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3. Also typical of Hartshorne's argument is his identification of God as both the "creator" and the "sole adequate knower" of anything so much as conceivable (AD: 285). I should say instead that God is both the sole primal source and the sole final end of all things. Whether, or in what sense, God's being the universal object for all subjects, and hence their sole primal source, is symbolically expressible by speaking of God as "creator" is another question, as is the question whether, or in what sense, God's being the universal subject for all objects, and hence their sole final end, can be symbolically expressed by saying that God is their "sole adequate knower."

Wiki Markup4. Whether or not God has a certain property is not to be decided, as Hartshorne implies, simply by invoking the rule that "Greatness" \ [= unsurpassability\] means having whatever properties it is better to have than not to have, as compared to other conceivable individuals" (AD: 202). There must be consideration as well of the difference between extraordinary or transcendental properties (these alone being, in my sense, "pure perfections") and other merely ordinary, i.e., categorial, generic, specific, or individual properties. I submit that no property can be predicated of God simply as God, or essentially, unless it either is a transcendental property or is predicated merely symbolically interpreting such.

13 February 2010