pantheism

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The expression pantheism or pantheism (from ancient Greek πᾶν pān “everything” and θεός theós “God”) denotes the conception that “ God ” is one with the cosmos and nature . The divine is seen in the structure and structure of the universe ; it exists in all things and animates all things in the world or is identical with the world. So there is no personal or personified God here . Therefore, a primordial ground defined by spiritual properties is often assumed as the only basic principle ( monism ). The objection often put forward by theology that pantheism (German also "all-gas theory") is identical with atheism is only justified in the sense that in fact no god different from the world is assumed; in no way, however, that no God or divine principle is accepted at all.

Difficult to distinguish from pantheism is the cosmotheism : While the Divine for the pantheist in the diversity of the world unique and singular is expressed, is the world for the Kosmotheisten only a manifestation of the divine being, in addition to there other could give.

To the subject

The term originated during the Enlightenment and goes back to the British philosopher John Toland , who created it in 1709 as an expression of his religious convictions. He postulated , “There is no divine being different from matter and this world structure, and nature itself, i. H. Let the totality of things be the only and highest God. ”In 1720 he wrote his work Pantheisticon , in which he combined ideas from Orphic with those from Hylozoism .

In the second half of the 18th century, “ Spinozism ” and “pantheism” were often used synonymously, because Baruch de Spinoza represented an equation between God and nature (“ Deus sive Natura ”, “God or (also) nature”). In the pantheism controversy that began with Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in 1785 with his thesis that pantheism and atheism were in agreement, famous enlightenment figures such as Moses Mendelssohn , Johann Gottfried Herder and Immanuel Kant were involved as his opponents .

Monotheistic thinkers who believed in a personal God used the ascription pantheist polemically against authors who did not sufficiently emphasize the difference they represented between God and the world or nature. They called all writers and scholars who were influenced by Spinoza disparagingly “pantheists”, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and numerous representatives of Romanticism and Biedermeier . In fact, regardless of the depreciation of the connection to pantheism, the works of the named persons provide clear indications of their real pantheistic worldview.

Jean Guitton (1901–1999) wrote that every atheism is a form of pantheism, since the concept of God is somehow placed in the world. According to Geo Widengren , polytheism evolved from pantheism .

Pantheistic ways of thinking

Already in antiquity , the pre-Socratics developed a natural philosophy that also included the soul and the divine. Even Plato's cosmology of the world soul can be partially interpreted pantheistic. The Neo-Platonist Plotinus emphasized the All-One and was thus a direct predecessor of the pantheists. The Stoics viewed the Logos as a universal principle of reason, the divine, which is also in every human being. In the Middle Ages , following on from Plotinus, there were isolated pantheistic tendencies, e. B. with Nicolaus Cusanus . In the early modern era, Giordano Bruno viewed the divine as part of the eternal cosmos, with divinity manifesting itself in all things.

Pantheistic ideas are also known from the ethnic religions of non-European cultures, such as the Kitchi Manitu , the great power of the Algonquin Indians that pervades the entire cosmos, or Wakan Tanka , a very similar concept of the Sioux Indians in North America. The 9th century Persian mystic Bāyazīd Bistāmī is considered to be the creator of Sufi pantheism .

Pantheism in the present

In the 20th century, Frank Lloyd Wright , Neale Donald Walsch and Arnold Toynbee were among the representatives of pantheism. Even Albert Einstein ( " God plays dice not ") was pantheistic thinking suggests he himself but also is not only a religious affiliation, but explicitly as Spinozist understood. With the growing awareness of environmental problems in the late 20th century, pantheism grew stronger, including as an alternative to Christianity and pure atheism.

Pantheism and the Free Religious Movement

According to the self- representation of the Free Religious Movement, there are also pantheists and pantheistic ideas of God among the free religious.

Criticism of pantheism

In 1709 Jacques de La Faye wrote a polemic against the pantheism of Toland. Even Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz criticized Toland and his "pantheism" because he was talking about the world as God.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) criticized pantheism as a “ euphemy for atheism ”: “An impersonal God is not a god at all, but just an abused word.” Likewise, at the beginning of the 21st century, Richard Dawkins described pantheism as pepped up atheism (“sexed- up Atheism ").

While the traditional concept of God in theism assumes a complete difference between God and the world, pantheism believes that it can identify the world with God. Christian theologians, on the other hand, hold on to the fact that neither the world with God nor God with the world can be identified. If God is founded in the “finite”, the transcendence of God - an essential characteristic according to Christian conviction - is abolished.

For the Catholic Church, the First Vatican Council decided in 1870 that God “must be proclaimed as real and essentially different from the world” (“praedicandus est re et essentia a mundo distinctus”, DS 3001).

In January 2010, the Vatican criticized pantheism for denying human superiority over nature and accused pantheists of seeking salvation in nature and not in God.

Christian philosophers also raise the following points of criticism against pantheism : If all things were "in God", they would have to be necessary - because of the absolute necessity of God and his "inner life". Any responsibility, especially for evil , would then be impossible. Human freedom would be excluded as well. Because of the substantial lack of independence of "things", a human self-confidence based on personal independence would not be found.

The right-wing association for German god knowledge

In the period between the two world wars, the Ludendorffers , which still exist today, built on ariosophical foundations. With its independent concept “German knowledge of God”, according to which the “genetic makeup of the German people” is predetermined by their “species-specific God life”, the group combined right-wing extremism with pantheism. Christianity was rejected and called the "propaganda doctrine for Jewish world domination". In the writings of the Ludendorffers, alleged world conspiracy plans were spread by Jews, Freemasons and Jesuits .

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: pantheism  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Gemoll: Greek-German school and hand dictionary. Munich / Vienna 1965.
  2. ↑ a b Background information on the series “Religious Orientations” by GEFAP e. V. 2003 . Society for Research and Promotion of Applied Philosophy e. V. - GEFAP, Hamburg, accessed on August 13, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , Vol. 15, 1905–1909, p. 366 f.
  4. ↑ J. Toland: Adeisidaemon, ... Annexae sunt ejusdem Origines Judaicae , Den Haag 1709, p. 117: "nullum dari Numen a materia & compage mundi hujus distinctum, ipsamque naturam, sive rerum Universitatem, unicum esse & supremum Deum". Quote here. n. W. Schröder: Pantheism. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy . Vol. 7, pp. 59-63, here p. 59.
  5. ↑ About the teaching of Spinoza in letters to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn. Breslau 1785 (2nd, expanded edition 1789, 3rd, again expanded edition. 1819)
  6. ^ Phenomenology of Religion. de Gruyter, Berlin 1969, p. 113.
  7. ↑ Nils Olav Breivik: Høygud og bearer of culture. To Werner Müller's förståelse av de central skogsindianeres religioner. In: Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift. No. 12, 1988, pp. 3-24, especially 5-6.
  8. ↑ Max Meyerhof: Persian Turkish Mysticism. Orient-Buchhandlung Heinz Lafaire, Hanover 1921, p. 25 f.
  9. ↑ "God does not roll the dice". On: SWR 2 Wissen, January 2001.
  10. ^ Paul Harrison: Elements of Pantheism. 1999.
  11. ↑ http://freireligioese-mannheim.de/thesen-frei-religion/
  12. ↑ Parerga and Paralipomena , Volume 1 (p. 131 in the Diogenes paperback)
  13. ^ The God Delusion . Houghton Mifflin, Boston 2006.
  14. ↑ Peter Knauer : Faith comes from hearing. Fundamental ecumenical theology. Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1978, p. 49 f.
  15. ^ Karl Rahner , Herbert Vorgrimler : Small theological dictionary. Herder, Freiburg / Br. 1961, p. 275 f.
  16. ↑ Josef Neuner , Heinrich Roos: The faith of the church in the documents of the teaching proclamation. Pustet, Regensburg 1965, p. 127.
  17. ^ Message from His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. to celebrate the World Day of Peace 2010 , para. 13
  18. ↑ Cf. Maximilian Rast in: Walter Brugger (Ed.): Philosophical Dictionary Verlag Herder, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-451-20410-X , p. 283 f.
  19. ↑ Helmut Reinalter : Conspiracy Theories: Theory, History, Effect. Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2002, ISBN 978-3-7065-5781-8 , p. 117 f.