Pantheism

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As a philosophical position,</div> <div> pantheism is the belief in an all-inclusive unity,</div> <div> variously formulated. Historically, the nature of the</div> <div> unity has been defined quite differently in Plotinus’s</div> <div> “One,” Baruch Spinoza’s “Substance,” Georg</div> <div> Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s “Geist,” and Charles</div> <div> Hartshorne’s “All-Inclusive Totality.” Due to ambiguities</div> <div> in the chief analogies used by philosophers</div> <div> (whole-part; mind-body) the line between pantheistic</div> <div> and panentheistic positions is often difficult to</div> <div> draw. In general, pantheism represents an alternative</div> <div> to the classical theistic notion of God in Western</div> <div> philosophy and theology, and has close counterparts</div> <div> in Taoism, Advaita Vedanta, and certain</div> <div> schools of Buddhism. It is also the <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Garamond-LightItalic" ><I>ism </I></FONT>closest in</div> <div> spirit to Native American religions.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Types of pantheism</b></div> <div> Two broad types of pantheism may be distinguished:</div> <div> monistic pantheism and pluralistic pantheism.</div> <div> Examples of monistic pantheism are classical</div> <div> Spinozistic pantheism, which devalued the</div> <div> importance of dynamic and pluralistic categories,</div> <div> and Hindu forms of pantheism, which have relegated</div> <div> change and pluralism to the realm of the illusory</div> <div> and phenomenal. In addition, the romantic</div> <div> and idealistic types of pantheism that flourished in</div> <div> nineteenth-century England and America were</div> <div> generally monistic.</div> <div> The pluralistic type of pantheism is found in</div> <div> William James’s <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Garamond-LightItalic" ><I>A Pluralistic Universe </I></FONT>(1908) as a</div> <div> hypothesis that supersedes his earlier “piecemeal</div> <div> supernaturalism” in <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Garamond-LightItalic" ><I>The Varieties of Religious Experience</I></FONT></div> <div> (1902). James’s conception emphasizes the</div> <div> full reality of insistent particulars, embedded in a</div> <div> complex web of conjunctive and disjunctive relations</div> <div> in which manyness is as real as oneness. Religiously,</div> <div> pluralistic pantheism affirms that evil is</div> <div> genuine, the divine is finite, and salvation, in any</div> <div> sense, is an open question. Further exemplifications</div> <div> of pluralistic pantheism are found in a series</div> <div> of late twentieth-century movements, including</div> <div> James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis that the earth</div> <div> behaves like a single entity, the deep ecology</div> <div> movement, the feminist spirituality movement, and</div> <div> the New Age movement. In 1990 American historian</div> <div> Catherine Albanese, canvassing diverse forms</div> <div> of pantheistic piety since the early republic, considered</div> <div> nature religion in America “alive and well,</div> <div> growing daily, and probably a strong suit for the</div> <div> century to come” (p. 198).</div> <bR> <div> <B>Challenges to pantheism</b></div> <div> The chief challenge to pantheism, according to</div> <div> critics, is the difficulty of deriving a warrant for the</div> <div> criteria of human good. How is one to establish</div> <div> any priority in the ordering of values and commitments</div> <div> if nature as a whole is considered divine</div> <div> and known to contain evil as well as good, destruction</div> <div> as much as creation? In light of this concern,</div> <div> John Cobb and other process theologians</div> <div> recommend a fundamental distinction between</div> <div> creativity as the ultimate reality and God as the ultimate</div> <div> actuality. In this way, the divine character is</div> <div> identified only with the good. Other theologians,</div> <div> like David Tracy, view such a metaphysical distinction</div> <div> as dubious and point out that the denial of</div> <div> any identity between ultimate reality and the divine</div> <div> may foster the view that ultimate reality is not</div> <div> finally to be trusted as radically relational and selfmanifesting</div> <div> (Tracy, p. 139). The pantheistic model</div> <div> is capable of countering both of these concerns.</div> <div> On the first point, pantheism underscores the blunt</div> <div> fact that the rain falls on the just and the unjust</div> <div> alike, whatever model of the divine one holds.</div> <div> Critics of pantheism observe that human efforts toward</div> <div> compassion and justice are frequently not reinforced</div> <div> by ultimate reality. Nature is often indifferent</div> <div> to human desires and deaf to moral</div> <div> urgencies. Pantheists say this is indicative of the remorselessness</div> <div> of things, not of the superiority of</div> <div> either the theistic or the panentheistic model. In</div> <div> the second place, by collapsing the distinction between</div> <div> creativity and the divine, pluralistic pantheism</div> <div> does identify the religious ultimate with the</div> <div> metaphysical ultimate, but this identification may</div> <div> or may not entail the further (Christian) specification</div> <div> of ultimate reality as radically relational and</div> <div> self-manifesting. Due to its extreme generality, the</div> <div> pantheistic model is susceptible to multiple specifications</div> <div> of various kinds, on lesser levels of generality</div> <div> as found within the more concrete symbols</div> <div> and images of the world’s religious traditions.</div> <div> For secularist critics, the most significant objection</div> <div> to pluralistic pantheism is the semantic</div> <div> question. Why call it “God” or divine? According to</div> <div> nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur</div> <div> Schopenhauer, calling nature or the universe God</div> <div> does not explain anything, but only serves “to enrich</div> <div> our language with a superfluous synonym for</div> <div> the word ‘world’” (p. 40). Pantheists are apt to concede</div> <div> this point but to urge attentiveness to nature’s</div> <div> terrible beauty all the same. In the words of the</div> <div> early twentieth-century American poet Harriet</div> <div> Monroe, “Call the Force God and worship it at a</div> <div> million shrines, and it is no less sublime; call it Nature,</div> <div> and worship it in scientific gropings and discoveries,</div> <div> and it is no less divine. It goes its own</div> <div> way, asking no homage, answering no questions”</div> <div> (p. 454). Recoiling from anthropomorphic mythmaking,</div> <div> modern pantheists like Monroe express</div> <div> astonishment over the way religious creeds impose</div> <div> a name and person-like traits upon the creative</div> <div> force animating the universe. Avoidance of personalistic</div> <div> imagery and preference for vague talk of</div> <div> a “force” in nature is characteristic of contemporary</div> <div> pantheism.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Science and religion</b></div> <div> Without using the term pantheism, many people</div> <div> who are not traditionally religious acknowledge</div> <div> the feeling that nature is sacred. While panentheism</div> <div> is a theological construction, pantheism probably</div> <div> has more grass roots appeal among ordinary</div> <div> people, artists, and scientists. As the most important</div> <div> challenge that the sciences pose to traditional</div> <div> religion is their skepticism about the existence of</div> <div> “another world” not of human making or open to</div> <div> human inquiry, supernaturalism is less and less an</div> <div> option among scientifically educated populations.</div> <div> In the engagement of science and religion issues,</div> <div> the relevant religious alternatives tend to reduce either</div> <div> to pantheism or to panentheism. Astrophysicist</div> <div> Carl Sagan spoke for those who prefer a straightforward</div> <div> pantheistic orientation over what they regard</div> <div> as the equivocations of panentheism: “A religion,</div> <div> old or new, that stressed the magnificence of</div> <div> the universe as revealed by modern science, might</div> <div> be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and</div> <div> awe untapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner</div> <div> or later, such a religion will emerge” (p. 52).</div> </td> </tr></table></body>