Category Archives: Pantheism

When holy water was rare at best It barely wet my fingertips But now I have to hold my breath Like Im swimming in a sea of it It used to be a world half there Heavens second rate hand-me-down But I walk it with a reverent air Cause everything is holy now

Peter Mayer, Holy Now (song)

Pantheism means All (pan-) is God (theos). Pantheism is the belief that the divine is not remote or separate from nature, but immanent within it. Pantheism is closely related to panentheism.According to David Waldron, pantheism, the perception of divinity as manifest or immanent in the physical world, isthe quintessential component of Neo-Pagan identity.

Many Pagans call this immanent divinity Goddess. She is everywhere and in everything, writes Karen Clark:

She is the burning ember of light interwoven with matter that shines forth in all living things. She is the unending, outrageous beauty of the wild world. She is the driving force that calls us to strive and struggle, and to grow and blossom. Her cupped hands hold us in the shifting seasons of our joys and sorrows, and life and death moments.

Neo-Pagan activist and author ofThe Spiral Dance, Starhawk, writes that the concept of immanence

names our primary understanding that the Earth is alive, part of a living cosmos. What that means is that spirit, sacred, Goddess, Godwhatever you want to call itis not found outside the world somewhereits in the world: itisthe world, and it is us. Our goal is not to get off the wheel of birth nor to be saved from something. Our deepest experiences are experiences of connection with the Earth and with the world.

Starhawkexplains how belief in a pantheistic god is unnecessary:

People often ask me if I believe in the Goddess. I reply Do you believe in rocks? It is extremely difficult for most Westerners to grasp the concept of a manifest deity. The phrase believe in itself implies that we cannot know the Goddess, that She is somehow intangible, incomprehensible. But we do not believe in rocks we may see them, touch them, dig them out of our gardens, or stop small children from throwing them at each other. We know them; we connect with them. In the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess we connect with Her; through the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, through ourselves. She is here. She is within us all. She is the full circle: earth, air, fire, water, and essence body, mind, spirit, emotions, change.

Pantheism may be understood in contrast with transcendentaltheism whichposits a God who is not a part of the world or creation, a God who is radically other or transcendent. Monotheism is an example of transcendentaltheism.The logical outcome of transcendental theism is either a fundamental dualism, in which God and the world are radically separate and humankind is alienated from God, or a monism which conceives of the world as unreality or illusion. Most forms of Christianity fall into the former category, while some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism are examples for the latter. Both of these propositions are unacceptable to Neo-Pagans, who view the world as neither fallen nor illusory.

Related Pages:

Panentheism

Nature Religion Pantheism Mother Earth Goddess Interconnectedness Re-enchantment Connecting with Nature The Gnostic Temptation

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Nature Mysticism

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Research by Michael P. Garofalo

Quotes

Nature Mysticism

"The road enters green mountains near evening's dark; Beneath the white cherry trees, a Buddhist temple Whose priest doesn't know what regret for spring's passing means- Each stroke of his bell startles more blossoms into falling." - Keijo Shurin

"Experiencing the present purely is being empty and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall."- Annie Dillard

"When we touch this domain, we are filled with the cosmic force of life itself, we sink our roots deep into the black soil and draw power and being up into ourselves. We know the energy of the numen and are saturated with power and being. We feel grounded, centered, in touch with the ancient and eternal rhythms of life. Power and passion well up like an artesian spring and creativity dances in celebration of life."- David N. Elkins, The Sacred as Source of Personal Passion and Power

Mysticism - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"There are sacred moments in life when we experience in rational and very direct ways that separation, the boundary between ourselvesand other people and between ourselves and Nature, is illusion. Oneness is reality. We can experience that stasis is illusory and that reality is continual flux and change on very subtle and also on gross levels of perception.- Charlene Spretnak

"And every stone and every star a tongue, And every gale of wind a curious song. The Heavens were an oracle, and spoke Divinity: the Earth did undertake The office of a priest; and I being dumb (Nothing besides was dumb) all things did come With voices and instructions..."- Thomas Traherne, Dumbness, 17th Century

"If not ignored, nature will cultivate in the gardener a sense of well-being and peace. The gardener may find deeper meaning in life by paying attention to the parables of the garden. Nature teaches quiet lessons to the gardener who chooses to live within the paradigm of the garden." - Norman H. Hansen, The Worth of Gardening

"These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God's beauty,no petty personal hope or experience has room to be . . . . the wholebody seems to feel beauty when exposed to it as it feels the campfireor sunshine, entering not by the eyes alone, but equally through allone's flesh like radiant heat, making a passionate ecstatic pleasure glow not explainable. One's body then seems homogeneousthroughout, sound as a crystal."- John Muir

Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the living meaning of Zen?." Zhaozhou said, "The oak tree in the courtyard."- Case 37 from the Mumonkan (Wumenguan) Collection of Zen Koans The Oak Tree in the Courtyard

"Beyond its practical aspects, gardening - be it of the soil or soul - can lead us on a philosophical and spiritual exploration that is nothing less than a journey into the depths of our own sacredness and the sacredness of all beings. After all, there must be something more mystical beyond the garden gate, something that satisfies the soul's attraction to beauty, peace, solace, and celebration." - Christopher and Tricia McDowell, The Sanctuary Garden, 1998, p.13 Cortesia Sanctuary and Center

"When I would re-create myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter as a sacred place, a Sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature."- Henry David Thoreau, Walking, 1851

Religion - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"We invent nothing, truly. We borrow and re-create. We uncoverand discover. All has been given, as the mystics say. We haveonly to open our eyes and hearts, to become one with that which is." - Henry Miller

"For the Eastern mystic, all things and events perceived by the senses are interrelated, connected and are but different aspects or manifestations of the same ultimate reality. Our tendency to divide the perceived world into individual and separate things and to experience ourselves as isolated egos in this world is seen as an illusion which comes from our measuring and categorizing mentally. It is called avidya, or ignorance, in Buddhist philosophy and is seen as the sate of a disturbed mind which has to be overcome: 'When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced, but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears.' Although the various schools of Eastern mysticism differ in many details, they all emphasize the basic unity of the universe which is the central feature of their teachings. The highest aim for their followers - whether they are Hindus, Buddhists or Taoists - is to become aware of the unity and mutual interdependence of all things, to transcend the notion of an isolated individual self and to identify themselves with the ultimate reality. The emergence of this awareness - known as 'enlightenment'- is not only an intellectual act but is an experience which involves the whole person and is religious in its ultimate nature. For this reason, most Easter philosophies are essentially religious philosophies."

- Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, 25th Anniversary Edition, p. 24

"God does not die on that day when we cease to believe in a personaldeity, but we die when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steadyradiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyondall reasoning.... When the sense of the earth unites with the senseof one's body, one becomes earth of the earth, a plant among plants,an animal born from the soil and fertilizing it. In this union, the bodyis confirmed in its pantheism." - Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961)

Spirituality - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"Of course the Dharma-body of the Buddha was the hedge at the bottom of the garden. At the same time, and no less obviously, it was these flowers, it was anything that I - or rather the blessed Not-I - cared to look at." - Aldous Huxley

"We will endeavour to shew how the aire and genious of Gardens operat upon humane spirits towards virtue and sancitie, I meane in a remote, preparatory and instrumentall working. How Caves, Grotts, Mounts, and irregular ornaments of Gardens do contribute to contemplative and philosophicall Enthusiasms; how Elysium, Antrum, Nemus, Paradysus, Hortus, Lucus, &c., signifie all of them rem sacram et divinam; for these expedients do influence the soule and spirits of man, and prepare them for converse with good Angells; besides which, they contribute to the lesse abstracted pleasures, phylosophy naturall and longevitie."- John Evelyn in a letter to Sir Thomas Browne, 1657

"Sure as the most certain sure .... plumb in the uprights, well entreated, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul .... and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul,

Lack one lacks both .... and the unseen is proved by the seen Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

To elaborate is no avail .... Learned and unlearned feel that it is so."- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855, Line 40-

"Flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies I hold you here, root and all, in my hand. Little flower, but if I could understand, What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is."- Alred Tennyson, Flower in the Crannied Wall

"What I know in my bones is that I forgot to take time to remember what I know. The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Dailyprayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, thewhisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.- Terry Tempest Williams

Trees - Quotes and Poems for Gardeners and Lovers of the Green Way

"The Tao exists in the crickets ... in the grasses ... in tiles and bricks ... and in shit and piss."- Chuang-tzu, The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader, p. 117

"In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. ... Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment."- Dogen Zenji, Japanese Zen Buddhist Grand Master, Awakening the Unsurpassed Mind, #31

"A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb. Complexity is closer to the Truth. Sitting in a garden and doing nothing is high art everywhere. Does a plum tree with no fruit have Buddha Nature? Whack!! The only Zen you'll find flowering in the garden is the Zen you bring there each day. Dearly respect the lifestyle of worms. All enlightened beings are enchanted by water. Becoming invisible to oneself is one pure act of gardening. Priapus, lively and naughty, aroused and outlandish, is the Duende de el Jardin.Inside the gardener is the spirit of the garden outside. Gardening is a kind of deadheading - keeping us from going to seed. The joyful gardener is evidence of an incarnation. One purpose of a garden is to stop time. Leafing is the practice of seeds. Good weather all the week, but come the weekend the weather stinks. Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth; and all Seasons for dying. Ripening grapes in the summer sun - reason enough to plod ahead. Springtime flows in our veins. Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener Her salve. A soul is colored Spring green. When the Divine knocks, don't send a prophet to the door. Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn into firewood - on thechopping block of time. Fresh fruit from the tree - sweet summertime! Gardens are demanding pets. Shade was the first shelter. One spring and one summer to know life's hope; one autumn and one winter to know life's fate. Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday. Relax and be still around the bees. Paradise and shade are close relatives on a summer day. Absolutes squirm beneath realities. The spiders, grasshoppers, mantis, and moth larva are all back: the summer crowd has returned! To garden is to open your heart to the sky."- Michael P. Garofalo, Pulling Onions

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Nature Mysticism : Quotations, Links, Bibliography, Notes ...

Pantheism is the belief that all of reality is identical with divinity,[1] or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god.[2] Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god.[3]

In the West, pantheism was formalized as a separate theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza[4]:p.7 (also known as Benedict Spinoza), whose book Ethics was an answer to Descartes' famous dualist theory that the body and spirit are separate.[5] Although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate.[6] His work, Ethics was the major source from which Western pantheism spread.[7]

Pantheistic concepts may date back thousands of years, and some religions in the East continue to contain pantheistic elements.

Pantheism is derived from the Greek pan (meaning "all, of everything") and theos (meaning "god, divine").

There are a variety of definitions of pantheism. Some consider it a theological and philosophical position concerning God.[4]:p.8

As a religious position, some describe pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism.[5]:pp. 7 From this standpoint, pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God.[8] All forms of reality may then be considered either modes of that Being, or identical with it.[9] Some hold that pantheism is a non-religious philosophical position. To them, pantheism is the view that the Universe (in the sense of the totality of all existence) and God are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God).[10]

Pantheistic tendencies existed in a number of early Gnostic groups, with pantheistic thought appearing throughout the Middle Ages.[12] These included a section of Johannes Scotus Eriugena's 9th-century work De divisione naturae and the beliefs of mystics such as Amalric of Bena (11th-12 centuries) and Eckhart (12th-13th).[12]:pp. 620621

The Roman Catholic Church has long regarded pantheistic ideas as heresy.[13][14]Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk who evangelized about an immanent and infinite God, was burned at the stake in 1600 by the Roman Inquisition. He has since become known as a celebrated pantheist and martyr of science.[15] Bruno influenced many later thinkers including Baruch Spinoza.

In the West, pantheism was formalized as a separate theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza.[4]:p.7 Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi Portuguese origin,[16] whose book Ethics was an answer to Descartes' famous dualist theory that the body and spirit are separate.[5] Spinoza held the monist view that the two are the same, and monism is a fundamental part of his philosophy. He was described as a "God-intoxicated man," and used the word God to describe the unity of all substance.[5] Although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate.[6] His work, Ethics was the major source from which Western pantheism spread.[7]

The breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until many years after his death. By laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment[17] and modern biblical criticism,[18] including modern conceptions of the self and the universe,[19] he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy.[20]

Spinoza's magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes' mindbody dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important thinkers. In his book Ethics, "Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, and one in which the refined conceptions of medieval philosophy are finally turned against themselves and destroyed entirely."[21]Hegel said, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all."[22] His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him "the 'prince' of philosophers".[23]

Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. The Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem (Hebrew: , a kind of ban, shunning, ostracism, expulsion, or excommunication) against him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23. His books were also later put on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.

The first known use of the term "pantheism" was in Latin, by the English mathematician Joseph Raphson in his work De spatio reali, published in 1697.[24] In De spatio reali, Raphson begins with a distinction between atheistic "panhylists" (from the Greek roots pan, "all", and hyle, "matter"), who believe everything is matter, and Spinozan "pantheists" who believe in "a certain universal substance, material as well as intelligence, that fashions all things that exist out of its own essence."[25][26] Raphson found the universe to be immeasurable in respect to a human's capacity of understanding, and believed that humans would never be able to comprehend it.[27]

The term was first used in English by the Irish writer John Toland in his work of 1705 Socinianism Truly Stated, by a pantheist.[12]:pp. 617618 Toland was influenced by both Spinoza and Bruno, and had read Joseph Raphson's De Spatio Reali, referring to it as "the ingenious Mr. Ralphson's (sic) Book of Real Space".[28] Like Raphson, he used the terms "pantheist" and "Spinozist" interchangeably.[29] In 1720 he wrote the Pantheisticon: or The Form of Celebrating the Socratic-Society in Latin, envisioning a pantheist society which believed, "all things in the world are one, and one is all in all things ... what is all in all things is God, eternal and immense, neither born nor ever to perish."[30][31] He clarified his idea of pantheism in a letter to Gottfried Leibniz in 1710 when he referred to "the pantheistic opinion of those who believe in no other eternal being but the universe".[12][32][33][34]

In 1785, a major controversy about Spinoza's philosophy between Friedrich Jacobi, a critic, and Moses Mendelssohn, a defender, known in German as the Pantheismus-Streit, helped to spread pantheism to many German thinkers in the late 18th and 19th centuries.[35]

In the mid-eighteenth century, the English theologian Daniel Waterland defined pantheism this way: "It supposes God and nature, or God and the whole universe, to be one and the same substanceone universal being; insomuch that men's souls are only modifications of the divine substance."[12][36] In the early nineteenth century, the German theologian Julius Wegscheider defined pantheism as the belief that God and the world established by God are one and the same.[12][37]

During the beginning of 19th century, pantheism was the theological viewpoint of many leading writers and philosophers, attracting figures such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge in Britain; Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in Germany; Knut Hamsun in Norway; and Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in the United States. Seen as a growing threat by the Vatican, in 1864 it was formally condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors.[38]

In 2011, a letter written in 1886 by William Herndon, Abraham Lincoln's law partner, was sold at auction for US$30,000.[39] In it, Herndon writes of the U.S. President's evolving religious views, which included pantheism.

"Mr. Lincoln's religion is too well known to me to allow of even a shadow of a doubt; he is or was a Theist and a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary supernatural inspiration or revelation. At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent."[39][40]

The subject is understandably controversial, but the content of the letter is consistent with Lincoln's fairly lukewarm approach to organized religion.[40]

Some 19th century theologians considered various pre-Christian religions and philosophies to be pantheistic.

Pantheism was regarded to be similar to the ancient Hindu[12]:pp. 618 philosophy of Advaita (non-dualism) to the extent that the 19th-century German Sanskritist Theodore Goldstcker remarked that Spinoza's thought was "... a western system of philosophy which occupies a foremost rank amongst the philosophies of all nations and ages, and which is so exact a representation of the ideas of the Vedanta, that we might have suspected its founder to have borrowed the fundamental principles of his system from the Hindus."[41]

19th-century European theologians also considered Ancient Egyptian religion to contain pantheistic elements and pointed to Egyptian philosophy as a source of Greek Pantheism.[12]:pp. 618620 The latter included some of the Presocratics, such as Heraclitus and Anaximander.[42] The Stoics were pantheists, beginning with Zeno of Citium and culminating in the emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius. During the pre-Christian Roman Empire, Stoicism was one of the three dominant schools of philosophy, along with Epicureanism and Neoplatonism.[43][44] The early Taoism of Lao Zi and Zhuangzi is also sometimes considered pantheistic.[32]

In 2007, Dorion Sagan, the son of famous scientist and science communicator, Carl Sagan, published a book entitled Dazzle Gradually: Reflections on the Nature of Nature co-written by Sagan's ex-wife, Lynn Margulis. In a chapter entitled, "Truth of My Father", he declares: "My father believed in the God of Spinoza and Einstein, God not behind nature, but as nature, equivalent to it."[45]

In a letter written to Eduard Bsching (25 October 1929), after Bsching sent Albert Einstein a copy of his book Es gibt keinen Gott, Einstein wrote, "We followers of Spinoza see our God in the wonderful order and lawfulness of all that exists and in its soul [Beseeltheit] as it reveals itself in man and animal."[46] According to Einstein, the book only dealt with the concept of a personal god and not the impersonal God of pantheism.[46] In a letter written in 1954 to philosopher Eric Gutkind, Albert Einstein wrote "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses."[47][48] In another letter written in 1954 he wrote "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.".[47]

In the late 20th century, pantheism was often declared to be the underlying theology of Neopaganism,[49] and pantheists began forming organizations devoted specifically to pantheism and treating it as a separate religion.[32]

Pantheism is mentioned in a Papal encyclical in 2009[50] and a statement on New Year's Day in 2010,[51] criticizing pantheism for denying the superiority of humans over nature and "seeing the source of man's salvation in nature".[50] In a review of the 2009 film Avatar, Ross Douthat, an author, described pantheism as "Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now".[52]

In 2015, notable Los Angeles muralist Levi Ponce was commissioned to paint "Luminaries of Pantheism" for an area in Venice, California that receives over a million onlookers per year. The organization that commissioned the work, The Paradise Project, is "dedicated to celebrating and spreading awareness about pantheism." The mural painting depicts Albert Einstein, Alan Watts, Baruch Spinoza, Terence McKenna, Carl Jung, Carl Sagan, Emily Dickinson, Nikola Tesla, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rumi, Adi Shankara, and Lao Tzu.[53]

There are multiple varieties of pantheism[12][54]:3 and various systems of classifying them relying upon one or more spectra or in discrete categories.

The American philosopher Charles Hartshorne used the term Classical Pantheism to describe the deterministic philosophies of Baruch Spinoza, the Stoics, and other like-minded figures.[55] Pantheism (All-is-God) is often associated with monism (All-is-One) and some have suggested that it logically implies determinism (All-is-Now).[5][56][57][58][59]Albert Einstein explained theological determinism by stating,[60] "the past, present, and future are an 'illusion'". This form of pantheism has been referred to as "extreme monism", in which in the words of one commentator "God decides or determines everything, including our supposed decisions."[61] Other examples of determinism-inclined pantheisms include those of Ralph Waldo Emerson,[62] and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.[63]

However, some have argued against treating every meaning of "unity" as an aspect of pantheism,[64] and there exist versions of pantheism that regard determinism as an inaccurate or incomplete view of nature. Examples include the beliefs of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and William James.[65]

It may also be possible to distinguish two types of pantheism, one being more religious and the other being more philosophical. The Columbia Encyclopedia writes of the distinction:

Philosophers and theologians have often suggested that pantheism implies monism.[67] Different types of monism include:[69]

Views contrasting with monism are:

Monism in modern philosophy of mind can be divided into three broad categories:

Certain positions do not fit easily into the above categories, such as functionalism, anomalous monism, and reflexive monism. Moreover, they do not define the meaning of "real".

In 1896, J. H. Worman, a theologian, identified seven categories of pantheism: Mechanical or materialistic (God the mechanical unity of existence); Ontological (fundamental unity, Spinoza); Dynamic; Psychical (God is the soul of the world); Ethical (God is the universal moral order, Johann Gottlieb Fichte); Logical (Hegel); and Pure (absorption of God into nature, which Worman equates with atheism).[12]

More recently, Paul D. Feinberg, professor of biblical and systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, also identified seven: Hylozoistic; Immanentistic; Absolutistic monistic; Relativistic monistic; Acosmic; Identity of opposites; and Neoplatonic or emanationistic.[74]

Nature worship or nature mysticism is often conflated and confused with pantheism. It is pointed out by at least one expert in pantheist philosophy that Spinoza's identification of God with nature is very different from a recent idea of a self identifying pantheist with environmental ethical concerns, Harold Wood, founder of the Universal Pantheist Society. His use of the word nature to describe his worldview is suggested to be vastly different from the "nature" of modern sciences. He and other nature mystics who also identify as pantheists use "nature" to refer to the limited natural environment (as opposed to man-made built environment). This use of "nature" is different from the broader use from Spinoza and other pantheists describing natural laws and the overall phenomena of the physical world. Nature mysticism may be compatible with pantheism but it may also be compatible with theism and other views.[75]

Panentheism (from Greek (pn) "all"; (en) "in"; and (thes) "God"; "all-in-God") was formally coined in Germany in the 19th century in an attempt to offer a philosophical synthesis between traditional theism and pantheism, stating that God is substantially omnipresent in the physical universe but also exists "apart from" or "beyond" it as its Creator and Sustainer.[76]:p.27 Thus panentheism separates itself from pantheism, positing the extra claim that God exists above and beyond the world as we know it.[77]:p.11 The line between pantheism and panentheism can be blurred depending on varying definitions of God, so there have been disagreements when assigning particular notable figures to pantheism or panentheism.[76]:pp. 7172, 8788, 105[78]

Pandeism is another word derived from pantheism and is characterized as a combination of reconcilable elements of pantheism and deism.[79] It assumes a Creator-deity which is at some point distinct from the universe and then transforms into it, resulting in a universe similar to the pantheistic one in present essence, but differing in origin.

Panpsychism is the philosophical view held by many pantheists that consciousness, mind, or soul is a universal feature of all things.[80] Some pantheists also subscribe to the distinct philosophical views hylozoism (or panvitalism), the view that everything is alive, and its close neighbor animism, the view that everything has a soul or spirit.[81]

Many traditional and folk religions including African traditional religions[82] and Native American religions[84] can be seen as pantheistic, or a mixture of pantheism and other doctrines such as polytheism and animism. According to pantheists there are elements of pantheism in some forms of Christianity.[85][86][87] Hinduism contains pantheistic views on the Divine, but also panentheistic, polytheistic, monetheistic and atheistic views.

Pantheism is popular in modern spirituality and New Religious Movements, such as Neopaganism and Theosophy.[91] Two organizations that specify the word pantheism in their title formed in the last quarter of the 20th century. The Universal Pantheist Society, open to all varieties of pantheists and supportive of environmental causes, was founded in 1975.[92] The World Pantheist Movement is headed by Paul Harrison, an environmentalist, writer and a former vice president of the Universal Pantheist Society, from which he resigned in 1996. The World Pantheist Movement was incorporated in 1999 to focus exclusively on promoting a strict metaphysical naturalistic version of pantheism,[93] considered by some a form of religious naturalism.[94] It has been described as an example of "dark green religion" with a focus on environmental ethics.[95]

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Pantheism - Wikipedia

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Does the Bible teach pantheism? No, it does not. What many people confuse as pantheism is the doctrine of God's omnipresence. Psalm 139:7-8 declares, Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. God's omnipresence means He is present everywhere. There is no place in the universe where God is not present. This is not the same thing as pantheism. God is everywhere, but He is not everything. Yes, God is present inside a tree and inside a person, but that does not make that tree or person God. Pantheism is not at all a biblical belief.

The clearest biblical arguments against pantheism are the countless commands against idolatry. The Bible forbids the worship of idols, angels, celestial objects, items in nature, etc. If pantheism were true, it would not be wrong to worship such an object, because that object would, in fact, be God. If pantheism were true, worshipping a rock or an animal would have just as much validity as worshipping God as an invisible and spiritual being. The Bibles clear and consistent denunciation of idolatry is a conclusive argument against pantheism.

What is monism?

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What does it mean that God is omnipresent?

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What is pantheism? - gotquestions.org

Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, has described Pantheism as "sexed-up atheism." That may seem flippant, but it is accurate. Of all religious or spiritual traditions, Pantheism - the approach of Einstein, Hawking and many other scientists - is the only one that passes the muster of the world's most militant atheist.

So what's the difference between Atheism and Pantheism? As far as disbelief in supernatural beings, forces or realms, there is no difference. World Pantheism also shares the respect for evidence, science, and logic that's typical of atheism.

However, Pantheism goes further, and adds to atheism an embracing, positive and reverential feeling about our liveson planet Earth, our place in Nature and the wider Universe, and uses nature as our basis for dealing with stress, grief and bereavement. It's a form of spirituality that is totally compatible with science. Indeed, since science is our best way of exploring the Universe, respect for the scientific method and fascination with the discoveries of science are an integral part of World Pantheism.

If you are looking for atheist groups or freethought groups or brights groups and email lists, and if you would like ones that do a lot more than just attack religion, then you may well find World Pantheism the place you were looking for.

Does atheism need sexing up? As such, atheism answers only a single question: is there a creator God, or not? That's an important question, but if your answer is "no" it is only a starting point. You may have reached that viewpoint based on your respect for logic, evidence and science, and those too are vital values. Yet after you've reached that initial "no God" answer, all the other important questions in life, all the options for mental and emotional wholeness and social and environmental harmony, remain open.

If atheism, humanism and naturalism are to advance, then they need approaches that don't simply leave the individual alone in the face of an increasingly threatening physical, social and international environment. They need ways of life that offer as rich a range of benefits as traditional religious ones.

Atheism is advancing. Growing numbers of people, across almost all nations, declare themselves to be non-religious or atheistic. Atheistic books on religion, like those of Dawkins, Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens, are best-sellers.

But so far atheism and atheist groups have focused on attacking conventional religions, especially the Western theistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It's true that these religions often come with high costs: submission to written or priestly authority, belief in terrifying concepts such as demons, Apocalypse, Last Judgment and Hell, or the drive to impose one's beliefs or religious values on other people. In many cases they give cachet and endurance to backward, repressive or destructive social values, developed in agrarian societies many centuries ago. And it's valuable to highlight these costs.

But negative critiques will not suffice. There are many motives beyond fear or habit why people hold fast to old religions or convert to new ones. There are many reasons besides ignorance and folly why they make religion the center of their personal and social lives.

Religions are not just a confidence trick on the part of prophets and preachers, or a self-destructive aberration on the part of believers. They have had social survival value in the past, and they continue to provide individual and personal benefits today, and these benefits are the source of their continuing numerical strength.

Religions provide communities of mutual support.

They overcome existential isolation and alienation, giving people a meaning for their lives and a sense of their place in the universe and nature.

They provide remedies for grief at the death of loved ones, and for the fear of one's own death.

They combat the feeling of helplessness in a threatening world full of crime, conflict and disaster.

These benefits show up in the form of better health and longer life.

Of course, if you're buying these benefits at the price of abandoning logic, ignoring evidence, believing in contradictions and impossibilities, teaching your children to fear a God who is getting ready to destroy the planet, signing on for social values that repress the rights of others, let alone sacrificing your life to slaughter those who disagree with you, then maybe the price is too high.

Are these negatives an inevitable part of the bargain? They may well be an inevitable part of belief in the unbelievable or of uncritical adherence to ancient scriptures.

But is it impossible to get the benefits that conventional religions offer, without giving up one penny of the value offered by reason, science, and progressive respect for the human rights of everyone? Don't we need approaches that offer the same range of advantages as supernatural religions but without the costs?

Can there be such a thing as a religion without god, an atheistic religion or a religious atheism? The Buddhism of the Pali scriptures does not have a God or gods. Nor does the Taoism of Lao Tzu or ChuangTzu.

Can there be such a thing as a completely naturalistic form of "spirituality" with no supernatural elements?

Increasingly, leading atheists and humanists are saying yes. This compilation from Dawkins, De Grasse Tyson and Sam Harris neatly embodies some of the trends.

When you pursue this approach of celebration and spirituality further, you are no longer in the real of basic atheism - which does no more than deny the existence of gods.

You have in fact arrived at Naturalistic Pantheism. At World Pantheism we have been exploring this possibility since the beginning of 2000 CE. We do so through our global and local mailing lists, through our magazine Pan, and through a growing number of local groups. We have lists about scientific and philosophical ideas, as well as about practical ways of developing our naturalistic spirituality. You can find links to these on our main page.

Our completely naturalistic Pantheism does not believe in any supernatural beings, forces or realms and is fully compatible with atheism and skepticism. As Richard Dawkins writes:

Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a nonsupernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings.

In practice, while a significant minority of our members like and use the word God to express the depth of their feelings for Nature and the wider Universe, the majority do not use the word about their own beliefs.

There are other names for similar approaches, such as religious naturalism or naturalistic paganism. We have gone with Pantheism simply because it's the best known, and has a long pedigree.

Read the rest here:
Pantheism as "Sexed-up Atheism" | World Pantheism

Metaphysics / Truth of Spinoza's Pantheism. All is One (Nature, God) Pantheist Quotes from Famous Philosophers & Scientists

'Deus sive Natura' (God or Nature)(Spinoza) We are part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow (Spinoza) A substance cannot be produced from anything else : it will therefore be its own cause, that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence appertains to the nature of it. (Spinoza, 1673)

Pantheism (meaning All is God) is the religious belief in the divinity of Nature and that we humans are part of the One, interconnected whole. It is in realising our connection to the One Universe (Nature, God, Brahman, Tao, Space) that we find truth, spiritual fulfillment and solace. Pantheism offers a positive ecological philosophy to our current destructive and isolated world.

The pantheist philosopher Spinoza, realised two profound things, that All is One (God, Nature) and that Motion is fundamental to existence. He described reality (what exists) in terms of One Substance.

But if men would give heed to the nature of substance they would doubt less concerning the Proposition that Existence appertains to the nature of substance: rather they would reckon it an axiom above all others, and hold it among common opinions. For then by substance they would understand that which is in itself, and through itself is conceived, or rather that whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing. (Spinoza, 1673)

Spinoza recognised the One Substance must be Infinite;

No two or more substances can have the same attribute and it appertains to the nature of substance that it should exist. It must therefore exist finitely or infinitely. But not finitely. For it would then be limited by some other substance of the same nature which also of necessity must exist: and then two substances would be granted having the same attribute, which is absurd. It will exist, therefore, infinitely. (Spinoza)

And Ageless and Eternal;

A substance cannot be produced from anything else : it will therefore be its own cause, that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence appertains to the nature of it. (Spinoza, 1673)

'All is One and Interconnected' is not a new idea, its foundation lies with the ancient philosophers. For thousands of years, philosophers have gazed at the stars and known that One thing must exist that is common to and connects the Many things within the Universe. As Leibniz profoundly says;

Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. (Leibniz, 1670)

Albert Einstein also had a good understanding of humans as an inseparable part of the One, as he writes;

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe ... We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein)

Unfortunately (and most likely tragically), this knowledge of our interconnection to the Universe (Nature, God) has been lost (or is naively considered as not important) to modern day humanity. As D. H. Lawrence wrote; We are bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the Earth.

It is important to understand that although 'All is One and Interconnected' is a profound idea of the ancients, they did not actually know how the universe was a dynamic unity, what matter was, how the One Thing / Brahman caused and connected the many things. The Metaphysics of Space and the Wave Structure of Matter shows that we can understand Reality and the interconnection of all things from a foundation of science / reason rather than mysticism / intuition.

On the left side of this page you will find links to the main articles which explain and solve many of the problems of postmodern Metaphysics, Physics and Philosophy from this new foundation.

We hope you enjoy the following pantheist quotes from a diversity of philosophers and scientists.

Geoff Haselhurst, Karene Howie

In essence, pantheism holds that there is no divinity other than the universe and nature. Pantheism is a religious belief that reveres and cares for nature, a religion that joyously accepts this life as our only life, and this earth as our only paradise, if we look after it. Pantheism revels in the beauty of nature and the night sky, and is full of wonder at their mystery and power. Pantheism believes that all things are linked in profound unity ... All things interconnected and interdependent. In life and in death we humans are an inseparable part of this unity, and in realising this we can find our joy and our peace. (Harrison, Pantheism, 1999)

I believe the universe is one being; all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole ... The whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one's affections outward toward this one God; rather than inwards on one's self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions- the world of spirits. (Robinson Jeffers, Pantheism)

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness. (Albert Einstein ,The Merging of Spirit and Science)

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. (Albert Einstein)

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature. (Albert Einstein, The World as I See It)

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. (Albert Einstein)

'Deus sive Natura' (God or Nature) We are part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow (Spinoza)

All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. (Zeno)

So we see that the parts of the world (for there is nothing in the world which is not a part of the universe as a whole) have sense and reason. So these must be present to a higher and greater degree in that part which provides the organising principle of the whole world. So the universe must be a rational being and the Nature which permeates and embraces all things must be endowed with reason in its highest form. And so God and the world of Nature must be one, and all the life of the world must be contained within the being of God. (Cicero)

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature. (Mikhail Gorbachev)

Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray. (Kabir)

When the Ten Thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the Origin and remain where we have always been. (Sen T'sen)

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living. (Jules Henri Poincare)

One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart, And mighty waves of single Being roll From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. (Oscar Wilde, Panthea)

We are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. We can never have enough of nature. (Henry David Thoreau)

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. (Albert Einstein)

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. (Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot)

'God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire. All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as Natures laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature.' (Zeno, founder of Stoicism) (Russell, 1946)

Let your gods, therefore, O philosophers, be suited to the present appearances of nature: and presume not to alter these appearances by arbitrary suppositions, in order to suit them to the attributes, which you so fondly ascribe to your deities. (David Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding, 1737, p137-8)

The word pantheism derives from the Greek words pan (='all') and theos (='God'). Thus pantheism means 'All is God'. In essence, pantheism holds that there is no divinity other than the universe and nature. Pantheism is a religious belief that reveres and cares for nature, a religion that joyously accepts this life as our only life, and this earth as our only paradise, if we look after it. Pantheism revels in the beauty of nature and the night sky, and is full of wonder at their mystery and power. Pantheism believes that all things are linked in profound unity ... All things interconnected and interdependent. In life and in death we humans are an inseparable part of this unity, and in realising this we can find our joy and our peace. (Harrison, Pantheism, 1999)

I believe the universe is one being; all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole ... The whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one's affections outward toward this one God; rather than inwards on one's self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions- the world of spirits. (Robinson Jeffers, Pantheism)

Aurelius, Marcus - Famous Stoic Roman Emperor & his Meditations on our Interconnected Existence in the Universe & how we are to live. We should not say - I am an Athenian or I am a Roman but I am a Citizen of the Universe.

Philosophy: Greek Philosophers - All is One (Space) and Active-Flux (Wave Motion). Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Atomists (Democritus, Lucretius), Socrates, Plato, Epicurus.

Philosophy: Stoicism Zeno - Famous Roman Stoic Philosopher Zeno realised the Interconnection of All Things in the Universe.

Spinoza, Benedictus de - The Wave Structure of Matter in One Infinite Eternal Space explains Spinoza's Substance (God is Nature) and the Interconnection of all things to One Thing and the Importance of (Wave) Motion in the Universe.

Tesla, Nikola - Tesla was influenced by Vedic Philosophy that all is one and dynamic. The Wave Structure of Matter confirms Nikola Tesla's Theories on Resonance and Transfer of Energy by Waves in Space. 'One day man will connect his apparatus to the very wheel work of the universe ... and the very forces that motivate the planets in their orbits and cause them to rotate will rotate his own machinery.'

Thoreau, Henry David - Thoreau's Civil Disobedience profoundly influenced Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi. On Walden Pond greatly influenced my life of living simply in Nature

Theology: Albert Einstein: Religion & Science - Discussion of Religion and Science Quotes / Quotations / Articles from the Famous Scientist & Philosopher Albert Einstein. 'The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. ... Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.'

World Pantheist Movement http://www.pantheism.net/

Pantheism: Nature, Universe, Science and Religion - Natural Pantheism, a spiritual approach to Nature and the Cosmos. The Universe is divine and Nature is sacred. The history, theory and practice of Pantheism. By Paul Harrison. http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/

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"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." (George Orwell)

"Hell is Truth Seen Too Late." (Thomas Hobbes)

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." (Mohandas Gandhi)

"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. ... The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres of cultural life. ... We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm and the misguided. ... Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)

Our world is in great trouble due to human behaviour founded on myths and customs that are causing the destruction of Nature and climate change. We can now deduce the most simple science theory of reality - the wave structure of matter in space. By understanding how we and everything around us are interconnected in Space we can then deduce solutions to the fundamental problems of human knowledge in physics, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, education, health, evolution and ecology, politics and society.

This is the profound new way of thinking that Einstein realised, that we exist as spatially extended structures of the universe - the discrete and separate body an illusion. This simply confirms the intuitions of the ancient philosophers and mystics.

Given the current censorship in physics / philosophy of science journals (based on the standard model of particle physics / big bang cosmology) the internet is the best hope for getting new knowledge known to the world. But that depends on you, the people who care about science and society, realise the importance of truth and reality.

It is easy to help - just click on the social network sites (below) or grab a nice image / quote you like and add it to your favourite blog, wiki or forum. We are listed as one of the top philosophy sites on the Internet (600,000 page views / week) and have a wonderful collection of knowledge from the greatest minds in human history, so people will appreciate your contributions. Thanks! Geoff Haselhurst - Karene Howie - Email

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"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

The rest is here:
Theology, Pantheism Spinoza: Discussion Metaphysics of ...

Panentheism (meaning "all-in-God", from the Ancient Greek pn, "all", en, "in" and Thes, "God"), also known as Monistic Monotheism,[1] is a belief system which posits that the divine whether as a single God, number of gods, or other form of "cosmic animating force"[2] interpenetrates every part of the universe and extends, timelessly (and, presumably, spacelessly) beyond it. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical,[3] panentheism maintains a distinction between the divine and non-divine and the significance of both.[4]

In pantheism, the universe and everything included in it is equal to the Divine, but in panentheism, the universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. God is viewed as the soul of the universe, the universal spirit present everywhere, in everything and everyone, at all times. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that 'All is God', panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God,[3] like in the concept of Tzimtzum. Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism.[5][6]Hasidic Judaism merges the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical transcendent Divine Panentheism, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of Kabbalah, with the populist emphasis on the panentheistic Divine immanence in everything.[7]

Native American beliefs have been characterized as panentheistic in that there is an emphasis on a single, unified divine spirit that is manifest in each individual entity.[8] (North American Native writers have also translated the word for God as the Great Mystery[9] or as the Sacred Other[10]) This concept is referred to by many as the Great Spirit. Philosopher J. Baird Callicott has described Lakota theology as panentheistic, in that the divine both transcends and is immanent in everything.[11]

One exception can be modern Cherokee who are predominantly monotheistic but apparently not panentheistic (as the two are not mutually exclusive);[12] yet in older Cherokee traditions many observe both aspects of pantheism and panentheism, and are often not beholden to exclusivity, encompassing other spiritual traditions without contradiction, a common trait among some tribes in the Americas.

The Central American empires of the Mayas, Aztecs as well as the South American Incans (Tahuatinsuyu) have typically been characterized as polytheistic, with strong male and female deities.[13]

According to Charles C. Mann's, "1491", only the lower classes of Aztec society were polytheistic. Philosopher James Maffie has argued that Aztec metaphysics was pantheistic rather than panentheistic, since Teotl, the Nahuatl term for God, and the cosmos were considered identical and coextensional.[14]

Neoplatonism is polytheistic and panentheistic. Plotinus taught that there was an ineffable transcendent "God" (The One) of which subsequent realities were emanations. From the One emanates the Divine Mind (Nous) and the Cosmic Soul (Psyche). In Neoplatonism the world itself is God [Timaeus 37]. This concept of divinity is associated with that of the Logos, which had originated centuries earlier with Heraclitus (ca. 535475 BC). The Logos pervades the cosmos, whereby all thoughts and all things originate, or as Heraclitus said: "He who hears not me but the Logos will say: All is one." Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus attempted to reconcile this perspective by adding another hypostasis above the original monad of force or Dunamis. This new all-pervasive monad encompassed all creation and its original uncreated emanations.

Baruch Spinoza later claimed that "Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived." [15] "Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner." [16] Though Spinoza has been called the "prophet"[17] and "prince"[18] of pantheism, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg Spinoza states that: "as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken"[19] For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world. According to German philosopher Karl Jaspers, when Spinoza wrote "Deus sive Natura" (God or Nature) Spinoza did not mean to say that God and Nature are interchangeable terms, but rather that God's transcendence was attested by his infinitely many attributes, and that two attributes known by humans, namely Thought and Extension, signified God's immanence.[20] Furthermore, Martial Guroult suggested the term "Panentheism", rather than "Pantheism" to describe Spinozas view of the relation between God and the world. The world is not God, but it is, in a strong sense, "in" God. Yet, American philosopher and self-described Panentheist Charles Hartshorne referred to Spinoza's philosophy as "Classical Pantheism" and distinguished Spinoza's philosophy from panentheism.[21]

The German philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (17811832) seeking to reconcile monotheism and pantheism, coined the term panentheism ("all in God") in 1828. This conception of God influenced New England transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. The term was popularized by Charles Hartshorne in his development of process theology and has also been closely identified with the New Thought.[22] The formalization of this term in the West in the 18th century was not new; philosophical treatises had been written on it in the context of Hinduism for millennia.[23]

Philosophers who embraced panentheism have included Thomas Hill Green (18391882), James Ward (18431925), Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison (18561931) and Samuel Alexander (18591938).[24] Beginning in the 1940s, Hartshorne examined numerous conceptions of God. He reviewed and discarded pantheism, deism, and pandeism in favor of panentheism, finding that such a "doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations." Hartshorne formulated God as a being who could become "more perfect": He has absolute perfection in categories for which absolute perfection is possible, and relative perfection (i.e., is superior to all others) in categories for which perfection cannot be precisely determined.[25]

In the Bah' Faith, God is described as a single, imperishable God, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe. The connection between God and the world is that of the creator to his creation.[26] God is understood to be independent of his creation, and that creation is dependent and contingent on God. God, however, is not seen to be part of creation as he cannot be divided and does not descend to the condition of his creatures. Instead, in the Bah' understanding, the world of creation emanates from God, in that all things have been realized by him and have attained to existence.[27] Creation is seen as the expression of God's will in the contingent world,[28] and every created thing is seen as a sign of God's sovereignty, and leading to knowledge of him; the signs of God are most particularly revealed in human beings.[26]

Panentheism is also a feature of some Christian philosophical theologies and resonates strongly within Eastern Orthodoxy.[citation needed] It also appears in Roman Catholic mysticism and process theology. Process theological thinkers are generally regarded in the West as unorthodox, but process philosophical thought paved the way for open theism.

In Christianity, creation is not considered a literal "part of" God, and divinity is essentially distinct from creation. There is, in other words, an irradicable difference between the uncreated (i.e., God) and the created (i.e., everything else). This does not mean, however, that the creation is wholly separated from God, because the creation exists in and from the divine energies. In Eastern Orthodoxy, these operations are the natural activity of God and are in some sense identifiable with God, but the creation is wholly distinct from the divine essence.[citation needed] God creates the universe by His will and from His energies. It is not an imprint or emanation of God's own essence (ousia), the essence He shares pre-eternally with His Word and Holy Spirit. Neither is it a directly literal outworking or effulgence of the divine, nor any other process which implies that creation is essentially God or a necessary part of God. The generally accepted use of "panentheism" to describe the God concept in Orthodox Christian theology is problematic for those who would insist that panentheism requires creation to be "part of" God.

God is not merely Creator of the universe, as His dynamic presence is necessary to sustain the existence of every created thing, small and great, visible and invisible.[29] That is, God's energies (operations) maintain the existence of the created order and all created beings, even if those agencies have explicitly rejected him. His love for creation is such that He will not withdraw His presence, which would be the ultimate form of annihilation, not merely imposing death, but ending existence altogether. By this token, the entirety of creation is fundamentally "good" in its very being, and is not innately evil either in whole or in part. This does not deny the existence of spiritual or moral evil in a fallen universe, only the claim that it is an intrinsic property of creation. Sin results from the essential freedom of creatures to operate outside the divine order, not as a necessary consequence of having inherited human nature. (see problem of evil)

Panentheistic conceptions of God occur amongst some modern theologians. Process theology and Creation Spirituality, two recent developments in Christian theology, contain panentheistic ideas.

Some argue that panentheism should also include the notion that God has always been related to some world or another, which denies the idea of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Nazarene Methodist theologian Thomas Jay Oord advocates panentheism, but he uses the word "theocosmocentrism" to highlight the notion that God and some world or another are the primary conceptual starting blocks for eminently fruitful theology. This form of panentheism helps in overcoming the problem of evil and in proposing that God's love for the world is essential to who God is.[30]

Panentheism was a major force in the Unitarian church for a long time, based on Ralph Waldo Emerson's concept of the Oversoul. This survives today as the panentheistic religion, Oversoul. [3] Charles Hartshorne, who conjoined process theology with panentheism, maintained a lifelong membership in the Methodist church but was also a unitarian. In later years he joined the Austin, Texas, Unitarian Universalist congregation and was an active participant in that church.[31]

Many Christians who believe in universalism hold panentheistic views of God in conjunction with their belief in apocatastasis, also called universal reconciliation.[32] Panentheistic Christian Universalists often believe that all creation's subsistence in God renders untenable the notion of final and permanent alienation from Him, citing Scriptural passages such as Ephesians 4:6 ("[God] is over all and through all and in all") and Romans 11:36 ("from [God] and through him and to him are all things") to justify both panentheism and universalism.

Earliest reference to panentheistic thought in Hindu philosophy is in a creation myth contained in the later section of Rig Veda called the Purusha Sukta,[33] which was compiled before 1100 BCE.[34] The Purusha Sukta gives a description of the spiritual unity of the cosmos. It presents the nature of Purusha or the cosmic being as both immanent in the manifested world and yet transcendent to it.[35] From this being the sukta holds, the original creative will proceeds, by which this vast universe is projected in space and time.[36]

The most influential[37] and dominant[38] school of Indian philosophy, Advaita Vedanta, rejects theism and dualism by insisting that Brahman [ultimate reality] is without parts or attributesone without a second.[39] Since, Brahman has no properties, contains no internal diversity and is identical with the whole reality it cannot be understood as an anthropomorphic personal God.[40] The relationship between Brahman and the creation is often thought to be panentheistic.[41]

Panentheism is also expressed in the Bhagavad Gita.[41] In verse IX.4, Krishna states:

By Me all this universe is pervaded through My unmanifested form. All beings abide in Me but I do not abide in them.

Many schools of Hindu thought espouse monistic theism, which is thought to be similar to a panentheistic viewpoint. Nimbarka's school of differential monism (Dvaitadvaita), Ramanuja's school of qualified monism (Vishistadvaita) and Saiva Siddhanta and Kashmir Shaivism are all considered to be panentheistic.[42]Caitanya's Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which elucidates the doctrine of Acintya Bheda Abheda (inconceivable oneness and difference), is also thought to be panentheistic.[43] In Kashmir Shaivism, all things are believed to be a manifestation of Universal Consciousness (Cit or Brahman).[44] So from the point of view of this school, the phenomenal world (akti) is real, and it exists and has its being in Consciousness (Cit).[45] Thus, Kashmir Shaivism is also propounding of theistic monism or panentheism.[46]

Shaktism, or Tantra, is regarded as an Indian prototype of Panentheism.[47]Shakti is considered to be the cosmos itself she is the embodiment of energy and dynamism, and the motivating force behind all action and existence in the material universe. Shiva is her transcendent masculine aspect, providing the divine ground of all being. "There is no Shiva without Shakti, or Shakti without Shiva. The two [...] in themselves are One."[48] Thus, it is She who becomes the time and space, the cosmos, it is She who becomes the five elements, and thus all animate life and inanimate forms. She is the primordial energy that holds all creation and destruction, all cycles of birth and death, all laws of cause and effect within Herself, and yet is greater than the sum total of all these. She is transcendent, but becomes immanent as the cosmos (Mula Prakriti). She, the Primordial Energy, directly becomes Matter.

The Sikh gurus have described God in numerous ways in their hymns included in the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture of Sikhism, but the oneness of the deity is consistently emphasized throughout. God is described in the Mool Mantar, the first passage in the Guru Granth Sahib, and the basic formula of the faith is:

(Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 1)

Ik Oankar Satnaam KartaaPurakh Nirbhau Nirvair AkaalMoorat Ajooni Saibhan GurPrasad

One Universal Creator God, Truth is his Name , Creative Being Personified, No Fear, No Hatred, Image Of The Timeless One, Beyond Birth, Self Existent, By Guru's Grace.

Guru Arjan, the fifth guru of Sikhs, says, "God is beyond colour and form, yet His/Her presence is clearly visible" (Sri Guru Granth Sahib,Ang 74), and "Nanak's Lord transcends the world as well as the scriptures of the east and the west, and yet He/She is clearly manifest" (Sri Guru Granth Sahib,Ang 397).

Knowledge of the ultimate Reality is not a matter for reason; it comes by revelation of the ultimate reality through nadar (grace) and by anubhava (mystical experience). Says Guru Nanak; "budhi pathi na paiai bahu chaturaiai bhai milai mani bhane." This translates to "He/She is not accessible through intellect, or through mere scholarship or cleverness at argument; He/She is met, when He/She pleases, through devotion" (GG, 436).

Guru Nanak prefixed the numeral one (ik) to it, making it Ik Oankar or Ek Oankar to stress God's oneness. God is named and known only through his Own immanent nature. The only name which can be said to truly fit God's transcendent state is SatNam ( Sat Sanskrit, Truth), the changeless and timeless Reality. God is transcendent and all-pervasive at the same time. Transcendence and immanence are two aspects of the same single Supreme Reality. The Reality is immanent in the entire creation, but the creation as a whole fails to contain God fully. As says Guru Tegh Bahadur, Nanak IX, "He has himself spread out His/Her Own maya (worldly illusion) which He oversees; many different forms He assumes in many colours, yet He stays independent of all" (GG, 537).

Several Sufi saints and thinkers, primarily Ibn Arabi, held beliefs that have been considered panentheistic.[49] These notions later took shape in the theory of wahdat ul-wujud (the Unity of All Things). Some Sufi Orders, notably the Bektashis[50] and the Universal Sufi movement, continue to espouse panentheistic beliefs. Nizari Ismaili follow panentheism according to Ismaili doctrine.

While mainstream Rabbinic Judaism is classically monotheistic, and follows in the footsteps of Maimonides, the panentheistic conception of God can be found among certain mystical Jewish traditions. A leading scholar of Kabbalah, Moshe Idel[51] ascribes this doctrine to the kabbalistic system of Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (15221570) and in the eighteenth century to the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, as well as his contemporaries, Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezeritch, and Menahem Mendel, the Maggid of Bar. This may be said of many, if not most, subsequent Hasidic masters. There is some debate as to whether Isaac Luria and Lurianic Kabbalah, with its doctrine of Tzimtzum, can be regarded as panentheistic. According to Hasidism, the infinite Ein Sof is incorporeal and exists in a state that is both transcendent and immanent. This appears to be the view of non-Hasidic Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, as well. Many scholars would argue that "panentheism" is the best single-word description of the philosophical theology of Baruch Spinoza.[52] Aspects of panentheism are also evident in the theology of Reconstructionist Judaism as presented in the writings of Mordecai Kaplan, who was strongly influenced by Spinoza.[53]

In his Dictionary of Gnosticism, Andrew Phillip Smith has written that some branches of Gnosticism teach a panentheistic view of reality,[54] and hold to the belief that God exists in the visible world only as sparks of spiritual "light". The goal of human existence is to know the sparks within oneself in order to return to God, who is in the Fullness (or Pleroma).

Gnosticism is panentheistic,[citation needed] believing that the true God is simultaneously both separate from the physical universe and present within it. As Jesus states in the Gospel of Thomas, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all... Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."[55] This seemingly contradictory interpretation of Gnostic theology is not without controversy, since one interpretation of dualistic theology holds that a perfect God of pure spirit would not manifest himself through the fallen world of matter. As Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, stated, "The true God has nothing to do with the material world or cosmos",[56] and, "It is the Prince of Darkness who spoke with Moses, the Jews and their priests. Thus the Christians, the Jews, and the Pagans are involved in the same error when they worship this God. For he leads them astray in the lusts he taught them.[57][58]

Valentinian Gnosticism teaches that matter came about through emanations of the supreme being, and to some this event is held to be more accidental than intentional.[citation needed] To other Gnostics, these emanations are akin to the Sephirot of the Kabbalists; they are deliberate manifestations of a transcendent God through a complex system of intermediaries.

The Reverend Zen Master Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist Abbot to tour the United States in 1905-6. He wrote a series of essays collected into the book Zen For Americans. In the essay titled "The God Conception of Buddhism" he attempts to explain how a Buddhist looks at the ultimate without an anthropomorphic God figure while still being able to relate to the term God in a Buddhist sense:

At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience. Again, Buddhism is not pantheistic in the sense that it identifies the universe with God. On the other hand, the Buddhist God is absolute and transcendent; this world, being merely its manifestation, is necessarily fragmental and imperfect. To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, "panentheism," according to which God is (all and one) and more than the totality of existence.[59]

The essay then goes on to explain first utilizing the term "God" for the American audience to get an initial understanding of what he means by "panentheism," and then discusses the terms that Buddhism uses in place of "God" such as Dharmakaya, Buddha or AdiBuddha, and Tathagata.

Originally posted here:
Panentheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

QUESTION: What is Pantheism?

ANSWER:

The word "pantheism," like many theological words, comes from the Greek language. Pan means "all" or "everything" and Theos means "god." So, pantheism is the belief that everything somehow is a part of god. Our galaxy, the stars, our solar system, all living things, all thoughts, all people, everything is part of who or what god is. Much of the pantheistic view can be summed up in the statement, "All is god, and god is all." Although a form of the word "Pantheism" was first used in English in 1705, its roots go far back into antiquity. Many current religious and philosophical systems that have their basis in Pantheism include Buddhism, Confucianism, Darwinism, Freemasonry, Hinduism, Occultism, Taoism, and the New Age movement. These are based on three broad types of Pantheism.

Materialistic Pantheism holds that the material universe is all that exists - there is nothing else. Our thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, and aspirations are nothing more than biochemical reactions occurring in the cells of the brain, glands, and organs. We are nothing but organic machines. In addition, since nothing but matter exists there was no one or nothing to create this matter. Thus matter must be eternal. "God" is just another name for the material universe. This form of Pantheism has more in common with atheism than with other forms of theism.

Idealistic Pantheism teaches that just as the human soul or mind resides in the human body, the universal soul or mind (i.e. god) resides in the physical universe. God infuses, works through, and expresses the divine essence through the material world. Ultimate reality is found, therefore, not in the material world, but in the spiritual world. Some go so far as to say that the physical world is merely an illusion - either god's or mine - in which I play my part. The sum of all thoughts and feelings is therefore "god."

Neutral Pantheism is like a hybrid of the other two. Both the material and immaterial emanate from a single neutral substance or energy. God is this energy that generates all mind and all matter. God creates physical reality out of this divine substance and then extends spiritual attributes to it from this divine substance. Then, in the end, all things return to god. Therefore, the totality of all thought and all matter is what we call "god."

There are at least two significant problems with Pantheism. First, it cannot account for the existence of the universe. Most scientists today accept that matter, energy, space, and even time (our universe) had a point of beginning. But, if god is just part of the universe or another name for the universe, who or what began god? God could not create himself! Second, since our universe includes beings with personality (you and me for example), the Creator of the universe must have personality also. An effect cannot be greater than its cause.

In contrast to Pantheism, the Bible teaches that God is a Person (Exodus 3:7; Hebrews 6:17), that He created the physical universe (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3), and that He wants to have a relationship with you and me (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10).

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Pantheism - History - AllAboutHistory.org

What is Pantheism?

Is the Universe or Nature God?

The term pantheism is built upon the Greek roots pan, which means all, and theos, which mens god; thus, pantheism is either the belief that the universe is God and worthy of worship, or that God is the sum total of all there is and that the combined substances, forces, and natural laws which we see around us are but manifestations of God.

There are several named categories of pantheism that can be found in academic literature:

Panpsychism: Nature as a whole is imbued with a consciousness.

Theomonistic Pantheism: Only God exists and the independent existence of nature is denied - also referred to as acosmism (a-cos-mism, or "no-world")

Physiomonistic Pantheism: Only nature or the universe exist, but they are referred to with the term "God" - thus, God is denied having independent existence.

Immanent-Transcendant Pantheism: God works through and is revealed through nature (also sometimes called Idealism).

Transcendental or Mystical Pantheism: Most common form of panentheism, explained below.

It should be clear that there is a great deal of variety within the pantheistic tradition - far too much variety to allow us to make many generalizations about pantheists overall or pantheism as a whole. Many common beliefs which are often associated with pantheism - like reincarnation or an afterlife - are actually only features of culturally specific manifestations of certain forms of pantheism.

One generalization which might be made, however, is that in truly pantheistic belief systems, only God exists and all that exists is God. Although there are a number of differences among the different forms of pantheism, most argue that the totality of reality - you, the computer, everything - is a part of God. Slightly modified versions might argue that the universe itself or perhaps the laws of nature are God while objects such as us and the computer are manifestations of those laws and principles.

Sometimes there can be confusion between pantheism and polytheism because some pantheists use polytheism as a metaphoric way of approaching the cosmic divinity they believe in. Some simply feel the need for symbols and personages to mediate their relationship with nature and the cosmos. Pantheists can, however, also relate directly to the universe and to nature, without the need for any intermediary symbols or deities.

Early Pantheism Pantheism can be thought of as a natural development of animism, arguing that everything is part of a universal spirit rather than that everything has spirits. On the other hand, pantheism has also tended to resist the personal and anthropomorphic depictions which typify the spirits in animism - and not all pantheists have regarded the "god" of the universe to be spiritual in nature.

Anaximander of Miletos, for example, was very much a materialistic pantheist. On the other hand Xenophanes, one of the founders of the Eleatic school of philosophy, argued for pantheism from observations of the unity of nature; while he did not ascribe a personality to nature itself, he did ascribe to it a spiritual quality which was more "real" than the material world we see around us. This anti-materialistic form of pantheism would become the dominant form until the modern era.

Pantheism is also associated with the Egyptian religion when Ra, Isis, and Osiris were identified with all existence. The pantheism of Hinduism, however, is much more widely known and recognized. Here, the impersonal source of all existence is Brahman. The separation of everything into different objects and persons is but a mere illusion - the true reality is the spiritual, incorporeal, and impersonal reality of Brahman, a reality that we can really know nothing about.

Indeed, some of the earliest evidence of pantheism can be found in the Vedas of Brahmanism, perhaps the oldest existing religion, dating back to 1000 BCE. There are also forms of modern Christianity which describe God as the "ground of all being," a very impersonal and non-anthropomorphic characterization.

Pantheism & Christianity Although it may not be immediately obvious, pantheistic considerations and principles have had an important impact on the development of Christian theology. This is because pantheism played a significant role in Greek philosophy, and much of that in turn would be incorporated into Christianity during the early and medieval periods.

The specific means by which this occurred was through the Neoplatonism. This was a school of Greek philosophy which began under the leadership of Plotinus in the 3rd century CE and which furthered development many of the ideas originally ascribed to Plato. According to Plotinus, true reality originated in an indescribable One from which the rest of the universe emanated as a sequence of lesser beings. Christian adherents of Neoplatonism identified the One as God. One of the most important of the Christian neoplatonists was Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, whose work was very influential in the Middle Ages. Many other early Christian theologians, including Augustine, were also deeply influenced by arguments and ideas of Neoplatonism.

Although pantheism has played an important role in the development of the Christian doctrine of God as creator of the universe and immanent in the universe, explicit pantheism has been rejected by orthodox Christian theologians for three reasons. First, even though some forms of pantheism have been personal and anthropocentric in nature, most tend towards a very impersonal concept of God which is at odds with the Christian belief that God is a person with personal attributes.

Second, pantheism requires a rejection of the doctrine that God is transcendent to and creator of all existence. Christian theology has long had difficulty dealing with the dual doctrines of transcendence and immanence because taken to the logical extremes, each excludes the possibility of the other even though traditional Christian doctrine requires both be true. Although a resolution to this tension by eliminating one or the other might be appealing to some, Christianity has consistently rejected such a choice as heretical.

Thirdly, pantheism tends to exclude the possibilities of both human and divine freedom. The association of God with nature and with natural laws would suggest that God has no freedom to do other than what those laws predict - God cannot, for example, suddenly cause gravity to work backwards without ceasing to be Nature. At the same time, if all humans are incorporated within God and are part of God, then it is difficult to understand where and how we might have moral responsibility for our actions. Indeed, does it even make sense to abhor the presence of evil when that, too, is a part of God?

Modern Pantheism The term pantheist itself seems to have been coined in 1705 by John Toland in his book "Socinianism Truly Stated" to describe someone who believes that everything is God. On this basis in 1732, the Christian apologist Daniel Waterland used the noun "pantheism" for the first time, condemning the belief as "scandalously bad... scarce differing from... Atheism."

Nevertheless, many philosophers through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries adopted pantheism in some form, including Spinoza, Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling. It was Spinoza, however, who developed one of the most systematic explanations and arguments for pantheism, writing that God and Nature were but two words for the exact same thing and that nothing could possibly exist outside of that single, unlimited substance.

The sentiment of pantheism has had a powerful influenced the thoughts and works of poets, philosophers, mystics, and extremely spiritual people. Notable among pantheistic poets are Goethe, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Emerson. Many modern poets consider pantheism as part of their worldview. However, this poetic form of pantheism never developed into a formal doctrine.

Scientific Pantheism Those pantheists today who argue that the universe is their god tend to be naturalistic or scientific pantheists. When scientific pantheists say they revere the universe, they are not talking about a supernatural being whom they worship. Instead, they are referring to the way human senses and our emotions force us to respond to the overwhelming mystery and power that surrounds us.

When the attribute of worship is removed, however, the validity of labeling the natural universe as "god" is often called into question. There seems to be some grounds for the challenge because this "god" is very unlike the gods normally worshipped in the West, and its only purpose appears to be to express some emotional connection or reaction to the universe at large.

On the other hand, our experiences with anthropomorphic and personal gods in the West should not blind us to the fact that there are many different ways to define the term. Impersonal and non-anthropomorphic gods can be found in many traditions. In Islam, anthropomorphism is considered blasphemous and Allah is described as totally unlike anything else in existence.

Problems in Pantheism Pantheism has obviously exerted a strong attraction for many people throughout human history. There are many reasons for this - for example, it allows one to get past many of the difficult problems associated with anthropocentric gods whose personalities and even personhood seem to conflict with reality as we experience it.

Pantheism can suffer from certain problems, however. The acceptance of the presence of God everywhere and in everything comes at the tremendous cost of making God the sole and only actor. Nothing and no one else exists. If we love God, it is really only God loving God - in other words, an instance of narcissism.

On the other hand, if absolutely everything is believed to be a part of God, then there is the possible contradiction that God can simultaneously be aware of something and not be aware of something (i.e., when children do not know something but their parents do). The only way to resolve that would be to deny that the children "really" lack knowledge or that they "really" exist at all, neither of which are very satisfying answers.

Another problem stems from the question of why exactly we would need to apply the label "god" to the universe itself. We already have a perfectly good term: "universe." What new information does "god" supply? At most it might describe a person's emotional reaction to the universe, but that seems to cause unnecessary confusion with more common uses of the word "god."

A final problem comes from the issue of good and evil. If the pantheistic god is the sum of its parts, then it is certainly responsible for all the good which is done and is much more good than any one person. However, it is also responsible for all the evil committed and is much more wicked than any one person. All of the good in this god cannot acquit it of the incredible evil which has occurred. What does it say about the nature and quality of this "god" if we see this god in the horrible suffering and pain which creatures on this planet experience?

Here is the original post:
Varieties of Theism: What is Pantheism? Is the Universe or ...

by Matt Slick

Pantheism is the position that God and nature are the same thing. Pantheism comes from two Greek words, pan meaning "all" and theos meaning "god." So, it would teach that all the stars, galaxies, planets, mountains, wind, and rain are all one and the same . . . part of what God is. So, pantheists would say that all is God.

Biblical Christianity teaches that God is separate from His creation, and He created it (Gen. 1:1-30) where pantheism says that Godand creation share the same nature and essence.

A huge problem with pantheism is that it cannot account for the existence of the universe. The universe is not infinitely old. It had a beginning. This would mean that God also had a beginning, buthow can something bring itself into existence? This is impossible, so this leaves us with the question of where God and the universe came from. Pantheism cannot answer this question, and it naturally leads to absurdities.

Original post:
What Is Pantheism?|God and Nature Are Same Thing|Bible ...