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 exists (be it a monotheistic God, polytheistic gods, or an eternal cosmic animating force), interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. Panentheism is differentiated from pantheism, which holds that the divine is not a distinct being or beings but is synonymous with the universe.^[1]

Simply put, in pantheism, the divine is the whole; however, in panentheism, the whole is in the divine. This means that 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 "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that God and the universe are coextensive, panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God.^[2] Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism.^[3]

Ancient panentheism[link]

In the Americas (Pre-European)[link]

Many North American Native Peoples (such as the Cree, Iroquois, Huron, Navajo, and others^{[citation needed]}) were and still are largely panentheistic, conceiving of God as both confined in God's existence in Creation but also transcendent from it. (North American Native writers have also translated the word for God as the Great Mystery^[4] or as the Sacred Other^[5]) This concept is referred to by many as the Great Spirit. One exception can be modern Cherokee who are predominantly monotheistic but apparently not panentheistic (as the two are not mutually exclusive);^[6] yet in older Cherokee traditions many observe both aspects of pantheism and panentheism, and are often not beholden to exclusivity, encompassing other spiritual traditions without contradiction, a common trait among some tribes in the Americas. Most South American Native peoples were largely panentheistic as well (as were ancient South East Asian and African cultures).^{[citation needed]} The Central American empires of the Mayas, Aztecs as well as the South American Incans (Tahuatinsuyu) were actually polytheistic and had very strong male deities.^{[citation needed]}

According to Charles C. Mann's, "1491", only the lower classes of Aztec society were polytheistic. Writings from Aztec priests reveal them to be strong panentheists who considered the common mythology to be a symbolic oversimplification meant to be easier for the commoners to understand.

In Europe[link]

Neoplatonism is polytheistic and panentheistic. Plotinus taught that there was an ineffable transcendent "God" (The One) of which subsequent realities were emanations. From the One emanates the Divine Mind (Nous) and the Cosmic Soul (Psyche). In Neoplatonism the world itself is God [Timaeus 37]. This concept of divinity is associated with that of the Logos, which had originated centuries earlier with Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC). The Logos pervades the cosmos, whereby all thoughts and all things originate, or as Heraclitus said: "He who hears not me but the Logos will say: All is one." Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus attempted to reconcile this perspective by adding another hypostasis above the original monad of force or Dunamis. This new all-pervasive monad encompassed all creation and its original uncreated emanations.

Panentheism later blossomed with the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza claimed that "Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived." ^[7] "Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner." ^[8] It is a widespread misconception, however, that Spinoza was a pantheist, that is, equating God with the material universe. In a letter to Henry Oldenburg Spinoza states that: "as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken"^[9] For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world. According to German philosopher Karl Jaspers, when Spinoza wrote "Deus sive Natura" (God or Nature) Spinoza meant God was Natura naturans not Natura naturata, and Jaspers believed that Spinoza, in his philosophical system, did not mean to say that God and Nature are interchangeable terms, but rather that God's transcendence was attested by his infinitely many attributes, and that two attributes known by humans, namely Thought and Extension, signified God's immanence.^[10] Furthermore, Martial Guéroult suggested the term "Panentheism", rather than "Pantheism" to describe Spinoza’s view of the relation between God and the world. The world is not God, but it is, in a strong sense, "in" God. Not only do finite things have God as their cause; they cannot be conceived without God; in other words, the world is a subset of God.

Development of a formal philosophy[link]

The German philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–1832) seeking to reconcile monotheism and pantheism, coined the term panentheism ("all in God") in 1828. This conception of God influenced New England transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson. The term was popularized by Charles Hartshorne in his development of process theology and has also been adopted by proponents of various New Thought beliefs. The formalization of this term in the West in the 18th century was of course not new; philosophical treatises had been written on it in the context of Hinduism for millennia.

Other philosophers who embraced panentheism have included Thomas Hill Green (1839-1882), James Ward (1843-1925), Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison (1856-1931) and Samuel Alexander (1859-1938).^[11] Beginning in the 1940s, Hartshorne examined numerous conceptions of God. He reviewed and discarded pantheism, deism, and pandeism in favor of panentheism, finding that such a "doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations." Hartshorne formulated God as a being who could become "more perfect": He has absolute perfection in categories for which absolute perfection is possible, and relative perfection (i.e., is superior to all others) in categories for which perfection cannot be precisely determined.^[12]

Modern usage[link]

Albert Einstein, amongst several other scientists, held a panentheistic view of God, and named Spinoza as the philosopher who exerted the most influence on his world view (Weltanschauung). Spinoza equated God (infinite substance) with Nature, consistent with Einstein's belief in an impersonal deity. In 1929, Einstein was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed in God. Einstein responded by telegram: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."^[13]

Einstein had previously explored this belief that man could not understand the nature of God in an interview published in 1930 in G. S. Viereck's book Glimpses of the Great explaining:^[14]

"I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."^[14]

In religion[link]

Bahá'í Faith[link]

In the Bahá'í Faith, God is described as a single, imperishable God, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe. The connection between God and the world is that of the creator to his creation.^[15] God is understood to be independent of his creation, and that creation is dependent and contingent on God. God, however, is not seen to be part of creation as he cannot be divided and does not descend to the condition of his creatures. Instead, in the Bahá'í understanding, the world of creation emanates from God, in that all things have been realized by him and have attained to existence.^[16] Creation is seen as the expression of God's will in the contingent world,^[17] and every created thing is seen as a sign of God's sovereignty, and leading to knowledge of him; the signs of God are most particularly revealed in human beings.^[15]

Christianity[link]

Panentheism is a feature of some Christian thought, particularly in mystical Eastern Orthodoxy and process theology. In order to avoid confusion with pantheism some panentheists now use the doublet, unitheism.

Process theological thinkers are generally regarded in the West as unorthodox, but process philosophical thought paved the way for open theism, which sits more comfortably in the Evangelical Christian camp.

Eastern Christianity[link]

In the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, as well as in the Church of the East, creation is not considered to be a literal "part of" God, and the Godhead is distinct from creation. There is, in other words, an eternal difference between the uncreated (i.e., God) and the created (i.e., everything else). This does not mean, however, that the creation is wholly separated from God, because the creation exists by and in the Divine Energies (workings). These energies are the operations of God and are God, but the created is not God in the Divine Essence. God creates the universe by the Divine will, using His Energies, that are not identified with His Essence. It is not an "emanation" of God's own essence (Ousia), a direct literal outworking or effulgence of the Divine, or any other process which implies that creation is part of or necessary to God in His Essence. The use of panentheism as part of Orthodox theology and doctrine is "problematic" to those who would insist that panentheism requires creation to be "part of" God.

God is not merely creator of the universe; His active Presence is necessary in some way for every bit of creation, from smallest to greatest, to continue to exist at all.^[18] That is, God's Energies (activities) maintain all things and all beings, even if those beings have explicitly rejected him. His love of creation is such that He will not withdraw His Presence, which would be the ultimate form of annihilation, not merely imposing death, but ending existence altogether. By this token, the entirety of creation is good in its being and is not innately evil either in whole or in part. This does not deny the existence of evil in a fallen universe, only that it is not an innate property of creation. Evil results from the will of creatures, not from their nature per se (see the problem of evil).

Other Christian panentheists[link]

Panentheistic conceptions of God occur amongst some modern theologians. Process theology and Creation Spirituality, two recent developments in Christian theology, contain panentheistic ideas.

Some argue that panentheism should also include the notion that God has always been related to some world or another, which denies the idea of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Nazarene Methodist theologian Thomas Jay Oord advocates panentheism, but he uses the word "theocosmocentrism" to highlight the notion that God and some world or another are the primary conceptual starting blocks for eminently fruitful theology. This form of panentheism helps in overcoming the problem of evil^{[citation needed]} and in proposing that God's love for the world is essential to who God is.

Panentheism was a major force in the Unitarian church for a long time, based on Ralph Waldo Emerson's concept of the Oversoul. This survives today as the panentheistic religion, Oversoul. [3] Charles Hartshorne, who conjoined process theology with panentheism, maintained a lifelong membership in the Methodist church but was also a unitarian. In later years he joined the Austin, Texas, Unitarian Universalist congregation and was an active participant in that church. [4]

Many Christians who believe in universalism hold panentheistic views of God in conjunction with their belief in apocatastasis, also called universal reconciliation.^[19] Panentheistic Christian Universalists often believe that all creation's subsistence in God renders untenable the notion of final and permanent alienation from Him; they point to Biblical scripture passages such as Ephesians 4:6 ("[God] is over all and through all and in all") and Romans 11:36 ("from [God] and through him and to him are all things") to justify both panentheism and universalism.

New Thought movement[link]

Religious Science, Divine Science, Unity Church, and Unification Church are religious denominations which represent a panentheistic worldview within the Christian New Thought movement.

Hinduism[link]

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This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Please help to ensure that disputed facts are reliably sourced. See the relevant discussion on the talk page.

Brahman (in Vedanta) or Shiva-Shakti (in Tantra) is the transcendent and immanent Ultimate Reality of Hinduism. Many schools of Hinduism are panentheistic and the first and most ancient ideas of panentheism originate in the Vedas, Upanishads, as well as the Bhagavad Gita. The Purusha Sukta and Hiranyagarbha Sukta of Rig Veda and verses from the Bhagavad Gita and Shri Rudram support this viewpoint. Panenthestic views are stated explicitly in several stotras.

Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: "I pervade and support the entire universe by a very small fraction of My divine power". (Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 10, verse 42)

The Vedasara Shivastotram says, "It is you from whom this universe of forms emerges, and it is you within whom it stays. It is you in whom it finally disappears". [5]

The panentheistic view of Hinduism has been termed by some scholars as monistic theism. For example, in Vaishnavism, it is interesting to note that the schools were all panentheistic. Vallabha's school of pure monism Shuddhadvaita, Nimbarka's school of differential monism Dvaitadvaita, and Ramanuja's school of qualified monism Vishistadvaita are all panentheistic. Additionally, Gaudiya Vaishnavism is also panentheistic, which was presented by Lord Caitanya as the doctrine of Acintya Bheda Abheda^[20] (Acintya=inconceivable Bheda=difference Abheda=oneness). In Saivite theology, the schools of Saiva Siddhanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Siddha Siddhanta and Aghora are also panentheistic. Panentheism forms the foundation of the approach of Shakta Tantra. In Shaktism, the Primordial Energy (Adi Parashakti), is said to manifest herself as the cosmic creation or Mula Prakriti — the totality of Nature. Thus it is She who becomes the Time and Space, the Cosmos, it is She who becomes the five elements, and thus all animate life and inanimate forms. The Primordial energy holds all creation and destruction, all cycles of birth and death, all laws of cause and effect within Herself, and yet is greater than the sum total of all these. She is the all-pervading dark energy of physical cosmology, out of which (herself) She manifests as Time, Space, Gravity etc. and all of matter, but also remains Transcendent at the same time.

Panentheism is the view that the universe is part of the being of God, as distinguished from pantheism ("all-is-God doctrine"), which identifies God with the total reality. In contrast, panentheism holds that God pervades the world, but is also beyond it. He is immanent and transcendent, relative and Absolute. This embracing of opposites is called dipolar. For the panentheist, God is in all, and all is in God. --Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Sikhism[link]

The Sikh gurus have described God in numerous ways in their hymns included in the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture of Sikhism, but the oneness of the deity is consistently emphasized throughout. God is described in the Mool Mantar, the first passage in the Guru Granth Sahib, and the basic formula of the faith is:

(GG. Pg 1) — ੴ ਸਤਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਕਰਤਾ ਪੁਰਖੁ ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰਵੈਰੁ ਅਕਾਲ ਮੂਰਤਿ ਅਜੂਨੀ ਸੈਭੰ ਗੁਰ ਪ੍ਰਸਾਦਿ ॥

Ik onkar satinam karta purakhu nirbhau nirvair akal murat ajuni saibhan gurprasad

One Universal Creator God, The Name Is Truth, Creative Being Personified, No Fear, No Hatred, Image Of The Timeless One, Beyond Birth, Self Existent, By Guru's Grace.

Guru Arjan, Nanak V, says, "God is beyond colour and form, yet His/Her presence is clearly visible" (GG, 74), and "Nanak's Lord transcends the world as well as the scriptures of the east and the west, and yet He/She is clearly manifest" (GG, 397).

Knowledge of the ultimate Reality is not a matter for reason; it comes by revelation of the ultimate reality through nadar (grace) and by anubhava (mystical experience). Says Guru Nanak; "budhi pathi na paiai bahu chaturaiai bhai milai mani bhane." This translates to "He/She is not accessible through intellect, or through mere scholarship or cleverness at argument; He/She is met, when He/She pleases, through devotion" (GG, 436).

Guru Nanak prefixed the numeral one (ik) to it, making it Ik Oankar or Ekankar to stress God's oneness. God is named and known only through his Own immanent nature. The only name which can be said to truly fit God's transcendent state is Sat (Sanskrit Satnam, Truth), the changeless and timeless Reality. God is transcendent and all-pervasive at the same time. Transcendence and immanence are two aspects of the same single Supreme Reality. The Reality is immanent in the entire creation, but the creation as a whole fails to contain God fully. As says Guru Tegh Bahadur, Nanak IX, "He has himself spread out His/Her Own “maya” (worldly illusion) which He oversees; many different forms He assumes in many colours, yet He stays independent of all" (GG, 537).

Islam[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Several Sufi saints and thinkers, primarily Ibn Arabi, held beliefs that were somewhat panentheistic. These notions later took shape in the theory of wahdat ul-wujud (the Unity of All Things). Twelver Shi'ism has a panentheistic trend, represented by scholars such as Sayyid Haydar Amuli, Mulla Sadra (all of whom were influenced by Ibn Arabi). Some Sufi Orders, notably the Bektashis and the Universal Sufi movement, continue to espouse panentheistic beliefs. Nizari Ismaili follow panentheism according to Ismaili doctrine.

Judaism[link]

While mainstream Rabbinic Judaism is classically monotheistic and follows in the footsteps of the Aristotelian theologian Maimonides, the panentheistic conception of God can be found in certain Jewish mystical currents. A leading scholar of the Kabbalah, Moshe Idel (Hasidism: Between Ecstacy and Magic, SUNY, 1995, pp. 17–18), ascribes this doctrine to the kabbalistic system of Rabbi Moses Cordovero (1522–1570) and in the eighteenth century, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, as well as his contemporary, Rabbi Menahem Mendel, the Maggid of Bar. There is some debate as to whether Lurianic Kabbalah, with its doctrine of Tzimtzum, can be regarded as panentheistic. According to Hasidism, The Infinite ein sof is incorporeal (has no body) and is both transcendent and immanent. Aspects of panentheism are also evident in the theology of Reconstructionist Judaism as presented in the writings of Mordecai Kaplan.

Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Kabbalism[link]

Some branches of Gnosticism believe in a panentheistic view^{[citation needed]} and hold the belief that God exists only as sparks of light in the visible material world. We need to know the sparks within ourselves to get back to God who is in the Fullness or Pleroma.

Gnosticism is Panentheistic,^{[citation needed]} believing that the true God is separate from the physical universe however, there are aspects of the true God in the physical universe as well. Thus, "All-In-God" (see pantheism) as stated in one of the Sayings of Gospel of Thomas: "Lift Up A Stone And You Will Find Me There..." This seemingly contradictory interpretation of Gnosticism's theology is not without controversy. Since a good God would not manifest or work through the evil or fallen material world of the demiurge. As Mani stated, "The true God has nothing to do with the material world or cosmos",^[21] and, "It is the Prince of Darkness who spoke with Moses, the Jews and their priests. Thus the Christians, the Jews, and the Pagans are involved in the same error when they worship this God. For he leads them astray in the lusts he taught them."^[22][23]

Valentinian Gnosticism claims that matter came about through emanations of the supreme being, and to some this event is held to be more of an accident than of being on purpose.^{[citation needed]} To other Gnostics, the emanations are akin to the Sephiroth of the Kabbalists - description of the manifestation of God through a complex system of reality.

Buddhism[link]

The Reverend Zen Master Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist Abbot to tour the United States in 1905-6. He wrote a series of essays collected into the book Zen For Americans. In the essay titled "The God Conception of Buddhism" he attempts to explain how a Buddhist looks at the ultimate without an anthropomorphic God figure while still being able to relate to the term God in a Buddhist sense:

At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism usually avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience. Again, Buddhism is not pantheistic in the sense that it identifies the universe with God. On the other hand, the Buddhist God is absolute and transcendent; this world, being merely its manifestation, is necessarily fragmental and imperfect. To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, "panentheism," according to which God is πᾶν καὶ ἕν (all and one) and more than the totality of existence. ^[24]

The essay then goes on to explain first utilizing the term "God" for the American audience to get and intitial understanding of what he means by "panenthesism," and then discusses the terms that Buddhism uses in place of "God" such as Dharmakaya, Buddha, and Tathagata.

See also[link]

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2006)

Bibliography[link]

• Ankur Barua, "God’s Body at Work: Rāmānuja and Panentheism," International Journal of Hindu Studies, 14,1 (2010), 1-30.

External links[link]

Look up panentheism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Panentheism entry by John Culp in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Arthur Peacocke, winner of the 2001 Templeton Prize and theology faculty member at Oxford University
• Christian Cadre, Panentheism Anyone?
• Dr. Jay McDaniel on Panentheism
• Biblical Panentheism: God in All Things, by Jon Zuck
• The Nature of Love: A Theology, Thomas Jay Oord (2010) ISBN 978-0-8272-0828-5
• Symbiotic Panentheism
• John Polkinghorne on Panentheism
• [6] Spiritual Minded
• Panentheism Sources in Judaism compiled by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson

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