Pantheism

"Ought not men of intelligence, and indeed men of every kind, to be stirred up to examine the nature of this opinion? For there is no need of excellent capacity for this task, that putting away the desire of contention, they may observe that if God is the soul of the world, and the world is as a body to Him, who is the soul, He must be one living being consisting of soul and body, and that this same God is a kind of womb of nature containing all things in Himself, so that the lives and souls of all living things are taken, according to the manner of each one’s birth, out of His soul which vivifies that whole mass, and therefore nothing at all remains which is not a part of God. And if this is so, who cannot see what impious and irreligious consequences follow, such as that whatever one may trample, he must trample a part of God, and in slaying any living creature, a part of God must be slaughtered? But I am unwilling to utter all that may occur to those who think of it, yet cannot be spoken without irreverence."

"Concerning the rational animal himself,—that is, man,—what more unhappy belief can be entertained than that a part of God is whipped when a boy is whipped? And who, unless he is quite mad, could bear the thought that parts of God can become lascivious, iniquitous, impious, and altogether damnable? In brief, why is God angry at those who do not worship Him, since these offenders are parts of Himself?"

"Pantheism is sexed up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism."

"Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect. Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality and intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order. [...] This firm belief, a belief bound up with a deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God. In common parlance this may be described as "pantheistic" (Spinoza)."

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty."

"To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals."

"Theists believe that God and the Universe are at least in part separate and distinct beings. For pantheists there is only one all-embracing Reality: the Universe. [...] [T]he unity of the universe and nature is not just a feeling or an abstract belief: it has a solid basis in science. [...] Every single particle, every star, every being in the universe is linked by the force of gravity. A quasar on the edge of the observable universe has some effect, however small, on each of our bodies. The whole universe is a tightly woven mesh of electromagnetic radiation. Everything emits photons of energy which race in all directions. Everything is made of the same sub-atomic constituents, held together by the same forces. And everything transmutes into everything else."

"God thus excludes the world; he is only its cause; in no sense is he effect, of himself or anything else. Pantheism (better, "pandeism," for again it is not really the theos that is described) means that God is the integral totality of ordinary cause-effects, and that there, is no super-cause independent of ordinary causes and effects."

"Many persons have thought that this Pan [ Pandeism ] related to what has been called Pantheism, or the adoration of universal nature, and that Pantheism was the first system of man. For this opinion I cannot see a shadow of foundation. As I have formerly said, it seems to me contrary to common sense to believe that the ignorant half savage would first worship the ground he treads upon,--that he would raise his mind to so abstruse and so improbable a doctrine as, that the earth he treads upon created him and created itself: for Pantheism instantly comes to this"

"There is probably no argument by which the case for theism, or for, deism, or for pantheism in either its pancosmic or acosmic form, can be convincingly proved."

"It is I who am the light which is above them All. It is I who am the All. From me did the All come forth, and unto me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

"In the context of natural theology there is reason to believe that pantheism may fare well if compared with theism. This may be part of the reason why it has been the classic religious alternative to theism."

"Many people profess pantheistic beliefs — though somewhat obscurely. Pantheism remains a much neglected topic of inquiry. Given their prevalence, non-theistic notions of deity have not received the kind of careful philosophical attention they deserve. Certainly the central claims of pantheism are prima facie no more "fantastic" than the central claims of theism — and probably a great deal less so."

"The last people in the world in whom the personality would consent to be absorbed into pantheism is the French."

"You must go to Mahometanism, to Buddhism, to the East, to the Sufis & Fakirs, to Pantheism, for the right growth of mysticism."

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

"Pantheism teaches that every thing is intrinsically good and pure ; all originally one with divinity, and that every appearance of wrong or guilt exists but in idea, or depends on the conventional idea entertained of it. Hence its dangerous influence on the moral life and character; for by whatever subtlety of language the meaning may be disguised, and however men may cling to a belief in the all-regulating power of conscience, yet, if this destructive principle be admitted as a ruling fact, the conduct of individuals will be considered as of slight importance, and the eternal distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, set aside, and finally rejected."

"On the whole, one might be surprised that even in the seventeenth century pantheism did not gain a complete victory over theism; for the most original, finest, and most thorough European expositions of it (none of them, of course, will bear comparison with the Upanishads of the Vedas) all came to light at that period, namely through Bruno, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Scotus Erigena. After Scotus Erigena had been lost and forgotten for many centuries, he was again discovered at Oxford and in 1681, thus four years after Spinoza's death, his work first saw the light in print. This seems to prove that the insight of individuals cannot make itself felt so long as the spirit of the age is not ripe to receive it. On the other hand, in our day (1851) pantheism, although presented only in Schelling's eclectic and confused revival thereof, has become the dominant mode of thought of scholars and even of educated people. This is because Kant had preceded it with his overthrow of theistic dogmatism and had cleared the way for it, whereby the spirit of the age was ready for it, just as a ploughed field is ready for the seed."

"[Malebranche] teaches that we see all things in God himself. This is certainly equivalent to explaining something unknown by something even more unknown. Moreover, according to him, we see not only all things in God, but God is also the sole activity therein, so that physical causes are so only apparently; they are merely occasional causes. (Recherches de la vérité, Livre VI, seconde partie, chap. 3.) And so here we have essentially the pantheism of Spinoza who appears to have learned more from Malebranche than from Descartes."

"All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics, and then on the evil and suffering of the world. If the world is a theophany, then everything done by man, and even by animal, is equally divine and excellent; nothing can be more censurable and nothing more praiseworthy than anything else; hence there is no ethics."

"The chief objection I have to pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word "world"."

"Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived. God is the indwelling, and not the transient cause of all things."

"Every idea of every body, or of every particular thing actually existing, necessarily involves the eternal and infinite essence of God."

"Hence we see, that the infinite essence and the eternity of God are known to all. Now as all things are in God, and conceived through God, we can from this knowledge infer many things, which we may adequately know, and we may form that third kind of knowledge... Men have not so clear a knowledge of God as they have of general notions, because they are unable to imagine God as they do bodies, and also because they have associated the name God with images of things that they are in the habit of seeing, as indeed they can hardly avoid doing, being, as they are, men, and continually affected by external bodies. ...Very many controversies have arisen from the fact, that men do not rightly explain their meaning, or do not rightly interpret the meaning of others. For, as a matter of fact, as they flatly contradict themselves, they assume now one side, now another, of the argument, so as to oppose the opinions, which they consider mistaken and absurd in their opponents."

"The more we understand particular things, the more do we understand God."

"As a scientist, I am happy to look down the hierarchy for an understanding of the parts and their properties. As a pantheist, my spirituality finds its expression at the highest reaches of the hierarchy. When I say that my god is coterminous with the cosmos I hope to imply that my god is that system for which there is no supersystem. I hasten to add that my god is NOT anything and everything, but rather the ALL. I do not worship each and every part, but rather the whole shebang as a totality. I can accept the loss of a single tree, but I will fight to save the forest. The biosphere is more sacred to me than any single species, including Homo sapiens."

"The chief ideas underlying Japanese myth are, firstly, the conception—piecemeal it is true, and inadequate—of the so-called inanimate universe as being really instinct with sentient life, and exercising a loving providential care over mankind; and secondly, the doctrine that honour and obedience are due to the sovereign whose beneficent rule secures to the people blessings comparable to that of the sun's light and warmth. For such, I take it, is the real meaning of the story by which the Mikados are feigned to be descendants of the Sun-Goddess. It is the Japanese version of the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Without these and similar vital elements Japanese myth would be nothing more than what some writers have supposed it, a farrago of absurdities, and its examination would belong not to the physiology, but to the pathology of the human mind."

"Shintō, as a theanthropic religion, has culminated in Mikadoism or the Worship of the Mikado or Japanese Emperor, as a divinity, during his lifetime as well as after his death, even in the ethical stage of its religious development... Herein lies even at the present day, in my opinion, the essence or life of Shintō, inseparably connected with the national ideals of the Japanese people. Japanese patriotism or loyalty, as you might call it, really is not simple patriotism or mere loyalty, as understood in the ordinary sense of the word, i.e., in the mere ethical sense of the term, it is more—it is the lofty self-denying enthusiastic sentiment of the Japanese people towards their august Ruler, believed to be something divine, rendering them capable of offering up anything and everything, all dearest to them, willingly, i.e., of their own free will; of sacrificing not only their wealth or property, but their own life itself, for the sake of their divinely gracious Sovereign... all this is nothing but the actual manifestation of the religious consciousness of the Japanese people. This sentiment is truly characteristic of Shintō as a religion."

"Thus, we see that the essence or life of Shintō is even today expressed in the peculiar religious patriotism of the Japanese people glorifying their Emperor as the centre of faith. So we venture to define Shintō, whose vital essence has never been languished, but is, on the contrary, strongly and ceaselessly active in the heart and mind of the Japanese people, as follows:— The vital essence of Shintō manifests itself as an expression of the unique spirit of the national service of the Japanese people, which is not only mere morality but is their religion, culminating in Mikadoism or their own peculiar form of loyalty or patriotism towards the Emperor, who at once political head and religious leader in a government constitutional yet theocraticopatriarchal."

"We [i.e., the members of the Japanese race] who have been brought into existence through the creative spirits of the sacred ancestral kami are, each and every one, in spontaneous possession of the Way of the Gods. This means that we are equipped by nature with the virtues of reverence for the gods, for rulers and parents, with kindness toward wife and children, with the moral qualities which in Confucianism are called the five great ethical relationships (gorin) [i.e., those of ruler and subjects, parent and child, husband and wife, older and younger brothers, and friend with friend] and also with the five virtues (gojō) [i.e., benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom, and faith], and to follow this nature just as it is, without bending or turning aside, is to conform to the teaching of the kami."

"There are ten or a dozen good definitions of Shintō in existence, all varying more or less according to the individual viewpoints of those attempting the elucidation. For example: Shintō is the indigenous religion of the Japanese people; it is the Way of the Gods; it is "kami-cult," a form of definition in which kami signifies the deities of Japan as distinct from those brought into the country through foreign contacts; it is pan-psychism or hylozoism; it is the racial spirit of the Japanese people (Yamato Damashii); it is the sacred ceremonies conducted before the kami; it is the essence of the principles of imperial rule; it is a system of correct social and political etiquette; it is the ideal national morality; it is a system of patriotism and loyalty centering in emperor worship (“Mikadoism”); it is, in its pure and original form, a nature worship; or, over against this, Shintō, correctly understood, is ancestor worship; or, again, it is an intermixture of the worship of nature and of ancestors; and, lastly, it is, in its earliest stages, a lower nature religion in which are merged elements of animism, naturism, and anthropolatry, evolving later into an advanced form of nature religion, and, finally, under the influence of Buddhism and Confucianism, achieving speculative and ethical components of a high order."

"It was the indigenous religion of the ancient Japanese people and, as such, potent to foster and preserve convictions of racial uniqueness and destiny. It possessed an ancient and independent literature and ritual. It was fed by deep undercurrents of tradition and folklore welling up from the unconscious depths of the national life. At its core was an ancestralism centering in a faith in the divine descent—and concomitantly the inalienable rights of suzerainty—of the Imperial Family. Shintō was manifestly indispensable to the unification of the disorganised country."

"Shintō, or Kamu-nagara, is a Way of Nature. This does not mean that it is a primitive and inferior nature worship. It means that Shintō is a spontaneous and real manifestation of the true nature of things, taking form in human affairs in proportion as this nature is given opportunity for sincere and unperverted expression. Thus, Shintō can be explained from the standpoint of the true, the good and the beautiful."

"The Truth of Shintō is to be seen in the inevitability of its underlying doctrine. This is apparent on consideration of the real significance of the great deities introduced in the oldest Yamato literature. Ame-no-Minaka-Nushi-no-Kami (‘‘The Deity Who is Lord of the Center of Heaven’’), the first god named in the Kojiki is correctly understood as the central existence of the universe, the primary source of all things, both animate and inert. All the phenomena presented to human senses are the manifestations in time of this absolute god. The Absolute functions in time in the form of the two-fold creation kami, Taka-Mimusubi-no-Kami and Kami-Musubi-no-Kami. These two beings represent activities of opposite kinds, from which the phenomenal world has had its rise. This positive-negative, or male-female, potency appears in Japanese history as the great father and mother of the race, Izanagi and Izanami, from whom is born the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu-Ōmikami, who in turn is the progenetrix of the Imperial Family and the Japanese people. Amaterasu-Ōmikami, in her position among the historical personages of Japan, is like the sun in heaven about which the planetary bodies revolve. The aptness of this solar metaphor accounts for the sun imagery of the early mythology. The statements just made point to undeniable facts in Japanese history. This is not a matter of mere chance or coincidence, but is so by inner necessity. This is the Truth of the Way of the Gods."

"Another distinguishing characteristic of Shintō lies in what may be called its corporateness. In many other religions men as individuals are set over against the gods. In Shintō we are merged with our fellowmen about us and with the unseen host of ancestors that have gone before us and, as a great spiritual body, united with the divine. We are made of one line with the kami through our ancestors. We are united, divine and human, past and present, into a totality of warp and woof, interpenetrated and coherent... There are three things that are inseparable: our race which is our ancestral inheritance, our country which is our racial home and our faith wherewith our loyalties are sustained. This is the true Way of the Gods."

"Shintō has been called the Wordless Way. This means that practice is more important than mere words, that the hand is mightier than the mouth, that deeds are weightier than rhetoric, that actualities are the greatest of arguments. This practical tendency reflects an inborn aptitude of the Japanese people. The finest expression of this passion for reality is in the patriotism with which we guard and promote the welfare of our country—a patriotism which, on the one hand, is centralized in devotion to our Imperial Family and which exalts our race and supports our homes and our magnificent national organization, on the other. All this is not a formal achievement, theoretically fostered with words, but is the natural registration of our racial characteristics, manifested in all its purity in the past, handed on unimpaired through our ancestors and maintained without flaw in the present. This is true Shintō."

"Our Japanese race thus passed through a great testing in the time of Jimmu Tennō. Thereby were fostered a spiritual stability that never yields no matter what the hardships, a strong racial capacity for unification, and a reverential and worshipful faith in the Emperor, exalted to a religious character. These have come down through two thousand six hundred years as the very core of the Japanese national spirit."

"He [The Emperor] is regarded as a living kami, loved and revered by the nation above all things on earth, and himself loving and protecting the nation, who are deemed sons of Kami Nagara and are entrusted to his care by the kami. This mutual understanding obtains between every individual Japanese and the Emperor. The Sovereign studies our needs and feels our sorrows. What more have we, then, to ask from the kami directly? Thus Shintō (doctrine of the kami) is kundō (doctrine of the Emperor), for Shintōism is Mikadoism; "the kamis will is the Emperor's will" is a maxim inscribed on the heart of every Japanese. Herein one may see the fountain-head of our patriotic spirit, whose marvellous activity has served to raise Japan in these fifty years to the level of the first-rate Powers of the world."

"Shintō, as is well known, is a combination by the Japanese of the worship of nature and of their own ancestors. But the character of the combination is ethnologically instructive. For a lack of psychic development has made of these seemingly diverse elements a homegeneous whole. Both, of course, are aboriginal instincts. Next to the fear of natural phenomena, in point of primitiveness, comes the fear of one's father; as children and savages show. But races, like individuals, tend to outgrow it as they develop. Now the suggestive thing about the Japanese people is that this passing phase of religion has been perpetuated. The Japanese have stayed boys. Filial respect continued, and, by very virtue of not becoming less, became more, till it filled not only the whole sphere of morals but expanded into the sphere of cosmogony. To the Japanese eye the universe itself took on the paternal look. Parental awe which these people under stood lent explanation to natural dread which they did not. Quite simply to their minds the thunder and the wind, the sunshine and the shower were the work not only of anthropomorphic beings but of beings ancestrally related to themselves. In short Shintō, their explanation of things in general, is nothing else than the patriarchal principle projected without perspective into the past, dilating with distance into deity."

"A "Naturefolk" learns by intimate contact with nature that there is a healing power in the flower and the grass, in the mountains and streams, in the rain and the clouds. He comes to see gods working in these phenomena, and if they are of divine origin do they not contain goodly qualities? Why seek afar for the divine? It is even in the objects around you. They are good and just. Why seek elsewhere for justice and goodness? So, to live a natural life is to be just and good. There is no evil in nature. What seems to be evil is the tipping of the balance scale. Evil is immoderation. All natural appetites are good and they become evil only when indulged in to excess. This is Shinto, the Way of the Gods, naïve primitive teaching aboriginal to the soil of Japan."

"Students of this religion have been struck with the simplicity of its doctrine. It enforces no especial moral code, embraces no philosophical ideas, and, moreover, it has no authoritative books to guide believers. Its one peculiar feature is the relation it holds towards the Imperial Family of Japan, whose ancestors are made the chief object of worship. This religion, if indeed it can rightly be called a religion at all, amounts to ancestor-worship—the apotheosis of the Japanese Imperial Family. This fact naturally brings about two results: one is that Shintō can never be propagated beyond the realms of the Japanese Emperor; the other, that it has helped to a very great extent the growth of the spirit of loyalty of Japanese subjects toward their head, and has enshrined the Imperial Family with such a degree of sacredness and reverence that it would be difficult to name another ruling family which is looked up to by its subjects with the same amount of loyal homage and submissive veneration. It is, indeed, a unique circumstance in the history of the nations that, during the two thousand five hundred years of its sway, the position of the Japanese Imperial Family as head of the whole nation has never once been disputed, nor even questioned, by the people. Of course, it is true that the dynasty has experienced many vicissitudes, but, although the actual government has at times been in the hands of powerful nobles and Shoguns, the throne has, nevertheless, been always kept sacred for the descendants of Jimmu, the first Emperor."