IN
PAN-EN-THEISM, GOD EXISTS IN BEINGS EVERYWHERE
by Dr.
Jay McDaniel
reprinted on WildFaith.com by permission of the
author
GOD
... IS NOT FAR FROM EACH OF US. IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR
BEING. --Acts 17:27-28
In
contemporary Christianity there are different ways to think of
God.
One
common way is on the analogy of a male political ruler who presides
over his subjects, issuing commands and threatening reward and
judgment. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once observed that
this involves rendering unto God that which belongs to Caesar.
Sometimes this monarchical image of God is accompanied by images of
war. The divine Caesar is envisioned as a holy warrior who fights
evil with evil, enjoying the vengeance he reaps upon others. Those
who fight in the name of this divine Caesar then imagine themselves
as on His side, sharing in the vengeance. They feel happy --
as if they have accomplished something for the world and for God --
when others suffer.
Another way to think of God is intimated in the selection
from Acts offered above. In this way of thinking, God is imagined on
the analogy of an encompassing and inclusive receptacle -- filled
with compassion -- within which all living beings live and move and
have their being. This way of thinking about God is sometimes called
pan-en-theism, because it emphasizes that all things are "in" God,
even as God is more than all things added together. It envisions
God, not on the analogy of Caesar, but on the analogy of Christ's
own spacious heart.
In
this more pan-en-theistic perspective, God is equally present to all
things, just like the ocean is equally present to all fish in the
sea. This means that there is nowhere where God is not "always
already present." God is "always already present" in Iraq and the
United States, in North Korea and in South Korea, in India and in
Pakistan, and in many other parts of the world besides. God is
everywhere at once, and never reducible to a being among beings in
the sky.
Christians who advocate pan-en-theism suggest further that
God is present in human life in two ways: as an indwelling lure
toward nonviolent love relative to the situation at hand and as a
great compassion who "feels the feelings" of all living beings as
those feelings occur, sharing in their joys and sufferings.
Christians typically call the first way "the indwelling call of
God's spirit" and the second way as "the empathy or compassion of
God."
In
times threatened by war, the pan-en-theistic perspective can be
especially helpful. It suggests that even God suffers from the
violence of war, sharing in the suffering of people on both sides.
And it suggests that God is within all people, all over the world,
as an indwelling lure toward nonviolence, which is itself a
Christ-like form of love.
Moreover, pan-en-theism suggests that God needs the world for
God's will to be accomplished. Just as fish in the ocean have some
degree of freedom from the presence of the ocean, such that they can
move in this way or that way, so pan-en-theism suggests that human
beings have some degree of freedom from God, such that they can act
in this way or that. The calling of God within the human heart
requires cooperation, on the part of human beings, for its very
fulfillment. Without that cooperation there will be tragedy, even in
God. This is how some Christians understand the cross of Christ. It
reveals what has always been the case: that wherever there is
suffering and sadness, that suffering and sadness is shared by
God.
When
humans cooperate with the indwelling lure of God, what does it look
like? The greatest peacemaker of the last century -- Mahatma Gandhi
-- called it "peace." Jesus called it the kingdom of
God.
Whatever words we use, one thing is clear. Today there is a
deep desire for this kind of peace to emerge on our planet. All over
the planet people want to live lightly on the earth and gently with
each other, even as their leaders may sometimes wish otherwise. From
the perspective of pan-en-theism, their desire for peace and love is
not simply human. It is also divine. It is the very life of God,
within each human heart, praying that the will of God might be done
on earth as it is in heaven. It is up to us -- all of us -- that
this prayer be realized.
-----------------------------------
Dr.
McDaniel's postscript:
I
believe that the idea that God "feels the feelings" of all living
beings, including our closest spiritual and biological kin, other
animals, has profound implications for how we treat other living
beings. When -- as is the case in intensive rearing methods in
agriculture -- we inflict unnecessary suffering on them, and deny
them their opportunities for realizing their potentials for movement
and play, this suffering and missed potential is shared even by God.
Thus to inflict this unnecessary suffering on them is to harm God,
too.
This
article is from the Episcoveg email
group and is reprinted here by kind permission of the author, Dr.
Jay McDaniel.
By Dr.
McDaniel:
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