Panentheism (/pæˈnɛnθiɪzəm/, "all in God" from the Greek πᾶν, pân, "all," ἐν, en, "in," and Θεός, Theós, "God") [2] is the belief that the divine intersects every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and time.
The term was coined by the German philosopher Karl Krause in 1828 (after reviewing Hindu scriptures) to distinguish the ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) about the relation of God and the universe from the supposed pantheism of Baruch Spinoza [2].
Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical [3], panentheism maintains an ontological distinction between the divine and the non-divine and the significance of both.
In panentheism, the universal spirit is present everywhere, which at the same time "transcends" all things created. Whilst pantheism asserts that "all is God," panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe.
Some versions of panentheism suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifestation of God. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God [3], like in the Jewish Kabbalistic concept of tzimtzum.
Much of Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism [4, 5].
In philosophy
ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY
The religious beliefs of Neoplatonism can be regarded as panentheistic. Plotinus taught that there was an ineffable transcendent God ("the One," to En, τὸ Ἕν) of which subsequent realities were emanations.
From "the One" emanates the Divine Mind (Nous, Νοῦς) and the Cosmic Soul (Psyche, Ψυχή). In Neoplatonism the world itself is God (according to Plato's Timaeus 37).
This concept of divinity is associated with that of the Logos (Λόγος), which had originated centuries earlier with Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BC). The Logos pervades the cosmos, whereby all thoughts and all things originate, or as Heraclitus said:
"He who hears not me but the Logos will say: All is one."
Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus attempted to reconcile this perspective by adding another hypostasis above the original monad of force or Dynamis (Δύναμις).
This new all-pervasive monad encompassed all creation and its original uncreated emanations.
Modern philosophy
Baruch Spinoza later claimed that "Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived" [6],
"Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner" [7]. Though Spinoza has been called the "prophet" [8] and "prince" [9] of pantheism, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg Spinoza states that:
"as to the view of certain people that I identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken" [10].
For Spinoza, our universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension. God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in our world.
BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY
Reverend Zen Master Soyen Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist abbot to tour the United States in 1905–1906. He wrote a series of essays collected into the book Zen For Americans.
In the essay titled "The God Conception of Buddhism" he attempts to explain how a Buddhist looks at the ultimate without an anthropomorphic [androcentric] God figure while still being able to relate to the term God in a Buddhist sense:
"At the outset, let me state that Buddhism is not 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 usually 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 [Mahayana] 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 (all and one) and more than the totality of existence [17, 18]."
The essay then goes on to explain first utilizing the term "God" for the American audience to get an initial understanding of what he means by "panentheism" and then discusses the terms that Buddhism uses in place of 'God' such as
Dharmakaya [the body of the Dharma], Buddha or Adi-Buddha, and Tathagata [Well Gone One, Welcome One, Suchness].
More- Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
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