Pantheism: a history. Index page.

by Paul Harrison.


Pantheism is the perennial religion, which continually emerges from all transcendental or idealist religions.


Distribution of galaxies within one billion light years of earth.


Pantheism is the belief that the universe and nature are divine.

Every religion has had its pantheists. Pantheism is the perennial religion, which continually emerges from all transcendental or idealist religions.

In addition people in every religion have seen God in nature, whether they formally express that identity or not. Examples include Shaftsbury, Rousseau, and many poets from Wordsworth to Robinson Jeffers.

Pantheism has taken many diverse forms. Strict or scientific pantheism holds that God and the material universe are identical. Its first adherents were the Greek materialist Heraclitus, the Chinese Taoist Chuang Tzu, and the Stoic philosopher Zeno of Cittium. Later proponents have included the Christian David of Dinant, the neo-Confucian Chang Tsai, and the author of these pages, Paul Harrison. Taoism is a form of materialist pantheism, as are some types of Mahayan Buddhism.

There have been many other types of pantheism. All of them identify God in some way with what is considered most fundamental in the Universe.

Some pantheisms are idealistic or world-negating - believing that the visible world is unreal or an illusion, masking an underlying unity. These include the Eleatic school of Xenophanes and Parmenides, the Upanishads, and most schools of Mahayana Buddhism.

Related to pantheism, and included in this history, is panentheism. Panentheists believe that God is present in the sensible universe, but also extends beyond it. These include the neo-Platonist Plotinus and most Christian and Islamic pantheists such as Meister Eckhart, Ibn Al'Arabi or Attar.

Many panentheists, while accepting that the material world exists, are world-rejecting, believing that the material world is in some way separate from and inferior to the spiritual world. A common view is that the body is the prison of the soul, which can only be liberated if it suppresses the body's needs, and only fully liberated after death.

The world-negating and world-rejecting pantheisms are as distant from scientific pantheism as it is possible to get. In a sense they are the reverse of pan-theism - "everything=God" - in that they deny or denigrate the "everything" part of the equation, at least in any normal sense of the word "everything." They despise or deny the world of the senses and of the body. They are included in this history for completeness - and to remind us of pitfalls to avoid.

See also varieties of pantheism


Greek and Roman pantheists

Greek Materialism: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes.
The universe is ensouled and full of divinities
Heraclitus - the priest of fire.
This cosmos was not made by gods or men, but always was, and is, and ever shall be ever-living fire.
Zeno of Cittium - the founding father of the Stoics.
The universe is a living thing, endowed with soul and with reason.
Marcus Aurelius - the philosopher-emperor.
Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, o Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee.
Plotinus - union with the One.
A sympathy pervades this single universe, like a single living creature, and the distant is near. Every interval, both large and small, is filled with Soul.

Taoist and Confucian pantheists.

Lao Tzu - the Tao of Reality.
There is a thing, formless yet complete.
Before heaven and earth it existed.
We do not know its name, but we call it Tao.
It is the Mystery of Mysteries.

Chuang Tzu - the butterfly philosopher.
The sage has the sun and moon by his side and the universe under his arm. He blends everything into a harmonious whole.
Chang Tsai - son of Heaven and Earth
Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother. All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions.


Hindu pantheists.

The Upanishads - the secret wisdom.
Thou art the dark-blue bird and the green parrot with red eyes.
Thou hast the lightning as thy child. Thou art the seasons and the seas.
Bhagavad Gita - the song of God.
I see Thee, Whose face is flaming fire,
Burning this whole universe with Thy radiance.


Judaism

Old Testament and Talmud - the omnipresence of God.
Can there be a nearer God than this? He is as near to His creatures as the ear to the mouth.

Islamic pantheists.

Ibn al-Arabi - the Sufi mystic.
The existence of all created things is His existence. Thou dost not see, in this world or the next, anything beside God.


Christian pantheists: early and medieval

The gospel roots of Christian pantheism
For in him we live, and move, and have our being.
The Gnostics - releasing the light within.
I am sown in all things; and whence thou wilt, thou gatherest me, but when thou gatherest me, then gatherest thou thyself.
The Brethren of the Free Spirit - divine amorality.
Rejoice with me, for I have become God. I am made eternal in my eternal blessedness.
Hildegard of Bingen: visions of divinity
I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars.
Meister Eckhart - passing beyond God.
God is infinite in his simplicity and simple in his infinity. Therefore he is everywhere and is everywhere complete. God is in the innermost part of each and every thing.
Thomas Aquinas - the angelic doctor.
As long as a thing has being, God must be present to it . . . If the divine action should cease, all things would drop into nothingness instantly.

Pre-modern pantheists.

Spinoza - the geometric philosopher.
Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.
Rousseau - the first romantic.
I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of beings, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.
Pantheistic poets.
A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
Hegel: the theology of history
Reason [God] is substance, and infinite power; its own infinite material underlying all the natural and spiritual life which it originates; and the inifinite form - that which sets this material in motion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: the transparent eyeball.
I am nothing! I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.

Modern pantheists.

Albert Einstein and the cosmic mystery.
The individual feels . . . the sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. . . He wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.
Gene Roddenberry - great bird of the galaxy.
I think God is as much a basic ingredient in the universe as neutrons and positrons. God is, for lack of a better term, clout. This is the prime force, when we look around the universe.

Other thinkers and texts will be added over the next weeks and months, including more Taoist, Buddhist, Islamic and modern sources.


Background image: Distribution of galaxies within one billion light years of earth, mapping by M. Seldner et al, Astronomical Journal, 1977.


SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM

is the belief that the universe and nature are divine.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern for nature.
It provides the most realistic concept of life after death,
and the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self.
For an outline, see
Basic principles of scientific pantheism. Top.

If you would like to spread the message of scientific pantheism please include a link to Pantheist pages in your pages, and consult the Help spread Pantheism page..


Pantheist pages: index.
Basic principles of scientific pantheism.
The divine cosmos.


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Copyright ©Paul Harrison 1996. Last updated March 10, 1997.