Many of those reading these blogs will have heard of Charles Hartshorne, Alfred North Whitehead’s most well-known student and chief propagator of Whitehead’s philosophy. Well, the confluence of the three of us came about on this wise. At a meeting of The Southern Society of Philosophy of Religion many years ago Professor Hartshorne and I both presented papers. In mine I sought to explain why I think that the term “pansyntheism” is more helpful than Hartshorne’s well-known term “panentheism” in explaining the intricacies of Whitehead’s theological perspective.
After I had delivered my paper Professor Hartshorne ran up to me in a very excited manner and exclaimed: “Pansyntheism is the right word. Why didn’t I think of that?” Thank you ever so much for pointing it out.” And off he ran to discuss the issues involved with some of his friends and students. Before going any further I should stop and explain the difference between these terms that Hartshorne had in mind. It get’s a little sticky but please bear with me.
In trying to explain Whitehead’s view of the relationship between God and the world, Hartshorne had used the Greek terms ‘pan’ for “all”, ‘theos’ for God, and the particle ‘en’ for “in”. The idea was that the term ‘panentheism’ best explains how God and the world are interrelated. God is neither identical nor completely separate from it. This term had become the standard way for philosophers to express this crucial idea in Whitehead’s “Process Philosophy” (cf. his Process and Reality), even though it was actually Hartshorne’s terminology.
In my paper I had suggested that the Greek term “en” unfortunately still suggests that somehow the world is entirely included in God. I went on to suggest that the particle ‘syn’, meaning “with”, as in “synthesis”, “symbiotic”, and “synthetic” would better fill the bill. This term focuses the idea of mutual interaction without entailing any suggestions of “inclusion.” Thus the relationship between God and the world is to be seen as a mutually “inter-relationship” of interaction.
Let me offer a translation of Paul’s familiar words of encouragement to the Christians at Rome in Romans 8:28 as a way to clarify my main point. In the traditional King James translation this verse reads: “And we know that all things work together for God to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose.” Fortunately, we now know that this translation is incorrect. The modern versions correct this mistranslation so as accurately to convey the real meaning of the Greek.
Focus on “God cooperates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” In the Greek the subject of the sentence is not “all things” but rather it is god who co-operates with all things bringing good to come about in the world. We human beings are, of course, part and parcel of these “all things” if we choose to work together with God to make good come about.
One final note. The Greek verb translated here to describe God’s activity is synergetei, literally “cooperates”. Thus, God is not presented as being in total control of, but as working with, the world, along with those who pitch in to help. My guess is that it is this insight, focused in the notion of symbiosis, that so animated Professor Hartshorne that day. The exchange of interactive energy seems to be the point. Moreover, he certainly embodied that interactive energy that day on which we met.
The coming together of the divine spirit with the ongoing activity of the cosmos in eternal creative formations is driven by a synergy that continually animates both realities. I submit that that the positive aspects of this process understanding of God’s relation to the world, especially human beings, are better served by substituting the term “syn” for “en”. I do think professors Whitehead and Hartshorne would have agreed.

As many of you know, the Dead Sea Biblical scrolls were discovered back in the early part of this century. They were found in several caves on the hillside above the Dead Sea itself, placed in large earthen jars. They seem to have been hidden in these caves sometime during the First Century CE in order to keep them from being discovered by the Roman occupying soldiers.
It took many years and a certain amount of intrigue for the scrolls to find their way into the hands of Biblical scholars who could preserve and translate them. Indeed, they have been under constant scrutiny all through the past fifty odd years they have been in the hands of scholars. Most of the scrolls are of the Old Testament biblical books familiar to Western cultures, while others pertain to the Qumran religious community near where and by whom they were hidden.
The people founding this community had separated themselves from the Jewish nation as such which they believed had departed from the true nation of Israel under the Roman occupation. They were in the desert awaiting the arrival of God’s new and true reign to come from heaven. It is thought by some scholars that John the Baptist, or even Jesus himself, may have had some connection with this community. The scrolls were in extremely fragmented condition when found.
I have two points of special interest to share with you about this special place. One is simply the fact that I had the opportunity to visit this area back in 1966, and to actually crawl into one of the caves in which the scrolls had found. It was a truly amazing experience to climb up to the caves and to actually crawl inside one of them. I was spending a week in Jerusalem and an American scholar studying there (Dr. James Robinson) volunteered to take me to the ruins/caves.
When the Romans came after the original Qumran community to destroy it, many of its members, along with some of the Traditional Jewish people from Jerusalem seemed to have committed suicide by jumping off the cliff. The ruined buildings and various water pools have stood there in the desert ever since. It is a very rocky, arid, and deserted area where no one tries to live or farm anymore. It stands right beside the Dead Sea itself, in which there is no form of life.
The second point of interest I can share with you concerns the translation of the Dead Sea scrolls themselves. First, some background. An Oxford scholar named Strugnell, who was teaching at Duke while I was there, had initially been given the responsibility to oversee the compilation of the scrolls into a single text. Unfortunately, and for reasons not fully understood, the project of producing an actual text never seems to have gotten off the ground. He and his team simply never were able, or chose not, to produce a usable copy of the Dead Sea scrolls.
Now, here is where things get interesting. As I understand it Professor Strugnell was only able to put together an analytic concordance of all the terms used in the scrolls, but no actually translation as of yet. The concordance documented every word used in the scrolls according to exactly where they appeared, allowing copies to be printed. I do believe that the Professor was eventually found derelict in his duties and was removed from his position.
However, as I understand it, two scholarly Catholic priests reasoned that since they had a complete concordance of the manuscripts, they could feed the information about where each word appeared, chapter and verse, into a computer and have the computer collate all the material, each instance of each word, and print out the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, sort of “in reverse.” And so they did! They were in this way able to bypass Professor Strugnell’s assignment and produce the actual Dead Sea Scrolls themselves.