In a recent article, we saw why Christians should care for creation. Yet too often, we don’t care about creation, and we have a distorted view of the entire material world. Why is that?
One reason is that we’re surrounded by a multitude of competing worldviews. Believers can be confused by this multiplicity of views, which can lead to an inconsistent view of the material world.
Last week, we looked at secular humanism, one such worldview that can distort our perspective of the material world. Today, we turn to another worldview, panentheism. Here’s what it claims — and why it’s problematic.
Panentheism confuses the Creator with the creation.
Panentheism
Panentheism, or a hybrid version of it, is the view held by advocates of many Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and the New Age movement. While there are many different nuances among these religious systems that extend well beyond the scope of this article, a commonality related to their view of God is their belief in God’s immanent yet nonpersonal nature. To elaborate, a panentheistic view of God could be summarized as “all is one” or “all is God.” This worldview holds that there is only one substance in the universe, which is God. Therefore, all things are an emanation of God; however, the God of panentheism is unknowable in a personal way.
A panentheistic view of man complements the view of God within this worldview. As could be expected, given panentheism’s “all is one” mentality, this position understands humankind to be of the same fundamental essence as the rest of the created order. Consequently, this worldview understands mankind to be divine—but no more divine than the rest of the material world. Given the divine nature of the entire created order, panentheism teaches that humanity should not exercise dominion over the material world nor even attempt to steward it, for to do so would be imperialistic. Rather, this worldview holds that human beings are to mutually serve the created order as they would a brother or sister who needed care or guidance. They are to strive for what can be called “biological egalitarianism”—that is, an equality between human beings and the material world—as they seek to harmonize themselves with nature.
By extension, panentheism understands the material world to be divine and one with God (and, thus, also with human beings). This is ultimately a biocentric view of the created order that teaches the material world was created ex deo (out of God). Often, panentheists will refer to the material world as a living organism, as they ascribe human characteristics to it. Examples include calling the world “Mother Earth,” referring to environmental destruction as “raping” the earth and speaking of mankind and wildlife as being “brothers and sisters” who are all part of the same “circle of life.” The impact of panentheism in the culture can be seen in the common use of such terminology in casual conversations about the material world, as well as in contemporary forms of media.
The Problems with Panentheism
From a Christian perspective, there are many problems with panentheism. Most importantly, this worldview so overemphasizes God’s immanence, while minimizing his personality, that it confuses the Creator with the creation. In fact, God as represented by panentheism cannot really be God at all—at least not in the Christian understanding of the concept; such a God would be contingent, since the created order can be destroyed.
At the same time, this worldview devalues humanity, by denying its majesty and making human beings equal to the material world. Furthermore, as history has shown, this position will ultimately prove to be self-destructive, for if God does not exist in a personal way, and mankind has no inherent value, there is no reason why people should worship God, respect one another or conserve the creation.
This article is a modified excerpt from Dr. Jones’ new book, Every Good Thing. Details>>
Comments and Pingbacks
2018-07-21 01:43:19
Endar Malkovich
Let's look at the universe from our perspective. We have the word universe and most people consider the universe to be all that we can see, hence the observable universe. Imagine a road cone used in construction projects where the small end ( the top) is the beginning and the larger end goes on forever. We are traveling through an ever extending cone called the observable universe. What exists outside of that? Neither the observable universe or the unobservable universe have physical limits or dimensions such as a wall or edge. It just continues forever without an end. If this is to be true than it would have to be eternal without a beginning meaning it's always existed. If you believe in a personal creator, as I do then where does this creator fit in? To be omnipotent he would not have a defined shape or limitations, hence eternal with no beginning or end. If we have a universe and a god that have the same physicality, how do we marry the two? The idea that god is apart from the universe like an old man sitting on a throne in an imaginative cloud city called heaven is not a hebraic concept nor is it biblical in it's original language. The idea of separation from god is a plato teaching called dualism. Furthermore, if god is not separate and the universe as a whole is infinite without a start or an end and god has the same concept we have to at least consider that our interpretation of god might be wrong. The bible does mention that god is in all things, we are one with god, and god keeps all things together. If god is omnipresent as the bible suggests then if you plotted any point of the universe god would be in and through that point along with simultaneously being in every other point at the same moment of you plotting a single point. This implies he's in everything. Logically how can he be in and through everything if he's separated from it? Logically he can't. God gave us brains to think so let's think. It's more likely that if the universe is infinite and god is as well then it seems logical to consider that the universe is inside god hence he permeates through the entire thing. This by no means eliminates a personal god. If he made persons with the intention of them being personal then the desire and intention had to originate in him, hence he has a personal side.
2020-10-30 23:28:30
Dak
I'm a panentheist. I believe the universe is part of God but that God extends beyond the physical. I mean the idea of ex nihilo creation doesn't make sense, did God grab a handful of nothing and create the universe? If nothing existed then god wouldn't exist. Ex deo just makes sense, what else would he have made it out of? I absolutely think god is personal. My reason for believing in him is that consciousness must be real and physicalism can't explain real consciousness. So we have this no physical consciousness that endowed our consciousness, well everything else is subject to entropy so the only thing that can be older than the big bang is this consciousness. Naturally it desires happiness as all conscious things do so our purpose is to have a relationship with this consciousness.