User:Torquemama007/Draft:Pandeism in Europe

Pandeism (or pan-deism) is a theological doctrine which combines aspects of pantheism into deism. It holds that the creator deity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity. Pandeism is proposed to explain, as it relates to deism, why God would create a universe and then abandon it, and as to pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe.

The word pandeism is a hybrid blend of the root words pantheism and deism, combining πᾶν with deus which means "god". It was perhaps first coined in the present meaning in 1859 by Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal.

A pantheistic form of deism
The earliest use of the actual term, pandeism, appears to have come as early as 1787, with another use related in 1838, a first appearance in a dictionary in 1849 (in German, as 'Pandeismus' and 'Pandeistisch'), and an 1859 usage of "pandeism" possibly in contrast to both pantheism and deism by Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal. Physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein in his 1910 work Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature"), 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." But it has been noted that some pantheists have identified themselves as pandeists as well, to underscore that "they share with the deists the idea that God is not a personal God who desires to be worshipped".

Noting that Victorian scholar George Levine has suggested that secularism can bring the “fullness” which "religion has always promised," other authors have since observed:

"For others, this “fullness” is present in more religious-oriented pantheistic or pandeistic belief systems with, in the latter case, the inclusion of God as the ever unfolding expression of a complex universe with an identifiable beginning but no teleological direction necessarily present."

This is classed within a general tendency of postmodernity to be "a stunning amalgamation" of the views of William James and Max Weber, representing "the movement away from self-denial toward a denial of the supernatural," which "promises to fundamentally alter future geographies of mind and being by shifting the locus of causality from an exalted Godhead to the domain of Nature."

The ancient world
The earliest seeds of pandeism coincide with notions of monotheism, which generally can be traced back to the Atenism of Akhenaten, and the Babylonian-era Marduk. Weinstein in particular identified the idea of primary matter derived from an original spirit as found by the ancient Egyptians to be a form of pandeism. Weinstein similarly found varieties of pandeism among various Greek and Roman philosophers.

Specifically, Weinstein wrote that 6th century BC philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon spoke as a pandeist in stating that there was one god which "abideth ever in the selfsame place, moving not at all" and yet "sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over." He similarly found that ideas of pandeism were reflected in the ideas of Heraclitus, and of the Stoics. Weinstein also wrote that pandeism was especially expressed by the later students of the 'Platonic Pythagoreans' and the 'Pythagorean Platonists.' and among them specifically identified 3rd century BC philosopher Chrysippus, who affirmed that "the universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul," as a pandeist as well. Religious studies professor, F. E. Peters, however, found with respect to the Milesians that "[w]hat appeared... at the center of the Pythagorean tradition in philosophy, is another view of psyche that seems to owe little or nothing to the pan-vitalism or pan-deism that is the legacy of the Milesians. Gottfried Große in his 1787 interpretation of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, describes Pliny, a first-century figure, as "if not a Spinozist, then perhaps a Pandeist."

From medieval times to the Enlightenment
Weinstein examines the philosophy of 9th century theologian Johannes Scotus Eriugena, who proposed that "God has created the world out of his own being," and identifies this as a form of pandeism, noting in particular that Eriugena's vision of God was one which does not know what it is, and learns this through the process of existing as its creation. In his great work, De divisione naturae (also called Periphyseon, probably completed around 867 AD), Eriugena proposed that the nature of the universe is divisible into four distinct classes:


 * 1 – that which creates and is not created;
 * 2 – that which is created and creates;
 * 3 – that which is created and does not create;
 * 4 – that which neither is created nor creates.

The first stage is God as the ground or origin of all things; the second is the world of Platonic ideals or forms; the third is the wholly physical manifestation of our Universe, which "does not create"; the last is God as the final end or goal of all things, that into which the world of created things ultimately returns to completeness with the additional knowledge of having experienced this world. A contemporary statement of this idea is that: "Since God is not a being, he is therefore not intelligible... This means not only that we cannot understand him, but also that he cannot understand himself. Creation is a kind of divine effort by God to understand himself, to see himself in a mirror."

Weinstein also found that thirteenth century Catholic thinker Bonaventure—who championed the Platonic doctrine that ideas do not exist in rerum natura, but as ideals exemplified by the Divine Being, according to which actual things were formed—showed strong pandeistic inclinations. Of Nicholas of Cusa, who wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and the unfolding of the divine human mind in creation, Weinstein wrote that he was, to a certain extent, a pandeist. And, as to Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, who had written A Cabbalistical Dialogue (Latin version first, 1677, in English 1682) placing matter and spirit on a continuum, and describing matter as a "coalition" of monads, Weinstein also found this to be a kind of pandeism. Weinstein found that pandeism was strongly expressed in the teachings of Giordano Bruno, who envisioned a deity which had no particular relation to one part of the infinite universe more than any other, and was immanent, as present on Earth as in the Heavens, subsuming in itself the multiplicity of existence. This was reiterated by others including Discover editor Corey S. Powell, who wrote that Bruno's cosmology was "a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology."

Literary critic, Hayden Carruth, said of 18th century figure Alexander Pope that it was "Pope's rationalism and pandeism with which he wrote the greatest mock-epic in English literature" In 1834, publisher Giovanni Silvestri published a volume of sermons of Italian padre Filippo Nani of Lojano, who 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." And 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." The 1859 German work, Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft by philosophers and frequent collaborators Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal, stated, "Man stelle es also den Denkern frei, ob sie Theisten, Pan-theisten, Atheisten, Deisten (und warum nicht auch Pandeisten?)... ("Man leaves it to the philosophers, whether they are Theists, Pan-theists, Atheists, Deists (and why not also Pandeists?)..."

The Belgian poet Robert Vivier wrote of the pandeism to be found in the works of Nineteenth Century novelist and poet Victor Hugo. Similarly in the Nineteenth Century, poet Alfred Tennyson revealed that his "religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism". Friedrich Engels has also been described by at least one historian as having pandeistic views.

Post-Enlightenment Western philosophy
In The Pilgrimage from Deism to Agnosticism, Moncure Daniel Conway stated that the term, "Pandeism" is "an unscholarly combination." A similar critique of Pandeism as an 'unsightly' combination of Greek and Latin was made in a review of Weinstein's discussion of Pandeism.Otto Kirn, reviewer, Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and 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. Prägt 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 Eriugena 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.)". The reviewer further criticises Weinstein's broad assertions that Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Mendelssohn, and Lessing all were Pandeists or leaned towards Pandeism. Towards the beginning of World War I, an article in the Yale Sheffield Monthly published by the Yale University Sheffield Scientific School commented on speculation that the war "means the death of Christianity and an era of Pandeism or perhaps even the destruction of all which we call modern civilization and culture." The following year, 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.

Pandeism was noted by literary critic Martin Lüdke as a philosophy expressed by early Twentieth-Century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, especially as to those writings made under the pseudonym of Alberto Caeiro.

Charles Anselm Bolton states in a 1963 article, Beyond the Ecumenical: Pan-deism? that he "first came upon this extension of ecumenism into pan-deism among some Roman Catholic scholars interested primarily in the 'reunion of the churches,' Roman, Orthodox, Anglican," and wondered, "what is the ultimate aim of the Curia in promoting the pan-deist movement."

Twenty-first century developments
More recently, pandeism has been classed as a logical derivation of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's proposition that ours was the best of all possible worlds.

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, social scientist Niall Douglas wrote that in pandeism, "God is growth, God is structure/knowledge, God is everything and nothing simultaneously. And, rather heretically for the Abrahamic religions, to perceive i.e. to cognate i.e. to be of matter i.e. to be structured energy generating a gravimetric field is an aspect of God relating to another aspect of God through light, which is of course God. In this, the underlying metaphysics are most definitely Pandeist." A 2011 study of Germany's Hesse region by 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"."