FredP

My sense is that panentheism needn't specify a mode of God's transcendence and immanence. I can't see any logical reason why you couldn't be a substance panentheist.

Well, if I may take issue with your words, how is a belief sinful? It seems to me that a belief can be incorrect, but I'm not sure how it could be sinful. But given what I think you're asking: No, I do not believe every path is equally valid; Yes, I do believe that one can have incorrect beliefs, and that those beliefs can influence one's will, and one's desires, away from the love of God, and hence to lead one into sin. For example, the belief that it's alright to torture another person -- or maybe closer to the issue at hand, the belief that the universe is nothing but a cold, random, inhospitable place with no purpose whatsoever; or that God exists but is a cruel, sadistic being who delights in making people's lives miserable. Believing in these things would certainly keep you off anything resembling a spiritual path, at the very least. I suppose they could lead one to Eternal separation from God; but as I think we would all want to say, only God knows the heart. Is the person living in these beliefs out of willful rejection of God's gift, or out of ignorance? I think that makes quite a bit of difference. I think it's important to keep in mind that Hell is a destiny we choose, so there must be a real sense in which we can't be there against our will. The amazing thing is that God loves us so much, that he respects even our choice to Eternally reject him. (And yes, inclusive language folk, I know that God is not male, but our language currently lacks any better prounoun choices.)

You're absolutely right. There is a point here where the dialogue about "exclusive" and "inclusive" meanings of "I AM the Way" hits a wall, and this is it. At the end of the day, you either believe that Christianity is the only way to God, or you believe (as I discussed more fully in another post somewhere) that Christianity is a faithful disclosure of the Universal Way. Both meanings take very seriously the statement "I AM the Way" (as opposed to a shallow pluralism that says any way to God is as valid as any other), but the two approaches are, ultimately, incommensurable. I think we can deeply respect that we each take this claim seriously in different ways, and even put forth our best reasons for beliving the ways we do, but we may have to be content with that.

John who? Actually yes, I did know they came from another source, as does the great kenosis hymn in the Epistle to the Phillippians. Another of my favorite texts.

Wilber is great stuff. I always recommend starting with A Brief History of Everything, and then tell me what you liked about it, and I'll tell you where to go next.

This is a great point. The pantheistic view has got a really hard time making sense of the inifinte creative freedom of God: something I imagine most of us here want to continue to emphasize.

Most historically trustworthy doesn't mean most true, either. While I regard John to be the least "historical" and most theologically "edited" of the Gospels, I also think it's the most spiritually developed and profound of them all, by a long shot. The Prologue (1.1-18 I believe) happens to be my favorite text in the entire Bible. (Sorry, I meant to put this on the main line, not on des's thread.)

Still working on that! But I think I'm going to need more time than the 5 minute chunks I can manage to steal away throughout the day.

I'm not sure a sigh of regret is strong enough to capture it. I'm inclined to think Eternal separation from God (and by now I've probably made it somewhat clear what I mean by Eternal, or at least don't mean) is really a terrible destiny. We've all seen what Hell can look like even in this life.

Well, I don't think I'd say "quite a lot." Tally up references to the Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospels sometime vs. anything about Hell -- and by the way, don't be too quick to retroject a fully articulated doctrine of Hell back into every colorful statement Jesus made about being banished from God's favor. Anyway, on any tally, Hell comes up really short. (And to be clear, I'm talking about all references here, not ones this or that group believes Jesus actually said -- though when Matthew or Luke clearly quotes Mark, that's one reference, not two or three.) The ones that do show up are memorable, and worth paying attention to, as I've said; but I don't think he obsessed over it.

Speaking of cult followings, we have a Jesus Seminar groupie right here. And please take that in good fun, as it was intended!

Ok, in a word. Pantheism says that God and the Universe are materially equivalent: God is precisely, no more or less than, the Universe. Panentheism (according too all my popular sources, mainly Matthew Fox, Borg, Spong) says the Universe is in God, BUT that God infinitely transcends the Universe: God and the Universe are assymetric and non-equivalent. The Universe begins and ends (ontologically) in God. I'm claiming the same about Time and Eternity. Time is IN Eternity (everywhere -- everywhen? -- you go, you're thoroughly engulfed in Eternity. But Eternity infinitely transcends Time: without Time, Eternity still exists. Time begins and ends in eternal timelesness. It's hard to be precise about this, I mean, we're really approaching the boundary of language and concepts! But it's worthwhile, and fun to meditate upon. That's my $.02. Hope this helps!

Glad to hear you're not running off! Anyway, I've been avoiding the Panentheism rooms more out of the fact that I barely have enough time to keep up with my own!

I read SES years ago -- I was in more of a scientific reductionist phase then, so my opinion of it was lower than it would be now, but I still think it's too damned long! I recently read A Theory of Everything, and I thought it was more the "right size" for the material being covered. I picked up A Sociable God today (breaking my Lenten fast on shopping!).

No; I just think that most on this board would take issue with the way it's generally handled in a literalist approach to Scripture -- i.e., join my religion or cook in an oven forever and ever while God exacts his just punishment. I know that's a horrible simplification, but I spent half my life in a Fundamentalist church, so it's not an outsider's perspective. I believed this quite literally. Many people I know still do. You may be one of them, and though I respect that, I disagree with it. But we progressive types also need to take seriously the Christian doctrine of Hell. The choice to accept or refuse God's great gift (and its enormous -- and sometimes painful -- responsibility to allow God to transform us into the image of Christ) is one of infinite significance.

I couldn't possibly add a single thing. A++!

Thanks for sharing this! I agree 100% -- the religious left is always in danger of forgetting how truly transcendent God is. There is a lot of intellectual gymnastics about transcendence and immanence (which are important to conceptualize about and understand, don't get me wrong), but in practice we progressives like immanence a lot more than transcendence as a general rule. God is so REAL, that to even get a glimpse of God's face would expose the terrible reality of our hearts and minds.

Great interview, thanks for the link!

Eternal Life is the timelessness from which time derives its meaning.

I continue to use the notion of Eternal Life and Eternity, to emphasize that we're not talking about any conventional notion of time -- that is, neither the fantasy of some future far-off never-ending time, nor the simple, mundane present. Eternal Life IS now, just as it has always been, and always will be; and yet in a deeper sense Eternal Life radically negates all time, and isn't captured by any of them. It's much like -- in fact, it is precisely -- the distinction between pantheism and panentheism (which is being quite adequately covered on two other boards, so I don't have to add to it here!).

I mean the JS seems to be on a mission to refocus Christianity on the human life of Jesus, and relegate theological statements about the risen Christ to the realm of antiquated philosophizing. (Borg at least entertains the post-Easter Jesus, but read Funk's Honest To Jesus to get a sense of what I mean.) I want to say with historic catholic (small C) Christianity that Jesus on the cross is the definitive (for Christians) divine self-disclosure. That laying aside isn't logically unique to Jesus -- and (with Lily) I would also emphasize that this destiny awaits us all in Eternity -- but he certainly stands as one of a really small group of forerunners. But again, I'm suggesting that his importance shouldn't be seen so much in his personality, but in his laying aside of it.

Good thread! I likewise really like Fox's treatment of the Cosmic Christ idea. What I get out of Fox is that the Truth is more, not less, than the literalizations of it. Knowing that Fox is well acquainted with mysticism East and West (Eckhart in particular), the idea that we are to become Christs is not at all foreign to where he's coming from. (This teaching is explicit in Eastern theology, if only implicit in the West.) Lily also points to many of the Pauline texts that can certainly be read this way, though it never occured to me to do so when I myself was a Baptist. Now, I find it hard to read them any other way.

Absolutely, but I'm a little uncomfortable saying that we have this Christ idea in our heads, and we label it when we see it. Christ always comes to shatter our concepts and expectations, and does so in many cultures, situations, and guises. The stone the builders (intellectual architects, perhaps?) rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

I've created a monster!! WindDancer: You brought up the "scandal of the particular," which is something that a Progressive approach to Christology really need to reckon with. Does this entail Christian exclusivity? I've been very strongly convinced by various writers of a more mystical bent, and then again recently by Borg, that "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me" (Jn 14.6) is not a claim about the exclusivity of Jesus or of the Christian religion, but rather that Jesus reveals the Universal Way. There is no "we're in; you're out" type of group membership identity, but the recognition that the Christ is a universal, eternal phenomenon -- The Way, not just a way. I can't see any philosophical or theological reason why the Eternal Way shouldn't manifest multiple times, in multiple situations -- in fact, it would seem that the One desires to manifest in a near infinite diversity of ways. And yet, what we see in Jesus and a few others like him, is not merely a meandering, groping drive for the One in some situation or other, but a clear, transparent, unobstructed view of God's nature -- above all (and here is where I diverge from the Jesus Seminar folk), in the voluntary laying aside of his human nature on the cross -- the great act of faith. This is where "see how it's done," as it were. We must, of course, all carry our crosses in this way; indeed this death is our life. THIS is the Way. I AM the Way. (I offer this to our conservative brothers and sisters who claim that the progressive Way is too nice and too easy. I actually think it's quite a lot more difficult, even though it's not my point to devise a more difficult spiritual path.) On that note, have a Blessed Easter (which of course, lasts 50 more days)! Alleluia!

From a panentheistic point of view, the physical universe is NOT God -- that's pantheism -- rather, the physical universe is IN God. (You say that below, so I know you know this already.) Your 1st point (and ex-fellow JW's) confuse God beyond Form (Father) with God Incarnate (Son). (I thought Earl's post in "hybrids" relating Christianity to Buddhism was helpful as far as making this distinction in Eastern language.) Traditional Christian theology was well aware that Jesus couldn't have been God in the same way the Father IS; that participation isn't the same as equivalence. Using the image I suggested earlier, that Jesus represents the Cosmos in miniature, my proposal is that Jesus' uniqueness does not lie in the fact that he, as a particular human apart from other humans, discloses God to us; but rather that he in a clear and unique way discloses God's relationship to the entire Cosmos. I'm using a weak sense of unique here -- not as absolutely or logically unique, but to emphasize the radical newness of the disclosure.