Talk:Panentheism
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Questions for someone knowledgable to answer about panentheism - Who 'invented' it? When? Where? Why? How did it spread?
- This way of thinkjing about God has been around for many centuries, if not milennia. I know that it has existed in the Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism) for nearly a milennia. However, I believe that the formal name for this view of God wasn't invented by someone until the early 1800s. RK
> Is it a common/popular belief today?
- Many Chasidic Orthodox Jews, and many Conservative and Reform Jews, have views of God that are basically panentheistic, even if they themselves don't use this formal philosophical term. This view of God is mainstream among those who adhere to process theology and process philosophy. RK
Was it common/popular at any other stage in history? If possible - are there any specific fact/figures/dates that should go with this entry?
- Panentheism is the classical Christian view over Supernatural Theism. Supernatural Theism is a commonly used way of viewing God as a commander living "out there". Borg discusses Supernatural Theism as something he was taught as a young boy in Sunday school which later turned him into an atheist. He later discovered Panentheism which "made sense" and he regained his relationship with God.
Yes, it goes back to at least the Ancient Aryans of Northern India, long before the Kabbalah, within their sacred Sanskrit writings of the Vedas, Upanishads, and within the B. Gita. See cosmotheism which term goes back to at least Ancient Egyptian-Greek times, and which idea may have also been transmitted from Ancient Aryan India.
Just a note: I moved the contrast/link to Pantheism up to the top because the definition here read like a response to something else which was left unspecified until the very end of the article, which left me a bit confused. --Brion 22:11 Aug 18, 2002 (PDT)
I have greatly expanded the "Panentheism in Christianity" section, outlining the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox doctrine of panentheism. Evidently, it looks like a single term manages to describe two very different things.Dogface 18:35, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
Should the pandeism section removed be added back??? Falphin 02:41, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Please don't flame me if I get the etiquette wrong, I just wanted to point out that to claim that Neoplatonists are polytheirstic is highy debatable and the weight of academic debate comes down fro a panenthentheistic monotheism, or even emanationist, but not polytheism as is commonly understood today. If Neoplatonists are polytheistic, then so is Christianity, hope that makes sense?== pantheism/panentheism ==
It might be good if we decide which forms of Hinduism are pantheist, which are panentheist, and which are neither. I suspect that they are all a mix of pantheism and panentheism, but lets discuss! ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 23:53, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
- Raj2004 has been generous enough to tell me the following:
The schools of Hinduism that are panentheistic include Ramanuja, and Kashmir Shaivism, see http://www.kashmirshaivism.org/introduction.html The schools of Hinduism that are pantheistic are those of Sankara. Kasmir saivism rejected the maya theory.
another link (not from raj) is: [1]
¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 02:33, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Panentheism in Judaism
I am removing this statement "More strictly, since this doctrine states that the universe is God yet God is more than the universe, it is a type of pantheism. Non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews viewed this theology as heretical. However, after the schism between Hasidic and non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews closed in the mid 1800s, the panenthist aspects of the Hasidic thought were largely abandoned. " Because although the terms used are more commonly found with those that believe in pantheism, the belief that Chasidim have is really that G-d is the animating force behind everything and therefore everything is really nulified before G-d, because G-d can stop giving the life force to the world. See Shaar Yichud Vemunah in Tanya and Lekutei sichas #12, pg 74-75 footnote # 30 and it's footnote. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 04:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] God/Goddess and "Primitive" Cultures
The article has the statement, "Modern anthropologists have discovered that virtually all the aboriginees [sic] of various continents have deep panentheistic worldviews when they have the concept of a Goddess (there are vanishingly few male-centric gods in primitive tribes)...." This second half of this statement seems to me to be debatable; at the least, it needs to be documented, in my view. Is there a database as to how many "primitive" people have gods, and how many goddesses? And don't many have deities that are more or less impersonal (e.g. the concept of Wakan Tanka of the Lakota or the numen of the earliest Romans)? Also, what is "primitive"? In this context it seems to mean "hunter-gatherer" or "pre-agricultural", but this ought to be clarified.
At one time a widely held view had it that pre-agricultural peoples worshipped the "Great Mother" or the "Great Goddess". In recent years, this has been increasingly controversial. See, for example, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory by Cynthia Eller and In the Wake of the Goddesses by Tikva Frymer-Kensky. Many still hold the belief of the primacy of goddesses (or the Goddess), but it seems from what I've read no longer to be the dominant viewpoint. At the very least, evidence is ambiguous. Should this be reflected in the article, or should there at least be documentation? --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Turmarion (talk • contribs) December 29, 2005
- I find the sentence "There are more archeological records of panentheistic cultures than any other variety in the hunter-gatherer societies" baffling. How exactly can you have archaeological records of panentheism? Did ancient peoples carve "by the way, this is a symbolic representation of the animating principle of the universe" onto their religious articles? This completely undocumented section really mars the rest of this article. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.36.43.175 (talk)
[edit] Panentheism in Hinduism
Wouldn't Sankara's entire enterprise be considered panentheistic? The notion of Advaita itself carries the ontological tension between transcendence and immanence. I would be inclined to think that the transcendent, unchanging, impersonal nature of God in his metaphysics, combined with the idea of God's sustaining presence in creation, fits pretty squarely within the tenets of panentheism. Quigonpaj 15:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] criticism??
Are there any significant critics of the Panentheist philosophy? This would be an interesting section to add. Who does or does not traditionally fall within this conception? Fundamentalist Islamists? ? Liberal Christians? Atheists? Wiccans? MPS 23:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
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- From reading the talk page about Bishop John Spong, the conservatives and fundamentalist Christians who oppose him are strongly against Panentheism. Spong and other more liberal theologians like Marcus Borg are embracing it more and more at the current time. 202.138.16.98 00:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] Native Americans?
The article currently states that most Native Americans were panentheistic, except the (monotheistic) Cherokee. Many monotheistic groups (Judaism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity) are panentheistic as well according to the article, so surely these are not mutually exclusive? I would describe most (North American) Native religions as panentheistic and monotheistic, but with a recognition of other spirits. (Various Mesoamerican groups were polytheistic.) Vultur 15:31, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps they should be described as Henotheistic and Panentheistic rather than as Monotheistic and/or Panentheistic as various Native American groups believed in the existence of both an imminent Panentheistic god and a pantheon of other gods, goddesses and spirits.--Fang 23 (talk) 04:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
