User:Hyperbolick/sandbox/Pandeism in Europe

Pandeism (or pan-deism), 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 a history particularly associated with the work of certain philosophers in Germany.

Origins in Germany
The earliest use of the term pandeism appears to have been by German author Gottfried Große in 1787, The first appearance in a dictionary was in 1849 (again in German, as 'Pandeismus' and 'Pandeistisch'), One of the earliest unequivocal uses of the word "pandeism" expressly in contrast to both pantheism and deism was by German philosophers and frequent collaborators Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal.

In his 1910 work Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature"), Berlin-based physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein presented the broadest and most far-reaching examination of pandeism written up to that point. Weinstein noted the distinction between pantheism and pandeism, stating "even if only by a letter (d in place of th), we fundamentally differ Pandeism from Pantheism" - indicating that the words, though spelled similarly, have very different implications.

Progression
Lutheran theologian Otto Kirn criticized as overbroad Weinstein's assertions that such historical philosophers as John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Mendelssohn, and Lessing all were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism.Review of Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") in Emil Schürer, Adolf von Harnack, editors, Theologische Literaturzeitung ("Theological Literature Journal"), Volume 35, column 827 (1910): "Dem Verfasser hat anscheinend die Einteilung: religiöse, rationale und naturwissenschaftlich fundierte Weltanschauungen vorgeschwebt; er hat sie dann aber seinem Material gegenüber schwer durchführbar gefunden und durch die mitgeteilte ersetzt, die das Prinzip der Einteilung nur noch dunkel durchschimmern läßt. Damit hängt wohl auch das vom Verfasser gebildete unschöne griechisch-lateinische Mischwort des ,Pandeismus' zusammen. Nach S. 228 versteht er darunter im Unterschied von dem mehr metaphysisch gearteten Pantheismus einen ,gesteigerten und vereinheitlichten Animismus', also eine populäre Art religiöser Weltdeutung. Prhagt man lieh dies ein, so erstaunt man über die weite Ausdehnung, die dem Begriff in der Folge gegeben wird. Nach S. 284 ist Scotus Erigena ein ganzer, nach S. 300 Anselm von Canterbury ein ,halber Pandeist'; aber auch bei Nikolaus Cusanus und Giordano Bruno, ja selbst bei Mendelssohn und Lessing wird eine Art von Pandeismus gefunden (S. 306. 321. 346.)." Translation: "The author apparently intended to divide up religious, rational and scientifically based philosophies, but found his material overwhelming, resulting in an effort that can shine through the principle of classification only darkly. This probably is also the source of the unsightly Greek-Latin compound word, 'Pandeism.' At page 228, he understands the difference from the more metaphysical kind of pantheism, an enhanced unified animism that is a popular religious worldview. In remembering this borrowing, we were struck by the vast expanse given the term. According to page 284, Scotus Erigena is one entirely, at p. 300 Anselm of Canterbury is 'half Pandeist'; but also Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno, and even in Mendelssohn and Lessing a kind of Pandeism is found (p. 306 321 346.)".

Friedrich Engels has also been described by historian Tristram Hunt as having pandeistic views.

Post-Enlightenment philosophy
German political philosopher Jürgen Hartmann argued that Hindu pandeism contributed to friction with monotheistic Islam.

A critique of Pandeism as an 'unsightly' combination of Greek and Latin, was made in fellow German Otto Kirn's review of Weinstein's discussion of Pandeism. In 1905, a few years before Weinstein's extensive review was published, Ottmar Hegemann described the "New Catholicism" of Franz Mach as a form of pandeism. A 1906 editorial by a Unitarian minister in the Chattanooga Daily Times stated that Jesus, "who in exultant faith said 'I and the Father are one,' was a Pandeist, a believer in the identification of the universe and all things contained therein with Deity." Early 19th-century German philosopher Paul Friedrich Köhler wrote that Pantheism, Pandeism, Monism and Dualism all refer to the same God illuminated in different ways, and that whatever the label, the human soul emanates from this God.

German literary critic Martin Lüdke wrote that early Twentieth-Century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa expressed a pandeistic philosophy, especially in the writings made under the pseudonym of Alberto Caeiro.

Twenty-first-century developments
The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger notes that German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope, was in particular "critical of… [Giordano Bruno's] pandeism".

Author William C. Lane contends that pandeism is a logical derivation of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's proposition that ours is the best of all possible worlds. In 2010, Lane wrote: "If divine becoming were complete, God's kenosis--God's self-emptying for the sake of love--would be total. In this pandeistic view, nothing of God would remain separate and apart from what God would become. Any separate divine existence would be inconsistent with God's unreserved participation in the lives and fortunes of the actualized phenomena.'"

In 2010 German astrophysicist and popular scientist Harald Lesch observed in a debate on the role of faith in science: "Suppose we would find the all-encompassing law of nature, we are looking for so that finally we could assure proudly, the world is built up this way and no differently -- immediately it would create a new question: What is behind this law, why is the world set up just so? This leads us beyond the limits of science in the field of religion. As an expert, a physicist should respond: We do not know, we'll never know. Others would say that God authored this law, that created the universe. A Pandeist might say that the all-encompassing law is God.'"

In 2011, in a study of Germany's Hesse region, German sociologist of religion and theologian Michael N. Ebertz and German television presenter and author Meinhard Schmidt-Degenhard concluded that "Six religious orientation types can be distinguished: "Christians" – "non-Christian theists" – "Cosmotheists" – "Deists, Pandeists and Polytheists" – "Atheists" – "Others"."