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Houston Smith's criticisIll of "Process Theology" (in his Why RcligiollRcligioll 
Matters: 74 f.) is pathetic. It not only relies naively on a crude distinction between between 
"naturalistic theism" and a "mystic worldview," but also sins gravely against the the 
ninth comlnandment-most certainly in the case of Hartshorne, if not also in that that 
of VVhitehead, between both of whonl and "VVienlan's naturalism" there is a great great 
gulf fixed. It necessarily implies that among the transcendental distinctions that must be made by any adequate metaphysics is a distinction between aU ordinary realities that exist only contingently and the extraordinary reality that exists necessarily. 
Houston Smith's criticism of "Process Theology" (in his Why Religion Matters: 74 f.) is pathetic. It not only relies naively on a crude distinction between "naturalistic theism" and a "mystic worldview," but also sins gravely against the ninth commandment-most certainly in the case of Hartshorne, if not also in that of Whitehead, between both of whom and "Wieman's naturalism" there is a great gulf fixed. 

More seriously, it quite misses the real difference between "naturalism," properly  properly so-called, and any axial reHgious religious outlook-naInelynamely, that the second, unlike  unlike the first, not only necessarily implies, but also explicitly affirms, a strictly ultimate strictly ultimate reality, assertions about which either are or necessarily imply strictly metaphysical strictly metaphysical assertions, i.e., assertions such that anything that is so much as possible as possible verifies them, even as nothing at aU all possible could ever falsify them. Otherwise  Otherwise put, any axial religious outlook asserts what Soren Kierkegaard called called "the infinite qualitative difference between time and eternity." It necessarily implies that among the transcendental distinctions that must be made by any adequate metaphysics is a distinction between all ordinary realities that exist only contingently and the extraordinary reality that exists necessarily. 

Because Whitehead and Hartshorne, in their different ways, both explicitly both explicitly make just this distinction, whereas Wieman denies it or fails to make, to  to say, as Slnith does, that "Process Theology relnains remains naturalistic" misses the very difference that demands to be recognized. 

As for his clailns that, for Process Theology, "God is not outside tilne as its Creatorits Creator, but within it. And God is not omnipotent, but like everything in the world the world is limited," they are so wide of the mark, in Hartshorne's case, certainly, as not as not to merit a response. 

3 March 20022002