Pantheism is a diverse family of philosophical and religious beliefs that equate reality with divinity. Pantheistic concepts date back thousands of years, and pantheistic elements have been identified in diverse religious traditions. Most notably, pantheism refers to the belief that the totality of being—called by various names such as Nature, the universe, the cosmos—is a self-organizing unity that needs no distinct, supernatural creator, and that pantheists can address it with the same sense of reverence and dulia as theists attribute to their gods.
Pantheism is not to be confused with panentheism, which maintains divinity as an entity greater than the universe out of which the universe arises,Ann Thomson; Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment, 2008, page 54. while pantheism is more explicitly non-theistic in framework.
Pantheist belief does not recognize a distinct personal god, anthropomorphic or otherwise, but instead characterizes a broad range of doctrines differing in forms of relationships between reality and divinity. One of the earliest uses of the term pantheism dates back to mathematician Joseph Raphson in 1697.
Pantheism was popularized in Western culture based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza—in particular, his book Ethics. A pantheistic stance was also taken prior in the 16th century by philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for his pantheist views by the inquisition of the Catholic Church.
In the East, Advaita Vedanta, a school of Hindu philosophy is thought to be similar to pantheism in Western philosophy. The early Taoism of Laozi and Zhuangzi is also sometimes considered pantheistic, although it could be more similar to panentheism. Cheondoism, which arose in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, and Won Buddhism are also considered pantheistic.
Etymology Pantheism derives from the Greek (, ) and (, ). The first known combination of these roots appears in Latin, in Joseph Raphson's 1697 book (), in which he refers to . It was subsequently translated into English as "pantheism" in 1702.
Definitions
There are numerous definitions of pantheism, including: a theological and philosophical position which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God; the belief that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God and that all forms of reality may then be considered either mode of that Being, or identical with it;Owen, H. P. Concepts of Deity. London: Macmillan, 1971, p. 65. and a non-religious philosophical position maintaining that the Universe (in the sense of the totality of all existence) and God are identical.
History Pre-modern times Pantheism "is primarily a polemical term", so there are not many pantheists in Ancient history.
Early traces of pantheist thought can be found within animistic beliefs and tribal religions throughout the world as an expression of unity with the divine, specifically in beliefs that have no central polytheist or monotheist personas. Hellenistic theology makes early recorded reference to pantheism within the ancient Greek religion of Orphism, where pan (the all) is made cognate with the creator God Phanes (symbolizing the universe),Damascius, referring to the theology delivered by Hieronymus and Hellanicus in :"... the theology now under discussion celebrates as Protogonus (First-born) [Phanes], and calls him Dis, as the disposer of all things, and the whole world: upon that account he is also denominated Pan." and with Zeus, after the swallowing of Phanes.Betegh, Gábor, The Derveni Papyrus, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 176–178
Pantheistic tendencies existed in a number of Gnostic groups, with pantheistic thought appearing throughout the Middle Ages.Worman, J. H., "Pantheism", in Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 1, John McClintock, James Strong (Eds), Harper & Brothers, 1896, pp. 616–624. These included the beliefs of mystics such as: Ortlieb of Strasbourg, David of Dinant, Amalric of Bena and Eckhart.
The Bible affirms pantheism (Acts 17:28, Jeremiah 23:24). According to others, Acts 17:28 is not pantheist, but panentheist. According to Jacqueline Lagrée, Acts 17:28 could be pantheistic, but panentheism is more accurate for what has been called pantheism. The Catholic Church has long regarded pantheistic ideas as heresy. Sebastian Franck was considered an early Pantheist. Giordano Bruno, an Italian friar who evangelized about a transcendent and infinite God, was burned at the stake in 1600 by the Roman Inquisition. He has since become known as a celebrated pantheist and martyr of science.McIntyre, James Lewis, Giordano Bruno, Macmillan, 1903, p 316.
The Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta is thought to be similar to pantheism. The term Advaita (literally "non-secondness", but usually rendered as "nondualism", and often equated with monism) refers to the idea that Brahman alone is ultimately real, while the transient phenomenal world is an illusory appearance (maya) of Brahman. In this view, jivatman, the experiencing self, is ultimately non-different ("na aparah") from Ātman-Brahman, the highest Self or Reality. The jivatman or individual self is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies.
Baruch Spinoza
In the West, pantheism was formalized as a separate theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese descent raised in the Sephardi Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine, and was effectively excluded from Jewish society at age 23, when the local synagogue issued a herem against him. A number of his books were published posthumously, and shortly thereafter included in the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
In the posthumously published Ethics, he opposed René Descartes' famous mind–body dualism, the theory that the body and spirit are separate. Spinoza held the monist view that the two are the same, and monism is a fundamental part of his philosophy. He was described as a "God-intoxicated man" and used the word "God" to describe the unity of all substances. This view influenced philosophers such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who said, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all." Spinoza earned praise as one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophyScruton 1986 (2002 ed.), ch. 2, p.26 and one of Western philosophy's most important thinkers. Referred to as "the prince" of the philosophers. Although the term "pantheism" was not coined until after his death, he is regarded as the most celebrated advocate of the concept. His book, Ethics, was the major source from which Western pantheism spread.
18th century The first known use of the term pantheism was in Latin () by the English mathematician Joseph Raphson in his work , published in 1697. Raphson begins with a distinction between atheistic "panhylists" (from the Greek roots , 'all', and , 'matter'), who believe everything is matter, and Spinozan "pantheists" who believe in "a certain universal substance, material as well as intelligence, that fashions all things that exist out of its own essence." Raphson thought that the universe was immeasurable in respect to a human's capacity of understanding, and believed that humans would never be able to comprehend it. He referred to the pantheism of the Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Syrians, Assyrians, Greek, Indians, and Jewish Kabbalists, specifically referring to Spinoza.
The term was first used in English in a translation of Raphson's work in 1702. It was later used and popularized by Irish writer John Toland in his work of 1705 Socinianism Truly Stated, by a Pantheist. Toland was influenced by both Spinoza and Bruno and had read Joseph Raphson's De Spatio Reali, referring to it as "the ingenious Mr. Ralphson's (sic) Book of Real Space".Daniel, Stephen H. "Toland's Semantic Pantheism," in John Toland's Christianity not Mysterious, Text, Associated Works and Critical Essays. Edited by Philip McGuinness, Alan Harrison, and Richard Kearney. Dublin, Ireland: The Lilliput Press, 1997. Like Raphson, he used the terms "pantheist" and "Spinozist" interchangeably.R.E. Sullivan, "John Toland and the Deist controversy: A Study in Adaptations", Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 193. In 1720 he wrote the Pantheisticon: or The Form of Celebrating the Socratic-Society in Latin, envisioning a pantheist society that believed, "All things in the world are one, and one is all in all things ... what is all in all things is God, eternal and immense, neither born nor ever to perish."Toland, John, Pantheisticon, 1720; reprint of the 1751 edition, New York and London: Garland, 1976, p. 54. He clarified his idea of pantheism in a letter to Gottfried Leibniz in 1710 when he referred to "the pantheistic opinion of those who believe in no other eternal being but the universe".Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism, 1999.Honderich, Ted, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 641: "First used by John Toland in 1705, the term 'pantheist' designates one who holds both that everything there is constitutes a unity and that this unity is divine."Thompson, Ann, Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 133, .
In the mid-eighteenth century, the English theologian Daniel Waterland defined pantheism this way: "It supposes God and nature, or God and the whole universe, to be one and the same substance—one universal being; insomuch that men's souls are only modifications of the divine substance."Worman cites Waterland, Works, viii, p. 81. In the early nineteenth century, the German theologian Julius Wegscheider defined pantheism as the belief that God and the world established by God are one and the same.Worman cites Wegscheider, Institutiones theologicae dogmaticae, p. 250.
Between 1785–89, a controversy about Spinoza's philosophy arose between the German philosophers Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (a critic) and Moses Mendelssohn (a defender). Known in German as the Pantheismusstreit (pantheism controversy), it helped spread pantheism to many German thinkers.
19th century
Growing influence During the beginning of the 19th century, pantheism was the viewpoint of many leading writers and philosophers, attracting figures such as: William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge in Great Britain; Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Schelling and Hegel in Germany; Knut Hamsun in Norway; and Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in the United States. Seen as a growing threat by the Vatican, in 1864, it was formally condemned by Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors.
A letter written in 1886 by William Herndon, Abraham Lincoln's law partner, was sold at auction for US$30,000 in 2011. In it, Herndon writes of the U.S. President's evolving religious views, which included pantheism.
The subject is understandably controversial, but the letter's content is consistent with Lincoln's fairly lukewarm approach to organized religion.
Comparison with non-Christian religions Some 19th-century theologians thought that various pre-Christian religions and philosophies were pantheistic. They thought Pantheism was similar to the ancient Hinduism philosophy of Advaita (non-dualism).Literary Remains of the Late Professor Theodore Goldstucker, W. H. Allen, 1879. p. 32.