Pantheism and Panentheism

[seattlegal]

Re: An Interfaith view

The Taoist creation myth starts out with chaos, described as "formless." According to Erigena, the primordial causes are divine ideas which in turn cause all things. These primordial causes have some divine organization and divine intention to them, and therefore would not be considered chaos.

From Fu Xi:

The Limitless (Wuji) produces the delimited, and this is the Absolute (Taiji)
The Taiji produces two forms, named yin and yang
The two forms produce four phenomena, named lesser yin, great yin (taiyin also means the Moon), lesser yang, great yang (taiyang also means the Sun).
The four phenomena act on the eight trigrams (ba gua), eight eights are sixty-four hexagrams.​

 

[shawn]

Aww shawn, let the guys do their thing.

You can always ask them to translate.

I do understand them already as I wasted many hours reading these obscure (and mainstream) philosophers when I was younger, and then realized that all of then were (for the most part) engaged in an elaborate game of logic which amounted to a lot of wind with nothing to show....but it does impress some people to be able to do such stunts.
What really matters is......are you a better person for all your reading and study and debating?????
If not, then begin again as it was wasted effort and only impresses the naive. Those who "know" (*nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more....wot....*) remain unimpressed with all the intellectual gymnastics.
It is like the chrome monster racing cars with all the cool decals and details and paint etc, which then gets its doors blown away by the unimpressive little car which spent more time working on what really mattered.

But, by all means there boys, fill your boots and build the chrome behemoth.

 

[Thomas]

Re: An Interfaith view

According to Erigena ...

Sorry to pop in, but you said the 'E' word!

The Primordial Causes belong to the second division of nature in the Periphyseon — 'that which is created and creates', whereas the source of the Primordial Causes belongs to the first division — 'that which is uncreated and creates', the Causes exist in an undifferentiated unity in the first division, the First Cause or the Unmoved Mover, the ideas and forms in the Mind of God — the Logos or Arche — and they receive receive their being from the first, but their being or distinctions 'manifest' themselves as particular causes in the second, the logoi of the Logos.

The third — 'that which is created and does not create' is the world of things, which have being by their participation in the second, the second by its participation in the first.

The second is the world of universals, and can be subdivided into the unmanifested and formless manifestation; the third is the word of formal manifestation, the individuals, and can be subdivided into the general and the particular, the latter further subdivided into the collective and the singular, and again the subtle and the gross (spiritual and corporeal).

(This breakdown from Chapter 2 of "Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta", René Guénon. Eriugena offers a different ordering, one according to essence, genus and species, and utilises Aristotle's "Categories"; although he acknowledges they are not exclusive, but sufficient for the discussion at hand. He offers further subdivisions of the 10 categories ... I don't know if Aristotle went that far.)

The procession of being goes then from one to two, and from two to three, akin — but not the same as — to the exitus of Platonic emanation; the reditus or return, is from each to the fourth — that which is not created and does not create — the Apeiron of Anaximander, or the Father, the Arche Anarchos of the Fathers.

Thus all being rises in the First, has it's beginning in the second, has its life in the third, and its rest, its perfection, its End, in the Fourth. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end" (apocalypse 1:8).

In the proper sense 'chaos' cannot properly be predicated of any division of nature, nor can it be properly predicated of God, the Tao ... rather the term is used subjectively, whereas rationally it is understood as inapplicable, as chaos infers its contrary, order, and there are no contraries in the One, which contains and supercedes them in a superlative fashion which cannot be known or rendered or rationalised by an intelligence of a lower order.

It is Its own Principle — It is conditioned by nothing other than Itself — which is beyond all knowledge.

(As Eriugena argues, the determinations of formal, formless, manifest and unmanifest, subtle and gross, are somewhat artificial according to the apprehending intellect. Thus an angel is unmanifest to man, whereas an angel is manifest to another angel. In the same way an ant cannot comprehend a human as human. Angels are however accessible to the rational nature, as speculative beings to the intellect, and known by the soul.)

Where Christianity departs from the gnostic syzergies (where they are themselves intelligible, that is logical, which is questionable in many cases) and the Platonic emanations is in the idea of Immanence, where the First can reveal Itself to the second and the third by Indwelling (Hebrew shekinah) — and in the Presence of the First (and only there) one is in the Fourth — which cannot be seen or said, being beyond any and every sense and determination.

Thomas

 

[Netti-Netti]

What really matters is......are you a better person for all your reading and study and debating?????

It's a better (more constructive) than doing crossword puzzles.

Btw, what did you expect to see on an Interfaith forum, Shawn? Gardening tips?

 

[Netti-Netti]

Like other religions, Taoism tells us that the universe is orderly. Unlike theistic/deistic religions, in Taoism the order of things does not reflect anything outside of nature.

Things are organized. There seems to be a hierarchy of ontological developments starting with a primordial reservoir of forms and then there's these various energy fields. But these natural phenomena reflect the inner nature of things. From Post # 179:

All things are produced by the Tao, and nourished by its outflowing operation. They receive their forms according to the nature of each, and are completed according to the circumstances of their condition.
​

It's all just the unfolding of the world's inner nature, which seems to owe itself to some kind of pervasive primordial nature. It actually sounds like Platonism, with individual essences that derive from a larger Essence.

Importantly, in Taoism, there is no G-d outside of nature, no transcendent deity whose conscious intentions are evident from the Created order. There's no a deity who is the focus of worship and who is the source of salvation through His redeeming Grace. Soteriological panentheism tells us that there is an ongoing evolution of the G-d's body (the Cosmic Christ) and this evolution tends toward a state of perfection, "so that God may be all in all." (1 Corinthians 15.28)

Which raises the next question: what is the meaning of salvation in Taoism? If you're a panentheist, you see the world as part of G-d. But that doesn't mean you have no need of divine intervention to be saved. Nature itself does not provide for salvation.

So what is it in Taoism to be "saved"? Is there an Ends of Time doctrine or is everything we see nature repeating itself cyclically? Is there even an idea of history in Taoism?

 

[Netti-Netti]

Re: An Interfaith view

It is Its own Principle — It is conditioned by nothing other than Itself — which is beyond all knowledge.

One obvious way to safeguard G-d's immutability and unconditionability is to relegate Him to a place outside History and, indeed, outside nature and the world.

It seems to me that what you are espousing is a Gnostic doctrine of a G-d who does not act within history because, unless His actions are strictly limited to upholding fixed laws of nature, He would be acting in an effort to modify a developmental problem that has come up in the world.

Such a response on His part would involve a deviation from the usual immutable/unconditioned mode. That deviation in response to something happening in the world is tantamount to G-d's will being conditioned by that event, is it not? So how can one maintain a strict separation between Creator and Creation if the Creator is conditioned by Creation?

 

[seattlegal]

Like other religions, Taoism tells us that the universe is orderly. Unlike theistic/deistic religions, in Taoism the order of things does not reflect anything outside of nature.

Things are organized. There seems to be a hierarchy of ontological developments starting with a primordial reservoir of forms and then there's these various energy fields. But these natural phenomena reflect the inner nature of things. From Post # 179:

All things are produced by the Tao, and nourished by its outflowing operation. They receive their forms according to the nature of each, and are completed according to the circumstances of their condition.
​

It's all just the unfolding of the world's inner nature, which seems to owe itself to some kind of pervasive primordial nature. It actually sounds like Platonism, with individual essences that derive from a larger Essence.

Importantly, in Taoism, there is no G-d outside of nature, no transcendent deity whose conscious intentions are evident from the Created order. There's no a deity who is the focus of worship and who is the source of salvation through His redeeming Grace. Soteriological panentheism tells us that there is an ongoing evolution of the G-d's body (the Cosmic Christ) and this evolution tends toward a state of perfection, "so that God may be all in all." (1 Corinthians 15.28)

Which raises the next question: what is the meaning of salvation in Taoism? If you're a panentheist, you see the world as part of G-d. But that doesn't mean you have no need of divine intervention to be saved. Nature itself does not provide for salvation.

So what is it in Taoism to be "saved"? Is there an Ends of Time doctrine or is everything we see nature repeating itself cyclically? Is there even an idea of history in Taoism?

I can't think of any specific Ends of Time doctrine at the moment, but there is the idea of collective salvation to be found in Taoism, one of which is the Concept of Supreme Peace, and the idea of "coming into being," by harmonizing with the Tao that's in all things. Evil desires within a person are thought to be out of harmony with the Tao, and are a hindrance to understanding the Tao, which leads to confusion.

There are also heavenly realms and hell realms, to which individuals might go after death.

Duren Jing
Daoist Beliefs

There is a very wide range of belief and practices to be found within Taoism. As Supreme Peace has not been achieved, that would indicate that there is still much confusion out there.

 

[Netti-Netti]

I can't think of any specific Ends of Time doctrine at the moment, but there is the idea of collective salvation to be found in Taoism, one of which is the Concept of Supreme Peace ....

It seems Taoists are socialists.
From the Concept of Supreme Peace:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](A) natural rule is to take unnecessary wealth away from the rich to finance the poor. In contrast with that, the artificial rule is to take away the necessities from the poor to make the rich even richer, which Laozi considered to be diametrically against the Dao of Heaven. In this regards, Daoism is always opposed to a big gap between the rich and the poor.

According to the Book of Supreme Peace, as a common belonging of heaven, earth and human beings, the wealth of the world should be shared by all people. If the rich refuse to finance the poor with their wealth, they are not kind-hearted people. [/FONT]
​

 

[seattlegal]

It seems Taoists are socialists.
From the Concept of Supreme Peace:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](A) natural rule is to take unnecessary wealth away from the rich to finance the poor. In contrast with that, the artificial rule is to take away the necessities from the poor to make the rich even richer, which Laozi considered to be diametrically against the Dao of Heaven. In this regards, Daoism is always opposed to a big gap between the rich and the poor. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]According to the Book of Supreme Peace, as a common belonging of heaven, earth and human beings, the wealth of the world should be shared by all people. If the rich refuse to finance the poor with their wealth, they are not kind-hearted people. [/FONT]
​

One look at Chuang Tzu, and you can see this is not the case.
There is a difference between the rich being generous with their wealth because of their harmonizing with the Tao, and the government forcing such a thing.

 

[seattlegal]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]According to the Book of Supreme Peace, as a common belonging of heaven, earth and human beings, the wealth of the world should be shared by all people. If the rich refuse to finance the poor with their wealth, they are not kind-hearted people. [/FONT]
​

This would make these non-kind-hearted rich people poor in virtue and the way, no?

In contrast with that, the artificial rule is to take away the necessities from the poor to make the rich even richer, which Laozi considered to be diametrically against the Dao of Heaven.​

Taking away something from someone by force, be they rich in wealth, yet poor in virtue and the tao, isn't doing much to bring people into harmony with the tao either, is it? It would be better to spread the Tao around, then everything would go into harmony of its own accord.

 

[mskraj]

Does the Modern Science (Physics/Biology/Neuroscience) fails to answer 5 questions?

1. Origin of space? 2. Origin of energy? 3. Origin of matter? 4. Origin of life? 5. Origin of mind?

Vedic Science review these questions as: 1. Who am i? 2. Where did i come from?

Indology speaks:
'Brahma' (CONSCIOUSNESS) + 'Vishnu'(SPACE) + 'Maheswara' (TIME) = Dravya (MATTER)

 

[Thomas]

Re: An Interfaith view

One obvious way to safeguard G-d's immutability and unconditionability is to relegate Him to a place outside History and, indeed, outside nature and the world.

That's the deist position, yes. Can't be applied to Christianity, though.

It seems to me that what you are espousing is a Gnostic doctrine of a G-d who does not act within history because, unless His actions are strictly limited to upholding fixed laws of nature, He would be acting in an effort to modify a developmental problem that has come up in the world.

Your assumption ... and not because of anything I've said.

Such a response on His part would involve a deviation from the usual immutable/unconditioned mode. That deviation in response to something happening in the world is tantamount to G-d's will being conditioned by that event, is it not? So how can one maintain a strict separation between Creator and Creation if the Creator is conditioned by Creation?

Again you're argument is based on the idea of a finite deity.

Thomas

 

[Eudaimonist]

Does the Modern Science (Physics/Biology/Neuroscience) fails to answer 5 questions?

1. Origin of space? 2. Origin of energy? 3. Origin of matter? 4. Origin of life? 5. Origin of mind?

Yes, and with good reason -- we don't actually know the answers to these questions with certainty and completeness.

Of course, there is plenty of speculation that scientists offer, just as religions offer their speculations.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Thomas]

It seems to me that the intrinsic 'error' in panentheism results from a confusion of distinction. What is predicated in panentheism — that God is in all things as their principle, which determines both their origin and their end — is affirmed of God in Christianity and affirmed of the Tao in Taoism. Both hold however, it seems to me, that nothing can be predicated of either God or the Tao in Itself, which is Unity without distinction, and thus the appearance of the world in all its wonderous manifest forms and bodies is not God nor the Tao, but caused by God or the Tao.

Panentheism then, I would say is the error of predicating to things, that which does not belong to things, but is rather the source and cause of their being.

How can anything that is created, has a beginning and an end, be equated with that which is not created, and does not have a beginning or an end?

St Maximus says:
"And the end, uniting in all these through love, the created to the non-created nature — would manifest it as one and the same in the state of grace: the whole man wholly encompassed by the whole of Divinity and made everything that God is, excepting similitude of of essence, receiving the whole of Him from Himself."

Panentheism, it seems to me, argues for a similitude of essence in the created and the uncreated, thus according to man — and all nature — a right to divinity by nature, in the possession of itself, rather than the gift of divinity by grace, in love.

Thomas

 

[Netti-Netti]

Re: An Interfaith view

Again you're argument is based on the idea of a finite deity.

I would say that it is based in the idea of Deity that is becoming infinite through finite forms.

"Do you think Teilhard de Chardin saw evidence of creatio ex nihilo whe he discovered Peking man in 1929? Or do you think he saw evidence of panentheistic evolutionary soteriology?"
​

Your reply:

I don't think you can claim so either, as he never claims to be a panentheist.

Panentheism is just shorthand for a broad philosophical perspective. It actually doesn't matter how you classify someone. It's what the ideas look like. So your point would seem to be irrelevant.

 

[shawn]

Here's a thought....our material reality (which none of us really understands ) has a purpose. We don't know what that purpose is but we have observed that in order to achieve that purpose it must have Life and so we see Life forms arising all over for a long time, one of which is our species.

I have installed travartine which had to be hundreds of millions of years old (if not older) taken from quarries which were deep in the surface, which were full of fossils of all kinds. This gave rise to these thoughts.

So life pops up and forms all these complicated species made up of a complicated collection of specialized cells.
When a baby is formed (of any species) it resembles what? A blob of goo with no indication of highly specialized cells, just a couple which begin multiplying like leavened bread, apparently according to some extremely complicated pattern which is thought to reside in the DNA, but I suggest it resides in an intangible form as an electromagnetic charge of some kind which is attached to the DNA.
The same is most likely true for our planet and our solar system, etc.
The mystery goes really deep, invisible to our senses.
All we see are the outward effects.

 

[seattlegal]

Here's a thought....our material reality (which none of us really understands ) has a purpose. We don't know what that purpose is but we have observed that in order to achieve that purpose it must have Life and so we see Life forms arising all over for a long time, one of which is our species.

I have installed travartine which had to be hundreds of millions of years old (if not older) taken from quarries which were deep in the surface, which were full of fossils of all kinds. This gave rise to these thoughts.

So far, so good.

So life pops up and forms all these complicated species made up of a complicated collection of specialized cells.
When a baby is formed (of any species) it resembles what? A blob of goo with no indication of highly specialized cells, just a couple which begin multiplying like leavened bread, apparently according to some extremely complicated pattern which is thought to reside in the DNA, but I suggest it resides in an intangible form as an electromagnetic charge of some kind which is attached to the DNA.

Well, yes, but not necessarily attached to or residing in the DNA, but certainly interactive with our DNA. One can discern this by considering these:

• Regeneration of limbs in both vertebrates (salamanders) and invertebrates (planaria and such) is all about location, location, location.
• changes in gene expression (not to the DNA itself) due to environmental factors

The same is most likely true for our planet and our solar system, etc.
The mystery goes really deep, invisible to our senses.
All we see are the outward effects.

Eco-systems.

 

[seattlegal]

It's all just the unfolding of the world's inner nature, which seems to owe itself to some kind of pervasive primordial nature. It actually sounds like Platonism, with individual essences that derive from a larger Essence.

Importantly, in Taoism, there is no G-d outside of nature, no transcendent deity whose conscious intentions are evident from the Created order. There's no a deity who is the focus of worship and who is the source of salvation through His redeeming Grace. Soteriological panentheism tells us that there is an ongoing evolution of the G-d's body (the Cosmic Christ) and this evolution tends toward a state of perfection, "so that God may be all in all." (1 Corinthians 15.28)

Which raises the next question: what is the meaning of salvation in Taoism? If you're a panentheist, you see the world as part of G-d. But that doesn't mean you have no need of divine intervention to be saved. Nature itself does not provide for salvation.

So what is it in Taoism to be "saved"? Is there an Ends of Time doctrine or is everything we see nature repeating itself cyclically? Is there even an idea of history in Taoism?

Gee, now you made me think.

After contemplating this, I realized that Taoism has a lot in common with Islam (in submission to God or the tao and in revelation, with the Taoist version differing in the means of submission being wu wei, and that honoring the tao is to be spontaneous, rather than planned out.)

The first five or six paragraphs of this article from the perspective of Islam is not unlike the Taoist perspective.

It seems (to me) that the root of diversion between Taoism and Islam originates from the political approach each philosophy favors.

 

[Netti-Netti]

Here's a thought....our material reality (which none of us really understands ) has a purpose. We don't know what that purpose is but we have observed that in order to achieve that purpose it must have Life and so we see Life forms arising all over for a long time, one of which is our species.

I have installed travartine which had to be hundreds of millions of years old (if not older) taken from quarries which were deep in the surface, which were full of fossils of all kinds. This gave rise to these thoughts.

So life pops up and forms all these complicated species made up of a complicated collection of specialized cells.
When a baby is formed (of any species) it resembles what? A blob of goo with no indication of highly specialized cells, just a couple which begin multiplying like leavened bread, apparently according to some extremely complicated pattern which is thought to reside in the DNA, but I suggest it resides in an intangible form as an electromagnetic charge of some kind which is attached to the DNA.
The same is most likely true for our planet and our solar system, etc.
The mystery goes really deep, invisible to our senses.
All we see are the outward effects.

I'm getting a lot of hits for a Google search on "noumena and phenomena."

 

[Netti-Netti]

Gee, now you made me think.

After contemplating this, I realized that Taoism has a lot in common with Islam (in submission to God or the tao and in revelation, with the Taoist version differing in the means of submission being wu wei, and that honoring the tao is to be spontaneous, rather than planned out.)

The first five or six paragraphs of this article from the perspective of Islamis not unlike the Taoist perspective.

Submission to G-d is an Abrahamic concept, which is developed in Genesis 22:

The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.

Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."
​

Some people contend that from an Abrahamic perspective (Judaic, Christian, and Muslim) faith= obedience. Which brings me to the first paragraph of the Mahmoud Ayoub article you mentioned: There's "inherent Islam, which is the law of God for all created things in nature," and then there's "voluntary Islam, which is the human faith-commitment to affirm the Oneness (tawhid) of God and obey His will."

I think the above distinction shows how different Taoism and Revelation-driven Abrahamic religions really are. The human faith-commitment is predicated on Revelation and the concept of G-d's conscious will toward Creation. Since Taoism doesn't have any of that, one might conclude that there is no such thing as human faith-commitment as such in Taoism, which is why some might question whether it is a religion.