PANTHEISM
Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( 'pan' ) = all and Theos = God) literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that natural law, existence, and the universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of 'God'.
History
The term "pantheist" — of which the word "pantheism" is a variation — was purportedly first used by Irish writer John Toland in his 1705 work, Socinianism Truly Stated, by a pantheist. However, the concept has been discussed as far back as the time of the philosophers of Ancient Greece, first and foremost by Parmenides.
In 1785 a major controversy began between Friedrich Jacobi and Moses Mendelssohn, which eventually involved many important people of the time. Jacobi claimed that Lessing's pantheism was materialistic in that it thought of all Nature and God as one extended substance. For Jacobi, this was the result of the Enlightenment's devotion to reason and it would lead to atheism. Mendelssohn disagreed by asserting that pantheism was the same as theism.
Reception
On the whole, one might be surprised that even in the seventeenth century pantheism did not gain a complete victory over theism; for the most original, finest, and most thorough European expositions of it (none of them, of course, will bear comparison with the Upanishads of the Vedas) all came to light at that period, namely through Bruno, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Scotus Erigena. After Scotus Erigena had been lost and forgotten for many centuries, he was again discovered at Oxford and in 1681, thus four years after Spinoza's death, his work first saw the light in print. This seems to prove that the insight of individuals cannot make itself felt so long as the spirit of the age is not ripe to receive it. On the other hand, in our day (1851) pantheism, although presented only in Schelling's eclectic and confused revival thereof, has become the dominant mode of thought of scholars and even of educated people. This is because Kant had preceded it with his overthrow of theistic dogmatism and had cleared the way for it, whereby the spirit of the age was ready for it, just as a ploughed field is ready for the seed.
— Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. I, "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real"
Varieties of pantheism
This article distinguishes between two divergent groups of pantheists:
The vast majority of persons who can be identified as "pantheistic" are of the classical variety (such as Hindus), while most persons who self-identify as "pantheist" alone (rather than as members of another religion) are of the naturalistic variety. The division between the two "flavours" of pantheism is not entirely clear in all situations, and remains a source of some controversy in pantheist circles. Classical pantheists generally accept the religious doctrine that there is a spiritual basis to all reality, while naturalistic pantheists generally do not and thus see the world in somewhat atheistic terms.
Methods of explanation
An oft-cited feature of pantheism is that each individual human, being part of the universe or nature, is part of God. One issue discussed by pantheists is how, if this is so, humans can have free will. In answer, the following analogy is sometimes given (particularly by classical pantheists): "you are to God as an individual blood cell in your vein is to you." The analogy further maintains that while a cell may be aware of its own environs, and even has some choices (free will) between right and wrong (killing a bacterium, becoming malignant, or perhaps just doing nothing, among countless others), it likely has little conception of the greater being of which it is a part. Another way to understand this relationship is the Hindu concept of Jiva, wherein the human soul is an aspect of God not yet having reached enlightenment (moksha), after which it becomes Atman.
However, it should be noted that not all pantheists accept the idea of free will, with determinism being particularly widespread among naturalistic pantheists. Although individual interpretations of pantheism may suggest certain implications for the nature and existence of free will and/or determinism, pantheism itself does not include any requirement of belief either way. However, the issue is widely discussed, as it is in many other religions and philosophies.
Debate
Some critics argue that pantheism is little more than a redefinition of the word "God" to mean "existence", "life" or "reality". Many pantheists reply that even if this is so, such a shift in the way we think about these ideas can serve to create both a new and a potentially far more insightful conception of both existence and God.
Perhaps the most significant debate within the pantheistic community is about the nature of God. Classical pantheism believes in a personal, conscious, and omniscient God, and sees this God as uniting all true religions. Naturalistic pantheism believes in an unconscious, non-sentient universe, which, while being holy and beautiful, is seen as being a God in a non-traditional and impersonal sense.
Cosmotheism, a small but controversial racialist group which considers itself a form of pantheism, has an evolutionary interpretation of God, seeing God to be impersonal, but not taking a clear stance as to its sentience. “Cosmotheism”, like the terms “pantheism”, “monotheism”, and “polytheism”, was not used in antiquity. The term seems to have been coined by Lamoignon de Malesherbes in 1782 with regard to Pliny the Elder; various scholars have used it since then, but to refer to different sorts of religious belief.
The viewpoints encompassed within the pantheistic community are necessarily diverse, but the central idea of the universe being an all-encompassing unity and the sanctity of both nature and its natural laws are found throughout. Some pantheists also posit a common purpose for nature and man, while others reject the idea of purpose and view existence as existing "for its own sake."
Related concepts
Panentheism
Pantheism has features in common with panentheism, such as the idea that the universe is part of God. Technically, the two are separate, inasmuch as pantheism finds God synonymous with nature, and panentheism finds God to be greater than nature alone. Some find this distinction unhelpful, while others see it as a significant point of division. Many of the major faiths described as pantheistic could also be described as panentheistic, whereas naturalistic pantheism cannot (not seeing God as more than nature alone). For example, elements of both panentheism and pantheism are found in Hinduism. Certain interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and Shri Rudram support this view.
Cosmotheism
While the term is rarely used, and is most often simply a synonym for Pantheism, this unusual philosophy has been used rather differently, but in all cases, the feeling was that God was something created by man, perhaps even an end state of human evolution, through social planning, eugenics and other forms of genetic engineering.
H. G. Wells subscribed to a form of Cosmotheism, which he called the "world brain" (from a book of essays by the same name he printed in 1937, one of which details the creation of a Library-encyclopedia hybrid), and detailed even more in his book God the Invisible King (in which he proscribes mankind to set up a socialist system, structuring itself on social and genetic statistics, education, and eugenics, ideally someday equating itself and possibly even merging with and conquering the Pantheist god itself. See: Omega Point) and there were also some sections of his great work Outline of History, which reflected this belief and his finding it in the teachings of Jesus Christ and Siddhartha. His book Shape of Things to Come (and the 1936 film Things to Come) also reflects this, in which mankind, surviving a Nuclear war and an extended Feudal period, unites to form a collectivist Utopia.
In modern Israel, Cosmotheism was described by Mordekhay Nesiyahu, one of the foremost ideologists of the Israeli Labor Movement and a lecturer in its college Beit Berl. He felt that God was something which did not exist before man, and was a secular entity which the rebuilding Jewish Temple in Jerusalem has an instrumental role in "invent[ing]" God.
In the 20th century United States, William Luther Pierce, a white nationalist associated with the American Nazi Party and founder of the National Alliance also utilised the term "Cosmotheism". In his eyes (similar to H. G. Wells'), God would be the end result of eugenics and racial hygiene (See: Nazism, Francis Galton and Theosophy).
Vladimir Vernadsky's and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's "Noosphere" could be referenced as a description of the Cosmotheist deity, as does Emile Durkheim's Collective consciousness and Carl Jung's collective unconscious.
Arthur C. Clark makes a possible reference to the Cosmotheist Noosphere in his 1953 book Childhood's End, referring to it as the "Overmind".
Pandeism
Pandeism, too, is a kind of Pantheism, holding that the universe is identical to God, but also that God was previously a conscious and sentient force or entity that designed and created the universe. God only became an unconscious and nonsentient God by becoming the universe. Other than this distinction (and the possibility that the Universe will one day return to the state of being God), Pandeistic beliefs are identical to Pantheism.
Pantheistic concepts in religion
Hinduism
In Hindu theology, Moksha and achieving godness is the ultimate - both transcendent and immanent -, the absolute infinite existence, and the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be. As the sun has rays of light which emanate from the same source, the same holds true for the multifaceted aspects of God emanating from Brahman, like many colors of the same prism. This concept of God is of one unity, with the individual personal Gods being aspects of the One; thus, different deities are seen by different adherents as particularly well suited to their worship. Pantheism and panentheism are key components of Advaita theology.
In Smartist tradition, which follows Advaita philosophy, Brahman is seen as the one God, with aspects of God emanating therefrom. With all Hindus, there is a strong belief in all paths, or true religions, leading to One God.
Some of the Hindu aspects of God include Ganesa, Devi, Vishnu, and Siva.
Hindus who follow the Smarta tradition believe that these different aspects of God can bring worshippers closer to Moksha, end of the cycle of rebirth.
Other subdivisions of Vedanta do not strictly hold this tenet. For example, Dvaita school of Madhva holds Brahman to be only Vishnu. In contrast, Arya Samaj believes in worshipping Brahman directly, without conceptualizing God through form such as Ishta-deva or using an icon, the Hindu murti to focus. Arya Samaj only takes into consideration the formless Brahman while Advaita states that the formless Brahman (Nirguna Brahman) and the formful God Saguna Brahman are the same and hence worship of either is valid and equivalent. However, Advaita agrees with Arya Samaj that the Ultimate Reality is attributeless, in contrast to the theistic schools of Ramanuja, who also stressed panentheism, and Madhva, an advocate of duality.
Vedanta, specifically, Advaita, is a branch of Hindu philosophy which gives this matter a greater focus. Most Vedantic adherents are monists or "non-dualists" (i.e. Advaita Vedanta), seeing multiple manifestations of the one God or source of being, a view which is often confused by non-Hindus as being polytheistic.
Judaism
The radically immanent sense of the divine in Jewish mystical Kabbalah is said to have inspired Spinoza's formulation of pantheism. However Spinoza's views have not been accepted in Judaism. On the other hand, Schopenhauer asserted that Spinoza's pantheism was a result of his reading of Malebranche:
[Malebranche] teaches that we see all things in God himself. This is certainly equivalent to explaining something unknown by something even more unknown. Moreover, according to him, we see not only all things in God, but God is also the sole activity therein, so that physical causes are so only apparently; they are merely occasional causes. (Recherches de la vérité, Livre VI, seconde partie, chap. 3.) And so here we have essentially the pantheism of Spinoza who appears to have learned more from Malebranche than from Descartes.
— Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. I, "Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real"
Additionally, the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, had a mystical sense of the divine that could be described as panentheism.
Christianity
From the tiny groups such as Process theology and Creation Spirituality, up to the Liberal Catholic Church, and as far back into history as the Brethren of the Free Spirit and many gnostics, the idea has had currency within some segments of Christianity for some time.
Islam
Islamic Sufism is regarded by some as being influenced by eastern philosophies (Indian and Persian) and has Pantheistic doctrines (Wahadat-al-Wajood) وحدت الوجود within its many varieties.
Other religions
There are many elements of pantheism in Philosophical Taoism, some forms of Buddhism, and Theosophy along with many varying denominations and individuals within and without denominations.
Many Unitarian Universalists consider themselves pantheists.
Paul Carus called himself "an atheist who loves God", and advocated "henism", which is often seen as monist or pantheist in nature.
Ethics
According to Schopenhauer, pantheism has no ethics.
All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics,and then on the evil and suffering of the world. If the world is a theophany, then everything done by man, and even by animal, is equally divine and excellent; nothing can be more censurable and nothing more praiseworthy than anything else; hence there is no ethics.
— The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. XLVII
However, some pantheists hold that the pantheist viewpoint is the most ethical viewpoint, pointing out that any harm done to another is doing harm to oneself because what harms one harms all. What is good and evil isn't the mandate of something outside of us, but as a result of the way we are all interconnected. Instead of good choices being based on fear of divine punishment, it comes from a mutual respect from all things.
Quotations
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 (1994)
While Sagan never described himself as a pantheist, many maintain that pantheism fit his views better than any other term[citation needed]. This claim, while widely accepted among pantheists of all varieties, remains somewhat controversial outside the pantheist community. A similar debate surrounds the attribution of pantheism to other notable figures, including Albert Einstein.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) established the formal philosophy of Pantheism over 300 years ago. In his “Ethics” he wrote:
Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived. God is the indwelling, and not the transient cause of all things.
— Baruch Spinoza
Albert Einstein appeared to agree with Spinoza when he said:
I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings
— Albert Einstein
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his 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 this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
— Albert Einstein
To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
— Mikhail Gorbachev, [1]
in the context of natural theology there is reason to believe that pantheism may fare well if compared with theism. This may be part of the reason why it has been the classic religious alternative to theism.
— Michael P. Levine, author of “Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity”
many people profess pantheistic beliefs — though somewhat obscurely. Pantheism remains a much neglected topic of inquiry. Given their prevalence, non-theistic notions of deity have not received the kind of careful philosophical attention they deserve. Certainly the central claims of pantheism are prima facie no more "fantastic" than the central claims of theism — and probably a great deal less so.
— Michael P. Levine, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
God does not die on that day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reasoning. When the sense of the earth unites with the sense of 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 body is confirmed in its pantheism
— Dag Hammarskold, Secretary General of the U.N. (1953-1961)
Speaking generally, the word pantheism really contains a contradiction, designating a self-annulling concept (God—World), which therefore, by those who understand seriousness, has never been taken as anything but a polite expression.
— Schopenhauer, On the Will in Nature, "Sinology"
See also
External links
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