Can there be a such thing as Pantheistic Christianity?

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;77606 wrote:

Show me a contradiction. These are things we can and should discuss.

I do not disagree with something simply because you say it. Instead, I correct what I understand to be errors of fact and misleading interpretation. You certainly have your opinions - if I did not recognize that you have opinions I could not very well contest those opinions.

I do nothing but say, "Nope, you're wrong"? As I recall, I typically say something closer to: "Nope, you're wrong for X(y, maybe z) reason(s)." At the very least, I provide an alternative to your claim. And I do not recall ever turning down a request or challenge to expand upon and explain my alternative.

Please, show some such oversight you think I have made.

You asked me to give an example of a a sort of person I never claimed existed in the first place. Is it reasonable of me to demand that you give me an example of your brilliant guitar playing, when you have made no claim to being a brilliant guitar player?

If the existence of someone who can, without contradiction, describe God. I see no relevance of this endeavor to any topic we have discussed in this thread. If there is some relevance, be my guest to explain it.

Users do have the option to ignore other users. I'm not sure how to operate that function as I've never used it myself, but I'm sure another moderator can help you out. Maybe PM jgweed.

I cant be bothered with you Tom,your whole attitude in my opinion stinks.You have certain air of superiority i cant stand.I have seen people banned because they could not tolerate your belittling posts.As i said, you have a problem so leave me alone.All the best Xris.

@dharma bum,

dharma_bum;76425 wrote:

I'm still 'finding my way' as far as God goes. I choose not to be Atheist as it's, quite frankly, dull, but I also can't accept God as the human-like being depicted in the Bible.

I've read Tao Teh King by Lao Tzu (Taoism), which describes Nature as being the ultimate source of all. Through the book, I realized that if I replaced the word nature with the word God, it summed up my views.

My God is the creator of all, but is not a being, an entity, a man, a woman, and no adjective can be used to describe it. It just is. Because it is the creator of all, the closest we can get to it is through the world it created for us.

In my opinion, the human mind cannot worship God without bearing false witness for worshiping the thought of God, an image of God, or an action of God is not worshiping God.

Sorry if I'm rambling, and I'm even more sorry if this doesn't make sense

Hello, dharma_bum, many people have a hard time finding pantheism in Christianity. Yet it's there: you have to know what you're looking for.

Yes, the Tao in the Tao Te Ching (Wade-Giles; the pinyin is Daodejing, which more correctly reflects the actual pronunciation--dow-day-zhing) is a pantheisitic entity: one of the reasons I'm attracted to it. It's hardly alone, though, for the Taoist Tao is reflected well in the Hindu Brahman. Like the Tao, Brahman is mostly thought of in terms of its ineffability (neti neti the Upanishads say, 'not this, not that'): it simultaneously pervades everything and exists beyond the purview of everything. But the problem with such an entity, although it strikes closer to the core of the truth of God's existence, is that to most people such a God seems utterly alien and unapproachable. This is why when you see doctrinal references to it they're usually couched in lofty and oblique language in 'secret teachings' (Upanishad literally means 'sit down close to', i.e., receive a secret teaching, and the Gnostic gospels, which also attempt to approach this view of God were considered 'secret gospels'). So God is an ineffable unity that at once exists independent of the world and utterly pervades the world: by approaching him in deep meditative knowledge we are approaching closest to him, yet at the same time this approach is so difficult as to be effectively impossible for most people. This is why mysticism--approach of the pantheistic--tends to be embedded into more dominant, more accessible ritual or devotional traditions. For in ritual traditions acting in the right way brings one closer to God, and in devotional traditions believing in the right way brings one closer to God.

How Devotionalism Works: Since God can only be mystically approached free of suffering, free of all attachment, and only a very few people are strong enough to free themselves of all attachment--indeed, it seems to be almost impossible in normal social contexts--the idea behind devotionalism is fairly simple, namely that God sent down a divine being to interact with peoples, provide a substitute for worship--an accessible demigod. So Krishna says I am become death, destroyer of worlds, so Jesus says I am the light of the world, you can only approach the Father through me. For what's effectively happening is that ordinary people are quite literally heaping their attachment on these (semi)divine beings whose sole purpose in being sent is to bear this burden in place of those who create it yet cannot. This is part of what the Church fathers mean when they say Jesus died for the sins of the world: Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Jesus are not ultimate gods: no one claims they are: they are merely divine intermediaries come to bring ordinary humans freedom from this world.

It is for this reason that when you say, 'In my opinion, the human mind cannot worship God without bearing false witness for worshiping the thought of God, an image of God, or an action of God is not worshiping God,' that you error: for as the Bhagavad-Gita says, 'Any sacrifice in knowledge is a sacrifice unto God' (paraphrase): any time you worship a god in howsoever mean a way you are worshipping the God, the God who permeates, pervades all that exists. Right action, right thought, right faith: all are necessary to come closer to God, to distance oneself from the cycle of suffering in this world. For worshipping any god is worshipping all gods, and worshipping all gods is worshipping the one God. This is a great secret of the world, one that few people ever understand.

So, in response to your question, yes, there is a pantheism in Christianity. The whole monastic tradition's devoted to finding it. Look in your heart and look in the Trinity and ye shall find what ye seek.

@dharma bum,

Quote:

So Krishna says I am become death, destroyer of worlds

Actually I think you will find Siva says that, not Krishna.

Quote:

Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Jesus are not ultimate gods: no one claims they are:

Hang on a minute. Do you happen to recall the precise nature of the cause of the historic schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthdoxy? It was, in fact, over exactly this question. It all came down to 'one iota' of difference in the doctrinal creed. Hence the saying 'one iota (Greek letter 'i') of difference'.

Now, personally, I like where you're coming from, and it is great to see an approach based on reading, synthesis of many ideas, and so on. But if you tried to get up and say what you're saying in any christian church (with the possible example of some of the New Age and Unitarian Universalist churches) you would be shown the door (which is preferable to being persecuted for heresy, which is what would have happened to you a few generations ago.)

There are a couple of sites I visit where 'dialog' goes on between Pentacostal Christians and 'other faiths'. You would be dismayed to see how firmly those pentacostals believe that the only reason for such dialog is to engage the heathen and convert them to the One True Faith. Christianity is still overwhelmingly like this. So even if it is great to explore mystical and alternative intepretations of Christianity, these explorations are barely relevant to Christianity as is actually understood by most Christians. More's the pity.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;78030 wrote:

Actually I think you will find Siva says that, not Krishna.

Krishna says it. It's in the Bhagavad-Gita, 11.32 (sri bhagavan uvaca kalo* 'smi...). I have an idea where the thought of Shiva comes from, but I can assure you, it's dead wrong.

Quote:

Hang on a minute. Do you happen to recall the precise nature of the cause of the historic schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthdoxy? It was, in fact, over exactly this question. It all came down to 'one iota' of difference in the doctrinal creed. Hence the saying 'one iota (Greek letter 'i') of difference'.

Now, personally, I like where you're coming from, and it is great to see an approach based on reading, synthesis of many ideas, and so on. But if you tried to get up and say what you're saying in any christian church (with the possible example of some of the New Age and Unitarian Universalist churches) you would be shown the door (which is preferable to being persecuted for heresy, which is what would have happened to you a few generations ago.)

There are a couple of sites I visit where 'dialog' goes on between Pentacostal Christians and 'other faiths'. You would be dismayed to see how firmly those pentacostals believe that the only reason for such dialog is to engage the heathen and convert them to the One True Faith. Christianity is still overwhelmingly like this. So even if it is great to explore mystical and alternative intepretations of Christianity, these explorations are barely relevant to Christianity as is actually understood by most Christians. More's the pity.

Which is not what I was thinking about, or aiming at. The Upanishads and in Gnosticism both affirm, remember, that the discovery of God is an intensely personal matter. Seek and ye shall find. Any sort of missionarianism presupposes that you're right and they're wrong, which leads one away from God. I am well aware that Christianity has a shiasmatic history, and indeed I'm interested in the question of what this schismaticism does to the church's living tradition, but here I'm showing that the living tradition still lies there, buried under centuries of accumulated dross and factional, even contradictory, theologies.

P.S. That's why I don't go to church. Well duh! Showing the essential linkages between religions--and there are--is to certain shallow-minded people an invitation to heresy. But remember also that even a century and a half ago Thoreau realized that the messages of the Gita and John were essentially the same and that Hermann Hesse, who in writing Siddhartha and Steppenwolf first widely popularized Eastern, especially Hindu, tradition in the West, was the son of missionaries. It's like the Gnostics: once one has seen the truth one can never go back.

*In Sanskrit, kala means both 'death' and 'time,' thus kalo asmi can be translated 'I am become death,' a la Robert Oppenheimer, or 'I am time grown old,' a la Barbara Stoler Miller. The next bit, destroyer of worlds, really has only one interpretation, tough. What is certain, though, is that it's Krishna saying it: throughout the Gita he's known as Sri Bhagavat, a combo of two titles meaning, roughly, 'The Lord' in much the same way as YHWH Sabaoth is traditionally translated as 'The Lord of hosts' in the Bible. Shiva doesn't even have a speaking role.

@dharma bum,

I stand corrected. It might indeed be the Oppenheimer quote which I was thinking of.

@jeeprs,

Xris,

If one has the pantheistic interpretation that 'everything' is god, or that god is really just a metaphor for that which is beyond us, i.e. whatever delineates reality, one can simply apply it to the New Testament, reading any divine reference as a metaphor consistent with his view. The more practical points still remain the same. With this interpretation, the bible might appear very different than how it might appear to a Fundamentalist, but nevertheless, the interpretation is as valid if not more so(I would lean towards the more so side of it).

The end of the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus contained a good summary of pantheism as I understand it (though it was not totally explicit, it was expressed through his more religious and mystical assertions, such as his deconsruction of the 'mystical feeling'). The Tao te Ching also presents the Tao as essentially the pantheistic 'God' in less anthropocentric terms. So the God of pantheism is not a being or 'Creator' per se, but would necessarily include a creator, if there is one, as one aspect of 'God' or 'Tao' or 'that which is beyond the totality of logical possiblities, what delineates what is possible'(which is what it ultimately boils down to).

@Zetetic11235,

Zetetic11235;78084 wrote:

Xris,

If one has the pantheistic interpretation that 'everything' is god, or that god is really just a metaphor for that which is beyond us, i.e. whatever delineates reality, one can simply apply it to the New Testament, reading any divine reference as a metaphor consistent with his view. The more practical points still remain the same. With this interpretation, the bible might appear very different than how it might appear to a Fundamentalist, but nevertheless, the interpretation is as valid if not more so(I would lean towards the more so side of it).

The end of the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus contained a good summary of pantheism as I understand it (though it was not totally explicit, it was expressed through his more religious and mystical assertions, such as his deconsruction of the 'mystical feeling'). The Tao te Ching also presents the Tao as essentially the pantheistic 'God' in less anthropocentric terms. So the God of pantheism is not a being or 'Creator' per se, but would necessarily include a creator, if there is one, as one aspect of 'God' or 'Tao' or 'that which is beyond the totality of logical possiblities, what delineates what is possible'(which is what it ultimately boils down to).

Sorry zetec but as i said i can understand the relationship to Taoism but for a christian there is no half way house between believing christ is the son of god and any mystical naturalistic views.Im not doubting certain pantheists call themselves christians and they have every right to but i insist they are no more christian than i.Hindus can it appears adopt other gods with ease but i dont think a christian,even the most unfundamental, would ever consider pantheism as a form of christian worship.Find me a christian pantheist or explain his view of christianities claim of divinity or the trinity etc.

@xris,

Not to mention. Zetetic, that basic theology for many Gnostic Christians sects is pantheistic - the Monad being the imminent God from which everything else is derived, and of which everything is part of, being either and emanation from the Monad or an emanation from an emanation from the Monad.

@xris,

xris;78090 wrote:

Sorry zetec but as i said i can understand the relationship to Taoism but for a christian there is no half way house between believing christ is the son of god and any mystical naturalistic views.Im not doubting certain pantheists call themselves christians and they have every right to but i insist they are no more christian than i.Hindus can it appears adopt other gods with ease but i dont think a christian,even the most unfundamental, would ever consider pantheism as a form of christian worship.Find me a christian pantheist or explain his view of christianities claim of divinity or the trinity etc.

Son of God = Son of Everything = Someone who is manifest out of some part of all that is = everyone (since pregnant women are part of everything, or rather, sit within the set of all things that are logically possible). Trinity, three aspects of the whole: The Father ; The totality of logical possibilities, The Son ; The representation of human nature, which is manifest from the father, The Holy Ghost ; That which delineates reality. That is the best I can do, being only somewhat familiar with the bible.

I suppose you could come at this from the knowledge that it is suspected that many of the divine aspects of Christ were added in later by those in power to further their power.

@Zetetic11235,

Recall that not all Christians are Trinitarians. Even today, there are several major denominations that reject the Trinity model.

@Didymos Thomas,

So hands up all those christians who believe christ is not divine?

@dharma bum,

One consideration that underlies all this is the nature and importance of orthodoxy in Christianity. The early days of the Christian church where a ferment of competing and often conflicting interpretations, and the Church Councils were called together to articulate the 'official doctrine' (including the Trinity, the nature of Christ, and so on.) At the time, these competing elements included not only early Christian beliefs, but beliefs from other Eastern faiths such as various types of gnosticism, Mithraism, Manicheism, Zoroastianism etc (and actually orthodoxy absorbed many ideas from these sources).

Many of the more mystical or pantheistic elements in the mix were deliberately either excluded or made subject to very strict 'containment' by the church authorities, for a number of reasons, principle being the dogma 'no salvation outside the Church' (ex eccliesia null santorum - still official Church policy!), which dictated that any understanding which attempted to bypass the requirement for participation in the liturgy and the church rituals as defined by the Church, was automatically considered a heresy. My take on it, cynical I admit, was that this all required to grow and to manage the franchise.

The tension between the mystical and orthodox elements has continued throughout history, breaking out violently in the persecution of the Cathars in southern France in the 13th Century. A particular target for the Spanish Inquisition was a mystical sect which taught something very similar to Yoga meditation. There was controversy in France when a Madame Guyon was condemned as a heretic for saying that the only requirement for salvation was constant inner prayer. This was called 'quietism' (which is kind of amusing when you think about it as it was really just being internally calm and quiet and constantly praying to the Lord. Nevertheless is was definitely heretical.)

Of course none of it matters any more. You can stand on a soapbox and say anything you want. You teach salvation by UFOs or that none of it means anything. (It might interest you to know that starting a long while ago, the Catholic Church has maintained an Index of Prohibited Books - things the faithful can't read. It is still maintained. Most of what I like is on it.)

I personally turned towards eastern spirituality, specifically Buddhism - actually the first Eastern book I read was Autobiography of a Yogi - because I found much more direct and meaningful answers to my questions there. Subsequently, and through a lot of reading, I have found that the mystical/pantheistic aspects of Christianity might have answered those questions, had I encountered it at the time, but in my time and place it was well and truly buried, and nobody had the least understanding of it. I suspect that the kind of Christianity that me and lot of others are looking for was interred sometime around the Council of Nicea.

@xris,

xris;78182 wrote:

So hands up all those christians who believe christ is not divine?

You mean like adoptionalists?

There were several views of Christ in Early Christianity, interestingly enough:
adoptionalists, who believed that he was not God's only begotten Son but rather that God had adopted him at the beginning of his ministry, when he was baptized by John the Baptist. Ebionites and Theo...something...ites (I can't remember the middle of the name just now);
docetists, who believed that Christ was either a) a transcendent Spirit of Christ inhabiting the body of Jesus (mostly the Gnostic view) or that Jesus was the immaterial transcendent Son of God (the Marcionite view); or the
unified view (or so I'll call it, not knowing its technical term) which claims that both a) Jesus was fully human (as in material) and b) that he was the divine only begotten Son of God.

Both adoptionalism and docetism were later condemned as heretical.

@hammersklavier,

I appreciate there are many views on Jesus and his historic and holy values.I believe certain aspects of christianity but im not a christian.Pantheists are by definition atheists and if they want to adopt part of the christian doctrine i have no problem with that but they can no more claim to be christian than any other naturalistic view.Im not arguing with the definition but the concept.When you claim to be a christian you attach certain criteria and if you dont accept his divinity then he is someone you might just admire.I can understand you may not believe he was the son of god but still be a christian because of his communion with god.The point im making you cant dismiss all of his divine contacts and still call yourself a christian.

@xris,

xris;78558 wrote:

I appreciate there are many views on Jesus and his historic and holy values.I believe certain aspects of christianity but im not a christian.Pantheists are by definition atheists and if they want to adopt part of the christian doctrine i have no problem with that but they can no more claim to be christian than any other naturalistic view.Im not arguing with the definition but the concept.When you claim to be a christian you attach certain criteria and if you dont accept his divinity then he is someone you might just admire.I can understand you may not believe he was the son of god but still be a christian because of his communion with god.The point im making you cant dismiss all of his divine contacts and still call yourself a christian.

How can you defend this claim? Atheists, by definition, believe in no God (a (no, not) theos (God) ) whereas pantheists believe that the entire universe is an expression of divinity, that the entire universe is an encapsulation of divinity (pan (all, i.e., all 'is') + theos (God) )--a huge difference.

One can also read into the distinction a distinction in viewpoint. Pantheists, believing the universe is divine and has a divine purpose of some sort, also tend to believe the universe is inherently good (an optimistic viewpoint) whereas atheists, believing that there is nothing divine about the world would also espouse a position of universal amorality (that is, there's nothing inherently good or evil about the world), which in relation to pantheists' divine optimism strikes one as a particularly pessimistic view.

@hammersklavier,

hammersklavier;78750 wrote:

How can you defend this claim? Atheists, by definition, believe in no God (a (no, not) theos (God) ) whereas pantheists believe that the entire universe is an expression of divinity, that the entire universe is an encapsulation of divinity (pan (all, i.e., all 'is') + theos (God) )--a huge difference.

One can also read into the distinction a distinction in viewpoint. Pantheists, believing the universe is divine and has a divine purpose of some sort, also tend to believe the universe is inherently good (an optimistic viewpoint) whereas atheists, believing that there is nothing divine about the world would also espouse a position of universal amorality (that is, there's nothing inherently good or evil about the world), which in relation to pantheists' divine optimism strikes one as a particularly pessimistic view.[/QUOTE Pantheists dont believe in a creator nor can they describe their god.Its no good saying something is divine and then saying there is no known god.Whats divine about the universe if it has no consciousness.The christian god is described and is held as the creator,pantheists are vague, incoherent and by all standards atheist.

@hammersklavier,

i share your feelings of surprise hammersklaviera (and others), when xris defines pantheists as atheists. But really this comes down to how we interpret the meaning of the words like atheism, pantheism, divine, god etc and put them all together.

Quote:

whereas atheists, believing that there is nothing divine about the world would also espouse a position of universal amorality

i think there is an unfortunate ambiguity there. Perhaps in addition "......would therefore espouse a position of personal morality which has nothing to do with divinity".

I would offer the following that i have written in another thread and from a completely different subject.

Quote:

What i personally prefer about a spiritual pantheism (without one ruling god or goddess), a spiritual multitude in all of nature, as well as other narratives like science and love, is that the oneness would be greater than any one way of trying to understand for any being..... and even as mere humans that truth is open to us.

Thus maybe xris is interpreting a belief in a divine god as requiring that 'god' is the same as 'the oneness'. (and therefore all knowing?) And further that only a belief in a one god can make a god divine. A multitude of gods from such a point of view would necessitate that each god were necessarily not divine. Not believing in the divine is thus atheism for xris, and follows from not believing in one divine god, whether you believe in a spiritual pantheon or not.

The surprise and possible offense that people might take from such a view is that not to believe in one god is taken as not believing in the divine, and thus no different from atheism, which in itself can be associated as a complete rejection not only of the divine, but the 'spiritual dimension' per se.

I was surprised to come across atheists (neither pantheists, christians or any religion) that do believe in ghosts and the supernatural. The spiritual dimension for some of them had nothing to do with morality or divinity. It was about the realm of the dead and super forces. Astrology for example was thus a kind of super-science.

Apologies if i have misunderstood anyone.

@xris,

xris;78795 wrote:

hammersklavier;78750 wrote:
How can you defend this claim? Atheists, by definition, believe in no God (a (no, not) theos (God) ) whereas pantheists believe that the entire universe is an expression of divinity, that the entire universe is an encapsulation of divinity (pan (all, i.e., all 'is') + theos (God) )--a huge difference.

One can also read into the distinction a distinction in viewpoint. Pantheists, believing the universe is divine and has a divine purpose of some sort, also tend to believe the universe is inherently good (an optimistic viewpoint) whereas atheists, believing that there is nothing divine about the world would also espouse a position of universal amorality (that is, there's nothing inherently good or evil about the world), which in relation to pantheists' divine optimism strikes one as a particularly pessimistic view.
Pantheists dont believe in a creator nor can they describe their god.

Brahman saguna = creator. In acting (saguna) he created the physical universe ergo he is a creator.

Quote:

Its no good saying something is divine and then saying there is no known god.Whats divine about the universe if it has no consciousness.

The claim that there is no known god seems to me spurious. It's not that the god is vague and unknown, unknowable: according to the pantheist position god is the universe and hence both known and knowable if one knows the universe as it really is. Hence the practice of meditation: if the self or soul is a microcosm of the universe then by really truly knowing oneself one can extrapolate those conclusions to the rest of the universe.

Whether or not the universe is conscious may be an aspect of the ancient, eternal Hindu-Buddhist atman-anatman debate. In any event I agree with you that's ultimately unknowable.

Quote:

The christian god is described and is held as the creator,pantheists are vague, incoherent and by all standards atheist.

But according to the pantheist position the Christian God (can be) interpreted as (among other things) fickle, judgmental, intolerant, and much too present, a demigod at best. This isn't the position I espouse, though.

Also it strikes me that the key difference between pantheists and atheists is that all atheists disavow even the possibility of the existence of a God, whereas pantheists believe in the essential divinity of the universe (which isn't a half-bad position, in my way of thinking: the universe has, by virtue of its mere existence, nurtured us and given us life--if it weren't there, would we even be?). Saying that the universe is divine vs. the universe is not divine may just be a difference in terms, but sometimes it's a difference in terms that makes a world of difference.

@hammersklavier,

Lets be honest defining panetheists beliefs is almost impossible.It covers such a large vague view of universal mysterious mysticism, who knows what they really believe.I have tried to debate with them in the past and they will never be tied down and least of all will they admit that christ was devine.The nearest to their view is taoism but even that is not an admission they will accept.If you can find a christian pantheist to debate with i would be very interested to hear his beliefs.Thanks xris.

@xris,

IMHO
In general pantheism equates God with nature. Spinoza is often listed as a pantheist although a close reading of Spinoza casts doubt on that assertion. For a pantheist there may be no personal god and no transcendent values ethical or aesthetic.

Panentheism on the other hand, All- in- God, makes the world (nature) part of God. The world is contained within God but God is more than nature. The concept of God in panentheism is highly immanent but there is also a transcendent quality in which may dwell the aesthetic and moral values of the divine.

Traditional orthodoxy makes God much more Transcendent and somewhat separated from the world and nature. The sacred (spirit) and the profane (matter). The tension between divine immanence and divine transcendence is one of the primary parameters of differing religious notions or beliefs.

For my part, I am a panentheist of the Whitehead process theology variety.

---------- Post added 07-23-2009 at 10:30 PM ----------

An additional comment would be that it would be difficult to be any kind of orthodox or traditional Chrisitian as a pantheist.

Many chrisitan theologians on the other hand refer to themselves as panentheist. Among the most prominent currently would be Marcus Borg, John Selby Spong, John Dominic Crossan and Karen Armstrong. They reject supernatural theism but have a process view of god and an interesting Christology.

What is a Christian anyway?
Is Chrisitanity a call to certain kinds of action in the world or
Is Chrisitanity a matter of accepting a certain creed or dogma?
Lots of disagreement there.

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Can there be a such thing as Pantheistic Christianity?

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