Panendeism

I've just realized that I am a Panendeist, rather than a Panentheist.
This seems to be the case because I rely foremost on reason and experience, and subject all philosophical and religious texts to scrutiny.

My faith is not in religious texts, though I do treasure large portions of them for their invaluable wisdom.
My trust is in the reason that I was given. How many others here are Panendeists? Also, what are your thoughts on the contrast between the two terms?

At the end of the day, I don't really think that labels matter all that much, but I am curious as to what others think.

I've used panendeistic-polytheist and polytheistic-panendeist here and there

It can help explain - yet people often use pantheist or panentheist more along the deist than theist lines as it is...and for some, maybe many, the term deist provokes "created then left it."

Always left with some explaining to do/attempt...such a pain

Sees said:

I've used panendeistic-polytheist and polytheistic-panendeist here and there

It can help explain - yet people often use pantheist or panentheist more along the deist than theist lines as it is...and for some, maybe many, the term deist provokes "created then left it."

Always left with some explaining to do/attempt...such a pain

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Thanks for the response!

Honestly, I was told at some point that Deism mainly referred to the "created then left it" mentality and it stuck in my head.
I have only recently looked into Panendeism itself because I assumed it would be similar to "created then left it", and I also read at one somewhere point that some panendeists believe that God sacrificed Itself to birth creation. Certainly a cool idea, especially from the perspective of a writer, but I am not sure how someone reaches that conclusion by reason alone.

Oh, I know! I have been having a hard enough time explaining Panentheism! At least it's close enough that most people won't realize there is any difference.

seekingtruth said:

Thanks for the response!

Honestly, I was told at some point that Deism mainly referred to the "created then left it" mentality and it stuck in my head.
I have only recently looked into Panendeism itself because I assumed it would be similar to "created then left it", and I also read at one somewhere point that some panendeists believe that God sacrificed Itself to birth creation. Certainly a cool idea, especially from the perspective of a writer, but I am not sure how someone reaches that conclusion by reason alone.

Oh, I know! I have been having a hard enough time explaining Panentheism! At least it's close enough that most people won't realize there is any difference.

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I think a good description, lacking solid definition, for my idea of Panendeism...Ever-changing All, impersonal in essence, personal in manifestations. Divine and mundane but beyond either. Formless and infinitely formed eternal Mystery.

Words grasp but experiences receive

That's quite beautiful, I like it. I have been founding my spirituality on reason and experience from the beginning (with a detour into blind faith and denial).
I am enchanted by the formless mystery that all forms are within, and arise from. This is what resonated with me when I first picked up the Tao te Ching "The Tao that can be explained is not the true Tao."
Immediately, I was taken with the immediate admission that the Tao could not be fully grasped by the intellect, and could only be apprehended through experience. A conviction that I had about God as Christian as well, but found little support for within the faith.

Can someone tell me what the difference is between pandeism and panendeism. I read descriptions I understand the first, but not the second. I know the differences of pantheism and panentheism but I don't understand how it works with deism.

And I'm not either, though I find them to be interesting concepts. The reason is, I don't know if there's a god being. I rather not assume things, as I have no evidence for it. So I'm a pantheist, as I worship the universe as god, regardless if there's a being or not. The universe is awe inspiring enough for me to call it god.

illykitty said:

Can someone tell me what the difference is between pandeism and panendeism. I read descriptions I understand the first, but not the second. I know the differences of pantheism and panentheism but I don't understand how it works with deism.

And I'm not either, though I find them to be interesting concepts. The reason is, I don't know if there's a god being. I rather not assume things, as I have no evidence for it. So I'm a pantheist, as I worship the universe as god, regardless if there's a being or not. The universe is awe inspiring enough for me to call it god.

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Hi illykitty

We are basically choosing what is most coherent for us as far as - do we use God or Divine? Is "it" an It or an Is? Something Real or Reality? A Being or Beingness/All-Being?

For panendeism is it All in God/Divine or God/Divine in All...or both? Some won't see any difference at all there.

I put on another thread I like panen versions to help exclude from any purely materialistic concepts of pan versions. I don't think any of these words can be as effective as we want. The pan or panen parts are as slippery as the deist or theist parts!

Panendeism seems to leave the door open for things and phenomena beyond observable reality...while Pandeism usually refers to the physical universe alone.

Sees basically just succeeded in saying what I was trying to (I should really go to bed now).

Hmm, not sure I formulated my question well...

Here are descriptions I'm most familiar with, even though there are many more...

Pantheism says universe = god.
Panentheism says universe is in god, god is beyond as well.
Deism, at the most basic, is god made the universe and doesn't interfere.
Pandeism says god became the universe and ceased to be separate and conscious. Thus you could say god doesn't interfere.
Panendeism says _____? Is it the same as panentheism but with no interference? Or do you have another description?

But yes, in the end of the day labels don't matter all that much... And pantheisms and variants are hard enough for people to understand. I use pantheist for simplicity's sake.

Sees said:

I think a good description, lacking solid definition, for my idea of Panendeism...Ever-changing All, impersonal in essence, personal in manifestations. Divine and mundane but beyond either. Formless and infinitely formed eternal Mystery.

Click to expand...

That is a perfect description of panentheism. I see no reason to introduce deism into it.

As far as deism being a path of reason, and if one predominantly uses reason they must be a deist, this is a bit of an illusion. To conclude God in any form requires something existential going on, a sense if you will of the Divine, and what follows is a series of supporting arguments to support that sense that came before, or outside reason and logic. The experience of God is non-rational, like the sense of being itself. To me, God only enters into reason, once one has experienced God or the Absolute, either before or after. At the point of the Absolute all reason and logic break down in paradoxes, such as saying God is impersonal and personal, existent and non-existent, the One and the Many, formless and form, and so forth. Personally, that's why I like panentheism because it allows for and embraces that nondual paradox. It embraces reason and the non-rational, fully. God transcends God.

Windwalker said:

As far as deism being a path of reason, and if one predominantly uses reason they must be a deist, this is a bit of an illusion.

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Well, that's not exactly what I meant, I was meaning that if one predominantly uses reason and experience, to explore spirituality and these two things trump any and all religious doctrine for that individual, the individual may be a Panendeist...and we are talking about Panendeism here, not Deism.

Deism as defined on deism.com:

"Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation."

Panendeism on wikipedia:
"Panendeism combines deism with panentheism, the belief that the universe is part of God, but not all of God. A component of panendeism is "experiential metaphysics" – the idea that a mystical component exists within the framework of panendeism, allowing the seeker to experience a relationship to Deity through meditation, prayer or some other type of communion.[69] This is a major departure from classical deism."



Deism Defined, Welcome to Deism, Deist Glossary and Frequently Asked Questions

Windwalker said:

To conclude God in any form requires something existential going on, a sense if you will of the Divine, and what follows is a series of supporting arguments to support that sense that came before, or outside reason and logic. The experience of God is non-rational, like the sense of being itself. To me, God only enters into reason, once one has experienced God or the Absolute, either before or after.

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No, I agree. Panendeism seems to be specifically identified by a tendency to defer to both experience and reason over any form of religious teachings.

Windwalker said:

At the point of the Absolute all reason and logic break down in paradoxes, such as saying God is impersonal and personal, existent and non-existent, the One and the Many, formless and form, and so forth. Personally, that's why I like panentheism because it allows for and embraces that nondual paradox. It embraces reason and the non-rational, fully. God transcends God.

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I agree, that's why I think that this label may suit me better. It specifies certain things that Panentheism does not.

That's exactly how I view reality, and I have experienced the Absolute. I was just wondering if this might be a more suitable label for me. Obviously, any label like this ultimately fails to perfectly identify what it is pointing to. It seems to me that Panendeism is more specific in it's description than Panentheism.
I was basing this partly on this site: http://panendeism.webs.com/
and partly through the wiki article here Deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As I said at the beginning though, labels are just labels. My beliefs and views have not changed, I simply might have found a more appropriate label for them. Thank you for your input.

illykitty said:

Hmm, not sure I formulated my question well...

Here are descriptions I'm most familiar with, even though there are many more...

Pantheism says universe = god.
Panentheism says universe is in god, god is beyond as well.
Deism, at the most basic, is god made the universe and doesn't interfere.
Pandeism says god became the universe and ceased to be separate and conscious. Thus you could say god doesn't interfere.
Panendeism says _____? Is it the same as panentheism but with no interference? Or do you have another description?

But yes, in the end of the day labels don't matter all that much... And pantheisms and variants are hard enough for people to understand. I use pantheist for simplicity's sake.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the distiction between the two is very smal
Panentheism Vs. Panendeism according to Panendeism.webs.com:

"Panentheism is based on a Mythic or Theistic approach to the belief in "God" where Panendeism is based on a Post-Mythic or Modern approach to the belief in "god" or "Spirit". Panentheists tend to see God in personal terms and rely on scripture and tradition as the basis for their belief. Panendeists on the other hand view the relationship between "god", and humanity as transpersonal and rely on reason and experience as the basis for their belief."

Sees said:

I've used panendeistic-polytheist and polytheistic-panendeist here and there

It can help explain - yet people often use pantheist or panentheist more along the deist than theist lines as it is...and for some, maybe many, the term deist provokes "created then left it."

Always left with some explaining to do/attempt...such a pain

Click to expand...

Pretty much the same here. I waver between panendeism and pandeism. I really think there's only a subtle difference between pan- and panen-. But I definitely go with the -deism part.

Dan McCoy says that Ásatrú is pantheistic Pantheism - Norse Mythology for Smart People because everything is connected with and contains the divine. However, I think it's more -deistic because we don't identify a creator or controller God. Odin created these worlds, but the universe came into existence long before he did. Apart from the (metapohorical) fire and ice collision, we don't know what set the stage for that. We don't even know what governs things, except for orlog, nor who created orlog.

Most of us in the "Jewish naturalism" bracket tend not to differentiate between whether we're supposedly panentheists or pantheists, probably because taking one position or the other would be based on what? Nada. Instead, our main view tends to be that God, however defined or undefined, probably is intrinsic to our universe/multiverse to the point of being inseparable-- pretty much Spinoza's and Einstein's approach.

Or, to put it the way I prefer, whatever caused this universe/multiverse I'll call "God", and pretty much just leave it at that.

Quintessence said:

Quintessence is seriously confused about this thing called "panendeism." I'm going to try reading through some of what others have posted so far more closely, but... kind of feeling confused. Overall, my brain is just not computing how deism could ever be compatible with immanent god-concepts of any sort.

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I felt this way too. It seems that Panendeists, and to my surprise, Deists generally have a different definition of Deism than is generally thought of.

In the definition I was always told, "a god who set the Universe in motion and left it", this would make no sense at all.

seekingtruth said:

I felt this way too. It seems that Panendeists, and to my surprise, Deists generally have a different definition of Deism than is generally thought of.

In the definition I was always told, "a god who set the Universe in motion and left it", this would make no sense at all.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the definition of deism I'm thinking of, hence the confusion. This will be an interesting thing to investigate. I'm always interested in learning about more forms of theism. Maybe I'll spotlight it in the next "Exploring Theisms" post?

Quintessence said:

Quintessence is seriously confused about this thing called "panendeism." I'm going to try reading through some of what others have posted so far more closely, but... kind of feeling confused. Overall, my brain is just not computing how deism could ever be compatible with immanent god-concepts of any sort.

Click to expand...

I'd have to think of this pan(en)deist God as a force, energy, basis, ground, or substrate of existence rather than a sentient being. It would have to be not unlike the Tao or Brahman.

Ultimately, "deos" or "theos" both refer to a god concept. The concept changes with the person, and the labels are always subjective and interpreted different by everyone, so I see no major difference (or any at all) between pandeism and pantheism.