A Response to Daan Hoekstra

by Paul Harrison

This essay is in response to

Tolerance: An Inherent and Imperative Value of Pantheism by Daan Hoekstra.

I sympathize with some of what Daan Hoekstra writes, and of course we must always approach others religions respectfully. In fact Daan will find a large and growing anthology of pantheism and panentheism at my World Wide website, at: http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/history.htm

But I am afraid he is muddying the waters dangerously by writing about pantheists and panentheists as if we all believed roughly the same things.

Pantheism does not believe that God created the universe: the universe is as near to a God as you can get. This God is stunningly alive: not one quantum is still for one microsecond. This God is infinitely creative: all galaxies, all stars, all planets, all life forms, all minds are produced by it, preserved by it, destroyed by it.

Panentheists believe God is in the Universe - but also extends outside, and is greater than the universe. Most believe he created the universe, and also believe in heaven after death. In other words, panentheism is perfectly compatible with being a fairly orthodox Christian, Moslem or Jew. But pantheism definitely isn't. Pantheists believe that the Universe is identical with God, or is divine, and that this earth (if only we could look after it properly) is as near to a heaven as there is. Panentheism is not a different "brand" of pantheism. It is not pantheism at all.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam included panentheist ideas from the beginning. But they have never accepted pantheist ideas. Many Christian pantheists have been burned at the stake or had their writings condemned and careers blighted (Giordano Bruno, Amalric of Bene, David of Dinant). Eckhart was lucky to escape, saved only by his seniority in the Church. The Islamic pantheist All Hallaj underwent a gruesome martyrdom for heresy.

True, modern panentheists are usually more positive about life, nature and the universe than straight theists - but they still look beyond reality. They see reality as an "expression" or "reflection" of something higher, and many believe they will never really see God till they die. For Pantheists, nature and the Universe are the highest realities. Pantheists look at them, not beyond them.

Some panentheist mystics have been far less positive. Plotinus hated matter and the body and thought them evil. Eckhart, Hildegard and Boehme all believed you had to deny or pass beyond the body and the senses to access divinity.

We should respect what these panentheists tried to do, within the limitations of the systems they worked in. As I see it, they kept alive a little tiny glimmer of Heraclitus' roaring fire in very dark times, which is better then nothing. But it was only a little tiny glimmer.

We should always point out to Christians, Jews and Moslems the panentheist aspects of their own religions. We can form alliances with panentheists for specific purposes. But it is pantheism we should be advocating. Let panentheists advocate panentheism.

Mass conversions to pantheism may be decades away. But that doesn't mean that young people who are wavering and doubt the claims of their own religion (and there are millions of these) won't come straight across to pantheism. They cross to paganism, Buddhism, Taoism, so why not to pantheism? It's only that we are less known, so far.

But if we make out that panentheism and pantheism are somehow very much the same sort of thing, then they probably won't think about coming across at all.

___________________________________
Paul Harrison is the vice-president of the Universal
Pantheist Society and runs the Scientific Pantheism web site which can be found at: http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/index.htm

"Tolerance: an Inherent and Imperative Value of Pantheism from
Pantheist Vision (Spring Equinox, 1997; Vol. 18, No. 1)

This essay is in response to

Tolerance: An Inherent and Imperative Value of Pantheism by Daan Hoekstra.

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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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