On still another plane, one mentor of your mind,
whom you met once only by happenstance, then
but a glance, wrote on influence by saying
(what�s memorable apart from research)
God Is The One Being Who Influences All,
And Is Influenced By All.
So on this view the-thing-called-God influences
and is influenced by everything else. An eminent
philosopher of his day, Charles Hartshorne*
risked relegation by some swift thinkers for
pursuing this line of thinking. This was a time in
some philosophic circles when the very concept of
God was just about demounted by the emperors
of logic and symbol and analytic thought. A
fine philosopher of the day once confided in
the graduate student, �It�s a pity Charles wastes
so much time on such foolishness.�
It is no risk to say that Hartshorne helped restore
the integrity of an old idea and re-thought the idea
entire, for the sake of intellectual history, for
heaven's sake.
His book on birdsong can be found here: Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey
of Bird Song.
A School of Thought that bears his influence links here: The Center for Process Studies.
On his death John Cobb called Hartshorne "The Einstein of Religious Thought" and you can
read that here: http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org
