Pantheism

PANTHEISM (Gr. rav, neut. of rEs, all, every, 0E6s, God) and its kindred terms are of modern origin. Toland, in 1705, described himself as a Pantheist, and it is commonly said that the word had not been used before. Johnson defines a Pantheist as "one who confounds God with the Universe: a name given to the followers of Spinoza." But once coined, the terms were found convenient to describe much older systems. Thus we find one system called pantheistic because it treats God as "first in rank and not in time," and so implicitly denies creation; another system because it believes, not in "individual substantial souls, but instead in one universal vital sensitive force"; another be cause it conceives God as "permeating the world like an all pervading breath" and the human soul as "part of the Deity"; another because instead of creation out of nothing it affirms an infinite eternal substance which rouses itself into action and clothes itself in a multiplicity of forms—forms which in the aggregate make up the Universe and in the end return into the Inscrutable Oneness from whence they came forth.

The use of the term is further illustrated: (I) By the saying of Ritschl that "if we obliterate the limit between God and the world, and thus prefer the pantheistic to the Christian concep tion, we ignore the Christian principle which treats the indi vidual man as of higher worth than the whole world" (Rechtfer tigung and Versohnung, iii. p. 2o1) ; (2) by the Roman Catholic argument that Pantheism implies a conception of "emanation from God," or of "evolution in God," which is contrary to His nature (Tanqueray, Syn. Theol. Dog., ii. 423) ; (3) by the well known saying of Schopenhauer that a Pantheism which "ex plains every phenomenon as a theophany" must "also be applied to the most terrible and abominable phenomena." then, we seek for definitions of Pantheism we shall find them variously given. A system may be called pantheistic if it sets value upon the unity of the world, without insisting upon ultimate distinctness of personality either in God or man ; if it teaches a single immanent principle—a "life-force" or what not—in such a way as to diminish the importance or independence of individuals; if without a doctrine of creation, it recognizes God as working in natural law generally, or even in any single department of reality. "Where Love is, there God is"; "It is God that mortal should help mortal"; "God is the moral order of the Universe"—even "God is the moral and re demptive order of the world which Christ revealed"—might from some points of view be regarded as pantheistic sentiments.

Thus we must recognize different forms of pantheistic theory. "For Pantheism," it has been said, "God is immanent in the Universe of finite things." In the more popular or easy-going form of it, which has received classical expression in the famous passage of Pope ("Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze," etc.), God is a pervading presence. In the profounder forms of it, as in Spinoza, everything is a fragment or mode of God, is unreal or only relatively real apart from God and finds its reality in God (S. Alexander, Space, Time and Deity, ii. 389).

No one, it is sometimes said, "should be called a Pantheist unless he regards everything as equally a manifestation of God." Such Pantheism is in extreme opposition to Hegelianism—itself some times labelled "pantheistic" (Tanqueray, S.T.D., i. 79)—for which appearances are on different and graded levels.

Religious Objections.

The common religious objections to Pantheism are based on the fear that it must obliterate moral dis tinctions ; or that it must destroy faith in a God with whom man can hold converse. Yet religion has an obvious interest in the unity which Pantheism affirms. Faith implies that in the Universe at large (through evil overcome) the good is realized in its entirety. On no other basis is complete religious trust possible. For faith, therefore, God cannot be less than the Whole. A God not in clusive of all good is less than perfect. If God, all-inclusive of good, is not also the all-inclusive reality, the Universe is not the realization of the good. A consummate work of any kind is injured as much by addition as by diminution. The objections to Dante's theory that God's self-revelation must leave behind it an "infinite excess of unrevealed good" (Parad., xix. 45) are clear from the context (67-78). God, then, must be thus conceived as just the Good in its full realization. He is not merely an omniscient Being. He must also include all the truth and reality which He knows. He is not merely a Cause whose effect is outside itself. The Christian conception of mankind as within God "in whom all things hold together" (Col. i. 17) is itself a species of Pantheism. The chief problem that remains is to reconcile this all-inclusive unity with the distinction of good from evil and of God from men. (C. J. SH.) Philosophy.—In philosophy and theology, pantheism is the theory that "God is all, and all is God." The Universe is not a creation distinct from God, nor merely a part of God ; neither is God outside the universe, or transcendental, nor is He merely a part, or an immanent aspect, of the universe. God is the Uni verse, and the Universe is God. Finite minds and finite things, all the objects of ordinary human experience are only modes, modi fications, or fragments of God, who is so much more than any of them or the mere sum of all of them. Such, briefly, is the mean ing of Pantheism. It must be remembered, however, that Pan theism is not merely an abstract theory, but a total attitude, a religion, and the attitude may be there in the form of a religious sentiment, or in the form of a poet's feeling for Nature, and yet may not attain to anything so articulate as an explicit, reasoned philosophy. It is likely enough that with most of the pantheists past and present pantheism has been little more than a vague intuition and an inarticulate mood.