The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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Hartshorne claims that, when Charles Wesley wrote (as, of course, he didn't write!), "Father, thou art all compassion, Pure unbounded love thou art," "he was distinguishing God metaphysically" (DR: 36). But this would be a valid claim only if "compassion," and "love" were properly metaphysical, which is to say, "categorical," terms. That Hartshorne obviously assumes that they're exactly that is perfectly clear. In fact, a few sentences later, he speaks expressly of "the category, say, of 'knowledge.'" But I maintain that, even by his own explicit account of such terms, "compassion," "love," and "knowledge" are precisely not "categorical," or "categorial," but, at best, "almost categorial" (sic!). The only distinguishing they could possibly allow for, then, would not be a "strictly," but merely an "almost," metaphysical distinguishing.

Seriously, Hartshorne never achieves a clear concept of what it is, and is not, to distinguish something metaphysically. Nor does he ever really think and write—except when forced to concede the point!—as though his most favored theological metaphors are and must be, by his own account of their logical status, precisely and only that—metaphors, not metaphysical categories.

17 March 2006

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