Pantheism Pantheism is the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing,
immanent God, or that the
universe (or
nature) is identical with
divinity. Pantheists thus do or do not believe in a
personal or
anthropomorphic god, but believe that interpretations of the term differ. Pantheism was popularized in the modern era as both a theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher
Baruch Spinoza, whose
Ethics was an answer to
Descartes' famous dualist theory that the body and spirit are separate. Although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate.
H. P. Owen claimed that Pantheism is closely related to monism, as pantheists too believe all of reality is one substance, called Universe, God or Nature.
Panentheism, a slightly different concept, is explained below in the next section. Some of the most famous pantheists are the
Stoics,
Giordano Bruno and
Spinoza.
Panentheism Panentheism (from
Greek (pân) "all"; (en) "in"; and (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system that
posits that the divine (be it a
monotheistic God,
polytheistic gods, or an eternal cosmic animating force) interpenetrates every part of nature, but is not one with nature. Panentheism differentiates itself from
pantheism, which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe. In panentheism, there are two types of substance, "pan" the
universe and God. The universe and the divine are not
ontologically equivalent. God is viewed as the eternal animating force within the universe. In some forms of panentheism, the
cosmos exists within God, who in turn "
transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that 'All is God', panentheism claims that God animates all of the universe, and also transcends the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God,
Paul Tillich has argued for such a concept within Christian theology, as has
liberal biblical scholar
Marcus Borg and
mystical theologian
Matthew Fox, an Episcopal priest.
Pandeism Pandeism or pan-deism (from and meaning "
god" in the sense of
deism) is a term describing beliefs coherently incorporating or mixing
logically reconcilable elements of pantheism (that "God", or a metaphysically equivalent
creator deity, is identical to
Nature) and
classical deism (that the creator-god who designed the universe no longer exists in a status where it can be reached, and can instead be confirmed only by reason). It is therefore most particularly the belief that the creator of the universe actually became the universe, and so ceased to exist as a separate entity. Through this
synergy pandeism claims to answer primary objections to deism (why would God create and then not interact with the universe?) and to pantheism (how did the universe originate and what is its purpose?).
Indian and East Asian religions Characteristics The central problem in Asian (religious) philosophy is not the body-mind problem, but the search for an unchanging Real or Absolute beyond the world of appearances and changing phenomena, and the search for liberation from
dukkha and the liberation from the
cycle of rebirth. In Hinduism,
substance-ontology prevails, seeing
Brahman as the unchanging real beyond the world of
appearances. In Buddhism,
process ontology is prevalent, seeing reality as
empty of an unchanging essence. Characteristic for various Asian philosophy, technology and religions is the discernment of levels of truth, an emphasis on intuitive-experiential understanding of the Absolute such as
jnana,
bodhi and
jianxing: (Chinese; 見性), and the technology of
yin and yang used within
East Asian medicine with an emphasis on the integration of these levels of truth and its understanding.
Hinduism Vedanta with Disciples'', by
Raja Ravi Varma (1904)|right|thumb|x216px Vedanta is the inquiry into and systematisation of the Vedas and Upanishads, to harmonise the various and contrasting ideas that can be found in those texts. Within Vedanta, different schools exist: •
Vishishtadvaita, qualified monism, is from the school of
Ramanuja; •
Shuddhadvaita, in-essence monism, is the school of
Vallabha; •
Dvaitadvaita, differential monism, is a school founded by
Nimbarka; •
Achintya Bheda Abheda, a school of
Vedanta founded by
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu representing the philosophy of
inconceivable one-ness and difference. It can be understood as an integration of the strict dualist (dvaita) theology of
Madhvacharya and the qualified monism (vishishtadvaita) of
Ramanuja.
Modern Hinduism The colonisation of India by the British had a major impact on Hindu society. In response, leading Hindu intellectuals started to study western culture and philosophy, integrating several western notions into Hinduism. This modernised Hinduism, at its turn, has gained popularity in the west. A major role was played in the 19th century by
Swami Vivekananda in the
revival of Hinduism, and the spread of Advaita Vedanta to the west via the
Ramakrishna Mission. His interpretation of Advaita Vedanta has been called
Neo-Vedanta. In Advaita, Shankara suggests meditation and
Nirvikalpa Samadhi are means to gain knowledge of the already existing unity of
Brahman and
Atman, not the highest goal itself: Vivekananda, according to
Gavin Flood, was "a figure of great importance in the development of a modern Hindu self-understanding and in formulating the West's view of Hinduism." Central to his philosophy is the idea that the divine exists in all beings, that all human beings can achieve union with this "innate divinity", and that seeing this divine as the essence of others will further love and social harmony. According to Vivekananda, there is an essential unity to Hinduism, which underlies the diversity of its many forms. According to Flood, Vivekananda's view of Hinduism is the most common among Hindus today. This monism, according to Flood, is at the foundation of earlier Upanishads, to theosophy in the later Vedanta tradition and in modern Neo-Hinduism.
Buddhism According to the
Pāli Canon, both pluralism (
nānatta) and monism (
ekatta) are speculative
views. A
Theravada commentary notes that the former is similar to or associated with
nihilism (
ucchēdavāda), and the latter is similar to or associated with eternalism (
sassatavada).
Levels of truth Within Buddhism, a rich variety of philosophical and pedagogical models can be found. Various schools of Buddhism discern levels of truth: • The
Two truths doctrine of the
Madhyamaka • The
Three Natures of the
Yogacara •
Essence-Function, or
Absolute-relative in Chinese and Korean Buddhism • The
Trikaya-formule, consisting of • The
Dharmakāya or
Truth body which embodies the very principle of
enlightenment and knows no limits or boundaries; • The
Sambhogakāya or
body of mutual enjoyment which is a body of bliss or clear light manifestation; • The
Nirmāṇakāya or
created body which manifests in time and space. The
Prajnaparamita-sutras and
Madhyamaka emphasize the
non-duality of form and emptiness: "form is emptiness, emptiness is form", as the
Heart Sutra says. In Chinese Buddhism this was understood to mean that ultimate reality is not a transcendental realm, but equal to the daily world of relative reality. This idea was well-situated for the existing Chinese culture, which emphasized the mundane world and society. But this does not tell how the absolute is present in the relative world: This question is answered in such schemata as
the Five Ranks of Tozan, the
Oxherding Pictures, and
Hakuin's Four ways of knowing. The Lotus Sutra emphasizes the "One Vehicle" teaching that one who attains Supreme Awakening to the Wonderful Dharma sees that the phenomenal, emptiness, the ultimate are non-dual, but that such Awakening cannot be expressed in words. For this reason, the Buddha employs innumerable skillful and expedient means depending on different people's capacity to embrace the teachings. The Tiantai school articulated the concept of "three thousand worlds in one thought moment", which categorizes existence into ten worlds: hell dwellers, hungry ghosts, beasts, asuras, humans, gods (devas), sravakas (voice hearers or disciples), pratyekabuddhas (solitary contemplatives or "private buddhas"), bodhisattvas and Buddhas. According to Zhiyi, each of these ten worlds mutually includes all of the others, resulting in 100 worlds. Each of these 100 worlds share the characteristics of the "
ten suchnesses", taken from Chapter 2 of Kumarajiva's translation of the Lotus Sutra: suchness of the dharmas, the suchness of their marks, the suchness of their nature, the suchness of their substance, the suchness of their powers, the suchness of their functions, the suchness of their causes, the suchness of their conditions, the suchness of their effects, the suchness of their retributions, and the absolute identity of their beginning and end. This multiplies the states of existence to 1000, which manifest in three spheres of existence: sentient beings, the environment in which they live, and the five
skandhas: form, sensation, perception, mental activity, and consciousness. These 3000 worlds are all manifested in a single thought moment. Nichiren Buddhists take three thousand worlds in one thought moment to be the essence of the Buddha's teaching, based on the Buddha's revelation in Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra that the Buddha, the Sangha and the Pure Land are eternally present in this world of endurance, and are not otherworldly or apart from it, hence nondual.
Sikhism Sikhism complies with the concept of Absolute Monism. Sikh philosophy advocates that all that our senses comprehend is an illusion; God is the ultimate reality. Forms being subject to time shall pass away. God's Reality alone is eternal and abiding. The thought is that Atma (soul) is born from, and a reflection of, ParamAtma (Supreme Soul), and "will again merge into it", in the words of the fifth guru of Sikhs,
Guru Arjan, "just as water merges back into the water." God and Soul are fundamentally the same; identical in the same way as Fire and its sparks. "Atam meh Ram, Ram meh Atam" which means "The Ultimate Eternal reality resides in the Soul and the Soul is contained in Him". As from one stream, millions of waves arise and yet the waves, made of water, again become water; in the same way all souls have sprung from the Universal Being and would blend again into it.
Abrahamic faiths Judaism Jewish thought considers God as
separate from all physical, created things and as existing outside of time. According to
Maimonides, God is an
incorporeal being that caused all other existence; to admit
corporeality to God is tantamount to admitting complexity to God, which is a contradiction to God as the
first cause and constitutes
heresy. While
Hasidic mystics considered the existence of the physical world a contradiction to God's
simpleness, Maimonides saw no contradiction. According to
Hasidic thought (particularly as propounded by the 18th century, early 19th-century founder of
Chabad,
Shneur Zalman of Liadi), God is held to be
immanent within
creation for two interrelated reasons: • A very strong Jewish belief is that "[t]he Divine life-force which brings [the universe] into existence must constantly be present ... were this life-force to forsake [the universe] for even one brief moment, it would revert to a state of utter nothingness, as before the creation ..." • Simultaneously, Judaism holds as
axiomatic that God is an absolute unity, and that he is perfectly simple, thus, if his sustaining power is within nature, then his essence is also within nature.
Christianity Creator–creature distinction Christians maintain that God created the universe
ex nihilo and not from his own substance, so that the creator is not to be confused with creation, but rather
transcends it. There is a movement of "
Christian Panentheism".
Rejection of radical dualism In
On Free Choice of the Will,
Augustine argued, in the context of
the problem of evil, that evil is not the opposite of good, but rather merely the absence of good, something that does not have existence in itself. Likewise,
C. S. Lewis described evil as a "parasite" in
Mere Christianity, as he viewed evil as something that cannot exist without good to provide it with existence. Lewis went on to argue against dualism from the basis of
moral absolutism, and rejected the dualistic notion that God and
Satan are opposites, arguing instead that God has no equal, hence no opposite. Lewis rather viewed Satan as the opposite of
Michael the archangel. Due to this, Lewis instead argued for a more limited type of dualism. Other theologians, such as
Greg Boyd, have argued in more depth that the Biblical authors held a "limited dualism", meaning that God and Satan do engage in real battle, but only due to free will given by God, for the duration that God allows.
Mormonism Latter Day Saint theology also expresses a form of
dual-aspect monism via
materialism and
eternalism, claiming that creation was ex materia (as opposed to ex nihilo in conventional Christianity), as expressed by
Parley Pratt and echoed in view by the movement's founder
Joseph Smith, making no distinction between the spiritual and the material, these being not just similarly eternal, but ultimately two manifestations of the same reality or substance. Parley Pratt implies a
vitalism paired with evolutionary adaptation noting, "these eternal, self-existing elements possess in themselves certain inherent properties or attributes, in a greater or less degree; or, in other words, they possess intelligence, adapted to their several spheres." Parley Pratt's view is also similar to Gottfried Leibniz's
monadology, which holds that "reality consists of mind atoms that are living centers of force."
Brigham Young anticipates a proto-mentality of elementary particles with his vitalist view, "there is life in all matter, throughout the vast extent of all the eternities; it is in the rock, the sand, the dust, in water, air, the gases, and in short, in every description and organization of matter; whether it be solid, liquid, or gaseous, particle operating with particle." The LDS conception of matter is "essentially dynamic rather than static, if indeed it is not a kind of living energy, and that it is subject at least to the rule of intelligence."
John A. Widstoe held a similar, more vitalist view, that "Life is nothing more than matter in motion; that, therefore, all matter possess a kind of life... Matter... [is] intelligence... hence everything in the universe is alive." However, Widstoe resisted outright affirming a belief in
panpsychism.
Islam Quran Vincent Cornell argues that the
Quran provides a monist image of God by describing reality as a unified whole, with God being a single concept that would describe or ascribe all existing things. But most argue that Abrahamic religious scriptures, especially the Quran, see creation and God as two separate existences. It explains that everything has been created by God and is under his control, but at the same time distinguishes creation as being dependent on the existence of God. Rumi says in the
Masnavi, Other Sufi mystics however, such as
Ahmad Sirhindi, upheld dualistic Monotheism (the separation of God and the Universe). The most influential of the
Islamic monists was the Sufi philosopher
Ibn Arabi (1165–1240). He developed the concept of 'unity of being' (Arabic:
waḥdat al-wujūd), which some argue is a monistic philosophy. Born in
al-Andalus, he made an enormous impact on the Muslim world, where he was crowned "the great Master". In the centuries following his death, his ideas became increasingly controversial.
Ahmad Sirhindi criticised monistic understanding of 'unity of being', advocating the dualistic-compatible 'unity of witness' (Arabic:
wahdat ash-shuhud), maintaining separation of creator and creation. Later,
Shah Waliullah Dehlawi reconciled the two ideas maintaining that their differences are semantic differences, arguing that the universal existence (which is different in creation to creator) and the divine essence are different and that the universal existence emanates (in a non-platonic sense) from the divine essence and that the relationship between them is similar to the relationship between the number four and a number being even.
Shi'ism The doctrine of
waḥdat al-wujūd also enjoys considerable following in the rationalist philosophy of
Twelver Shi'ism, with the most famous modern-day adherent being
Ruhollah Khomeini.
Baháʼí Faith Although the
teachings of the
Baháʼí Faith have a strong emphasis on social and ethical issues, there exist a number of foundational texts that have been described as mystical. Some of these include statements of a monist nature (e.g.,
The Seven Valleys and the
Hidden Words). The differences between dualist and monist views are reconciled by the teaching that these opposing viewpoints are caused by differences in the observers themselves, not in that which is observed. This is not a 'higher truth/lower truth' position. God is unknowable. For man it is impossible to acquire any direct knowledge of God or the Absolute, because any knowledge that one has, is relative. == See also ==