Pantheism

In this paper, we introduce the Hinduism religion and philosophy. We start with introducing the holy books in Hinduism including Vedas and Upanishads. Then, we explain the simplistic Hinduism, Brahman, gods and their incarnations, stories of apocalypse, karma, reincarnation, heavens and hells, vegetarianism, and sanctity of cows. Then, we switch to the profound Hinduism which is the main core of Hinduism and is monotheistic. In profound Hinduism, we focus on the non-dualism or Advaita Vedanta approach in Hinduism. We discuss consciousness, (...) causality, Brahman, psychology based on Hinduism, supportive scientific facts for Hinduism, the four levels of truth, and Maya. The four paths of knowledge, love, karma, and meditation are explained as well as the cosmic mind, the subtle body, and Aum. The risks for every path are also explained. Then, we introduce the orthodox and heterodox Indian schools including Yoga, Nyaya, Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita. Connections to some other religions including Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Islamic mysticism, and Zoroastrianism are analyzed. Finally, we explain the connection of Hindu philosophy with the Greek, western, and Islamic philosophies which include the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Spinoza, Descartes, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra. (shrink)

The second (February 2023) draft for the forthcoming Spinoza Cambridge Lexicon. Please do not quote, but comments are welcome.

By “pantheism” I mean to pick out a model of God on which God is identical with the totality of existents constitutive of the universe. I assume that, on pantheism, God is an omnispatiotemporal mind who is identical with the universe. I assume that, given divine omnispatiotemporality, God knows everything that can be known in the universe. This includes having knowledge de se of the minds of every conscious creature. Hence, if God has knowledge de se of the minds of (...) every conscious creature, then divine omniscience implies omnisubjectivity. Assuming that eternalism is true, robust temporal passage is an illusion. But, conscious creatures, such as human persons, experience robust temporal passage. If God has the attribute of omnisubjectivity, then God experiences temporal passage. However, God also has a unified experience of the entire spatiotemporal continuum. God’s having these two perspectives creates a tension for pantheism given that God would seem to experience both temporal passage and an absence of temporal passage. I compare non-personal pantheism and personal pantheism and consider which one has better resources to answer the foregoing puzzle. I argue that personal pantheism is better equipped to address this problem than non-personal pantheism. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper we will consider the likely extent of Spinoza’s exposure to Kabbalistic literature as he was growing up in Amsterdam. In the second part we will closely study several texts in which Spinoza seems to engage with Kabbalistic doctrines. In the third and final part we will study the role of the two crucial doctrines of emanation and pantheism (or panentheism), in Spinoza’s system and in the Kabbalistic literature.

Jeremiah Carey presents a version of panentheism which he attributes to Gregory Palamas, as well as other Greek patristic thinkers. The Greek tradition, he alleges, is more open to panentheistic metaphysics than the Latin. Palamas, for instance, hold that God’s energies are participable, even if God’s essence is not. Carey uses Palamas’ metaphysics to sketch an account on which divine energies are the forms of created substances, and argues it is open to Orthodox Christians to affirm that God is in (...) all things as their formal cause. I argue Carey’s reading is premised on a superficial examination of the patristic literature. More importantly, Palamas’ metaphysics is opposed to that of Carey, since Palamas’ distinction aims to uphold that created persons are only contingent participants in God. On this, Palamas and the Latins are in complete accord. In conclusion, I propose panentheistic metaphysics begins from a false dilemma. (shrink)

Pantheism, Panpsychism, and secularism? To any historian of ideas still under the die-hard spell of the Enlightenment narrative, this would appear as an unlikely connection.1 If ever the theory of...

This paper focuses on a neglected part of Dilthey’s œuvre that consists of papers on 16th–17th century philosophical issues. These papers are closer to interpretive articles than to original works, and so they are neither considered Dilthey’s original contributions to his own philosophy nor studied as part of the secondary literature. One of the most characteristic features of Dilthey’s philosophic style is the historical-systematic method mostly repudiated as concealing the real statement of the author “between the lines,” i.e. behind historical (...) analyses. Therefore these papers are not reckoned among Dilthey’s great works of enduring significance. This paper aims to make the reader more sensitive to the world and claims of these papers by way of an intermediary approach to them that acknowledges their intermediary position between a historical description and a systematic analysis. This is to be accomplished by having a look at the “pantheism” of Georg Misch, Dilthey’s largely forgotten pupil and son-in-law. (shrink)

The ingenious thought of Anton Günther (1783–1863) is rarely mentioned in the annals of nineteenth-century philosophy. However, in the eyes of his contemporaries, Günther belonged to the key thinkers of his age on par with Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling. Günther was an original writer yet he left many of his insights undeveloped or ambiguously formulated. As a flamboyant and popular debater, he attacked the most influential philosophers of his time. His attacks were aimed especially at what he termed the (...) unavoidable pantheism of these thinkers, a pantheism Günther often identified with monism. Monism, semi-monism, pantheism, and semi-pantheism are recurring charges of Günther against many influential thinkers, including even Descartes, whose thought Günther considered otherwise epoch-making. Based on a reformed Cartesianism, Günther elaborated his antidote he termed dualism. Yet Güntherian dualism turns out to be a synthesis properly termed organicism. On such a basis, Günther carried out a heroic attempt to transcend the horizon of traditional views and open the vista of an I-centered philosophy built on the universal notion of revelation. By re-reading this Bohemia-born thinker, one can have a better understanding of the scope and influence of what we term Austrian Philosophy. (shrink)

Baruch Spinoza famously said, “Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God, nothing can be, or be conceived”. This form of Pantheism is quite like eastern Pantheism, where in Hinduism they assert that “everything is Brahma”, or in Taoism, where Lao Tzu says, “Heaven and I were created together, and all things and I are one”. Although the western and eastern world shared their respective ideas of Pantheism, Native Americans also contributed to such discussion. However, comparative philosophy between western and (...) Native American philosophy has been far neglected, and the same neglect has been shown regarding Native American contribution to Pantheism. Many Indigenous religions believe that there is a Great Spirit that is manifested as a life force or energy that communicates and speaks through nature. In other words, some Native American tribes believe that nature, or in extension the universe, is part of a Great Spirit that communicates to individuals in a naturalistic way. Such a Great Spirit created the world and is in everything that the Great Spirit created. Moreover, there are other Indigenous beliefs that not only hold a Pantheistic view but hold a Panentheistic perspective where God is a being that is present in creation but transcends from it. Therefore, although Indigenous beliefs about Pantheism or Panentheism have been much neglected, there is much to say about it. With such input from Native American religious culture, this paper seeks to show and compare Spinoza’s Pantheism and that of Native Americans. In addition, I wish to investigate in what ways Native American philosophy contributes to the discussion of cosmology, nature, and Pantheism. In particular, how do some Native American tribes understand God in a Pantheistic sense where nature and cosmology are one. (shrink)

This study rethinks the critical reception of Hegelianism in nineteenth-century France, arguing that this reception orbits around "pantheism" as the central political-theological threat. It is Hegel’s alleged pantheism that French authors often take to be the root cause of the other dangers that become associated with Hegelianism over the course of the century, ranging from the defence of the status quo to radical socialism to pangermanism. Moreover, the widespread fixation on the term "pantheism" as the enemy of all that is (...) true, and as the term that defines the age, is symptomatic of the perception of the nineteenth century by its contemporaries as a period of crisis and turmoil, in which heretical energies are let loose that threaten to unground all authority and all transcendence. More speculatively, I suggest in the conclusion that it is the same energies that the term "communism" comes to capture, too. (shrink)

Though reputed to be one of the most feared heresies of the Christian tradition, due to its deconstruction of the dichotomies of the sacred and the profane, pantheism is well-represented across world traditions, and has remained the religious position of some of the greatest minds of the Western tradition. From the Advanta Vedanta tradition in India to Taoism in China, and from the Stoics of ancient Greece to Spinoza, Hegel and Einstein, understanding the cosmos itself to be divine constitutes one (...) of the most longstanding religious traditions of human history. Indeed, the reversal of values that pantheism enacts has led it to thrive in the Anthropocene Age, precisely because it re-enchants the material world and the mortal and fragile bodies that inhabit it. Instead of a transcendent deity interpreted as existing somehow outside the cosmos, Pantheism renders the immanent divine, thereby re-enchanting the immanent world of nature and of material kinship and inter-dependent unity. This article will differentiate pantheism from atheism and theism, clarify the meaning of monism that it pre-supposes, explain its different typologies (dual-aspect, ontological and teleological) and explain how the reversal of values intrinsic to pantheism can contribute toward the creation of a new paradigm that can respond to the Anthropocene Age. (shrink)

Although panpsychism and pantheism were seen as natural allies in the past, in contemporary philosophy it is widely common to stress differences rather than similarities between them. As a result, only few panpsychists (e.g. so-called cosmopsychists) acknowledge that their view may imply pantheism. In my paper, I argue that at least some popular versions of panpsychism do lead to pantheism. My main argument is that panpsychism meets the minimal requirements for pantheism, defined as a view that the world is identical (...) to all-encompassing Unity and that this Unity is divine. Although there are kinds of panpsychism that allow one to avoid these consequences, the most popular versions of this view pave the way to pantheism. Many philosophers will find this a serious challenge for panpsychism. On the other hand, it can be argued that this conclusion is not as grim as it seems. An all-encompassing Cosmic Mind has little to do with the God of Abrahamic religions, so it does not necessarily deprive panpsychism of its naturalistic flavor that many find non-negotiable. Be that as it may, the aim of this paper is to turn the attention of proponents of panpsychism to yet another problem they need to solve. (shrink)

Langby argues that a panentheistic conception of God can contribute better to our environmental concerns than classical theism, because nature is more inherently valuable in panentheism than in classical theism. Furthermore, pantheism could contribute to an even deeper environmental ethics than classical theism and panentheism since, in pantheism, all aspects of the world are seen as sacred and divine. Nevertheless, the benefits of the ontological God-world monism essential to pantheism are less significant than one might think. Both panentheism and pantheism (...) emphasize the divinity of the physical, bodily, and natural world, making the relative benefits of pantheism small compared to panentheism. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between pantheism and ecology, particularly considering different cultural approaches and diverse religious, theological, and philosophical traditions. Environmental ethics arises from the dangerousness and harmfulness of human beings with respect to nonhuman species and, more generally, with respect to the environment. A common starting point for environmental ethics standpoints is that human beings are responsible for damaging nature. The famous four laws of ecology drafted by Barry Commoner precisely express this guilt on (...) the part of human beings, who very often voluntarily violate the behavioral indications that emerge from nature itself. These aspects concern environmental ethics outlooks. Eco-theology, then, takes a further step: not only do we damage the ecosystem but also, as many authors suggest, when we humans destroy the natural world, we are wounding God. Such an idea implies a possible coincidence of God with the natural world –or the ecosystem. From this assumption, different questions may emerge: what is the kind of coincidence between God and the natural world? Are God and the ecosystem coextensive? If so, are we re-sacralizing the natural world and grounding intrinsic values in theological postulates and statements? These questions lead us to reconsider the cosmological assumptions that ground our environmental judgements, from theology to different religious traditions and cultures to philosophical worldviews. In particular, we will focus on the cosmological assumptions of pantheism (considering its differences with panentheism), discussing the symmetrical (or asymmetrical) relationships between God and the finite ways in which God manifests Godself. In this regard, the book is divided into three main parts: in the first part, the question of pantheism is approached from different traditions and with a special focus on the main thinkers in the history of thought, from Greek Stoicism to the present day. In the second part, some current ecological concerns are considered in relation to pantheistic cosmology: the authors will deepen issues from the discussion of the different “pan-conceptions” to the problem of evil, to Anthropocene. Finally, in the third part, the different chapters will focus on ethical issues in the field of the current environmental crisis with a huge connection with the pantheistic cosmologies. This book is oriented to a wide public, interested in environmental issues and looking for an approach from different cultures and traditions. Evidently, due to its “academic” nature, this book is also intended to be a great support for researchers interested in eco-theology and, more specifically, in the relationship between pantheism and ecology. It is not, in this sense, a “classic” book on environmental ethics, but a book that delves into the fundamentals of environmental philosophy, privileging the Ibero-American approach. (shrink)

The philosophical God of Spinoza is branded as a pantheistic God so often that, regarding at least Western philosophy and philosophical commentaries, Spinozism seems to be practically synonymous with pantheism. Since the times of German idealism, there have also been attempts at a panentheistic reading, which are still alive to this day. The article analyses both theological models in their core claims to adequately qualify Spinoza’s theological system while considering the established levels of philosophical-theological interpretation. By identifying systemic pantheism and (...) essentialist panentheism in his system, it is argued that both accounts or readings of Spinoza’s theory might be correct in their own way, provided that the models behind them are correctly applied to their respective levels of thought. (shrink)

This chapter explores the relationship between two themes of this volume, pantheism and ecology, as it is present in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. Specifically, it examines the influence of Stoicism on Pliny’s cosmology, as he adopts and challenges philosophical positions associated with the Stoa, particularly in his engagement with the view that the entire cosmos is a single living being which governs the variety of natural phenomena in both the heavens and the sublunar world. Additional themes, such as the (...) role of natural teleology and providence are explored, as these provide the intellectual foundation for what I consider to be Pliny’s “environmental ethics.” I argue that Pliny, despite often expressing an anthropocentric outlook toward nature, holds that, in virtue of the divinity of the Earth, there are certain human duties toward maintaining natural order. These are justified both in terms of the benefits they provide for humans as a species, given that the Earth is a source of food and other material goods, but also in terms of harms and benefits for the Earth itself. Recognizing the difference between goods that exist for our sake and that which exists for the benefit of the non-human world is a crucial distinction according to Pliny and one that underlies many of his comments about the duties humanity has toward Nature. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 7, July 2022.

This Element focuses on some core conceptual and ontological issues related to pantheistic conceptions of God by engaging with recent work in analytic philosophy of religion on this topic. The conceptual and ontological commitments of pantheism are contrasted with those of other conceptions of God. The concept of God assumed by pantheism is clarified and the question about what type of unity the universe must exhibit in order to be identical with God receives the most attention. It is argued that (...) the sort of unity the universe must display is the sort of unity characteristic of conscious cognitive systems. Some alternative ontological frameworks for grounding such cognitive unity are considered. Further, the question of whether God can be understood as personal on pantheism is explored. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the categerial expression of the metaphysics of ecstatic naturalism and the theology of deep pantheism. Naturalism, the theory that nature is all that there is, becomes the ecstatic form by stressing the continual fissuring between nature naturing and its potencies and nature natured seen as the innumerable orders of the world. Deep pantheism critiques the dualism of supernatural theism as well as the half-way theology of panentheism. Further, deep pantheism is “deep” because it focuses on the (...) churning abyss of the unconscious of nature and it’s archetypal potencies. (shrink)

Many authors in the field of Environmental Philosophy have claimed to be inspired by Spinoza's monism, which has traditionally been considered a form of pantheism because nature and God coincide. This idea has deep normative implications, as some environmental ethicists claim that wounding nature is the same as wounding God, which implies a resacralization of nature. In particular, we will focus on Arne Næss's Ecosophy (or Deep Ecology) to offer a current relevant example of the pantheist (or panentheist) worldview. However, (...) a new demarcation distinguishes pantheism from panentheism; in the latter, nature and God belong together but do not fully coincide, as in pantheism. Nevertheless, whether Spinoza is a panentheist, pantheist, or neither has yet to be fully determined, as well as whether his doctrine serves as a proper foundation for an ecology that attempts the aforementioned resacralization of nature. This article attempts to clarify these issues. (shrink)

In this review, Hegel responds to criticisms leveled against his philosophy by the anonymous author of Ueber die Hegelsche Lehre, oder: absolutes Wissen und moderner Pantheismus (1829). Frustrated by his interlocutor’s apparent inability to coherently interpret his work, Hegel scathingly attempts to discredit the character of the text in focus and its author’s critical capacity. He does so by showcasing examples of misrepresentation and misunderstanding in the author’s writing. Hegel contests the increasingly common charge of “pantheism” being leveled against him (...) at that time, wielded here by the anonymous author in a fairly unoriginal comparison between Hegel’s “doctrine” and Spinoza’s system. This review gives insight into the character of early theological responses to Hegel, and highlights Hegel’s polemical tendencies. (shrink)

Schopenhauer shares with Spinoza the basic idea that “the world exists by its own inner power and through itself”. Spinoza's system, Schopenhauer maintains, elaborately captures the observation, at the core of both pantheism and Schopenhauer's own theory, that all experienced phenomena share a single metaphysical substratum, and that in this sense everything is one. Any view or system of thought upholding optimism must confront the challenge of accounting for those features of the world that appear to be less than optimal. (...) For Schopenhauer, Judaism is committed to the goodness of the world given its creation by a personal God. It has been suggested that Schopenhauer ought not to criticize the rejection of personal immortality, since he himself thinks individual lives are perishable. Apart from the theoretical problems that Schopenhauer locates in maintaining optimism, he also takes issue with its practical implications. (shrink)

Pantheists are often accused of lacking a sufficient account of the unity of the cosmos and its supposed priority over its many parts. I argue that complex theists, those who think that God has ontologically distinct parts or attributes, face the same problems. Current proposals for the metaphysics of complex theism do not offer any greater unity or ontological independence than pantheism, since they are modeled on priority monism. I then discuss whether the formal distinction of John Duns Scotus offers (...) a way forward for complex theists. I show that only those classical theists who affirm divine simplicity are better off with respect to aseity and unity than pantheists. Only proponents of divine simplicity can fairly claim to have found a fully independent ultimate being. (shrink)

This paper examines the coherence of naturalistic personal pantheism in an attempt to reconcile pantheism, naturalism, and a personal concept of God. NPP proposes that i) God is identical with the universe, ii) the universe is entirely natural, and iii) God is personal. Several critics of accounts of a God such as this have voiced concerns about a natural — as opposed to a supernatural — God, since a natural God cannot be worship-worthy. In response, I propose a controversial premise (...) — physical primacy — to justify the worship-worthiness of a natural God. Physical primacy maintains that physical existence is a great-making property, therefore a God that exists naturally is greater than a God that exists supernaturally. I maintain that NPP is an attractive alternative to other theisms because it bypasses the pairing problem, presents a worship-worthy concept of God, and boasts ontological simplicity. (shrink)

The question whether God should be thought of as personal or a-personal is closely linked to the issue of an appropriate model of God-world relation on the one hand and the question how to conceive divine action on the other hand. Starting with a discussion of the scientific character of theology, this article critically examines the univocal-personal concept of God. Traditional Christian conceptions of God have, however, always acknowledged a radical asymmetry between the personal existence of created beings and the (...) ground of being itself. In a second step, the ontological truth claim associated with this way of speaking about God is being related to its methodological consequences. In final step, attention is given to the relation of immanence and transcendence as it is defended in different versions of panentheism: As an alternative to divine interventionism, panentheism can be shown to explicate divine providence as formal and final causation. (shrink)

In his landmark book on philosophical theology, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry, Mark Johnston develops a panentheistic metaphysic of the divine that he contends is compatible with ontological naturalism. On his view, God is the universe, but the ‘is’ is the ‘is’ of constitution, not identity. The universe and God are coinciding objects that share properties but have different essential modal properties and, hence, different persistence conditions. In this paper, I address the problem of accounting for what it is about (...) the organization or structure of the universe that makes it sufficient to constitute the Divine Mind. Specifically, I consider what kind of unity the universe exhibits in virtue of which it constitutes the Divine Mind. I consider how Johnston’s hylomorphic account of the unity of composite objects might be applied to provide a solution and offer an alternative that emends the Johnstonian proposal I present by exploiting a variant of a neo-Aristotelian ontology of causal powers that takes properties to be powerful qualities. On the framework I defend, we can understand the universe as a constellation of powers that displays the sort of unity sufficient to truthfully described it as a Divine Mind. The approach I recommend will, however, ultimately lend itself to a pantheistic metaphysic of the divine rather than Johnston’s preferred panentheism. (shrink)

Many pantheists have claimed that their view of the divine is motivated by a kind of spiritual experience. In this paper, I articulate a novel argument, inspired by recent work on moral exemplarism, that gives voice to this kind of motivation for pantheism. The argument is based on two claims about the emotion of awe, each of which is defended primarily via critical engagement with empirical research on the emotion. I also illustrate how this pathway to pantheism offers pantheists distinctive (...) resources for responding to persistent objections to their view, and how it might lead to more exotic views incorporating pantheistic elements. (shrink)

Although largely neglected in Schelling scholarship, the concept of bliss assumes central importance throughout Schelling’s oeuvre. Focusing on his 1810–11 texts, the Stuttgart Seminars and the beginning of the Ages of the World, this paper traces the logic of bliss, in its connection with other key concepts such as indifference, the world or the system, at a crucial point in Schelling’s thinking. Bliss is shown, at once, to mark the zero point of the developmental narrative that Schelling constructs here and (...) to interrupt it at every step. As a result, bliss emerges here in its real utopian force but also its all-too-real ambivalence, indifference, and even violence, despite Schelling’s best efforts to theorize it as ‘love’; and Schelling himself emerges, in these texts, as one of modernity’s foremost thinkers not just of nature or freedom, but also of bliss in its modern afterlives. At stake in Schelling’s conception of bliss, I argue, is the very relationship between history and eternity, the not-yet and the already-here, the present, and the eschatological—as well as between Spinozian immanence and the Christian temporality of salvation, so important for modernity —not to mention the complex entanglement of indifference, violence, and love or the ideas of totality, nonproductivity, and nonrelation that Schellingian bliss involves. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a theory of personhood which leaves open the possibility of construing the universe as a person. If successful, it removes one bar to endorsing pantheism. I do this by examining a rising school of thought on personhood, on which persons, or selves, are understood as identical to episodes of consciousness. Through a critique of this experiential approach to personhood, I develop a theory of self as constituted of qualitative mental contents, but where these contents are (...) also capable of unconscious existence. On this theory, though we can be conscious of our selves, consciousness turns out to be inessential to personhood. This move, I then argue, provides resources for responding to the pantheist’s problem of God’s person. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an argument against one important version of panentheism, that is, mereological panentheism. Although panentheism has proven difficult to define, I provide a working definition of the view, and proceed to argue that given this way of thinking about the doctrine, mereological accounts of panentheism have serious theological drawbacks. I then explore some of these theological drawbacks. In a concluding section I give some reasons for thinking that the classical theistic alternative to panentheism is preferable, all (...) things considered. (shrink)

Among worldviews, in addition to the options of materialist atheism, pantheism and personal theism, there exists a fourth, “local emergentism”. It holds that there are no gods, nor does the universe overall have divine aspects or any purpose. But locally, in our region of space and time, the properties of matter have given rise to entities which are completely different from matter in kind and to a degree god-like: consciousnesses with rational powers and intrinsic worth. The emergentist option is compared (...) with the standard alternatives and the arguments for and against it are laid out. It is argued that, among options in the philosophy of religion, it involves the minimal reworking of the manifest image of common sense. Hence it deserves a place at the table in arguments as to the overall nature of the universe. (shrink)

There is a close systematic relationship between panentheism, as a metaphysical theory about the relation between God and the world, and transhumanism, the ethical demand to use the means of the applied sciences to enhance both human nature and the environment. This relationship between panentheism and transhumanism provides a ‘cosmic’ solution to the problem of evil: on panentheistic premises, the history of the world is the one infinite life of God, and we are part of the one infinite divine being. (...) We ourselves are therefore responsible for the future development of the life of the divine being. We should therefore use the means provided by the natural sciences to develop the history of the world in such a way that the existence of evil shall be overcome and shall no longer be part of the divine being in whom we move and live and have our being. The metaphysics of panentheism leads to the ethics of transhumanism. (shrink)

"Jewish Nothing-elsism" is the school of thought according to which there is nothing else besides God. This school is sometimes and erroneously interpreted as pantheistic or acosmic. In this paper I argue that Jewish Nothing-elsism is better interpreted as a form of “panentheistic priority holism”, and still better interpreted as a form of “idealistic priority monism”. On this final interpretation, Jewish Nothing-elsism is neither pantheist, panentheist, nor acosmic. Jewish Nothing-elsism is Hassidic idealism, and nothing else. Moreover, I argue that Jewish (...) Nothing-elsism follows from some very basic assumptions common to almost every theist. All theists should be Nothing-elsers. (shrink)

A number of contemporary philosophers have suggested that the recent revival of interest in panpsychism within philosophy of mind could reinvigorate a pantheistic philosophy of religion. This project explores whether the combination and individuation problems, which have dominated recent scholarship within panpsychism, can aid the pantheist’s articulation of a God/universe unity. Constitutive holistic panpsychism is seen to be the only type of panpsychism suited to aid pantheism in articulating this type of unity. There are currently no well-developed solutions to the (...) individuation problem for this type of panpsychism. Moreover, the gestures towards a solution appear costly to the religious significance of pantheism. This article concludes that any hope that contemporary panpsychism might aid pantheists in articulating unity is premature and possibly misplaced. (shrink)

Neoplatonism is alive and well today. It expresses itself in New Thought and the mind-cure movements derived from it. However, to avoid many ancient errors, Neoplatonism needs to be modernized. The One is just the simple origin from which all complex things evolve. The Good, which is not the One, is the best of all possible propositions. A cosmological argument is given for the One and an ontological argument for the Good. The presence of the Good in every thing is (...) Spirit. Spirit sits in the logical center of every body; it is surrounded by the regulatory forms of that body. Striving for the Good, Spirit seeks to correct the errors in its surrounding forms. To correct the errors in biological texts, modern Neoplatonists turn to the experimental method. This Neoplatonism is pantheistic not because of some theoretical definition of God but rather because of its practical focus on the shaping of Spirit. (shrink)

During the early twentieth century, British novelist and philosopher May Sinclair published two book-length defenses of idealism. Although Sinclair is well known to literary scholars, she is little known to the history of philosophy. This paper provides the first substantial scholarship on Sinclair's philosophical views, focusing on her mature idealism. Although Sinclair is working within the larger British idealist tradition, her argument for Absolute idealism is unique, founded on Samuel Alexander's new realist beliefs about the reality of time. Her metaphysics (...) takes idealism and pantheism in new directions and provides fresh insight into 1920s debates between British idealisms and realisms. (shrink)

According to theistic consubstantialism, the universe and God are essentially made of the same stuff. If theistic consubstantialism is correct, then God possesses the essential power to have knowledge de se of the contents of the mind of every conscious being internal to God. If theistic consubstantialism is false, then God lacks this essential property. So either God is essentially corporeal and possesses greater essential epistemic powers than God would have otherwise or God is essentially incorporeal and has a diminished (...) range of essential epistemic powers. In light of this dilemma, I argue that theists should accept theistic consubstantialism. (shrink)

In this chapter we explore the importance of the Pantheism Controversy for the evolution of Kant’s so-called “Moral Argument” for the Highest Good and its postulates. After an initial discussion of the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, we move on to the relationship between faith and reason in the Pantheism Controversy, Kant’s response to the Controversy in his 1786 “Orientation” Essay, Thomas Wizenmann’s criticisms of that essay, and finally to the Critique of Practical Reason. We argue that while (...) Kant used the Pantheism Controversy to reset his account of the Highest Good, its treatment in the Orientation Essay was susceptible to the objections raised by Thomas Wizenmann, and thus in need of the further advances found in the Critique of Practical Reason. (shrink)

Purpose of the article is the reconstruction of ancient Greek and ancient Roman models of religiosity as anthropological invariants that determine the patterns of thinking and being of subsequent eras. Theoretical basis. The author applied the statement of Protagoras that "Man is the measure of all things" to the reconstruction of the religious sphere of culture. I proceed from the fact that each historical community has a set of inherent ideas about the principles of reality, which found unique "universes of (...) meanings". The historical space acquires anthropological properties that determine the specific mythology of the respective societies, as well as their spiritual successors. In particular, the religious models of ancient Greece and ancient Rome had a huge influence on formation of the worldview of the Christian civilization of the West. Originality. Multiplicity of the Olympic mythology contributed to the diversity of the expression forms of the Greek genius, which manifested itself in different fields of cultural activity, not reducible to political, philosophical or religious unity. The poverty of Roman mythology was compensated by a clear awareness of the unity of the community, which for all historical vicissitudes had always remained an unchanging ideal, and which was conceived as a reflection of the unity of the heavens. These two approaches to the divine predetermined the formation of two interacting, but conceptually different anthropological paradigms of Antiquity. Conclusions. Western concepts of divinity are invariants of two basic theological concepts – "Greek" and "Roman". These are ideal types, so these two tendencies can co-exist in one society. The Roman trend continued to be realized by the anti-Roman religion, which took Roman forms and Roman name. Iconoclasm was a Byzantine version of the Reformation, promoted by the Isaurian emperors and failed due to the strong Hellenistic naturalistic lobby. Modern "Romans" are trying to get rid of the last elements of religious naturalism, and modern "Greeks" are trying to preserve the Hellenic elements in Christianity. Patterns can be transformed, but the observational view will still be able to identify their lineage. The developed model allows a deeper understanding of the culture of both ancient societies, as well as the outlook of Western man. (shrink)

There has been much written of late on the topic of panentheism. Dissatisfied with many contemporary descriptions of “panentheism” and the related “pantheism,” which we feel arise out of theistic presuppositions, we produce our own definition of sorts, rooted in and paying respect to the term’s etymology and the concept’s roots in Indian religion and western philosophy. Furthermore, we consider and comment on the arguments and comments concerning panentheism’s definition and plausibility put forth by Göcke, Mullins, and Nickel.

The German text of Cohen’s Spinoza on State & Religion, Judaism & Christianity (Spinoza über Staat und Religion, Judentum und Christentum) first appeared in 1915 in the Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur. Two years before, in the winter of 1913, Cohen taught a class and a seminar on Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. This was Cohen’s first semester at the Hochschule, after retiring from more than thirty years of teaching at the University of (...) Marburg. Cohen’s fame at the time was at its zenith, and his move to the Hochschule was a cause for celebration and excitement. According to the testimony of some students who attended the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus seminar, Cohen left no place for any expression of dissent (regrettably, the academy frequently encourages such authoritarian behavior). The text of Spinoza on State, which was the product of this seminar, still bears the marks of this “didactic” attitude. It is bombastic and feebly argued. Thus, in one moment of emotional crescendo in the text, we can literally hear Cohen shout: When Spinoza, with merciless severity, makes his own nation the object of contempt – at the time that Rembrandt lived on the same street and immortalized the ideal type of the Jew - no voices rises in protest against this humanly incomprehensible betrayal. Such patriotic rhetoric is quite typical of Cohen’s Spinoza on State, as the work reads more like a series of rants against the devil incarnated (“the demonic spirit of Spinoza”) in the figure of the traitor from Amsterdam than like a sustained and serious philosophical polemic. From time to time, one can observe hints of critical arguments, but hardly any are fleshed out. The text is also replete with rudimentary factual and interpretative errors. Thus, when Cohen argues that Spinoza traces his pantheism to Jewish sources, Cohen erroneously cites Spinoza’s reference in E2p7s to “some of the Hebrews [quidam Hebraeorum]” who argued for the identity of Sekhel, Maskil, and Muskal (the Intellect, the Intellecting Subject, and the Intellected Object) – a Maimonidean doctrine that has nothing to do with pantheism – while the text Cohen clearly had in mind was Spinoza’s claim, in Letter 73, that the traditions (traditionibus) of the “ancient Hebrews [antiquis Hebraeis]” agree with Spinoza’s claim that “all things are in God.” Similarly, and on the very same page, Cohen ascribes to Spinoza the claim that “the God of the Old Testament is only a body,” a claim which is nowhere to be found in Spinoza’s works, and which can be inferred from Spinoza’s text only through a patent fallacy. If I may add one last example, consider the following passage from Cohen’s Spinoza on State: [For Spinoza] divine law is grounded in our mind. Yet this does not mean that our mind bears responsibility for producing and obeying the law. Instead, it means that, by definition, the human mind and God are identical, inasmuch as He exists in the human mind. Hardly any claim in this brief passage is correct. Yet, what is most striking is Cohen’s derivation of the identity of God and the human mind from the claim that God exists in the human mind. If I exist in North America, this obviously does not imply that I am identical to North America (there are, for example, a couple of North American porcupines and alligators that are distinct from me). What rule of inference Cohen sought to employ in this argument, and how this impressive inference of the identity of God and the human mind is supposed to square with Cohen’s view of Spinoza as a pantheist – i.e., as considering the physical nature to be divine – is beyond my grasp. Instead of tracking down the dozens of crude errors and fallacies in Cohen’s text, I would like to concentrate here on one crucial issue: Cohen’s critique of Spinoza’s pantheism. By doing this, I will have to pass silently over a couple of surprising agreements between the two figures, such as the (false) claim that all of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible taught the same universal and simple morality. My discussion of pantheism will be divided into two sections. In the first, I will examine Cohen’s understanding of Spinoza’s pantheism. In the second, I will briefly examine the historical validity of Cohen’s claim that pantheism is a Christian doctrine, diametrically opposed to Judaism. (shrink)

Článek se zabývá pojmem panteismus v období renesance. Ačkoli termín panteismus se objevil až na konci 17. století a později v kontextu tzv. “Pantheismusstreit”, za předchůdce moderního panteistického myšlení byl označen renesanční filosof Giordano Bruno. Následně i Mikuláš Kusánský, a to jakožto pokračovatel myšlení Mistra Eckharta, začal být považován za panteistu. Jak Kusánský, tak Bruno v určitém smyslu obhajovali imanenci božského ve světě, avšak zároveň oba zdůrazňovali rozdíl mezi Bohem a přírodou a připisovali Bohu transcendenci nebo přinejmenším transcendentální aspekty. Toto (...) není v souladu s definicí panteismu v tzv. silném slova smyslu, kdy se tvrdí striktní identita Boha a světa. Zdá se, že pojem renesanční panteismus je konstruktem, který byl vytvořen skrze násilnou aplikaci terminologie osvícenské filosofie na renesanční období. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

I survey John Leslie's Platonic thesis that if something sufficiently good possibly exists, then it could be ethically required that it actually exists—along with the pantheistic world‐picture to which this thesis leads.

German idealism stems in large part from Fichte’s response to a dilemma involving the concepts of pantheism, freedom and time: either time is the form of the determination of modes of substance, as held by a pantheistic or ‘dogmatic’ person, or the form of acts generated by human freedom, as held by an idealistic person. Fichte solves the dilemma by refuting dogmatism and deducing time from idealism’s first principle. But his diagnosis is more portentous: by casting the lemmas in terms (...) of person-types, he unintentionally invites Schelling’s philosophical rethinking of personality. In his middle period, Schelling argues for the consistency of the concepts of pantheism, freedom and time, claiming that it depends on a ‘good’ as opposed to ‘evil’ personality. However, since on his view personality is an absolute or originally undecided capacity for good and evil, the trio’s consistency is entirely contingent. In §1, I trace Fichte’s resolution of the dilemma. In §§2-3, I reconstruct Schelling’s arguments for consistency from the Freiheitsschrift and Weltalter, texts written just a few years apart. In §4, I allay a Kantian worry that this consistency relies problematically on the liberty of indifference or Willkür. (shrink)

Peter Forrest claims that his “Personal Pantheist” conception of God is in agreement with the Stoic pantheism. The traditional interpretation, however, treats the Stoic God as the non-personal universal law. I demonstrate that arguments in favor of the personal interpretation typically imply either a personalist or an anthropocentric metaphysical foundation. I also argue that the Stoics were neither personalists nor anthropocentrists, therefore those arguments should be rejected.

Pantheists commonly wish to hold three distinct theses: that God is identical with the universe as a whole, that God is to be found altogether in each part of the universe, and that some features of the universe are more divine than others. However, it might well be complained that these constitute an incompatible set of requirements on any theory. After outlining the three positions in question, this paper considers how successfully the four main species of pantheist metaphysic — the (...) substance monist model, the microcosmic-macrocosmic model, the universal-expressivist model, and the Absolute Idealist model — are able to respond to the problem of their compatibility. (shrink)

Any religious worldview, understood in the sense that ‘life has a purpose’, has to face the problem of evil. The problem of evil has been particularly intensively discussed in the Aristotelian–Scholastic–Christian tradition. The most popular solution has been to deny that anything truly evil actually exists. It is hard to conceive why an omnipotent and perfectly good God would allow evil to appear. Yet, Western culture has been and still is full of imagery of absolute demonic evil. I suggest that (...) this strained dialectic could be best approached by radically rethinking the nature of evil and the theological context in which it has traditionally been thought. In his middle period works, Friedrich Schelling offers a pantheistic framework which gives extensive resources for thinking about evil. Schelling’s account is well balanced and innovative at least in two respects. It does not explain away the inscrutable presence of evil, but it neither completely renounces theoretical speculation of the origin of evil. Second, Schelling’s metaphysics anticipate Nietzsche’s fundamental critique of the ‘life-denying’ character of Western metaphysics and ethics. However, while sharing much of the critical aspects of Nietzsche’s thought, unlike Nietzsche, Schelling does not end up in atheism and moral relativism. (shrink)