I have always been trying to find a religion/belief that correlate with my beliefs. I currently identify as an Agnostic Christian, but I don't feel like that is the correct label for my beliefs.
That's an interesting conversation I'm sure I could have with you. I believe I do understand why you say that. I think it's a lot like those who call themselves spiritual atheists, holding certain truths or things which resonate with you. In both cases one doesn't want to throw out the baby of spirituality with the bathwater of either mythic-literal beliefs, or the bathwater of uber materialist-rationalism. But it leaves one with the question of what then do we positively believe? Self-identifying in the negative or in the ambivalent only goes so far. It can be helpful to us to have something we can actually say. And that is where saying one is either a pantheist or a panenthiest comes in.
Forgive me if I get a little long on this as there's a lot I wish to explore in it and hopefully it will help your own understanding.
I recently found out about Pantheism and Panentheism, and I have been researching them. Most of what they believe is what I believe, but I am a bit confused about Panentheism. I understand that it means that God is the universe, but also greater than the universe (an intelligent being), but I still don't completely understand the concept. It would be helpful if people could possibly answer some questions I have, so I can figure out which better suits my beliefs.
In pantheism God IS the universe. To explore the universe is to explore God. It is very much accessing God in the world, in nature. And of course that is quite valid. Nature mysticism is a profound and valuable way of knowing God or Spirit. It very much is part of my own life. But I need to explain a concept to you that may help you to understand how panentheism, which on the surface marries traditional theism where God is wholly transcendent, to traditional pantheism where God is wholly immanent within the world, tends to express more fully the whole reality of the human experience of the divine.
Please bear with this as it will help. To come to understand the nature of panentheism it helps to understand the concept of the "
Three Faces of God". What that means is how we as individuals perceive and relate to Spirit, either in 1st person, 2nd person, or 3rd person modes. As in anything in our lives as humans we relate to ourselves, others, or the world in these ways. In 1st person it is the subjective "I am" realization, knowing yourself. In 2nd person there is an "self-other" relationship, a "we". And in 3rd person where you observe and object outside yourself. And so in regards to God or Spirit we may relate in any one of the three ways. If you read the link I provided of the Three Faces of God, he gives examples of each.
So in regards to pantheism, that is a 3rd person experience of God. As Br. David put it in the article, "God in 3rd-person is often described as the "great web-of-life," and is frequently experienced when observing objects of miraculous beauty such as the Grand Canyon, exquisite music, transcendent art, or the mind-boggling elegance of deep-space photography." But what traditional theism is is the 2nd person "I-Thou" relationship as he articulates, "where Spirit is experienced as a living intelligence that we can actually interact with in our own lives." And the 1st person experience of the divine is that of one's own self-identity AS God, where we directly experience that within ourselves as the great meditation traditions and mystics of the age experience.
Panentheism is different from pantheism in that it paradoxically brings all three perspectives together. In saying God is wholly immanent, it embraces the pantheistic, 3rd person view of God. In saying God is wholly transcendent, it embraces the "Holy Other", I-Thou personal 2nd person relationship of theism. And finally in the 1st person, mystical realization we awaken to that God in us, and as us; "I and my Father are one". We realize in ourselves that we are wholly transcendent to the universe, but wholly immanent within all that is. Panentheism is a positive statement of
nondual reality.
I hope you're still with this as there's a lot here. What I just said about nondual reality needs to be understood in contrast to what is knowing as monism. Pantheism is monistic. It is not truly nondual. What monism teaches is that "all is one", which means all is of one or the same substance. It stands in contrast to dualism that there is separation in the "many" or the manifest universe. In monism, there is no "other". It gets rid of distinction or separation by saying it is all in reality "
one, not two or three or four, etc." Nonduality on the other hand embraces monism's "all is one", (which is itself a subtle form of duality) but paradoxically embraces dualism which recognizes distinctive separateness or "the many". Nonduality embraces "the one and the many", as "not one, not two". Panentheism is a positive expression, in 3rd person objective terms, of nondual reality.
That last sentence summarizes what panentheism is. And I'll add one other thought to this to help point thought in the right direction. I specifically used the word "positive" expression. In the mystical realization of Spirit "itself" there is within the traditions both a positive and a negative approach to realization. The negative, or apophatic approach seeks to realize God through getting rid of all our concepts of God, including panentheism, theism, pantheism, and so forth. Anything we think of God makes God have definitions, boundaries, and so forth. It limits God to a dualistic linguist framework. To do this negation, getting rid of positive ideas of God, allows us to see beyond our own minds ways of defining things.
But the opposite of negation, or the apophatic approach is the positive or cataphatic approach where you say something about God to point the spirit within towards a transcendent realization. The danger of course it to say "I've figured it out!", and hence be left only with your own mind. But there is value in saying something. This is why is "saying something" to speak of God, I feel panentheism embraces the most of what we have come to realize of the nature of the Infinite in human experience, which is paradoxically "wholly transcendent and wholly immanent", and paradoxically "One and many", and "Not one, not two". Panentheism is a positive paradoxical expression of the truly
nondual, which understands and hold unproblematically monism and dualism, transcendence and immanence.
I apologize for the length and the density of all that for you to unpack, but I wanted to see if I could put some of this into a concise format.
I hope that helps, and I'd love a further discussion of this with you.
Did God create the universe, or was it always there? If he created it, then why did He want to separate himself, per say, into different 'entities'? I understand the universe and Him are like a whole, but if He is the Creator and the Created then why did he create the created?
I'm sorry if that makes no sense. I am not very great at wording questions.
It's hard to put these into questions as they tend to move into these paradoxes I mentioned above. Anytime you speak of anything approach the absolute it breaks down into self-contradictions. So no worries!
I'll answer my own thoughts to this in light of what I laid out above. Yes, I believe God creates the universe. Notice I said it in the present continuous tense? It is a mistake of a type thinking which we have inherited that sees creation as an act in the past, one time, and then it's done. Creation continues to happen in each and every moment. As Whitehead put it, there is a fundamental principle to the universe like the forces of gravity, magnetism and the electrostatic forces, and that is "the creative advance into novelty". I can tell you from experience in mystical realization that the nature of God is that of infinite creativity. Think of Love. Love creates from itself, flowing outward in infinite self-expression. The universe is the self-expression of Love. And it is continuous, like the light that constantly flows from the sun.
What helps in thinking of God is to pull it out a bit from our creation myths of the past where they didn't truly understand what evolution was. They naturally just looked at what was there before them, and saw it was now all "fixed", having come into being somewhere in the past as is. We've come a very long ways in understanding the world we live in today. We now know things are in constant states of evolution. It is not a static fixed universe, but a dynamic evolving one. Dynamism is key. And guess what is dynamic? Love. Creativity. Life. Energy. And, God. God is not static and fixed thing "out there", but living and dynamic "in here". Not just in the universe, but inside of us, and us inside of God. "In him we live and move and have our being".
Now I could on and on with this, as it is to me very exciting to realize. But I'll save you from more reading for now. I'll just say this in the context of all of this to pull it altogether. What best describes me and my views of God is to say I am an Evolutionary Panentheist. There's a lot there to discuss. I hope all this is of some value to you. It's helped me to try to put some of this into words.
Welcome to the site, by the way!
