“The attribute of being present everywhere, motivated by biblical claims such as Psalm 139:7-9. God’s omnipresence is not defined physically or spatially. Since God is not a spatial or material being, God cannot be physically present at every point in space. Rather, God exercises God’s powers and goodness in all places at every moment. God is spacelessly present everywhere.
“By contrast, pantheism maintains an identification between God and everything else, so it may be said that everything is God and God is everything. Panentheism is the view that God is the soul of the universe. God’s soul enlivens the whole universe as the human soul enlivens the body. The overwhelming majority of the Christian traditions reject both of these views.”
— Kelly James Clark, Richard Lints, James K. A. Smith, 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance for Theology, 62.
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it could also mean that god is everything like from a pantheistic perspective. that the universe, although unconscious as a whole, is interrelated and behaves as a single. thats how I see it at least.
Grayson
http://www.pantheistsite.com
By: pantheistsite on June 10, 2010
at 3:52 am
Hi Grayson,
Thanks for your comment. I think there is some sense in which everything in the universe is interrelated, but I don’t find pantheism to be a convincing way to understand the universe. For one thing, the universe had a beginning, as we know from Big Bang cosmology and philosophical arguments like the kalam, and such a beginning requires a Creator who is separate from His creation.
Also, most versions of pantheism also see the universe as monistic, so that there are ultimately no dualisms, such as good and evil, or truth and error. But these properties are so central to our human experience, that it would be irrational to deny them.
So, I think theism provides a much better explanation of the universe we observe and our experience of the world as human beings.
All the best,
Chris
By: fleance7 on June 13, 2010
at 7:59 pm
Hi Grayson and Chris,
Dear Grayson, being present everywhere does not mean being everything.
Critical Thinking on Pantheism and the argument of Existence of God:
If all is God and God is all what made what? If God is universe, the the universe(plus everything) is God then where did it come from?
Theist creation is God creates from nothing(ex nihilo)
Pantheist creation is God bring forth the world from Himself (ex Deo) Of cause they are same pantheist who does thinks the world does not really exist at all, it all illusion(maya) namely most Hindus and Mary Baker Eddy.
But Pantheism can not stand reasoning and logic in its doctrines. Example “Reason can tell us nothing about God” these Pantheistic calm does not hold because it is self-defeating. Namely we already reason that reason can tell us nothing about God, it least we know something about God already, that we can not know God through reasoning to which we are doing right at the moment when we utter those words.
Pantheism on light of Arguments for God
From Cosmological Arguments we can deduce that the being is immaterial, space-less, timeless, to which the universe is not!
Grayson, my advice to you is that, keep question and never accept any worldviews conclusion without going through the arguments in depth.
Yours (P)rayson
By: Prayson Daniel on June 14, 2010
at 12:50 pm
Hi Prayson,
Thanks for those comments. You make some good points, especially about accounting for the creation of the universe. It seems to me that theism makes the most sense of what we know about the origin of the universe with the Big Bang. And, on pantheism, it seems there isn’t an ultimate difference between good and evil, since reality is monistic.
Take care,
Chris
By: Chris Reese on June 17, 2010
at 9:22 pm