Criticism of pandeism

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Criticism of pandeism has been carried out in various ways by proponents of other theological models, particularly of atheism and theism. Proponents of pandeism have themselves published collections containing criticism from various viewpoints, including those written from Christian, Jewish, Islamic, New Thought, and Atheist perspectives, as part of efforts to increase awareness and debate regarding Pandeism. [1] At times, ideological foes have accused political and religious figures of secretly being pandeists, as a means of casting aspersions on those accused.

Contents

Theology

Enlightenment Era opposition

One of the earliest uses of Pandeism, describing it as "absurd for us, and injurious to the Supreme Being." Ferrarese earlier use of pandeism.JPG
One of the earliest uses of Pandeism, describing it as "absurd for us, and injurious to the Supreme Being."

In 1834, publisher Giovanni Silvestri posthumously published a volume of sermons of Italian Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano; 1759–1829), who named pandeism as being among beliefs he condemned, railing against "Jews, Muslims, Gentiles, Schismatics, Heretics, Pandeists, Deists, and troubled, restless spirits." [2] Nannetti further specifically criticized pandeism, declaring, "To you, fatal Pandeist! the laws that create nature are contingent and mutable, not another being in substance with forces driven by motions and developments." [3] In 1838, another Italian, phrenologist Luigi Ferrarese in Memorie Riguardanti la Dottrina Frenologica ("Thoughts Regarding the Doctrine of Phrenology") critically described Victor Cousin's philosophy as a doctrine which "locates reason outside the human person, declaring man a fragment of God, introducing a sort of spiritual pandeism, absurd for us, and injurious to the Supreme Being." [4]

In 1897 Reverend Henry Grattan Guinness wrote critically that in India, "God is everything, and everything is God, and, therefore, everything may be adored. ... Her pan-deism is a pandemonium." [5]

Post-enlightenment opposition

Later opposition to Pandeism has come both from theistic and atheistic or nontheistic directions.

Theistic criticism

Judaism author Roger Price has faulted Pandeism's lack of community, claiming "Pandeism seems to exist in a social vacuum," with "no religious literature, no prayers, no rites, no rituals, no codes of conduct, no holidays, and no requirements or even opportunities for adherents to come together in common purpose broader than discussing theological niceties." [6] A review of the key modern text, Pandeism: An Anthology, in the magazine Paradigm Explorer observes that "apart from one reference, love is conspicuous by its absence, and experience of the divine as love is the basis of mystical theism." [7]

Christian apologist John Oakes has described pandeism as an "ad hoc and a weak marriage" of pantheism and deism. [8]

In 1996, Pastor Bob Burridge [9] [10] of the Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies [11] wrote in his Survey Studies in Reformed Theology an essay on "The Decrees of God," [12] also identifying the notion of God becoming the universe as incompatible with Christianity:

All the actions of created intelligences are not merely the actions of God. He has created a universe of beings which are said to act freely and responsibly as the proximate causes of their own moral actions. When individuals do evil things it is not God the Creator and Preserver acting. If God was the proximate cause of every act it would make all events to be "God in motion". That is nothing less than pantheism, or more exactly, pandeism. [13] [12]

Burridge disagrees that such is the case, decrying that "The Creator is distinct from his creation. The reality of secondary causes is what separates Christian theism from pandeism." [12] Burridge concludes by challenging his reader to determine why "calling God the author of sin demand[s] a pandeistic understanding of the universe effectively removing the reality of sin and moral law." [12] [13]

A 2018 newspaper piece by Pastor Adriene Greene framed pandeism as being a product of "confused minds," and that "Pandeism congealed in the 18th century then naturally ran into a brick wall of unanswered questions," and is modernly in vogue due to political correctness. [14] The same newspaper then published a response from an advocare of pandeism. [15] In 2022 minister Brent Price described pandeism as "a very contemporary deceptive religious concept that targets uninformed and unsaved people," explaining his view that "this false religious view is why many have come to believe that God, the Creator of the universe, no longer exists, because He became the universe and is now the universe." [16]

In Islam, a criticism is raised, wherein it is argued that "from the juristic standpoint, obliterating the distinctions between God and the universe necessarily entails that in effect there can be no Sharia, since the deontic nature of the Law presupposes the existence of someone who commands (amir) and others who are the recipients of the command (ma'mur), namely God and his subjects." [17]

Nontheistic criticism

Some theologians have specifically criticised the pandeistic notion of a Creator wholly becoming the universe. An example is William Walker Atkinson, in his 1911 Mastery of Being: [18]

It will be seen that this fact of the Immutability of REALITY, when clearly conceived, must serve to confute and refute the erroneous theories of certain schools of Pantheism which hold that "God becomes the Universe by changing into the Universe." Thus it is sought to identify Nature with God, whereby, as Schopenhauer said, "you show God to the door." If God changes Himself into The Phenomenal Universe, then God is non-existent and we need not concern ourselves any more about Him, for he has committed suicide by Change. [18]

Atkinson's passage to this effect has been identified as a criticism of Pandeism. [19] He claims that if God were evolving or improving, being an infinite being, it would have to be traceable back to some point of having "an infinitely undeveloped state and condition." [18] But, this claim was made prior to the rise of scientific knowledge pinpointing the beginning of the universe in time, and connecting time with space, so that time would not exist as we know it prior to the universe existing.

In Pandeism: An Anthology, atheist Dan Dana criticizes Pandeism as simply unnecessary, despite acknowledging that it has fewer drawbacks than other theological models. [20]

As an accusation

On several occasions, theological and ideological opponents of prominent persons or movements have accused them of being Pandeists, as with the example above of Ferrarese describing the philosophy of Victor Cousin, in negative terms, as a form of Pandeism. [4] Calvinist theologian Rousas John Rushdoony sharply criticized the Catholic Church in his 1971 The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy, writing, "The position of Pope Paul came close to being a pan-Deism, and pan-Deism is the logical development of the virus of Hellenic thought," and further that "a sincere idealist, implicitly pan-Deist in faith, deeply concerned with the problems of the world and of time, can be a Ghibelline pope, and Dante's Ghibellines have at last triumphed." [21] Adventist theologian Bert B. Beach wrote in 1974 that "during the Vatican Council there was criticism from WCC Circles" to the effect that "ecumenism was being contaminated by "pan-Deist" and syncretistic tendencies." [22] The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger notes that Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope, was in particular "critical of… [Bruno's] pandeism". [23]

Barack Obama and Pope Francis are two people who have been accused by ideological foes of secretly being Pandeists. President Barack Obama with Pope Francis at the Vatican, March 27, 2014.jpg
Barack Obama and Pope Francis are two people who have been accused by ideological foes of secretly being Pandeists.

During the 2008 United States presidential election, psychologist Alan J. Lipman wrote a fictitious parody account of a "Dr. Negative" grouping pandeism together with concepts such as drug use, adultery, Cubism, and miscegenation as things candidate John McCain could accuse political opponent Barack Obama of. [24] The following year, conservative blogger Mark Finkelstein in fact labeled Obama, along with Al Gore, and New York Times columnist Gail Collins as Pandeists, in a piece titled "Happy Pan-Deism Day From Gail Collins". [25] Collins having noted the coincidence of Easter and Passover falling in the same week, wrote that "Americans with less religious inclinations can look forward to the upcoming Earth Day celebrations, when the president is planning to do something as yet unannounced, but undoubtedly special, and Arbor Day, when rumor has it that he will not just plant a tree, but personally reforest a large swath of the nation of Mali". Finkelstein retorted that:

Environmentalism has essentially become a religion, and Earth Day effectively a religious holiday. Yesterday's pan-deists, who worshiped trees and brooks, have become members of various environmental groups doing much the same thing. People like Al Gore others, and perhaps the reforesting Obama, have become their latter day shamans. [25]

Pope Francis, as well, has been called by opponents of his papacy, "a pandeist who does not believe in the transcendent God and Creator of Catholicism, but in the immanent 'divine principle' of Paganism, the life giving world soul (anima mundi) within the Universe", described as a creed "remarkably like a synthesis of the belief systems of Lord Shaftsbury (sic), Friedrich Schleiermacher, Benedict Spinoza, Auguste Compte, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin." [26] [27]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pandeism</span> Belief that God created the universe by becoming it

Pandeism is a theological doctrine that combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. Unlike classical deism, which holds that the creator deity does not interfere with the universe after its creation, pandeism holds that such an entity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate entity. Pandeism purports to explain why God would create a universe and then appear to abandon it, and pandeism seeks to explain the origin and purpose of the universe.

The belief that God became the Universe is a theological doctrine that has been developed several times historically, and holds that the creator of the universe actually became the universe. Historically, for versions of this theory where God has ceased to exist or to act as a separate and conscious entity, some have used the term pandeism, which combines aspects of pantheism and deism, to refer to such a theology. A similar concept is panentheism, which has the creator become the universe only in part, but remain in some other part transcendent to it, as well. Hindu texts like the Mandukya Upanishad speak of the undivided one which became the universe.

Pandeism, a theological doctrine which combines aspects of pantheism into deism, and holds that the creator deity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity, has been noted by various authors to encompass many religious beliefs found in Asia, with examples primarily being drawn from India and China.

A number of Christian writers have examined the concept of pandeism, and these have generally found it to be inconsistent with core principles of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, condemned the Periphyseon of John Scotus Eriugena, later identified by physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein as presenting a pandeistic theology, as appearing to obscure the separation of God and creation. The Church similarly condemned elements of the thought of Giordano Bruno which Weinstein and others determined to be pandeistic.

Catholicism and Deism are two theologies that have opposed each other in matters of the role of God in the world. Deism is the philosophical belief which posits that although God exists as the uncaused First Cause, responsible for the creation of the universe, God does not interact directly with that subsequently created world. As deism is not organized, its adherents differ widely in important matters of belief, but all are in agreement in denying the significance of revelation in Christian Scripture and Tradition. Deists argue against Catholicism by either, only considering Scripture to be a helpful moral tool, or denying: its divine character, the infallibility of the Church and Traditions, and the validity of its evidence as a complete manifestation of the will of God. Deism is first considered to have manifested itself in England towards the latter end of the seventeenth century.

References

  1. ↑ "Pandeism Anthology Project" . Retrieved February 7, 2019.
  2. ↑ Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in Sermons and Panegyrics of the Father Filippo Nani of Lojana , Giovanni Silvestri, publisher, 1834, p. 284, Sermon XVIII: Miracles: "Ma questa religione predestinta col taumaturgo segnale si trova ella nel mondo i' Dove? in qual gente? in qual lido? Nelle sinagoghe giudaiche, o nelle meschìte dell l'Asia? Nelle pagoda cinesi, o nella società di Ginevra? Giudei, Maomettani, Gentili, Scismatici, Eretici, Pandeisti, Deisti, geni torbidi, e inquieti." ("But this religion predestined by the thaumaturgist signal, where in the world is she? in which people? on which shores? In Jewish synagogues, or mosques of Asia? Pagoda in Chinese, or in society in Geneva? Jews, Muslims, Gentiles, Schismatics, Heretics, Pandeists, Deists, and troubled, restless spirits.")
  3. ↑ Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in Sermons and Panegyrics of the Father Filippo Nani of Lojana , Giovanni Silvestri, publisher, 1834, p. 286, Sermon XVIII: Miracles: "A te, fatal Pandeista! le leggi della creata natura son contingenti e mutabili; non altro essendo in sostanza che moti e sviluppi di forze motrici." ("To you, fatal Pandeist! the laws that create nature are contingent and mutable, not another being in substance with forces driven by motions and developments.")
  4. 1 2 Luigi Ferrarese (1838). Memorie risguardanti la dottrina frenologica. p. 15. Dottrina, che pel suo idealismo poco circospetto, non solo la fede, ma la stessa ragione offende (il sistema di Kant): farebbe mestieri far aperto gli errori pericolosi, così alla Religione, come alla Morale, di quel psicologo franzese, il quale ha sedotte le menti (Cousin), con far osservare come la di lui filosofia intraprendente ed audace sforza le barriere della sacra Teologia, ponendo innanzi ad ogn'altra autorità la propria: profana i misteri, dichiarandoli in parte vacui di senso, ed in parte riducendoli a volgari allusioni, ed a prette metafore; costringe, come faceva osservare un dotto Critico, la rivelazione a cambiare il suo posto con quello del pensiero istintivo e dell' affermazione senza riflessione e colloca la ragione fuori della persona dell'uomo dichiarandolo un frammento di Dio, una spezie di pandeismo spirituale introducendo, assurdo per noi, ed al Supremo Ente ingiurioso, il quale reca onda grave alla libertà del medesimo, ec, ec.
  5. ↑ Henry Grattan Guinness, "First Impressions of India", in John Harvey Kellogg, and the International Health and Temperance Association's, The Medical Missionary (1897), pages 125-127.
  6. ↑ Roger Price, "Is Pandeism Kosher for Jews," Pandeism: An Anthology of the Creative Mind, John Hunt Publishing, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Philosophy-Spirituality," Paradigm Explorer (2017/2), page 66.
  8. ↑ "What is your response to pandeism? – Evidence for Christianity".
  9. ↑ Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies.
  10. ↑ Homepage of Bob Burridge Archived 2004-10-11 at the Wayback Machine .
  11. ↑ Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Bob Burridge, "Theology Proper: Lesson 4 – The Decrees of God", Survey Studies in Reformed Theology, Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies (1996).
  13. 1 2 Knujon Mapson, "A Brief History of Pandeism," Pandeism: An Anthology (2017), p. 31.
  14. ↑ Adrienne Greene (October 30, 2018). "Ask… Pastor: The universe is not God; God made the universe" (PDF). Register Publications. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-12-29.
  15. ↑ Knujon Mapson (December 29, 2022). "Pandeism… author answers misconceptions". Register Publications. Archived from the original on 2022-12-29.
  16. ↑ Brent Price, D.Min., Be Prepared Evangelism: The Personal Evangelism Game Changer, 2022, page 137.
  17. ↑ Aḥmad ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥalīm Ibn Taymīyah, Wael B. Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya against the Greek logicians, 1993, xxvi.
  18. 1 2 3 William Walker Atkinson, Mastery of Being, 1911, pages 56 to 59.
  19. ↑ Atkinson, William Walker (January 27, 2017). "Axioms of Reality -- Concluded". In Mapson, Knujon. Pandeism: An Anthology. John Hunt Publishing. pp. 438–444. ISBN   978-1785354120
  20. ↑ Dan Dana, Pandeism: An Anthology (2016).
  21. ↑ Rousas John Rushdoony, The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy (1971 [2007]), Ch. VIII-7, p. 142-143.
  22. ↑ Bert Beverly Beach, Ecumenism: Boon Or Bane? (1974), p. 259 (quoting George H. Williams, Dimensions of Roman Catholic Ecumenism (1965), p. 31-32).
  23. ↑ Daniel Cardó, Uwe Michael Lang, Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger (2023), p. 266.
  24. ↑ Dr. Alan J. Lipman, The Impulsively Unreflective Duo In..."McCain Goes Negative!", Dr. Alan J. Lipman's Head of State: Political and Media Psychology, Saturday, October 04, 2008.
  25. 1 2 "Happy Pan-Deism Day From Gail Collins" (April 11, 2009).
  26. ↑ Kramer, Father Paul (6 September 2016). "Jorge Bergoglio's Religion — Freemasonry (Naturalism, Rationalism, Pandeism". Archived from the original on 2018-06-12.
  27. ↑ Halik, Libor (12 March 2017). "Why this Catholic priest Paul Kramer does not think Pope Francis is the true pope". gloria.tv.
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