Panentheism

[3bob]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism

 

"Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system which posits that the divine (be it a monotheistic God, polytheistic gods, or an eternal cosmic animating force), interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. Panentheism differentiates itself from pantheism, which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe.^[1]

In panentheism, the universe in the first formulation is practically the whole itself. In the second formulation, the universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that 'All is God', panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God,^[1] like in the concept of Tzimtzum. Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism.^[2][3]Hasidic Judaism merges the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical transcendent Divine Panentheism, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of Kabbalah, with the populist emphasis on the panentheistic Divine immanence in everything and deeds of kindness..."

[Flolfolil]

i used to cruise wikipedia looking for new labels for myself

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

labels are awesome, they tell you how much poison is in your food!

[3bob]

by Timothy Conway, Ph.D., 2006

"...The actual panentheist view—the Divine One’s transcendence and immanence, the Divine being beyond all yet within all—was being promoted many centuries earlier, by religious mystics in diverse traditions, going all the way back to the oldest Hindu Upanishads of 2800 years ago, the Brihadâranyaka and Chândogya Upanishads. In the West, beyond pioneering Hellenist panentheist figures like Plotinus (c205-70 CE) and his followers, the neo-Platonists, we find a robust Christian panentheism in the views of the daring 9th-century Irish Catholic theologian at the Carolingian court in France, John Scottus Eriugena (c800-877), head of the Palatine Academy, “the greatest mind of the entire Christian middle ages,” and a huge influence on Meister Eckhart and others. Early Muslim Sûfî mystics like Bâyazîd Bistâmî and Mansur al-Hallâj, let alone later figures like Ibn Arabî and Jalâluddîn Rûmî, clearly espouse a panentheist view of Allâh. Maimonides and Jewish Kabbalah mystics (e.g., Moses Cordovero and Isaac Luria) and later eastern European Hasidim sages (the Ba’al Shem Tov Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer [1700-60] and his followers) were all panentheists. (These western religious figures and numerous others—most of them veritable panentheists—are profiled in the “Religion & Spirituality” section of this website.)

Alternate versions of panentheism have aired in the 20th and 21st centuries, some more influenced and, I would say, “undermined,” by Process Theology, which tends to deny or underemphasize Divine transcendence, omniscience and omnipotence. Scientists, cosmologists, philosophers and theologians in the West have recently become enamored with panentheism. Authors exploring facets of panentheism and its import are Arthur Peacocke and Philip Clayton (see their edited anthology, In Whom We Live, Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World, Wm. Eerdman’s, 2004), Jay McDaniel, David Ray Griffin, and Matthew Fox (the last from a more mystical “Creation Spirituality” perspective). Philosopher Paul Brockelman came up with a pithy phrase for a panentheistic Divine: “the Beyond in our midst.” In Cosmology and Creation: The Spiritual Significance of Contemporary Cosmology (Oxford Univ. Press, 1999) he argues that both theologians and scientists are reaching a consensus: “God is neither nature itself nor located apart from it, but is available to mystical experience within it.” Perhaps it is better to say, in light of the more open "four-cornered" logic of the Eastern spiritual traditions, that God is both nature and beyond nature, and, as Brockelman suggests, neither nature nor beyond nature".

[manitou]

Interesting topic, 3bob. I happen to be reading the works of Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science) and the Power of Mind, Mind over Matter, Mind being everything - it so easily fits into either the pantheism or the panentheism concepts.

 

All is One. It's all the same thing, as I see it. Just all different spokes of the wheel going in toward the hub.

[3bob]

Hi Manitou,

 

Sorry I'm late getting back here, just got off 3-12 hr shifts of work in three days (not counting another 8 hrs for travel) so my mind is a little rummy right now... thus I better wait before trying to make an alert and useful comment .

Edited March 4, 2013 by 3bob

[3bob]

Manitou,

Near the beginning of the quote in post 4 is the sentence, "the Divine being beyond all yet within all" alludes to me that which is different from saying "all is one". (I do see an unbreakable connection between the "all" which is knowable and the "beyond" which is unknowable -- meaning that the tools (so to speak) that are used to know the "all" do not work to know the "beyond", thus that unknowable or "beyond" is only known by the unknown or by itself)

[manitou]

I see what you're saying 3bob. Term it the unknowable vs. the knowable, the manifest vs. the unmanifest, perhaps All Is One is way too simplistic. The best part of all of this is the latency we don't know about.