Sum-total of Spirit; immanent in Spirit but not transcending spiritual manifestations. This was the Pantheism of Spinoza and some others. It lies at the bottom of many mystical discourses, and appears, more or less, in most of the pious and spiritual writers of the middle ages, who confound the Divine Being with their own personality, and yet find some support for their doctrines in the language, more or less figurative, of the New Testament.
This system appears more or less in the writings of John the Evangelist, in Dionysius the Areopagite, and the many authors who have drawn from him. It tinges in some measure the spiritual philosophy of the present day.[1] But the charge of Pantheism is very vague, and is usually urged most by such as know little of its meaning. He who conceives of God, as transcending creation indeed, but yet at the same time as the Immanent Cause of all things, as infinitely present, and infinitely active, with no limitations, is sure to be called a Pantheist in these days, as he would have passed for an Atheist two centuries ago. Some who have been called by this easy but obnoxious name, both in ancient and modern times, have been philosophical defenders of the doctrine of one God, but have given him the historical form neither of Brahma nor Jehovah.[2]
- ↑ See the curious forms this assumes in Theologia Mystica … speculativa … et affectiva, per Henric. Harph. &c., Colon. 1538. Jäsche and Maret find it in all the modern spiritual philosophy. Indeed, the two rocks that threaten theology seem to be a Theosophy which resolves all into God, and Anthropomorphism, which in fact denies the Infinite. This mystical tendency, popularly denominated Pantheism, appears in the ancient religions of the East; it enters largely into the doctrine of the Sufis, a Mahometan sect. See Tholuck, Blüthensamlung aus der morgenlandischen Mystik, p. 33, et seq., and passim. Von Hammer also, in his Geschichte der schönen Redekunste Persens, &c., p. 340, et seq., 347, et seq., et al., gives extracts from these Oriental speculators who are more or less justly charged with Pantheism.
- ↑ The writings of Spinoza have hitherto been supposed to contain the most pernicious form of Pantheism; but of late, the poison has been detected also in the works of Schleiermacher, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Cousin, not to mention others of less note. Pantheism is a word of convenient ambiguity, and serves as well to express the theological odium as the more ancient word Atheism, which has been deemed by some synonymous with Philosophy. See the recent controversial writings of Mr Norton and Mr Ripley, respecting the Pantheism of Spinoza and Schleiermacher. It has been well said, the question between the alleged Pantheist and the pure Theist is simply this: Is God the immanent cause of the World, or is he not? See Sengler, Die Idee Gottes, B. I. p. 10, 107, 899.
