Panentheism and its neighbors

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - In this paper I suggest that we should identify panentheism on a scale, with deism at one extreme and pantheism at the other. The surprising...     

Kenotic Trinitarian Panentheism

Abstract :  The "openness of God" movement has made a bold, even courageous move away from static models of God. Yet, as the articles here by Pinnock and Bracken show, divisions remain that call for mediation. Both sides have failed to see that a closer connection is possible between process and orthodox thought. The framework is panentheism , the belief that the world is in some sense within God, even though God also transcends the world. Process thinkers are right to conceive God even more radically as the "supremely related one," yet mistaken in their belief that creation ex nihilo and trinitarian models of God are thereby excluded.     

Embracing Thanatos-in-Eros: Evolutionary Ecology and Panentheism

If Panentheism’s core thesis, that God is in the world, is to animate a spiritual approach to life, then we have to account for the way in which God is in the destructive or thanative dimensions of life. From the perspective of evolutionary ecology the universe is imbued with creative and destructive energies. The creative drive can be termed eros as creation occurs through the expansion of relational unities, holons. The destructive drive is termed thanatos and is the drive to sever connection. An argument is developed from the perspective of evolutionary ecology to show how thanatos serves eros, serves the evolutionary unfolding of higher orders of communion. I suggest there are healthy and pathological expressions of the thanative drive. God within the thanative invites us to embrace the transformative potentials of suffering by integrating thanatos-in-eros. God as eros invites us to develop expanded modes of connection, inter-subjectivity and communion.     

Panentheism and Classical Theism

Panentheism seems to be an attractive alternative to classical theism. It is not clear, though, what exactly panentheism asserts and how it relates to classical theism. By way of clarifying the thesis of panentheism, I argue that panentheism and classical theism differ only as regards the modal status of the world. According to panentheism, the world is an intrinsic property of God – necessarily there is a world – and according to classical theism the world is an extrinsic property of God – it is only contingently true that there is a world. Therefore, as long as we do not have an argument showing that necessarily there is a world, panentheism is not an attractive alternative to classical theism.     

God and Contemporary Science: Philip Clayton's Defense of Panentheism

Philip Clayton's God and Contemporary Science is summarized and discussed. Clayton presents a theological reading of biblical texts. In my opinion, science-and-religion studies should deal more substantially with insights of secular studies on the situated character of these texts. Clayton uses the relationship between mind and brain as analogy for the relationship between God and the world. This runs the risk of understanding God as analogous to the mind and hence secondary and emergent relative to the world. Besides, Clayton's arguments for “mental causation” are wanting. But then, why should a defender of panentheism decouple the mental and the material?     

Malcolm Schofield: Cicero: Political Philosophy

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice -