Michael Levine - Panentheism: Is the World in God?

The search for God leads to strange ideas. Panentheism claims that the world is in God but God is more than the world. The idea is to take from pantheism a natural order and a sacred world, and from theism a transcendent Being and higher purpose. Can this new kind of God make sense? Some are exhilarated. Some are exasperated.



Michael P. Levine is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia.


Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[LoVeLoVe-birq]

For anyone interested in Panentheism I can highly recommend a video here on YouTube entitled "The Unity of Being (Wahdat al-Wujud)" about a Sufi cosmological concept which is somewhat inspired by the ideas of Neoplatonism. In it the Universe is described as a reflection of God. I can highly recommend it to everyone who finds these ideas interesting.

[newdawnrising]

Panentheism is the product of direct experience. It’s not taler made. All it says is that the Creator and the created world are two separate things. But that the created world mirrors or represents aspects of the divine.
In the Orthodox Church we say that God is everywhere and fills all things. But He is not a chair. Get it straight guys. This idea is classically Christian. It also says there is a transcendent aspect of God as reported by saints ie the book of Isaiah.

[soubhikmukherjee]

Pantheism and panentheism are both pretty cool concepts-and I feel very close to what science has to offer. Though they're not without some certain flaws.

[johnbuckner]

Panentheism is a conclusion reached after realizing that only one everything has ever existed, & will ever exist. It is the alpha & omega, it is Omni & without boundaries. There is no 'outside of it' to give it form; and if consciousness is fundamental rather than emergent, it's definitely aware.

Even if it is emergent, the chances that consciousness doesn't at least periodically emerge from the interconnected non-local complexity of the 1 everything is probably pretty slim or non-existent, though it would definitely be much different than our own; and greater than the sum of its parts.

Imo, much of it depends on the actual nature of time... but stepping outside to observe it is just paradox.

[bluelotus]

The world is in God and simultaneously out of God. You may compare the world to a painting, which sprouts from the inner creative energy of the painter but it's not the painter.

[JD-HatCreekCattleCo]

In His Priestly prayer Christ prayed, “As you are in me and I am in you, may they be in us.”

[klauscampagnoli]

What if one of your viewers feels he has come up with a great solution for this? Would you interview him/her?

[MrJohn]

All is sustained by the will of God therefor we all reside within the mind of God and reality is nothing more than a figment of Gods imagination!

[RH-vlhx]

I think you should also explore the pilosophy of Advaita Vedanta which is the Hindu philosophy of non duality ... talk to swami sarvapriyananda or rupert spira

[Greenleaves-pfxn]

Bhagavat Gita points to panentheism very directly and clearly.

[claudiozanella]

This world is less than nothing in the point of view of God: see how large the universe is. I have the same point of view: this world is just a tiny detail, it has nothing to do with God.

[Savantjazzcollective]

This guy I positing false truths and is clearly showing his bias. Pan an theism is centuries old monotheism, what does he mean that's its tailor made for science?

[TheUltimateSeeds]

The purest and most *"natural"* way of viewing the concept of Panentheism is to think of the universe as not only being God's personal mind, but also is God's literal *"womb"* in which our own minds are momentarily enveloped (like fetuses within the living viscera of a parent entity). In other words, just as our mother's womb, and indeed our very bodies, were created out of the living fabric of our mother's very being, yet there was a higher dimension to her being that presented itself in a context of reality that is above and outside of her womb, likewise, the same applies to God.

Indeed, how much more natural can the truth of reality be than in the idea that God is literally *"pregnant"* with us, and that our physical body is nothing more than the metaphorical equivalent of "placental-like" tissue that will be discarded upon death?

*"...Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again..."* (Jesus)

[TheUltimateSeeds]

We carry around (right within our own skulls) a representation of Panentheism. The eye of our mind, or our central consciousness (our "I am-ness"), exists above and outside of the fabric of our thoughts and dreams, yet it subsumes and controls that fabric in precisely the same way that God's "I am-ness" subsumes and controls the fabric of the universe.

[experiencemystique]

God is all that exist? Yeah, we are organisms inside God, but, ancients knews a technical way to connect and expand the being until the person ( shaman guru Buddha spiritual people, Jeshua ) feels be one with. Unity concept...and that's when consciousness concept come in, by the interaction between the individual and the electromagnetic field, all that's needed

[docjaramillo]

I doubt the transcendent. But I am certain the realities of the universe yet to be understood may remain so. We have limited sensory perceptions and our technology is not that advanced, yet. Miracles are superstitious baloney. Miracles are legends and myths.

[projectmalus]

God would prefer to be gone but is stuck on this flypaper universe with its crazy oscillations. Only by exhausting all possibilities - and splitting into many fragments to do that, how clever - will freedom be achieved. Whew!

[jeremyduguay]

Im going to spit some truth. Nobody is getting closer to truth this way!! Miracles don’t exist but it would take a miracle for people to snap out of it. And that’s Not going to happen because they are NOT real.

[jollygreen]

The Creator is separate from the creation.

[farhadfaisal]

Apparently, Pantheism is like giving another name, with a capital G, to what is called nature. 
And, Panentheism is like ".. eating the cake and to have it ..", while "Theism has never recovered from Darwin and never will". So, the question is what rational theology is left with, if any?