We seek renewed reverence for the biosphere as the ultimate context for human existence....

A Christian Derivation of Pantheism

by Donald E. Fader

What does it mean to say God is love? How are we to conceive this in a manner appropriate to our cultural situation?

Well, the concept of God always refers first of all, to put in Paul's words, to that reality in which we "live and move and have our being," to the ultimate reality in and through which we exist. To call this all-encompassing reality "God" is to affirm that it is of such a nature as to ground and sustain not only our existence but our value as well, and to do so in a manner that death cannot cancel, cannot bring to nothing.

But if we ask ourselves today, "What is the reality in which I live and move and have my being?" most, if not all of us, will respond, "Nature" or the "natural universe." I see no objection to this theologically; indeed I see no alternative. To insist on maintaining some version of the old three-storied universe in the face of the insights into the nature of our universe gained through modern science is unnecessary and futile. The question of the reality of God today is the question of whether there are good reasons for supposing Nature as a whole to be sacred or divine, for affirming that the all-inclusive environment in which we live, move, and have our being is itself a living process or reality which is related to the many entities included in its own internal environment in such a way as to ground and sustain their value.

Now, this is not the place to argue for such a supposition - the philosophers Whitehead and Hartshorne, among others, have done so impressively - but it might be worthwhile to try to imagine this idea somewhat more concretely.

The most helpful way that I can imagine to do this is to envision the natural universe as the "body of God" and God as the one person whose body includes the whole Universe.. So pictured, God is related to the world in a manner analogous to the way we are related to our bodies, and we are related to God in a manner analogous to the way in which the cells which constitute our organic bodies are related to ourselves, the person whose body this is.

The difference between God and human beings is that God's body, and so the realm of his internal and direct experience, is strictly universal, and God's life, the evolving process of "Nature" itself, is everlasting. As cells in the body of God, so to speak, we supply content for the experience of God, who in turn, leads us and all others in the cosmic organism into new and creative experiential possibilities, enriching and invigorating in the process both the "body" and the "soul" of the universe.

I like this organism model because, in a time in which the old symbols seem worn out, it is a metaphor that can and does stimulate the imagination to conceive new insights into the meaning and significance of human life in relation to God, as well as to recover and represent many old insights.

Let me simply note a few that seem relevant to this discussion. In the first place, this model represents our death as inevitable, final, and necessary to the whole living, organic process in and through which we also come to life. In so doing, it also affirms this world and this life as the locus of reality and value; to suppose that we can or must leave this world to live with God, as though God were located in some time and space "beyond the blue horizon," is a mistake. We are now in the present living in and for the divine life, and whatever reality and value our lives will have for God we are in the process of creating right now. But this means that even though the reality and value of our lives are located in the present moment, they are not momentary. What we do now affects not only our own present experience and future possibilities and those of some of our social companions - which makes it important enough - but it affects the experience, present and future, of the One in whom we all "live and move and have our being." Like our own cells in relation to ourselves, we are to a limited but significant degree co-creators with God of the actual content of his own life. And, since each present moment of experience, human or divine, includes as part of its content the past experiences of the individual, we can anticipate that the actual moments that constitute the reality of our lives will be resurrected and conserved forever as still-present in each new moment in the life of God, even after our lives have been terminated. I take this to be an appropriate expression of the promise of faith that nothing, not even death itself, will separate us from the love of God.

In the second place, this model forms and legitimates a somewhat different mode of behavior than earlier models. Instead of focusing on the prime virtue of obedience as our way of honoring the authority this model recommends creativity as a prime virtue, our task being to contribute novelty and joy or happiness to the divine experience. Zestful, joyful, creative living, the forging of a novel variation on the possibilities of being human, seems to be behavior correspondent with this model.

On the other hand, this is an eminently social model; we are born and live in a web of organic interrelationships and interdependencies such that none of us can or does live for himself alone. What we do inevitably affects many others and the health of the whole system; thus we have a responsibility to behave in a manner that supports the common good, not just the common human good, but the good for the whole community of being.

As participants with our companions in being in the all-encompassing body of God, then, we are responsible to God, the One whose body this is, for the well-being of whatever part of that reality we are dealing with. That this responsibility includes a commitment to working for whatever social transformation is necessary to liberate those who under present circumstances are not free to experience the joys of life, or to contribute their own novel variation on the theme of life, seems to be to be evident, particularly for those for whom a cross is the central symbol of the participation of God in the life of the world.

For more information about Pantheism, or questions about this website please contact Harold Wood at ups@pantheist.net

Pantheism \Pan"the*ism\, n. [Pan- + theism.]

Any doctrine, philosophy, or religious practice that holds universe [cosmos], taken or conceived of as the totality of forces and/or matter, is synonymous with the theological principle of God.

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