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Hero For Christ

Panentheism



(rev. 12/15/06)

Panentheism is the doctrine that everything in the world is a part of God, but that God is also more than the sum of everything in the world (this distinguishes it from Pantheism, which views God as synonymous with the universe-considered-as-a-whole). When it occurs as a part of Christian theology (which it does in the Eastern Orthodox church), it is generally linked with the concept of "Continuous Creation", which holds that the continued existence of the universe is dependent on the active will of God. In particular, the chief problem for any Panentheistic doctrine that also assumes a wholly good and perfect God is to explain the existence of evil in the world.

One possible resolution of this problem is to claim that evil is a largely illusionary phenomena caused by incompleteness and by imperfect structure. Only God is perfect and only God is perfectly good, because only God contains the totality of all things. Everything else in the world is an incomplete and imperfect fraction of existential experience. When such pieces of existence line up in the wrong way, the result is perceived as evil.

As imperfect fragments, we human beings cannot perfect ourselves. Through personal relationship with God, however, we can order our selves and our lives so that the pieces line up in the best possible way. This aligns with what is outlined in the Book of Ecclesiastes (3:1-11).

To every thing there is a season
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
I have seen the travail,
which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time:
also he hath set time in their hearts,
so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.



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