Charles Hartshorne

Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) was an American philosopher who revolutionized process theology and the philosophical understanding of God. A student of Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard, Hartshorne developed process philosophy into a sophisticated theological system, arguing that God is not immutable but rather develops through genuine relationships with creation. His "neoclassical theism" challenged both classical theism and atheism by proposing that God is supremely relative, experiencing temporal succession while maintaining necessary existence. Hartshorne revived the ontological argument, formulating it in modal logic and defending it as demonstrating that God's existence is either necessary or impossible. His dipolar theism distinguished between God's abstract essence (eternal, absolute) and concrete actuality (temporal, changing). Major works include "Man's Vision of God" (1941), "The Divine Relativity" (1948), and "Anselm's Discovery" (1965). His process approach influenced contemporary discussions of divine omniscience, theodicy, and God's relationship to time.