Panentheism (;[John Culp (2013): "Panentheism", in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 18 March 2014.] Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical,
In panentheism, the universal Omnipresence is present everywhere, which at the same time "transcends" all things created. Whilst pantheism asserts that "all is God", panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe. Some versions of panentheism suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifestation of God. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God,[ "Pantheism and Panentheism in non-Western cultures", in: Britannica.][Whiting, Robert. Religions for Today. Stanley Thomes, London 1991, p. viii. .]
In philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy
The religious beliefs of
Neoplatonism can be regarded as panentheistic.
Plotinus taught that there was an ineffable transcendent God ("
Henology",
to En, τὸ Ἕν) of which subsequent realities were emanations. From "the One" emanates the Divine Mind (
Nous, Νοῦς) and the Cosmic Soul (
Psyche, Ψυχή). In Neoplatonism the world itself is God (according to
Plato's Timaeus 37). This concept of divinity is associated with that of the
Logos (Λόγος), which had originated centuries earlier with
Heraclitus (c. 535–475 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 (Δύναμις). This new all-pervasive monad encompassed all creation and its original uncreated emanations.
Modern philosophy
Baruch Spinoza later claimed that "Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived."
[ Ethics, part I, prop. 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."
[ Ethics, part I, prop. 25S.] Though Spinoza has been called the "prophet"
[Picton, J. Allanson, "Pantheism: Its Story and Significance", 1905.] and "prince"
[Fraser, Alexander Campbell, "Philosophy of Theism", William Blackwood and Sons, 1895, p. 163.] 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".
[ Correspondence of Benedict de Spinoza, Wilder Publications, 2009, , letter 73.] 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.[Karl Jaspers, Spinoza ( Great Philosophers), Harvest Books, 1974, , pp. 14 and 95.] Furthermore, Martial Guéroult suggested the term panentheism, rather than pantheism to describe Spinoza's 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.[Charles Hartshorne and William Reese, Philosophers Speak of God, Humanity Books, 1953, ch. 4.]
In 1828, the German philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–1832) seeking to reconcile monotheism and pantheism, coined the term panentheism (from the Ancient Greek expression πᾶν ἐν θεῷ, pān en theṓ, literally "all in god"). 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.
Philosophers who embraced panentheism have included Thomas Hill Green (1839–1882), James Ward (1843–1925), Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison (1856–1931) and Samuel Alexander (1859–1938).[John W. Cooper Panentheism, the other God of the philosophers: from Plato to the present Baker Academic, 2006, .] 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.[Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (1964) p. 348; cf. Michel Weber, Whitehead’s Pancreativism. The Basics. Foreword by Nicholas Rescher, Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Paris, 2006.]
In religion
Buddhism
Zen Buddhism
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 in 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 Atheism as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the Ultimate 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 Pantheism 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 πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence.[ Zen For Americans by Soyen Shaku, translated by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, 1906, pages 25–26. ]
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 Adi-Buddha, and Tathagata.
Pure Land Buddhism
Christianity
Panentheism is also a feature of some
Christianity philosophical theologies and resonates strongly within the theological tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
It also appears in
process theology. Process theological thinkers are generally regarded as unorthodox in the Christian West. Furthermore, process philosophy is widely believed to have paved the way for
open theism, a movement that tends to associate itself primarily with the
Evangelicalism branch of
Protestantism but is also generally considered unorthodox by most evangelicals.
Catholic panentheism
A number of ordained Catholic mystics (including
Richard Rohr, David Steindl-Rast, and
Thomas Keating) have suggested that panentheism is the original view of Christianity.
They hold that such a view is directly supported by
Mysticism and the teachings of
Jesus and Paul the Apostle. Richard Rohr surmises this in his 2019 book
The Universal Christ:
Similarly, David Steindl-Rast posits that Christianity's original panentheism is being revealed through contemporary mystical insight:
This sentiment is mirrored in Thomas Keating's 1993 article, ''Clarifications Regarding Centering Prayer'':
Panentheism in other Christian confessions
Panentheistic conceptions of God occur amongst some modern theologians.
Process theology and Creation Spirituality, two recent developments in Christian theology, contain panentheistic ideas. Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), who conjoined process theology with panentheism, maintained a lifelong membership in the Methodist church but was also a
Unitarianism. In later years, he joined the Austin, Texas, Unitarian Universalist congregation and was an active participant in that church.
[ About Charles Hartshorne .] Referring to ideas such as Thomas Oord's
theocosmocentrism (2010), the soft panentheism of open theism, Keith Ward's comparative theology and John Polkinghorne's critical realism (2009), Raymond Potgieter observes distinctions such as dipolar and bipolar:
The former suggests two poles separated such as God influencing creation and it in turn its creator (Bangert 2006:168), whereas bipolarity completes God’s being implying interdependence between temporal and eternal poles. (Marbaniang 2011:133), in dealing with Whitehead’s approach, does not make this distinction. I use the term bipolar as a generic term to include suggestions of the structural definition of God’s transcendence and immanence; to for instance accommodate a present and future reality into which deity must reasonably fit and function, and yet maintain separation from this world and evil whilst remaining within it.[Potgieter, R., 2013, 'Keith Ward's Soft Panentheism'
]
/ref>
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 (born 1965) 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 overcome the problem of evil and proposes that God's love for the world is essential to who God is.
The Latter Day Saint movement teaches that the Light of Christ "proceeds from God through Christ and gives life and light to all things".[ "Light of Christ", churchofjesuschrist.org.]
Gnosticism
Manichaeists, being of another gnostic sect, preached a very different doctrine in positioning the true Manichaean God against matter as well as other deities, that it described as enmeshed with the world, namely the gods of Jews, Christians, and pagans.
["Now, he who spoke with Moses, the Jews, and the priests he says is the archont of Darkness, and the Christians, Jews, and pagans (ethnic) are one and the same, as they revere the same god. For in his aspirations he seduces them, as he is not the god of truth. And so therefore all those who put their hope in the god who spoke with Moses and the prophets have (this in store for themselves, namely) to be bound with him, because they did not put their hope in the god of truth. For that one spoke with them (only) according to their own aspirations." And elsewhere: "Now God has no part in this cosmos nor does he rejoice over it." Classical Texts: Acta Archelai, p. 76. (www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/Manicheism/Manicheism_II_Texts.pdf).] Nevertheless, this dualistic teaching included an elaborate cosmological myth that narrates the defeat of primal man by the powers of darkness that devoured and imprisoned the particles of light.
["But the blessed One ... sent, through his beneficent Spirit and his great mercy, a helper to Adam, luminous Epinoia which comes out of him, who is called Life. ... And the luminous Epinoia was hidden in Adam, in order that the archons might not know her, but that the Epinoia might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother. And the man came forth because of the shadow of the light which is in him. ... And they took counsel with the whole array of archons and angels. ... And they brought him (Adam) into the shadow of death, in order that they might form (him) again from earth ... This is the tomb of the newly-formed body with which the robbers had clothed the man, the bond of forgetfulness; and he became a mortal man. ... But the Epinoia of the light which was in him, she is the one who was to awaken his thinking. ([7]).]
Valentinianism taught that matter came about through Emanationism of the supreme being, even if, to some, this event is held to be more accidental than intentional.
Hinduism
The 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,
which was compiled before 1100 BCE.
[Oberlies (1998:155) gives an estimate of 1100 BC for the youngest hymns in book 10. Estimates for a terminus post quem of the earliest hymns are more uncertain. Oberlies (p. 158) based on 'cumulative evidence' sets wide range of 1700–1100 BC.] 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.
[The Purusha Sukta in Daily Invocations by Swami Krishnananda.] From this being the sukta holds, the original creative will proceeds, by which this vast universe is projected in space and time.
[Swami Krishnananda. A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India. Divine Life Society. p. 19.]
The most influential[ Consciousness in Advaita Vedānta, William M. Indich, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1995, .] and dominant[Wainwright, William, "Concepts of God", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition).] The relationship between Brahman and the creation is often thought to be panentheistic.[Southgate, Christopher. God, Humanity, and the Cosmos. T&T Clark Int'l, New York. p. 246. .]
Panentheism is also expressed in the Bhagavad Gita.
Many schools of Hindu thought espouse monistic theism, which is believed 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.[Sherma, Rita DasGupta; Sharma Arvind. Hermeneutics and Hindu Thought: Toward a Fusion of Horizons. Springer, 2008 edition (December 1, 2010). p. 192. .] Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which elucidates the doctrine of Achintya Bheda Abheda (inconceivable oneness and difference), is also thought to be panentheistic.[Chaitanya Charitamrita, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.] In Kashmir Shaivism, all things are believed to be a manifestation of Universal Consciousness ( Cit or Brahman).[The Doctrine of Vibration: An Analysis of Doctrines and Practices of Kashmir Shaivism, Mark S. G. Dyczkowski, p. 44.] So from the point of view of this school, the phenomenal world ( Śakti) is real, and it exists and has its being in Consciousness (Ć it).[Ksemaraja, trans. by Jaidev Singh, Spanda Karikas: The Divine Creative Pulsation, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, p. 119.] Thus, Kashmir Shaivism also propounds theistic monism or panentheism.[The Trika Śaivism of Kashmir, Moti Lal Pandit.]
Shaktism, or Tantra, is regarded as an prototype of panentheism.[Vitsaxis, Vassilis. Thought and Faith: The concept of divinity. Somerset Hall Press. p. 167. .] 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."[Subramanian, V. K., Saundaryalahari of Sankaracarya: Sanskrit Text in Devanagari with Roman Transliteration, English Translation, Explanatory Notes, Yantric Diagrams and Index. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd. (Delhi, 1977; 6th ed. 1998). p. ix.] 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.
Judaism
While mainstream
Rabbinic Judaism is classically monotheistic and follows in the footsteps of
Maimonides (c. 1135–1204), the panentheistic conception of God can be found among certain mystical Jewish traditions. A leading scholar of
Kabbalah,
Moshe Idel,
[ Hasidism: Between Ecstacy and Magic, SUNY, 1995, p. 17 f.] ascribes this doctrine to the kabbalistic system of Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (1522–1570), and in the eighteenth century, to the Baal Shem Tov (c. 1700–1760), founder of the
Hasidic Judaism, as well as his contemporaries, Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch (died 1772) and Menahem Mendel, the Maggid of Bar. There is some debate as to whether
Isaac Luria (1534–1572) 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 also appears to be the view of non-Hasidic Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. Hasidic Judaism merges the ideal of kenosis with a transcendent God via the intellectual articulation of inner dimensions through Kabbalah and with emphasis on the panentheistic divine immanence in everything.
Many scholars would argue that "panentheism" is the best single-word description of the philosophical theology of Baruch Spinoza, a Jew.
Sikhism
Many newer, contemporary
Sikhism have suggested that human souls and the
Monotheism Waheguru are two different realities (dualism),
distinguishing it from the
Monism and various shades of nondualistic philosophies of other Indian religions.
However, Sikh scholars have explored nondualist exegesis of Sikh scriptures, such as Bhai Vir Singh. According to Mandair, Vir Singh interprets the Sikh scriptures as teaching nonduality.
The renowned Sikh Scholar, Bhai Mani Singh, is quoted to saying that Sikhism has all the essence of
Vedanta Philosophy.
[Singh, Nirbhai. Philosophy of Sikhism: Reality and its manifestations. Atlantic Publishers & Distri, 1990.] Historically, the Sikh symbol of
Ik Onkar has had a monist meaning and has been reduced to simply meaning, "There is but One God", which is incorrect.
[Chahal, Devinder Singh. "UNDERSTANDING OF THE FIRST STANZA OF OANKAR (ਓਅੰਕਾਰੁ) BANI."] Older exegesis of Sikh scripture, such as the Faridkot Teeka and Garab Ganjani Teeka, has always described Sikh Metaphysics as a non-dual, panentheistic universe.
For this reason, Sikh Metaphysics has often been compared to the Non-Dual Vedanta metaphysics.
The Sikh Poet, Bhai Nand Lal, often used Sufi terms to describe Sikh philosophy, talking about
Sufi metaphysics in his Persian poetry.
Islam
Wahdat ul-wujud (the Unity of All Things) is a concept sometimes described as pantheism or panentheism.
It is primarily associated with the
Sufi scholar
Ibn Arabi. Some Sufi Orders, notably the
Bektashis and the
Universal Sufism movement, adhere to similar panentheistic beliefs. The same is said about the
Nizari Ismaili who follow panentheism according to Ismaili doctrine.
In Pre-Columbian America
The Mesoamerican empires of the
Maya religion,
Aztec religion as well as the South American Incas (
Tawantinsuyu) have typically been characterized as
polytheism, with strong male and female deities.
According to Charles C. Mann's history book
, only the lower classes of Aztec society were polytheistic. Philosopher James Maffie has argued that Aztec metaphysics was panentheistic rather than pantheistic since
Teotl was considered by Aztec philosophers to be the ultimate all-encompassing yet all-transcending force defined by its inherited duality.
Native American beliefs in North America have been characterized as panentheistic in that there is an emphasis on a single, unified divine spirit that is manifest in each individual entity.[Russell Means, Where White Men Fear To Tread (Macmillan, 1993), pp. 3–4, 15, 17.] or as the Sacred Other[George Tinker, Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation, 2004, p. 89. He defines the Sacred Other as "the Deep Mystery which creates and sustains all Creation".]). 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.
One exception can be modern Cherokee, who are predominantly monotheism but apparently not panentheistic.[ The Peoples of the World Foundation. Education for and about Indigenous Peoples: The Cherokee People. Retrieved 24 March 2008.] Yet in older Cherokee traditions, many observe both 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. In the stories of Keetoowah storytellers Sequoyah Guess and Dennis Sixkiller, God is known as ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ, commonly pronounced "unehlanv," and visited earth in prehistoric times, but then left earth and her people to rely on themselves. This shows a parallel to Vaishnava cosmology.
Konkōkyō
Konkokyo is a form of sectarian Japanese
Shinto and a faith within the Shinbutsu-shūgō tradition. Traditional Shintoism holds that an impersonal spirit manifests/penetrates the material world, giving all objects consciousness and spontaneously creating a system of natural mechanisms, forces, and phenomena (Musubi). Konkokyo deviates from traditional Shintoism by holding that this spirit (Comparable to Brahman) has a personal identity and mind. This personal form is non-different from the energy itself, not residing in any particular cosmological location. In Konkokyo, this god is named "Tenchi Kane no Kami-Sama," which can be translated directly as "Spirit of the gilded/golden heavens and earth."
Though practitioners of Konkokyo are small in number (~300,000 globally), the sect has birthed or influenced a multiplicity of Japanese New Religions, such as Oomoto. Many of these faiths carry on the Panentheistic views of Konkokyo
See also
- People associated with panentheism
-
Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), Byzantine Orthodox theologian and hesychast
-
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), Dutch philosopher of Sephardi-Portuguese origin
-
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), English mathematician, philosopher, and father of process philosophy
-
Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), American philosopher and father of process theology
-
Arthur Peacocke (1924–2006), British Anglican theologian and biochemist
-
John B. Cobb (b. 1925), American theologian and philosopher
-
Mordechai Nessyahu (1929–1997), Jewish-Israeli political theorist and philosopher of Cosmotheism
-
Sallie McFague (1933–2019), American feminist theologian, author of Models of God and The Body of God
-
William Luther Pierce (1933–2002), American political activist and self-proclaimed cosmotheist
-
Rosemary Radford Ruether (b. 1936), American feminist theologian, author of Sexism and God-Talk and Gaia and God
-
Jan Assmann (b. 1938), German Egyptologist, theorist of Cosmotheism
-
Leonardo Boff (b. 1938), Brazilian liberation theologian and philosopher, former Franciscan priest, author of Ecology and Liberation: A New Paradigm
-
Matthew Fox (priest) (b. 1940), American theologian, exponent of Creation Spirituality, expelled from the Dominican Order in 1993 and received into the Episcopal priesthood in 1994, author of Creation Spirituality, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ and A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity
-
Marcus Borg (1942–2015), American New Testament scholar and theologian, prominent member of the Jesus Seminar, author of The God We Never Knew
-
Richard Rohr (b. 1943), American Franciscan priest and spiritual writer, author of Everything Belongs and The Universal Christ
-
Carter Heyward (b. 1945), American feminist theologian and Episcopal priest, author of Touching our Strength and Saving Jesus from Those Who Are Right
-
Norman Lowell (b. 1946), Maltese writer and politician, self-proclaimed cosmotheist
-
John Polkinghorne (1930–2021), English theoretical physicist and theologian
-
Michel Weber (b. 1963), Belgian philosopher
-
Thomas Jay Oord (b. 1965), American theologian and philosopher
Citations
General and cited references
-
Ankur Barua, "God’s Body at Work: Rāmānuja and Panentheism," in: International Journal of Hindu Studies, 14.1 (2010), pp. 1–30.
-
Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacock (eds.), In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being; Panentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World, Eerdmans (2004)
-
Bangert, B.C. (2006). Consenting to God and nature: Toward a theocentric, naturalistic, theological ethics, Princeton theological monograph ser. 55, Pickwick Publications, Eugene.
-
Cooper, John W. (2006). Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers, Baker Academic
-
Davis, Andrew M. and Philip Clayton (eds.) (2018). How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere, Monkfish Book Publishing
-
Thomas Jay Oord (2010). The Nature of Love: A Theology .
-
Joseph Bracken, "Panentheism in the context of the theology and science dialogue", in: Open Theology, 1 (2014), 1–11 ( online).
-
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Hiršs, Andris (2024). Influence of personalism on Latvian theory up to the early twentieth century: substantiality and panentheism. Studies in East European Thought
External links
