Pantheism and Panentheism

immortalitylost said:
Thanks SG. That is really interesting.

I've solved my problem, looking further, and have determined that panentheism as a whole is not for me. I found that it has many similarities to what I believe, but, I guess the whole not creating the universe part of the theory was what did it in for me.

I guess, the way I look at it, God = creator. And so the god they talk about really isn't God. It's just a kind of governing force, with independent will, under the creator.
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Don't confuse taiji and The Supreme Ultimate with wuji and The Infinite.
Wuji came first. Taiji is the way of creation, not the creator.

See this:
The Supreme Ultimate and the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate

That's kinda the only way I can see it. I mean, I can appreciate the theory, but I can't believe that is the entire extent of God. Any realistic God, to me, has to be the three o's to their fullest extent. And a God who didn't create just don't do it for me. Leaves too many unnecessary unanswered questions to hold up.

But that's just my opinion.
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Everywhere and in everything, but not contained/constrained by everything, and the idea of returning to it in conjunction with virtue doesn't do it for ya?
 
SG, in your opinion, where does Tao fall on the rationalist / mysticism scale ??
 
Thomas:
They alone, to my mind, open up and ever deeper penetration into the mystery of being, and non-being, and beyond-being, whereas other solutions, in which i include panthesim and panentheism, seem to me to shut it down.

As Christ said in the mouth of John th Divine, "How can you believe, who receive glory one from another (pan[en]theism): and the glory which is from God alone, (monotheism) you do not seek?" (John 5:44).
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This is really out picking cherries m8.
But you are siding with the submissive sheep making ideology which has a vested interest in making people think in such a demeaning fashion.
 
Avi said:
SG, in your opinion, where does Tao fall on the rationalist / mysticism scale ??
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You'll find plenty of both in Taoism, because of the many different schools and practices associated with Taoism.

Personally, I don't see the so-called rationalist/mystic dichotomy to be a valid one. Taoism and many other traditions speak about traveling on two paths at once.
 
seattlegal said:
You'll find plenty of both in Taoism, because of the many different schools and practices associated with Taoism.

Personally, I don't see the so-called rationalist/mystic dichotomy to be a valid one. Taoism and many other traditions speak about traveling on two paths at once.
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yes, 'analogously' speaking earlier on, can mean parallel, or correspondingly, or same, in a different key [harmonics]. Reminds me on youtube vid l posted on the evolutionary pantheism thread a while back on the interconnectedness, or a holographic universe would fit in maybe.

ENTELEKY-THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE
 
Thomas
Thomas said:
H

And as Aristotle is still considered an authority even today, and studied at great length across the globe, I can't see how he can be described as 'hobbled' in his determinations.
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Following Aristotle before him, Aquinas identified God as the Unmoved Mover, a supremely powerful causal agency that is not conditioned by other causal factors. My impression is that people who have a problem with panentheism are hobbled as a result of overextending the "G-d as author of nature" view into the realm of salvation theology. With your last post, you've done an admirable job communicating the nature of this problem.

You say you believe in I believe in creatio ex nihilo. The organization of matter tells us precious little about the organization of cosmic interdependence between Creator and Creation. It also doesn't tell us much about G-d's nature. An orderly universe doesn't necessarily require a Creator.

Even if you an I agree on the characteristics of the Unmoved Mover (e.g., freedom from prior causal events), that wouldn't mean we'd agree on anything about G-d's relational causality or human being's role in the salvation process. This distinction is by no means a new discovery. Here's Norman Pittenger, Professor of Christian Apologetics:
Above all, G-d is seen not as primarily the 'unmoved mover' or 'first cause' or 'absolute reality' but as the supremely related one. His relationship with creation is not simply logical on his side even if contingent on the world's side; it is active and living, involving him in a creation which matters to him to such a degree that he is not only causative in it but affected by it. He works by his persuasion...
​
You believing in creatio ex nihilo has no obvious implication for an understanding of G-d's role as "the supremely related one." You would be making an unsubstantiated logical leap if you were to assert any such implication. In this connection I think Pittenger worded his statement carefully. Note the word "persuasion." Calvinists who believe that we have no free will in the matter of salvation. A Calvinist would object to the idea that G-d persuades us to accept Grace. By contrast, Christians who believe in free will might think it's a good term, but it's not one they'd use if they want to convince people on an Intefaith forum of G-d's causal primacy as Unmoved Mover as a way of attesting that G-d is great.

The term "persuasion" makes more sense when you're talking about people making choices because they have free will. Persuasion is accomplished by means of informational interventions in the here and now. The transformative power of divine influences obtains in current events, experiences, and becomings. Obviously we're not talking about primordial creation here. We're talking about G-d's ongoing involvement with evolving worlds in the advancement of the Kingdom (divine spacetime).

The attribution of anger to G-d is especially interesting. It shows that He is involved with his Creation and directly affected by what's happening with it. And it shows that He chooses to respond to it. As Karl Rahner has pointed out, G-d's openness and willingness to respond and change does not deny G-d's immutability.

G-d is not limited or controlled by Creation. But he does interact with it creatively, not reflexively or reactively) and by choice. If His powers are infinitely great, why would one not be prepared to concede that G-d chooses to respond as He sees fit, not necessarily so that philosophy students can continue to entertain a simplistic view of His powers.

I might add here that the notion of G-d as Unmoved Mover may indeed hobble our efforts to understand the G-d of the Bible to the point where you may need to decide that He is portrayed differently from the some philosophers did, G-d's capacity for change is demonstrated in the New Testament. G-d changed by virtue of the fact of the Incarnation: G-d took a form He did not have before. You keep invoking the Christian faith as though it is nonpanentheistic. It is actually an exemplar of panentheism. If you accept the notion of only begotten son, you have to accept the idea that Jesus represented an intervention that was totally unique: The Bible describes it as a singular event that provided for the redemption of humanity. Importantly the Incarnation also changed G-d Himself through the Incarnation that was the Second Person in the Trinity. The only way around this is to say Jesus was not special , that the virgin birth was not a miraculous suspension of the natural order of things, and that his incarnation would have to be seen as a recurring event that reflects the routine operation of fixed laws of nature. Logically, to hold onto a view of G-d as immutable agency stand means having to argue that Jesus was not G-d after all.

In short: you're stuck.

A far as I can tell, you're faced with a mutually exclusive choice: become a believer in a kind of Christian panentheism that allows for supernatural interventions on the part of a changing G-d just as it allows for free will or stick with a causal determinism that is so extensive that human beings' choices are totally meaningless because the universe is just a mechanical outworking of a primordial "and it was so" action on the part of a Creator who is presumably still resting after completing the work and takes no further interest in His Creation.
 
seattlegal said:
Don't confuse taiji and The Supreme Ultimate with wuji and The Infinite.
Wuji came first. Taiji is the way of creation, not the creator.

See this:
The Supreme Ultimate and the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate


Everywhere and in everything, but not contained/constrained by everything, and the idea of returning to it in conjunction with virtue doesn't do it for ya?
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Oh, no, I didn't mean in terms of taoism. I meant in general terms of panentheism, like, without it being applied to any other religion.

I'm still kinda looking at all the stuff you posted, not quite done. Looking back at what I wrote though, it totally sounds like I posted about what you posted. Sorry bout that... word jumble and all that... :eek:

I just was trying to thank you for the info, and then the next part was totally unrelated to what you posted. ...Coulda made that a bit clearer, lol.

*sigh* communication iz hard...
 
Netti-Netti said:
A far as I can tell, you're faced with a mutually exclusive choice: become a believer in a kind of Christian panentheism that allows for supernatural interventions on the part of a changing G-d just as it allows for free will or stick with a causal determinism that is so extensive that human beings' choices are totally meaningless because the universe is just a mechanical outworking of a primordial "and it was so" action on the part of a Creator who is presumably still resting after completing the work and takes no further interest in His Creation.
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Genesis 2
1 So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. 2 By the seventh day, God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. 3 God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation.

Mark 2
23 On the Sabbath He was going through the grainfields, and His disciples began to make their way picking some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to Him, "Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?"

25 He said to them, "Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry; 26 how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the sacred bread —which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests —and also gave some to his companions?" 27 Then He told them, "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."​
 
nativeastral said:
does christian apophatism argue against an actual relation between, in Voegelin talk, the ground and the world ? [see also being and beyond, sorry need to put his terms in]?
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I think you've touched on the nub of the issue under discussion. Christian apophatism does not argue against relation, but is actually founded on it — which is called love — on the basis that God is utterly transcendant beyond all things, whilst simultaneously immanent in all things.

The very term 'relation' implies two things — in this case on the one hand God is more than a 'body', more than a 'being', more than anything that can be predicated of a created nature, whereas created nature cannot exist in any other way than in a body and in being ... if you take the body and being from the nature — its substance/essence — there is nothing left.

It is through love that God shares His ineffible 'nature', by creating natures that aspire to participation in the Divine. Here we focus intensely on the nature of that participation. But to allude to Vogelin, I think he uses 'ground' in the same way as Eckhart. The difficultly for many, or at least the accusation against Eckhart, was the idea that the Ground of God is substantially and essentially different from the Trinity. In my view Eckhart uses the term in a fully orthodox Christian sense, in that God is beyond all predication of qualities — He alone exists in Himself, by Himself, and as such is beyond all knowing, other than His own self-knowing ... which is Trinity. We know God in terms which are adapted to our nature and understanding ... so we do not know God as He is, but as He reveals Himself to us in other being, and in us as our own being, for all being subsists by and in Him.

I would add that the Christian Father is the Apeiron as used by Vogelin — the Boundless — whilst the Son is the Arche — the Principle by which all things exist. All things exist according to their principle, but are not the principle personified, as it were (whereas the Incarnate Son is precisely that). The Fathers refer to the Son as arche and the Father as Arche Anarchos.

From this philosophical position, created being exists by virtue of the Arche, which is the ground of its being, but not its being as such.

Panentheism can be predicated of the world in Christianity, as long as it is understood under certain strict definitions ... but today panentheism is rather ill-defined, or rather is assumed to infer different defintions according to who is claiming what ... but in the Christian Tradition panentheism excludes the idea of the Divine nature as a constituent of created nature, but rather is Cause, and its End.

'In the Middle Ages, the influence of Neoplatonism continued in the thought of Eriugena (815–877), Eckhart (1260–1328), Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), and Boehme (1575–1624). Although accused of pantheism by their contemporaries, their systems can be identified as panentheistic because they understood God in various ways as including the world rather than being the world and because they used a dialectical method. The dialectical method involved the generation of opposites and then the reconciliation of the opposition in God. This retained the distinct identity of God in God's influence of the world (Cooper 2006, 47–62)'.
Panentheism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Eriugena was a master of the dialectical method ... Eckhart wasn't, nor was Boehme ... Cusa I am not sure of, I have yet to investigate him.

nativeastral said:
and the fact that Christianity had to get rid of the platonic world soul [due to the demi urge:eek: though they kept the rational as the logos, they booted out the shakti] which might have aligned with the praktri of hinduism somewhat; as voegelin states a dissociation occurred between the immanent and the transcendent, which only mysticism or meditation seems to repair
Scholastic humanism and the ... - Google Books
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I don't think it's a case of getting ride of, as the correction and clarifying of Plato, according to the data of Revelation.

Incorporating a world soul, for example, might insert an intermediary into the process of Immanence, a demiurge which stands between creature and Creator, whereas Christianity insists on an unmediated participation of the one in the other. On the other hand, the orthodox understanding of theosis encompasses the idea of a collective state ... theosis will not be fully realised until it is realised in all.

Thomas
 
The astronomers I was watching in a documentary which wil posted a while back have postulated how big our universe is and it is vast.
People talk about our universe being a bubble of sorts, with a definable circumference. Now these astronomers have been observing and calculating and have stated that it is possible that our universe is a bubble, but that there is an infinite number of other bubbles beyond ours.
Looking at the structure of solar systems and such, it is not difficult to conceive of our entire universe as being one very small part of a subatomic particle of a molecule in a cell in a being.
But these kind of thoughts just boggle the imagination.
At the end of the day they are akin to the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" debates.
I suppose if one is very bored they can help pass the time.

What God "is" is mysterious and beyond our ability to conceive and relate to, but the fact is the universe is at times disposed in a kindly way to the inhabitants therein. The Factors behind this phenomenon, which encourage this should be explored as they seem more profitable things to consider.
 
Netti-Netti said:
I might add here that the notion of G-d as Unmoved Mover may indeed hobble our efforts to understand the G-d of the Bible to the point where you may need to decide that He is portrayed differently from the some philosophers did...
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You appear to have hobbled yourself, please do not assume I am similarly hobbled. I'm not.

Netti-Netti said:
G-d's capacity for change is demonstrated in the New Testament. G-d changed by virtue of the fact of the Incarnation: G-d took a form He did not have before.
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Ah, there's your problem. If you understood Christology, you'd not fall into that error. That's Arianism, not orthodoxy. If you're an Arian, I can see you'd have a whole host of problems ...

Netti-Netti said:
You keep invoking the Christian faith as though it is nonpanentheistic. It is actually an exemplar of panentheism. If you accept the notion of only begotten son, you have to accept the idea that Jesus represented an intervention that was totally unique: The Bible describes it as a singular event that provided for the redemption of humanity. Importantly the Incarnation also changed G-d Himself through the Incarnation that was the Second Person in the Trinity. The only way around this is to say Jesus was not special , that the virgin birth was not a miraculous suspension of the natural order of things, and that his incarnation would have to be seen as a recurring event that reflects the routine operation of fixed laws of nature. Logically, to hold onto a view of G-d as immutable agency stand means having to argue that Jesus was not G-d after all.

In short: you're stuck.
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I would be, but for the theology of the hypostasis, by which the Divine (immutable) nature united with a human (mutable) nature in the Person of the Incarnate Son. If you understood orthodox Christology, and the definition of Chalcedon, you'd see where you've gone wrong.

If the Divine irrupts into the created order, then it must do so in some form if It is to be perceived. If it didn't, it would remain ineffable and unknowable ... so the Divine manifests Itself according to the nature to whom it is manifesting ... But that does not change it's own nature, especially as the Divine is the Cause of all natures ...

So if you want to redefine Christianity on your own terms, you can, and good luck. But if you're telling me that orthodox Christianity is 'stuck' or locked in some paradox, then I'm afraid all I can say is you don't understand orthodox theology, as the arguments of the theologians amply demonstrate.

Again, if you want to interpret their arguments to suit your own, then that's up to you, but please don't assume that yours is the only logical interpretation of Christian Scriptures.

Thomas




Thomas
 
Thomas said:
So if you want to redefine Christianity on your own terms, you can, and good luck. ...If you want to interpret their arguments to suit your own, then that's up to you, but please don't assume that yours is the only logical interpretation of Christian Scriptures.
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Thomas, you can try to marginalize me all you want. Like I said, there is nothing new in these discussion on panentheism. And you're not having this argument with me. There are plenty of Christian theologians who are panentheists. I really like Jürgen Moltmann, who was a pastor. I quoted Karl Rahner, who was a Catholic priest and professor of dogmatic theology. Both John Macquarrie and Alan Watts were priests.

If you look around, I think you'll find the most favorable discussions of panentheism among Christian theologians. I suspect they are drawn to panentheism because it is essentially Biblical.

You might start with Teilhard de Chardin, who developed the idea that superorganization of matter and the personalization of G-d's body: "'God all in everyone is essentially orthodox and Christian." As you know, he was a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest. I'm sure he was familiar with classical theism and the idea of Unmoved Mover. Do you think Teilhard de Chardin saw evidence of creatio ex nihilo whe he discoverred Peking man in 1929? Or do you think he saw evidence of panentheistic evolutionary soteriology?
 
Netti-Netti said:
Like I said, there is nothing new in these discussion on panentheism.
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Hi Netti, what I was thinking was new was to examine the notions of pantheism and panenthism across interfaith lines. Obviously, yourself and Thomas have a deep understanding of panentheism from a Christian perspective. I am sorry to hear that there is nothing new there, but I guess with all the great minds having studied this for many years, it is not surprising that nothing new would jump out.

But, on the other hand, are there themes of an interfaith nature that might be new ?

For example, from a Jewish Renewal perspective, the ideas of deconstruction and reconstruction seem to keep coming up. The thought of deconstructing and reconstruction our vision of G-d seems to me quite a challenge. The reconstuction part seems to be to be linked closely to science. What is our most realist view of the universe ? That might give us insight about G-d. The deconstruction part is difficult. Why do we seek to know who or what G-d is ? It seems related to psychology, philosophy, maybe other themes.

Do you have thoughts in these areas ?
 
Avi said:
Hi Netti, what I was thinking was new was to examine the notions of pantheism and panenthism across interfaith lines. Obviously, yourself and Thomas have a deep understanding of panentheism from a Christian perspective. I am sorry to hear that there is nothing new there, but I guess with all the great minds having studied this for many years, it is not surprising that nothing new would jump out.

But, on the other hand, are there themes of an interfaith nature that might be new ?

For example, from a Jewish Renewal perspective, the ideas of deconstruction and reconstruction seem to keep coming up. The thought of deconstructing and reconstruction our vision of G-d seems to me quite a challenge. The reconstuction part seems to be to be linked closely to science. What is our most realist view of the universe ? That might give us insight about G-d. The deconstruction part is difficult. Why do we seek to know who or what G-d is ? It seems related to psychology, philosophy, maybe other themes.

Do you have thoughts in these areas ?
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Do you mean like substituting the fundamental forces (electro-magnetism, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, gravitational, and expansion of space forces) for the elements in creation (downward) path and applying psychological meanings to them for the upward (alchemical) path?
 
Netti-Netti said:
Thomas, you can try to marginalize me all you want.
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No I'm not ... but if you want to interpret the works of St Thomas according to your own insights, radically differently than their own teaching, then you have marginalised yourself.

So what I'm saying is you can interpret Christianity according to your own tastes, as many do here, but you can't quote extracts from the works of Orthodox Catholics to support your heterodox viewpoint, on the basis that only you understand what they meant to say.

You can argue a heterodox interpretation of those works, and orthodoxy will respond with a counter argument. As you never respond to these, I assume you have no response.

I am currently working on the apophatic line from Denys, Eriugena, Eckhart, Cusa on ... and two of those four were accused of heresy, and I defend them against that accusation according to their own works, so in that sense I am marginalising myself from orthodoxy ... but I cannot defend them by picking selective texts from Aquinas or Bonaventure or others and interpreting them in a heterodox fashion, my peers will see straight through that and toss it out ... what I have to do is argue the point that Eriugena (for example) is saying the same thing as orthodoxy understands an accepted orthodox commentary, in his own words, and that his words were misinterpreted by his accusers, and that although complex, he was orthodox in his Catholicism.

Netti-Netti said:
Like I said, there is nothing new in these discussion on panentheism. And you're not having this argument with me. There are plenty of Christian theologians who are panentheists. I really like Jürgen Moltmann, who was a pastor. I quoted Karl Rahner, who was a Catholic priest and professor of dogmatic theology. Both John Macquarrie and Alan Watts were priests.
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OK. But I don't think Rahner was a panentheist ... Aquinas definitely wasn't. So that leads me to doubt your commentaries on anyone else. Sorry, but that's understandable, I think.

Rahner argues for mutability and Immutability in the Deity ... so do I ... but the mutability is from our perspective looking at Him, not from His perspective looking at us ... mutability means being subject to time, change, place, movement ... and whilst Scripture accords all these to God, it is not because God moves, changes, ages, places ... but to enable us to understand something of the Divine ... so language addresses human capacity to comprehend ... the language to define God as He is in Himself does not, nor can it, exist.

I'm saying that ther Immutable Deity contains mutability within Himself, as the Infinite contains the finite within itself ... but the finite is so radically different to the infinite, that to assume the finite is, in essence, infinite, seems to me to be an error.

I stand to be enlightened, but as yet I don't see it.

Netti-Netti said:
If you look around, I think you'll find the most favorable discussions of panentheism among Christian theologians. I suspect they are drawn to panentheism because it is essentially Biblical.
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Is it ... then why is Judaism, Christianity and Islam not panentheist?

You might start with Teilhard de Chardin, who developed the idea that superorganization of matter and the personalization of G-d's body: "'God all in everyone is essentially orthodox and Christian." As you know, he was a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest. I'm sure he was familiar with classical theism and the idea of Unmoved Mover. Do you think Teilhard de Chardin saw evidence of creatio ex nihilo whe he discoverred Peking man in 1929? Or do you think he saw evidence of panentheistic evolutionary soteriology?[/QUOTE]
I don't know ... but I don't think you can claim so either, as he never claims to be a panentheist. De Chardin was supported by heavyweights like de Lubac, and opposed by heavyweights like Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain ... so I'm suggesting as easy statement like 'Chardin was a panentheist' cannot be made, other than an opinion which might or might not be the case.

Thomas
 
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