Pantheism? (reincarnation, beliefs, theist, faith, God)

[Sunstone]

Is some form of pantheism (i.e. ...the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. -- Wikipedia) the most rational and coherent form of theism?

That is, if one is going to adopt theism, would it be most rational and/or reasonable to adopt some form of pantheism?

Why or why not?

[fantôme profane]

I want to be very careful about making absolute statements Saying the Pantheism is the “most rational” feels a little bit like someone saying they have “the one true faith”. I don’t want this to come off like an attack against people who believe that theirs is the “one true faith”. But to me this kind of thinking shuts down the mind and prevents you from developing new ideas and new understandings. So all I can say is that given what little I know and understand, Pantheism seems to me to be the most rational theological idea at this time.

[Fluffy]

Redefining God to something that you could make a safer claim to its existence is not necessarily rational. Making a claim about the existence of this redefined God would be rational, however.

Equating the universe with God does not mean that the actual equation was a rational step to take. However, if one is able to make a safer claim about the universe's existence than the existence of the Christian God, then it would be more rational to suggest the universe exists rather than the Christian God. However, if in the equation, one hoped to add any further attributes to the universe via this identity, this would undermine this rationality.

In other words, equating God to the universe (or something similar) with the purpose of being more rational become self defeating because you may as well simply say that the universe exists and not bother with the redefinition. The only reason to do this is because you wish the object (ie the universe) to be viewed in a different way in light of the link (ie with God) which of course would need its own justification.

[Sunstone]

Fluffy, what about simply having faith that the universe is equivalent to deity and deity is equivalent to the universe? That is, can pantheism be base on faith, and once based on it, work out in detail to be more rational than other forms of theism?

[Fluffy]

Fluffy, what about simply having faith that the universe is equivalent to deity and deity is equivalent to the universe? That is, can pantheism be base on faith, and once based on it, work out in detail to be more rational than other forms of theism?

When you say make a deity equivilent to the universe do you mean just use "God" instead of "universe" or do you mean add certain aspects to our idea of the universe from our concept of the divine?

I find the first one to be more rational if belief in the universe were more rational than God (which it is generally accepted to be). However, I don't consider it to be a faith no more than I would the person who said "I believe the universe exists" and therefore very different to other forms of theism. Indeed I would hesitate to define such a thing as theism.

I can see no reason why the second version would be more rational than other forms of theism.

[MidnightBlue]

I don't know if any form of theism is necessarily the most reasonable. When I was a theist, I was a panentheist, and that still seems as good to me as any of them, but I wouldn't say it's better than pantheism.

[Karl R]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Is some form of pantheism (i.e. ...the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. -- Wikipedia) the most rational and coherent form of theism?

Why or why not?

That depends upon your starting assumptions about god (or the universe).

For example, if you assume that god is omnipresent, then some form of pantheistic or panentheistic view makes a whole lot of sense, and is easy to reconcile with your other beliefs.

If you believe that god is not omnipresent, then it becomes nearly impossible to reconcile those beliefs with pantheism. There are places in this world where god seems to be absent, where his presence can't be discerned amongst the horrible things going on. (Think of Bruce Willis' statement in Tears of the Sun: "God left Africa a long time ago." The atrocities we see later in the village make that statement seem believable.) With that belief, pantheism or panentheism seem almost ludicrous.

Furthermore, if you believe that there's some form of afterlife (other than reincarnation), then it may become a little difficult to explain what happens to souls when everything is contained within an immanent universe. The transcendent aspects of panentheism get around this difficulty.

Based on my beliefs, panentheism seems quite rational (moreso than pantheism). But this assessment is based out of my beliefs. Panentheism wasn't so rational that my beliefs changed to accommodate its superiority.

[MaddLlama]

Even though it has "theism" in it, Pantheism doesn't always imply a belief in God.

Even as a form of theism it seems the most rational to me, but that's because it's always the way I've seen things.