Abstract
In the West panentheism is known as the view that the world is contained within the divine, though God is also more than the world. I trace the history of this school of philosophy in both Eastern and Western traditions. Although the term is not widely known, the position in fact draws together a broad range of important positions in 20th and 21st century metaphysics, theology, and philosophy of religion. I conclude with some reflections on the practical importance of this position.
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Notes
For a beautiful recent presentation of a panentheistic view of ultimate reality, see Arthur Peacocke’s posthumous book, All That Is: A Naturalistic Faith for the 21st Century, ed. Philip Clayton (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007).
See Clayton, P. & Peacocke, A. (2004). In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World (p. 253). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
See Brierly, M. Naming a Quiet Revolution: The Panentheistic Turn in Modern Theology. In Clayton & Peacocke, Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being (pp. 1–5).
Alexander, S. (1920). Space, Time, and Deity, the Gifford Lectures for 1916–18 (volume 2, p. 357). London: Macmillan.
The interpretation of Rāmānuja as a panentheist is widely shared among Hindu scholars. For example, Jeaneane Fowler notes, ‘The ultimate transcendency of God never permits him to be merely the pantheistic whole that unites the parts: while causative, he panentheistically transcends all’ (Fowler (2002). Perspectives of Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Hinduism (p. 318). Portland: Sussex).
This is not to say that panentheism doesn’t play an important role in other Schools as well. David Lawrence rightly notes, ‘I observe in favor of the Pratyabhijña that a number of thinkers in the contemporary period have argued that the traditional Western understanding of God places too much emphasis on God’s transcendence of the world. It has been argued that this emphasis denies various modern valuations of this world—including the scientific and historical, the ethical or socially progressive, and the sexual’ (Lawrence, D. (1998). Siva’s Self-Recognition and the Problem of Interpretation, Philosophy East & West (vol. 48, pp.197–231, middle)). Lawrence adds, for example, that ‘One of the ideas most emphasized by Abhinavagupta and much of Hindu tantrism is that God/Siva-Sakti is both transcendent (visvottirna) and immanent (visvamaya). Therefore I think that these systems may be placed within the class of panentheism. I also believe that a panentheistic approach to the problems of tradition and modernity has inspired many contemporary retrievals of Hindu tantrism, by both Indian scholars such as Gopinath Kaviraj and Western scholars such as Sir John Woodroffe. I also recommend the Pratyabhijña as a valuable intellectual and spiritual resource for the development of contemporary panentheism’ (Lawrence, ‘Siva’s Self-Recognition,’ last sentence).
In fact, Lawrence argues elsewhere that ‘The most strongly panentheistic doctrines may be found in varieties of Hindu tantrism. According to Kashmiri Saiva tantrism, Siva divides himself from his power and consort Sakti, and in sexual union emanates the universe through Her. The Saivas repeatedly state that God is therefore both transcendent (visvottirna) and immanent (visvamaya). Tantric spiritual practice endeavors to transfigure worldly experience to find the infinite God within it. Such practice includes sexual rituals in which the practitioners reintegrate the cosmogonic union and bliss of Siva and Sakti, philosophical contemplation, and heightened forms of aesthetic appreciations’ (Lawrence, D. P. (2001). The Dialectic of Transcendence and Immanence in Contemporary Western and Indian Theories of God. In Liu Shu-hsien et al. (Eds.) Transcendence and Immanence: Comparative and Muti Dimensional Perspectives (pp. 347–63, quote 351f). Hongkong: New Asia College.). Lawrence also rightly includes Sri Aurobindo as a panentheist: ‘For Aurobindo the world is the emanation of the divine, and evolution a process of return, the goal of which is the mystical realization of the ‘Supermind.’ This experience, which reveals the world as contained within the divine, at first empowers individuals to work for the progress of humanity. Finally, the Supermind will become the guiding consciousness of a world Utopian society’ (ibid., p. 358).
I find it more difficult to apply panentheistic categories to most Buddhist thought, and increasingly so as the history of Buddhism moved further from the classical Indian philosophical traditions. But others make this application without reservation. Thus Francis Cook, for example, writes, ‘like Brahman of Hindu Vedanta, the Buddhist ultimate is transcendent in one sense while being immanent at the same time. It is immanent because it is nothing other than what we see before us; nor does it transcend the world either spatially or temporally. However, it is transcendent qualitatively as that numinous nature of things which is the object of religious practice and the content of enlightenment. That numinous quality is not just things as things but the way in which these things be and become. Therefore, to see the Buddha is to see the true nature of all dharma’ (Cook, F. H. (1989). Just This: Buddhist Ultimate Reality. In Buddhist-Christian Studies (vol. 9, pp.127–42, quote 139)).
Ping-Cheung Lo (‘Neo-Confucian Religiousness vis-à-vis Neo-orthodox Protestantism,’ Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 32/3 [September 2005]) interprets Neo-Confucian thought in panentheistic terms; see 374, and notes 9 and 16 on p. 384.
John Carman summarizes the five defining attributes of the essential nature of Brahman for Rāmānuja: (1) satya (true being) describes Brahman as ‘possessing unconditioned being, thus distinguishing Him from nonintelligent matter, which is subject to change’ (102): (2) jnana (knowledge or consciousness) describes ‘the state of permanently uncontracted knowledge, thus distinguishing [Him] from released souls, whose knowledge was at one time contracted’ (ibid.); (3) anantatva (infinite, free from all limits of time and space); (4) ananda (full of bliss); and (5) amalatva (purity or, literally, stainless); see Carman, J.B. (1974). The Theology of Rāmānuja: An Essay in Interreligious Understanding (chapter 7). New Haven and London: Yale.
Rāmānuja writes, ‘In short, He is the core, whether manifest or not, of all beings in whatever condition they exist. The totality of beings, mobile or immobile, cannot exist apart from God, who is the atman within themselves’ (quoted in Fowler, 318).
Bartley, C. J. (2002). The Theology of Rāmānuja: Realism and Religion (p. 70). London: RoutledgeCurzon. Subsequent page references in the text are to this work.
‘Brahman, because it is embodied by the conscious and non-conscious entities that are its modes, is always referred to by every denotative expression (naming term)’ (Bartley, 83 n. 31).
I have made this argument in In Quest of Freedom: The Emergence of Spirit in the Natural World (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008).
Rāmānuja writes, ‘The Supreme Self has provided all conscious beings in common with all the assistance needed ... either to perform or to abstain from actions. In order to accomplish this, he who is their ontic ground enters them, exercises control in that he guides and permits them to act and exists in them as the principle to whom they are ancillary. The conscious entity, whose powers are dependent upon the Supreme Self, performs or abstains from actions of his own accord’ (quoted in Bartley, 92).
I gratefully acknowledge the research support of Andrea Stephenson, until recently a doctoral candidate at Claremont Graduate University, which played an important role in preparing this paper. Conversations with Professors Purushottama Bilimoria and Joseph Prabhu have played a significant role in my understanding of panentheism and the Indian philosophical traditions, and I happily express my debt of gratitude to them.
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Clayton, P. Panentheisms East and West. SOPHIA 49, 183–191 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0181-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0181-9