Charles Hartshorne: On the Relation of Reason and Faith©
December 3, 2000
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland
Jane Thickstun, Celebrant

Charles Hartshorne was one of the major American philosophers of the 20^th century and an eminent Unitarian theologian and scientist. He just died this fall at the age of 103, and was until the end a member of the First UU Church of Austin, Texas. He taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Texas. Hartshorne was widely regarded as the leading American interpreter of Alfred North Whitehead’s thought, often called Process Philosophy. His theology is theistic. He once said, "The reason I believe in God is because without God, I do not know what truth is. Without truth, what are we trying to do? The one thing we know about ourselves is that we cannot know everything." (From the UUA obituary)

Though a theist, Hartshorne was not a traditional theist. He was rather what has been called a "Panentheist," which sees the divine as encompassing the natural world, but being something more than the natural world. As a follower of Whitehead, he believed that the universe was not made up of things, but of related events. The big distinction of process philosophy is just that: that the basic units of reality are events, not things. Classical philosophy talked of reality in terms of Being, whereas this new philosophy talks of it in terms of Becoming-- as events, as process. The process is the creative synthesis, it is unifying things or relationships. A concrete thing is a actually a creative synthesis. It is a synthesis, or unification, of a diversity of relationships or events. This means that there is an interdependence among all that exists, or all events. It is creative because it is in some measure self-determined. It can’t be completely determined by the things to which it relates; and so it is a free, creative act. Also, because the synthesis is creative, there is an element of freedom in every act. Another way of looking at it is to say that the present always incorporates the past but adds something new.

Whitehead’s original formulation of this thought contained no concept of God–that is why it is most often referred to as process philosophy. Yet it seems many of his followers developed a version that included a concept of God, and so you often hear of process theology as well. There are actually many followers of Whitehead who are notable theologians in their own right, and all have their own twist to it.

Hartshorne attempts to give an account of the divine that is conceivable and rational. He focuses on the idea of God, not whether it refers to something or not. He figures if he gets the concept right, it implies existence. What Hartshorne does with the concept of God is essentially to turn the classical notion of God on its head. Traditionally, God has been seen as that which is Absolute, Immutable or unchanging, Omnipotent, and independent of the world. Hartshorne’s God is on the other hand, Supremely Relative. Remember how everything that exists is a creative synthesis of events or relationships? Well, God is the creative synthesis of all events or relationships. In other words, God is the unification of reality. So it is the unifying event of everything that exists–or more accurately that happens– in the world; the event that makes the world a whole. And since everything that exists or happens contains an element of freedom, God can’t know everything, and can’t control everything. Far from being that classical God that is absolute and unchanging, Hartshorne’s God is relative and always changing, because the world is always changing.

Classical philosophy distinguishes between the essence of God– which says what God is– and the existence of God– which says that God is. Hartshorne adds a third– the actuality of God, which says what God is at any particular moment. Essence may or may not exist. If it does, it may be actualized in different ways. Saying something exists doesn’t say how it is actualized. So God can’t know the future the way God knows the past, because the past is actual and the future is only possible. Only as events unfold, can they be known in their particularity.

The temple bells are heard in the sound of the sea. God is found in the world.

As a Unitarian, Hartshorne can’t have a faith that contradicts reason. The big problem for religion in the 20^th century has been the conflict of scientific reasoning with religious faith. Hartshorne offers a new perspective on the question of the relation between faith and reason: he believes that reason can justify faith. Recent work in philosophy–which means in the last 400 years or more-- has thrown out classical proofs for the existence of God. Hartshorne agrees that classical metaphysics has failed, but believes that just because it hasn’t been done yet doesn’t mean it can’t be done. He shows that the process philosophy of Whitehead is able to overcome the difficulties with deity that the classical form had. Whether he shows it convincingly or not, I leave up to you.

Hartshorne distinguishes two levels of faith. The first level of faith is that of general trust, that basic faith that allows us to do "our part in the system of things with confidence that the rest of the system will do its part, at least to the extent that we shall not have striven simply in vain." (p. 163) This is the most fundamental, sub-conscious level of confidence in our environment that allows us to survive. It is a conscious faith that the larger world of which we are a part is hospitable to our ideals; a trust that "the nature of things insures the appropriateness" of our ideals, so that "despite all frustrations and vexations, despite disloyalty or crassness in our fellows, despite death itself, it is really and truly better to live, and to live in accord with these ideals, than to give up the struggle in death or in cynicism." The second level of faith gives a content or expression to our basic faith. It is a level at which we have choice–choice as to the form our faith will take.

He also distinguishes levels or forms of reason: mere deduction, as in mathematics, the inductive reasoning of science and everyday life, and the reasoning involved in metaphysics and theology. Given these definitions, Hartshorne asks, "how are the processes of deduction, and of weighing of evidence, related to trust in the environment as an adequate basis for our efforts to live in accordance with certain ideals?"

For Hartshorne it does not make sense to justify the first level of faith, what he calls "basic faith," because to even look for evidence already presumes this level of faith; it "is to express one’s trust in the value of evidence." What interests him, even compels him, is the justification of the second level, the level of faith that involves choice. He says, "What needs justification is only the choice of which faith, which verbal and intellectual and perhaps institutional, ritualistic, and artistic form of expression and intensification we shall seek to give the faith we inevitably have." The way to do this is with reason, examining the contents of faith and the evaluating them in terms of the evidence.

So how does Hartshorne propose to justify his (2^nd-level) faith through the use of reason? As I’ve said, over the years philosophers have attempted to prove the existence of God, and the general consensus today is that they have failed. But Hartshorne decided that just because it hasn’t been done doesn’t mean it can’t be done, and he believes process philosophy can do it. He speaks of process thought as a revolution in philosophy equivalent to the revolution that has occurred in physical science. The revolution is in turning the nature of divine being around, from being defined by negative properties only, such as "‘non-corporeal,’ ‘non-temporal,’ ‘non-relative,’ and so on" to their corresponding positives. Thus God is now seen to be corporeal, temporal, relative, and so on. It involves a reevaluation of the value we place on these concepts as well, for religion and philosophy have scorned the attributes that could be applied to human beings and determined God to be all that we are not. In the classical view, dependence, relativity, and all such things were thought to be marks of lesser reality, weaknesses, but Hartshorne asks us to change this view to one that allows a Supreme Being to be not supremely absolute, but supremely relative. This divine relativity exists necessarily, yet how it is in fact actualized depends on its internal relations with the world, and so is dependent to some extent on the world–on the freedom that exists in the world.

Hartshorne argues that "the relative includes the absolute and more besides, and that becoming includes being as well as something additional." Another way of saying that is that "the concrete is the inclusive form of reality, from which the abstract is an abstracted aspect or constituent."

In effect, the content of Hartshorne’s faith is God, and he uses reason to prove the existence and to probe the nature of the god he believes in. But he also believes there are limits to reason. There are legitimate places we go where reason cannot accompany us. These are different from the illegitimate path of trying to go where reason could accompany us, but not taking it along.

"In at least one sense," he says, "it seems correct to say that faith transcends rational justification." Our justification can only take us so far–then we make our "best guess," because the alternative is to have a faith too vague and undefined to be "practicable"--to be a living faith, to help us live well. "So it seems that each individual must carry on such reasoning as he [or she] has opportunity and leisure [for], and then "take a chance" on the best guess [she or] he can make." Our faith transcends rational justification at this point because ultimately we can not have absolute certainty on the matter, no matter how much "opportunity and leisure" we have. But this aspect of "taking a chance" on the "best guess" is a reason for us to exercise tolerance concerning the faith of others.

The other place where reason cannot accompany us is into the particular facts of our existence or God’s. "In so far as faith, or life-trust, has something particular as its object it transcends rational evidence." Neither science nor philosophy, nor any other type of reasoning, can give us a sense of our own particular value as an individual in the universe. This is the heart of religion. Hartshorne says, "Whatever else reason can do, no rational discipline can show there is a God who cherishes "me," meaning by me, the precise individual quality, incommunicable in abstract terms, that makes me different from anyone else that ever lived or ever could have lived. He continues, "That about God which reason cannot know is not the essence of God, that which [God] is in general terms, such as all-knowing, or loving; but the particular form that this knowing or loving takes when a given particular creature is its object."

So if this particular aspect of God cannot be known by reason, how can it be known? These "most particular of the [characteristics] of God have to be felt rather than demonstrated, if we can know them at all." These aspects of God are too concrete or particular to be accessible except to incommunicable intuition. They could perhaps be expressed poetically and artistically, but not conceptually. Hartshorne emphasizes, however, that "in all cases faith should respect and include reason, not flout it." He continues, "We may even say that any legitimate faith on the human level is a form of reason. For if reason is the critical or honest evaluation of evidence, then faith is the evaluation of evidence too personal to be utilized in science."

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