[31]. Panentheism vs Monotheism. It is a true two-way relationship and should be viewed, says the philosopher Daniel Dombrowski in his critique of Hartshorne’s concept of God, "on the analogy of our own ability to be influenced by our cells, even though we can also exert an influence over our bodily parts, in that we are “omnipresent” in each part of our bodies. This distinction attimes develops into an ontological separation between God and theworld that makes any i… Plotinus taught that there was an ineffable transcendent God ("the One", to En, τὸ Ἕν) of which subsequent realities were emanations. Another problem is that, besides appropriating El’s name, Yahweh had at some point acquired El’s Canaanite consort, the goddess Asherah, whose image shared the Jerusalem sanctuary with Yahweh for many centuries (2 Kings 23.6). Although open to a great deal of disputation among today’s scholars, the amalgamation of these different deities into one Yahwist formula is generally thought to have been the work of the post-Exilic scribes and elders. The cognate doctrine of panentheism asserts that God includes the universe as a part though not the whole of his being.. As a number of eminent authorities have pointed out, the Levitical priests who introduced this great reform did so by stitching together in their revised and heavily edited Yahwist scriptures a composite picture of the Hebrew God, the One God who became known as Yahweh-Elohim (Campbell 96, Schuré 188). He conceives of God as a modulation between two poles or fundamental aspects: an eternal pole of potentiality and a temporal pole of actuality or manifestation. This pantheism *denies* all Gods and Goddesses, at least to the extent that They are understood as anything more than natural forces. Hartshorne, Charles. Note also that Christianity is not truly monotheistic, as it has the top job shared three ways. Mr. Harris' book is a breath of fresh air to me. According to some authorities, El’s son El-Shaddai, a god of mountains, also claimed the worship of the Hebrew people, and at some later point Yahweh, a tribal God of the Negev desert, gained the homage of the Judaean tribes and gradually took over the Jerusalem cult from El-Elyon (Miller and Miller 154). If we are made in his perfect image, why is evolution necessary? Opponents of process theology, as Hartshorne’s system has been called, have demurred at his imagery, which they say suggests that God’s containment of the world is on the same physical model as a box containing marbles. From then on, orthodox Judaism cultivated, and bequeathed to Christianity, an image of the omniscient and omnipotent Almighty projected by the Old Testament God Jehovah, Creator and lone Ruler of the universe, who commanded, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me” (Exod. It is this picture, she says, of a transcendent God who “requires for his existence no relations to anything beyond himself” that can no longer be sustained. Lane Miller, eds. P> don't necessarily worship that particular deity. - // Simple PHP Counter 1.1 Panentheism Deity is the inner spiritual essence of everything in the universe, but it exists beyond the universe as well. So does a mother interact with the child in her womb in such a way that both are undergoing a growth and an evolution together, in mutual love, while remaining distinct entities. Monotheism is the belief in one god. C. M. Laymon. This is a “monopolar” vision of divinity just as monotheism is, but one that renders all the changes and contingencies of nature illusory. Would we not be returning to polytheism or to animistic pantheism—to the primitive language of superstition? } if ($ip_addr == $rem_addr) { function checkIP($rem_addr) { The divine soul [God] is not in the body of the world the way a bean is in a box any more than the human psyche is in the body in such a fashion. P> without excluding the existence of the rest of them. Deism In addition to adopting the beliefs of general monotheism, deists also adopt the belief that the single existing god is personal in nature and transcendent from the created universe. 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