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[Blue Screen]

> I've spoken with others who have taken a pantheistic tack, and it seems to me to be a self-contradicting belief system, but I'm glad to talk about it.

Given your impression of pantheism, it would be interesting to learn the perspective/worldview of those you have spoken to. Like any worldview, pantheism has many debated concepts. I'll do my best to relate my present understanding with clarity.

> By my understanding, implicit in the pantheistic worldview is the necessity that all is one and one is all, which at root is a denial of the existence of matter and a rejection of individual identity. If all is one and one is all, there is no subject-object differentiation (no me and you, no here or there, no me as a person and stars up in the sky), because everything is one. But if this were true, we are left with a void of non-personality as ultimate reality. If there is no subject-object relationship, no particularity, and only a blank unity, then there is also no diversity or distinction basic to reality, which to me is not only untenable but impossible.

Your description certainly sound like an view of pantheism from the perspective of one who understands the universe as a slurry of disparate objects. If all is one, then how could one object contain diversity? This is not at all the reality of universal continuity as I understand it.

Fortunately, the easiest way to frame pantheism is by observing the physical world. Creation, at its most fundamental level, is energy. The "matter" that we perceive as our physical universe is patterned energy. Every "thing" that exists does so in concert with everything else.

Just standing here typing this, the atmosphere is passing into me and I out into it. I am passing living matter (eggs, coffee, tea, cheese) through my system to create more of myself as billions of my living cells die by the minute. Our perceptively static physical existence is more akin to that of a whirlpool of energy flowing in the larger body of the earth which itself is flowing through the solar system, flowing through the galaxy, flowing through the cluster, flowing through the universe.

Everything that presently exists is composed of the destruction of another. Stars, black holes, your body, air, dust, my phone; everything is in a varied rate of transformation. We are merely clinging to their present state to maintain what we have come to know as a stable reality.

Clinging to our own mental and physical present as though a static image in a whirlpool is who we truly are is an aspect of spiritual death. When Christ calls us to deny this "self" and live for God he is calling us to release our grip on a static existence and flow with God.

But God is unchanging, right? Consider those billions of tiny "yous" that have passed since the top of this post. You are still here, right? Sure, you are in constant flux, but not as quickly as the cells in your body. This pattern continues to slow as we follow layers of existence outward: mountains take many more years to form than humans, our planet took many more years than the mountains, our sun took many more than the earth, the galaxy took more than the sun, and the infinite takes infinitely more years than what is contained within.

In other words, the total system of all that exists does not change. As time is a measure of change, God exists outside of time.

> We've taken away the basis and foundation for creation, knowledge (and therefore science), good, evil, morality, ethics, love, or anything else. All is one.

> The problem with this concept is that it fails to adequately deal with reality and with the existence of what we know to be true: knowledge, love, good, and evil do exist in the real world. If god is the essence of all life-forms in creation, then wars, murder, rape, and cancer are all part of god. It ultimately makes everything meaningless and is a classic self-contradiction.

Prior to the fall of man, all creatures physically died. Everything did. Stars coalesced and burst, continents rose and plunged into the depths, molecular bonds formed and broke. Man's separation from God did not introduce physical death, it created spiritual death. Separation from God. Prior to the fall, man and God were not separate.

Creatures still tricked one another, stole from one another, ate one another. This is how balance is sustained. Your own body is host to wars of bacteria, virus, aging, digestion, etc. not so different from what goes on in the world around our physical bodies. These systems provide balance for the continuance of life and are as much a part of life as the replication of cells.

Our fall occurred when we consumed the knowledge of good and evil. By staging a world in which aspects we perceive as helpful are good and those which are destructive to self are evil we separated from God's good creation. The serpent's deception was far more subtle than we are taught in Sunday school. We began perceiving the balance of existence, the "good and evil" from a singular perspective of what benefits us rather than the complete perspective of all.

This was only possible because we had been formed in the image of God. We evolved a sense of self-actualization that enabled us to consider who we are. Because we chose to consider that we are separate from total existence we became the enemy of existence and spiritually separated from it. In this state of perceived separation we will always miss the mark.

When our cells act in harmony with each other, treating other as self and giving all to the body, there is health. When cells operate in a state of separation they become cancerous and destroy the body. This is not an analogy, a metaphor, or a symbolic tool of any kind. This is love beyond our consciousness operating at every level of existence. Caring for others as self and giving all to God is the only law.

> I'd love to talk about it with you. I just don't get how pantheism is logical or possible.

I hope I have been able to provide a bit more clarity. We each must work out our own salvation.

[jimwalton]

> Given your impression of pantheism, it would be interesting to learn the perspective/worldview of those you have spoken to.

It has been other conversations on reddit, but I've also done some reading about it.

> the easiest way to frame pantheism is by observing the physical world.

I see what you're saying, and in many senses I agree, except that I see consistency of personal identity and presence, along with sharing certain material and energy facets with the rest of nature as different from being a fundamental oneness. Though I may share matter with stardust, I am distinctively "me" and the star is distinctively "it" in identity, and we (the star and me) are distinctly diverse from each other. There is still subject/object differentiation, which contradicts the core of pantheistic ideology.

> Man's separation from God did not introduce physical death, it created spiritual death. Separation from God.

Correct. I agree.

> Prior to the fall, man and God were not separate.

It depends what you mean by this. The text implies they were in spiritual fellowship, not that they were one entity. There is no notion in the text that God and mean share a nature or an essence or were a unified entity.

> Our fall occurred when we consumed the knowledge of good and evil.

Our fall occurred when we abrogated for ourselves the source of wisdom and the center of order, instead of giving God His rightful place and role. It's all about functions and roles. The function of light and dark is to alternate in sequence and give us time. The function of the earth is to bring forth vegetation. The function of the sun, moon, and stars is to mark the days and seasons, the function of humanity is to care for the Earth. The function of God is to order creation by the power of His word and to maintain it by His wisdom. This is what humanity commandeered for themselves in eating the fruit.

> Because we chose to consider that we are separate from total existence we became the enemy of existence and spiritually separated from it.

There is nothing of this notion in the biblical text or in ancient cultural worldview (that I know of). It seems to me you are depositing this on the text.

[Blue Screen]

> I see what you're saying, and in many senses I agree, except that I see consistency of personal identity and presence, along with sharing certain material and energy facets with the rest of nature as different from being a fundamental oneness. Though I may share matter with stardust, I am distinctively "me" and the star is distinctively "it" in identity, and we (the star and me) are distinctly diverse from each other. There is still subject/object differentiation, which contradicts the core of pantheistic ideology.

Individuality and oneness coexist in biblical revelation and nature. We are sons of God, called to love others as they are us, care for the broken knowing we are caring for God and deny self and live for I AM. The atom is not merely itself, it is the molecule. The cell is not only itself, it is the body. The body is not merely itself, it is the family. This pattern of selves that are also other echos out into infinity: we not only "share matter with stardust," our energy comes from our star. We are inextricably linked to the web of the heavens.

> It depends what you mean by this. The text implies they were in spiritual fellowship, not that they were one entity. There is no notion in the text that God and mean share a nature or an essence or were a unified entity

Prior to creation, God is all. The scriptures describe creation as "speaking." We do not create a separate entity when we speak. We ourselves vibrate to form words from our breath. Your voice is you, not some "separate" creature.

> Our fall occurred when we abrogated for ourselves the source of wisdom and the center of order, instead of giving God His rightful place and role. It's all about functions and roles. The function of light and dark is to alternate in sequence and give us time. The function of the earth is to bring forth vegetation. The function of the sun, moon, and stars is to mark the days and seasons, the function of humanity is to care for the Earth. The function of God is to order creation by the power of His word and to maintain it by His wisdom. This is what humanity commandeered for themselves in eating the fruit.

This is perfect! If a cell in your body became self aware and decide what was "good and evil" based on its own limited perspective they would begin operation in separation from the body. This is exactly how sin came into the world. We became our own source of wisdom as though we could understand the total process while perceiving ourselves as entities separate from God. Our own logic and intellect, in separation from the "big picture," from I AM, can only lead us astray.

> There is nothing of this notion in the biblical text or in ancient cultural worldview (that I know of). It seems to me you are depositing this on the text.

This is the whole story of separation from God (spiritual death) and our reconciliation to God. Anything that continues thinking it is separate from God will burn away. This happens continually, as sickness is purged from the body until all is reconciled to God. When all have the faith of Christ, knowing no separation between God, God will be all in all.