Pantheism Revisited
April 27th, 2008
“… Listen to Me in the truth of your soul. Listen to Me in the feelings of your heart. Listen to Me in the quiet of your mind.
“Hear Me, everywhere. Whenever you have a question, simply know that I have answered it already. Then open your eyes to your world. My response could be in an article already published. In the sermon already written and about to be delivered. In the movie now being made. In the song just yesterday composed. In the words about to be said by a loved one. In the heart of a new friend about to be made.
“My Truth is in the whisper of the wind, the babble of the brook, the crack of the thunder, the tap of the rain.
“It is the feel of the earth, the fragrance of the lily, the warmth of the sun, the pull of the moon.
“My Truth – and your surest help in time of need – is as awesome as the night sky, and as simply, incontrovertibly, trustful as a baby’s gurgle.
“It is as loud as a pounding heartbeat – and as quiet as a breath taken in unity with Me.
“I will not leave you, I cannot leave you, for you are My creation and My product, My daughter and My son, My purpose and My… ‘Self.’”
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The above quotation is from the last portion of Neale Donald Walsch’s “Conversations with God, Book 1.” I’m quoting it at length because I think it gives a general idea of what pantheism is all about.
Pantheism is, simply put, the belief that God is everything, or conversely, that everything is God. Of course, some philosophers have pointed out that pantheism is virtually an atheism. To believe that everything is God is to make the idea of “God” profane. If God is immanent (to the universe) and not transcendent, then why use the word “God” at all? The very notion of “God,” they argue, presupposes the idea of “transcendence.” Pantheism, insofar as it denies the transcendence of God, is virtually an atheism.