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How Firm a Possible Foundation? Modality and Hartshorne's Dipolar How Firm a Possible Foundation? Modality and Hartshorne’s Dipolar Theism Donald Wayne Viney Abstract: Central to Charles Hartshorne’s dipolar theism is his theory of modality as grounded in the temporal structure of process. Jay Wesley Richards argues in The Untamed God (2003) that Hartshorne’s modal theory abandons the elementary principle ab esse ad posse, that it makes nonsense of our counter­ factual discourse, and that it can only be expressed by Lewis’ S4, although for certain purposes Hartshorne needs the stronger S5. Richards fails to realize that Hartshorne’s theory involves two concepts of necessity—necessity as what is common to every possible world­state and necessity as it pertains to the unalterability of the past. Richards also uncritically accepts the concept of possible worlds as a basis for his critique, but Hartshorne’s arguments cast doubt on the coherence of this idea. While questions remain about Hartshorne’s modal theory, Richards’ arguments against it are unsuccessful. Jay Wesley Richards defends what he calls “theological essentialism.” 1 He argues that “Christians should affirm that God has an essence, which includes his perfections and essential properties, and should attribute to God essential and contingent properties” (17).2 The idea of God having contingent properties places Richards’ position in the vicinity of Charles Hartshorne’s dipolar theism. While Richards appreciates Hartshorne’s contributions to theological essentialism, he wishes to distance himself from those aspects of Hartshorne’s views that are unacceptable to Christians, at least Christians who reject process theology. Specifically, his goal is to drive a wedge between Hartshorne’s claims that, on the one hand, (a) God has both necessary and contingent properties (the 1 Unless otherwise noted, references in parentheses are to Jay Wesley Richards, The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Simplicity and Immutability (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2003). See bibliography for the key to references of Hartshorne’s works. 2 Richards makes no attempt to avoid exclusive language for deity. In the last two decades of his life Hartshorne became sensitive to this issue and I will follow his example (cf. OO 56­58). 2 view Richards accepts), and on the other hand, (b) it is necessary that God have some world or other, and (c) God includes the world, the doctrine of panentheism (views that Richards rejects). 3 Richards too often interprets Hartshorne’s arguments for (a) as arguments for (b) or (c). This is simply careless exegesis and represents no real differences between the two philosophers. 4 Richards’ deepest differences from Hartshorne concern ideas about modality and possible worlds. According to Richards, Hartshorne’s modal theory suffers from the crippling defects that it abandons the elementary principle ab esse ad posse, makes nonsense of our counter­factual discourse, and can only be expressed by Lewis’ S4, although for certain purposes Hartshorne needs the stronger S5. Richards fails to realize that Hartshorne’s theory involves two concepts of necessity—necessity as what is common to every possible world­state and necessity as it pertains to the unalterability of the past. While questions remain about Hartshorne’s modal theory, Richards’ arguments against it are unsuccessful. Finally, Richards uncritically accepts the concept of possible worlds as a basis for his critique, but Hartshorne’s arguments cast doubt on the coherence of this idea. Possible worlds provide anything but a firm foundation on which to make sense of either theological essentialism or panentheism. 3 Richards’ general strategy has parallels with William Alston’s attempt to find a middle way between Aquinas and Hartshorne. For Alston’s arguments and Hartshorne’s rebuttal see Existence and Actuality: Conversatoins with Charles Hartshorne, edited by John B. Cobb, Jr. and Franklin I. Gamwell (University of Chicago Press, 1984). 4 Hartshorne’s arguments for (a) can be found, among other places, at CSPM 9 and at DR 13­14. Richards calls the argument at CSPM 9 one of the “less compelling arguments” that Hartshorne gives for panentheism (182). Concerning DR 13­14, he says, “Hartshorne seems to assume that this [argument] entails panentheism” (170). In neither passage does Hartshorne conclude to, or give the slightest impression that he is concluding to, panentheism. A clear statement of Hartshorne’s main argument for panentheism is at DR 19. Richards cites W. Norris Clarke’s rebuttal to this argument but ignores Hartshorne’s reply to Clarke, published in the same volume as Clarke’s essay (177). 3 I begin with a brief exposition of Hartshorne’s views of modality and indicate some of the confusions about those views under which Richards labors. To better highlight the contrast between Hartshorne and Richards and to place their views in genuine dialogue with one another, I move to a critical discussion of Richards’ ideas about possible worlds. In closing I revisit Hartshorne’s ideas about the nature of possibility, especially as they relate to Peirce and Whitehead. I hope to dispel the concern that Hartshorne abandons the elementary principle of modal logic, ab esse ad posse. The question of how Hartshorne’s modal theory relates to Lewis’s S5 remains open and depends upon whether a continuum of possibility is sufficient for an S5 possible world semantics. Hartshorne on Modality Richards believes that Hartshorne’s views on modality make his acceptance of panentheism “virtually inevitable” (184). Thus, as part of his strategy to separate the core of theological essentialism (the proposition labeled a, above) from the other elements of Hartshorne’s dipolar theism (propositions b and c), Richards launches an attack on Hartshorne’s ideas about modality. Hartshorne never claimed to have worked out the semantic technicalities for his modal theory. He considered this as unfinished business for process thinkers. 5 Nevertheless, he developed his own ideas about modality in dialogue with Aristotle, Plato, Leibniz, Peirce, Whitehead, Von Wright, and Quine. Hartshorne ties modality to the asymmetrical structure of temporal process as we routinely experience it. We experience the present, Hartshorne observes, as arising out of a settled past that opens onto a future that is not precisely settled as to all of its details. Expressions like “water under the bridge” and “don’t cry over spilled milk” capture the 5 Lewis Edwin Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court), p. 659. 4 idea that one’s attitude to the past, not the past itself, is an object of choice. One’s decisions, however, are some of the building blocks of what one day will be the past. No matter how significant or insignificant our lives may be, the world is forever different than it would otherwise have been because of the decisions that we make. In Hartshorne’s preferred language, the past is fully determinate, the future is partly indeterminate, and the present is the process of determination. That the future is partially, but not wholly, indeterminate is central to Hartshorne’s concept of temporal becoming. The future is not experienced as an existential vacuum but as a structured stage for our activity. The structure is provided not only by the laws of nature but also by previous decisions, both our own and those of other creatures. For example, a mountain climber reaching for a hand­hold must do so in accordance with gravity; moreover, her ability to gain the hold, or even to recognize it as secure, may depend upon her own prior training. Hartshorne’s metaphysics of creative synthesis is grounded in, and is a generalization from, these observations. 6 Hartshorne agrees with Whitehead in conceiving the most concrete elements of reality not as enduring substances with spatial and temporal parts but as ephemeral centers of activity from which the spatially and temporally extended objects of our ordinary experience come to be. A tree, for example, is composed of countless of these dynamic singulars, as Hartshorne sometimes calls them. Thus, the tree, like the elements of which it is composed, must be conceived as a process. Dynamic singulars undergo a two­fold process: first, each one arises as an appropriation, a creative synthesis, of the past; second, once its activity is completed, it 6 Richards speaks of Hartshorne’s “a priori definition of ‘creativity’” (183). Hartshorne’s definition of creativity is hardly a priori in the sense Richards intends, for Hartshorne explicitly appeals to the widespread and massive data of experience in formulating and defending it (CSPM, chapter 1). 5 becomes material to be appropriated by subsequent dynamic singulars. 7 Because each dynamic singular is a tiny act of creation, this two­fold process is not deterministic. Nevertheless, there is an inherent stability or regularity to the two­fold process, for these creative acts are necessarily contextual and developmental. Joseph Bracken has forcefully reminded process thinkers that no dynamic singular exists apart from the surrounding nexūs and societies of other entities. 8 What a dynamic singular can become depends upon the matrix and the level of organization of past entities from which it arises. A thought can arise from a fully functioning human brain, but not from a Cyprus. Hartshorne finds the creative appropriation of the past most clearly exemplified in human experience, but he considers specifically human experience as but one of an infinite number of forms that experience can take. Hartshorne argues that psychological variables have an “unlimited breadth and flexibility” both below and above the human level (BH 119). For example, a mother bird is aware of her chicks even though she lacks the self­awareness that is characteristic of humans. She need not be human in order to remember the location of her nest, to hear the chirps of her young, or to anticipate the danger represented by a prowling cat.
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