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Is God Pantheistic or Panentheistic?

Jedster

Well-Known Member
Or is the universe created apart from god?

As I understand the words, pantheism says that everything that exists is God
whereas
panentheism says that God is outside existence, i.e created existence.

If God does exist outside existence, that would mean God doesn't exist.
A good bridge between theists and atheists.
 

Jumi

Well-Known Member
As I understand the words, pantheism says that everything that exists is God
whereas panentheism says that God is outside existence, i.e created existence.
Yes, the panentheist God is outside of the measurable existence at least with any instruments we've developed. Get a background noise from something that's always omnipresent... not simple.

Perhaps AI, development in big data and machine learning can prove otherwise but so far it's not where I'd pin my hopes on it.

If God does exist outside existence, that would mean God doesn't exist.
That's what the words seem to say, at least. Yet the panentheistic God is both everywhere and "nowhere". I doubt it makes much sense to other types of theists or atheists.
 

Jedster

Well-Known Member
Yes, the panentheist God is outside of the measurable existence at least with any instruments we've developed. Get a background noise from something that's always omnipresent... not simple.

Perhaps AI, development in big data and machine learning can prove otherwise but so far it's not where I'd pin my hopes on it.


That's what the words seem to say, at least. Yet the panentheistic God is both everywhere and "nowhere". I doubt it makes much sense to other types of theists or atheists.

It's the God in the nowhere bit I meant. Twas a play on words that we use.
 

BSM1

What? Me worry?
As I understand the words, pantheism says that everything that exists is God
whereas
panentheism says that God is outside existence, i.e created existence.

If God does exist outside existence, that would mean God doesn't exist.
A good bridge between theists and atheists.

Sorta like having your cake and eating it, too.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
IMO, it's impossible to know the answer, so why should I attempt an answer?
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
One of the few versions of the 'God' concept that makes sense to me is the one that identifies God as either nature, the laws of nature, or the dynamics of nature.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
According to the Bhagavad Gita (chapter 10) God is the universe and creation, and exists outside of it. He is immanent and transcendent. He is a pan(en)theistic God. This is the Vaishnava belief. I dare say it's the Shaiva belief also, because Shiva is all and in all. Probably the Shakta belief too.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
As I understand the words, pantheism says that everything that exists is God
whereas
panentheism says that God is outside existence, i.e created existence.

If God does exist outside existence, that would mean God doesn't exist.
A good bridge between theists and atheists.
i understand it as god transcends creation, or created/formed things.thus god is mutable, an action, and formless. all forms arise from it but that which arises takes it's antecedent too.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
IMO, it's impossible to know the answer, so why should I attempt an answer?

it reflects how the self recognized god.

is god absent? present? present where?

is god a collective consciousness, swarm intelligence? or is it at odds with it's creation? is it self-realizing? aware of self, or otherness? if otherness then it superior to this otherness? or is this otherness equal to it? can this otherness overcome, control, that which is separate from self?
 

Jedster

Well-Known Member
i understand it as god transcends creation, or created/formed things.thus god is mutable, an action, and formless. all forms arise from it but that which arises takes it's antecedent too.

Very similar to the first sentence in @Jainarayan 's post above(#10).
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
Very similar to the first sentence in @Jainarayan 's post above(#10).

something can't be immanent and outside.something can be transformed from one form to another but it is always present as the formless

the paramatman is not exclusively brahma the creator, nor shiva the destroyer, but some form of vishnu transformed too.

immannent

if anything the form exists outside, or on the surface, of the formless. like a waves on the ocean, like a cloud in the sky, like a thought in the mind.
 
Last edited:

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Is God Pantheistic or Panentheistic?

I am voting 'Pantheistic' because that is what I put in my Religion: description above:) I doubled-checked that there wasn't the extra 'en' after the 'pan' in my description.

But a little more seriously, the Vedic masters and seers I most respect are of the Advaita school which is more pantheistic as I understand it. I am not at a point where I can answer the question from personal experience or that the difference is very important to the average person like myself.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
something can't be immanent and outside.

Listen up, this is as simple as it gets:
Water is outside that which it permeates and wets.
Jainarayan is quite mystical when he takes his percocets. :D


giphy.gif
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
it reflects how the self recognized god.

is god absent? present? present where?

is god a collective consciousness, swarm intelligence? or is it at odds with it's creation? is it self-realizing? aware of self, or otherness? if otherness then it superior to this otherness? or is this otherness equal to it? can this otherness overcome, control, that which is separate from self?
I have a copyright on "I don't know", so any use of that terminology without written authorization from me will be met with a lawsuit that'll sue one's butt off. :mad:
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
Listen up, this is as simple as it gets:
Water is outside that which it permeates and wets.
Jainarayan is quite mystical when he takes his percocets. :D


giphy.gif

thank you

the water permeates the form and yet the water itself is formless and still surrounds the form.
 
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