PANTHEISM / Advocates-AWANA teaching notes for Doulos Flock

Summarize the three main worldview categories. 
Naturalism is the worldview that the physical universe alone exists with no supernatural influences. 
Pantheism is the worldview that everything is divine with no creator distinct from creation.
Theism is the worldview that one, personal God created everything.
(Polytheism: is the view that many gods and/or goddesses exist.)
https://crossexamined.org/8-major-worldviews-part-1/
https://crossexamined.org/8-major-worldviews-part-2/

BIG IDEA: According to pantheism, god refers to the impersonal, divine essence that permeates the entire universe.

Panentheism: Everything is God.

Panentheism comes from three Greek terms: “pan” meaning “all,” “en” meaning “in,” and “theos” meaning “God.” Therefore, panentheism is literally defined as “all in God.” Panentheists hold that God penetrates everything. While the Christian may initially be inclined to agree, one must understand that panentheists believe that everything is God. Thus, the panentheist would agree that Jesus of Nazareth is God. But, the panentheist would also agree that you are God, he is God, everyone is God, and even your kitchen sink is God. The panentheist does not distinguish between the personal God and the physical creation. Hinduism is the greatest example of panentheism.

Panentheism, however, holds issues as it pertains to the world. If the world is God, then why is there so much evil? God is certainly good. So, if everyone is God, then wouldn’t everything be perfect? To accept such a claim, one must have a flawed idea of God’s nature. With the panentheist, the Christian apologist will need to begin by teaching the distinction between the personal divine being of God and the physical, material creation that is the world.

“Eight Major World Views” by Brian Chilton (Crossexamined.org)
https://crossexamined.org/8-major-worldviews-part-1/

How does Pantheism answer four
CENTRAL QUESTIONS? 
What is real?— God is like a cosmic energy that pervades all things.  This is like the force in Star Wars.
Who is man?— pantheists see human beings as essentially good and divine.
After death?— we achieve enlightenment and become absorbed into the oneness of the universe.
Right & wrong (Purpose)?— Morality is an illusion.  Since good and evil don’t exist, ultimately, morality is relative. 

Misconception: Everybody holds something divine within it / has a divine spark within it. 
“There is no truth superior to Me.  Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.”
Bhagavad-Gita: Song of God

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts it is made up of our thoughts.”  Dhammapada
Illumination: With God is a personal being distinct from creation.   
Psalm 119:73; Isaiah 64:8; Ephesians 2:10

Psalm 119:73-74

י YOD

⁷³ Your hands have made me and fashioned me;

Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.

⁷⁴ Those who fear You will be glad when they see me,

Because I have hoped in Your word.

Isaiah 64:8

But now, O Lord,

You are our Father;

We are the clay, and You our potter;

And all we are the work of Your hand.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation:  

“Christ said, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’  Be still and know that you are God and when you know that you are God you will begin to live Godhood, and living Godhood there is no need to suffer.”[1]

The immediate context of Psalm 46.

¹⁰ Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!

¹¹ The Lord of hosts is with us;

The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

“Of course, more than misquoting is involved.  Maharishi also ignores the immediate context of the words themselves.  With the Maharishi’s reading the sense of the original is not only lost but reversed.  With the Maharishi’s reading, the sense of the original is not only lost but reversed.  The Maharishi is, of course, writing from a pantheistic frame of reference.  All of reality—including every person—is ultimately divine.  It is quite consistent, therefore, for the Maharishi to advise his readers to be still (meditate) and know that they are God.”

To the Hebrew Psalmist, however, and indeed to every Bible writer, every orthodox Jew and every Christian, such a thought is not only wrong but blasphemous.  “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4).  This is the first and greatest Commandment (Mk 12:29-30) requires a distinction between Good and man, between Creator and created, between the Origin of all reality and any person (man, woman, or child) made in God’s image.  To set oneself up as God, to pretend even for a moment it might be so, is to comment the most basic of all sins: the primal sin, the original sin committed by Adam and Eve at the beginning of human history (Gen. 3:5-6).[2]  

• https://carm.org/the-practical-incoherance-of-pantheism 
• http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/clarknewagepantheism/

---

[1] Meditations of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, p. 178 The only scriptural source for his quotation is Psalm 46:10.

[2] Sire JW. Scripture Twisting, 20 Ways the Cults Misread the Bible. IVP Books; 1980.