Panentheism in the Bible?

[Jonaitis]

1. Theism, is the belief in the existence of at least one divine being or essence who is actively involved in the universe and in human affairs.

2. Pantheism, is the belief that a divine being or essence is identical with the universe.

3. Panentheism, is the belief that the divine being or essence is both transcendent (existing beyond the universe) and immanent (existing and operating within the universe).

After much study, I have come to see that God is not only involved in creation, but manifests it from Himself. The Scriptures make it clear that what God manifests from His being remains distinct from His reality. However, His manifestation of the universe cannot be independent from His own nature. For the very existence of anything requires His reality, or else we attribute creation with its own reality for being present! We cannot separate God's omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence from the reality of the Universe itself, but we also cannot reduce Him to merely the creation itself either. Let's examine a few passages that not only teach, but implicate, that God is not only above His creation but exists within it as well:

a. Acts 17:28: "For in Him we live and move and have our being."

b. Colossians 1:17: "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

c. Romans 11:36: "For from him and through him and for him are all things."

d. Ephesians 4:6: "One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

e. John 1:3: "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."

f. Psalm 104:30: "When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground."

We must still continue to distinguish ad intra and ad extra in referring to the transcendent, yet ever immanent, nature of God. Furthermore, the conflict with God's nature with Christ's incarnation is resolved in this concept. It would be impossible for the Divine Person of the Second Person of the Trinity to unite with and assume the flesh of man without there being some real, deeper connection between the Creator and the created.

Your thoughts?

 

[FireDragon76]

This sounds similar to the qualified nondualism of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta in Hinduism, or certain forms of Sufi thought. There's also similar ideas in some of Richard Rohr's writings (perhaps influenced by Teilhard de Chardin), that the universe is a kind of incarnation itself of God.

Traditional Christian theology tends to insist on the diastema, the radical distinction between Creator and created, emphasizing divine transcendence, perhaps to preserve a sense of mystery around the person of Christ. Early Greek Christianity became enmeshed in understanding "Son of God" in an ontological rather than relational sense, which is how groups like the Ebionites understood Christology (and possibly Paul himself). Even the Logos Christology of the Johanine canon can be seen as quite distinct from later Trinitarianism in many respects.

 

[Jonaitis]

This sounds similar to the qualified nondualism of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta in Hinduism, or certain forms of Sufi thought. There's also similar ideas in some of Richard Rohr's writings (perhaps influenced by Teilhard de Chardin), that the universe is a kind of incarnation itself of God.

Traditional Christian theology tends to insist on the diastema, the radical distinction between Creator and created, emphasizing divine transcendence, perhaps to preserve a sense of mystery around the person of Christ. Early Greek Christianity became enmeshed in understanding "Son of God" in an ontological rather than relational sense, which is how groups like the Ebionites understood Christology (and possibly Paul himself). Even the Logos Christology of the Johanine canon can be seen as quite distinct from later Trinitarianism in many respects.

You point out Traditional Christian theology, but what is your take on the Christian Scriptures themselves in regard to these verses?

 

[FireDragon76]

You point out Traditional Christian theology, but what is your take on the Christian Scriptures themselves in regard to these verses?

I accept the general consensus of critical biblical scholarship. The New Testament reflects a range of different theological perspectives.

 

[Jonaitis]

I accept the general consensus of critical biblical scholarship. The New Testament reflects a range of different theological perspectives.

Okay, sounds good FireDragon. How will you respond to the Panentheist's attempt to interpret these verses to support their position? What do they mean that the Panentheist is attempting to twist?

 

[FireDragon76]

Okay, sounds good FireDragon. How will you respond to the Panentheist's attempt to interpret these verses to support their position? What do they mean that the Panentheist is attempting to twist?

I have no argument against panentheism. It seems to me the most coherent and plausible theology.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

The idea that the universe is God manifest has many problems.
I see creation as separate from God. He is not in control of everything, nor did He ever intend to be.

 

[Jonaitis]

The idea that the universe is God manifest has many problems.
I see creation as separate from God. He is not in control of everything, nor did He ever intend to be.

What are the many problems, if I may ask?

If creation is separate from God, how does it exist? Independently?

 

[SavedByGrace3]

What are the many problems, if I may ask?

If creation is separate from God, how does it exist? Independently?

I think the biggest and most obvious problem is, well, look at the universe. Does this look like the mind and essence of God manifest?

At the instant of creation, the universe and everything in it received sovereignty to both exist and interact with other elements of creation. The scripture mentions a "course of nature," which can only be something that is running independently. There are laws of nature that govern the motions, but those motions can be "set on fire," i.e., thwarted.

James 3:6 KJV
6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

Much of creation is, in fact, in that state of being. It is in "the thraldom of decay. "

Romans 8:20-22 Weymouth
20 For the Creation fell into subjection to failure and unreality (not of its own choice, but by the will of Him who so subjected it).
21 Yet there was always the hope that at last the Creation itself would also be set free from the thraldom of decay so as to enjoy the liberty that will attend the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole of Creation is groaning together in the pains of childbirth until this hour.

There are also "accidents," "fate," and "chance" in creation.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 KJV
11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Deuteronomy 19:5-6 GNB
For example, if two of you go into the forest together to cut wood and if, as one of you is chopping down a tree, the ax head comes off the handle and kills the other, you can run to one of those three cities and be safe.
If there were only one city, the distance to it might be too great, and the relative who is responsible for taking revenge for the killing might catch you and angrily kill an innocent person. After all, it was by accident that you killed someone who was not your enemy.

1 Samuel 6:8-9 GW
Take the ark of the LORD, and put it on the cart. Put the gold objects which you're giving him as a guilt offering in a box beside the ark. Send the cart on its way, but then watch where it goes. If it goes up the road to its own country toward Beth Shemesh, then this disaster is the LORD'S doing. But if not, we'll know it wasn't his hand that struck us, but what happened to us was an accident."

Numbers 35:22-23 ERV
"You might accidentally kill someone, maybe by pushing or by accidentally hitting them with a tool or weapon.
Perhaps you threw a rock that was large enough to kill, but it hit someone you didn't see and killed them. You didn't plan to kill anyone. You didn't hate the person you killed--it was only an accident.

There are many other instances in scripture that show things occurring outside God's actions. They all fall within God's will and the course of nature that He set up, but they are not His direct actions. God, to be sure, is sovereign and can intervene at any time, and often does. But a casual glance would seem to indicate He does not always. He lets things proceed according to that aforementioned "course of nature."

 

[FireDragon76]

I think the biggest and most obvious problem is, well, look at the universe. Does this look like the mind and essence of God manifest?

Sure... why not? That's not far from how many Christians theologians have thought about God's relationship to the world in the past.

At the instant of creation, the universe and everything in it received sovereignty to both exist and interact with other elements of creation. The scripture mentions a "course of nature," which can only be something that is running independently.

I don't see how one can believe that nature "runs independently" and not come to be a deist or atheist, following its logical course. If God is just an Unmoved Mover, that's far from the God of the Bible, who is intimately involved with, as Jesus says, even the sparrows and the grass of the fields.

 

[Jonaitis]

I think the biggest and most obvious problem is, well, look at the universe. Does this look like the mind and essence of God manifest?

Didn't He create it? If so, then the universe is the materialization of His divine purpose. Otherwise, friend, what then is this place if it has nothing to do with the Creator Himself?

At the instant of creation, the universe and everything in it received sovereignty to both exist and interact with other elements of creation. The scripture mentions a "course of nature," which can only be something that is running independently. There are laws of nature that govern the motions, but those motions can be "set on fire," i.e., thwarted.

How does something exist or be in motion on its own, unless the Creator is upholding and governing it (Hebrews 1:3)? I am afraid that this falls into Deism.