Neoclassical Theism as Inherently Dialogical

Abstract

The position usually called “process theism” is seldom called this by one of its most important defenders, Charles Hartshorne. The label he typically uses is “neoclassical theism”. It is important to notice that these two designations are not equivalent. To speak of process theism is to accentuate the differences between this metaphysical view and an opposing metaphysical stance, that of traditional or substantialist theism. By way of contrast, to speak of neoclassical theism is not to accentuate differences but rather the inclusion of one metaphysical tradition within another. That is, the neoclassical theism of Hartshorne (along with that of A.N. Whitehead, John Cobb, and David Ray Griffin, et al.) is both “neo” and “classical”. The compatibility between the best insights of classical theism and the best in neoclassical theism is evidenced in Hartshorne’s startling claim that he learned almost as much from St. Thomas Aquinas as he did from Whitehead! Although Hartshorne spent a good deal of his career pointing out that classical theism was shipwrecked on certain rocks of contradiction (neo), Thomas, more than anyone else, has provided us with an admirable chart showing the location of the rocks (classical). Three different topics will be emphasized in my defense of the thesis that “process theism” tends to be a polemical designation, in contrast to the more irenic “neoclassical theism”. The first of these is the contrast between monopolar and dipolar metaphysics. In the divine case, the neoclassical theist emphasizes the claim that, in partial contrast to the classical theistic God who does not in any way change, God always changes, and both of these words are important. The second topic is the commonplace in “process” thought that one of the most important passages in the history of metaphysical writing is in Plato’s Sophist (247e), where it is suggested that being is power or dynamis, specifically the power, however slight, both to affect other beings and to be affected by them. The third topic is Whiteheadian prehension, wherein a metaphysical thinker in the present can literally grasp and include the best insights from previous metaphysical traditions and partially transform them by bringing them into a larger whole.