Pantheism/Panentheism. A quick thought.
(Crude/ancient) pantheism said that everything, the universe, is God. This means that the bigger something is, the more of God there is. Hence, worship a mountain instead of a pebble, because it's bigger. Pantheism seems to divinise Big-ness.
Panentheism on the other hand says that God is the universe, but that the whole is more than the parts that make it up. So the chemicals of my body may be worth less than $10, and if I sold my organs off individually I'd get around $250,000, but as a whole, I'm worth more than that. Panentheism seems to divinise Whole-ness.
Theism is another kettle of fish, which probably divinises self(ishness) or fear-of-the-other or something. But I won't get into that here. I'm more interested into what people think about the first two - am I onto something, is it a ridiculous over-simplification, or it is unfair?
I've realised this doesn't work: My body is a bigger whole than my arm. The world is a bigger whole than me. The universe (typically how God is seen) is a bigger whole than the world. So yet again, bigger is better is God.
ReplyDeleteSomehow we need to get to a local God. Maybe of wholeness, maybe not.
I don't think you should totally throw out your distinction. It seems that the distinction still stands in that pantheism's focus is on size - the bigger the better - and panentheism's focus is not on size but on wholeness. Even though to look at the interconnecting harmony (the wholeness) of something generally means to have an enlarged view, the stress isn't on the size of the wholeness, but is instead on the wholeness itself.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I am making myself clear, but what I am trying to say is that I don't think that you should throw out this distinction yet, you may be onto something here.
I admit I got slightly confused here. Pantheism / bigness... no problem, I agreed with you very much. But I didn't know what Pantheism was, or what you were trying to say, and even after looking it up I am still confused. In fact, I'm more confused than when I started as the Wikipedia entry talks about Judaism and Christianity as being Pantheistic, and I don't see how they can be that and Monotheistic at the same time.
ReplyDeleteSurely there cannot be one god who is outside of the system (the material universe) and yet also be one god who is the material universe. The two are mutually exclusive.
So I think I need to understand more about Pantheism before I can understand your point on wholeness.
eerrkk... lots of typos. i said pantheism when i meant panentheism.
ReplyDeleteChris, maybe you're right. There's certainly something better about wholeness, and if wholeness is that aim then maybe you won't focus on bigness so much. As long as the whole of something is not sacrificed for something else (consistently?) then it keeps its attempt to aim for wholeness. Sacrificing my body to make my community whole will undermine the wholeness of my community, therefore I must not sacrifice my body in that way. It's still stressing wholeness, even if eventually you'd like everything (God/universe) to be whole.
ReplyDeleteFor Righteous:
Pantheism means All-is-God. It was typically held to by ancient religions more.
Panentheism means All-in-God. Nearly all recent (non-fundie) 20th and 21st century Christian theology has been panentheist. (Liberal) Christianity is generally moving in the direction of seeing an over-against, primarily-transcendent monotheism as an extremely bad and (often used for) evil mistake of theology. Therefore, panentheism makes God everything (including you & I), but maintains (generally) that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Hence why I picked up on wholeness.
Of course, emphasising 'more-ness' maybe a problem, as that is precisely the focus of our consumerist culture currently, one of the major problems driving the ecological crisis.
I guess what this post is telling me is that panentheism is better than mono- or pantheism, but you have to be careful how you take it, because it could be abused. I guess Tom may be right when he said, "I'm starting to believe it doesn't matter what you believe - just don't be a dick!"
hi stuart,
ReplyDeletefound your blog! i don't have time to read it now since i have a meeting, but i will later.
see you,
naoko