Pantheism
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
11:40 AM
Greek: Pan=Eveything  + Theos=God
A belief that God is in everything and that everything is God.
Word coined by John Toland in 1705 for philosophical systems that tend to identify God with the world. 
Some view "pantheism as a mediating position between atheism and classical theism, while others have concluded that pantheism is really a polite form of atheism because God is identified with everything."  Panentheism is a combination of theism and pantheism.
Pantheism often denies the personal character of a personal God.
Some of its forms deny reality and material nature. 

God is the creator of everything is a tenant of the faith, but that does not mean God IS everything.
God is omni-present, but his presence does not make him a tree, but present with a tree.
 
Ephesians 4:6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
This verse speaks to omni-presence, yet not to God being everything.

Scriptures that argue against pantheism
1 John 2:15-16 (NIV) 
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
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The world is not God the Father.
Romans 1:25 (NIV)
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
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Worshipping the created thing is not worshipping the creator.
Luke 16:13 (NIV)
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
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There is a delineation between these two masters. They are not BOTH GOD. You can only serve one.
Types of pantheism:
Hylozoistic pantheism
The divine is immanent in, and characteristically regarded as the basic element of, the world, giving movement and change to the whole. The universe, however, remains a plurality of separate elements. This view was popular among some early Greek philosophers.
Immanentistic pantheism
God is part of the world and immanent in it, although his power is exercised throughout its entirety.
Absolutistic monistic pantheism
God is both absolute and identical with the world. Thus the world is also changeless though real.
Relativistic monistic pantheism
The world is real and changing. It is, however, within God as, for example, his body. God is nevertheless changeless and unaffected by the world.
Acosmic pantheism
God is absolute and makes up the totality of reality. The world is an appearance and ultimately unreal.
Identity of opposites pantheism
Discourse about God must necessarily resort to opposites. That is, God and his relationship to the world must be described in formally contradictory terms. Reality is not capable of rational description. One must go beyond reason to an intuitive grasp of the ultimate.
Neoplatonic or emanationistic pantheism
God is absolute in all aspects, removed from and transcendent over the world. This differs from biblical theism in denying that God is the world's cause, holding rather that the universe is an emanation of God. The world is the result of intermediaries. These intermediaries are, for a Neoplatonist like Plotinus, ideals or forms. He also sought to maintain the emphasis on immanence by positing a world soul that contains and animates the universe.
"From a biblical standpoint pantheism is deficient to a greater or lesser degree on two points. First, pantheism generally denies God's transcendence, advocating radical divine immanence. The Bible presents a balance. God is active in history and creation, but he is not identical with either. Second, because of the tendency to identify God with the material world, there is again a lesser or greater denial of God's personal character. In Scripture, God not only possesses the attributes of personality; in the incarnation he takes on a body and becomes the God-man. God is pictured supremely as a person."
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