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Throughout his writings, so far as I know, Hartshorne has taken the position that what God does in or to the world, as distinct from with the world ("God and Nature": 58) can all be placed under Whitehead's concept of "persuasion." Anything that God does (or, at any rate, can be known to do) in or to the world is by way of persuading it, or, more exactly, persuading each of the creatures in it, to conform to the prevailing pattern of cosmic order that God alone is competent to determine (59). In some, though not all, places in which Hartshorne takes this position, he expresses or implies a contrast between this divine method of acting called "persuasion" and what he characterizes as "coercion." Thus, for example, in a passage in The Divine Relativity in which Hartshorne introduces the concept of "persuasion" by way of explaining God's predominant influence as "object" upon us as "subjects," he goes on to state the rule that "objects influence but do not coerce subjects" (142).

Wiki MarkupAt the same time, Hartshorne is consistent in stressing that God's ability to influence the self-creation of all other agents, or creators, is "ideal," "unfailing," "infallible," "irresistible," in short, "unsurpassable." In fact, he sometimes says, and at other times clearly implies, that God's influence on others is without limits. Thus, having argued that "no teleology can exclude unfortunate accidents and frustrations, for goals have to be reached through multiple acts of freedom, none of which can be entirely controlled, even by God," he goes on to add, "The point is not that \ [God\] cannot control them, but that they cannot be controlled. It is not \ [God's\] influence which has limits, but their capacity to receive influence. Absolute control of a free being, and there can be no others, is self-contradictory" ("The Modern World and a Modern View of God": 81).

Of course, this is only what one would expect Hartshorne to say, holding, as he does, that God must be conceived as in every way unsurpassable by others, and in that sense perfect -- absolutely perfect in every respect in which anything logically could be so, and relatively perfect in every other respect. Accordingly, God's power over others, no less than God's goodness toward and knowledge of them, is absolutely perfect, such that none greater can be conceived. It is as great as any power over others could conceivably be and, therefore, can only be conceived as maximal and without limits (cf. DR: 138).

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