Atheism and Theism (Tulane Studies in Philosophy)
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In the introduction to George L. The argument is presented as follows:. Hartshorne was under no illusions that this mode of reasoning would convince the skeptic that God exists. Nor did he use it as his reason for believing in God. Moreover, the simple deductive structure of the argument clarifies what is at stake in the theistic question. If one denies the conclusion, one must deny one or more of the premises or what their denials entail. Hartshorne follows Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in urging that, in questions of metaphysics, philosophers are more apt to err in what they deny than in what they affirm.
Highlighting the rational cost of rejecting theism can, for this reason, be a fruitful method in metaphysics. This is the view that J. Hartshorne referred to this as the a priori atheist or positivist position. The second alternative is that a logical consequence of the second premise is false. Hartshorne calls this the empiricist position, or sometimes empirical theism or empirical atheism depending on whether or not the empiricist thinks that God exists. Hartshorne considered the empiricist position regarding the ontological argument as the least tenable.
The second premise says, colloquially, if God is so much as logically possible, then it must be the case that God exists. Put differently, contingency of existence is incompatible with deity. For example, if there is something greater than being partially ignorant, then God cannot be conceived as partially ignorant. Or again, if there is something greater than interacting with some but not all others, then God cannot be conceived as a merely localized being. If correct it is then a mistake to conceive of God as possibly existing and possibly not existing.
Philosophy of Religion
This is another way to state the second premise. Yet, this is not the same as removing the question from rational justification, unless metaphysics is impossible, a position that Hartshorne vigorously opposed. In effect, treating the existence of God as a scientific hypothesis is a failure to conceive of God as unsurpassable by any being other than God—and is therefore a changing of the subject. Findlay, one from John Hick, one stemming from W.
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Each is set forth in The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne. Hartshorne praises Findlay for most clearly stating the objection that the concrete cannot be deduced from the abstract, and that this is what the ontological argument purports to do. No actual state of God—which is the concreteness of God—can be deduced by a metaphysical argument. It only says that the set of existing things is not empty. With good reason, Hartshorne insisted that he knew very little about God.
At most, his metaphysics yields only the most abstract truths about deity, although he stressed that it is a notable achievement to advance the subject of metaphysics when so few attend to its reasoning. Hartshorne agrees with Hick that, excluding the case of God, all propositions asserting the existence or non-existence of an individual are logically contingent.
Yet, Hartshorne has a ready explanation for why the proposition is not logically contingent, an explanation moreover that Hick uses in explaining the meaning of divine necessity: If this is true, then only particular noun-adjective combinations are logically conceivable. Attaching necessary existence to a being that is properly conceived as contingent is the reverse of the error of attaching contingent existence to a being that is properly conceived as necessary. Hartshorne counts both extremes as errors.
It is no accident that it was J. Both questions are grammatical, but both are also nonsensical. The arguments could be summarized as follows. Quine objected to the idea of de re modality, since it involves quantification across modal operators. Quine points out that we cannot generalize existentially from the legitimate de dicto formulation:. The thrust of this is that, because of referential opacity in quantified modal logic, we do not know what it means to introduce propositions of the existentially generalized form b.
However, Goodwin notes that Hartshorne is indeed committed in his modal version of the argument to such forms as:. A sentence having the form of b can be interpreted to say: Quine replies that the very terms of this formal semantical solution to the problem of opacity raises the further question of what it means for an individual or object to exist in various possible worlds. Temporal inheritance becomes the essential factor in determining identity, and thus more readily settles the above questions: Yet, surely he could not be, in any possible world-state, a seventeenth century sea captain, since this would bear nothing in common with his succession of temporal events.
He presents Hartshorne with a dilemma: On the other hand, Hartshorne wants to ground the meaning of modal terms in temporal process. The most plausible semantics for S5, however, leaves modal concepts untethered to time. It is to be noted, however, that Hartshorne gave other versions, both informal and formal such as the version used above which do not depend on S5. Hartshorne was convinced that an element of intuitive judgment that goes beyond the logical formalism is involved in assessing the argument.
If Hartshorne is correct, the ontological argument reveals the logical status of the theistic question as metaphysical rather than empirical. The argument falls short of a proof of theism, in large measure, because it depends on the premise that the existence of God is logically possible. He said in his reply to Hick that all of his misgivings about believing in God rested on the suspicion, which is difficult to remove, that every form of theism masks an absurdity.
One can think of the global argument as the completion of this process. The various strands of the global argument highlight what Hartshorne considered to be the theistic implications of neoclassical metaphysics. In addition to the ontological argument, Hartshorne develops his own versions of the cosmological, teleological, epistemic, moral, and aesthetic arguments. Other strands of the global argument are also presented in this way: Time and again, Hartshorne acknowledged the difficulties of an unqualified verdict in favor of neoclassical theism, but he also believed that his view better answered the questions of metaphysics than his rivals.
Hartshorne was epistemically cautious in recognizing that his method would not yield a decisive victory for his own views. As with the modal argument, Hartshorne believed that no degree of logical rigor can eliminate the need for an element of intuitive judgment. The necessary, moreover, as the common element in all possibility, is abstract. If it is possible for this necessity to be divine—more precisely, the abstract pole of the divine—then it is possible for God to exist. To reject the conclusion, one must either deny the necessity of existence, the principle of contrast, de re modalities, the character of necessity as abstract, or the possibility that the necessary aspect of things is divine.
Of course, none of these descriptions fits the dipolar God, and Hartshorne had no interest in defending them. The existence of many real beings, thus defined, raises the problem of cosmic order. The question is not why there is order rather than mere chaos.
Charles Hartshorne: Theistic and Anti-Theistic Arguments
For Hartshorne, chaos presupposes order as much as non-existence presupposes existence—indeed, mere chaos is indistinguishable from nonbeing. The question, rather, is how there can be order on a cosmic scale if there is only an uncoordinated set of centers of creative activity. Localized order, or order within the cosmos, can be explained by localized activity of entities within the cosmos.
The order of the cosmos, however, cannot be the outcome of a coordinated effort by the many entities since their very existence, severally scattered throughout the cosmos, presupposes the cosmos as a field of activity. If there is a cosmic-ordering power that itself falls under the metaphysical principle of acting and being acted upon, then cosmic order can be explained.
Moreover, as Hartshorne argues in A Natural Theology for Our Time , the explanation is not ad hoc since all real beings, localized ones and the cosmic-ordering power, fall under the same metaphysical principle. The cosmic-ordering power is not, in the words of Alfred North Whitehead, an exception to metaphysical principles, invoked to save their collapse, but is their chief exemplification. Hartshorne insists, however, that the problem of cosmic order remains.
This is because our conceptions of the fundamental laws of nature are contingent and mathematically peculiar in character. Thought experiments which assert that such basic laws could be instituted by chance mechanisms beg the question of basic order. Multiple real beings with varying degrees of creative power are a recipe for conflict. To be sure, the existence of multiple real beings also opens the possibility for cooperative endeavors, whether it is cooperation among or between localized beings and the cosmic designer; but multiple creativity guarantees a mixture of disharmony and harmony.
The cosmic-ordering power can guarantee a cosmic order, but because of the existence of a plurality of real beings that act, and are not simply acted upon, not everything that happens can be chosen by a single individual, even a divine one. This is relevant to the problem of theodicy, for it shows that, in neoclassical metaphysics, the conflict of decisions among the creatures and between the creatures and God are possible, opening the way to tragedies that not even God can avoid.
A skeptic may embrace any of the options that Hartshorne denies, but at a cost. Hartshorne argues that each of the non-theistic options has dubious metaphysical credentials and that his solution to the problem of cosmic order is the most parsimonious.
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If there is no cosmic order one must explain the apparent success of science in discovering that order. If there is no cosmic-ordering power then either localized beings are being used to explain an order that their activity presupposes or there is no explanation of the order. Another atheistic option is to accept that there is a cosmic-ordering power but deny that it is divine. However, the remaining three strands of the global argument can also be used to support the idea of such an ordering power; it is not only an agent causally affecting the world but is also affected by the world and incorporates it into the divine life, as one that perfectly knows the world epistemic argument , perfectly preserves its achievements moral argument , and fully appreciates the world aesthetic argument.
In the epistemic argument, Hartshorne raises the question of the relation between reality and knowledge. In one respect, knowledge depends upon the real, for one cannot know what is not real. On the other hand, it is difficult to give an account of the real apart from some form of knowledge. In view of these conundrums, it is tempting to say that reality is the potential content of infallible knowledge—what an epistemically unsurpassable being would know if it existed.
The problem with this solution, as far as atheism is concerned, is that an infallible knower, by definition, could not possibly be mistaken.
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However, it would know its own existence, so one is led to posit not simply the possible existence of an infallible knower, but also its actual existence. Hartshorne drew precisely this conclusion, that reality is the actual content of infallible knowledge. He argued further, following Josiah Royce, that defects in cognitive experience are internal to experience. God must be conceived not only as knowing all true propositions but also as knowing the creatures themselves; that is, feeling what they feel. This applies also to the collective life of the creatures. There are a number of ways to reject contributionism.
One may deny that there is any supreme aim, theistic or nontheistic. Another option is that self-interest is the supreme aim. More plausible is the idea that the aim of life is to live for self and for others either during this life or in an afterlife. Hartshorne considered this laudable, but finally unsatisfactory as the supreme aim of life.
Second, there is the problem of mortality. The extent and nature of value that one contributes to God is precisely the extent and quality of value that one has contributed to others. Hartshorne argued that contributionism captures the inclusive nature of love that one finds expressed in biblical ethics: It is quite natural, and prima facie rational, to speak of enjoying the beauty of the cosmos.
Most people consider it appropriate to include aesthetic predicates in descriptions of the universe, for it is endlessly interesting, mysterious, and awe inspiring. Hartshorne described science as the search for the hidden beauty of the world, and many great scientists would agree; even those who have little or no use for philosophy or religion, like Steven Weinberg who states that the universe is beautiful beyond what seems necessary.
An aesthetically displeasing universe, says Hartshorne, would be either chaotic or monotonous. What we find, on the contrary, is order in the laws of nature and variety in the evolution of new arrangements of matter and levels of mind. Hartshorne speaks of the world as a de facto whole, for he means to stress its open-ended and dynamic character.
If atheism is true, then it is non-divine individuals alone that enjoy the beauty of the universe as a whole, catching a glimpse of it in the slice of time that is available to them and to the species. The peek that we have of the beauty of the cosmos, moreover, reveals horizons suggestive of aesthetic riches forever beyond our grasp. Hartshorne argues that this would represent an irremediable aesthetic defect in the universe, for beauty should be enjoyed and only God could adequately enjoy the beauty of the world as a whole.
Of course, what should be is not necessarily what is. It is a thought without intrinsic reward or pragmatic value, best conceived as a thought experiment whose purpose is to make us realize a divine mind that can appreciate the beauty that escapes us. As the supreme cosmic-ordering power, whose knowledge is the ultimate measure of reality, the divine, in any particular state of its life, must find within itself the entire wealth of all creative experiencing that has ever existed.
It is here that these lines of inference dovetail with the moral argument. God must be conceived not only as the supreme spectator appreciating the beauty of the world as a de facto whole, but also as the supremely beautiful or sublime object of contemplation, adoration, and worship—an endlessly unfolding cosmic experience to which we contribute. The various roles of the deity, as Hartshorne conceives it, are neatly summarized in the title of one of his articles: Contemporary philosophers of religion speak of two forms of the problem of evil: The logical problem of evil raises the question whether the existence of evil, conceived as gratuitous suffering, is logically consistent with the existence of a God that is perfect in power, knowledge, and goodness.
The evidential problem of evil raises the question whether its existence renders improbable that of a perfect God. Hartshorne found neither version of the problem especially troublesome for his form of theism. He was fond of disagreeing with Einstein who said that God does not play dice. On the contrary, chance and multiple freedom are inseparable; it is no accident, said Hartshorne Studies in the Philosophy of J. Findlay , that there are accidents. Although God has the eminent form of creative power, it is not enough to guarantee a world without accidents, wrongdoing, and tragedy.
Much of the appeal of traditional religion is that it offers the hope that the gulf between what is and what ought to be can be bridged in a future existence. It promises that the cosmic scales of justice are finally balanced either through the mysterious operations of karma in the process of reincarnation or through the omnipotence of God in a heavenly or hellish afterlife.
Hartshorne considered these to be false hopes. While he did not definitively reject the possibility of an afterlife, he showed no interest in speculating about it or defending the idea. He argued that it is the divine prerogative alone to persist through infinite variations; the self-identity that is, the genetic identity of a non-divine individual cannot sustain itself indefinitely.
Moreover, an afterlife could not eliminate the risk inherent in multiple or shared creativity.
In Beyond Humanism , Hartshorne claimed that psychical predicates such as memory, feeling, and volition admit of an infinite variability, extending beyond their specifically human forms to include the non-human animal world and to include what might exist in a superhuman form, such as deity. Anselm answered by promoting a kind of theological behaviorism: Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers: Actuality is, so to speak, information rich , relative to existence and essence. Thus, there is a distinction between a being unsurpassable by all others including self and b being unsurpassable by all others excluding self. This idea also extends to skeptical arguments from evil that conclude to either the non-existence or probable non-existence of God. George Allan and Merle F.
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