Define your "pantheism" (page 3)

tetrapod.sapien

you asked, and that's the truest answer i have.

LittleToe

Do you really think that my view restricts the "omnipresence" simply to "Jesus"?

tetrapod.sapien

so, jesus is not god to you then? holy crap, you should have said something a long time ago LT!

see, where i come from, i am used to the term "omnipresence" being one of the associated ominimax properties of god. so, thinking that jesus was your god, but that god is also omnipresent, i assumed that the only thing between jesus and nature, was the title: "Jesus".

but you obviously think that jesus is a sepparate entity that is a part of this universe, or at least visits it, and therefore my answer is unacceptable to you.

still, the truest answer i have.

TS

Narkissos

ROFL @ Tetra.

This is the last paragraph in Satanus' link:

There is nevertheless a fundamental unity which Christian philosophy has always recognized, and which has God for its centre. Not as the universal being, nor as the formal constituent principle of things, but as their efficient cause operating in and through each, and as the final cause for which things exist, God in a very true sense is the source of all thought and reality (see St. Thomas, "Contra Gentes", I). His omnipresence and action, far from eliminating secondary causes, preserve each in the natural order of its efficiency-physical agents under the determination of physical law and human personality in the excercise of intelligence and freedom. the foundation of the moral order. The straining after unity in the pantheistic sense is without warrant, the only intelligible unity is that which God himself has established, a unity of purpose which is manifest alike in the processes of the material universe and in the free volition of man, and which moves on to its fulfilment in the union of the created spirit with the infinite Person, the author of the moral order and the object of religious worship.

This of course is an orthodox, Catholic, Thomistic line: omnipresence is God in (or behind) all things as first cause, but distinct from secondary causes so as to make room for free will and judgement. Take out free will and underline the creator/creature gap, and you have roughly the Calvinist version.

LittleToe

Tetra:
Is "Jesus" the sum totality of "God" in anyones' paradigm (excepting Ianone )?

Didier:
Not far off the mark

Narkissos

Totus deus et non totum dei?

(Wholly God, not the whole of God.)

Satanus

His omnipresence and action, far from eliminating secondary causes, preserve each in the natural order of its efficiency-physical agents under the determination of physical law and human personality in the excercise of intelligence and freedom. the foundation of the moral order. The straining after unity in the pantheistic sense is without warrant,

I find it funny how close they come to pantheism. What stops them, is that they find it inconcievable that, in a scenario where all humans' spirits are chips off the block, flames from the original candle as jesus is claimed to have been (see john1:1), that there would still be free will. To them, that would mean that jesus did not have free will. Anyway, i suppose that situation would rob the catholic god of his omni's. It would also likely remove the catholic church. For example, there are no pantheist churches around, are there? Or,at least very few. I haven't heard of pantheist evangelists. If one believes that all are god, why would one worry about them?

S

Satanus

Further thought; if the 'creator' was not omniscient, as has been shown by zen nudist that it was impossible for him to be, and if there was nothing w which to make stuff, how could he not make the universe from himself? It makes more sense than the dismissive, flippant phrase 'made from nothing'.

S

tetrapod.sapien

Take out free will and underline the creator/creature gap, and you have roughly the Calvinist version.

i'm a JamesThomasist.

Narkissos

If one believes that all are god, why would one worry about them?

Actually many belief systems besides pantheism have to deal with the same basic question:

Paul: if God justifies the sinner, why worry about sin?

Calvin: if my eternal destiny has been decided by God before the founding of the world, why worry about it?

And the answer always implies some connection (through faith, knowledge, sacrament or whatever) of the partial, subjective, temporal with the absolute, objective, eternal which changes something for you, here and now. I guess that might be true for pantheism too.

On the other hand the doctrines which make your final salvation-bliss etc. depend exclusively on YOUR decision (e.g. pelagianism or arminianism, which are the real positions behind much "evangelism") might seem to provide higher motivation. But not everyone likes to be bullied.

Define your "pantheism"

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