. He retrieved those notes. Sure enough, he had made those points. He was writing as a philosopher, not as a psychologist, nor a counsellor, nor a strategist. He could not be expected in this work to be all of those. As a philosopher he was expected to focus on such issues as: what is meant by evil? why is there evil in the world? how can the reality of evil be reconciled with the belief in God? and so on. In his field he would be accused of skirting around the problem if he did not address these and similar questions. Philosophers investigate fundamental questions, and these were indeed fundamental. They were questions which a rational being sooner or later would ask. This was why great minds down through the ages and from different continents wrestled with this problem. Richard leaned back in his chair, whose sturdy high back gave him comfortable support. That perhaps was the real problem, he surmised. If great minds had thought deeply about it, if they had provided theories which have been studied thoroughly by others, why did the problem of evil still exist? Why did one talk of 'yet another theodicy', often with sarcasm? Why was one left floundering about when confronted by the agony and misery of one individual or of millions? It was a real problem, a very concrete one indeed. Richard continued his reflections as he put down the manuscript that he had been examining. How can he convince the Dean that there was a gap between what he had set out to do in this scholarly work and the experience of those exploited, oppressed, victimised, and in pain? What meaning could he provide to his work? He seemed to be stuck. He wondered whether Leuven would provide an answer or even a hint of an answer. Would it be an answer that would inspire him to continue with his scholarly work?

2. An Experience of Evil (pp. 49-52) Sean's death really shocked Aisling. After the Gardai had left, she sobbed uncontrollably. No word came out of her mouth, just utter disbelief. 160

She kept hoping it was just a nightmare. Only a few hours ago Sean had been with them—laughing and joking about the holiday, and then concerned about the plight of their friends. She remembered his last words to her and the child—and she shook with emotion. It was not fair at all. Here he was on a mission of mercy and then struck down by an unconcerned drunk driver who survived the crash he had caused, while Sean died a violent death, leaving a young widow and a one-year-old son. Could you call that justice? It did not make any sense at all. What had they done to deserve this? Was she at fault and was she being punished in this way? Had they been having it too easy in life and needed to be brought down to earth, with a bang, as it were? Did it have to be this way? She felt a real emptiness. A portrait of Sean, herself and Philip was in the sitting room. She grabbed hold of it and clasped it to her breast, as if by this action she could dispel the oncoming loneliness. She missed him a lot already and as it dawned on her that she would never see Sean again, the tears just kept flooding down her cheeks like an unchecked river. Their son would grow up without a father. What would he become? What kind of future would he have? How would she manage? The questions kept buzzing in her head. The room was still warm. Although it was in the middle of summer, she had decided to light a fire to take the chill away, their house having been empty for two weeks. She had meant the fire to be a cosy welcome for Sean when he came back from the hospital. They were going to sit in front of it while Sean gave her the latest on Siobhan. Instead, there were only the dying embers for her to stare at. Soon they would be gone, and the room would be cold. Even now she could feel a chill down her spine. But it can't be. Sean is not gone, she kept telling herself. We were meant to have a future. A good husband and father like Sean had a proper place in this world. He deserved to be alive. Sean was a committed teacher, too. He had worked hard at his studies so that he would land the job in which he thought he could do the most to make this world a better place to live in. For him, being a teacher was contributing to the task of lifting some of the darkness from this world. He had turned to classical literature because he was good at it, but he always considered the task of educating others and himself of greater significance. Any other academic discipline would have sufficed, if he excelled in it, so long as it enabled him to guide others to a better and more enlightened outlook in life. Sean was fired with enthusiasm. So why was his future cut short? It couldn't be true, it just couldn't. She and Sean used to go for long walks, hand in hand, at the nearby Marlay Park. They would converse endlessly on different topics, some of them profound, others trivial, as they followed the many delightful trails in that park, the longest of them ending up in Wicklow, the garden county of Ireland. At 161

other times Sean would be silent and preoccupied, to enable her to yap along, he had teasingly told her. She used to tease him back by observing that whenever she had gone a bit silent, he would make intelligent grunts so that she could continue. Those long walks had brought them closer together and had made them keen admirers of the beauty of nature. They would recite lines of poetry to each other. Now all that was to be over. Why? Why? Aisling got up and walked around in circles, not knowing what to do. She moved towards the bay window in the sitting room. It was here that Sean had put up a huge Christmas tree on their very first Christmas in the house. They had no curtains then, and Sean had said with a grin that the huge tree helped to cover the emptiness of the room. They had no furniture; but they did have a genuine tree, he consoled her. What kind of Christmases lay ahead of her and her son? What would happen to all their dreams about the future? Finally she dragged herself from the sitting room, unable to bear its emptiness, and went into the hall. But more memories flashed before her eyes as she saw the stairs. It was on this very step, she recalled, that Sean and she, practically penniless because they had used up their savings to put a deposit on this house, sat down drinking tea on their first day in their new house. The whole place was bare then -but they were celebrating because they had their roof above their heads and their mugs of tea. Aisling steadied herself by holding on to the banister and then tightly gripping it for support. Too weak to climb up the stairs, she sat down and placed her head between her hands. Then her grief and loneliness turned to anger. We try hard, she said, so very hard to do a good job no matter what it is. Is this our reward? What is the point in doing that if it ends up this way? She could feel her muscles tense up. She was clenching her fists, as she wanted to strike hard, really hard, whoever was responsible for this. Not just the driver, but whoever allowed that situation to happen. Blast any community that does not prevent such things! Curse those barmen who keep selling drinks to those who are already too drunk to decide for themselves. Where are those parents who did not instil responsibility into this driver, even if they had to beat it into him? The pain he was causing her was unforgivable. Curse... 'God, why did you let this happen?' Aisling cried out. 'We had always been taught to love you and trust in your goodness. This is not good, this is wrong. Then why, with all your power, did you not prevent the accident? Just a few minutes more and Sean would have missed the other driver.' She was angry with God, angry because, unlike Sean who had tried to take care of Philip, God was not caring enough for the likes of Sean and her. God seemed in fact to be toying with them, giving them a happy life, only to snatch it away now. 'God, how can you do this? Why do you do this?'

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Suddenly, the phone broke the stillness of the night. It was her mother calling to let her know that they had arrived in Barrowtown safely. The irony of it all. God had waited until her folks were gone to let her suffer by herself. What kind of a God was this? Aisling wanted to strike God. After all, God had struck her and her family. 'Ma, it's. ..it's Sean,' was all she could manage to say.

3. Approaches to the Challenge of Suffering (pp. 103-108) 'Professor Malachowski, Professor Tanaka, Dr. Linden. I introduce Dr. Jennifer Sidney and Dr. Richard Gutierrez to you. I leave you now to get to know each other better.' Professor van der Riet then went to the door since the doorbell rang again to announce other new arrivals. As the group became better acquainted, Richard learned that Professor Malachowski was a professor of philosophy from Lublin in Poland and was particularly interested in meeting Richard since he too was writing something on the problem of evil, but from a process philosophical point of view. Dr. Tanaka, a professor of education from one of the universities in Japan, was on a flying visit, as it were. He said that he was spending his sabbatical in England since he was working on a comparative study of educational systems in the world. Dr. Linden had come from the Netherlands to attend a conference being held at Leuven. She belonged to the theology faculty of one of the state universities in that country. After a while, it was not surprising that Dr. Linden and Jennifer should break away from the group to chat about common interests in theology. Richard tried to circulate so as to meet as many individuals as possible. And it was a lively gathering, helped no doubt by the generous amounts of drink being poured by their solicitous host. Richard was impressed at how international the gathering truly was. He introduced himself to a professor from Ghana, then to another one from Sweden. An academic from Argentina joined Richard and a professor from Spain as they were conversing about their common heritage. Most of the evening, however, Richard found himself talking to Dr. Malachowski. He found Dr. Malachowski very critical of Thomistic philosophy, the school of thought that informed his own perspective on the problem of evil. In contrast he had only a vague idea of process philosophy, which the more senior professor was very interested in. All Richard knew was that it was a contemporary movement in philosophy associated with Whitehead and Hartshorne and had been influential particularly in theology. Instead of entering into a debate about the subtleties of their respective philosophical schools

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of thought, however, the two talked about how they approached the problem of evil. As they discussed their specific approaches, Richard disclosed the difficulty he was experiencing in completing his work. Somehow there was an important factor missing in his scholarly research, he confided to Dr. Malachowski. 'I feel that I'm working on a solution without knowing what the real problem is,' remarked Richard after they had retreated to the corner of the spacious dining room to give themselves some room away from the others. Richard kept swirling the contents of his brandy glass. It was particularly welcome, given the chilly temperature outside. 'That sounds strange. We philosophers are supposed to be able not only to evaluate the merits of each argument but also to clarify the issues.' The professor looked Richard in the eye. 'You are talking about the proper starting point for our philosophising, aren't you?' 'Possibly. But I don't just mean articulating what the philosophical issues in a problem are.' Richard tucked his left hand under his right elbow. 'Take human suffering, for instance. A very concrete reality if ever there was one. I've worked on this topic for some time now and yet when I am faced with the challenge of talking to someone who's just lost a loved one, or an individual who has just been through a disaster, I'm lost for words. Surely we philosophers should be able to say something meaningful in situations like that. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's not philosophy that is at fault here.' Richard retrieved his left hand and slipped it into his trouser pocket. 'But do you expect philosophy to say something meaningful in this situation?' 'Yes, since the study of philosophy is meant to provide us with wisdom. But I sometimes get the impression that what we philosophers have become concerned with is knowledge and more knowledge.' Richard paused, not knowing how his remarks would be accepted. 'Go on, I'm listening,' the older professor, who took a sip from his glass of Beaujolais, was encouraging. 'We sometimes blame the sciences for accumulating all this information and math for juggling with figures and becoming too abstract in the whole process. And yet aren't we doing the same thing? I know of some philosophers who regard the problem of evil, for instance, as an intellectual puzzle. They get a lot of kicks from solving problems which are of their own making. In the end one could ask what that has to do with life.'

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'Wait now. Are you talking about the problem of suffering or of philosophy as a problem?' interrupted Dr. Malachowski. 'Are these not separate issues?' 'That's precisely the problem. We philosophers are so fond of being clear about the issues that we start classifying reality.' 'But how can you expect to address the issues adequately if you have not clarified them? That is important, as you know.' 'True, but sometimes we do lose the real issue as we dissect, as it were, what we perceive to be the problem. I remember my Asian colleague once quoting Mencius, who said that what one dislikes in clever men is their tortuosity. I'm probably taking the words out of context, but I can't help seeing their relevance. And I remember being intrigued by her reference to Chuang-tzu, who disdained all the philosophical disputations carried on during his time. And we're still doing it today.' 'I'm not familiar with Chinese philosophy, but there is something in Whitehead's Adventures of Ideas that I was reading just this morning.' Dr. Malachowski, placing the forefinger of his left hand across his lips as if to recall the appropriate passage, knit his eyebrows. 'He was alerting us to what is lost from speculation by scholarship. He says, in speculation there is delight and discourse while in scholarship there is concentration and thoroughness. Of course, Whitehead claims that for progress both are necessary.' 'I believe that we have lost the "feel" of the problem because of all our disputations, as Chuang-tzu I suppose would put it, although I too don't know much about him except through my colleague.' 'But that is not the domain of philosophy, at least as commonly understood.' 'Exactly, we have left out an important aspect of the problem in our philosophising.' 'And what is that?' quizzed the professor. 'The element of life. The importance of experience. The necessary connection between our thinking and our living.' There was some laughter from another part of the house, but the two philosophers engrossed in their conversation ignored it. 'And how does that relate to the problem of suffering that you mentioned earlier on?' 'That we need a different way of describing the problem. Philosophy shouldn't attempt a solution until it has done justice to the reality of suffering. It's much too abstract to do that. At least the way philosophical thinking has become.' 'And how do you propose to do that?' inquired the Polish professor. Before Richard had a chance to respond, a third voice joined them. 'I see you two are discussing an area of common interest.' It was Professor van der 165

Riet with a bottle of wine in his left hand and a decanter of brandy in the other. 'I fill up your glasses first. You are not driving, yes? And I introduce you two to Dr. Fuentes from the Philippines. He is here—sent by his bishop—on sabbatical.' Richard and Dr. Malachowski shook Dr. Fuentes's hand. Much to their delight, they realised that his field was also in philosophy. 'You know, that was what we had just been talking about,' remarked Dr. Malachowski. He then summarised what he and Richard had been discussing. Dr. Fuentes was quickly on the scene. 'Who was it who said—I think it was Heidegger—philosophers are reducing reality to a mentally fabricated axiomatic project. I can understand your situation.' Dr. Fuentes, who was about ten years older than Richard, looked at him. 'Although my difficulty with the way philosophy generally handles the problem of evil is that it is seen too much as a theodicy. Too much attention is given to the challenge of atheism. Don't you agree?' He turned his head in the direction of Dr. Malachowski, who nodded. 'And so we are expected to provide a coherent and credible resolution of how God can be defended as almighty and all-good when there is so much evil and suffering around us.' Richard's face must have registered some surprise—after all, that was exactly what he was working on here in Leuven—since Dr. Fuentes quickly added, 'Oh, don't get me wrong. That is still an important issue. But you know, for us in the Philippines—and I'm sure that it is true in Latin America too, from what I have read of liberation theology there—the important question is not theodicy but idolatry.' More laughter from another part of the room. But Dr. Fuentes continued, 'Like you, I've been wrestling with the starting point for our reflections on this important subject. But I ask myself, why do philosophers not sometimes reckon with the fact that many people continue to believe in God despite their suffering? Granted that one may need to scrutinise the reasons that these believers come up with for their continued belief, isn't it strange that we do not focus on the concept of God that lies behind their belief? Perhaps it is very different from the way philosophers have portrayed God to be and has consequently led to the so-called problem of evil. It seems to me that the existence of evil is challenging us to reformulate our descriptions of God.' 'How would you state the problem of evil then?' asked Dr. Malachowski, whose interest was aroused since his leanings towards process philosophy made him pursue a remarkably similar line of inquiry. It was good to hear somebody coming from a different background, making the same point. 'What kind of God can we continue to believe in, given the presence of so much undeserved suffering?' came Dr. Fuentes's ready reply.

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The glass of orange juice which I )r. Fuentes had been drinking was now empty so he gently set it on top of the nearby drinks cabinet, thus providing himself with the opportunity to gesticulate for emphasis. 'The danger for us is that in our attempts to defend God, as it were, we could be perpetuating idols, rather than the true God. Christianity is part of our Filipino culture'—with those words he pounded his breast with his fist—'just as it is in Latin America; but our complaint is that the concept of God which we have inherited from the past is not only inadequate, but worse, it could also be responsible for supporting the structures which maintain the status quo, which in turn results in the misery, poverty and degradation of our people.' Dr. Fuentes ticked these off with his fingers. Richard was very attentive. He wanted Dr. Fuentes and Dr. Malachowski to elaborate more on this issue, but since two others attached themselves to the group there was no opportunity to continue the conversation. After all, this was a social, not a seminar. It was just that it was so natural for the philosophers not to shed their professional gown, so to speak. But he made a mental note to contact the two philosophers again. Perhaps not all was lost with his research. The rest of the evening Richard enjoyed chatting with the other guests. He managed to exchange a few glances with Jennifer, who was certainly quite popular with several of the guests.

4. The Pursuit of Wisdom (pp. 116-121) Everything seemed peaceful in Leuven, the atmosphere lending itself to wanderings. As he quietly closed behind him the entrance door to the apartment, he toyed with the idea of simply roaming around the Begijnhof. He looked around. The Begijnhof was absolutely quiet, but it was not well lit-up so he thought he would go out to the street instead. Maybe towards the town center. It was always a focal point. First he made his way to Naamsestraat, a street that he had come to know quite well. During the day, it was busy with traffic, although the number of cars would be nothing in comparison to that in Los Angeles. The narrow streets here meant that when cars were also parked, a driver had to be extra careful not to hit them or the cyclists who seemed to be everywhere. But tonight Naamsestraat was almost empty, the peace and quiet broken now and then only by a passing car or a staggering pedestrian. He crossed the street when he noticed one of those pedestrians who had had a drink too many approach him. Further up the street as he neared the Centrum, he heard a group of merry students who must have been celebrating or simply enjoying each other's company. It looked as if they had come from the Olde Markt. Richard

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smiled—student life, oh, the fun and the freedom despite all the pressures of essays and exams. Sometimes it was a luxury to live that kind of life. The Fons Sapientiae—affectionately dubbed the Fonske by the students—was still lit up and flowing. Richard wondered whether it was left that way throughout the night as well as during the day. It certainly was an imposing statue, particularly with the brightly illuminated Stadthuis in the background. He paused. Somehow the sight of the young scholar, Leuven's first honorary citizen, pouring water into his opened head as he read a book, beckoned to him and kept his attention. The fountain, Jef Claerhout's creation, had been a gift of the university of Leuven to the town on the occasion of its 550* anniversary in 1975. There had been some debate regarding its significance, but the popular interpretation was that Fonske pours out wisdom: 'If the beer is out of the can, then wisdom is in the man.' Richard had passed by this place a number of times, but tonight it suddenly loomed large in his horizon. Why? He folded his arms, hugging his coat to keep warm. Although the temperatures were not unusually low, he started feeling the cold once he stopped walking. Now he found himself directly in front of the fountain. No doubt, the fountain represented what this university town was all about. The pursuit of knowledge. But how odd, he thought. Did the pursuit of knowledge mean reading volumes and volumes of information? Was it to be poured into one's head? Why was the open book covering the face of the scholar like a shield? From what was the scholar being shielded? Did the bent knee have any significance? Richard kept staring at the statue in front of him. Why was he asking all these questions? Did he expect the statue to answer him or to come to life? But he could not shake off the idea that this fountain was symbolic of something. It represented what academic life was all about. All right, not everything about it. But it stood for what was essential. On the other hand, maybe he was seeing too much in it. It is funny how many times we give an interpretation to something that even its creator had not thought about. Was this the case now? Richard sat down on the cement seat facing the fountain since he felt odd standing in front of it—he, a lonely figure before a stone creation at such an ungodly hour. There was something about its symbolic significance that kept bothering him and preventing him from moving on. Somehow he felt that it was saying something to him personally. As he kept staring at the young scholar who remained unperturbed by this onlooker's questions, it dawned on him that there was a connection between his earlier conversations with his colleagues and his present musings. He had been concerned about the gap between the problem of evil and the philosophical way of dealing with it. Now it seemed that he was actually ques168

tioning the very idea of academic life itself, the life that he had dedicated himself to. What was it really that he was meant to do as a teacher? Pour information into his students' head? Or ram knowledge down their throat, as it were? Did students enter university merely to acquire knowledge? Or to get a degree, which many of his students still believed was the passport to well-paid jobs? Sometimes he felt that that was what was being communicated to his students in America—that education was a marketable commodity, and that was why they insisted on value for their money. But what about the pursuit of wisdom? Had academia become too stultified, too objectified? Where did inspiration come in? Questions and more questions. Richard recalled what Martin Buber said of his philosophy, that he did not really have a philosophy but a vision, and all he wanted was to encourage people to open heir own windows so they too could see that vision. It was an image which encouraged Richard to be a teacher. Teaching was his chance to broaden people's minds as well as his own. That was what he wanted to do; but despite excellent course evaluations by his students, he always felt hampered by expectations, probably caused by the evaluation itself, that teaching had to be marketed, analysed and assessed just like any other product. Centuries ago, Richard recalled, the Athenian stranger in Plato's Laws had bemoaned the practice in Italy and Sicily of leaving the judgement of poets in the hands of the spectators. Such a practice spelled the destruction of the poets since they were in the habit of composing their poems to suit the taste of their judges. Similarly, Richard found himself pressurised into teaching according to the evaluation, designing his methods, his style, his syllabus, to ensure that he would score high in the evaluation questionnaire. His syllabus, readings (including specific pages), assignments, grading criteria were set out in great detail, leaving nothing unexplained because he did not want the risk of possible complaint. Nothing was left to the imagination. His lectures were systematic, clear and informative. He labored hard to provide study-guides. Class time was effectively used: 'every minute of it,' many of his students wrote. But where was the excitement of discovery, the suspense of groping for the truth, the challenge of ambiguity? Did he communicate that to his students? If not, was it his fault as their teacher? He felt that he was losing the creativity and the spontaneity that mark the work of a true educator. He was afraid of being inventive because it might not be appreciated by his students, a reaction that would be noted no doubt in the evaluation, and ultimately by the administrators. Perhaps it was his own fault, perhaps he should not have been too obsessed with the questions being asked of his students in the evaluation, but if one wanted tenure one had to tailor one's teaching to meet those expectations. 169

He wanted to discuss his misgivings with others in the department, but as a young assistant professor he did not want to convey the idea that something was wrong with his teaching. Despite assurances that the comments rather than the percentages (both of which were fine in his case because he had learned to play by those rules) were what really mattered, he suspected, based on ample evidence, that the increasing need for quick and tangible evidence meant that the survey of percentages was a more handy way of assessing someone as a teacher. And yet he had not been asked by the Rank and Tenure Committee for those evaluations which he had carefully filed. Had he played the wrong game after all? Had he misunderstood the whole situation? His mind drifted to his students back in the USA. He missed them. No one in particular, but being with them in the classroom situation. There were many bright sparks among them. And their eager and lively undergraduate minds at times forced him to forget the whole darned evaluations and accompany them on their journey towards the truth, unfettered by the specific questions that would be asked of his course at the end, out of Plato's cave into the sunlight. He cared too about the not-so-bright students, whose talents lay somewhere else, and whose academic efforts needed stimulating. By him, their teacher. There were hurdles to be overcome. His experience, his understanding and his skills would be much appreciated—not his concern about how his performance in the classroom would be subjected to scrutiny. All of a sudden something startled Richard and put a momentary stop to his reflections. The fountain had been switched off. Funny, he thought. Just as he was being stimulated by the sight of the water, they had to turn the whole thing off. The sight of the young scholar now frozen, as it were, in that pose, created a different impression on Richard. It was a cold statue now; no movement or life that the flowing water had given it. Like a human being that had ceased to open herself or himself up to the current of life—merely an object, rather than a person. Richard was reminded of something again from Plato, of how ideas get some kind of life. For Plato ideas are static, frozen and lifeless, like that statue now in front of this twentieth-century philosopher. But just as ideas get their life and motion in a live intelligent being, so does this statue when water vivifies it. Richard asked: Have we perhaps forgotten this in academia? That the pursuit of wisdom is about life itself and not just information? Three o'clock in the morning on the streets of Leuven. Strange how this town provoked one's mind—at such a time. He had gone for a walk to clear his mind. Now the fountain had filled it with more thoughts.

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Perhaps he should move ahead. Anyway, it was getting colder. The Centrum was still bathed in the yellow light that was focused on the town hall, imposing on it a particular splendor. But Richard's mind would not rest, even as he retraced his way back to the apartment. More questions kept surfacing. What was it that he was really searching for? Were these questions about academic life, his teaching and his academic research symptomatic of something deeper? He had come to Leuven to do scholarly work, but was he being given, unplanned and unforeseen, an opportunity to take a closer look at himself and even at life itself? He turned around to check the fountain. It was still now. There were no answers there. Would there be? he wondered. The dawn was long in coming.

5. The Concrete versus the Abstract (pp. 176-185) Richard had reached the Spanish quarter when he heard a voice call out to him: 'Good morning, Dr. Gutierrez. Do you remember me?' 'Well, of course, Professor Malachowski. It's great to see you again. Do you have your accommodation around here?' 'Yes, the university got us one of those fabulous houses, right here in the Begijnhof.' His house, timber-framed and with clay walls, was in Middenstraat. 'And you?' 'I'm staying in one of the apartments in the building beside Schappenstraat.' Richard's apartment was near the gatehouse which the French Republic had demolished in 1798 so as to connect the beguinage with the town. Only the frame of the gate remained. 'Isn't this a magnificent location? So peaceful. It certainly encourages one to be reflective, doesn't it? When I go for a walk inside the compound, I try to imagine what it was like for the Beguines to live here. They must have spent a lot of their time in quiet meditation. This place seems to have been built for that purpose. But tell me, are you going anywhere in particular?' 'Not really, 1 wanted to clear my mind. I thought the air would help. I was trying to do some writing on my manuscript, but I'm afraid that nothing would come. I've made no progress since our last conversation.' 'Well, why don't you join me then? I'm out for some exercise. A habit, and a good one at that, which I formed when I was in America a few years ago. Why don't we take up where we left off the last time?' Richard hesitated. He had not come out for an academic seminar. In fact, it was the last thing he had intended. Anyway, he was more concerned about what was happening to him personally than he was with his research. But his

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respect for the professor got the better of him. He did want to talk to him again about his manuscript, but at some future day when he was more prepared. This was like being put on the spot and being asked to don his academic hat. But he had been asked, so he may as well talk about it. This time he did not rehash his difficulty about finishing his manuscript on the problem of evil. Instead, without his knowing it, he found himself telling the professor what happened that evening after the social when he went for a late night/early morning stroll to the center of Leuven. He repeated to this learned man the questions which buzzed in his mind about academic life. 'You know, Richard—shall I call you that?—it seems that you're grappling with a much wider problem about what we academics do. To outsiders, our job is teaching, and that's easy enough to understand since they can see us inside the classroom in front of our students. Others will probably accept that we also engage in research, although that is less tangible.' The professor smiled knowingly as they turned around since they had come to a dead end. 'I'm sure you will have met people who are really bothered about what all this research means since, until there is some published work, there doesn't seem to be much evidence. Particularly in philosophy. Even some administrators don't see that. They always want the finished product, so to speak.' This time it was Richard's turn to smile, nervously, as his Dean's words reverberated in his mind. 'And then there are the cynics. Confronted with the published work, they appear shocked. Astonished.' And Professor Malachowski became rather dramatic. 'You mean after all that time, money and effort, this is the result? they utter in dismay. Like the conclusion that reason is so limited that we could not possibly describe reality in its entirety. I remember talking to somebody in America who said that he could have told me that for nothing! Needless to say, he was the kind of gentleman who was results-oriented, as you put it over there. But what's it really that we do as academics? Academia is not just a profession. It is a way of life, but what is it really? Is that the real question you're asking, Richard?' The Polish professor and Richard had been treading the cobbled walks of the Spanish quarter. Richard couldn't help feeling that it was very much like the Lyceum of Aristotle. The Peripatos and all that. It was as if the professor were Aristotle and he, one of the students walking around the Lyceum, debating, questioning, criticising, in search of the truth. It was Greek philosophy being relived or maybe restaged. Just as well they were not moving in a circle. That would have been too much for the professor's results-oriented acquaint-

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ance. It would have invited the comment that that was what philosophers did— talk in circles. Their dialogues never came to any hard conclusions. 'Part of it, I think, Professor. In some ways I wish I really knew. Somehow it has something to do with not losing touch with concrete life.' Richard noticed that the professor did not suggest that he call him by his first name. The hierarchy was clearly established. Was that the case in ancient Athens? 'I remember from our previous conversation about your difficulty. Despite all the research and the writing that you had done on your topic, you always felt that you have no convincing answers to give when faced by the reality of evil. Is that right?' 'Correct.' 'Now you seem to be saying that academic life, particularly the scholarly part of it, is moving you away from what you regard as concrete life to something that is of importance only to a few. Do you believe that we've lost the true purpose of the academic task? You know, when you made the distinction between wisdom and knowledge.' 'Do you think that there is some truth in that, Professor?' A good strategy. When a philosopher asks you a question, ask another one. That shifts the burden. He never liked it though when he was asking the question and a student would retort by putting up another question. It always sounded as if the student was biding for time. A cheap shot, but sometimes it worked. The professor welcomed the question. In fact, it led him to a pet topic of his. 'Definitely. In his Adventures of Ideas Alfred North Whitehead makes that very same point. He makes a distinction between speculation and scholarship.' Richard smiled as he recalled the professor having referred to it before. Professor Malachowski continued. 'Speculation, he says, is what makes you wonder at the world around you. It's characterised by delight and enthusiasm for the concreteness of life. Scholarship on the other hand demands concentration. Scholarly work requires us to be thorough, to be exact as to what's correct and what's not correct, to be consistent. Whitehead claims that Plato speculated. He had great insights into reality but he was not a systematiser. There is a passage in that book which says that if one converted Plato into a respectable professor by providing him with a coherent system, he would find that Plato is most inconsistent. I'm paraphrasing, of course. For progress, we need both, Whitehead tells us.' 'Would Whitehead say that the pursuit of wisdom is what speculation is all about while the acquisition of knowledge is what scholarship is all about?'

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'I suppose he would.' 'Why do we need both?' 'Because we need to develop our insights, to strengthen them. But we also need to keep our feet on the ground. Otherwise we could be talking about theories that have no bearing on concrete life.. .there's that phrase again.' 'I'm beginning to think, Professor, that I'm not ready for the second part. I don't want to lose the first.' Richard was not expecting the professor's answer. 'On the contrary, Richard, perhaps you have gone beyond that distinction. Without knowing it, you may have understood what Whitehead really meant.' The professor and Richard continued with their conversation as they walked further in the direction of the sports grounds of the university of Leuven. They walked past the Faculty Club, previously the infirmary of the Begijnhof but now a splendid restaurant where people dined in style, and past the Begijnhof Congreshotel. They went through the tunnel under busy Tervuursevest, a refuge from the danger and roar of the traffic. After a few minutes they found themselves in the well-used sports grounds. The huge building to their right had a large swimming pool and an indoor basketball court. To their left was a cafeteria which served not only the sports enthusiasts but the general public as well. There was something about the clientele which showed that somehow they were all connected with university life. But as they both concluded, it would be hard to find someone in Leuven who had nothing to do directly or indirectly with the academic institutions here. As they drew close to the running fields, they passed by the tennis courts. There was only one brave twosome playing tennis. On the other hand, there were a good few individuals running around the tracks, all trying to keep fit. It probably was early in the season for serious training. Their conversation surprisingly turned to Chicago. It must have been the previous cold weather, although as Professor Malachowski pointed out that was nothing compared to what he had experienced in that large American city. He felt very much at home there because it was as cold as Poland in the winter! Richard had studied there so he knew what the professor meant. They talked about the beautiful walk along Lake Shore, commented on the performance of the Cubs, described the impressive downtown with one of the world's tallest buildings and reminisced about events in Chicago. It was a relaxing conversation as they exchanged experiences. On the way back, they decided to look inside the gymnasium. There was a basketball game going on. The teams were not professional ones, but it was

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still an exciting game. There was a lot of cheering as the two teams tried to outdo each other. But there was also a lot of friendly rivalry. Richard was enjoying himself, possibly because there was a lot of spontaneity in the game. The teams were under no pressure to excel, they were playing for fun. And he and the professor shared in that pleasure. Richard couldn't help comparing it to the basketball games he used to watch back home. The statistics were blinding as figures were presented on what the average scoring was for each player, the number of rebounds, assists, etc. Even an enjoyable game had become a science. The spontaneity was lost in the quest for excellence. Do we always have to be the best? he wondered. But best at what? He was reminded of what the professor had told him about Whitehead's distinction between speculation and scholarship. Even in sports, the need for development, refinement and perfection robbed the occasion of pleasure. The spirit of competitiveness took over. As Richard continued with his musings, uninterrupted by the professor, who was thoroughly enjoying the game, it dawned on him what Jennifer meant to him. She represented a side of academia that he was now questioning. She was constantly striving for excellence. And she was succeeding. Her scholarly reputation was certainly growing and met with a lot of admiration, including Richard's. But her devotion to such excellence had ignored life itself: the challenges, the simple joys, the ordinary results. Her life was too focused on one aspect. And now it was starting to shatter. No, Richard was looking for more. He wanted to be able to face life itself. And life itself was not always demanding of a particular kind of excellence. Jennifer's kind of inspiration was not what he was looking for. Back in his apartment Richard pondered on his leisurely walk with the professor from Poland. It had turned out to be somewhat of an eye-opener although the professor probably had not intended it to be. He had merely introduced the topic of Richard's research as a way of sparking off the conversation. He wanted to continue where they had left off. After all, it was very natural for two academics to discuss their scholarly work, particularly in this case since they were interested in the same area. They were even working on the same problem but from different perspectives. But their exchange led them to talk about life itself. The professor unsuspectingly left the door ajar for Richard to explore the topic himself. In the professor there was no gap between life and his academic pursuits. He naturally went from one to the other. But what really made the conversation with Dr. Malachowski of particular significance for Richard was his discovery of what had led the professor to study the problem of evil in depth. It was not merely scholarly interest. Nor

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did he, unlike Richard, stumble into the topic as it were. No. Dr. Malachowski had an intriguing story to tell. The Polish professor was the son of two victims of the concentration camp in Majdanek in Poland. His story moved and probed Richard's mind as the professor narrated how he had had to struggle to survive after his parents died in that camp. But it was the professor's reason for turning to philosophy that goaded Richard even more. Having survived such a tragedy and grown up with that painful memory, Dr. Malachowski had searched for answers to the question of why such an evil situation could possibly exist. It was so atrocious that it baffled any rational explanation. The professor needed to find some answers; he was not merely juggling intellectual puzzles. His academic pursuit was rooted in existential concerns. What was also interesting was that, despite offers to more prestigious positions in other universities, Professor Malachowski chose to stay in Lublin. His reason was that he wanted to be as close as possible to the source of his philosophising. He regularly visited the Majdanek camp, which was only a few miles from his university. For him that was the situation that spurred on his philosophising. It was the font which fed his craving for answers. The professor had made a passing reference to the Pons Sapientiae in the center of Leuven. Funny, how that landmark symbolised so many things and communicated various messages to the visiting academics. Dr. Malachowski had remarked that the statue partially represented his own journey. Where the scholar was reading a book, possibly for answers, he was turning to intellectual activity for answers. But unlike the scholar who was pouring water from the outside, he was very much immersed in the problem from within. His search for answers came from a personal experience of a bitter kind of existence. That was why the Majdanek camp was more than a symbol, it was reality. The ashes which he regularly saw were those of his parents and of thousands of others. It was not like the water in the Fons Sapientiae, which symbolised knowledge. Truth stared him in the face as he meditated on the events which led to the death of his parents. As he wandered about the camp, a routine that he religiously followed, looking in distress at the piles of shoes of the former inmates, as he dodged the wire fence that had trapped his parents and several others in a pitiful existence, as he imagined the bitterness and the frustration that reduced humans to mere skeletons, he often asked why, why did such evil things happen? Why was suffering perpetuated by evil people? Amidst all this, the professor had sensed an abiding faith even among those who suffered intensely. While others felt, and felt strongly, that God had abandoned them, there were many others who persisted in their religious faith. Perhaps they needed to cling to something. One had to have some hope; other-

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wise one was lost completely. In the sea of fear, of shadows, and misery, one had to have a plank. No matter what. For i f not, one would sink to the bottom. Faith in God was one such plank. But what Dr. Malachowski could not understand was why they would cling to God. Were those who rejected God not right in abandoning God? After all, that was what this so-called all-good and almighty God had done. One with inferior qualities would not allow that to happen. So why were they turning to God? Why had his parents persisted in praying to God? He toyed with a psychological answer. Maybe it could all be described and explained by psychology. He did not doubt that, since all human reactions can somehow be explained. But there was something more. He turned to religion, starting with the Book of Job. The character Job was wrestling with the same problem. Job dismissed many of the answers his tradition had to offer him. Dr. Malachowski found that book sharpening the question he was asking: who is this God that a suffering people are dealing with? Job supplied an answer: a mysterious God whose ways are not our ways. But Dr. Malachowski asked for more. Surely more could be said about this God. It did not make sense to be endowed with an intellect and to be left wandering about in murkiness when it came to this crucial question. That was when he turned to philosophy. Not because he was confident he would get an answer, but because philosophy, at least the philosophers he had come to know, challenged him to dig deeper. But philosophy let him down. He read Augustine, Aquinas, von Hugel voraciously. In the professor's view they presented a God that was causing all the problems he was having. A God who should have been able to do something about the situation because this God had all the power. A God who should have cared about what was going on because this God was all-benevolent. It did not match. Such a God needed to be defended against the charge of atheists. But he did not believe such a God should be defended. So Dr. Malachowski abandoned the task of looking for a defence of God. A God who had to be defended in the face of suffering must not be a caring God. Why should he care about such a God? The answer presented by the philosophers he read seemed irrelevant in the face of his experience of suffering—of his parents' and countless others' tragic lives. That was why he listened to and was very sympathetic to Richard. This young philosopher sensed what he had long been searching for. He wished he could offer a convincing answer. But that was why he was in Leuven. He would not allow philosophy to let him down. Maybe there was another kind of philosophy, born out of concrete experiences like his. He had met one of the professors from Mercier University when he gave a talk at his university in Lublin. This professor, a specialist in process philosophy, invited him over to 177

Leuven so that he could study the philosophy of Whitehead. Dr. Malachowski was not optimistic. But he was willing to give it a try. After all, it would give him a chance to follow up on his personal-academic pursuit. And that was what really impressed Richard. Academic work should not be an escape route as had been the case with Jennifer, he thought. It is not merely a profession which one could put aside after a day's work. As Dr. Malachowski put it, it is a way of life. Or it should be. Not in the sense that there is nothing else that one does, but talk and write as a scholar. That would be obnoxious. But one's academic work should come from one's experiences. That was what was missing in his own research work. It was meant to be scholarly- -but should it be divorced from daily life? That was the big difference between Dr. Malachowski's work and his, although both of them were working on the same topic. On the other hand, perhaps his peers would dismiss Dr. Malachowski's work as not scholarly enough. Richard doubted whether it would bother the senior professor, who had after all already established himself in the field of the philosophy of religion. For him the present work was a culmination of his search for truth, probably a different kind of opus magnum that he would be more proud of. But could he, Richard, an untenured assistant professor, afford to change his approach to his research? And yet could he afford to be dishonest with himself since he really was bogged down with the so-called academic research that he was doing? I le knew that he had to prove his scholarship. What should he do?

6. Lessons from Nature and Literature (pp. 202-203) (pp. 259-260) Spring had definitely arrived. The cold, sometimes biting, winds were long since gone. Everywhere there was new life sprouting—out of the ground as well as from seemingly dead branches and twigs. Leuven was turning green, ready to shed off all the burden of the gray winter months. True, it had not been a bad winter. Snow this year had fallen only a couple of days and even then it was a mere sprinkling, lasting on the ground for only about an hour. Right now, the flowers, impatiently peeping out, were anxious to display their best colors. The birds which had made the park their home were once again chirping, alerting passers-by to the oncoming beauty of the months ahead. Lovers did not want to be left out either, as more and more of them strolled, leisurely enjoying each other and the slightly warmer weather. In some ways nature in spring is like Leuven itself coming to life after the night before when everything had been closed. There would be some stirrings, tentative at first as if the town were still coming to terms with the day. It could be the garbage collectors making their rounds. Then there would be the 178

early risers moving hurriedly in different directions, a few at first then growing larger and larger in numbers. The shops would raise their shutters. An odd shopkeeper might even appear, pulling out a couple of shelves or sweeping the front part of the shop. Traffic would initially be light but as the minutes ticked by, more and more cars would fill the narrow streets. Then, of course, the bicycles, the school buses and the students. Only after a while does Leuven really come to life. The town would be waking up just as nature now was in the process of coming back to life. There is always something vibrant about waking up, whether it is nature, Leuven or in general. It always signals a fresh start. Like the dawn of a new day. It makes one want to look forward rather than backwards. As if it is cajoling you into thinking that whatever happened in the past, there is yet another chance. Perhaps life is but a series of such beginnings. And we make it cumbersome when we burden it with the ever increasing weight of the past. Waking up, the beginning of spring, a town facing a new day stir up anticipation. Each gives one hope. Maybe that is how we are meant to live—and nature provides numerous examples.

Two birds, chirping continuously, suddenly flew away as they approached them. 'Yes, as you know, I've been working on the problem of evil. Or maybe I should say now, had been working. I'm not sure I can face that work again. What about the hunger in the world, the social injustices, the inequalities? Would changing attitudes really work?' 'No, not if you put it that way. Shouldn't we rather ask what causes these problems? The poverty and the injustice all around us, and we have plenty of that in Ireland too, come from people's greed, bias, or ignorance. 'I once read a book by Herder Camara that made me think. Camara couldn't be accused of being abstract or theoretical. In fact, he lived with the poor in Brazil. But in his The Spiral of Violence, where he rejects the use of violence, he talks of cultural revolution prior to structural revolution. If you changed the structures of society without first changing radically your attitude, your cultural outlook, as I think he puts it, what you'll have is a mere reversal of roles. The oppressed becomes the oppressor. To obviate that, both need a change in attitude.' T thought your field was poetry?' interjected Richard. Aisling smiled. 'Isn't poetry, beautiful poetry, one way of changing one's attitude to life? Poets have a way of unlocking the beauty of nature but also of voicing a protest.' 179

'I know what you're saying, and I understand your point. But I still don't see the connection between what you've been talking about, referring to cultural revolution and poetry... Wait now, maybe there is. From what you're saying about poetry. You mean that it changes the heart?' 'And the mind and the soul. And to top it all, it could change one's life.' 'I can't imagine going around reading poetry. It'd be just as ridiculous as going around with a frozen smile. Can you imagine, if I said, I need a dose of poetry? Don't mind me, I am being facetious.' 'Actually you're not. It would be facetious to put it that way.' Richard could see that Aisling was just as adept at turning the tables on him for she continued, 'Isn't it better than saying, let me have a drink, or I'll pop in some tension-relieving tablet? Come to think of it, Confucius did talk of music soothing the nerves.' 'Not the kind of music my next-door neighbor likes!' They had a good laugh. 'I low did we get to this?' they both asked at the same time, surprised at how the conversation had developed that afternoon. 'It all started with a smile, your smile,' Richard said as he caressed her cheeks again. For the first time Richard held Aisling's hand. It was a gentle expression of how he felt for her, a symbol of the closeness that was developing. She did not resist; she felt the same way. They both called out to Philip, who was content to let the adults have some privacy.

7. The Quest as Process (pp. 267-268) Professor Malachowski was spending his last evening in Leuven, enjoying a sumptuous meal in the company of Professor van der Riet. Tomorrow he would be taking the train to Aachen, from where he would be switching to the train for Bonn since he had an invitation to speak in the afternoon to the Philosophy Department of the university there. He then planned to spend a few weeks in Germany, afterwards a week in Liechtenstein, before returning to his native Poland. 'So, Piotr, would you say that it was a fruitful stay in Leuven for you?' inquired Professor van der Riet. T believe so, in fact more than I had expected,' came the reply. 'You mean, you have become a convert to process thought,' teased his Belgian host professor.

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'Not so fast, Andre,' Professor Malachowski teased back. 'You are not out to win converts, are you?' The two eminent professors laughed heartily. Professor Malachowski had come to Leuven specifically to research on process philosophy, in which Professor van der Riet was a recognised expert. 'I must confess, I find it fascinating. But there are still a number of issues, and I mean a good number, about which I would have to quarrel with you process people. One of these days I will record my objections in print. Perhaps you and 1 can dialogue further.' Professor Malachowski then proceeded to elaborate on the real reason why he believed that his stay had exceeded his expectations. As he reminded his Belgian counterpart, his search for an adequate philosophy to make sense of a life that had been marred yet nurtured by the bitter experiences of the past had led him to Leuven to read up on process thought. But what he was beginning to appreciate, in his advanced years, was that the search itself, the process—Professor Malachowski couldn't resist the pun—was the more important thing. Unknown to Richard, with whom he had had a number of conversations following their walk, the younger academic's questions had sparked off a new inquiry for the senior professor. Professor Malachowski was beginning to turn to the question rather than to the answer. He wondered whether the questions we ask about life should not remain as questions. They should continue to unsettle us and not dry up because we have become comfortable with 'the truth'. Maybe, he thought, that is what is wrong with human nature. Or, maybe that is the truth about human nature. From one point of view, we have been condemned to be seekers after an elusive truth. From another point of view, that it is our privilege. For we can ask, we can wonder. We can journey. And the quest for the answer becomes the answer itself. Leuven had been a welcome oasis in that journey—which he now believed would go on and on.

8. Nature, Evil and God (pp. 273-279) The park was much more beautiful now with the tall trees covered in leaves. Aisling and Philip had frequented that park. But at that time, the trees were bare, and although leafless trees have their own rugged beauty, the new growth in the trees was much more pleasant to see. She tried to describe the images which were conjured up in her mind as she watched nature awakening. And she talked of the wealth of imagery in Robert Frost's poem The Birches and quoted Hopkins's remarks about the grandeur in creation. 'You seem to see beauty everywhere, Aisling, even in bare trees.' 181

'Because it's there, isn't it? It's difficult to see it now since the trees have their leaves. And it's the leaves that give the trees their beauty in the spring. But in the winter, when the cold weather makes you wrap yourself up, nature unveils the beauty of the trunks and of the branches of the trees. It's as if Mother Nature wants to remind us that the leaves, the externals, aren't the only things about nature that can be admired. The inner beauty that's hidden in the spring and summer and autumn comes out on its own in the winter. We don't always see it. And even when it's really there we don't always appreciate it.' Richard could see Aisling's point. Somehow their conversation was going back to what they had talked about regarding people's attitudes, perspective and perception. 'Were you always as idealistic as this?' 'Yes and no.' 'That sounds like a real philosophical answer,' teased Richard. 'We philosophers are always making distinctions. That's why we keep answering yes and no to most questions.' 'Or because you philosophers can't make up your mind,' Aisling teased back. 'Touche.' 'Yes. Sean and I were always talking about our dreams and how we would live life to the full. Not materially. We could never do that with a teacher's salary. But we both thought life was a gift, that we were so lucky, that it would be ungrateful not to appreciate what God had given us.' Aisling looked at the trees forming an honour guard, as it were. 'It was easy to be idealistic when things appeared rosy. But Sean was also realistic. Like the wayfarer in Padraic Pearse's poem, he also was aware that the beauty of the world can make us sad because this beauty will pass. He was fully conscious too of the evil and the suffering around. He used to say that living life to the full didn't mean living it up. He meant not letting the disappointments, the difficulties and the dark side of life cloud the goodness that was everywhere in nature. And he used to quote the Latin saying, Dum spiro spero. He also maintained that living life to the full meant doing our share to bring out that beauty by working to correct the injustice, to lessen the suffering. That's why above all else he wanted to teach. He firmly believed in the power of education to change people's attitudes. And his enthusiasm was catching.' Aisling looked up at the blue sky above, dotted with a few cotton-like clouds. 'No, I wasn't always idealistic. When Sean died, I couldn't understand how his philosophy of life could be the right one. After all, he was a victim of the cruelty of life.' She was fighting hard to hold back the tears. 182

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean our conversation to lead to this.' Richard put a comforting arm around Aisling's shoulder. 'It's all right,' smiled Aisling. It was a smile amidst the tears. It was a strength that was breaking out of the grief. And Richard remembered what Aisling had earlier said about the admiration she had for a child who managed to smile while tears flowed down its cheeks... . . . . Indeed, Aisling had been through a testing time. Her idealism was not coming from lofty speculation. It was rooted in the experience of life; it was a response to the challenges of life. And there is a big difference between someone who proclaims the ideals culled from books and someone who has undergone the ups and downs of life, who has gone through the crucible of life. Aisling had been through that. Sean's death had really torn her apart. She wanted to give up, she felt abandoned. Worse, she felt led on by life only to be dropped. What goodness had her Sean been talking about? She even lost her faith in God, the God that her Catholic upbringing had instilled in her. She could not continue to believe in a God who was described as a caring father, a concerned shepherd, the way the Irish nuns used to tell them at school. Her reality showed a God, if there was one, who was a tyrant, who delighted in punishing people, in laughing at them. She identified with Santiago in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and with Kino in John Steinbeck's The Pearl. The experience of both characters was of a God who initially gave them hope, only to dash them down, who seemed to make fun of the human individual's valiant efforts. What she was going through reminded her of Thomas Hardy's 'Vast Imbecility' who 'framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry'; of the capricious gods Gloucester was describing, for whom humans were like flies to boys, killing them for sport; of the vengeful god depicted in Thomas Hardy's poem Hap, who mockingly calls to the 'suffering thing': 'Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy! That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!' She was embittered, and she had a good reason to be so. She found it difficult being on her own. The nights were lonely, the evenings were long and dark, and the days were fraught with hardships. Many times she was mistaken for an unmarried mother, and she experienced the prejudice, the hatred and the narrowness of people's minds directed against such women even though she was not one herself. Many tried to take advantage of her the way they take advantage of widows, and helpless individuals. She was seen as easy prey by some men who thought that she was a lonely widow in need of protection and consolation, their protection and consolation, since they believed that they were God's gift to such women. She was the victim of those who judged her unaccompanied status before they asked what her true situation was. 183

She fought back, but she realised that she needed to fight herself. She knew that simply fighting back in rage and bitterness was not going to end the misery and frustration that she was experiencing. She was being hurt by others, and she was helping them hurt her even more by being bitter and angry. She was ignoring what she and Sean had talked about so many times. She was doing Sean's memory an injustice, thwarting whatever he had been living for. She was contributing to the seeming absurdity of life. But Sean had made sure she would not forget. The young life that had been the result of his and her love kept reminding her of Sean's ideals, talked about in good times but now being tested in bad ones. She could hear Sean's words over and over again. And the infant whom she was cradling and who depended entirely on her wanted her to sail on. He seemed to be saying, 'Think of me and not just of you.' . . .'No, I wasn't always idealistic. And I don't think I'm always idealistic. But it seems to me that we have to make an effort to be idealistic. For if we don't, we lose so much of what life and nature have to offer us.' 'You said, you lost your faith.' 'Yes, I stopped going to Mass. And in Ireland, that's a big sin. And I don't mean from a Catholic religious point of view. It's a social sin. Missing Mass is socially unacceptable. You might call it the result of years of conservative Catholicism, but that simply is the reality. It's changing now, of course. I didn't see any point. It was not just the ritual that had become meaningless to me. It was the very idea of paying homage to a God who couldn't care less about me. Why should I care about that God?' 'And what brought about the change? Was there a sudden conversion, like being knocked down from a horse?' Richard was trying to introduce a lighter note. 'Philip.' 'Philip? You mean he suddenly spoke and told you to shape up?' 'Yes!' Aisling could not resist returning the tease, particularly when she knew that Richard was not expecting that answer. 'He got up and spoke in a loud voice. No, seriously, it was not as spectacular as that. But have you ever thought of the power of the helplessness of a baby?' Richard shook his head. So Aisling continued. 'In your books that's probably a contradiction. But have you ever seen how the helplessness of a baby will get the undivided attention of everybody? I always tell the students at one of my lectures that I would bet that no matter how interesting somebody's lecture may be, if somebody brought a helpless baby into the lecture hall, everyone's attention would

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be directed to that cooing baby. There's power in that. It's a different kind of power. It doesn't dominate, it attracts. It doesn't threaten, it influences.' 'You must forgive me, but I don't see the connection between that and God.' 'I don't blame you. That was why I said that it wasn't a spectacular realisation. It took a long time. Perhaps it was just as well. When things move more slowly, they've more time to sink in, to get imbedded. The whole thing made me wonder what made me blame God. Well, I had been taught that God could do everything. So God could have prevented the accident. But the accident still happened. But what if God were like the helpless infant, like Philip a few years ago?' 'God, a helpless infant? And to think that I've been defending God's almighty power in my research!' 'But it doesn't make God any less powerful. Only that it's a different kind of power.' 'You mean, God like a helpless baby attracts, influences, doesn't dominate or threaten.' 'I think so—you're the philosopher. Let me say it in my unphilosophical way. We tend to make God a scapegoat for many of the ills around us. That was what I was doing, blaming God for taking Sean away from me. But it wasn't God who did that, it was the drunken driver.' 'In philosophy, we could still say that ultimately the responsibility could be traced back to God since from God, who is omnipotent, flows all power, couldn't we?' 'In your philosophy perhaps. And in your understanding of power. Let me try to explain it. I'm not sure whether this would make much philosophical sense to you. But as a mother responding to my baby's needs, I realised that often it is up to me to fulfil that need. I have that responsibility. And it's a responsibility that I've come to cherish. It seems to me that God allots the responsibility to make this world more liveable for you and me and for everyone else. God doesn't monopolise that responsibility. Whenever I saw the helpless Philip in front of me ...don't misunderstand me, don't think I would be thinking of this when he needed a quick nappy change or when he was shivering from a high temperature, but I would think of it as he slept soundly in my arms... I was grateful for having had that responsibility. But I could just have ignored my responsibility. In fact, I could have even thumped him or psychologically abused him. Sadly, there is much of that around. So it works both ways. When we don't live up to our responsibility, we can't blame God for the results. We should blame our irresponsibility.' 'And how does that tie in with the way you described power?' 185

'That God, because God has chosen to share the responsibility, appeals to us to exercise that responsibility. God doesn't force us. Just as a helpless baby does not and cannot. But when a baby looks up to you, you know through those teary eyes or smiling face, the baby is exerting an influence on you. The baby wants you to do something.' 'Doesn't that make God weak?' 'Is someone weak who enables you to do something? Is a teacher less powerful for inspiring others to accomplish more? Is a poet or an artist any less effective than a tyrant? Is a Muse irrelevant?' 'Answered like a good teacher. Answer a question with another question.' 'Don't we help our students think better that way?' 'I should really answer that with another question... but yes, you're right. Where does that leave us?' 'That God works through us. And God is as effective or as powerful, in the sense that I have described it, as we allow God to be. It really took me a while to realise this. It was only when 1 started to appreciate the love that surrounded me, my family's, my friends' and most of all, Philip's.' 'And Sean's.' There was a tinge of envy in Richard's voice. Sean had indeed been very lucky to have had Aisling. Aisling smiled. This time it was she who reached out to pat Richard's face. 'God was showing me goodness and care in the people I love. It was through them that I could feel God's compassion, as they wept with me over Sean's loss, rejoiced with me when Philip took his first step, felt hurt when I was victimised. God is in people, God is in nature.' 'Sometimes that's hard to believe.' 'It is, that's why we need to look. That's why I am still struggling to live by that—how did you put it? - idealism. And that's why, as teachers, we need to unveil the beauty that surrounds us and show it to our charges.... And speaking of charges, we'd better pick Philip up. Otherwise, he'll be like that forgotten child in the ad.' Aisling was referring to the ad for a particular brand of floor cleaner which showed the mother who was using the rival brand unable to finish her work in time to pick up her child after school.

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Appendix B: Notes on Charles Hartshorne

1. Biographical Note Hartshorne, Charles. Philosopher, born June 5, 1897 in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, died Oct. 6, 2000. Undergraduate studies at Haverford, interrupted them to volunteer as an orderly on the U.S. Army Medical Corps in France during WWI. Continued undergraduate studies followed by doctoral studies, which he completed in 1923, at Harvard University. Studied, among others, with C.I. Lewis, R.B. Perry, and W.E. Hocking. Pursued postdoctoral work as Sheldon Fellow in Germany, with stints in England and Austria. Returned to Harvard in 1925 as instructor and research fellow. Teaching assistant to A.N. Whitehead, who exercised enormous influence on his thinking. Edited (with Paul Weiss) the Pierce papers. Left Harvard in 1928 for the University of Chicago where he taught for 27 years. Prolific writing career during this period, publishing many of his very influential works. Left Chicago for Emory University in 1955, and upon retirement at the age 65, went to the University of Texas at Austin as Ashbel Smith Professor of Philosophy, becoming emeritus in 1978. Recipient of several awards, including an honorary doctorate from Leuven University in Belgium, and a visiting professor in a number of universities in the USA and other countries. Married to Dorothy Cooper, one daughter. Author of more than 20 books and some 500 articles. Regarded with A.N. Whitehead as the foremost representative of process philosophy, which has had a tremendous impact on theological thinking today. Also an accomplished and noted ornithologist, with a specialty in bird songs, wrote Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song, and several articles. Wrote an intellectual autobiography, From Darkness to the Light, which provides useful background to the development of his philosophy and anecdotes connected with his career. Published his last book, The Zero Fallacy and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics at the age of 100. In a philosophical era that was dominated by an antimetaphysical and to some extent anti-religious attitude, Hartshorne persisted in developing, in dialogue with classical theism, his 'neoclassical metaphysics' which is theistic through and through and is most systematically presented in Creative Synthesis 187

and Philosophic Method. He insisted that we must make the effort to apply logical thinking to religious insights, develop them in dialogue with other philosophical traditions, and systematise them into a more coherent and adequate metaphysical system. The result of his efforts has been, among others, a major contribution to metaphysics and to philosophical and theological thinking about God. Taking account of Hume's and the positivists' criticisms, Hartshome's metaphysical system is grounded in concrete experience, which he regards as both the departure point and the yardstick for any abstract metaphysical scheme. Developments in contemporary physics also inform his metaphysical thinking. Using modal logic, Hartshorne developed a new version of the ontological proof for the existence of God, set out mainly in The Logic of Perfection and in Anselm 's Discovery. Hartshome's work in this area has been largely acknowledged as a real advance in the discussion on possible proofs for the existence of God. He has, however, preferred to regard it as 'an argument' because he holds that no single proof is adequate. What his argumentation attempts to do is to reduce the alternatives to atheism or theism: it forces one to think through which of the two alternatives makes more sense in the long run. Insisting that the classical theistic conception of God as absolute and immutable does not do justice to religious claims to a personal God and to the philosophical demand for consistency and adequacy, he developed the concept of a dipolar God, particularly in Man 's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism, The Divine Relativity, and A Natural Theology for Our Time. Hartshorne conceives God as having a concrete pole and an abstract pole. In God's abstract pole, God has all the attributes applied by classical theism: absolute, infinite, eternal, immutable, etc. but God's concrete pole is said to be relative, finite, temporal, mutable, etc. The predication of these pairs of contrary predicates hinges on the law of polarity, which Hartshorne borrows from Morris Cohen: contraries can be predicated of the same reality at the same time but under different aspects. It is also dependent on a crucial distinction that Hartshorne makes in his metaphysical system between concrete actuality (how something exists) and abstract existence (that something is). Concrete actuality is the more inclusive category compared to abstract existence; hence, the relationship between the two categories is asymmetrical. The concept of a dipolar God is also premised on the claim that God is not an exception to, but an unrivalled exemplification of, metaphysical categories. Bibliography: Hahn, Lewis E. (ed.), The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne (La Salle, 111.: Open Court, 1991; Sia, S. (ed.), Charles Hartshome's Concept of God: Philosophical and Theological Responses (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990); Sia, S, God in Process Thought: a Study in Charles Hartshome's Concept of God (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985); Cobb, John and F. Gamwell (eds.), Existence and Actuality: Conversations

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with Charles Hartshorne (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), Peters, E., Hartshorne and Neoclassical Metaphysics: An Interpretation (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970).

2. Review of Charles Hartshorne, The Darkness and the Light: A « Philosopher Reflects Upon His Fortunate Career and Those Who Made •u> It Possible. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1990. 426p. This book which Hartshorne himself describes as 'an exercise in philosophical reliving of some personal relationships or encounters in [his] past' is a work that many readers of his writings as well as many who know him personally have been looking forward to. They will not be disappointed since this book beautifully complements what he has written before. While his other works in philosophy have articulated and developed his basic insights, in this book he reflects on specific life situations which gave rise to some of his philosophical beliefs. Furthermore, it is unlike his other works not only because he also deals with topics 'in a manner not appropriate to these other writings' but also because here he provides us with some of the background to the ideas his readers will have encountered in his previous publications. In this sense Hartshome's new book is more than an autobiography. It is very much Hartshome's philosophy of life. It certainly shows that Hartshome's philosophical ideas emerged from concrete living. As Hartshorne relives the past, the issue of what he calls 'the selectiveness of conscious reflection' is a constant concern for him. He wonders why we forget so much and why certain events and individuals somehow determine the degree of completeness and accuracy of the little that is remembered. Hartshorne raises an interesting question; yet it is not the gaps but the memories that will astound the readers. They cannot but be impressed by how much Hartshorne does recall—even of his early childhood and education! The superbly active and clear mind that one meets in Hartshome's books and articles is very much present in his recollections of the past. In mentioning certain individuals or specific situations, Hartshorne uses the opportunity to bring up some philosophical beliefs. For example, when writing about his mother's illness, he discusses his view of immortality (which differed from that of his mother). His recollections of his father and of his friend Carl Weston as well as of the time when his life was saved by a fellow orderly in France prompt Hartshorne to refer to his belief in universal creativity. The reference to the twins in the family becomes an occasion for him to discuss the question of when human life begins. Remembering his Haverford 189

teacher, Rufus, enables Hartshome to show his indebtedness to him for seeing, a point he develops much further in his writings, that 'the theistic question is partly one of self-knowledge.' Hartshorne has always maintained that many of the insights which he developed in later years came to him when he was still young. In an interesting section (pl47f) Hartshorne shows how religious-philosophical experiences were a feature of his two years in the army (1917-1919). Although he had lost belief in the basic Christian doctrine of the incarnation (he adds, at least as interpreted in the traditional sense) years earlier, he nevertheless became convinced, while in the army, of the ultimate significance of our relationship with God: we may be fragments in the overall scheme of things, but we do contribute truly to the Whole. During this time Hartshorne also had the insight that the physical world is directly given entirely in emotional terms; that is to say, the world is first felt and only afterwards thought. Moreover, he traces the development of his thought on the question of the relation of individuals back to this period in his life. In addition, he had already concluded while in France (what later on he would analyse) that materialism and dualism misdescribe experience. In this book Hartshorne also puts on record his aversion to alcoholism and his views on homo- and heterosexuality, violence, non-academic jobs as well as on other issues. In several sections he discusses his ornithological interest which was the principal reason for his extensive travelling. On a different level but in line with one of his aims, which is to suggest a philosophy of life, Hartshorne also devotes some space commenting on people's use of coffee, tea and chocolate and of automobiles. There is even a section on how he dealt with 'mentally disturbed students'! The human in Hartshorne comes out in the section 'What's Wrong with Everybody?' as he takes issue with the practice of chilling every drink, with the size of furniture, with the amount of food given at restaurants, and with the way college and university curricula are arranged. The philosopher in Hartshorne provides us with arguments for his position which he describes as a 'minority view'. For many readers who have come to know Hartshorne, the most interesting chapters will probably be those which deal with his many years at Chicago, then at Emory and finally at Austin. Here he offers frank assessments of various individuals: administrators and academics. Of particular note are his reasons for leaving Chicago and for joining Emory and Austin. Those influenced by his philosophy will definitely delight in his witty, amusing and revealing (although at times sharp) comments on famous philosophers and acquaintances. Hartshorne has given us a splendid book which reveals the man as well as the philosopher. He states that he would like to be most remembered by as a 190

writer. In this respect Hartshorne need have no anxiety since books and articles based on his numerous writings have been and will continue to be published. Throughout this book Hartshorne's optimism shines through. He realises that he has been fortunate (particularly in his marriage to Dorothy Hartshorne), and his book serves as a testimony to what he calls his 'good luck' and an expression of his gratitude to those who made his career possible. Hartshorne informs us that he has much to be thankful for. Perhaps what needs to be said is that very many of us will continue to be grateful to him not only for his writings but also for his encouragement and support.

3. Small in Stature but a Giant of a Thinker: Personal Recollections on Hartshorne When what seemed like an ambitious plan then to apply to do a Ph.D. started to be actualised for me, the question of a topic and/or a philosopher's work became a pressing concern. I had made inquiries about doing a Ph.D. in philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin. And because doctoral work at that university was a research degree, it was essential to submit a rather detailed research proposal to the department and to the graduate council for their approval. This entailed much preliminary work on my part as I searched around—very much on my own since a research degree in Ireland and England can indeed be a lonely pursuit, as many graduate students soon learn—for a topic or a philosopher that would hold my interest sufficiently to enable me to complete my work. Furthermore, the resulting work was expected to 'make a contribution to the existing literature in the field' and establish my credentials 'as a scholar'. That requirement for a detailed, competent and informed proposal, submitted and approved in 1976, led to my first serious encounter with the thought of Charles Hartshorne. His philosophical insights have continued to nourish and strengthen my own philosophical point of view until this day. I had heard of him and his concept of God in a critical reference to him by a theology professor in Ireland; and somehow that pushed me in Hartshorne's direction. It was not, however, until the Fall of 1978 that I actually met 'this giant of a thinker'—an image that had cropped up in my mind from reading so many of Hartshorne's books and articles and being tremendously impressed with his ideas, arguments and worldview. It is perhaps natural that one forms certain impressions of a writer based on his or her work. The fact that Hartshorne's work loomed large on my horizon and that I was beginning to appreciate its significance led me to draw certain conclusions about his physical stature. I had read him and about him, and I had seen his photograph (on the cover of his 191

The Logic of Perfection). Since there is always something exciting about meeting the person whom one has only encountered in print, I wanted to meet the man. When we heard that Hartshorne was going to be at Leuven University, Fr. Jack Kelly, SJ, the then Dean of Philosophy at Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy in Dublin, where I was teaching, generously gave me leave for a week so that I could meet 'the great man himself—as the Irish would put it. So I wrote to Hartshorne, and by return post, I received a positive and encouraging answer to my request to interview him in Leuven. Between a preconceived idea of the man and the reality—Hartshorne himself would warn us of the possible gap—there can be significant differences. And in this case there definitely was. I had passed a man of small stature, being linked by a much bigger lady, on my way to the lecture hall where Hartshorne was supposed to be speaking. Because he was, as we would say in Ireland, 'well wrapped up' and because I was rushing, somehow I never made the connection. It was only when Prof. Jan Van der Veken introduced that man that I realised who he was. I couldn't believe what I was seeing as I finally 'clapped my eyes'—again as the Irish would say—on the great man himself! It may have been pushing the analogy too far, but it was a great lesson for me on the distinction between 'abstract idea' and 'concrete actuality'. Such was my surprise that I really do not remember what he was actually talking about that day. I am sure it was about God, at any rate. Hartshorne's eminence as a thinker never seemed to have stopped him from joining in with the graduate students in Leuven. A Filipino doctoral student in philosophy in Leuven summoned up his courage to invite Hartshorne to have lunch with us at one of the student Mensas in Leuven. Without hesitation he accepted the invitation. As we stood in the queue with hundreds of hungry students, Hartshorne entertained us with stories about his trips to Asia, including the Philippines where he had the opportunity to hear some birds sing. He didn't seem to mind the wait, the noise and the company. And he appreciated the discount given to him as a 'senior student'. And he was even more delighted when we invited him again, this time for lunch at a Chinese restaurant despite the respectful warning that the only thing we could afford was the Studentmenu. As we escorted Hartshorne around Leuven, I couldn't help but keep in mind his doctrine of immortality. I feared that as we crossed the narrow, winding, and busy streets, a car would suddenly hit this eminent thinker—and all because we were brash enough to invite him to lunch. I would not have liked to have been 'remembered' that way. Fortunately, that didn't happen. At any rate, my compatriot and I decided to flank him to prevent any such claim to immortality on our part. Hartshorne himself seems to have been conscious of his physical stature. Some years later, when I attended the American Philosophical Association's 192

meeting in New York, I ran into him. Promptly he invited me to have breakfast with him. This was too good an honour for mc to turn down. After inquiring how my work and career were going, he asked whether I would be attending the session in which he and Paul Weiss would be speaking. Then he quickly added: 'And you know, he is even shorter than I am!' And he really had a good laugh over that! I did go to that session. The room was packed. It was a very lively event with these two philosophers—both 'short in stature but giant as thinkers'—battling it out in the arena of ideas. I had earlier remarked on how Hartshome's philosophical insights continue to facilitate my own philosophical development. That is true not only in the intellectual sense but also in a more personal way. For someone who was a prolific writer, Hartshome nevertheless found the time to answer meticulously any queries I had about his philosophy. I certainly appreciated the patience and energy Hartshome put into answering my letters. Some of those replies were quite long. And this was before the advent of personal computers and e-mail! (One of the things that I treasure most is the typescript of my manuscript that was published as God in Process Thought: A Study in Charles Hartshome's Concept of God on which Hartshome had written his comments and corrections.) One wonders, as indeed one wonders about Thomas Aquinas' output, how much more prolific and responsive Hartshome would have been if he had the kind of facility we now have for communicating with one another. His generosity with his time certainly smoothed the way for me, and I am truly grateful.

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PRIMARY BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF CHARLES HARTSHORNE*

Compiled by Dorothy C. Hartshorne Revised and Updated by Donald Wayne Viney and Randy Ramal This bibliography is a corrected version of the one that appeared in Process Studies 30, 2 (2001): 374-409. Earlier versions appeared in Process and Divinity, the Hartshorne Festschrift, eds. William L. Reese and Eugene Freeman (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1964): 579-591; Process Studies 6, 1 (1973): 73-93 [Addenda published in issue 11, 2 (1981): 10813]; and in The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, the Library of Living Philosophers, volume XX, ed. Lewis Hahn (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1991): 735-66. Randy Ramal, at the Center for Process Studies, added material to these earlier works in his alphabetically ordered bibliographies of Hartshome's works posted on the CPS website. Don Viney, working independently, was also adding items to the LLP bibliography. The following combines our separate efforts and is more than what either of us produced individually. We have added missing items, corrected typographical mistakes, and included cross-references for articles that later appeared in Hartshome's books. Although we followed Dorothy Hartshome's practice of listing items in chronological order, we diverged from her lead by (1) listing Hartshome's abstracts of his books and articles under the same item as the book or article itself; (2) listing reviews and articles, including translations, that appeared in more than one place—but not in one of Hartshome's books—under a single heading; (3) listing multiple replies in a single volume under a single item (Dorothy did this, but inconsistently). Thus, forty-eight items that she listed separately are consolidated here under other entries.1 This bibliography revises and updates Dorothy's original, but it is in one respect less than what she compiled, for no attempt is made to list Hartshome's ornithological works unless they include philosophical content. Moreover, we make no claim to being exhaustive; for example, a complete bibliography would include Hartshome's many letters to the editor, but none of those are listed here (nor are they listed in the bibliographies mentioned above). It is worth noting that there arc over sixty unpublished articles in the Hartshorne archives, as well as a substantial portion of the last book he planned and an extensive correspondence. Thus, what is offered here, though more extensive than previous bibliographies, is nevertheless a work in progress.2

Tt

Originally published in Process Studies, XXX, 2 (Fall-Winter 2001), pp. 374-409, corrected and updated by Donald Wayne Viney and Randy Ramal in September 2003 and reprinted here with permission.

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Books 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

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Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge: Harvard UP. Vol. \, Principles of Philosophy, 1931. Vol. 2, Elements of Logic, 1932. Vol. 3, Exact Logic, 1933. Vol. 4, The Simplest Mathematics, 193 3. Vol. 5, Pragmatism and Pragmaticism, 1934. Vol. 6, Scientific Metaphysics, 1935. The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1934. Reissued in Port Washington, New York: Kennikat P, 1968. Beyond Humanism: Essays in the New Philosophy of Nature. Chicago: Willet, Clark and Company, 1937. Reprinted as a Bison Book Edition, with new Preface. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1968. Also reprinted in Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1975. Man 's Vision of Cod and the Logic of Theism. Chicago: Willet, Clark and Company, 1941. After 1948 published by Harper and Brothers, New York. Reprinted by Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1964. The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God. The Terry Lectures, 1947. New Haven: Yale UP, 1948. Whitehead and the Modern World: Science. Metaphysics, and Civilization. Three Essays on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead. By Victor Lowe, Charles Hartshorne, and A H . Johnson. Boston: The Beacon P, 1950. "Whitehead's Metaphysics" by Charles Hartshorne, 25-41. Reprinted by Books for Libraries P, 1972. "Whitehead's Metaphysics" reprinted as chapter 2 of Whitehead's Philosophy. See abstract in Program of the American Philosophical Association, Western Division (May 6-8, 1948): 13-14. Reality as Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion. Foreword by William Ernest Hocking. Glcncoc: The Free P and Boston: The Beacon P, 1953. Reprinted in New York: llafner Publishing Co., 1971. Philosophers Speak of God (wilh William L. Reese). Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953, reprinted in 1969. Reissued by Chicago: Midway Reprints, 1976. Reprinted by Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2000, with an addendum to the Preface by William L. Reese. The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1962. Author's abstract in The Monist 59, 4 (1976): 596. Ansclm 's Discovery: A Re-Examination of the Ontological Proof for God's Existence. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1965. The Social Conception of the Universe /Three chapters from Reality as Social Process]. Edited by Keiji Matsunobu. Tokyo: Aoyama, and New York: Macmillan, 1967. A Natural Theology for Our Time. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1967. Author's abstract in The Monist 59, 4 (1976): 594. Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method. London: SCM P Ltd., and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1970. Reprinted in 1983 by Lanham, Maryland: UP of America. Chinese translation in process (The China Project, Center for Process Studies, Claremont, California). Author's abstract in The Monist 56, 4 (1972): 626-27.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Whitehead's Philosophy: Selected Essays, 1935-1970. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1972. [Japanese translation by Keiji Matsunobu and Minoru Otsuka, Kyoto: Korosha, 1989.] Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1973. Author's abstract in The Monist 59, 2 (1976): 299. Aquinas to Whitehead: Seven Centuries of Metaphysics of Religion. The Aquinas Lecture, 1976. Milwaukee: Marquette U Publications, 1976. Whitehead's View of Reality (with Creighton Peden). New York: Pilgrim P, 1981. "Whitehead in Historical context" by Charles Hartshorne, 2-24. Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers: An Evaluation of Western Philosophy. Albany: State U of New York P, 1983. Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes. Albany: State U of New York P, 1984. [Japanese translation by Minoru Otsuka. Kyoto: Korosha, 1991.] Author's abstract in The Monist 69, 4 (1986): 633. Creativity in American Philosophy. Albany: State U of New York P, 1984. [Spanish translation by Mari Luz Caso as Creatividad en la Filosofia Estadonnidense (Mexico: Edamex, 1987).] Wisdom as Moderation: A Philosophy of the Middle Way. Albany: State U of New York P, 1987. [Japanese translation by Minoru Otsuka, with a preface by Charles Hartshorne] The Darkness and the Light: A Philosopher Reflects Upon His Fortunate Career and Those Who Made It Possible. Albany: State U of New York P, 1990. The Zero Fallacy and Other Essays in Neoclassical Philosophy. Edited and Introduced by Mohammad Valady. Peru, Illinois: Open Court, 1997. Hartshorne and Brightman on Cod, Process, and Persons: The Correspondence, 1922-1945. Edited by Randall E. Auxier and Mark Y. A. Davies. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2001. The Unity of Being. [Original title: An Outline and Defense of the Argument for the Unity of Being in the Absolute or Divine Good]. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University. (May 1923). Edited by Randall E. Auxier and Hyatt Carter. Open Court, 2004.

Articles, Reviews, and Discussions 1. 2. 3. 4.

"Memory, Youth, and Age." The Haverfordian 37, 8 (1916): 323. "Barriers to Progress: Or Some Superstitions of Modernism." The Gad-Fly [Student Liberal Club of Harvard University] (1923): 1-15. Review of A.N. Whitehead. Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect (New York: Macmillan, 1927). Hound and Horn 1 (1927): 148-52. Reviews of Martin Heidegger. Sein und Zeit; Oskar Becker, Mathematische Existenz (from Jahrbuch fur Philosophic und Phanomenologische Forschung, Herausgegeben von Edmund Husserl) [Achter Band. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1927, xxi, 809]. Philosophical Review 38, 3 (1929): 284-93. Incorporated into chapter 17 of Beyond Humanism.

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

198

"Continuity, the Form of Forms, in Charles Peirce." The Monist 39, 4 (1929): 521-34. Review of Etienne Souriau. L'Avenir de I'esthetique (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1929). International Journal of Ethics 40, 1 (1929): 132-33 "Ethics and the Assumption of Purely Private Pleasures." International Journal of Ethics 40, 4 (1930): 496-515. "Sense Quality and Feeling Tone." Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Philosophy, ed. Gilbert Ryle (London: Oxford UP, 1931): 168-72. "Contingency and the New Era in Metaphysics, I." Journal of Philosophy 29, 16 (1932): 421-31; "Contingency and the New Era in Metaphysics, II." Journal of Philosophy 29, 17 (1932): 457-69. Review of Andre Lalande. Les Illusions evolutionnistes (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1930). International Journal of Ethics 43, 1 (1932): 94-97. "Four Principles of Method -with Applications." The Monist 43, 1 (1933): 40-72. Review of G. Watts Cunningham. The Idealistic Argument in Recent British and American Philosophy (New York: Century, 1933). International Journal of Ethics 43, 4 (1933): 447-49. Foreword to The Categories of Charles Peirce by Eugene Freeman (Chicago: Open Court, 1934). Review of R. G. Collingwood. An Essay on Philosophical Method (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933). International Journal of Ethics 44, 3 (1934): 357-58. "The Intelligibility of Sensations." T/ieWo/iur 44, 2(1934): 161-85. Reviews of Ernest W. Barnes. Scientific Theory and Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1933); J. E. Turner. Essentials in the Development of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1934); T. V. Seshagiro Row. New Light on Fundamental Problems (Madras: UP, 1932). International Journal of Ethics 44, 4 (1934): 465-71. Reviews of Gerhard Kraenzlin. Max Schelers' Phaenomenologische Systematik; Adolph Sternberger, Per verstandene Tod (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1934). International Journal of Ethics 44, 4 (1934): 478-80. "Redefining God." New Humanist 7, 4 (1934): 8-15. Reprinted in Contemporary American Protestant Thought: 1900-1970, cd. William R. Miller (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1973): 315-322. Also reprinted in American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 22, 2 (2001): 107-13. "The New Metaphysics and Current Problems, I." New Frontier 1, 1 (1934): 24-31; "The New Metaphysics and Current Problems, II." New Frontier 1, 5 (1934): 8-14. "Ethics and the New Theology." International Journal of Ethics 45, 1 (1934): 90-101. Review of Louis Vialle. Le Desir du neant (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1933). International Journal of Ethics 45, 1 (1934): 116-117. Review of William Pepperell Montague. The Chances of Surviving Peath (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1934). International Journal of Ethics AS, 1 (1934): 120-21. Reviews of John Nibb. Christianity and Internationalism (London: Elliot Stock, 1934); Georges Lakhovsky. Le Racisme et I'orchestre universelle (Paris: F61ix Alcan, 1934). International Journal of Ethics AS, 1 (1934): 121-22. "The Parallel Development of Method in Physics and Psychology." Philosophy ofSci~ ence 1, 4 (1934): 446-59. "Pattern and Movement in Art and Science." Comment (The U of Chicago) 3, 2 (1935): 1-2, 11. Chapter 2 of Reality as Social Process. Discussion: "Flexibility of Scientific Truth." Philosophy of Science 2 (1935): 255-56.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

Review of D. Draghicesco. Verite el Revelation, Vol. 1. (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1934). InternationalJournal of Ethics 45, 2 (1935): 248-249. [cf. item 36] Incorporated into chapter 4 of Beyond Humanism. Review of Adolphe Ferriere. Der Primal des Geistes als Grundlage einer aufbauenden Erziehung, Translated by Emmi Hirschberg (Berlin: Julius Beltz, n.d.). International Journal of Ethics 45, 2 (1935): 250. Review of Henry C. Simons. A Positive Program for Lassaiz Faire (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1935). Christian Century 52, 23 (1935): 761-62. "Metaphysics for Positivists." Philosophy of Science 2, 3 (1935): 287-303. "On Some Criticisms of Whitehead's Philosophy." Philosophical Review 44, 4 (1935): 323-44. [cf. item 50]. Chapter 3 of Whitehead's Philosophy. Reviews of John Wisdom. Problems of Mind and Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1934); Thomas Whittaker. Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1934); Julius W. Friend and James Feibleman. Science and the Spirit of Man (London: Allen and Unwin, 1933). International Journal of Ethics 45, 4 (1935); 461-65. Review of Gajanan Wasudeo Kaveeshwar. The Metaphysics of Berkeley Critically Examined in the Light of Modern Philosophy (Mandleshwar, India: A. Kaveeshwar, 1933). International Journal of Ethics 45, 4 (1935): 494. "The Compound Individual." Philosophical Essays for Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Otis H. Lee (New York: Longmans Green, 1936): 193-220. Chapter 4 of Whitehead's Philosophy. "The New Pantheism, I." Christian Register 115, 8 (1936): 119-20; "The New Pantheism, II." Christian Register 115, 9 (1936): 141-43. Review of D. Draghicesco. Verite et Revelation, Vol. 2, (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1934). International Journal of Ethics 47', 1 (1936): 133-35. [cf. item 27]. "The Philosophical Limitations of Humanism." University Review 3, 4 (1937): 240-42. Chapter 11 of Reality as Social Process. Abstract: "Positivism as Anthropomorphism." The Journal of Philosophy 34, 25 (1937): 685. Review of Andre Cresson. La Representation. (Paris: Boivin, 1936). Philosophical Review 47, 1 (1938): 90-91. Review of G. P. Adams, W. R. Dennes, J. Loewenberg, D. S. Mackay, P. Marhenke, S. C. Pepper, and E. W. Strong. Knowledge and Society (New York: Appleton-Century, 1938). Christian Century 55, 30 (1938): 917. Reply to [R. H., Jr.] Randall's review of Beyond Humanism, in Journal of Philosophy 35,5(1938): 131-33. Review of Jacques Maritain. The Degrees of Knowledge (New York: Scribner's, 1938). Christian Century 55 (1938): 1195. Also in Journal of Religion 19, 3 (1939): 267-69. "The Reality of the Past, the Unreality of the Future." Hibbert Journal 37, 2 (1939): 246-57. Review of Wilhelm Keller. Der Sinnbegriff als Kategorie der Geisteswissenschaften (Munich: Ernst Reinhardt, 1937). Philosophical Review 48, 1 (1939): 95. Review of Rasvihari Das. The Philosophy of Whitehead (London: James Clarke and Co., 1964). Philosophical Review 48, 2 (1939): 230-31. Notes: Letter (Reply to Roger Holmes). Philosophical Review 68, 2 (1939): 243.

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47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67.

200

"The Method of Imaginative Variations," in "Notes Concerning Husserl." Journal of Philosophy 36, 9 (1939): 233-34. "Are All Propositions about the Future either True or False?" Program of the American Philosophical Association (April 20-22, 1939): 26-32. Review of A.N. Whitehead. Modes of Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1938). Review of Religion 3, 4 (1939): 494-496. Discussion: "The Interpretation of Whitehead (Reply to John W. Blyth)." Philosophical Review 48, 4 (1939): 415-23. [cf. item 31]. Review of James Bissett Pratt. Naturalism (New Haven: Yale UP, 1939). Journal of Religion 19, 3 (1939): 234-35. Review of Ralph Barton Perry. In the Spirit of William James (New Haven: Yale UP, 1938). Journal of Religion 19, 3 (1939): 247-48. Review of A. Campbell Garnett. Reality and Value (New Haven: Yale UP, 1937). The Scroll 37, 3 (1939): 93-95. "Husserl and the Social Structure of Immediacy." Philosophical Essays in Memory of Edmund Husserl. Marvin Farber, ed. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1940): 219-30. "Santayana's Doctrine of Essence." The Philosophy of George Santayana, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 2 (Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern UP, 1940): 135-82. "The Three Ideas of God." Journal of Liberal Religion 1,3(1940): 9-16. Chapter 9 of Reality as Social Process. Review of Justus Buchler. Charles Peirce's Empiricism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939). Ethics 50, 2 (1940): 248. Review of Josef Maier. On Hegel's Critique of Kant (New York: Columbia UP, 1939). Journal of Religion 20, 1 (1940): 106. Review of Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed. The Philosophy of John Dewey. Library of Living Philosophers (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1939). Christian Century 42, 10 (1940): 313-15. Chapter 12 of Reality as Social Process. Review of Irwin Edman. Arts and the Man (New York: Norton, 1939). Ethics 50, 3 (1940): 369-70. Reviews of Arthur Hazard Dakin. Man the Measure (Princeton, N. .1.: Princeton UP, 1939); Archibald Allan Bowman, A Sacramental Universe (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton UP, 1939). Ethics 50, 3 (1940): 363-66. Review of Milton Karl Munitz. The Moral Philosophy of Santayana (New York: Columbia UP, 1939). Journal of Religion 20, 2 (1940): 196-98. Review of Charles M. Perry. Toward a Dimensional Realism (Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1939). Journal of Religion 20, 2 (1940): 214. Review of Theodore Meyer Greene. The Arts and the Art of Criticism (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton UP, 1940). Ethics 51, 1 (1940): 116-17. "Whitehead's Idea of God." The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 3 (Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern UP, 1941): 513-59. Chapter 5 of Whitehead's Philosophy. "Charles Sanders Peirce's Metaphysics of Evolution." New England Quarterly 14, 1 (1941): 49-63. "Anthropomorphic Tendencies in Positivism." Philosophy of Science 8, 2 (1941): 184203.

68. 69.

70.

71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76. 77.

78. 79.

80.

81. 82. 83. 84.

85.

Review of Frederick J. E. Woodbridge. An Essay on Nature (New York: Columbia UP, 1940). Ethics 51, 4 (1941): 488-90. Review of DeWitt H. Parker. Experience and Substance (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1940). Christian Century 48, 27 (1941): 864. Also published in Philosophical Review 51, 5 (1942): 523-26. "A Critique of Peirce's Idea of God." Philosophical Review 50, 5 (1941): 516-23. See also, "Abstracts of Papers to be Read at the Joint Meeting of the Eastern and Western Divisions of the American Philosophical Association, Columbia U, December, 1939." Journal of Philosophy 36, 25 (1939): 683-84. Review of Ledger Wood. The Analysis of Knowledge (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton UP, 1941). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 2, 1 (1941): 104-08. Review of Gustaf Stromberg. The Soul of the Universe (Philadelphia: David McKay P, 1940). Review of Religion 5, 3 (1941): 357-60. "A Philosophy of Democratic Defense." Science, Philosophy, and Religion: Second Symposium (New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion in their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc. 1942): 130-72. Review of Justus Buchler, ed. The Philosophy of Peirce: Selected Writings (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1940). Philosophical Review 51,1 (1942): 92. Reviewof Etienne Gilson. God and Philosophy (New Haven: Yale UP, 1941). Journal of Religion 22, 2 (1942): 221 -24. "Elements of Truth in the Group-Mind Concept." Social Research 9, 2 (1942): 248-65. Chapter 3 of Reality as Social Process. Review of Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed. The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1941). Religion in Life 11,3 (1942): 469-70. Also published in Thought 17, 66 (1942): 545-47. Review of Stephen C. Pepper. World Hypotheses (Berkeley: U of California P, 1942). Ethics 53, 1 (1942): 73-75. "Organic and Inorganic Wholes." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 3, 2 (1942): 127-136. Notice in Program of the Fiftieth Anniversary Symposia (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1941): 12. Published as "A World of Organisms," chapter 7 of Logic of Perfection. Republished in Process Philosophy: Basic Writings, eds. Jack R. Sibley and Pete A.Y. Gunter (Washington D.C.: UP of America, 1978): 275-96. Comment on "Democracy and the Rights of Man." Science, Philosophy, and Religion: Second Symposium (New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, Inc. 1942): 292. Review of John Blyth. Whitehead's Theory of Knowledge (Providence: Brown UP, 1941). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 3, 3 (1943): 372-75. "Is Whitehead's God the God of Religion?" [Suggested by Ely's book, cf. item 85]. Ethics 53, 3 (1943): 219-27. Chapter 6 of Whitehead's Philosophy. Review of Lewis Edwin Hahn. A Contextualistic Theory of Perception (Berkeley: U of California P, 1942). Ethics 53, 3 (1943): 233. Review of Campbell Garnett. A Realistic Philosophy of Religion (Chicago: Willett Clark, 1942). Journal of Religion 23, 3 (1943): 70-71. Also published in Ethics 54, 1 (1943): 62-63. Review of Stephen Lee Ely. The Religious Availability of Whitehead's God (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1942). Journal of Liberal Religion 5, 1 (1943): 55.

201

86. 87. 88.

89. 90.

91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

98.

99. 100. 101. 102.

103.

202

Communication, Rejoinder: "Ely on Whitehead." Journal of Liberal Religion 5, 2 (1943): 97-100. Discussion: "Reflections on the Strength and Weakness of Thomism." Ethics 54, 1 (1943): 53-57. Reviews of Jacques Maritain. Saint Thomas and the Problem of Evil (Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 1942) and The Maritain Volume of 'The Thomist' (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1943). Ethics 54, 1 (1943): 53-57. "A Mathematical Analysis of Theism." Review of Religion 8, 1 (1943): 20-38. Revised as epilogue of Philosophers Speak of God, 499-514. Radio Discussion: "How Christians Should Think About Peace." By Edwin Aubrey, Charles Hartshorne, and Bernard Loonier. Pamphlet. Chicago: U of Chicago Round Table (April 9, 1944): 20 pages. Review of K. R. Sreenivasa Iyengar. The Metaphysics of Value, Vol. 1. (Mysore: U of Mysore, 1942). Ethics 54, 3 (1944): 230-31. Review of John Elof Boodin. Religion of Tomorrow (New York: Philosophical Library, 1943). Ethics 54, 3 (1944): 233-34. "The Formal Validity and Real Significance of the Ontological Argument." Philosophical Review 53, 3 (1944): 225-45. [cf. items 101 and 107]. "Philosophy and Orthodoxy." Ethics 54, 4 (1944): 295-98. Review of Werner Jaeger. Humanism and Theology (Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 1943). Journal of Religion 24, 3 (1944): 230. "God and Man not Rivals." Journal of Liberal Religion 6, 2 (1944): 9-13. Abstract: "Beauty as Balance of Unity and Variety." In Proceedings of The American Society for Aesthetics. First Annual Meeting. Cleveland, Ohio (Sept. 11-13, 1944): 2930. Comments on "Philosophical Ideas and Enduring Peace," 557; on "Philosophical Ideas and World Peace," 597; on "In Quest of Worldly Wisdom," 719-721. Approaches to World Peace, Fourth Symposium, eds. Lyman Bryson, Louis Finkclstein, and Robert M. MacIver(Ncw York: Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, 1944). Review of Henry Alon/.o Myers. The Spinoza-Hegel Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1944). Ethics 55, 1 (1944): 71-72. Review of Adhar Chandra Das. Negative Fact, Negation, and Truth (Calcutta: Calcutta UP, 1942). Ethics 55, 1 (1944): 77. Discussion: "On Hartshornc's Formulation of the Ontological Argument: A Rejoinder [to Elton]." Philosophical Review 54, 1 (1945): 63-65. [cf. items 93 and 107]. Entries in An Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York: Philosophical Library, 1945): acosmism; analogy; anthropopathism; Aristotle and Aristotelianism; axiom; Berkeley, George; Carneades; cause; Copernican astronomy; eternal; eternity; ether; etiology, aetiology; foreknowledge, Divine; Gerson, Levi ben; God, as personal; Hume; infinite; Kant, Immanuel; omnipotence; omnipresence; omniscience; panentheism; panlogism; pantheism; Peirce, Charles Sanders; perfect, perfection; Ptolemaic astronomy; Renouvier, Charles; Spencer, Herbert; Spinoza, Benedict; time; transcendence; Whitehead, Alfred North. Review Article: "Efficient Causality in Aristotle and St. Thomas" by Francis X. Meehan's book of the same title (Washington: Catholic UP, 1940). Journal of Religion 25, 1 (1945): 25-32. [cf. item 111].

104. Review of Rudolf Jordan. Homo Sapiens Socialis (South Africa: Central News Agency, 1944). Ethics 55, 4 (1945): 312-13. 105. Review of Jacques Maritain. The Dream of Descartes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1944). Ethics 55, 4 (1945): 321. 106. Review of Vladimir Soloviev's Lectures on Godmanhood (with Introduction by Peter Zouboff) (New York: International UP, 1944). Ethics 55, 4 (1945): 322. 107. "Professor Hartshorne's Syllogism: Rejoinder [to Elton]." Philosophical Review 54, 5 (1945): 506-08. [cf. items 93 and 101]. 108. Review of K. F. Reinhardt. A Realistic Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1944). Philosophical Review 54, 5 (1945): 521-22. 109. "A New Philosophic Conception of the Universe." Hibkert Journal 44, 1 (1945): 1421. Chapter 1 at Reality as Social Process. 110. Review of Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed. The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 5. (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1944). Journal of Religion 25, 4 (1945): 280-84. Chapter 13 of Reality as Social Process. 111. Communication: "Reply to Father Meehan." Journal of Religion 26, I (1946): 54-57. [cf. item 103], 112. Review of Erich Frank. Philosophical Understanding and Religious Truth (London: Oxford UP, 1945). Review of Religion 10, 2 (1946): 182-89. 113. Review of William Ernest Hocking. Science and the Idea of God (Chapel Mill: U of North Carolina P, 1944). Philosophy and Phcnomcnological Research 6, 3 (1946): 453-57. 114. "Relative, Absolute, and Superrelative: A Formal Analysis." Phdosophical Review 55, 3 (1946): 213-28. Chapter 6 of Reality as Social Process. 115. "The Common Good and the Value Receptacle." Program of the American Philosophical Association, Western Division (May 9-11, 1946): 10-11. 116. "Tragic and Sublime Aspects of Christian Love." Journal of Liberal Religion 8, 1 (1946): 36-44. Chapter 8 of Reality as Social Process. 117. "Theological Values in Current Metaphysics." Journal of Religion 26, 3 (1946): 15767. Chapter 7 of Reality as Social Process. 118. "Leibniz's Greatest Discovery." Journal of the History of Ideas 7, 4 (1946): 411-21. 119. "Ideal Knowledge Defines Reality: What Was True in Idealism." Journal of Philosophy 43, 21 (1946): 573-82. See also: Correction of "Ideal Knowledge Defines Reality." Journal of Philosophy 43, 26 (1946): 724. 120. Review of Henri Bergson. The Creative Mind. Trans. Mabclle L. Andison (New York: Philosophy Library, 1946). Journal of Religion 27, 1 (1947): 64-65. 121. Review of Jose Ortega y Gasset. Concord and Liberty (New York: Norton, 1946). Christian Century 64, 7 (1947): 207. 122. Review of Gustav Theodor Fechner. Religion of a Scientist: Selections from Fechner, ed. and trans. Walter Lowrie (New York: Pantheon, 1946). Journal of Religion 27, 2 (1947): 126-28. 123. Review of Nels F. S. Ferre. Faith and Reason (New York: Harper, 1946). Review of Religion 11, 4 (1947): 409-13. 124. Review of Martin Foss. The Idea of Perfection in the Western World (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton UP, 1946). Journal of Modern History 19, 2 (1947): 15. 125. "God as Absolute, Yet Related to All." Review of Metaphysics 1, 1 (1947): 24-51.

203

126. Review of Henry N. Wieman et al. Religious Liberals Reply (Boston: Beacon P, 1947). Christian Register 126, 9 (1947): 412-13. 127. Review of A. H. Johnson. The Wit and Wisdom of Whitehead (Boston: Beacon P, 1947). Christian Register 126, 10 (1947): 446. 128. "Two Levels of Faith and Reason." Journal of Bible and Religion 16, 1 (1948): 30-38. See also Program of Week of Work of the National Council on Religion in Higher Education (1947): 16. Chapter 10 of Reality as Social Process. 129. Review of Paul Weiss. Nature and Man (New York: Henry Holt, 1947). Ethics 58, 2 (1948): 143-44. 130. Review of Campbell Garnett. God in Us (Chicago: Willett Clark, 1945). Ethics 58, 2 (1948): 151. 131. "The Rationalistic Criterion in Metaphysics." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research $, 3 (1948): 436-47. 132. "Existential Propositions and the Law of Categories." Fascicule 1, Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Philosophy, eds. E. W. Beth et al. (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1948): 342-44. 133. "Aesthetics of Color." Program: Research in Textiles, Clothing, and Related Art (March 19-20, 1948): 2. 134. Review of Jean Wahl. The Philosopher's Way (New York: Oxford UP, 1948). Philosophical Review 57, 5 (1948): 509-11. 135. "Ein thcologisches Paradoxon. I Die Wissensform des Paradoxons. II Die Willensform des Paradoxons." Philosophisches Jahrbuch 59, 2 (1949): 250-51. 136. "Noch einmal die ZufaJligkcit der Welt und Notwendigkcit Gottes: Erwiderung an Dr. Ferdinand Bergcnthal." Philosophisches Jahrbuch 59, 2 (1949): 355-56. 137. "Ob Gottliches Wissen um die wcltlichc Existonz iiolwcndig sein kann: Eine Erwiderung." Philosophisches Jahrbuch 60, 4 (1950): 469-71. 138. "The Synthesis of Idealism and Realism." Theoria (Sweden) 15 (1949): 90-107. Chapter 4 of Reality as Social Process; chapter 8, section B of Zero Fallacy. 139. "Chance, Love, and Incompatibility." Presidential Address, Western Division of the American Philosophical Association meeting at Columbus, Ohio, April 29, 1949. Philosophical Review 58, 5 (1949): 429-50. Chapter 5 of Reality as Social Process. 140. Review of Otis Lcc. Existence and Inquiry (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1949). Review of Metaphysics 3,1(1949): 107-14. 141. "Panpsychism." A History of Philosophical Systems, ed. Vcrgilius Ferm (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950): 442-53. 142. "Le Principe de relativitc philosophique chez Whitehead." Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale 55, 1 (1950): 16-29. Lecture originally delivered at the Sorbonne, Feb. 4, 1949, announced in Bulletin. EC 1959. 143. "The Divine Relativity and Absoluteness: A Reply [to John Wild]." Review of Metaphysics A, 1 (1950): 31-60. 144. "God in General Philosophical Thought." The Encyclopedia Hebraica 3 (1951) [Jewish Calendar 5711], Jerusalem: Encyclopedia Publishing Company, 1951: 467-78. 145. "Strict and Genetic Identity: An Illustration of the Relations of Logic to Metaphysics." Structure, Method, and Meaning: Essays in Honor of Henry M. Sheffer, eds. Horace M. Kallen et al. (New York: Liberal Arts P, 1951): 242-54.

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146. "Philosophy of Religion in the United States." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 11, 3 (1951): 406-10. French translation, "La Philosophie de la religion aux Etats-Unis," in Les Etudes Philosophiques 7, 1-2 (1952): 50-56. 147. Discussion: "Arthur Berndtson on Mystical Experience." Personalist 32, 2 (1951): 191-93. 148. Review of Kelvin Van Nuys. Science and Cosmic Purpose (New York: Harper, 1949), Review of Religion 16, 1-2 (1951): 79-84. 149. "The Relativity of Nonrelativity: Some Reflections on Firstness." Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, eds. Philip P. Wiener and Frederic H. Young (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1952): 215-24. 150. "Radhakrishnan on Mind, Matter, and God." The Philosophy of Saevepalli Radhakrishnan, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 8. (New York: Tudor, 1952): 315-22. 151. "Tillich's Doctrine of God." The Theology of Paul Tillich. The Library of Living Theology, Vol. 1, eds. Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall (New York: Macmillan, 1952): 164-95. 152. "Time, Death, and Eternal Life." Journal of Religion 32, 2 (1952): 97-107. Reprinted in Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion. 2'" ed. John Hick (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970): 357-69. Incorporated into chapter 10 of Logic of Perfection. 153. Review of Georg Siegmund. Naturordnung als Quelle der Gotteserkenntnis: Neubegrundung des theologischen Gottesbeweises (Freiburg: Herder, 1950). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 12, 4 (1952): 584-85. 154. "Politics and the Metaphysics of Freedom." Enquete sur la liberie, Federation Internationale des societes de philosophie. Public avec lc concours de l'u.n.e.s.c.o (Paris: Hermann, 1953): 79-85. 155. "Noch cinmal, das Wissen Gottes." Philosophisches Jahrbuch 62, 2 (FreiburgMiinchen: Verlag Karl Alber, 1953): 409-11. 156. "Spirit as Life Freely Participating in Life." Biosophical Review 10, 2 (1953): 31-32. 157. "The Monistic Theory of Expression." Journal of Philosophy 50, 14 (1953): 425-34. 158. Review of John Wisdom. Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953). Ethics 63, 4 (1953): 317-18. 159. Discussion: "The Immortality of the Past: Critique of a Prevalent Misinterpretation." Review of Metaphysics 7, 1 (1953): 98-112. 160. Symposium: "Are Religious Dogmas Cognitive and Meaningful?" Journal of Philosophy 51, 5 (1954): 148-50. 161. Review of Risieri Frondizi. The Nature of the Self (New Haven: Yale UP, 1953). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 14, 3 (1954): 419-20. 162. "The Kinds of Theism: A Reply [to Taubes]." Journal of Religion 34, 2 (1954): 12731. 163. "Mind, Matter, and Freedom." Scientific Monthly 78, 5 (1954): 314-20. Chapter 8 of Logic of Perfection. 164. Review Article: "Whitehead's Philosophy of Reality as Socially-Structured Process" (apropos Alfred North Whitehead: An Anthology, selected by F.S.C. Northrop and Mason Gross [New York: Macmillan, 1953]). Chicago Review 8, 2 (1954): 60-77. Chapter 7 of Whitehead's Philosophy.

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165. Review of F. W. Eggleston. Reflections of an Australian Liberal (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1953). Ethics 64, 4 (1954): 332. 166. "Biology and the Spiritual View of the World: A Comment on Dr. Birch's Paper." Christian Scholar 37, 3 (1954): 408-09. 167. "Russian Metaphysics: Some Reactions to Zenkovsky's History." Review of Metaphysics 8, 1 (1954): 61-78. Incorporated into chapter 11 ofLogic of Perfection. 168. "Causal Necessities: An Alternative to Hume." Philosophical Review 63, 4 (1954): 479-99. 169. Review of J. Defever, S. J. La Preuve reelle de Dieu (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1953). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15, 2 (1954): 285-86. 170. Review of Brand Blanshard. The Nature of Thought (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959). Philosophische Rundschau 3, 1-2 (1955): 119-20. 171. "Process as Inclusive Category: A Reply [to John E. Smith]." Journal of Philosophy 52, 4 (1955): 94-102. 172. Review of Eranos et al. Spirit and Nature, Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, vol. 1. (New York: Pantheon, 1954). Journal of Religion 35, 2 (1955): 106-07. 173. Review of Wilmon Henry Sheldon. God and Polarity (New Haven: Yale UP, 1954). Philosophical Review 64, 2 (1955): 312-16. Chapter 15 of Creativity in American Philosophy. 174. Panel Discussion: 1955 Edward Gallahuc Seminar in Religion and Psychology at the Menningcr Foundation. Passim. [Mimeographed.] 175. "Some Empty Though Important Truths: A Preface to Metaphysics." Review of Metaphysics 8, 4 (1955): 553-68. Reprinted in American Philosophers at Work: The Philosophic Scene in the United States, ed. Sidney Hook (New York: Criterion Books, 1956): 225-35. Chapter 12 of Logic of Perfection. 176. "The Unity of Man and the Unity of Nature." Emory University Quarterly 11, 3 (1955): 129-41. Chapter 13 of Logic of Perfection. 177. "Royce's Mistake and Achievement." Journal of Philosophy 53, 3 (1956): 123-30. Chapter 6 of Creativity in American Philosophy. 178. Panel Discussion: 1956 Edward Gallahuc Seminar in Religion and Psychology at the Menningcr Foundation. Passim. [Mimeographed.] 179. "The Idea of Creation." (Colloquium No. 8). Review of Metaphysics 9, 3 (1956): 46465. 180. Review of Robert Leet Patterson. Irrationalism and Rationalism in Religion (Durham: Duke UP, 1954). Review of Religion 20, 3-4 (1956): 211-13. 181. "The Idea of God Literal or Analogical?" Christian Scholar 29, 2 (1956): 131-36. Chapter 3 of Logic of Perfection. 182. Discussion: "New Propositions and New Truths." Review of Metaphysics 9, 4 (1956): 656-61. 183. "Two Strata of Meaning in Religious Discourse." Symposium on Philosophy of Religion, Southern Philosopher 5, 3 (1956): 4-7. Expanded in Logic of Perfection as chapter 4, "Three Strata of Meaning in Religious Discourse." [cf. item 282], 184. "Some Reflections Suggested by H. Wolfson's Philosophy of the Church Fathers, Vol. I: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation." (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1956). Collection of Reviews, Southern Society for Philosophy of Religion, J. R. Cresswell, Bibliographer (1957): 1-10. [Mimeographed]

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185. "Whitehead and Berdyaev: Is There Tragedy in God?" Journal of Religion 37, 2 (1957): 71-84. Chapter 13 of Whitehead's Philosophy. 186. Review of William Ernest Hocking. The Coming World Civilization (New York: Harper, 1956). Chicago Theological Seminary Register 47, 5 (1957): 21-22. Also published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17, 4 (1957): 562-63. 187. Review of Gerda Walter. Phanomenologie der Mystik (Olten und Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter-Verlag, 1955). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 18, 1 (1957): 140-41. 188. "Charles Peirce, Philosopher-Scientist." Charles Sanders Peirce Symposium, No.l. Journal of Public Law!, 1 (1958): 2-12. 189. "Whitehead on Process: A Reply to Professor Eslick." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 18,4(1958): 514-20. 190. "Science, Insecurity, and the Abiding Treasure." Journal of Religion 38, 3 (1958): 168-74. Abridged version in The Spirit of American Philosophy: An Anthology, selected, edited, and introduced by Gerald E. Myers (New York: Capricorn Books, 1971): 327-32. Incorporated into chapter 9 of Logic of Perfection. 191. "Outlines of a Philosophy of Nature, Part I." Personalis! 39, 3 (1958): 239-48. "Outlines of a Philosophy of Nature, Part II." Personalis! 39, 4 (1958): 380-91. 192. "Freedom Requires Indeterminism and Universal Causality" Journal of Philosophy 55, 19 (1958): 793-811. Chapter 6 of Logic of Perfection. 193. "Metaphysical Statements as Nonrcstrictive and Existential." Review of Metaphysics 12, 1 (1958): 35-47. Chapter 8 of Creative Synthesis. 194. "The Logical Structure of Givenncss." Philosophical Quarterly [Scotland] 8, 33 (1958): 307-16. 195. "The Philosophy of Creative Synthesis." Journal of Philosophy 55, 22 (1958): 944-53. Reprinted in Americana: A Monthly Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences [Tokyo] 5, 8 (1959): 80-90. Tokyo, U.S.I.S. In Japanese. EC 1968. Part of chapter 1 of Creative Synthesis, [cf. items 220, 221, and 415] 196. Discussion: "The Structure of Metaphysics: A Criticism of Lazerowitz's Theory." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 19, 2 (1958): 226-40. Incorporated into chapter 5 of Wisdom as Moderation. 197. "Four Unrefuted Forms of the Ontological Argument." Journal of Philosophical Studies [Kyoto, Japan] 40, 1 (1959): 1-15. In Japanese, with English Summary. 198. "A Philosopher's Assessment of Christianity." Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich, ed. Walter Leibrecht (New York: Harper, 1959): 167-80. 199. "John Wisdom On 'Gods': Two Views of the Logic of Theism." Downside Review [Bath, England] (1958-1959): 5-17. Chapter 5 of Logic of Perfection. 200. "The Principle of Shared Creativity." Unitarian Symposia No. 6, What Can Religion Offer Modern Man? (1959): 1-8. 201. "Freedom, Individuality, and Beauty in Nature." Snowy Egret 24, 2 (1960): 5-14. [Mimeographed] 202. "Equalitarianism and the Great Inequalities." Emory Alumnus 36, 7 (1960): 24-25, 49. 203. "Jinsei no mokuteki" ("The Aim of Life.") Trans. Toshio Mikoda, Tetsugaku Kenkyu [Journal of Philosophical Studies, Japan] 4 1 , 2 (1960): 1-13. 204. "The Buddhist-Whiteheadian View of the Self and the Religious Traditions." Proceedings of the Ninth Inlernational Congress for ihe Hislory of Religions (Tokyo and Kyoto: Maruzen, 1960 [1958]): 298-302.

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205. "Whitehead and Contemporary Philosophy." The Relevance of Whitehead: Philosophical Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Ivor Leclerc (London: Allen and Unwin, 1961): 21-43. Chapter 10 of Whitehead's Philosophy. 206. "Metaphysics and the Modality of Existential Judgments." The Relevance of Whitehead: Philosophical Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Ivor Leclerc (London: Allen and Unwin, 1961): 107-21. 207. "Hume's Metaphysics and Its Present-Day Influence." New Scholasticism 35, 2 (1961): 152-71. Chapter 13 of Insights and Oversights. 208. "The Social Structure of Experience." Philosophy 36, 137 (1961): 97-111. 209. "The Structure of Givenness." Philosophical Forum 18 (1960-1961): 22-39. Chapter 16 of Creativity in American Philosophy. Reprinted as Appendix 2 of Hartshorne and Brightman on God. 210. "God's Existence: A Conceptual Problem." Religious Experience and Truth: A Symposium, ed. Sidney Hook (New York UP, 1961): 211-19. 211. Discussion: "Professor Hall on Perception." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 21, 4 (1961): 563-71. 212. "Tillich and the Other Great Tradition." Anglican Theological Review 43, 3 (1961): 245-59. Part of chapter 7 in Creative Synthesis. 213. "The Logic of the Ontological Argument." Journal of Philosophy 58, 17 (1961): 47173. 214. Discussion: "Absolute Objects and Relative Subjects: A Reply [to F. H. Parker]." Review of Metaphysics 15, 1 (1961): 174-88. 215. "Man in Nature." Experience, Existence, and the Good: Essays in Honor of Paul Weiss, ed. Irwin C. Lieb (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1961): 89-99. 216. "Whitehead, the Anglo-American Philosopher-Scientist." Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (Washington: Catholic U of America, 1961): 163-71. Chapter 9 of Whitehead's Philosophy. 217. Introduction to Second Edition, Saint Anselm: Basic Writings. Trans. S. W. Deane (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1962): 1-19. 218. "The Modern World and a Modern View of God." Crane Review 4, 2 (1962): 73-85. Also in Philosophy of Religion: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Norbert O. Schedler (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1974): 469-79. 219. "What Did Anselm Discover?" Union Seminary Quarterly Review 17, 3 (1962): 213222. An expanded version published in The Many-Faced Argument, cds. John Hick and Arthur C. McGill (New York: Macmillan, 1967): 321-33. The 1962 version of the paper is reprinted as chapter 8 oflnsights and Oversights. 220. "La Crcatividad Participada." Trans. Sira Jaen. Revista de Filosofia de la Universidad de Costa Rica 3, 11 (1962): 237-44. Spanish version of most of chapter 1 of Creative Synthesis, [cf. items 195, 221, and 415] 221. "Religion and Creative Experience." Darshana, an International Quarterly of Philosophy, Psychology, Psychical Research, Religion, Mysticism, and Sociology [India] 2, 1 (1962): 47-52. Also in Unitarian Register and Universalist Leader 141, 6 (1962): 911. Part of Chapter 1 of Creative Synthesis, [cf. items 195, 220, and 415] 222. "Mind as Memory and Creative Love." Theories of the Mind, ed. Jordan M. Scher .:,. (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962): 440-63.

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223. Discussion: "How Some Speak and Yet Do Not Speak of God." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 23, 2 (1962): 274-76. Part of chapter 5 of Wisdom as Moderation. 224. "Individual Differences and the Ideal of Equality." New South 18, 2 (1963): 3-8. Chapter 14 of Zero Fallacy. 225. "Alternative Conceptions of God." Religious Belief and Philosophical Thought, ed. William P. Alston (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1963): 320-37. Reprinted from Man's Vision of God. 226. "Further Fascination of the Ontological Argument: Replies to Richardson." Union Seminary Quarterly Review 18, 3 [Part I] (1963): 244-45. 227. "Whitehead's Novel Intuition." Alfred North Whitehead: Essays On His Philosophy, ed. George L. Kline (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963): 18-26. Chapter 11 of Whitehead's Philosophy. 228. "Sensation in Psychology and Philosophy." Southern Journal of Philosophy 1, 2 (1963): 3-14. 229. "Rationale of the Ontological Proof." Theology Today 20, 2 (1963): 278-83. 230. "Whitehead's Conception of God" and "Whitehead's Theory of Prehension." In Actus: Segundo Congreso Extraordinario Inter-americano de Filosofia, 22-26 Julio, 1961 (San Jose, Costa Rica: Imprcnta Nacional, 1963 [misprinted 1962]): 163-170. 231. Communication: "Finite or Finite-Infinite?" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 24, 1 (1963): 149. 232. "Real Poss\bmy." Journal of Philosophy 60, 21 (1963): 593-605. 233. "Present Prospects for Metaphysics." The Monist 47, 2 (1963): 188-210. Reprinted in Process Philosophy: Basic Writings, cds. Jack R. Sibley and Pete A. Y. Gunter (Washington D.C.: UP of America, 1978): 199-212. Chapter 3 of Creative Synthesis. 234. "Man's Fragmentariness." Wesleyan Studies in Religion 41, 6 (1963-1964): 17-28. Chapter 6 of Wisdom as Moderation. 235. "Abstract and Concrete in God: A Reply [to Julian Hartt]." Review of Metaphysics 17, 2 (1963): 289-95. 236. "Santayana's Defiant Eclecticism." Journal of Philosophy 6 1 , 1 (1964): 35-44. Reprinted in Animal Faith and Spiritual Life, ed. John Lachs (New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts, 1967): 33-43. Chapter 10 of Creativity in American Philosophy. 237. "Thinking About Thinking Machines." Texas Quarterly 7, 1 (1964): 131-40. 238. Discussion: "What the Ontological Proof Does Not Do." Review of Metaphysics 17, 4 (1964): 608-09. 239. "From Colonial Beginnings to Philosophical Greatness." The Monist 48, 3 (1964): 317-31. Chapter 1 of Creativity in American Philosophy. 240. Comments and Criticism: "Deliberation and Excluded Middle." Journal of Philosophy 61, 16 (1964): 476-77. 241. Replies to "Interrogation of Charles Hartshorne, conducted by William Alston." Philosophical Interrogations, eds. Sydney and Beatrice Rome (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964): 321-54. Questions to: John Wild, 158-160; Brand Blanshard, 205; Paul Tillich, 374-375. 242. "Is God's Existence a State of Affairs?" Faith and the Philosophers, ed. John Hick (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964): 26-33. 243. "El valor como disfrute del contraste y la teoria acumulativa del proceso." Trans. J. L. Gonzalez, Dianoia, Annuario de Filosofia 10 (1964): 182-194.

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244. "Charles Peirce's 'One Contribution to Philosophy' and His Most Serious Mistake." Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. Second Series, eds. Edward G. Moore and Richard S. Robin (Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1964): 455-74. 245. "Negative Facts and the Analogical Inference to 'Other Mind'." Dr. S. Radhakrishan Souvenir Volume, eds. Prof. J. P. Atreya et al. (Moradabad [India]: Darshana International, 1964): 147-52. 246. "The Idea of a Worshipful Being." Southern Journal of Philosophy 2, 4 (1964): 16567. 247. "God as the Supreme Relativity." Japanese Religions 4, 1 (1964): 30-33. 248. "The Necessarily Existent." The Ontological Argument, ed. Alvin Plantinga (New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1965): 123-35. Reprinted in Philosophy of Religion, eds. George L. Abcrnethy and Thomas A. Langford, 2 nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1968): 238-47. Chapter 9 of Man 's Vision of God. 249. "The Meaning o f ' I s Going to B e ' . " M / W 7 4 , 293 (1965): 46-58. 250. "The Theistic Proofs." Union Seminary Quarterly Review 20, 2 (1965): 115-29. Chapter 2 of Natural Theology. 251. "Abstract and Concrete Approaches to Deity." Union Seminary Quarterly Review 20, 3 (1965): 265-70. 252. "A Metaphysics of Individualism." Innocence and Power: Individualism in TwentiethCentury America, ed. Gordon Mills (Austin: U of Texas P, 1965): 131-46. 253. "Determinism, Memory, and the Metaphysics of Becoming." Pacific Philosophy Forum 4, 4 (1965): 81-85. 254. "The Social Theory of Feelings." Southern Journal of Philosophy 3, 2 (1965): 87-93. Reprinted in Persons, Privacy, and Feeling: Essays in the Philosophy of Mind, ed. Dwight Van dc Vatc, Jr. (Memphis: Memphis State UP, 1970): 39-51. 255. "The Development of Process Philosophy." Introduction to Philosophers of Process, ed. Douglas Browning (New York: Random House, 1965): v-xii. Also published in Process Theology: Basic Writings, ed. Ewert H. Cousins (New York: Newman P, 1971): 47-64. 256. "Religious Aspects of Necessity and Contingency." Great Issues Concerning Theism, ed. Charles H. Monson, Jr. (Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1965): 147-64. Reprinted in And More About God, eds. Lewis M. Rogers and Charles H. Monson, Jr. (Salt Lake City: U or Utah P, 1969): 145-61. 257. "Criteria for Ideas of God." Rice University Studies 51, 4 (1965): 85-95. Also in Insight and Vision: Essays in Philosophy in Honor of Radoslav Andrea Tsanoff, ed. Konstantin Kolenda (San Antonio: Principia P of Trinity University, 1966): 85-95. 258. "Comment." The Creative Advance, by Eugene H. Peters (St. Louis: Bethany P, 1966): 133-43. 259. "The Two Possible Philosophical Definitions of God." In Actus: XIII Congreso Inlernacional de Filosofia, volumen 9 (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1966): 121. 260. "A New Look at the Problem of Evil." Current Philosophical Issues: Essays in Honor of Curt John Ducasse, ed. Frederick C. Dommeyer (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1966): 201-12. 261. "Idealism and Our Experience of Nature." Philosophy, Religion, and the Coming World Civilization: Essays in Honor of William Ernest Hocking, ed. Leroy S. Rouner

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262.

263. 264. 265. 266.

267.

268. 269.

270.

271. 272. 273. 274. 275. 276.

,,., 277. 278.

279. 280.

(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966): 70-80. Chapter 12 of Creativity in American Philosophy. "Tillich and the Non-theological Meaning of Theological Terms." Religion in Life 35, 5 (1966): 674-85. Reprinted in Paul Tillich: Retrospect and Future [pamphlet]. (Nashville: Abingdon P, 1966): 19-30. "Some Reflections on Metaphysics and Language." Foundations of Language: International Journal of Language and Philosophy 2, 1 (1966): 20-32. "Is the Denial of Existence Ever Contradictory?" Journal of Philosophy 63, 4 (1966): 85-93. Author's abstract in The Review of Metaphysics 19, 4 (1966): 836. "The Idea of Creativity in American Philosophy." Journal of Kamatak University [India]: Social Sciences II (1966): 1-13. Review of N. S. Srivastava. Contemporary Indian Philosophy (Delhi: M.R.M. Lai, 1965). Research Journal of Philosophy (Ranchi University [India]) 1, 1 (1966): MOIL "Religion in Process Philosophy." Religion in Philosophical and Cultural Perspective, eds. J. Clayton Feaver and William Horosz (Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Co, 1967): 246-58. "Royce and the Collapse of Idealism." Revue internationale de philosophie 23, 79-80 (1967, Fasc. 1-2): 46-59. "Kagaku, Geijyutsu, Shukyo-Kofuku no Gcnscn to shite no." ("Science, Art, and Religion as Sources of Happiness") Trans. Matao Noda. Japan-American Forum 13, 3 (1967): 47-66. "God and the Social Structure of Reality," "The Significance of Man in the Life of God," and Answers to Questions. Theology in Crisis: A Colloquium on 'The Credibility of God'(New Concord, Ohio: Muskingum College, 1967): 19-32, 40-43, 44-50. "Pantheism." Encyclopedia firitannica, Vol. 17 (1967): 233-34. "Psychology and the Unity of Knowledge." Southern Journal of Philosophy 5, 2 (1967): 81-90. "The Dipolar Conception of Deity." Review of Metaphysics 21,2(1967): 273-89. "Necessity." Review of Metaphysics 21,2 (1967): 290-96. "Rejoinder to Purtill." Review of Metaphysics 2 1 , 2 (1967): 308-09. "Martin Buber's Metaphysics." The Philosophy of Martin liuber, eds. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 12 (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1967): 49-68. Also published as "Martin Buber's Metaphysik" in Martin Buber, herausgegeben von Schilpp u. Friedman (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1963): 42-61. "What Metaphysics Is." Journal of Kamatak University: Social Sciences III (1967): 1 15. Chapter 2 of Creative Synthesis; Chapter 6 of Zero Fallacy. "The Irreducibly Modal Structure of the Argument." The Many-Faced Argument, eds. John Hick and Arthur C. McGill (New York: Macmillan, 1967): 334-40. Reprinted from chapter 2, part VI of Logic of Perfection. "Process Philosophy as a Resource for Christian Thought." Philosophical Resources for Christian Thought, ed. Perry LeFevre (Nashville: Abingdon P, 1968): 44-66. "The Divine Relativity." Philosophy of Religion, eds. George L. Abemethy and Thomas A. Langford. 2 nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1968): 321-29. From Divine Relativity.

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281. "Order and Chaos." The Concept of Order, ed. Paul G. Kuntz (Seattle: U of Washington P, 1968): 253-67. 282. "Three Strata of Meaning in Religious Discourse." Philosophy and Religion: Some Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Jerry H. Gill (Minneapolis: Burgess, 1968): 173-82. Chapter 4 of Logic of Perfection, [cf. item 183], 283. "The Aesthetics of Birdsong." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 26, 3 (1968): 311-15. 284. "Kant's Refutation Still Not Convincing: A Reply [to W. H. Baumer]." The Monist 52, 2 (1968): 312-16. 285. "Lewis's Treatment of Memory." The Philosophy of C. I. Lewis, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 13 (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1968): 395-414. Chapter 13 of Creativity in American Philosophy. 286. "Armchair and Laboratory: A Philosopher Looks at Psychology." Newsletter, Division 24 of the American Psychological Association 2, 3 (1968): 1-4. 287. "Born Equal: The Importance and Limitations of an Ideal." Parables and Problems (Winona, Minnesota: College of St. Teresa, 1968): 59-71. [Mimeographed] 288. "The Case for Idealism." Philosophical Forum 1, 1 (1968): 7-23. 289. "The God of Religion and the God of Philosophy." Talk of God: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. Two—1967-1968 (London: Macmillan, 1969): 152-67. Originally Broadcast Monday, June 10, 1968, BBC London Third Programme, The Listener. 290. "Duality versus Dualism and Monism "Japanese Religions 5, 1 (1969): 51-63. 291. "Leibniz und das Geheimnis der Materie." Studia Leibnitiana: Akten des Internationalen Leibniz-Kongresses, Hannover, 14-19 November 1966, Band H: Mathematik-Naturwissenschaften (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1969): 166-75. 292. "Whitehead in French Perspective: A Review Article." [Review of Alix Parmcnticr, La Philosophic de Whitehead el le prohleme de Dieu (Paris: Beauchcsne, 1968)]. Thomist 33, 3 (1969): 573-81. 293. Response to Directives from Charles Hartshorne and Henry Nelson Wieman Critically Analyzed: Philosophy of Creativity Monograph Series, Vol. 1, ed. William S. Minor (Carbondale: The Foundation for Creative Philosophy, Inc., 1969): 33-42. 294. "Divine Absoluteness and Divine Relativity." Transcendence, eds. Herbert W. Richardson and Donald R. Cutler (Boston: Beacon P, 1969): 164-71. 295. "Metaphysics in North America." Contemporary Philosophy: A Survey, ed. Raymond Klibansky (Florence: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1969): 36-49. 296. "Whitehead and Ordinary Language." Southern Journal of Philosophy 7, 4 (19691970): 437-45. Chapter 12 of Whitehead's Philosophy. 297. Preface of Berdyaev's Philosophy of History, ed. David Bonner Richardson (The Hague: Martinus Nihjoff, 1970): ix-xiii. 298. "Why Study Birds?" Virginia Quarterly Review 46, 1 (1970): 133-40. 299. "Recollections of Famous Philosophers and Other Important Persons." Southern Journal of Philosophy 8, 1 (1970): 67-82. Chapter 13 of Darkness and Light. 300. "Two Forms of Idolatry." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1, 1 (1970): 3-15. 301. "Six Theistic Proofs." Monist 54, 2 (1970): 159-80. Chapter 14 of Creative Synthesis.

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302. "Equality, Freedom, and the Insufficiency of Empiricism." Southern Journal of Philosophy 1, 3 (1970): 20-27. 303. "Eternity," "Absolute," "God." Prophetic Voices: Ideas and Words on Revolution, ed. Ned O'Gorman (New York: Random House, 1969; New York: Vintage Books, 1970): 130-48. 304. "The Development of My Philosophy." Contemporary American Philosophy: Second Series, ed. John E. Smith (London: Allen & Unwin, 1970): 211-28. 305. "Ontological Primacy: A Reply to Buchler." Journal of Philosophy 67, 23 (1970): 979-86. Reprinted in Explorations in Whitehead's Philosophy, eds. Lewis S. Ford and George L. Kline (New York: Fordham UP, 1983): 295-303. 306. "Charles Hartshorne's Recollections of Editing the Peirce Papers." Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 6, 3-4 (1970): 149-59. 307. "Deity as the Inclusive Transcendence." Evolution in Perspective: Commentaries in Honor of Pierre Lecomte du Noiiy, eds. George N. Shuster and Ralph E. Thorson (Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1970): 155-60. 308. "The Formally Possible Doctrines of God." Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. John Hick. Second Edition. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970): 336-57. Also printed in Process Philosophy and Christian Thought, eds. Dclwin Brown, Ralph E. James, Jr., and Gene Reeves (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mcrrill, 1971): 188-214. Chapter 1 o( Man 's Vision of God. 309. "Mind and Matter in Ryle, Ayer, and C. I. Lewis." Idealistic Studies 1, 1 (1971): 1332. Chapter 24 of Insights and Oversights. 310. "Arc There Absolutely Specific Universals?" Journal of Philosophy 68, 3 (1971): 7678. 311. "Can Man Transcend His Animality?" The Monist 55, 2 (1971): 208-217. Chapter 7 of Wisdom as Moderation. 312. "Selfishness in Man." PUP [Peace Happiness Prosperity] 1, 8 (1971): 24-25. 313. "Could There Have Been Nothing? A Reply [to Houston Craighead]." Process Studies 1, 1 (1971): 25-28. 314. "Expression and Association." Artistic Expression, ed. John Hospers (New York: Appleton-Ccntury-Crofts, 1971): 204-17. Chapter 5, Section 23 of Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation. 315. "Obligability and Determinism." Journal of Social Philosophy 2, 2 (1971): 1-2. Reprinted in Philosophy for a Changing Society, ed. Creighton Peden (Reynoldsburg, Ohio: Advocate Publishing Co., 1982): 95-96. 316. "Philosophical and Religious Uses of 'God'." Process Theology: Basic Writings, ed. Ewert H. Cousins (New York: Newman P, 1971): 101-18. Chapter 1 of Natural Theology. 317. "Can There Be Proofs for the Existence of God?" Religious Language and Knowledge, eds. Robert H. Ayers and William T. Blackstone (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1972): 62-75. 318. "Mortimer Adler as Philosopher: A Criticism and Appreciation." American Scholar 41, 2 (1972): 269-74. Chapter 19 of Creativity in American Philosophy. 319. "A Conversation with Charles Hartshorne at Hiram College." Edited by Eugene Peters. Eclectic: A Journal of Ideas 1, 1 (1972): 1-18. 320. Review of Paul Ramsay. Fabricated Man (New Haven: Yale UP, 1970). Philosophy Forum 12, 1 & 2 (1972): 149-52.

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321. Review of Paul Weiss. The God We Seek (Carbondale: Southern Illinois P, 1964). Review of Metaphysics 25 [supplement] (1972): 108-16. Chapter 19 of Creativity in American Philosophy. 322. "Personal Identity from A to Z." Process Studies 2, 3 (1972): 209-15. 323. Feature Book Review: "Some Thoughts Suggested by [Irwin C ] Lieb's Four Faces of Man." (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1971). International Philosophical Quarterly 13, 1 (1973): 131-34. 324. "Some Thoughts on 'Souls' and Neighborly Love." Anglican Theological Review 55, 2(1973): 144-47. 325. "Analysis and Cultural Lag in Philosophy." Southern Journal of Philosophy 11, 2-3 (1973): 105-12. 326. "Being and Becoming: Review of Harold N. Lee. Percepts, Concepts, and Theoretic Knowledge." Review of Books and Religion 2, 9 (1973): 7. 327. "Process and the Nature of God." Traces of God in a Secular Culture, ed. George F. McLean, O.M.I (New York: Alba House, 1973): 117-41. 328. "Creativity and the Deductive Logic of Causality." Review of Metaphysics 27, 1 (1973): 62-74. 329. "Pensees sur ma vie," 26-32; "Thoughts on my Life," 60-66. Bilingual Journal, Lecomtc du Noiiy Association 5 (1973). 330. "Charles Pcircc and Quantum Mechanics." Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 9, 4 (1973): 191-201. See also Abstracts of Communications Sent to the XVth World Congress of Philosophy. Varna, Sept. 17-22, 1973. Bulgarian Organizing Committee, International Federation of Philosophical Societies. 331. "Husserl and Whitehead on the Concrete." Phenomenology: Continuation and Criticism—Essays in Memory of Dorion Cairns, eds. F. Kersten and R. Zaner (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973): 90-104. Chapter 23 oUnsights and Oversights. 332. "Ideas and Theses of Process Philosophers." Two Process Philosophers: llartshorne's Encounter with Whitehead. Lewis S. Ford, ed. AAR Studies in Religion Number Five (Tallahassee, Florida: American Academy of Religion, 1973): 100-03. 333. "Science and Quality." Sound Seminars: Tapes in Philosophy. New York: McGrawHill, 1954, 1973. 334. "Contribuciones Permanentes dc Spinoza." [Spanish translation of "Spinoza's Permanent Contributions."] Folia humanistica: ciencias, artes, letras 12 (1974): 121-29. 335. "Twelve Elements of My Philosophy." Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 5, 1 (1974): 7-15. 336. Abstract: "Do Philosophers Know That They Have Bodies?" Abstracts of Papers, 1974. Annual Conference of the Australasian Association of Philosophy (Canberra: Australian National U, 1974): 7-8. 337. "Philosophy after Fifty Years." Mid-Twentieth Century American Philosophy: Personal Statements, ed. Peter A. Bertocci (New York: Humanities P, 1974): 140-54. 338. "The Environmental Results of Technology." Philosophy and Environmental Crisis, ed. William T. Blackstone (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1974): 69-78. 339. "Beyond Enlightened Self-interest: A Metaphysics of Ethics." Ethics 84, 3 (1974): 201-16. Reprinted in Religious Experience and Process Theology, eds. Harry James Cargas and Bernard Lee (New York: Paulist P, 1976): 301-322. Also published in Process Philosophy: Basic Writings, eds. Jack R. Sibley and Pete A. Y. Gunter (Washington, D.C.: UP of America, 1978): 395-416. Chapter 12 of Zero Fallacy.

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340. "Perception and the Concrete Abstractness of Science." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 34, 4 (1974): 465-76. Chapter 9 of Zero Fallacy. 341. "The Nature of Philosophy." Philosophy in Context: An Experiment in Teaching, Vol. 4, ed. Leslie Armour (Cleveland State UP, 1975): 7-16. 342. "Love and Dual Transcendence." Union Seminary Quarterly Review 30, 2-4 (1975): 94-100. 343. "Whitehead's Differences from Buddhism." Philosophy East and West 25, 4 (1975): 407-13. 344. "Whitehead and Leibniz: A Comparison." Contemporary Studies in Philosophical Idealism, eds. John Howie and Thomas O. Buford (Cape Cod, Massachusetts: Claude Starke, 1975): 95-115. 345. "Do Birds Enjoy Singing? (An Ornitho-Philosophical Discourse)." Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society 8 (1975): 2-5. Chapter 2 of Zero Fallacy. 346. "The Centrality of Reason in Philosophy (Replies to Questions for Charles Hartshorne)." Philosophy in Context, Supplement to Volume 4 (1975): 5-11. 347. Discussion: "Synthesis as Polyadic Inclusion: A Reply to Sessions." Southern Journal of Philosophy 14, 2 (1976): 245-55. 348. "Mysticism and Rationalistic Metaphysics." The Monist 59, 4 (1976): 463-69. Also published in Understanding Mysticism, ed. Richard Woods (Garden City, New York: Image, 1980): 415-21. 349. "Psychicalism and the Leibnizian Principle." Studia Lcibnitiana 8, 2 (1976): 154-59. Chapter 8 of Zero Fallacy. 350. "Why Psychicalism? Comments on Keeling's and Shepherd's Criticisms." Process Studies 6, 1 (1976): 67-72. 351. "Additional Reflections." [On Jean-Marie Breuvart's Les Directives de la Symbolisation ct les Modeles de Reference dans la Philosophic d'A. N. Whitehead). Process Studies7,4(\9n):27\-14. 352. "Bell's Theorem and Stapp's Revised View of Space-time." Process Studies 7, 3 (1977): 183-91. 353. "The Books That Shape Lives: Book Choices of Charles Hartshorne." Christian Century 44, 30 (1977): 860. 354. "Cobb's Theology of Ecology." John Cobb's Theology in Process, eds. David Ray Griffin and Thomas J. J. Altizer (Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1977): 112-15. 355. "The Duty to Happiness." Catalyst Tape Talk 9, 5 (1977): 4. 356. "John Hick on Logical and Ontological Necessity." Religious Studies 13, 2 (1977): 155-65. 357. "The Neglect of Relative Predicates in Modern Philosophy." American Philosophical Quarterly 14, 4 (1977): 309-18. Chapter 14 oflnsights and Oversights. 358. "Physics and Psychics: The Place of Mind in Nature." Mind in Nature: Essays on the Interface of Science and Philosophy, eds. John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin (Washington, D.C.: UP of America, 1977): 89-96; also in this volume, "Response to Arthur Koestler's 'Free Will in a Hierarchic Context'," 66 and "Response to Bernhard Rensch's 'Arguments for Panpsychistic Identism'," 78. 359. "Whitehead's Metaphysical System." Trans. Schubert M. Ogden (from "Das metaphysische System Whiteheads"). A Rational Faith: Essays in Honor of Rabbi Levi A. Olan, ed. Jack Bemporad (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1977): 107-123. German original in Zeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung 3, 4 (1949):

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360.

361.

362. 363.

364.

365.

366.

367. 368.

369. 370. 371. 372.

373. 374. 375. 376.

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566-575. German version also in Whitehead: Einfuhrung in seine Kosmologie. Beitrage von Gemot Bohme, Charles Hartshorne, u.s.w. Herausgegeben von Ernest Wolf-Gazo (Freiburg/Miinchen: Verlag Karl Albers, 1980): 28-44. "The Acceptance of Death." Philosophical Aspects of Thanatology, Vol. 1. eds. Florence M. Hetzler and Austin H. Kutscher (New York: MSS Information Corporation, 1978): 83-87. "Can We Understand God?" Louvain Studies 7, 2 (1978): 75-84. Reprinted in Framing a Vision of the World: Essays in Philosophy, Science and Religion, eds. Andre Cloots and Santiago Sia (Leuven UP, 1999): 87-97. Foreword to The Ontological Argument of Charles Hartshorne by George L. Goodwin (Missoula, MT: Scholars P, 1978): xi-xviii. "Foundations for a Humane Ethics: What Human Beings Have in Common with Other Higher Animals." On the Fifth Day: Animal Rights and Human Ethics, eds. Richard K. Morris and Michael W. Fox (Washington, DC: Acropolis Books, 1978): 154-72. "The Individual is a Society." The Individual and Society: Essays Presented to David L Miller on His Seventy-fifth Birthday, eds. Michael P. Jones, Patricia O.F. Nobo, Jorge L. Nobo, and Yen-ling Chang. Southwestern Journal of Philosophy (1978): 7388. "A New World and a New World View." The Life of Choice, ed. Clark Kucheman (Boston: Beacon P, 1978): 82-92. (First given as a speech at University of Texas graduation convocation, 1976.) "The Organism According to Process Philosophy." Organism, Medicine, and Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of Hans Jones on his 75,h Birthday, May Wh, 1978, ed. Stuart Spickcr (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1978): 137-54. Also in Process in Context: Essays in Post-Whiteheadian Perspectives, ed. Ernest Wolf-Gazo (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1988): 69-92. "Panpsychism: Mind as Sole Reality." Ultimate Reality and Meaning 1, 2 (1978): 11529. "A Philosophy of Death." Philosophical Aspects of Thanatology, Vol. 2. eds. Florence M. Hetzler and A. 11. Kutscher (New York: MSS Information Corporation, 1978): 8189. Preface to Process Philosophy: Basic Writings, eds. Jack R. Sibley and Pete A. Y. Guntcr (Washington D.C.: UP of America, 1978): 1-7. "Reply to Eugene H. Peters." Ultimate Reality and Meaning 1, 3 (1978): 233-34. "Theism in Asian and Western Thought." Philosophy East and West 28, 4 (1978): 401-11. "The Mystery of Omnipotence is Too Deep for Human Reason." The Power of God: Readings on Omnipotence and Evil, eds. Linwood Urban and Douglas N. Walton (New York: Oxford UP, 1978): 249-251. Retitled excerpt from Natural Theology, 116-20. "'Emptiness' and Fullness in Asiatic and Western Thought." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 6 (1979): 411-20. "Charles Morris." Semiotica 28, 3-4 (1979): 193-94. "God and Nature." Anticipation 25 (1979): 58-64. "The Rights of the Subhuman World." Environmental Ethics: An Interdisciplinary Journal Dedicated to the Philosophical Aspects of Environmental Problems 1, 1 (1979): 49-60. German translation by Dr. Use Todt: "Rechte—nicht nur fUr die

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377. 378. 379. 380. 381.

382. 383. 384. 385. 386.

387. 388. 389.

390.

391. 392. 393.

394. 395.

Menschen" published in Zeitschrift fiir Evangelische Ethik 22, 1 (1978): 3-14. English original published as chapter 9 of Wisdom as Moderation. "Metaphysics Contributes to Ornithology." Theoria to Theory 13, 2 (1979): 127-40. Chapter 8 of Wisdom as Moderation. "Whitehead's Revolutionary Concept of Prehension." International Philosophical Quarterly 19, 3 (1979): 253-63. Chapter 9 of Creativity in American Philosophy. "Process Themes in Chinese Thought." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 6 (1979): 32336. Interview with Charles Hartshorne [conducted by Santiago Sia]. Miltown Studies 4 (1979): 1-23. "Philosophy and Religion." Program of the International Congress of Philosophy on "Contemporary Problems of Philosophy and Religion" at I'll Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan (Dec. 28, 1979-Jan. 4, 1980): 26. "James' Empirical Pragmatism." American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 1, 1 (1980): 14-20. Chapter 5 of Creativity in American Philosophy. "My Neoclassical Metaphysics." Tijdschrift voor Philosophic 42, 1 (1980): 3-10. "In Defense of Wordsworth's View of Nature." Philosophy & Literature 4, 1 (1980): 80-91. Review of Karol Wojlyla. The Acting Person (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1979). Philosophy and I'henomenological Research 40, 3 (1980): 443-44. "Ethics and the Process of Living." Man and His Conduct: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Risieri Frondizi, cd. Jorge J. E. Gracia (Rio Picdras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Universitaria, 1980): 191-202. "Pepper's Approach to Metaphysics." Root Metaphor: The Live Thought of Stephen ('. Pepper. PAUNCH #53-54 (1980): 80-81. "Understanding Freedom and Suffering." Catalyst Tape Talk 12, 9 (1980): 4-5 [cut and edited without consultation with author. Also, recorded tape available] "A Revision of Peircc's Categories." The Monist 63, 3 (1980): 277-89. Reprinted in The Relevance of Charles Peine, cd. Eugene Freeman (La Salic, Illinois: Monist Library of Philosophy, 1983): 80-92. Chapter 7 of Creativity in American Philosophy. "Understanding as Seeing to be Necessary." The Philosophy of lirand lilanshard, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 15 (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1980): 629-35. "Response to Robert Neville's Creativity and Cod." Process Studies 10, 3-4 (1980): 93-97. "A Conversation between Charles Hartshorne and Jan Van dcr Veken." Louvain Studies VII, 2 (1980): 129-42. "Concerning Abortion: An Attempt at a Rational View." The Christian Century 98, 2 (1981): 42-45. Reprinted in Speak Out Against the New Right, ed. Herbert F. Vcttcr (Boston: Beacon P, 1982): 152-57. Also reprinted in The Ethics of Abortion, first edition, eds. Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1989): 109-14. "The Ethics of Contributionism." Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental Ethics, ed. Ernest Partridge (Buffalo: Prometheus P, 1981): 103-07. "Critical Study: A Neglected Nonacademic Philosopher" [on Rudolf Jordan]. Process Studies 11, 3 (1981): 213-15.

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396. "Neoclassical Metaphysics." Philosophers on Their Own Work, Vol. 8. Bern, Frankfurt, Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1981): 63-104. In French and English. Includes a list of publications. 397. "Science as the Search for the Hidden Beauty of the World." The Aesthetic Dimension of Science 1980 Nobel Conference, Number 16, ed. Deane W. Curtin (New York: Philosophical Library, 1982): 85-106. See also pp. 107, 108, 117, 119-120, 123-125, 128-129, 130, 131, 137, 140, 143. 398. "Creative Interchange and Neoclassical Metaphysics." Creative Interchange (Boston U Studies in Philosophy and Religion. General Editor, Leroy S. Rouner, 1982): 10721. 399. "Grounds for Believing in God's Existence." Meaning, Truth, and Cod, ed. Leroy S. Rouner (Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1982): 17-33. 400. Review of Daniel A. Dombrowski. Plato's Philosophy of History (Washington, D.C.: UP of America, 1981). Process Studies 12, 3 (1982): 201-02. 401. "Ansclm and Aristotle's First Law of Modality." Anselm Studies: An Occasional Journal 1 (1983): 51-58. 402. Review of George R. Lucas, Jr. The (lenesis of Modern Process Thought: A Historical Outline with Bibliography (Metuchen, N. J. and London: Scarecrow P, 1983). Process Studies 13,2(1983): 176-79. 403. "Categories, Transccndcntals, and Creative Experiencing." 77ie Monist 66, 3 (1983): 319-35. 404. "Pcirce's Fresh Look at Philosophical Problems." Krisis 1, 1 (1983): 1-5. 405. "Taking Freedom Seriously." Lowell Lecture, 1983. Cambridge Forum, taped lecture # 471 (June 25, 1983) (3 Church Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138). Unpublished paper that was also presented as a sermon at the First Unitarian Church in Oklahoma City on February 22, 1981. 406. "God and the Meaning of Life." On Nature, ed. Leroy S. Rouner. Boston U Studies in Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 6 (Notre Dame, Indiana: U of Notre Dame P, 1984): 154-68. 407. "Toward a Buddhist-Christian Religion." Buddhism and American Thinkers, eds. Kenneth K. Inada and Nolan P. Jacobson (Albany: State U of New York P, 1984): 1-13. 408. "lndeterministic Freedom as Universal Principle." Journal of Social Philosophy 15 (1984): 5-11. 409. "Marcel on God and Causality." The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, eds. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Lewis Edwin Hahn. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 17 (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1984): 353-66. 410. "How I got that way," Existence and Actuality: Conversations with Charles Hartshorne, eds. John B. Cobb, Jr., and F. I. Gamwell (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984): ix-xvii. Responses to: Eugene H. Peter, 12-15; Schubert M. Ogden, 37-42; Richard M. Martin, 66-77; William P. Alston, 98-102; John E. Smith, 109-12; Paul Weiss, 121-29; Manley Thompson, 143-48; John B. Cobb, Jr., 164-66; George Wolf, 184-88. 411. "Whitehead as Central but not Sole Philosopher of Process." Whitehead und der Prozessbegriff, eds. Harold Holz and Ernest Wolf-Gazo (Freiburg, Nunchen: Karl Alber, 1984): 34-38. From Proceedings of the First International Whitehead Symposium, eds. Harold Holz and Emest Wolf-Gazo, 1981.

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412. Foreword to Divine Omniscience and Human Freedom: Thomas Aquinas and Charles Hartshorne by John Moskop (Georgia: Mercer UP, 1984): ix-xi. 413. "Theistic Proofs and Disproofs: The Findlay Paradox." Studies in the Philosophy of J. N. Findlay, eds. Robert S. Cohen, Richard M. Martin, and Merold Westphal (Albany: State U of New York P, 1985): 224-34. 414. "Creativity as a Value and Creativity as a Transcendental Category." Creativity in Art, Religion, and Culture, ed. Michael H. Mitias ([Elementa: Schriften Zur Philosophic und Ihrer Problemgeschichte, ed. Rudolph Berlinger and Wiebke Schrader. Band 42 1985] Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1985): 3-11. 415. "A Philosophy of Shared Creative Experience." American Philosophy: A Historical Anthology, ed. with commentary, Barbara McKinnon (Albany: State U of New York P, 1985): 414-27. Chapter 1 of Creative Synthesis, [cf. items 195, 220, and 221] 416. Foreword to Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God by Donald Wayne Viney (Albany: State U of New York P, 1985): viii-x. 417. "Process Theology in Historical and Systematic Contexts." Modern Schoolman 62, 4 (1985): 221-31. 418. Postscript to God in Process Thought. A Study in Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God by Santiago Sia (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijoff Publishing, 1985): 113-23. 419. "Scientific and Religious Aspects of Bioethics." Theology and Bioethics, ed. E. E. Schelp (Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster, Tokyo: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1985): 27-44. 420. "Our Knowledge of God." Knowing Religiously. Boston U Studies in Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 7, ed. Lcroy S. Rouncr (Notre Dame, Indiana: U of Notre Dame P, 1985): 52-63. 421. "Reeves and Stearns on My Idealism." American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 7, 1 (1986): 45-50. 422. "Some Perspectives on Chinese Philosophy." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 13 (1986): 267-70. Also published in Philosophic et Culture Actes du XVIIe Congres Mondial dc Philosophie. Edition Montmorency, Montreal, 1988: 249-51. 423. "Metaphysics and the Dual Transcendence of God." Tulane Studies in Philosophy, "Hartshorne's Neoclassical Theology," eds. Forrest Wood, Jr. and Michael DeArmey, 34 (1986): 65-72. 424. Review of Stephen Toulmin. Return to Cosmology (Berkeley, California: U of California P, 1982). Philosophy and Rhetoric 19, 4 (1986): 266-69. 425. "Argument in Metaphysics of Religion." Process Theology and the Christian Doctrine of God, ed. Santiago Sia. Special edition of Word and Spirit, A Monastic Review, 8 (Petersham, Massachusetts: St. Bede's, Publications, 1986): 44-47. 426. "Wisdom as Moderation: A Philosophy of the Golden Mean." Cambridge Forum, taped lecture #716 (April 9, 1986) (3 Church Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138). Chapter 2 of Wisdom as Moderation followed by audience discussion. 427. "Some Theological Mistakes and Their Effects on Literature." Journal of Speculative Philosophy, New Series 1, 1 (1987): 55-72. Chapter 3 of Zero Fallacy. 428. Response to resurrection debate in Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? The Resurrection Debate. Gary Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, ed. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987): 137-42. 429. "Pantheism and Panentheism." The Encyclopedia of Religion, Senior Ed., Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.; London: Collier Macmillan, Vol. 11, 1987): 165-71.

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430. "Transcendence and Immanence." The Encyclopedia of Religion, Senior Ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.; London: Collier Macmillan, Vol. 15, 1987): 16-21. 431. "An Anglo-American Phenomenology: Method and Some Results." Pragmatism Considers Phenomenology, eds. R. S. Carrington, Carl Hausman, and T. M. Seebohn (Washington: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and UP of America, 1987): 59-71. 432. "Bergson's Aesthetic Creationism Compared to Whitehead's." Bergson & Modern Thought: Toward a Unified Science, eds. A.C. Papanicolaou and Pete A. Gunter (Chur, Switzerland and New York: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1987): 369-82. 433. "Weiss After Sixty Years." Creativity and Common Sense: Essays in Honor of Paul Weiss, ed. Thomas Krettek (Albany: State U of New York P, 1987): 262-69. 434. "Mind and Body: A Special Case of Mind and Mind." A Process Theory of Medicine: Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Marcus Ford (Lcwiston, New York: Edwin Mellen P, 1987): 77-88. 435. "A Metaphysics of Universal Freedom." Faith and Creativity: Essays in Honor of Eugene H. Peters, eds. George Nordgulen and George W. Shields (St. Louis, Missouri: CBP Press, 1987): 27-40. 436. "Reflecting on the Existence [and] Meaning of God." [Interview with Monty Jones]. The Austin-American Stateman (Sunday, Jan. 31, 1988): B8. 437. "Can Peircc's Categories Be Retained?" Philosophic el Culture, Actes du XVlIe Congres Mondial de Philosophic. Montreal: Editions Montmorency, 1988: 140-42. 438. "Some Principles of Procedure in Metaphysics." The Nature of Metaphysical Knowledge, eds. G. F. McLean and Hugo Mcynell. International Society for Metaphysics (Lanham, New York: UP of America, 1988): 69-75. 439. "Sankara, Nagarjuna, and Fa Tsang, with Some Western Analogues." Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy, eds. G. J. Larson and Eliot Dcutsch (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1988): 98-115. 440. "In Dispraise of Empiricism." American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 10, 2 (1989): 123-26. 441. "A Dual Theory of Theological Analogy." American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 10, 3 (1989): 171-78. Also in God, Values, and Empiricism, Issues in Philosophical Theology, eds. Crcighton Pcden and Larry Axel (Macon, Georgia: Mercer UP, 1989): 85-91. 442. "Metaphysical and Empirical Aspects of the Idea of God." Witness and Existence: Essays in Honor of Schubert M. Ogden, eds. Philip E. Devenish and George L. Goodwin (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989): 177-89. 443. "General Remarks." Hartshorne, Process Philosophy, and Theology, eds. Robert Kane and Stephen H. Phillips (Albany: State U of New York P, 1989). Replies to David Griffin, 181-83; Jan Van der Veken, 183-84; Barry Whitney, 184-85; Donald Wayne Viney, 186; Daniel Dombrowski, 186-88, Stephen Phillips, 188-90; Kenneth Ketner, 190-92; Lewis S. Ford, 192-94; Robert Kane, 194-95; Jorge L. Nobo, 195-96. 444. "Von Wright and Hume's Axiom." The Philosophy ofGeorg Henrik von Wright, eds. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Lewis Edwin Hahn. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 19 (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1989): 59-76.

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445. Foreword and Postscript to Benevolent Living: Tracing the Roots of Motivation to God by Richard Hazelett and Dean Turner (Pasadena: Hope Publishing House, 1990): xixiv; 313-17. 446. "Charles Hartshorne on Metaphilosophy, Person and Immortality, and Other Issues." An Interview with Charles Hartshorne by John Kennedy and Piotr Gutowski [on May 20-21, 1989]. Process Studies 19, 4 (1990): 256-78. 447. Review of The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards by Sang Hyun Lee (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988). Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 26, 2 (1990): 249-52. 448. "Response to Piotr Gutowski's 'Charles Hartshome's Rationalism'." Process Studies 19, 1 (1990): 10-14. 449. "Hegel, Logic, and Metaphysics." CLIO 19, 4 (1990): 347-52. 450. Critical Response by Charles Hartshorne. Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God, Philosophical and Theological Responses, ed. Santiago Sia (Hingam, Massachusetts: Kluwer Publishers, 1990): 241-321. Responses to: [Theodore] Walker on Afro-American and African Theology, 241-42; [Peter] Phan on Liberation Theology, 243-50; [Randall] Morris on Political Philosophy, 251-55; [Sheila Greeve] Devaney on God, • Power, and Liberation, 256-62; Arabindu Basu on Indian Thought, 263-65; [Fr. Joseph] Bracken on the God-World Issue, 266-68; [Fr. W. Norris] Clarke's Thomistic Critique, 269-79; [Andre] Cloots and [Jan] Van der Veken on Panentheism, 280-83; [Hiroshi] Endo's Comparative Study, 284-89; [Piotr] Gutowski on Philosophical Theology, 290-93; [John S.] Ishihara on Buddhism, 294-98; [Rabbi William] Kaufman on Judaism's Idea of God, 299-303; [Martin] McNamara on Biblical Theology, 304-09; [David] Pailin on Rigor, Reason, and Moderation, 310-20; Concluding Remarks [in appreciation of Santiago Sia and the contributors], 320-21. 451. "An Open Letter to Carl Sagan." The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 5, 4 (1991): 227-32. 452. "Communication from Charles Hartshorne" [concerning the history of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association]. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 65, 3 (1991): 69-70. 453. "Some Causes of My Intellectual Growth." The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne, ed. Lewis Edwin Hahn. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 20 (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1991): 3-45. "A Reply to My Critics," 569-731: Preliminaries and Principles: Reply to Everybody, 569-89; [Charles L.] Birch on Darwin, Chance, and Purpose, 584-86; [Alexander K.] Skutch on Bird Song and Philosophy, 586-89; [Lucio] Chiaraviglio on Song, Evolution, and Theism, 589-98; [Wayne] Viney on Psychology of Sensation, 598-600; [John] Hospers on the Aesthetics of Sensation, 600-06; [Robert] Kane on Freedom and Sufficient Reason, 606-13; Englehardt on Theism and Bioethics, 613-14; [John B.] Cobb [Jr.] on My Theology, 614-16; [William L.] Reese on Panentheism and God's Goodness, 616-17; [Jan] Van der Veken on God and the Ultimate, 617-19; [Jacquelyn Ann] Kegley on Royce and Community, 620-23; [Sallie B.] King on Buddhism, Hierarchy, and Reason, 624-27; [John G.] Arapura on My Response to Vedantism, 627-30; [James P.] Devlin on Metaphysical Asymmetry, 630-33; [Nancy] Frankenberry on Method in Metaphysics, 633-39; [Lewis S.] Ford on Whitehead's and My Philosophy, 640-56; [Norman M.] Martin on the Logic of My Metaphysics, 656-64; [Hubertus G.] Hubbeling on the Ontological Argument, 664-69; [Robert C] Neville on Temporality and God, 669-72; [T. L. S.] Sprigge on Past, Fu-

221

454. 455. 456. 457. 458. 459. 460. 461.

462.

463. 464.

465.

466. 467. 468.

469. 470.

222

ture, and Eternity, 672-80; [Paul G.] Kuntz on Order and Orderliness, 680-84; [Sterling M.] McMurrin on Neoclassical Metaphysics, 684-88; [Reiner] Wiehl on Whitehead's and My Psychicalism, 688-702; [Daniel A.] Dombrowski on My Platonism, 703-04; [John E.] Smith on the History of Philosophy, 704-12; [George R.] Lucas [Jr.] on Sources of Process Philosophy, 712-14; Donald Lee on My Pragmatism, 71421; [Matao] Noda on My Atomism, 721-26; [Keiji] Matsunobu on Philosophy in the Kyoto School, 726-31. "The Aesthetic Dimensions of Religious Experience." Logic, God and Metaphysics, ed. J. F. Harris (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992): 9-18. "Some Not Ungrateful But Perhaps Inadequate Comments About Comments on My Writings and Ideas." Process Studies 21, 2 (1992): 123-29. "Some Comments on Randall Morris' Process Philosophy and Political Ideology." Process Studies 21,3(1992): 149-51. "Some Under- and Over-rated Great Philosophers [Plato, Bergson, Aristotle, Kant, and others]." Process Studies 21,3 (1992): 166-74. "Ilartshornc's Response [to D. Ilaugen and L. G. Keeling's 'Hartshome's Process Theism and Big Bang Cosmology']." Process Studies 22, 3 (1993): 172. "Can Philosophers Cooperate Intellectually: Metaphysics as Applied Mathematics." The Midwest Quarterly 35, 1 (1993): 8-20. "Reminiscences o I'Charles llartshorne (member since 1942)." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (1993): 286-89. "Ciod, Necessary and Contingent; World, Contingent and Necessary; and the Fifteen Other Options in Thinking about God: Necessity and Contingency as Applied to God and the World." Metaphysics as Foundation: Essays in Honor of Ivor Leclerc, eds. Paul A. Uogaard and Gordan Trcash (Albany: State U of New York P, 1993): 296311. "Interview with llartshorne, December I, 1993" (with Randall Auxier). llartshorne and llrightman on Ciod, Process, and Persons: The Correspondence, 1922-1945, eds. Randall \i. Auxier and Mark Y. A. Davies (Nashville: Vandcrbilt UP, 2001): 88-99. "Three Important Scientists on Mind, Matter, and the Metaphysics of Religion." The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 8,3(1994): 211-27. "Buddhism and the Theistic Question." Huddhism and the Emerging World Civilization: Essays in Honor of Nolan Pliny Jacohson, eds. Ramakrishna Puligandla and David Lee Miller (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois UP, 1994): 62-72. "Peirce's Philosophy on Religion: Between Two Forms of Religious Belief." Peine and ('ontemporary Thought: Philosophical Inquiries, cd. Kenneth Laine Ketner (New York: Fordham UP, 1995): 339-55. "Freedom as Universal." Process Studies 25 (1996): 1-9. "The Meaning of Life." Process Studies 25 (1996): 10-18. "Reminiscences of Charles Hartshorne" (excerpted from an unpublished paper: "Importance, Families, Religions, Darwin: A Case Study From the Inside," written in 1994). Process Perspectives 20, 3. Newsletter of the Center for Process Studies, Special Hartshorne edition (Spring 1997): 8-11. "A Philosopher at 99." [Interview by Steven Vita]. Austin American Statesman. (Sunday, April 13, 1997): D1,D7. "A hundred years of thinking about God: a philosopher soon to be rediscovered." [Interview by Greg Easterbrook]. US News and World Report (Feb. 23, 1998): 61, 65.

471. "Philosophy (at) 101: Centenarian Charles Hartshorne is Austin's Preeminent Man of Ideas." [Interview by Dayna Finet], The Good Life [published in Austin, Texas] (Oct. 1998): 15-18. 472. "Twenty Opinions from Five Times Twenty Years." The Personalist Forum, Special Issue: The Hartshorne Centennial Conference, 14, 2 (1998): 75-76. 473. "Thoughts on the Development of My Concept of God." The Personalist Forum, Special Issue: The Hartshorne Centennial Conference, 14, 2 (1998): 77-82. 474. "Charles Hartshome's Letters to a Young Philosopher: 1979-1995." Ed. Donald Wayne Viney. Logos-Sophia [Journal of the Pittsburg State U Philosophical Society, Pittsburg, Kansas] 11 (Fall 2001). 475. "A Psychologist's Philosophy Evaluated After Fifty Years: Troland's Psychical Monism." Ed. Donald Wayne Viney. Process Studies 30, 2 (2001): 237-41. 476. "God as Composer-Director and Enjoyer, and in a Sense Player, of the Cosmic Drama." Ed. Donald Wayne Viney. Process Studies 30, 2 (2001): 242-53. 477. Audience Discussion of "God as Composer-Director and Enjoyer, and in a Sense Player, of the Cosmic Drama" [April 7, 1987, Central State U, Edmond, Oklahoma]. Ed. Donald Wayne Viney. Process Studies 30, 2 (2001): 254-60. 478. "Thomas Aquinas and Three Poets Who Do Not Agree With Him." Ed. Donald Wayne Viney. Process Studies 30, 2 (2001): 261-75. 479. "Darwin and Some Philosophers [Review of Charles Darwin: A New Life by John Bowlby]." Ed. Donald Wayne Viney. Process Studies 30, 2 (2001): 276-88. 480. "Charles Hartshome's Handwritten Notes on A. N. Whitehead's Harvard-Lectures 1925-1926 " Ed. Roland Faber. Process Studies 30, 2 (2001): 289-73. 481. "God, Nature, and Freedom." God, Nature, and Process Thought: Essays on the Philosophy and Theology of Charles Hartshorne, ed. Tomasz Komendzinski. (forthcoming). In the same volume, "Response to Zycinski" [Zycinski's article "How to Naturalize Natural Theology?"] and "Response to Pailin." [Pailin's "God as Ultimate, Perfect and Personal"]

Notes 1.

2.

The following items, listed separately in the LLP bibliography, are consolidated under other item numbers in this bibliography; the LLP numbers for these items are: 51, 53, 73, 79, 80, 92, 124, 126, 140, 142, 143, 161, 187, 198, 213, 214, 233, 241, 252, 293, 299, 307, 313, 318, 330, 331, 336, 340, 348, 358, 364, 375, 376, 377, 390, 391, 403, 404, 405, 406, 421, 432, 437, 439, 443, 472, 475, 478. There are 52 items listed in this bibliography that are not in the LLP bibliography. Hooks: 22-25; Articles, Reviews, Discussions: 38, 41, 301, 372, 380, 402, 405, 412, 416, 418, 426, 428, 431, 436, 437, 445, 446, 448-452, 454-460, 462, 463, 464, 466481.

223

Index

abstract existence 33 Adams, Hazard 143 anthropomorphism 22,29,46,71,136 Araya, Victorio 69,80-81 Aristotle 5,18,35 Aquinas, Thomas, 2-3,5-6,14,27,145, 160, 177,193 Augustine 3,177 Auxier, Randall 97 Barbour, Ian 101,103-106,120 Barth, Karl 62 Baudelaire 143 Beardslee, W. 158 Benz, Arnold 102,120 Berdyaev 84 Berryman, Philip 69 Bertocci, Peter 84, 95-96 Bertow, P. 55 Birch, Charles 112 black theology 80 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 76 Bohm, David 103, 106,109 Brink, Gijsbert Van den xi-xii,36,64, 74,135 Brown, Stuart 75 Briimmer, Vincent xii,35,64,102,139 Buddhism 91,96,126-127,141 Byrne, Peter 127 Camara, Herder 179 Camus, Albert 53 Cardinal Maximos IV 25 Cargas, H. 89 chaos 60 Christian faith xi 2,35 Christianity 3-9,27,34,36,40,67-68,70,72, 74,79,96,112,127-128,133-135,138, 167,183-184 Chuang-tzu 165 Claerhout, Jeff 168

Clark, Peter B. 127 Clarke, Bowman L. 74 classical theism 9,27,30,34-36,75,187 classical theology 112 Clement of Alexandria 3 Cloots, Andre 64,102,121,141,155 Cobb, Jr., John B. 46,63-64,133-134, 139,188 Cocking, J.M. 153 Cohen, Morris 188 concrete actuality 33,35 Confucius 180 Cooper, Dorothy 187 cosmology 5,21,29,48,57,59,88,101,112, 114-119,121 Cousins, E.H. 94 Cutler, D. 57 Davies, Brian 7,11-12,15,17,19-21,24 Davies, Paul 104 DeArmey, Michael 43 death 37,161 Descartes, Rene 147 determinism 55,112,118 dialectical thinking 72 Dommeyer, F. 58 Doud, Robert E. 143 Draufurd, Emma 74 education 2 Eige, Francis A. 78 Ellis, M.H. 72 Emmet, Dorothy 128 ethics 17,85-86,89,95,99 Evans, Luther D. 62 evil 7,15,18,26,51 -52,54,56,58,60-61,67, 72,6-77,81,83,98-99,131,135,159160,163-164,166,168,172-173,175176,179,181-182 existentialism 93 Fabella, Virginia 79

225

faith 1-7,9,27,35,54,67,73,78-79,122,176177,183-184 Feaver, J. 58-59,85 Fennema, Jan 102 Fides et Ratio xi, 1 Fitzgerald, Paul 102 Flew, Anthony 45,70,72 Ford, Lewis S. 43,97,102,128,133-134 Ford, Marcus 53 Fost, Frederic F. 92,102 free will 56,60 Freud, Sigmund 135-136 Frondizi, Risieri 85 Frost, Robert 181 Gadamer, H.G. 144 Gamwell, Franklin I. 46,188 God 3,5-8,11-17,19-26,28-30,32-41,4349,57-60,62-65,67-70,72-76,78-81,8384,86-89,93-95,97,99,104,110-111, 113-120,122,130,133-134,137,139, 158,160,162-163,166-167,176-177, 181,183-186,188,192 God-talk 7,11,24,28,30,36,39-41,45-47, 50,69,72 Goethe 151 Gracia, Jorge J.E. 85 Gragg, Alan 101 Griffin, David 43,63-64,102,139,145 Gunton, Colin 62 Gutierrez, Gustavo 69,72,78,80 Hahn, Lewis 102,188 Hardy, Thomas 183 Hartshorne, Charles xi,7-8,12-19,21-24, 26-32,34-35,39-44,46-51,53-65,6770,83-99,101-103,105,107-111,113114,116-122,127,130-131,141,145146,157,163,187-189,191-193 Hartshorne, Dorothy xi,26,191 Hegel, G.W.F. 143,145 Heidegger, Martin 143-144,157,166 Hemingway, Ernest 183 Henson, J.C. 93, 96 Hertz, Peter D. 144 Hetzler, Forence M. 91 Hick, John 67,127 Hilbrier, Jiirgen 102,110

226

Hill, William J. 74 Hinduism 96 Hofstadter, Albert 143-144 Hopkins, Gerard Manley 181 Horosz, W. 58-59,85 Hiigel, Friedrich von 177 Hume, David 7,26,36,60,67,70,72-73,81, 96,120,188 Hutsebaut, Dirk 73 idealism 2 idolatry 28 Inada, K. 85 incarnation 37 immortality 8,83,89,91,93-95,97-98, 189,192, intuition 25 Ireneus 4 Islam 127 Jackson, Edgar N. 74 Jacobson, Nolan P. 85 Job, Book of 69 Jung, Karl 136 justice 25,34,38,68,72,84,99,161,165,188 Justin 3 Kallen, H.M., 95 Kant, Immanuel 36,98,131,145,148 Kierkegaard, Soren 144,157 King, J.N. 86 Kitamori, Kazoh 75-76,79 Kline, George 128 knowledge, 3,19,22,29-30,34,41-43,4748,65,70,74-75,80,86,92,94,110112,116,130,133,138,146,148151,154,157,164,168-169,173,176,190 Kuhn, Thomas 101 Kushner, Rabbi H. 52,74,75 Kutscher, Austin H. 91 law of polarity 62 Lee, B. 89 Lee, Jung Young 76,79, LeFrevre, Perry 86 Leibrecht, W. 84 Long, Eugene T. 74 liberation theology 72 love 5,14,16-18,22,25,29-32,37-38,42, • 51,58,61,67,73-75,78-79,83-84,87-88,

89,91,108,116,118-119,131,152,159, 162,164,178,183-184,186 Maduro, D. 72 marginalisation 2 Marx, Karl 127,135 Mencius 165 metaphysics 2,7-9,14,18,23,27-29,36-37, 39,41-50,54,58,62,84-85,87-91,9496,98-99,101-103,105-106,108,111112,114,120-123,131-134,138,141142,146,153, 155,187-189 Middleton, Daren J.N. xii,158 Milton, John 143 Mitias, Michael H. 53 Moltmann, Jttrgen 68 Munoz, Ronaldo 69 Murdoch, Iris 152 myth 1,5 nature, 2-3,34,37,39,42-44,48,51-53,5960,64-65,70,88,101,104-115,117,119120,122,127,129-130,133-134,144145,148,152,155,162,178-179,181182,184,186 neoclassical theology 43,80,187,189 Neville, Robert 96 Newton, Isaac 105,111,115 nihilism 2 Nordgulen, George 54 Nussbaum, Martha 152 Ogden, Schubert 45,50 Owen, H.P. 22-23,25,27,34,46 Palmer, H. 45 Partridge, Ernest 86 Pascal, Blaise 25 Patterson, Bob E. 101 Paul, Lain 102 Peacocke, Arthur 103,109-111,113115,117-118 Pearse, Padraic 182 Perry, R. B. 187 Peters, Eugene H. 54,188 Phillips, D.Z. 135 Philo 72 philosophical discussions xi philosophical doctrine 15 philosophical theology xi

philosophical thinking 1-3,9 philosophical wisdom 3 philosophy xi-xii,2-8,17,19,23,27,29-30, 34-36,39-42,45,48-49,53,55,58,62,65, 70,85-90,94,102,103,105,108,110,114, 118,121,125-126,132,135,138-139, 141-145,154-157,159-160,163-166, 168,172,176-178,181-182,185,188, 190-193 philosophy in literature 8,142,144-145, 151,155-158,179 Pieris, Aloysius 77 ' Plato 37,130-131,136-137,143,157,169170,173 Polkinghorne, John 32,51,60,98,116,120 Pope John Paul II 2-3,5 Popper, Karl 49 postmodernism 45 process philosophy 26,28 Process Studies xi- xii, 26,27,29,35,54, 95,97,102,139-140,157-158 process theism 102 process thought 5-6,11,25,27-29,34-38,53, 57,59-60,62,71,87,98,131,142,144145,155,157-158,180,188 Rahner, Karl 86 Ramal, Randy xi-xii, 26 reality 8,13,26,32-33,36,40,42,44,4748,54,60,64,67,94-95,101,103,105, 109,116-121,131,134,138-139,145, 148,153,155-156,158-160,164-165, 173 reason 1-2,4,23,27,46,49,72-73,145-146, 153-154 Reese, William 101,113 religion, xi,4-5,8,12,14,19,26-30,35-36, i 41-42,53,58-59,70,74,85-90,101-103, i 107-110,113-114,116,120-122,125127,129-139,141, 155,177-178,184, 190 religious belief xi,2,15,28-29,31,126,176, 187 Richardson, H. 57 Ricoeur, Paul 144 Rouner, Leroy S. 88,115 St. Paul 2

227

Santos, Ferdinand xi-xii, 8,101 Sarot, Marcel xi-xii,36,38,51-52,62,64, 74,125,135 Schillebeeckx, E. 76,80 Schindler, David L. 103 Schrodinger, Erwin 104 science 8,33,43,48-49,60,64-65,98,101102,104-111,114,118,120-122,130, 133,141,145,152-153,155-156,164, 175,188 scientific positivism 2 Sears, Aliman 158 Segal, Robert A. 126 Segundo, Juan Luis 69,78 Sheffer, Henry M. 95 Sherburne, Donald W. 145 Shields, George W. 54 Shiva 74 Sia, Marian F. xii-xiii,8,26,157,159 Smith, John E. 49 Smith, Wilfred Cantwell 127 society 57-58,60,74,86,88-91,94,103,108, 116-117,129,131-132,184 Soelle, Dorothee 74,75 Stoic philosophy 5 Suchocki, Marjorie 97 suffering 8,26,37-38,51,53,56,60-61,6365,67-69,72,74,77,80,160,163-166, 176-177,182-183 superstition 1,5 Swinburne, Richard 75 Tertulian 4 The Fountain Arethuse 8,67,69,81,121, 158-159 The Plague 53 theological wisdom 3 theology 3,5,7,15,33,38,40,50,52-54,58, 60,62,64,67-69,72-73,75,86-89,92, 104,113,120,121,122,126,128,131, 134-135,145,159,163,166,188 Thomas, Charles C. 58 Tillich, Paul 84 tragedy 52,56,61,63,65,73,160 transcendence 4,14,21,23,41,43,45,53,57, 61-62,71,108,111,113-115,117,119, 127,134

228

truth 1-5,24,42,44,48-49,65,73-74,89,91, 99,108,111,121,130,132,139-140,144, 169-170,173,176,178,181 universality 3,7,21,23,28,32,37,43-50,54, 57,59-60,102-103,117-119,130,134, 136,145,156,189 utilitarianism 2,125 Valady, Mohammad 53,85 Van Dostrand, D.85 Van Nostrum, D.59 Vatican 14 Vatican II 4 Veken, Jan Van der 97,145,192 Viney, Donald Wayne xi-xii, 26,29,35 Walker, Theodore 80,157-158 Weil, Simon 74 Weiss, Paul 187,193 Weston, Carl 189 Whitehead, A.N. xi,4-9,14,26,28,37,43, 92,97,101-103,109-110,121,125-126, 129,131-143,145-155,157-158,163, 165,173-174,178,187 Whitney, Barry xi- xii, 86 Wilcox, John 102 Wild, John 90,92 Williams, Daniel D. 37,38 wisdom 3,164,167,169,173 Wood, Jr., Forrest 43 Wordsworth, William 145,153 Yeats, W.B. 153,158

SOME COMMENTS on Santiago Sia's God in Process Thought: A Study in Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God:

'Sia is one of those who came to understand my thought before he ever saw or heard me. As I have always liked writing even more than teaching classes, I feel complimented and gratified by these cases where it is the writing that did the job of communication. Eventually Sia and I did meet, and he did hear me lecture; but he was already an interpreter and skillful defender of my views. I now think that his book God in Process Thought is probably the best summary of my view. The book is a superb, and for some purposes conveniently brief, account of the issues between my view and traditional ones and shows that Sia is not unaware of some of the recent objections to process thought. Several other reviewers, especially John Cobb, support me in this evaluation.' -Charles Hartshorne

"The book is an excellent summary statement of Hartshorne's concept of God. Possible criticisms are introduced chiefly to further the clarification...The exposition is so clear, so well-organized, and so accurate, that it may well serve better than any one of Hartshorne's writings to present his concept of God to those who are puzzled by it or ignorant of it. Even those already influenced by it will find it clarifying.' -John B. Cobb, Jr.

"This is an excellent expository presentation. It is well-organized. After brief accounts of the religious term "God" and Hartshorne's background metaphysics, God's reality, knowledge, power and goodness are explored in detail. Sia has mastered a prodigious amount of the many books and over four hundred papers Hartshorne has turned out.' - Lewis S. Ford

'One of the best secondary accounts of Hartshorne's contributions to philosophy of religion.' Annotated Bibliography of Books on Process

Contributions to Philosophical Theology Edited by Gijsbert van den Brink, Vincent Brummer and Marcel Sarot Vol.

1

Gijsbert van den Brink / Marcel Sarot (eds.): Understanding the Attributes of God. 1999.

Vol.

2

Marcel Sarot / Gijsbert van den Brink (eds): Identity and Change in the Christian Tradition. 1999.

Vol.

3

Marcel Sarot: Living a Good Life of Evil. 1999.

Vol.

4

William Hasker / David Basinger / Eef Dekker (eds.): Middle Knowledge. Theory and Applications. 2000.

Vol.

5

Wybren de Jong: Identities of Christian Traditions. An Alternative for Essentialism. 2000.

Vol.

6

Eeva Martikainen (ed.): Infinity, Causality and Determinism. Cosmological Enterprises and their Preconditions. 2002.

Vol.

7

Gerrit Brand: Speaking of a Fabulous Ghost. In Search of Theological Criteria, with Special Reference to the Debate on Salvation in African Christian Theology. 2002.

Vol.

8

Guus Labooy: Freedom and Dispositions. Two Main Concepts in Theology and Biological Psychiatry, a systematic Analysis. 2002.

Vol.

9

Wilko van Holten: Explanation within the Bounds of Religion. 2003.

Vol.

10 Santiago Sia: Religion, Reason and God. Essays in the Philosophies of Charles Hartshorne and A.N. Whitehead. 2004.