 Hartshorne’s second argument against absoluteness fares much better, according to Alston. He agrees with Hartshorne’s stance regarding the cognitive relation God has with the world; in any case of knowledge, the knowledge relation is internal to the subject, external to the object. When a human being knows something, the fact that she knows it is part of what makes her the concrete being that she is. If she recognizes a certain tree she is different from the being she might have been if she had not recognized the tree. But the tree is unaffected by her recognition. Likewise, according to Alston, one cannot maintain that God has perfect knowledge of everything knowable and still hold that God is not qualified to any degree by relations with other beings.