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Affirming God as Panentheistic and Embodied

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Abstract

In an anthology on panentheism, Keith Ward assesses the appropriateness of the metaphor of embodiment for God, as well as the viability of the concept of panentheism itself, as he considers the theologies of Ramanuja, Hegel, and process thought. Ward frames polar problems with respect to the analogy of self-body/God-world and to the concept of panentheism. (1) Ramanuja and Hegel’s theologies ultimately deny the freedom and compromise the independence and otherness of the creatures. (2) Process theology compromises divine sovereignty and perfection, making God too passible to the world’s evils. This article attempts to transcend such one-sided approaches as it develops a balanced concept of panentheism and a metaphor of divine embodiment that provide for mutual influence between God and the world, wherein both the suffering and happiness of the world affect God, while maintaining sole divine causal ultimacy with respect to the world.

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Notes

  1. Keith Ward, ‘The World as the Body of God: A Panentheistic Metaphor,’ in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being, ed. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans), pp. 62–72. Ward notes that Hegel does not regard the universe as the body of God, precisely because finite selves do not wholly control their bodies (p. 65).

  2. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ pp. 66–67.

  3. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ pp. 63–64.

  4. Niels Henrik Gregersen, ‘Three Varieties of Panentheism,’ in In Whom We Live, p. 22.

  5. Gregersen, ‘Three Varieties,’ pp. 27–31.

  6. Gregersen, ‘Three Varieties,’ pp. 31–34.

  7. Gregersen, ‘Three Varieties,’ p. 33.

  8. David H. Nikkel, Panentheism in Hartshorne and Tillich: A Creative Synthesis (New York: Peter Lang, 1995); “Panentheism,” Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science and Religion (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2003).]

  9. Mariusz Tabaczek, ‘Hegel and Whitehead: In Search for Sources of Contemporary Versions of Panentheism in the Science-Theology Dialogue,’ Theology and Science 11/2 (2013), pp. 143–161.

  10. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ pp. 65.

  11. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ pp. 63–64.

  12. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ pp. 66–67.

  13. Ramanuja, in Sacred Books of the East, trans. George Thibaut, ed. F. Max Muller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904), p. 557; in Philosophers Speak of God, Charles Hartshorne and William L. Reese (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 184–185.

  14. For example, a Western interpreter, Philip Clayton, ‘Panentheisms East and West,’ Sophia 49/2 (2010), pp. 188–190; and an Eastern interpreter, Abha Singh, ‘Social Philosophy of Ramanuja: Its Modern Relevance,’ Indian Philosophical Quarterly 28/4 (October 2001), pp. 495–496).

  15. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 65.

  16. John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), p. 95.

  17. Gustav Theodor Fechner, Zend-Avesta: Oder ueber die Dinge des Himmels und des Jenseits, Vom Standpunkt der Naturbeschreibung, 5th ed., (Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1922).

  18. Charles Hartshorne, ‘The New Pantheism I and II,’ Christian Register 115 (February 1936).

  19. E.g., Hartshorne, Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Vergilius Ferm (New York: Philosophical Library, 1945), s.v. ‘panentheism,’ s.v. ‘transcendence.’

  20. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 65.

  21. Gregersen, ‘Three Varieties,’ p. 30.

  22. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 65.

  23. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 65.

  24. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 64.

  25. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 65.

  26. Gregersen, ‘Three Varieties,’ p. 30; G. F. W. Hegel, Enzyklopadie der philosophishen Wissenschagten (1830), no. 564, translation from Peter C. Hodgson, ed. Hegel: Theologian of the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 144.

  27. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 64.

  28. Joseph Prabhu, ‘Hegel’s Secular Theology,’ Sophia 49/2 (2010), p. 226.

  29. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 67.

  30. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 66.

  31. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 68.

  32. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 68.

  33. Robert C. Neville, Creativity and God, new ed. (Albany: State University of New York, Press, 1995), p. 9.

  34. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan, 1925), pp. 178–79: Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Macmillan, 1929)—Corrected ed. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: Macmillan, 1978), p. 522.

  35. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 69.

  36. Fechner already articulated a strong sense of divine sympathy: ‘Is not the best God for us who bears within himself our good fortune and misfortune? . . . What would he be if he looked upon our misery merely from the outside, as we look upon the misery of a beggar in rags to whom we throw a penny? . . . God does not view your pain merely from the outside, but he feels it along with yourself . . . .’ Zend Avesta, p. 249, as quoted with ellipses in Charles Hartshorne and William L. Reese, Philosophers Speak of God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. vi.

  37. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 70.

  38. Tabaczek, ‘Whitehead and Hegel,’ p. 158.

  39. Relative to Christian theology and relatively speaking, Ward and Gregersen put more emphasis on a doctrine of salvation, while I place more emphasis on a doctrine of creation.

  40. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ pp. 71–72.

  41. Gregersen, ‘Three Varieties,’ pp. 24–27.

  42. Christopher C. Knight, ‘Theistic Naturalism and the Word Made Flesh,’ in In Whom We Live, pp. 59–60.

  43. Ward, ‘World as Body of God,’ p. 71.

  44. For example, Hartshorne, Man’s Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (New York: Harper & Row, 1941; reprint edition, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), pp. 176–185.

  45. Arthur Peacocke, ‘Articulating God’s Presence,’ in In Whom We Live, p. 151.

  46. Peacocke, ‘Articulating God’s Presence,’ pp. 150–151.

  47. Peacocke, ‘Articulating God’s Presence,’ pp. 151–152.

  48. Peacocke, ‘Articulating God’s Presence,’ p. 150.

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  1. Department of Philosophy and Religion, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, P.O. Box 1510, Pembroke, NC, 28372-1510, USA

    David H. Nikkel

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Nikkel, D.H. Affirming God as Panentheistic and Embodied. SOPHIA 55, 291–302 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-015-0480-2

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