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IN WHOM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Chapter One

Three Varieties of Panentheism

NIELS HENRIK GREGERSEN

Willst du ins Unendliche schreiten, geh im Endlichen und schaue nach allen Seiten. J. W. Goethe, letter to Herder, 1787

Literally, pan-en-theism means that "all" (Gk. pan) is "in" God (Gk. theos), but God is not exhausted by the world as a whole (G > W). As such panentheism attempts to steer a middle course between an acosmic theism, which separates God and world (G / W), and a pantheism which identifies God with the universe as a whole (G = W). Positively speaking, panentheists want to balance divine transcendence and immanence by preserving aspects of the former's claim of God's self-identity while embracing the latter's intimacy between God and universe.

So far it seems to me that panentheism offers a general direction of thought that should be welcomed by Christian theology. The problem is, however, that the concept of panentheism is not stable in itself. The little word "in" is the hinge of it all. There may be as many panentheisms as there are ways of qualifying the world's being "in God." The idea of panentheism therefore needs specification, and this can be offered only by the interpretative frameworks of specific philosophical or religious doctrines of God. In what follows I shall thus propose a typology of three versions of panentheism within Western tradition. (I suspect that more varieties could be identified in Eastern religion and philosophy, but I shall not attempt an exhaustive taxonomy here.)

I further argue that the philosophical and theological viability of panentheism depends on the particular version of panentheism appealed to, and on the status that one will accord the panentheistic imagery. Let me begin by pointing to two caveats. First, does God literally "contain" the universe in a spacelike manner? From the perspective of a Christian doctrine of creation the answer would be negative, for in this case the transcendence of God would be understood as a mere extension of the world's space. But "God is His own space," as an old principle says (formulated by John of Damascus in On the Orthodox Faith 13.11). The point here is that the Creator's "space" is not based on the created time-space continuum; rather the world's spatial-temporale existence is opened by and embraced by God's unimaginable "roominess." In this sense God's embrace of the world of nature is fully affirmed, but the container metaphor should not be taken to suggest a spatial continuum from the world to God. Similarly with the claim that God "has" a body, and that the world is therefore "God's body." This metaphor should in my view be used with even more care. While the soul in antiquity was seen as the life-supporting part of the human person, "mind" is, in today's anthropology, generally viewed as a "supervening" reality based on the "subvenient" causal basis of the human body. Attractive as the soul-body metaphor may have been in the past, it no longer commends itself as an adequate contemporary model for the God-world relationship. God would appear as an emergent reality arising out of natural processes rather than the other way around.

There is, however, an important ontological position, which is more or less shared by all versions of panentheism, and which I find theologically central. This is the claim that there exists a real two-way interaction between God and world, so that (1) the world is somehow "contained in God" and (2) there will be some "return" of the world into the life of God. The idea of bilateral relations between God and world may even be said to be distinctive for panentheism. At least the idea that the world affects God differs markedly from the monism of pantheism, which does not allow for any God-world interactionism, and from classic philosophical theism, which has traditionally claimed that God remains unaffected by the fates and fortunes of the world.

Three Varieties of Panentheism

Setting up a typology means proposing a map of viable options within a more general landscape of intellectual pathways, but not a comprehensive map of the whole territory. In contrast to a taxonomy, a typology does not necessarily operate with either-or alternatives. But even if there are overlaps between, say, type 1 and type 2, and between type 2 and type 3, there need not necessarily be a common substrate between types 1, 2, and 3. Often we are dealing with what Wittgenstein called "family resemblances" beyond identifiable essences. The only generic elements I presuppose is the claim of a two-way traffic between God and world.

The first version I call a soteriological panentheism because the world's being "in God" is not taken as a given, but as a gift. It is only by the redeeming grace of God that the world can dwell in God; not everything shares automatically in divine life. Wickedness and sin, for example, have no place in the reign of God. Thus in a classic Christian perspective the world's being "in God" does not so much state a general matter of fact, but is predicated only about those aspects of created reality that have become godlike, while they still remain a created reality. Only in the eschatological consummation of creation shall God finally be "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).

Another form of panentheism I call a revelational or expressivist panentheism. This idea came up in the context of early-nineteenth-century German idealism in order to overcome a purely anthropocentric concept of God. The point here is that the divine Spirit expresses itself in the world by going out of God and returning to God, enriched by the experiences of world history. This kind of theology can be seen as a universalized but also as a secularized version of the received Christian view. In fact, the term "panentheism" emerged in the context of post-Hegelian philosophical theology.

Finally, we have the dipolar panentheism of Whiteheadian process theology. Here God is assumed to be in some aspects timeless, beyond space and self-identical, while in other aspects temporal, spatial, and affected by the world. While dipolar process theism is conceptually worked out in terms of panentheism, the two aforementioned models of thought can be termed panentheistic only in a restricted sense. The soteriological model would say that the self-revelation of divine love is not found everywhere in a world, but only here and there. In this sense the "all" of pan-en-theism is qualified: while truth, love, and beauty certainly "exist in God," evil cannot be said to exist in God in the same manner. The expressivist model would add that only when the history of the world has been completed and sublated in God will the circle of divine self-expression and self-return be closed. In this sense also the "in" of pan-en-theism is called into question. By implication it seems that a full-blown panentheism risks the twofold danger of not fully preserving the identity of God while at the same time giving evil an ontological status not accorded it in the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Whether or not these dangers can be circumvented remains to be seen.

Generic, Strict, and Qualified Panentheism

With these distinctions in mind, we may ask: What constitutes the common aspiration of the three versions of panentheism? I suggest that they all share the intuition of a living two-way relation between God and world, within the inclusive reality of God. Accordingly there are both active and responsive aspects of divinity vis-à-vis the world. Thus understood, a broad or general notion of panentheism seems to include at least two elements:

Generic Panentheism, Defined

1. God contains the world, yet is also more than the world. Accordingly, the world is (in some sense) "in God."

2. As contained "in God," the world not only derives its existence from God but also returns to God, while preserving the characteristics of being a creature. Accordingly, the relations between God and world are (in some sense) bilateral.

As is evident, the difficulty in both (1) and (2) is to determine the "in some sense." A panentheism in the strong sense holds that there is a necessary interdependence between God and world so that the world contributes to God as much as God contributes to the world. This view is unreservedly expressed by Alfred North Whitehead,

It is as true to say that God is permanent and the World fluent, as that the World is permanent and God is fluent. It is as true to say that God is one and the World many, as that the World is one and God many.... It is as true to say that God transcends the World, as that the World transcends God. It is as true to say that God creates the World, as that the World creates God.

This symmetrical view of the God-world relation was further developed by Charles Hartshorne into the concept of process panentheism or "surrelativism." On this account, God is metaphysically limited by the world, since God cannot exist without a world, though God could coexist with another world than our present cosmos. Furthermore, even though God's actual being is affected by the indelible freedom of natural events, God is surpassing the world by God's eternal envisioning of all potentialities. These tenets of process theism differ not only from a classical substance theism, but also from the relational theism of Christian trinitarianism (panentheism 1) as well as from the romantic expressivism (panentheism 2). The differences may be stated as follows.

Strict (Dipolar) Panentheism, Defined

1. God cannot exist without generating a world, analogous to the way a soul cannot exist without a body; however, God can exist by embodying other worlds than our physical cosmos.

2. It is by a metaphysical necessity that God and world coexist and codetermine one another, so that God influences the world and temporal experiences flow into the actual nature of God; all that exists necessarily participates in divine life.

Qualified (Christian) Panentheism, Defined

1. While the world cannot exist without God, God could exist without a world; accordingly, the soul-body is at the most a useful metaphor for the intimacy of the God-world relation once the world is created out of divine love.

2. It is by divine grace that the world is codetermining God, so that temporale vents may influence God and creatures share the life of God; all that is redeemed participates in divine life.

Defining panentheism as a distinct position, however, faces the problem of demarcation. What differentiates panentheism from classic tradition? Proponents of panentheism often claim it better articulates the immanence of God than classical theism. I believe, however, that this claim is unwarranted, for classical theism, even in the form of substance theism, entails a very strong doctrine of divine immanence. Hear the answer of Thomas Aquinas to the question "whether God exists in everything": "God exists in everything; not indeed as part of their substance or as an accident, but as an agent is present to that in which its action takes place.... Now since it is God's nature to exist, he it must be who properly causes existence in creatures, just as fire itself sets other things on fire.... So God must exist intimately in everything" (ST I 8 a 1). Thus the immanence of God in the creatures is indeed asserted by classical theism, since God is identified as the power to exist in and above all that exists. Without the creator becoming a creature ("part of their substance") and without God being an emergent property of the world (an "accident"), God creates the world as if from within. At this juncture Thomas is able to use both the body-soul metaphor and the container metaphor. In fact, Thomas is able to use panentheistic imagery, but he makes clear their metaphorical status: "That in which bodily things exist contains them, but immaterial thing s contain that in which they exist, as the soul contains the body. So God also contains things by existing in them. However, one does use the bodily metaphor and talk of everything being in God inasmuch as he contains them (ST I 8 a 1 ad secundum)." Thus the real demarcation line between panentheism and classic philosophical theism is neither the immanence of God nor the use of the metaphor of the world's being "in" God.

The real difference, according to Thomas, is that the natures and activities of the creatures do not have a real feedback effect on God. There is, in other words, no return from the world into God. As pure activity (actus purus), God is the eternal realization of all positive predicates. Accordingly there is nothing God can "learn" in relation to the creatures, no "challenges" to be met, no free acts to "wait for." The world is utterly dependent on God for its existence, while the world cannot really affect the being or mind of God (Summa Theologiae 1.28.a.1). In short, Thomas rejects not the first but only the second tenet of generic panentheism, as defined above.

Soteriological Panentheism in the Context of Trinitarian Thought

What follows is thus an attempt to sort out different ways of developing the intuitive idea of the world's being "in God." I see at least three ways something can be "in" something else. The first way of in-being is like a ball placed in a bowl in a physical sense. Most would agree that this container model does not work when talking about the God-world relationship. However, there is also the case where a finite realization of some possibilities is placed in a wider set of possibilities. In this quasi-mathematical sense the world's being in God can be expressed as follows: something real but finite (the world of creation) is carved out, as it were, and allowed to exist out of infinite divine possibilities. This is a far more suggestive way of understanding the world's being in God, especially if it is made clear that natural events are not simply "parts" of the divine but realizations made possible by divine creation. But third, and most importantly in our context, something can be in another thing in a qualitative sense, such as when the beloved is present to the lover, even when physically absent, or when the playing of a symphony orchestra is so sensitive that each member of the orchestra becomes one of many in the unified experience of the symphony. The experience of attunement is here at the forefront. This third understanding of our "being in God" is the one emphasized in trinitarian thought.

As is well known, Thomas developed his philosophical theology within the confines of an Aristotelian substance metaphysics.

Continues...

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Excerpted from IN WHOM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING Copyright © 2004 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Excerpted by permission.
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