Pantheism

(From Greek pan, all; theos, god).

The view according to which God and the world are one. 
The name pantheist was introduced by John Toland (1670-
1722) in his "Socinianism truly Stated" (1705), while 
pantheism was first used by his opponent Fay in 
"Defensio Religionis" (1709). Toland published his 
"Pantheisticon" in 1732. The doctrine itself goes back 
to the early Indian philosophy; it appears during the 
course of history in a great variety of forms, and it 
enters into or draws support from so many other systems 
that, as Professor Flint says ("Antitheistic Theories", 
334), "there is probably no pure pantheism". Taken in 
the strictest sense, i.e. as identifying God and the 
world, Pantheism is simply Atheism. In any of its forms 
it involves Monism (q.v.), but the latter is not 
necessarily pantheistic. Emanationism (q.v.) may easily 
take on a pantheistic meaning and as pointed out in the 
Encyclical, "Pascendi dominici gregis" the same is true 
of the modern doctrine of immanence (q.v.).

VARIETIES

These agree in the fundamental doctrine that beneath 
the apparent diversity and multiplicity of things in 
the universe there is one only being absolutely 
necessary, eternal, and infinite. Two questions then 
arise: What is the nature of this being? How are the 
manifold appearances to be explained? The principal 
answers are incorporated in such different earlier 
systems as Brahminism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, and 
Gnosticism, and in the later systems of Scotus Eriugena 
and Giordano Bruno (qq.v.).

Spinoza's pantheism was realistic: the one being of the 
world had an objective character. But the systems that 
developed during the nineteenth century went to the 
extreme of idealism. They are properly grouped under 
the designation of "transcendental pantheism", as their 
starting-point is found in Kant's critical philosophy. 
Kant (q.v.) had distinguished in knowledge the matter 
which comes through sensation from the outer world, and 
the forms, which are purely subjective and yet are the 
more important factors. Furthermore, he had declared 
that we know the appearances (phenomena) of things but 
not the things-in-themselves (noumena). And he had made 
the ideas of the soul, the world, and God merely 
immanent, so that any attempt to demonstrate their 
objective value must end in contradiction. This 
subjectivism paved the way for the pantheistic theories 
of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.

Fichte set back into the mind all the elements of 
knowledge, i.e. matter as well as form; phenomena and 
indeed the whole of reality are products of the 
thinking Ego-not the individual mind but the absolute 
or universal self-consciousness. Through the three-fold 
process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, the Ego 
posits the non-Ego not only theoretically but also for 
practical purposes, i.e. for effort and struggle which 
are necessary in order to attain the highest good. In 
the same way the Ego, free in itself, posits other free 
agents by whose existence its own freedom is limited. 
Hence the law of right and all morality; but hence also 
the Divine being. The living, active moral order of the 
world, says Fichte, is itself God, we need no other 
God, and can conceive of no other. The idea of God as a 
distinct substance is impossible and contradictory. 
Such, at any rate, is the earlier form of his doctrine, 
though in his later theorizing he emphasizes more and 
more the concepts of the Absolute as embracing all 
individuals within itself.

According to Schelling, the Absolute is the "identity 
of all differences"-object and subject, nature and 
mind, the real order and the ideal; and the knowledge 
of this identity is obtained by an intellectual 
intuition which, abstracting from every individual 
thinker and every possible object of thought, 
contemplates the absolute reason. Out of this original 
unity all things evolve in opposite directions: nature 
as the negative pole, mind or spirit as the positive 
pole of a vast magnet, the universe. Within this 
totality each thing, like the particle of a magnet, has 
its nature or form determined according as it manifests 
subjectivity or objectivity in greater degree. History 
is but the gradual self-revelation of the Absolute; 
when its final period will come to pass we know not; 
but when it does come, then God will be.

The system of Hegel (q.v.) has been called "logical 
pantheism", as it is constructed on the "dialectical" 
method; and "panlogismus", since it describes the 
entire world-process as the evolution of the Idea. 
Starting from the most abstract of notions, i.e. pure 
being, the Absolute developes first the various 
categories; then it externalizes itself, and Nature is 
the result; finally it returns upon itself, regains 
unity and self-consciousness, becomes the individual 
spirit of man. The Absolute, therefore, is Mind; but it 
attains its fulness only by a process of evolution or 
"becoming", the stages of which form the history of the 
universe.

These idealistic constructions were followed by a 
reaction due largely to the development of the natural 
sciences. But these in turn offer, apparently, new 
support to the central positions of pantheism, or at 
any rate they point, it is claimed, to that very unity 
and that gradual unfolding which pantheism has all 
along asserted. The principle of the conservation of 
energy through ceaseless transformations, and the 
doctrine of evolution applied to all things and all 
phenomena, are readily interpreted by the pantheist in 
favour of his own system. Even where the ultimate 
reality is said to be unknowable as in Herbert 
Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy", it is still one and 
the same being that manifests itself alike in evolving 
matter and in the consciousness that evolves out of 
lower material forms. Nor is it surprising that some 
writers should see in pantheism the final outcome of 
all speculation and the definitive expression which the 
human mind has found for the totality of things.

This statement, in fact, may well serve as a summary of 
the pantheistic doctrine:

* Reality is a unitary being; individual things have no 
absolute independence- they have existence in the All-
One, the ens realissimum et et perfectissimum of which 
they are the more or less independent members; 

* The All-One manifests itself to us, so far as it has 
any manifestations, in the two sides of reality-nature 
and history; 

* The universal interaction that goes on in the 
physical world is the showing forth of the inner 
aesthetic teleological necessity with which the All-One 
unfolds his essential being in a multitude of 
harmonious modifications, a cosmos of concrete ideas 
(monads, entelechies). This internal necessity is at 
the same time absolute freedom or self-realization.

CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

The Church has repeatedly condemned the errors of 
pantheism. Among the propositions censured in the 
Syllabus of Pius IX is that which declares: "There is 
no supreme, all-wise and all-provident Divine Being 
distinct from the universe; God is one with nature and 
therefore subject to change; He becomes God in man and 
the world; all things are God and have His substance; 
God is identical with the world, spirit with matter, 
necessity with freedom, truth with falsity, good with 
evil, justice with injustice" (Denzinger-Bannwart, 
"Ench.", 1701). And the First Vatican Council 
anathematizes those who assert that the substance or 
essence of God and of all things is one and the same, 
or that all things evolve from God's essence (ibid., 
1803 sqq.).

CRITICISM

To our perception the world presents a multitude of 
beings each of which has qualities activities, and 
existence of its own, each is an individual thing. 
Radical differences mark off living things from those 
that are lifeless; the conscious from the unconscious 
human thought and volition from the activities of lower 
animals. And among human beings each personality 
appears as a self, which cannot by any effort become 
completely one with other selves. On the other hand, 
any adequate account of the world other than downright 
materialism includes the concept of some original Being 
which, whether it be called First Cause, or Absolute, 
or God, is in its nature and existence really distinct 
from the world. Only such a Being can satisfy the 
demands of human thought, either as the source of the 
moral order or as the object of religious worship. If, 
then, pantheism not only merges the separate existences 
of the world in one existence, but also identifies this 
one with the Divine Being, some cogent reason or motive 
must be alleged in justification of such a procedure. 
Pantheists indeed bring forward various arguments in 
support of their several positions, and in reply to 
criticism aimed at the details of their system; but 
what lies back of their reasoning and what has prompted 
the construction of all pantheistic theories, both old 
and new, is the craving for unity. The mind, they 
insist, cannot accept dualism or pluralism as the final 
account of reality. By an irresistible tendency, it 
seeks to substitute for the apparent multiplicity and 
diversity of things a unitary ground or source, and, 
once this is determined, to explain all things as 
somehow derived though not really separated from it.

That such is in fact the ideal of many philosophers 
cannot be denied; nor is it needful to challenge the 
statement that reason does aim at unification on some 
basis or other. But this very aim and all endeavours in 
view of it must likewise be kept within reasonable 
bounds: a theoretical unity obtained at too great a 
sacrifice is no unity at all, but merely an abstraction 
that quickly falls to pieces. Hence for an estimate of 
pantheism two questions must be considered:

* at what cost does it identify God and the world; and 

* is the identification really accomplished or only 
attempted?

The answer to the first is furnished by a review of the 
leading concepts which enter into the pantheistic 
system.

God

It has often been claimed that pantheism by teaching us 
to see God in everything gives us an exalted idea of 
His wisdom, goodness, and power, while it imparts to 
the visible world a deeper meaning. In point of fact, 
however, it makes void the attributes which belong 
essentially to the Divine nature For the pantheist God 
is not a personal Being. He is not an intelligent Cause 
of the world, designing, creating and governing it in 
accordance with the free determination of His wisdom. 
If consciousness is ascribed to Him as the one 
Substance, extension is also said to be His attribute 
(Spinoza), or He attains to self-consciousness only 
through a process of evolution (Hegel). But this very 
process implies that God is not from eternity perfect: 
He is forever changing, advancing from one degree of 
perfection to another, and helpless to determine in 
what direction the advance shall take place. Indeed, 
there is no warrant for saying that He "advances" or 
becomes more "perfect"; at most we can say that He, or 
rather It, is constantly passing into other forms. Thus 
God is not only impersonal, but also changeable and 
finite-which is equivalent to saying that He is not 
God.

It is true that some pantheists, such as Paulsen, while 
frankly denying the personality of God, pretend to 
exalt His being by asserting that He is "supra-
personal." If this means that God in Himself is 
infinitely beyond any idea that we can form of Him, the 
statement is correct; but if it means that our idea of 
Him is radically false and not merely inadequate, that 
consequently we have no right to speak of infinite 
intelligence and will, the statement is simply a 
makeshift which pantheism borrows from agnosticism Even 
then the term "supra-personal" is not consistently 
applied to what Paulsen calls the All-One; for this, if 
at all related to personality, should be described as 
infra-personal.

Once the Divine personality is removed, it is evidently 
a misnomer to speak of God as just or holy, or in any 
sense a moral Being. Since God, in the pantheistic 
view, acts out of sheer necessity--that is, cannot act 
otherwise--His action is no more good than it is evil. 
To say, with Fichte, that God is the moral order, is an 
open contradiction; no such order exists where nothing 
is free, nor could God, a non-moral Being, have 
established a moral order either for Himself or for 
other beings. If, on the other hand, it be maintained 
that the moral order does exist, that it is postulated 
by our human judgments, the plight of pantheism is no 
better; for in that case all the actions of men, their 
crimes as well as their good deeds, must be imputed to 
God. Thus the Divine Being not only loses the attribute 
of absolute holiness, but even falls below the level of 
those men in whom moral goodness triumphs over evil.

Man

No such claim, however, can be made in behalf of the 
moral order by a consistent pantheist. For him, human 
personality is a mere illusion: what we call the 
individual man is only one of the countless fragments 
that make up the Divine Being; and since the All is 
impersonal no single part of it can validly claim 
personality. Futhermore, since each human action is 
inevitably determined, the consciousness of freedom is 
simply another illusion, due, as Spinoza says, to our 
ignorance of the causes that compel us to act. Hence 
our ideas of what "ought to be" are purely subjective, 
and our concept of a moral order, with its distinctions 
of right and wrong, has no foundation in reality. The 
so-called "dictates of conscience" are doubtless 
interesting phenomena of mind which the psychologist 
may investigate and explain, but they have no binding 
force whatever; they are just as illusory as the ideas 
of virtue and duty, of injustice to the fellow-man and 
of sin against God. But again, since these dictates, 
like all our ideas, are produced in us by God, it 
follows that He is the source of our illusions 
regarding morality-a consequence which certainly does 
not enhance His holiness or His knowledge.

It is not, however, clear that the term illusion is 
justified; for this supposes a distinction between 
truth and error-a distinction which has no meaning for 
the genuine pantheist; all our judgments being the 
utterance of the One that thinks in us, it is 
impossible to discriminate the true from the false. He 
who rejects pantheism is no further from the truth than 
he who defends it; each but expresses a thought of the 
Absolute whose large tolerance harbours all 
contradictions. Logically, too, it would follow that no 
heed should be taken as to veracity of statement, since 
all statements are equally warranted. The pantheist who 
is careful to speak in accordance with his thought 
simply refrains from putting his philosophy into 
practice. But it is none the less significant that 
Spinoza's chief work was his "Ethics", and that, 
according to one modern view, ethics has only to 
describe what men do, not to prescribe what they ought 
to do.

Religion

In forming its conception of God, pantheism eliminates 
every characteristic that religion presupposes. An 
impersonal being, whatever attributes it may have, 
cannot be an object of worship. An infinite substance 
or a self-evolving energy may excite fear but it repels 
faith and love. Even the beneficent forms of its 
manifestation call forth no gratitude, since these 
result from it by a rigorous necessity. For the same 
reason, prayer of any sort is useless, atonement is 
vain and merit impossible. The supernatural of course 
disappears entirely when God and the world are 
identified.

Recent advocates of pantheism have sought to obviate 
these difficulties and to show that, apart from 
particular dogmas, the religious life and spirit are 
safeguarded in their theory. But in this attempt they 
divest religion of its essentials, reducing it to mere 
feeling. Not action, they allege, but humility and 
trustfulness constitute religion. This, however is an 
arbitrary procedure; by the same method it could be 
shown that religion is nothing more than existing or 
breathing. The pantheist quite overlooks the fact that 
religion means obedience to Divine law; and of this 
obedience there can be no question in a system which 
denies the freedom of man's will. According to 
pantheism there is just as little "rational service" in 
the so-called religious life as there is in the 
behaviour of any physical agent. And if men still 
distinguish between actions that are religious and 
those that are not, the distinction is but another 
illusion.

Immortality

Belief in a future life is not only an incentive to 
effort and a source of encouragement; for the Christian 
at least it implies a sanction of Divine law, a 
prospect of retribution. But this sanction is of no 
meaning or efficacy unless the soul survive as an 
individual. If, as pantheism teaches, immortality is 
absorption into the being of God, it can matter little 
what sort of life one leads here. There is no ground 
for discriminating between the lot of the righteous and 
that of the wicked, when all ,alike are merged in the 
Absolute. And if by some further process of evolution 
such a discrimination should come to pass, it can 
signify nothing, either as reward or as punishment, 
once personal consciousness has ceased. That perfect 
union with God which pantheism seems to promise, is no 
powerful inspiration to right living when one considers 
how far from holy must be a God who continually takes 
up into Himself the worst of humanity along with the 
best--if indeed one may continue to think in terms that 
involve a distinction between evil and good.

It is therefore quite plain that in endeavouring to 
unify all things, pantheism sacrifices too much. If 
God, freedom, morality and religion must all be reduced 
to the One and its inevitable processes, there arises 
the question whether the craving for unity may not be 
the source of illusions more fatal than any of those 
which pantheism claims to dispel. But in fact no such 
unification is attained. The pantheist uses his power 
of abstraction to set aside all differences, and then 
declares that the differences are not really there. Yet 
even for him they seem to be there, and so from the 
very outset he is dealing with appearance and reality; 
and these two he never fuses into one. He simply 
hurries on to assert that the reality is Divine and 
that all the apparent things are manifestations of the 
infinite, but he does not explain why each 
manifestation should be finite or why the various 
manifestations should be interpreted in so many 
different and conflicting ways by human minds, each of 
which is a part of one and the same God. He makes the 
Absolute pass onward from unconsciousness to 
consciousness but does not show why there should be 
these two stages in evolution, or why evolution, which 
certainly means becoming "other", should take place at 
all.

It might be noted, too, that pantheism fails to unify 
subject and object, and that in spite of its efforts 
the world of existence remains distinct from the world 
of thought. But such objections have little weight with 
the thorough-going pantheist who follows Hegel, and is 
willing for the sake of "unity" to declare that Being 
and Nothing are identical.

There is nevertheless a fundamental unity which 
Christian philosophy has always recognized, and which 
has God for its centre. Not as the universal being, nor 
as the formal constituent principle of things, but as 
their efficient cause operating in and through each, 
and as the final cause for which things exist, God in a 
very true sense is the source of all thought and 
reality (see St. Thomas, "Contra Gentes", I). His 
omnipresence and action, far from eliminating secondary 
causes, preserve each in the natural order of its 
efficiency-physical agents under the determination of 
physical law and human personality in the exercise of 
intelligence and freedom. the foundation of the moral 
order. The straining after unity in the pantheistic 
sense is without warrant, the only intelligible unity 
is that which God himself has established, a unity of 
purpose which is manifest alike in the processes of the 
material universe and in the free volition of man, and 
which moves on to its fulfilment in the union of the 
created spirit with the infinite Person, the author of 
the moral order and the object of religious worship.

EDWARD A. PACE 
Transcribed by Tomas Hancil