Pantheism

Pantheism is the view that the Universe (Nature) and God are identical, or that the Universe is the only thing deserving the deepest kind of reverence. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Ancient Greek: πᾶν (pan) meaning "all" and θεός (theos) meaning "belief that God is all". As such Pantheism promotes the idea that "God" is better understood as a way of relating reverentially to Nature and the Universe. Although there are divergences within Pantheism, the central ideas found in almost all versions are the Cosmos as an all-encompassing unity and the "sacredness" of Nature.

History

The term "pantheist" — from which the word "Pantheism" is derived — was purportedly first used in English by Irish writer John Toland in his 1705 work, Socinianism Truly Stated, by a pantheist. He clarified the idea in a 1710 letter to Leibniz when he referred to "the pantheistic opinion of those who believe in no other eternal being but the universe." However, many earlier writers, schools of philosophy, and religious movements expressed pantheistic ideas.

They include some of the Presocratics such as Heraclitus and Anaximander. The Stoics were Pantheists, beginning with Zeno of Citium and culminating in the emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius. During the pre-Christian Roman Empire, Stoicism was one of the three dominant schools of philosophy, along with Epicureanism and Neoplatonism. The early Taoism of Laozi and Zhuangzi is also pantheistic.

Although not based in linguistics but in folk etymology, the prefix "pan-" is identified by some with the Greek God Pan, the god of Nature that has the hindquarters, legs and horns of a goat. In many mythologies the goat or a goat-like-man symbolizes the Nature.

In the West Pantheism went into retreat during the Christian years between the 4th and 15th centuries, when it was regarded as heresy. The first open revival was by Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake in 1600). Spinoza's Ethics, finished in 1675, was the major source from which Pantheism spread (though Spinoza himself did not use the word.) John Toland was influenced by both Spinoza and Bruno. In 1720 he wrote the Pantheisticon: or The Form of Celebrating the Socratic-Society in Latin.

In 1785 a major controversy known in German as the Pantheismus-Streit between critic Friedrich Jacobi and defender Moses Mendelssohn helped to spread awareness of Pantheism to many German thinkers in the late 18th and in the 19th century.

For a time during the 19th century it seemed like Pantheism was the religion of the future, attracting figures such as Wordsworth and Coleridge in Britain; Fichte, Schelling and Hegel in Germany; Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau in the USA. Seen as a threat by the Vatican, it came under attack in the notorious Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX.

However, in the 20th century Pantheism was sidelined by political ideologies such as Communism and Fascism, by the traumatic upheavals of two world wars, and later by relativistic philosophies such as Existentialism and Post-Modernism. It persisted in eminent pantheists such as the novelist D.H. Lawrence, poet Robinson Jeffers, scientist Albert Einstein, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and historian Arnold Toynbee.

Recent developments

In the late 20th century, Pantheism began to see a resurgence. Pantheism chimed with the growing ecological awareness in society and the media. It was often declared to be the underlying "theology" of Paganism. 1975 saw the foundation of the Universal Pantheist Society, however it remained extremely small. The creation of the naturalistic World Pantheist Movement in 1999, with its multiple mailing lists and social networks, led to much wider visibility.

As the growing global ecological crisis increased the level of concern for Nature, the popularity and visibility of Pantheism grew further in the early 21st century. Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion gave Naturalistic Pantheism increased credibility among atheists by describing it as "sexed-up atheism." The Vatican gave Pantheism further prominence in a Papal encyclical of 2009 and a New Year's Day statement on January 1, 2010, which criticized Pantheism for denying the superiority of humans over nature and "seeing the source of man's salvation in nature." James Cameron's 2009 movie Avatar was widely reviewed as presenting a Pantheistic reverence and concern for Nature. Ross Douthat of The New York Times described the film as "Cameron's long apologia for pantheism ... Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now".

Varieties

All varieties of Pantheism involve reverence for the Universe or Totality rather than for any creator being or personal God. All imply some level of unity in reality. All have a strong emphasis on Nature as a focus of spirituality and of ethics. There are three major categories of Pantheism, which differ as to whether they regard reality as made up of only one type of substance, or two, and what that type of substance is.

• Monist physicalist or Naturalistic Pantheism holds that there is only one type of substance, and that substance is physical, i.e. energy and matter. Historically this version was held by Stoics such as Zeno of Citium or Marcus Aurelius, and in modern times by John Toland, Ernst Haeckel, D.H. Lawrence and Paul Harrison. This version is represented today by the World Pantheist Movement. In this version, the term god - if used at all - is basically a synonym for Nature or Universe, seen from the point of view of reverence.
• Monist idealist Pantheism holds that there is only one type of substance, and that substance is mental or spiritual. Ultimate reality consists of a single consciousness. This version is common in Hindu philosophies and Consciousness-Only schools of Buddhism, as well as in some New Age writers such as Deepak Chopra.
• Dualist Pantheism holds that there are two major types of substance, physical and mental/spiritual. Dualistic pantheism is very diverse, and may include beliefs in reincarnation, cosmic consciousness, and paranormal connections across Nature. It is represented most widely today in literal versions of Paganism.

Issues

Use of religious vocabulary

A significant debate within the pantheistic community is about the use of the word "God." Pantheists do not believe in a God in the common and traditional sense of a personal creator being. Some modern Pantheists avoid using God-words altogether, since they regard them as misleading. Others feel that the word God is essential to express the strength of their feelings towards Nature and the Universe.

Some critics have argued that pantheism is little more than a redefinition of the word "God" to mean "Nature," "Universe", or "reality". However, in Pantheism the word God, when used, is more an expression of the user's feelings rather than of some supernatural power in the Universe.

When pantheism is considered as an alternative to theism there is a denial of theistic claims. For example, theism is the belief in a "personal" God that transcends (is separate from) the world. Pantheists deny the existence of a personal God. They deny the existence of a "minded" Being that has intentional states and associated capacities like the ability to make decisions.

There are disagreements as to whether Pantheism is atheistic or not. Atheists argue the non-theistic god of pantheism is not a god (according to the traditional definition), while others suggest a deity is not necessarily transcendent.

Similar concepts in other religious traditions

Taoism

Taoism is pantheistic at least in the writings of its leading thinkers Laozi and Zhuangzi, although it later developed into a folk religion with many deities.
The Tao te Ching by Laozi never speaks of a personal or creator God. Its central focus, the Tao or Way, is conceived of as a mysterious and numinous unity, infinite and eternal, underlying all things and sustaining them. The Tao is always spoken of with profound religious reverence and respect, similar to the way that Pantheism discusses the “divinity” of the Universe. The ideal of Taoism was to live in harmony with the Tao and to cultivate a simple and frugal life, avoiding unnecessary action: "Being one with nature, he [the sage] is in accord with the Tao."
Zhuangzi emphasized the pantheistic content of Taoism even more clearly. "Heaven and I were created together, and all things and I are one." When Tung Kuo Tzu asked Zhuangzi where the Tao was, he replied that it was in the ant, the grass, the clay tile, even in excrement: "There is nowhere where it is not . . . There is not a single thing without Tao."

Hinduism

It is generally asserted that Hindu religious texts are the oldest known literature that contains Pantheistic ideas. In Hindu theology, Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all things in this Universe, and is also the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be. The word, Brahman, is derived from the main creator god in the Vedas, Brahma. "poornamadah poornamidam" which in Sanskrit means "That is whole, this is whole." This idea of pantheism is traceable from some of the more ancient Vedas and Upanishads to later Advaita philosophy. All Mahāvākyas (Great Sayings) of the Upanishads, in one way or another, seem to indicate the unity of the world with the Brahman. Chāndogya Upanishad says "All this Universe indeed is Brahman; from him does it proceed; into him it is dissolved; in him it breathes, so let every one adore him calmly". It further says "This whole universe is Brahman, from Brahman to a clod of earth. Brahman is both the efficient and the material cause of the world. He is the potter by whom the vase is formed; He is the clay from which it is fabricated. Everything proceeds from Him, without waste or diminution of the source, as light radiates from sun. Everything merges into Him again, as bubbles bursting mingle with air– as rivers fall into the ocean. Everything proceeds from and returns to Him, as the web of the spider is emitted from and retracted into itself." In the hymns of the Rig-veda, a pantheistic strain of thought may be discernible in the tenth book (10-121).

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. 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.Also Hindus worship Nature by offering prayers to sacred trees, groves and also to animals. It's believed widely among Hindus that God lives in all, a very pantheistic belief. 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 considered by non-Hindus as being polytheistic. Several aspects of Nature ranging from astronomical bodies, rivers, mountains and trees are also revered in Hindu scripture and worship.

Pantheism is a key component of Advaita philosophy. Other subdivisions of Vedanta do not strictly hold this tenet. For example, the Dvaita school of Madhvacharya holds Brahman to be the external personal God Vishnu, whereas the theistic school of Ramanuja espouses Panentheism.

Other religions

There are many elements of pantheism in some forms of Buddhism, Neopaganism, and Theosophy as well as in several tendencies in the major theistic religions. See also the Neopagan section of Gaia and the Church of All Worlds.

Many Unitarian Universalists consider themselves pantheists. The Islamic religious tradition, in particular sufism has a strong belief in the unitary nature of the universe and the concept that everything in it is an aspect of God itself. Many traditional and folk religions including African traditional religions and Native American religions can be seen as pantheistic, or a mixture of pantheism and other doctrines such as polytheism and animism.

Related concepts

Panentheism

The term Panentheism (=All IN God) was formally coined in Germany in the 19th Century, to express a belief part way between traditional theism and pantheism, that God is omnipresent in the Universe, but also extends beyond the Universe and created the Universe. Thus Panentheism is not compatible with Pantheism, in which God and the universe are synonymous - with no part of God considered as being outside of the Universe.

See also

• List of Pantheists
• Monism
• Naturalistic pantheism
• Nature worship (disambiguation)
• Universal Pantheist Society
• World Pantheist Movement

External links

• Beliefs, History and Practice of Pantheism, pantheism.net
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, plato.stanford.edu
• Pantheism at Curlie
• The Pantheist Index, pantheist-index.net
• An Introduction to Pantheism, wku.edu
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pantheism" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• World Pantheist Movement, pantheism.net