Relativizing the classical tradition
Hartshorne's history of God
pp. 63-79
in: Jeanine Diller, Asa Kasher (eds), Models of God and alternative ultimate realities, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
This paper follows Hartshorne's thinking about the varieties of theism, especially through his use of position matricies. I pinpoint some of the limitations of this method but also expand upon it so as to remedy some of its drawbacks. One can prove, augmenting Hartshorne's method, that there are far more concepts of God than he realized. Hartshorne's method, moreover, highlights the fallacy of equating theism and supernaturalism and frees the imagination to view God in naturalistic terms without collapsing into atheism. At the very least, some version of theistic naturalism stands along classical theism and atheism as a live metaphysical option. Finally, one can apply Hartshorne's thinking to the meta-level problem of religious language and thereby clarify options among various types of kataphatic and apophatic theologies.