PANTHEISM, MYSTICISM AND MONOTHEISM These are features found only in the higher religious culture. They all claim to be an advance on some existing religious system. (I) Pantheism.
Pantheism is in the main due to the development of reflective thinking. In the many it finds merely the passing appearances of the One. If pantheism is a late development, it was at least foreshadowed at earlier stages of religious evolution. Men soon became dimly conscious of a unity pervading the cosmic order and everywhere operative throughout it. In the Hindu conception of Rita and of Karma we have the idea of a power behind all things working by inflexible law. The ancient Chinese Tao con veys a sense of the eternal order and way of the universe. And the Greek Moira and the Persian Asha contain the same ideas. This belief in a universal principle, when applied to polytheism, leads to the notion of a common power behind the gods, and sug gests that the various gods are only forms of the one Reality. Thus during the Middle Kingdom in Egypt reflective thinking treated the various gods as manifestations of Ra, and among the priesthood there was an esoteric pantheism.
The trend towards pantheism works itself out more readily when the gods are not sharply defined in their specific character and attributes. This was the case with the Vedic gods, since the qualities of one were often transferred to another. In the avatars of Vishnu one god assumes many divine forms. So by an easy process of transition the pantheism of the Upanishads and the Vedanta is reached. Here pantheism is thorough-going. All cosmic and psychical phenomena are unified in the one real Being : Brah man-Atman, the soul and the Absolute, are identical. Tat team asi: "that art thou." The multiplicity of the phenomenal world is only Maya or illusion; it disappears with knowledge. In contrast the clear-cut gods of Greece resisted a process of fusion. The Stoic pantheism, which identified Zeus with the universal and immanent reason or Logos, was rather an independent specula tive theory than a development of Greek religion.
Religious pantheism is in the main a reflective development due to rational demands. If consistent, it is not a working re ligious creed, for it abolishes the religious relation by reducing it to an identity. (See PANTHEISM.) ( 2 ) Mysticism.
Mysticism, like pantheism, in the strict sense is a phenomenon of highly developed religion. Individualistic in character, it is the outcome of a longing for intimate communion with the Divine. The Mystery-Religions show a mystic tendency in their doctrine of union with the god through the sacramental meal. The same is perhaps true of Hindu Yoga which is a method of inducing religious ecstasy by concentration and absorption of mind. The Yogin became for others a kind of supernatural being. But mysticism proper is a conscious reaction against the ex ternality of a merely intellectual knowledge of God : its goal is a perfect union with the Deity in which the element of difference implied in thinking is overcome. The Neo-Platonic union of the soul with the One is a purely mystical experience. The same
spiritual movement appeared within Islam in Sufism, which no doubt was influenced by Neo-Platonism. The sufi sought to purge his mind of all that was not God, and the perfect man attained to absorption in God. The great mediaeval mystics sought the same consummation, an unio mystics achieved by transcending the form of thinking. Mysticism is loosely related to official and in stitutional religion. Possessing a "more excellent way," it can dispense with the recognized means of mediation. But if it in vests religion with a new warmth and intimacy, it is deficient as a social power. And mysticism is always exposed to the danger of falling into pantheism. (See MYSTICISM.) (3) Monotheism.
Monotheism is a late phenomenon of religion. The hypothesis of a primitive monotheism lacks foundation, and is intrinsically improbable. Beyond doubt the spirit and meaning of religion at tain their fullest and best expression in some form of monotheistic faith. Polytheism disperses the religious interest : intimacy of worship and the confidence of trust are only possible when there is one, and only one, object of religious devotion. The trend towards monotheism was gradual, and it had preparatory stages. The first stage was what is called monarchianism. After the anal ogy of human society one deity is exalted above the rest, and becomes the king of the gods. A familiar example is the Homeric Zeus who stands supreme over all the gods and looks down on the conflicts of mortals among whom his will is accomplished. (Aces S' ireXELEro 13ovX7).) The Babylonian Marduk and the Egyptian Ra are illustrations of the same phenomenon of one deity attaining a position of undisputed sovereignty. A rather more advanced stage is that of monolatry, where other gods are admitted to exist, but worship is reserved for one. This we find in Hebrew religion in the pre-prophetic period.
The earliest attempt—an abortive one—to introduce a pure monotheism, in this case a solar monotheism, is that of the Egyptian Amenhotep IV. in the XIVth century B.C. More im pressive is the monotheism of Zarathustra, perhaps some eight hundred years before our era. This monotheism rests on a com prehensive view of the world. The physical and moral order derive from the one God, his will is right, and all the pure ele ments of life belong to his kingdom. The pronounced dualism of the later Avesta is absent from the prophet's teaching. With the eighth century prophets of Israel the earlier monolatry became a true monotheism. This monotheistic universalism finds its clear est utterance in the work of Deutero-Isaiah. From this heritage of Hebrew religion Christianity derived its pure monotheism, and the same influence is manifest in the monotheism of Islam.
Monotheism is the ripest expression of the religious conscious ness. It rests on the conviction that the ethical and religious values must have a sufficient ground, and this is the one God on whom all existence and value depend.