Louisville Process Theology Network

Why Charles Hartshorne Matters

“There is a crisis in Western theology.

Recent theological movements such as ecumenicity, secularization, and the death of God are not the cause of the crisis,

they are symptoms of it.

These theological efforts have actually prolonged the life of an orthodoxy

that is itself the problem…….

When the Church appropriated from Greek philosophy

the classical notions of God’s unchanging, transcendental being,

bare eternity, and lofty non-involvement wit ht world,

the stage was set for theology difficulty.

If God is merely a static, unchanging transcendental being,

how could He (or She) relate to the world?......

The classical theology could not account for contingency, change, etc……

Hartshorne has finally been able to achieve an adequate

theology…because he has been able to account for the changing world….

Hartshorne understands God as a concrete changing reality……

The world is in God,

but not strictly coincident with Him

(Hartshorne writes).

He exceeds the world.

He changes when the world changes……

The purpose of existence

is to contribute worthwhile to the concrete God…..

Adding to concrete history is the same as

adding to God…..

thereby giving human decisions meaning.”

 

 

Personal Note:

Hartshorne frequently characterized his theology as “neoclassical”

because the God, Hartshorne perceived, participates in the world

as does God in The Bible.

And because Hartshorne’s God includes the world we see and experience,

He (or She)  is characterized as “concrete” rather than “abstract”.

 

 

Excerpts of “The Concrete God” by Ralph E. James