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Pantheism: Difference between revisions
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Webster says that pantheism is “a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe.”<ref>''Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary'', s.v. “pantheism.”</ref> The ''Standard College Dictionary'' defines pantheism as “the doctrine that the whole universe is God, or that every part of the universe is a manifestation of God.”<ref>''Standard College Dictionary'', 1963 ed., s.v. “pantheism.”</ref> To argue against this theory is to deny that Leonardo lives in his paintings, that Michelangelo can be known in his sculpture, or that Christ lives in his Sermon on the Mount and in the hearts of millions who have touched the hem of his garment. | Webster says that pantheism is “a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe.”<ref>''Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary'', s.v. “pantheism.”</ref> The ''Standard College Dictionary'' defines pantheism as “the doctrine that the whole universe is God, or that every part of the universe is a manifestation of God.”<ref>''Standard College Dictionary'', 1963 ed., s.v. “pantheism.”</ref> To argue against this theory is to deny that Leonardo lives in his paintings, that Michelangelo can be known in his sculpture, or that Christ lives in his Sermon on the Mount and in the hearts of millions who have touched the hem of his garment. | ||
Some of the sayings of [[Jesus]] not recorded in the Gospels but found in the writings of the church fathers on the Oxyrhynchus papyruses discovered in Egypt about 1900 support this concept of a mystical pantheism: “Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I.”<ref>Oxyrhynchus Logia (Agrapha), Fifth Logion, in ''Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations'', ed. Christopher Morley and Louella D. Everett, 11th ed. rev. and enl. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1938), p. 1126.</ref> | Some of the sayings of [[Jesus]] not recorded in the [[Gospels]] but found in the writings of the church fathers on the Oxyrhynchus papyruses discovered in Egypt about 1900 support this concept of a mystical pantheism: “Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I.”<ref>Oxyrhynchus Logia (Agrapha), Fifth Logion, in ''Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations'', ed. Christopher Morley and Louella D. Everett, 11th ed. rev. and enl. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1938), p. 1126.</ref> | ||
The Creator dwells in his creation; his Presence endows it with innate immortality; his Law maintains the outer structure; and his Spirit gives it Life. It has been said by wise men that God sustains the universe with the flow of his attention moment by moment throughout eternity and that if he were to withdraw the energies of his Mind, it would collapse into a heap of nothingness. These statements are made not in defense of the word ''pantheism'', which has been bandied about by those who would make light of occult mysteries, but in order to show the reality of God’s Spirit in Nature. | The Creator dwells in his creation; his Presence endows it with innate immortality; his Law maintains the outer structure; and his Spirit gives it Life. It has been said by wise men that God sustains the universe with the flow of his attention moment by moment throughout eternity and that if he were to withdraw the energies of his Mind, it would collapse into a heap of nothingness. These statements are made not in defense of the word ''pantheism'', which has been bandied about by those who would make light of occult mysteries, but in order to show the reality of God’s Spirit in Nature. | ||