Nothing real exists besides God who discloses himself in and through the universe. Chittick , ch. They may be co-referring but they are not synonymous; indeed, they are utterly incommensurable. Even accepting a classical conception of identity and difference, there remain issues to settle. If we think of pantheism negatively as a rejection of the view that God is distinct from the cosmos, we would face four possible schemes by which we might represent their merelogical relation: we might understand God as proper part of nature, we might take nature as a proper part of God, we might regard the two domains as partially overlapping, or else we might hold that they are strictly identical.
Reflecting upon the ambiguities of the previous two paragraphs, it might be argued that only where we find strict classical identity do we have pantheism. For if the universe is not wholly divine we have mere immanentism , while if God includes but is not exhausted by the universe then we have rather panentheism.
Now, certainly it may be allowed there are metaphysical schemes for which the range of overlap between divinity and the cosmos is so small that they fail to capture the spirit of pantheism. For example, a world-view in which God were understood as the vital spark which animates an otherwise dead and motionless cosmos, or a world-view in which the cosmos were merely one small fraction of the being of God would indeed seem far from the spirit of pantheism.
Such theorists may also reject the charge that their way of thinking is panentheistic , maintaining that the proper lesson to draw is not one of the transcendence of the holistic view but rather one concerning the degree of unreality or abstraction involved in any distributed view. In short, does any admission of difference between the world as common-sense experiences it and the divine cosmos as pantheism understands it amount to a concession either that there are aspects of experience which fall outside deity or aspects of deity which fall outside experience?
In the end, rather than attempt to draw sharp but artificial and contentious lines it seems more fruitful to maintain that the boundaries of demarcation between immanence, pantheism, and panentheism are vague and porous. This approach has the further advantage of keeping together historically cognate thinkers. To say that God is identical with the world as a whole is not self-explanatory and, although often the matter is left disconcertingly vague, examination of the literature reveals a variety of different understandings of the identity relation being asserted here.
A further problem with the terminology of parts is that many pantheists have wanted to claim that God or nature is not just the whole or totality of things, but is somehow the inner essence or heart of each individual thing. This may be expressed in the idea that somehow the whole is present in each of its parts, a suggestion whose meaning has often been left metaphorical or obscure.
Giordano Bruno, for example employs the two illustrations of a voice heard in its entirety from all sides of the room, and that of a large mirror which reflects one image of one thing but which, if it is broken into a thousand pieces, each of the pieces still reflects the whole image.
Bruno , 50, A thesis of the complete interpenetration or interrelation of everything, the claim being made here is related to that defended by Leibniz who was not a pantheist that each monad is a mirror to the entire universe.
There is a long theological tradition in which God is regarded as being itself , rather than as one being among others, and insofar as it treats God as something to be found inseparable from and at the very root of all that is, such a conception may be used to express pantheism. The identification of God with being itself is a common Christian view, from Augustine to Tillich, but it is not exclusive to Christian thought.
A third way to express the identity of God and nature is by reference to the thought that all things come from God, rendering them both identical with each other and with the one source from which they came. But although it would be tempting to contrast creation ex nihio as theistic and emanation as pantheistic, such thoughts are probably too simple.
Eriugena, by contrast, has an emanation-theory that is more genuinely pantheist but, given his apophatic conception of God as marked by both being and non-being, he regards this position as wholly compatible with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. To Eriugena, God is precisely the nothing from which all things were made. Spinoza approaches the question of origin from a rather different angle.
Arguing that God is the immanent cause of all things, he draws an important distinction between natura naturans and natura naturata ; between the universe considered in active mode as cause and the very same universe considered in passive mode as effect Ethics 1p29s. This is an important doctrine not least for the way in which it links with necessity.
Modelled more on the way in which the theorems of geometry derive from its axioms than on the sense in which a work of art results from the free or spontaneous activity of its artist, pantheistic creation of this second type courts a determinism that threatens to rule out free will. And that has been a very common objection to pantheism. Religious world views in which it is the ultimate destiny or purpose of the cosmos to achieve oneness with or to fully express deity provide a fourth model for understanding pantheistic claims of identity.
The true identity of the universe is that which is revealed at the end of all things. By way of objection to such teleological conception of identity it might be challenged that something can only become merged with God, or become God, if it is no w different from God. But against this it could be replied that, if the notion of teleology be taken seriously, a thing more truly is what it is destined to become than what it currently seems to be , for everything about it is to be explained in terms of its telos or goal.
It may also be responded that anything which can be converted into God cannot be finally different from God. With respect to the cosmos this may be seen in the stress pantheists typically put on the unity of the cosmos. A distinction may be drawn between distributive pantheism, the view that each thing in the cosmos is divine, and collective pantheism, the view that the cosmos as a whole is divine. Oppy, And if polytheism in general is coherent there is no reason in principle why we should exclude the possibility of a distributive pantheism.
But as in pursuit of explanatory unity and coherence belief in many Gods tends historically to give way to belief in single deity, while it would be technically possible to identify the universe with a collection of deities, in practice monism tends to win out, and it has been characteristic of pantheists to stress heavily the unity of nature. Thus pantheism typically asserts a two-fold identity: as well as the unity of God and nature, it urges the unity of all things with each other.
Is the intuition that the cosmos constitutes a single integrated whole a contributory factor in thinking it divine, or reflecting the traditional idea that God is unique and simple or without parts is the intuition that it is divine the reason for regarding it as such a unity? The kind of unity which the pantheist thinks to find in nature can vary from a very strong metaphysical oneness, like that of Parmenides, which excludes all diversity or difference, to a much looser systematic complex of distinct but inter-related elements, but the four species of unity most commonly defended are: 1 the unity of all that falls within the spatio-temporal continuum under a common set of physical laws, 2 the reductive unity of a single material out of which all objects are made and within which no non-arbitrary divisions can be made, 3 the unity of a living organism, or 4 the more psychological unity of a spirit, mind or person.
Besides commitment to the view that the cosmos as a whole is divine, pantheists as a general class hold no specific theory about the nature of that cosmos. There are three main traditions. Many pantheists argue that physical conceptions are adequate to explain the entire cosmos. This is an ancient form of pantheism, found for example in the Stoics, for whom only bodies can be said to exist.
Soul they understood as nothing more than a specific form of pneuma , or breath, the active power to be found throughout nature. This is also a form of pantheism popular today—often termed, scientific or naturalistic pantheism. Such worldviews make no ontological commitments beyond those sanctioned by empirical science. During the nineteenth century, when pantheism was at its most popular, the dominant form was idealist.
According to Absolute Idealism, as defended by such figures as Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and many of the British Idealists, all that exists is a single spiritual entity, of which the physical world must be understood as a partial manifestation. The search for that which may be asserted without condition or qualification leads to the conclusion that all variety is the expression of an underlying unity, and that nothing can be real in the absence of mind or spirit.
On some versions of this sort of doctrine the physical world starts to look more like an appearance of the ultimate spiritual or possibly unknown reality beneath. Hegel himself rejects this sort of doctrine —which he terms acosmism —and while it certainly amounts to a view that there exists nothing besides God, in view of its basic denial of the reality of the world we all experience it hardly seems like a kind of pantheism.
The pantheism of Spinoza is of neither these types. For Spinoza, there is one thing which expresses itself, or which may be understood, in two different ways, either as thinking substance or as extended substance. The principle difficulty of any such position is to further specify that ambiguous relationship, whilst simultaneously avoiding the twin but opposed pitfalls of reductionism and dualism.
Pantheists holds that whatever exists falls within God. This places them in disagreement with any theory of the supernatural. But such opposition must not be misunderstood, for to say that there is no supernatural realm is not in itself to delineate the range of what is natural. This is important, for while many contemporary pantheists have been epistemologically conservative, there is no reason in principle why the pantheist should oppose the idea of that which is epistemically transcendent to us, no reason that is why he should seek to limit the compass of the universe to the known universe.
For example, Spinoza held, not only that the realms of thought and extension must stretch indefinitely beyond our finite grasp, but that, as well as in the two known realms of thought and extension, the one substance must exist also in an infinity of other dimensions completely beyond our power to conceive. It is clear that the more naturalistically the cosmos is conceived the stronger that objection must seem, but to estimate more carefully its validity the following six sections take in turn a number of characteristics which the cosmos possesses or might possess and which could be thought to make it divine.
We may proceed from the least to the most contested, noting that not all pantheists will agree on all marks. Most straightforwardly it has been maintained that the One is holy because we feel a particular set of religious emotions towards it. Levine , ch. On this view, all that distinguishes a pantheist from an atheist is feeling ; a certain emotional reaction or connection that we feel to the universe.
It would become akin, say, to the difference between one who loves art and another who is relatively indifferent to it. Prima facie , however, this approach puts the cart before the horse; rather than say that the One is divine because we feel a set of religious emotions towards it, it seems more appropriate to suppose that we feel those emotions towards it because we think it is divine.
Religion gives meaning to human lives by assigning them a certain definite place within a grander scheme or narrative. It gives its adherents a sense of their part in a coherent universe. Hands are different from feet which are different from lungs, but all are part of the greater whole that is the human form. Because all things are ultimately God, all approaches to God can conceivably lead to an understanding of God. Each person should be allowed to pursue such knowledge as they wish.
This does not mean, however, that pantheists believe every approach is correct. They generally do not believe in an afterlife, for example, nor do they find merit in strict dogma and ritual. Pantheism should not be confused with panentheism. Panentheism views God as both immanent and transcendent. This means that while the entire universe is a part of God, God also exists beyond the universe.
As such, this God can be a personal God, a conscious being that manifested the universe with whom one can have a personal relationship. Pantheism is also not deism. Deist beliefs are sometimes described as not having a personal God, but in that case, it is not meant to say the God has no consciousness. The deist God actively created the universe. God is impersonal in the sense that God retreated from the universe after its creation, uninterested in listening to or interacting with believers.
Pantheism is not animism. Animism is the belief that animals, trees, rivers, mountains—all things—have a spirit. However, these spirits are unique rather than being part of a greater spiritual whole. These spirits are frequently approached with reverence and offerings to ensure continued goodwill between humanity and the spirits.
Baruch Spinoza introduced pantheistic beliefs to a wide audience in the 17th century. This diversity is an essential part of the beauty of nature and the night sky.
Without diversity everything would be drably monotonous. Attempts to deny diversity usually end up in claiming that the visible world is mere illusion. Scientific pantheism believes the universe is vibrantly real.
So things are one in some senses, and many in other senses. They are linked in some senses, and separate in others. Anyone who claims that things are totally united, or totally separate, is flying in the face of everyday experience and of scientific evidence.
Yes, there is a fundamental underlying unity. Humans are made of the same substance as the rest of the universe. We don't have any magic spiritual ingredient just for ourselves. However, humans do have consciousness, and that can be a blessing or a curse.
The conscious mind evolved to help survival, and it can help us to relate to nature and the universe through love, appreciation, study and action. But consciousness also means awareness of one's own individuality, so it can also give us a misleading sense of separation from and radical difference from the world.
Our ideas can also develop out of tune with reality and with nature. So it is important not just to state that there is a unity, but to learn to perceive that unity, to understand it, and to act upon it. This is a misconceived Christian criticism of pantheism. Certainly a few sects of Pantheists like Tantric Buddhists and some pantheistic Christian heresies have believed this.
But remember that scientific pantheism does not say that "God is everything", but rather that the universe is worthy of the most profound reverence. Within the overall whole of Nature, it is possible for intelligent species or individuals to become separated from the whole and to act in conflict with it, by harming nature or other people.
Modern pantheists are not amoral. They have strong ideas about right and wrong in relation to environmental ethics and social justice. They would consider environmentally destructive or unjust and oppressive actions as "evil.
Some pantheists, like Spinoza and Einstein , have believed this. Some atheists and scientific pantheists believe this. But there is no logical link between scientific pantheism and determinism. Many pantheists have not been determinists, and many believe in free will. You can take your pick. Some idealistic versions of pantheism - such as neo-Platonism or Hinduism have held such beliefs.
No-one could completely exclude this possibility. But there is no scientific evidence for such beliefs. People who have died medically and have been revived do have mental experiences, because parts of the brain continue to function or resume when the heart is restarted. But that does not mean that their spirit was separated from their body during the "dead" interlude.
Most modern Pantheists believe that the mind is an aspect of the body, and at death dissolves with the body to merge into the elements from which it was formed. If there is any validity at all to near-death experiences, then this is what they are expressing.
For environmental as well as religious reasons, Pantheism strongly prefers natural burials in special woodlands, at sea, or in other natural areas, where the individual can be reabsorbed into the nature of which they were, are and always will be a part.
The idea that the hope of heaven is the only guarantee of moral behaviour is absurd. Highly ethical behavior is found among peoples who do not believe in heaven - for example, many Chinese, or Japanese. Conversely, crime and corruption are rife in many Christian societies. Nowhere was the hope of heaven stronger than in medieval Europe - yet few places on earth have seen injustice, oppression, and violence on such a scale, much of it in the name of Christianity.
The strongest stimuli to moral behaviour in all human societies are parental and social discipline, either externally imposed, or internalized. Plus the direct rewards for good behavior - love and social recognition. These factors ensure that we are often punished and rewarded for our deeds before we die - though chance and social injustice can often distort the outcome.
Of course, religion can provide support for ethics, and but scientific pantheism can provide better support than religions which believe in heaven. Pantheism believes that we live on in some senses, thiough not as conscious persons. Our elements are re-absorbed in Nature. Memories of us persist in the minds of people we have known and in the achievements we leave behind. Therefore we have a powerful incentive to be good and kind to people, and to achieve lasting good in our lives.
The kinder we are, the more good we do, the longer will be our "afterlife" in people's memories. If we do harm, then our memory will be execrated. Contrast this with the God of Christianity who forgives mortal sins even on the deathbed and can reward mass murderers with heaven if they are truly penitent. What kind of incentive for lifelong morality is that?
There are two meanings for the word purpose. One is purpose in relation to something external. By definition the Universe comprises all that exists: there is no outside in relation to which it could have purpose. Is Facebook Morally Responsible? Microaggressions and Intention. The Slow Miracles of Thought. Literary Minds. Summer Dylan Reading. Unnecessary Necessities.
The Philosophy of the Vienna Circle. Cracking Down on Disinformation. What Montaigne Knew. Is Meritocracy Possible? A Solution. What Makes A Man? Replacing Freud. What Tech Says. The Mathematics of Democracy. When Do False Beliefs Exculpate? Gaining Knowledge without Learning. December The Year in Poetry. Finding Minds in a Material World.
Should the Arts Be for All? Whose Fault Is It Anyway? Why We Argue About Fiction. Why Games Matter. Reasons to Hate. Abortion and Humanity. Skepticism and Trust in Science. Philosophy for the Apocalypse. Who Gets to be a Citizen?
Does Meritocracy Have Merit? Discriminating Streets. Abortion and Dehumanization. On Jerks and Ethicists. A Cat's Life.
The Value of Metaphor in a Pandemic. Benjamin and Modern Enchantment. The Ethics of Pet Keeping. Celebrating Our th Episode. Covid and the Veil of Ignorance. Your Racist Mental Habits.
Demonizing Black Men. Listener Covidundrums. Puzzle 3: Kant on Lying to Robots. Can Philosophy Help in a Crisis? Narrative Burnout. A Pandemic of Dreams.
More Money Matters. FrancisOnFilm: Crip Camp. Money Matters. Proust and Social Distance. Puzzle 2: What is an Identity? Philosophy and the Superhero. Trying to Let Go of the Past. Thinking and Mental Action. Puzzle 1: Are Beliefs Voluntary? Viral Xenophobia.
Sorry, Critics: Parasite is a Good Movie. Anti-Sacred Spaces. Is the Self Real? FrancisOnFilm: Dionysus for Docs. Rough Humor.
Comedy on the Edges. What the Future Holds. How Much Thought Is Inactive? A Tribute to Ken Taylor. Nonhuman Persons, Nonhuman Rights. Francis-on-Film: Parasite. Sanctuary Cities. Part II. Hobbes and the Absolute State. Real Horror. Machine Consciousness. FrancisOnFilm: Downton Abbey. Should We Trust Polls? The Appeal of Authoritarianism. Music as a Way of Knowing. Explanation at Its Best.
What's In a Picture? Changing Minds on Climate Change. Against Introspection. Self Knowledge on Trial. The Doomsday Doctrine. A Simple Test for Fake News. Postmodernism: The Decline of Truth. How to Think Two Thoughts at Once. JS Mill and the Good Life. Letting Go of Human Nature. Tolerance and Radical Disagreement. A Licentious Lannister? Working for Faith. What Is Reading? Anti-Semitism is Racism. FrancisOnFilm: Shazam! Philanthropy vs. Authority and Resistance.
Wanting to Want for Its Own Sake. Hacking Our Sense Perceptions. Sexy Beasts. Ken's Big Announcement. FrancisOnFilm: Green Book. Your Question: Integrate or Assimilate? Controversy About Climate Denial. Immigration and Multiculturalism. Mind the Gaps! FrancisOnFilm: Minding the Gap. Five Types of Climate Change Deniers. Finding Yourself in a Virtual Fiction. FrancisOnFilm: Aquaman. The Puzzle of the Unconscious. Is Envy Always a Vice? FrancisOnFilm: Brexit.
Getting Clear on the Replication Crisis. How Not to Fall Asleep. Freud's Philosophical Challenges. December The Examined Year: — Uncut. On Morally Condemning the Past.
Philosophical Freud. Foucault on Power. The Creative Life. Does Reputation Matter? Anti-Semitism The Wrong Abortion Question. How MeToo Helps Men.
Can Reason Save Us? The Philosophy of Westworld. Do They Believe in God? The Psychology of Cruelty. Lessons from Lobsters. Athletics and the Philosophical Life. Should Algorithms Decide? Failing Successfully. FrancisOnFilm: Mission Impossible. Does Science Over-reach? The Truly Beautiful Game. Radical Ideas about Markets. Enlightenment Peddlers.
The Ethics of Homeschooling. One Person, One Vote? Puppet Philosophers. Why America is not a Nation. Distortion in Philosophy. Philosophers and the Meaning of Life. The Ethics of Care. Should Robots Be Caregivers? How a Glitch Caused a Crisis. An Antidote to Bullshit. Repugnant Markets. Is Kanye a Philosopher?
The Twilight Zone and the Human Condition. What is it Like to Lose Your Identity? Against Marriage. The Morality of Big Business. On Deepities and Bullshit. Consciousness Deniers? Faith and Humility. Happy th, Karl Marx! May the Fourth Be With You. Is There Life on Mars?
Toppling the Dehumanization Thesis. Are We Really All Equals? Stop Silencing Sex Workers. The Not-So-Goodness of Liberalism? Trolling, Bullying, and Flame Wars. A Case for Conservative Universities. Self Help, Nietzsche, and the Patriarchy.
Can Technologies Be Monstrous? The End of Privacy. Technology Ethics. The Irreverent Peter Sloterdijk. Is Every Idea Worth Engaging? Adorno and the Culture Industry. From Pessimism to Nihilism. Is Alexa a Setback for Feminism? Racist Algorithms and Fair Sentencing.
Humble Disagreement. Philosophy for Prisoners. Moral Philosophy and The Good Place. Stories To Think With. Is Killmonger to Blame? Is Punishment Wrong? Robot Rights? Misogyny and Gender Inequality. What Makes a Monster? Sexism Versus Misogyny.
What Makes a Film Philosophical? The Temptation to Feel Baffled. Is Yoda a Stoic? James Baldwin and Racial Justice. Millennials and Social Media, a Deadly Mix? A Comic Book for 17th-Century Philosophy. FrancisOnFilm: Three Billboards.
Fatal Attraction. The Urbanist Delusion. Reasons to Donate to Philosophy. Stranger Feelings. Fanon, Violence, and the Struggle Against Colonialism. Is there a real you?
Fractured Identities. Do Victims Have Obligations? The Art of Non-Violence. The Puzzle of Possibility. How to Keep Your Resolutions. Thoughts on Retirement. December In Praise of Affirmative Consent. Lethal Speech. An Argument for Regulating Automation. Can Words Kill? Buddhism, Science, and the West. Of Philosophy and Basketball.
The Midlife Crisis. The Odyssey in Plain English. Scrap Thanksgiving? FrancisOnFilm: Thor Ragnarok. Feminism and Philosophy's Future. Two Models of Hypocrisy. Favorites in Continental Philosophy. The Curious Lives of Octopuses.
When Democracy Runs Wild. Basketball: Myths and Puzzles. Achieving a Measure of Insanity. Philosophy of Trash. Compromise and Slavery. Philosophy and Shelley's Frankenstein. Race Matters. To Retract or Not to Retract.
A Moral Case for Meat. FrancisOnFilm: Battle of the Sexes. Decolonizing Philosophy. Privacy and the Internet of Things. Harmful Jobs, Net Impact. Frege: The Invisible Anti-Semite. How does Consciousness Happen? On Our Cosmic Insignificance. Getting Rid of "Racism". Should Hate Speech be Protected?
The Limits of Free Speech. Automation and the Future of Work. How Will Racism Be Eradicated? Social Status. Should You Fear AI? Women in Philosophy. Transitions in Philosophy Talk. Credibility and Gender. Are Bosses Like Dictators? Your Question: Changing Physical Laws. The Best of Analytic and Continental Philosophy.
Creativity and Character. Which Statues Should Go?
0コメント