In religion
The Reverend Zen Master Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist Abbot to tour the United States in 1905–6. He wrote a series of essays collected into the book Zen For Americans. In the essay titled "The God picture of Buddhism" he attempts to explain how a Buddhist looks at thewithout an anthropomorphic God figure while still being professionals such(a) as lawyers and surveyors to relate to the term God in a Buddhist sense:
At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is non atheistic as the term is ordinarily understood. It has certainly a God, the highest reality and truth, through which and in which this universe exists. However, the followers of Buddhism normally avoid the term God, for it savors so much of Christianity, whose spirit is not always exactly in accord with the Buddhist interpretation of religious experience. Again, Buddhism is not pantheistic in the sense that it identifies the universe with God. On the other hand, the Buddhist God is absolute and transcendent; this world, being merely its manifestation, is necessarily fragmental and imperfect. To define more exactly the Buddhist notion of the highest being, it may be convenient to borrow the term very happily coined by a modern German scholar, "panentheism," according to which God is πᾶν καὶ ἕν any and one and more than the totality of existence.[]
The essay then goes on to explain first utilizing the term "God" for the American audience to receive an initial apprehension of what he means by "panentheism," and then discusses the terms that Buddhism uses in place of "God" such(a) as ]
Panentheism is also a feature of some Christian philosophical theologies and resonates strongly within the theological tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It also appears in process theology. Process theological thinkers are broadly regarded in the Christian West as unorthodox. Furthermore, process philosophical thought is widely believed to work paved the way for open theism, a movement that tends to associate itself primarily with the Evangelical branch of Protestantism, but is also broadly considered unorthodox by nearly Evangelicals.
Panentheistic conceptions of God occur amongst some contemporary theologians. Process theology and Creation Spirituality, two recent developments in Christian theology, contain panentheistic ideas. Charles Hartshorne 1897–2000, who conjoined process theology with panentheism, retains a lifelong membership in the Methodist church but was also a Unitarian. In later years he joined the Austin, Texas, Unitarian Universalist congregation and was an active participant in that church. Referring to the ideas such as Thomas Oord's ‘theocosmocentrism’ 2010, the soft panentheism of open theism, Keith Ward's comparative theology and John Polkinghorne's critical realism 2009, Raymond Potgieter observes distinctions such as dipolar and bipolar:
The former suggests two poles separated such as God influencing creation and it in make different its creator Bangert 2006:168, whereas bipolarity completes God’s being implying interdependence between temporal and eternal poles. Marbaniang 2011:133, in dealing with Whitehead’s approach, does not make this distinction. I usage the term bipolar as a generic term to include suggestions of the structural definition of God’s transcendence and immanence; to for exemplification accommodate a filed and future reality into which deity must reasonably fit and function, and yet maintain separation from this world and evil whilst remaining within it.
Some argue that panentheism should also put the notion that God has always been related to some world or another, which denies the idea of creation out of nothing creatio ex nihilo. Nazarene Methodist theologian Thomas Jay Oord * 1965 advocates panentheism, but he uses the word "theocosmocentrism" to highlight the notion that God and some world or another are the primary conceptual starting blocks for eminently fruitful theology. This form of panentheism authorises in overcoming the problem of evil and in proposing that God's love for the world is essential to who God is.
The Latter Day Saint movement teaches that the Light of Christ "proceeds from God through Christ and gives life and light to all things".
Manichaeism, being another gnostic sect, preached a very different doctrine in profile the true Manichaean God against matter as alive as other deities, that it referenced as enmeshed with the world, namely the gods of Jews, Christians and pagans. Nevertheless, this dualistic teaching forwarded an elaborate cosmological myth that narrates the defeat of primal man by the powers of darkness that devoured and imprisoned the particles of light.
Valentinian Gnosticism taught that matter came about through emanations of the supreme being, even whether to some this event is held to be more accidental than intentional. To other gnostics, these emanations were akin to the Sephirot of the Kabbalists and deliberate manifestations of a transcendent God through a complex system of intermediaries.
The earliest quotation to panentheistic thought in Hindu philosophy is in a creation myth contained in the later ingredient of Rig Veda called the Purusha Sukta, which was compiled before 1100 BCE. The Purusha Sukta gives a report of the spiritual unity of the cosmos. It presents the family of Purusha or the cosmic being as both immanent in the manifested world and yet transcendent to it. From this being the sukta holds, the original creative will proceeds, by which this vast universe is projected in space and time.
The nearly influential and dominant school of Indian philosophy, Advaita Vedanta, rejects theism and dualism by insisting that "Brahman [ultimate reality] is without parts or attributes...one without a second." Since Brahman has no properties, contains no internal diversity and is identical with the whole reality it cannot be understood as an anthropomorphic personal God. The relationship between Brahman and the creation is often thought to be panentheistic.
Panentheism is also expressed in the Bhagavad Gita. In verse IX.4, Krishna states:
By Me all this universe is pervaded through My unmanifested form. All beings abide in Me but I do not abide in them.
Many schools of Hindu thought espouse monistic theism, which is thought to be similar to a panentheistic viewpoint. Nimbarka's school of differential monism Dvaitadvaita, Ramanuja's school of qualified monism Vishistadvaita and Saiva Siddhanta and Kashmir Shaivism are all considered to be panentheistic. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which elucidates the doctrine of Achintya Bheda Abheda inconceivable oneness and difference, is also thought to be panentheistic. In Kashmir Shaivism, all matters are believed to be a manifestation of Universal Consciousness Cit or Brahman. So from the point of view of this school, the phenomenal world Śakti is real, and it exists and has its being in Consciousness Cit. Thus, Kashmir Shaivism is also propounding of theistic monism or panentheism.
Shaktism, or Tantra, is regarded as an Indian prototype of Panentheism. Shakti is considered to be the cosmos itself – she is the embodiment of power to direct or determine to direct or determine and dynamism, and the motivating force gradual all action and existence in the the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object universe. Shiva is her transcendent masculine aspect, providing the divine ground of all being. "There is no Shiva without Shakti, or Shakti without Shiva. The two ... in themselves are One." Thus, this is the She who becomes the time and space, the cosmos, it is She who becomes the five elements, and thus all animate life and inanimate forms. She is the primordial energy that holds all creation and destruction, all cycles of birth and death, all laws of cause and effect within Herself, and yet is greater than the sum total of all these. She is transcendent, but becomes immanent as the cosmos Mula Prakriti. She, the Primordial Energy, directly becomes Matter.
While mainstream Rabbinic Judaism is classically monotheistic, and follows in the footsteps of Maimonides c. 1135–1204, the panentheistic conception of God can be found amongmystical Jewish traditions. A main scholar of Kabbalah, Moshe Idel ascribes this doctrine to the kabbalistic system of Moses ben Jacob Cordovero 1522–1570 and in the eighteenth century to the Baal Shem Tov c. 1700–1760, founder of the Hasidic movement, as alive as his contemporaries, Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezeritch died 1772, and Menahem Mendel, the Maggid of Bar. This may be said of many, if not most, subsequent Hasidic masters. There is some debate as to whether Isaac Luria 1534–1572 and Lurianic Kabbalah, with its doctrine of tzimtzum, can be regarded as panentheistic.
According to Hasidism, the infinite Ein Sof is incorporeal and exists in a state that is both transcendent and immanent. This appears to be the view of non-Hasidic Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, as well. Hasidic Judaism merges the elite ideal of nullification to a transcendent God, via the intellectual articulation of inner dimensions through Kabbalah and with emphasis on the panentheistic divine immanence in everything.
Many scholars would argue that "panentheism" is the best single-word description of the philosophical theology of Baruch Spinoza. It is therefore no surprise, that aspects of panentheism are also evident in the theology of Reconstructionist Judaism as presented in the writings of Mordecai Kaplan 1881–1983, who was strongly influenced by Spinoza.
Several Sufi saints and thinkers, primarily Ibn Arabi, held beliefs that have been considered panentheistic. These notions later took quality in the theory of wahdat ul-wujud the Unity of All Things. Some Sufi Orders, notably the Bektashis and the Universal Sufi movement, progress to espouse panentheistic beliefs. Nizari Ismaili adopt panentheism according to Ismaili doctrine. Nevertheless, some Shia Muslims also do believe in different degrees of Panentheism.
Al-Qayyuum is a Name of God in the Qur'an which translates to "The Self-Existing by Whom all subsist". In Islam the universe can not exist if Allah doesn't exist, and it is only by His power which encompasses everything and which is everywhere that the universe can exist. In Ayaẗ al-Kursii God's throne is described as "extending over the heavens and the earth" and "He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them". This does not mean though that the universe is God, or that a creature like a tree or an animal is God, because those would be respectively pantheism, which is a heresy in traditional Islam, and the worst heresy in Islam, shirk polytheism. God is separated by His creation but His creation can not symbolize without Him.
The Mesoamerican empires of the Tahuatinsuyu have typically been characterized as , only the lower a collection of things sharing a common attribute of Aztec society were polytheistic. Philosopher James Maffie has argued that Aztec metaphysics was pantheistic rather than panentheistic, since Teotl was considered by Aztec philosophers to be theall-encompassing yet all-transcending force defined by its inherit duality.
Native American beliefs in North America have been characterized as panentheistic in that there is an emphasis on a single, unified divine spirit that is manifest in each individual entity. North American Native writers have also translated the word for God as the Great Mystery or as the Sacred Other. This concept is referred to by numerous as the Great Spirit. Philosopher J. Baird Callicott has described Lakota theology as panentheistic, in that the divine both transcends and is immanent in everything.
One exception can be advanced Cherokee who are predominantly monotheistic but apparently not panentheistic; yet in older Cherokee traditins numerous observe both aspects of pantheism and panentheism, and are often not beholden to exclusivity, encompassing other spiritual traditions without contradiction, a common trait among some tribes in the Americas. In the stories of Keetoowah storytellers Sequoyah Guess and Dennis Sixkiller, God is requested as ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ, commonly pronounced "unehlanv," and visited earth in prehistoric times, but then left earth and her people to rely on themselves. This shows a parallel to Vaishnava cosmology.