Christianity and Panentheism (YouTube Video)
My sister sent me a link to a video that I thought was helpful in some ways on this topic. Probably the most important thing here is that panentheism, process theology, and open theism are separate theological positions. Often two of these (panentheism + process & panentheism + open theism [less commonly]) may be held together, but they are not essential to one another. In the video, you’ll hear a discussion of panentheism that does not embrace process or open theism. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he refers to them as heresies. I prefer to keep the word “heresy” for a particular discussion of church canon law. I admit it can be a valid term in discussing orthodox Christianity, but it is also pejorative by nature, and even when quite correctly applied, is a discussion stopper rather than encourager.
With those caveats, the video:
One of the things I like, though I’m not sure I embrace, is the distinction between essence and energy. God is in the universe via his energy, but not his essence. Note, however, that one of the key elements of process theology, if combined with panentheism, is that God is impacted by what goes on in the world. This is one reason an orthodox theologian would call it heresy. A God who is impacted by things outside his control is hardly omnipotent.
I missed this when you first put it up.
Now, I’m wholly unconcerned with avoiding being labelled “heretical”. I’m also not concerned with disagreeing with the Church Fathers, partially because I don’t find the essence-energy-hypostasis distinctions helpful in the slightest. In point of fact, “essence” is from my philosophical point of view a meaningless concept, or at the very least a hopelessly ill-formed one. All the early theologians are working with Neoplatonism or Aristoteleanism, and I consider both their philosophical systems hopelessly flawed, so anything which works from them as a basis is also going to be flawed.
He’s right to consider some form of monism particularly conducive for someone with a reasonably up-to-date view of physics, but I’d like to stress that an unitive (perhaps monist) vision is also characteristic of mystics in general, including the Christian ones.
I’m not sure the “weak panentheism” (which I wouldn’t actually call panentheism at all) actually does justice to at least NT scripture, and probably at least some Hebrew scripture as well (I see it as just a slightly adjusted dualism). I’m more or less forced by an at root mystical viewpoint into considering that God is *radically* immanent, and by that I mean immanent at every level of existence not excluding the point at which it becomes a picture of 11 dimensional vibrations in – well – nothing, and I’m equally forced to a view which is radically unitive – so dualism in any form is out.
The result is that when he quotes Acts 17:28, Col 1:17 and John 14:20 I’m led to ask “what part of ‘in’ doesn’t he understand?” I’d also argue that the quote from Luther argues a strong, unitive panentheism rather than the dualist imitation. I’m not used to agreeing with Luther, either…
Well, I’ve been called a heretic before and presumably will be again. I thought the “energy-essence” distinction was useful in considering how to understand what was said in some of the early church fathers. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure if I could see the value in differentiating “weak” and “strong” panentheism. I’m more interested in the practical matters, as I see them, the difference between a God who stands totally outside and is unimpacted by what happens in the universe and the one who is totally and unequivocally involved. In this latter sense, the incarnation was no change; it was just God demonstrating who and what God (always) is.