How did Charles Hartshorne develop Alfred North Whitehead’s ideas into process theology?

Charles Hartshorne, a student and mentee of Alfred North Whitehead, played a pivotal role in transforming Whitehead’s metaphysical system into what is now known as process theology.12

While Whitehead’s own work introduced an organismic view of the world and the concept of God’s dual nature—a primordial nature (abstract) and a consequent nature (concrete)—Hartshorne provided the definitive analysis of panentheism ("all in God") to further develop these ideas. Hartshorne took Whitehead’s organismic analogy seriously, proposing that God includes the world just as an organism includes its cells.13

In Hartshorne’s interpretation, God is not a static, unchanging being but is actively involved in an ongoing process with humanity. He conceived of God as dualistic—simultaneously free and unfree, conscious and unconscious, and eternal and temporal—viewing God as a participant in cosmic evolution. By emphasizing that the total organism gains from its constituents, Hartshorne bridged Whitehead’s philosophical framework with theological inquiry, establishing a system where God encompasses the world while allowing for the autonomy of individual events.13