972. If, as I should argue, the categorial . . .

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If, as I should argue, the categorial theistic idea of God as "the universal consciousness," or "the inclusive person," is and must be incoherent—because "person" or "consciousness," being by definition "local" in meaning, cannot also be "cosmic," as "universal" or "inclusive" plainly requires—then it cannot be true, as Hartshorne likes to claim, that "[t]he notion of the togetherness of things in God is only the most intelligible notion of their togetherness in 'existence,' remembering that the togetherness we are most concerned with is togetherness of life, experience, values, not a togetherness . . . of mere dead matter or neutral entities" (Man's Vision of God: 321 f.).

My guess is that Hartshorne's categorial theism seems to add intelligibility to our immediate experience, insofar as it does so, only because it trades on the genuine intelligibility of the transcendental theism it necessarily implies. We do indeed experience ourselves and others as parts of the encompassing whole – and as being valuable for this whole as well as for ourselves and others. And so the transcendental concept of the concrete individual whose field of interaction is strictly universal does indeed add intelligibility to our existential experience of ourselves, others, and the whole. Moreover, the universal individual as which the whole is thereby conceived to be can be vividly and coherently symbolized—for certain purposes, at least—as a divine Thou personally interacting with human as well as, more generally, creaturely thous, who are thereby given and demanded to interact personally with the divine Thou. But to try to turn the vivid symbol, "the divine Thou," into a concept like "the universal consciousness," or "an inclusive person," is to trade coherence for incoherence—and, of course, a lifeless symbol!

(Of course, the same criticism applies, mutatis mutandis, to all of Hartshorne's—and my own!—arguments that our understanding of our unavoidable beliefs—e.g." in natural order" or in a rational aim in life—is increased or enhanced by believing in God [cf., e.g.; "Our Knowledge of God": 60,62]')

My point, in short, is that there is the best of reasons why, as Hartshorne says, "the old problem of analogy: how if at all to conceive an unsurpassable yet individual form of experience, volition, or love, is still with us" ("A New Look at the Problem of Evil": 212). The problem of analogy is still with us because it is, in principle, insolvable.

14 October 1996