Why
the Panentheistic view of God is deficient
A month ago I entered into
a discussion with a pronounced panentheist and for the first time I
found myself thinking about the best method for explaining why the
Christian view of God is more grand and complete, while being
sensitive but honest in describing panentheism as a deficient view.
First, let me take a
moment to give panentheism a simple definition. It is the view that
everything that exists is God. God is viewed as that which transcends
the cosmos but also contains the cosmos as a part of himself.
Therefore, there is a part of God that is not the cosmos and
therefore transcends it, but also there is a part of God that is the
cosmos. For this panentheist it seemed vital for him/her that God was
immanent, but was under the impression that the only way for God to
be immanent is if and only if the cosmos was God. The Christian view
obviously rejects this perspective.
Second, according to
revelation the second person of the Trinity became man and in this
Hypostatic Union both the human and divine nature were united in one
person, God the Son. The two natures of Christ were maintained full
and complete without any mingling, change, or diminishing of either
nature. Christ was fully God and fully man, maintaining both natures
in their integrity. Christ could rightly be said to have represented
both parties, reconciling the world to God. Christ as God,
represented God and so reached out to us in his loving kindness.
Christ as human, representing humanity reached out to God and took
hold of that for which he had taken hold of us. Christ reveals to us
the true nature of the cosmos in relation to God. We are distinct and
separate. We are so close to one another that our nature can exist
along side his nature in a single person. We are so close that the
Word, which holds all of existence in being with his power, is ever
near to all of his and in the most intimate manner. For if God were
to withdraw his power and presence then the whole of the cosmos would
slip back into the nothingness from which it came. However, it was
not necessary for me to appeal to revelation in order to express why
I am not a panentheist.
I had to express in no
uncertain terms that God is ultimate reality, in that nothing can
surpass him, and that it is he that created, sustains, governs,
controls, and otherwise holds together that which he created. By no
means should God ever be seen as just one thing among others in
existence, rather he is the very ground upon which our cosmos exists
at all. This is why Scripture speaks of us as being created in him,
by him, and through him. As the ultimate cause of all creation God is
not just the first of many like causes in the chain of causation. He
is the uncaused cause of all causation itself.
God is a pure spirit that
is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and eternal. Such a God as
this, so grand and realized, is a necessary being who is pure
actuality, where there is no change, alteration, or modification. For
such a change within the divine nature would imply either a change
for the better or a change for the worse, the possibility to exist or
to not exist. A God that can change is contingent, meaning that he
can be this or that, or even to be or not to be. Such a God can not
bring anything that does not exist into existence, nor would he have
existence within him, but rather would have to rely upon a necessary
being outside of himself for his existence. Since a necessary being
is required to bring something from nothing, to bring something into
being from nothingness, we can likewise reject the notion of an
infinite regress of contingent causes.
If the panentheist says
that God was once all spirit but then changed to also form the cosmos
from himself, then this is to posit a change within God, and change
of any kind here denotes contingency, a God who is not fully
realized. If the panentheist says that God has always been both
spirit and comprising the cosmos, which implies that the cosmos is
also eternal, then we are identifying God with matter, which is
contingent. In order for God to be a necessary being there can be no
contingency within God himself.
Identifying God with
creation in an ontological manner actually diminishes our view of
God. God is more grand, more profound, perfect, holy, good, just, and
loving precisely because he is Wholly Other. Since God contains all
perfections within himself, any change within him would only be a
diminishing of one of these perfections. While we see such
characteristics within the cosmos in an analogous manner, we
certainly do not contribute the limitations we observe to God. A view
of God that predicates limited, contingent, potential, temporal, or
material characteristics to him detracts from the grandest view of
God possible, the Christian and biblical view of God. A God that
contains any of these attributes would mean that he is not necessary,
that he does not have existence within himself, that he looks to
something outside of himself to explain his own existence, and
therefore would cease to be the ultimate reality that the panentheist
claims for him. Reason was more than sufficient to explain why the
panentheistic view of God is deficient, and these are the reasons why
I am not a panentheist.
