Pantheism

Pantheism means all (“pan”) is God (“theism”). According to pantheism, God “is all in all.” God pervades all things, contains all things, subsumes all things, and is found within all things. All is God, and God is all. Pantheists believe that God and the real world are one; God and the universe are one. For most pantheists, God and reality are ultimately impersonal.

Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, described pantheism as “sexed-up atheism.” I accept his statement, but I reject it as Truth. Pantheism adds to atheism an embracing, positive and reverential feeling about our lives on planet Earth, our place in nature and the wider universe. Pantheism is more like naturalism but with the naturalist admitting that naturalism is not able to explain either itself or the universe on a purely naturalistic premise and therefore needs a supernatural explanation. A supernatural explanation is not atheism; therefore, pantheism cannot be “sexed-up atheism.” If anything, pantheism is either the beginning of theism or deism.

Richard Dawkins also wrote, “Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a nonsupernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings.”

With Dawkin’s explanation, pantheism sounds exactly the same as naturalism.  Putting a new label on a retired idea doesn’t bring that idea back in the game. Because atheists rely on naturalism and materialism for their belief that a Creator GOD does not exist, it would seem as if atheists use pantheism to combat theism or even deism as if to say they will agree to compromise by allowing the concept of GOD to be associated with naturalism. Atheists use pantheism either as an attempt to keep naturalism relevant or as an attempt to confine and limit an infinite GOD to the finite universe.

But if God is all, and all is God, then what are human beings? Pantheists either believe that the human as a distinct being is absolutely unreal (absolute pantheism) or else that humanity is real but far less real than God. The primary teaching of absolute pantheism is that humans must overcome their ignorance and realize that they are God. Those who put a distance between God and humanity teach a dualistic view of the person – a body and a soul. The body holds the human down, keeping him/her from uniting with God. So each must purge his/her body so the soul can be released to attain oneness with the Absolute One. For all pantheists, the chief goal or end of humanity is to unite with God. Eventually, the goal is to leave the body and, in the case of most pantheists, merge with God. This is called nirvana (see: Buddhism).

My Final Thoughts:

Absolute pantheism is self-defeating. The absolute pantheist claims, “I am God.” But GOD is the changeless absolute. However, humans go through a process of change called enlightenment because they have this awareness. So how could people be GOD when people change but GOD does not? Pantheists attempt to escape this criticism by allowing some reality to humanity, whether it be emanational, modal, or manifestation. But if we are really only modes of GOD, then why are we oblivious to it? If we are being deceived about the consciousness of our own individual existence, how do we know that the pantheist is not also being deceived in claiming to be conscious of reality as ultimately one? In fact, if the world is really an illusion, how can we distinguish between reality and fantasy at all? If what we continually perceive to be real is not, how could we ever distinguish between reality and fantasy? If the mind is part of the illusion, it cannot be the ground for explaining the illusion. I know for a fact that I am not GOD and will never become GOD. And if I can claim to be GOD, then you can also claim to be GOD. And if we were to both merge and become GOD, wouldn’t I be you and you be me? Wouldn’t we all be each other then? Individuality becomes an illusion and irrelevant.

The biggest problem that pantheism faces is that it fails to handle the problem of evil in a satisfactory manner. If God is all, and all is God, as pantheists maintain, then evil is an illusion and ultimately there are no rights and wrongs. Pantheism does not take the problem of evil seriously. There are four possibilities regarding good and evil:

1. If God is all-good, then evil must exist apart from God. But this is impossible, since God is all – nothing can exist apart from it.
2. If God is all-evil, then good must exist apart from God. This is not possible either, since God is all.
3. God is both all-good and all-evil. This cannot be, for it is self-contradictory to affirm that the same being is both all-good and all-evil at the same time. Further, most pantheists agree that God is beyond good and evil. Therefore, God is neither good nor evil.
4. Good and evil are illusory. They are not real categories.

Option 4 is what most pantheists believe. But if evil is only an illusion, then ultimately there are no such things as good and evil thoughts or actions. Hence, what difference would it make whether we praise or curse, receive consent or decide to rape, love or murder someone? If there is no final moral differences between those actions, absolute moral responsibilities do not exist. Cruelty and noncruelty are ultimately the same. If pantheists are correct that reality is not moral, that good and evil, right and wrong are inapplicable to what is, then to be right is as meaningless as to be wrong. Why, then, would they say anything to put forth an argument at all?

Conclusion:

Pantheism is merely an attempt to glorify naturalism and keep it relevant; however, the concept of the universe being GOD, and GOD being the universe simply cannot be from what we have already learned from the anthropic principle, the Big Bang cosmology, and the teleological argument. In addition, we learned that Truth must be absolute and there is also an objective moral standard provided by the Moral Law Giver. While pantheism took one step away from naturalism and thus one step closer to a Creator GOD, pantheism fell short of what is already known; therefore, pantheism must be rejected as Truth and eliminated as a choice.

(My next argument is on Polytheism…)