33 Facts About Charles Hartshorne

1.

Charles Hartshorne was an American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but contributed to ornithology.

2.

Charles Hartshorne developed the neoclassical idea of God and produced a modal proof of the existence of God that was a development of Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument.

3.

Charles Hartshorne was born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, and was a son of Reverend Francis Cope Charles Hartshorne and Marguerite Haughton, who were married on April 25,1895, in Bryn Mawr, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

4.

Rev FC Charles Hartshorne, who was a minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church, was rector of St Paul's Episcopal Church in Kittanning from 1897 to 1909, then rector of St Peter's Episcopal Church in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania for 19 years.

5.

Charles Hartshorne attended Haverford College between 1915 and 1917, but then spent two years as a hospital orderly serving in the US Army.

6.

Charles Hartshorne obtained all three degrees in only four years, an accomplishment believed unique in Harvard's history.

7.

From 1923 to 1925 Charles Hartshorne pursued further studies in Europe.

8.

Charles Hartshorne attended the University of Freiburg, where he studied under the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, and the University of Marburg, where he studied under Martin Heidegger.

9.

Charles Hartshorne then taught at Emory University, followed by the University of Texas.

10.

Charles Hartshorne published his last article at age 96 and delivered his last lecture at 98.

11.

Charles Hartshorne served as president of the Metaphysical Society of America in 1955.

12.

Charles Hartshorne was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1975.

13.

Charles Hartshorne acknowledged these and other 'giants' in a 1983 lecture.

14.

Charles Hartshorne found inspiration in the works of Josiah Royce, William James, Henri Bergson, Ralph Barton Perry and Nikolai Berdyaev.

15.

Charles Hartshorne conducted a lengthy correspondence over some twenty-three years with Edgar S Brightman of Boston University about their respective philosophical and theological views.

16.

The intellectual movement with which Charles Hartshorne is associated is generally referred to as process philosophy and the related area of process theology.

17.

Charles Hartshorne was never happy with this way of speaking and followed Peirce in thinking of the realm of possibility as a continuum which, by definition, has no least member and which can be "cut" in infinitely many ways.

18.

Charles Hartshorne did not accept the classical theistic claim of creatio ex nihilo, and instead held to creatio ex materia, although this is not an expression he used.

19.

One of the technical terms Charles Hartshorne used is pan-en-theism, originally coined by Karl Christian Friedrich Krause in 1828.

20.

Charles Hartshorne reworked the ontological argument for God's existence as promulgated by Anselm of Canterbury.

21.

Charles Hartshorne argues that the classical concept of a deity for which all potentialities are actualized fails.

22.

Charles Hartshorne posited that God's existence is necessary and is compatible with any events in the world.

23.

For Charles Hartshorne, perfection means that God cannot be surpassed in his social relatedness to every creature.

24.

Charles Hartshorne acknowledged a God capable of change, as is consistent with pandeism, but early on he specifically rejected both deism and pandeism in favor of panentheism, writing that "panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations".

25.

Charles Hartshorne did not believe in the immortality of human souls as identities separate from God, but explained that all the beauty created in a person's life will exist for ever in the reality of God.

26.

Charles Hartshorne regularly attended services at several Unitarian Universalist churches, and joined the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Austin, Texas.

27.

Charles Hartshorne has been an important figure in upholding natural theology, and in offering an understanding of God as a personal, dynamic being.

28.

Charles Hartshorne is appreciated for his philosophical interest in Buddhism, and in stimulating others in new approaches to inter-religious co-operation and dialogue.

29.

Gilkey pointed out that Charles Hartshorne assumes there is an objective or rational structure to the whole universe, and he then assumes that human thought can acquire accurate and adequate knowledge of the universe.

30.

The point of tension in Charles Hartshorne's theology is whether God is really worthy of worship since God needs the world in order to be a complete being.

31.

In classical Protestant and Evangelical thought, Charles Hartshorne's theology has received strong criticism.

32.

Charles Hartshorne is criticized for his denial or devaluing of Christ's miracles and the supernatural events mentioned in the Bible.

33.

Charles Hartshorne did not own a car and preferred to use his bicycle.