Can one be a Christian without being a theist, whilst asserting that God 'is'? [open]

[starelda]

Nevermind

 

[starelda]

Oops double post.

 

[Abiel]

OK- new word alert.


Panentheist

Panentheism (from Greek: πάν (‘pan’ ) = all, en = in, and theos = God; "all-in-God") is the theological position that God is immanent within the Universe, but also transcends it. It is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe. In panentheism, God is viewed as creator and/or animating force behind the universe, and the source of universal morality. The term is closely associated with the Logos of Greek philosophy in the works of Herakleitos, which pervades the cosmos and whereby all things were made.

wassat?

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Pantheism states God IS everything. (I disagree.)

PanENtheism states God permeates, imbues, moves through, and therefore in a sense is IN everything (I tend to agree).

To me, PanENtheism is akin to what Paul quotes in Acts,
"In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Does that help?

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

I read that article before during my struggles with faith last year. I do agree with what it says about as we learn more it seems god has less and less to do. This bit particularly stuck out for me...

At least one English theologian, Michael Goulder, saw this shrinking conclusion of the theistic God destroying his faith. He became an atheist when he came to the perception that the God of traditional theism "no longer has any work to do."

No offense, but in this, I still see people operating in the realm of the illusion that their thoughts constitute the be-all, end-all here. I just can't agree with that. To me the idea that science, technology, etc. means a theistic God has "less and less work to do" is ridiculously shallow and short-sighted. The dude must have had a severely stunted notion of God to begin with to even have such a thought.

 

[Abiel]

Pantheism states God IS everything. (I disagree.)

PanENtheism states God permeates, imbues, moves through, and therefore in a sense is IN everything (I tend to agree).

To me, PanENtheism is akin to what Paul quotes in Acts,
"In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Does that help?

yes it does I like simplicity in language. Words do so much to exclude (and I'm not that bright)

 

[Abiel]

It would appear to be an opinion shared at least in part by this Goulder chap, Spong, the Robinson fellow, and that Tillich dude (who uses too many big words for my liking, but who I think might be on to something)

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

yes it does I like simplicity in language. Words do so much to exclude (and I'm not that bright)

I'm not a big fan of using $100 words to define a $10 word either. The whole point of offering an explanation on a "fancy" word is to make it MORE accessible to MORE people -- not less. Using even fancier words to define it defeats the purpose, IMO.

 

[Im_A]

I came across this question as I pottered around the internet and thought it might make an interesting chat, even if only hypothetical

girl, (hope you don't mind me calling you that) you have been putting out some awesome topics to discuss. keep it up!

at one time i thought no. but now, i'll just say i don't know.

i understand why people say no. very valid points given too.

but the yes part is intriguing to me.

reasons i see is because those that claim to be that way are people more along the modern mentality strictly and only instead of somehow fusing ancient mentalities with modern (i'm not saying that is bad to do btw.)

if a being is not seen, the definitions of this theistic being kind of almost self-defeat the purpose of being defined as theism?

i'll try to break this down. all taken from searching at www.wikipedia.org i'm using it merely for definition purposes.

Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more Gods or deities.

Deity-A deity or god is a postulated prenatural being, who is usually, but not always, of significant power,worshipped, thought holy, divine or sacred, held in high regard, or respected by human beings.

Preternatural-The preternatural or praeternatural is that which appears outside or beyond (Latin praeter) the natural. While this may include what is more commonly called the supernatural, it may also simply indicate extremity - an ordinary phenomenon taken 'beyond' the natural. One may have, for example, a preternatural desire, a preternatural curiosity, a preternaturally acute ear (sense of hearing), or even preternaturally big ears.
Often used to distinguish from the divine (supernatural) while maintaining a distinction from the purely natural. For instance, in theology, the angels, both holy and fallen, are endowed with preternatural powers. Their intellect, speed, and other characteristics are beyond human capacities but are still finite.


so with all that said, that's very ancient minded set thinking for our modern day. yet somehow modern Christianity has found way to infuse this ancient mentality with modern thinking that goes against this whole basic concept. an interesting point, if one is not believe in Zeus, or any other mythological gods as ever being real, why do we insist that Yahweh is real when Yahweh is defined by similiar definitions?

theisms seems like an explanation of the experience of the being of "God" or a way that humanity has evolved in their understanding of the Divine nature, that nature/being that transcends what we experience in this natural world.

you can also look at the Death of God theology of the 60's. here's a link for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_god_theology#Death_of_God_Movement_.28Theology.29

here's a short quote from the link about a prominent theologian in this:

Altizer offered a radical theology of the death of God that drew upon William Blake, Hegelian thought and Nietzschean ideas. He conceived of theology as a form of poetry in which the immanence (presence) of God could be encountered in faith communities. However, he no longer accepted the possibility of affirming belief in a transcendent God. For Altizer, God had incarnated in Christ and imparted his immanent spirit that remains in the world even though Jesus died.

i put that part in bold to put it in with this discussion.

now while i do disagree with the ending conclusion of people from the Newark Diocese and Thomas J. J. Altizer in this area, i can't help but really respect their reasoning and i'm really interested to know why they have come to their conclusion. if Jesus would have never mentioned "The Father", i would be more inclined to go with these conclusions of these individuals. but it's hard for me personally to because of the over emphasis that Jesus made in regards to the Father.

and the ironic part to me is how us Christians put so much emphasis on Jesus, maybe even more so than the Father. i understand it is because we believe Jesus is God, and the way to the Father, but if the God is one being who exists at the same time eternally and a mutual indwelling of three persons as one God in three persons but are all distinct and co-eternal persons and of one Divine Prescence, it makes me wonder, do we focus on Jesus because it is the only way many of us Christians can even believe in a theistic mindframe, or that God even exists at all. but maybe that point is moot and not with this topic, and i apologize if you feel it is off topic.

 

[Adammi]

I haven't read all of this thread because I'm lazy, so I'm sure that some of this has already been said.

Theism is very much a part of Christianity, but theism has been incredibly perverted to include connotations of "the man upstairs" and other things that are completely erroneous.
So I think that a quasi-panentheism is much more accurate. God is not completely separate from the world and he is not completely united with the world. The realms of the divine and the human are interlocked primarily in the person of Christ, but also in all things that contain attributes of Christ - everything from snowflakes to Starbucks.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

you can also look at the Death of God theology of the 60's. here's a link for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_god_theology#Death_of_God_Movement_.28Theology.29

here's a short quote from the link about a prominent theologian in this:

Altizer offered a radical theology of the death of God that drew upon William Blake, Hegelian thought and Nietzschean ideas. He conceived of theology as a form of poetry in which the immanence (presence) of God could be encountered in faith communities. However, he no longer accepted the possibility of affirming belief in a transcendent God. For Altizer, God had incarnated in Christ and imparted his immanent spirit that remains in the world even though Jesus died.

i put that part in bold to put it in with this discussion.

This is interesting, it reminds me of some ideas I parsed out over the past couple of decades in my own experience. The notion of God being dead and His immanence being found in faith communities reminds me of a concept I had which I called a "wraith-form" -- sort of a collective emanation which took on a life, power, personality of its own from a shared group conceptualization which imparted such to it. Thus in this way the actual manifestations of a "spirit" seeming to be as if "the Holy Spirit" (but a false one) could actually take place if a group of people moved their minds in the same direction conceiving of it that way (for example, a hateful, petty, prejudiced or spiteful fake "holy spirit" seeming to exercise its "power" and validate itself as "God" because a group of self-righteous pharisaic types were strong enough to formulate their own "wraith-form" like this).

Yes, believe it or not, during more than two decades of ceremonial sorcery and self-styled theistic Satanism, I still burned with the yen to somehow separate (and exonerate) some better notion of GOD from the "God-form" invented by His more obnoxious "followers" (and all that went with it). Somewhere deep inside me I still wanted to preserve the notion of a God worth returning to one day even while I fought with all my might the "God" which "THEY" pushed (and which I DESPISED.)

As for the true Holy Spirit, what I see in this is simply a pinch of typical Hellenistic spice concerning death and the spirit realm mixed into a rejection of the literal resurrection of Christ and overlaid with the more common definition of "spirit" used and applied in human affairs (e.g., "school spirit" or the "spirit" of an occasion). Christ dies (God dies), stays dead, and His "spirit" floats around out there manifesting as the "spirit" of a group of people acting (we hope) in Christlike ways. For Altizer is not even postulating the dead Christ's "spirit" as a personal ghost-like entity the way we sometimes see the deceased's spirit portrayed in movies or TV, but rather as something like the way we perceive the "spirit of a gathering or occasion".

Interesting, but it doesn't "do" me. God's too personal and real to me to go that route. Which brings me to another question: do people invent these ideas because they really just aren't connecting with God or Jesus on a personal level? To me some of this stuff would be like telling me my fiance doesn't really exist but is just an idea by which I can experience some vague "sense" of him if I just believe in what this idea of him stands for. Now with Christ, there IS a sense in which His person and presence can be experienced through other people, but that does not erase His individuality. It simply illustrates the complexity of relating to a transcendent, eternal Being from within a finite, limited mind/body/existence of our own.

 

[Im_A]

This is interesting, it reminds me of some ideas I parsed out over the past couple of decades in my own experience. The notion of God being dead and His immanence being found in faith communities reminds me of a concept I had which I called a "wraith-form" -- sort of a collective emanation which took on a life, power, personality of its own from a shared group conceptualization which imparted such to it. Thus in this way the actual manifestations of a "spirit" seeming to be as if "the Holy Spirit" (but a false one) could actually take place if a group of people moved their minds in the same direction conceiving of it that way (for example, a hateful, petty, prejudiced or spiteful fake "holy spirit" seeming to exercise its "power" and validate itself as "God" because a group of self-righteous pharisaic types were strong enough to formulate their own "wraith-form" like this).

Yes, believe it or not, during more than two decades of ceremonial sorcery and self-styled theistic Satanism, I still burned with the yen to somehow separate (and exonerate) some better notion of GOD from the "God-form" invented by His more obnoxious "followers" (and all that went with it). Somewhere deep inside me I still wanted to preserve the notion of a God worth returning to one day even while I fought with all my might the "God" which "THEY" pushed (and which I DESPISED.)

As for the true Holy Spirit, what I see in this is simply a pinch of typical Hellenistic spice concerning death and the spirit realm mixed into a rejection of the literal resurrection of Christ and overlaid with the more common definition of "spirit" used and applied in human affairs (e.g., "school spirit" or the "spirit" of an occasion). Christ dies (God dies), stays dead, and His "spirit" floats around out there manifesting as the "spirit" of a group of people acting (we hope) in Christlike ways. For Altizer is not even postulating the dead Christ's "spirit" as a personal ghost-like entity the way we sometimes see the deceased's spirit portrayed in movies or TV, but rather as something like the way we perceive the "spirit of a gathering or occasion".

Interesting, but it doesn't "do" me. God's too personal and real to me to go that route. Which brings me to another question: do people invent these ideas because they really just aren't connecting with God or Jesus on a personal level? To me some of this stuff would be like telling me my fiance doesn't really exist but is just an idea by which I can experience some vague "sense" of him if I just believe in what this idea of him stands for. Now with Christ, there IS a sense in which His person and presence can be experienced through other people, but that does not erase His individuality. It simply illustrates the complexity of relating to a transcendent, eternal Being from within a finite, limited mind/body/existence of our own.

thank you for your personal story here.

in regards to your question, i wish i could see it that easy that they just haven't had a connection with God.

Michael Goulder (i hope i spelled that right) mentioned earlier, was about to be appointed as Anglican Bishop and he resigned. here's a link and i'll give a quote from it. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/goulder.html

"Wouldn't it be nice if we were all as rational as you would like us to be? It seems to me that what we start off with is the weight of tradition on our shoulders: this is what your fathers believed - this is what your community believes. You ought not lightly to shrug all that off and hardly anybody does. I am a rather biddable person by nature, and I bought all that when I was young and, of course, I bought it with enough enthusiasm when I was prepared to be ordained. One begins to ask questions as soon as one is preaching it and talking to people and up against the problems that are involved. What drove me out of the Church ultimately was the courses I had to teach on belief in God to responsible people including clergy. You feel rather awful after you've kept people's belief going, week after week, and then say to yourself as you go home 'I'm not sure I really believe this myself.' Gradually the penny drops, and in the end it drops with a clatter."

i find that interesting because that's part of our whole experience with God in a lot of ways. that connection with God through the brethern.

i'm not inclined to question a disbeliever's prior encounter with religion or spirituality so i'm led to think, they did have a connection/encounter but well, every human is different.

and if you don't mind me using your example to illustrate another point with your example, and i beg you to not see that i'm criticizing your personal story here, i'd never do such a thing

i think some people may use similiar experiences as a reason that proves that theism is dead, or that God doesn't exist in a theistic mindset. i wonder if people ask the question, or maybe ask it in other words, "can a personal feeling be proof that a theistic god exists?"

to be honest with you it's a question i cannot answer. my reasons for believeing God exists is personal past experiences in my journey in life, and the fact that there are a multitude of religions and our history gives me reason to have faith that God exists, but as emperical evidence (i seperate the two because evidence usually is used as something that can be proven through an expirament of some sort), it all depends on if one has faith, and the reasons why and there lies the problem for many people.

but maybe some do see what i quoted above because they never had a connection with the Divine. i don't think i can see it as a broad based reason for all tho.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

It was a question -- nothing more.

i think some people may use similiar experiences as a reason that proves that theism is dead, or that God doesn't exist in a theistic mindset. i wonder if people ask the question, or maybe ask it in other words, "can a personal feeling be proof that a theistic god exists?"

People ask that question all the time and roundly give a resounding NO for the answer. But as Uncle Al once put it, they "[SIZE=-1]solve the first half of the equation, leave the second unattacked[/SIZE]." How many move on from there to question, "can a personal feeling (or lack thereof) be proof that a theistic god does NOT exist?" Intellectual honesty is a commodity in very short supply these days on ALL sides of the fence.

 

[Im_A]

It was a question -- nothing more.

i know that's why i responded.

People ask that question all the time and roundly give a resounding NO for the answer. But as Uncle Al once put it, they "[/size][/color][/font][SIZE=-1]solve the first half of the equation, leave the second unattacked[/SIZE]." How many move on from there to question, "can a personal feeling (or lack thereof) be proof that a theistic god does NOT exist?" Intellectual honesty is a commodity in very short supply these days on ALL sides of the fence.

i agree there.

 

[UberLutheran]

Wouldn't that be essentially a Deist?

 

[Adammi]

Wouldn't that be essentially a Deist?

(which post were you referring to?)

 

[Abiel]

*side note

we have some beautiful posts here folks! You are all poets in the making!

 

[Abiel]

Allsorts of things give me feelings- but I have never had a feeling that I couldn't explain naturally if needs be.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

This is why, as much as I love science, love to learn about it, read about it, etc. I simply cannot go for that particular strain within science that is fixated upon reductionism.

For example, just because someone can dissect the biochemical processes that cause the feelings we associate with "love" (not necessarily romantic/sexual but that can be included if you like) does NOT mean the mystery of LOVE ITSELF has been penetrated.

I'm a bit annoyed with those who are looking to pinpoint -- and therefore reduce -- consciousness itself in a similar vein. Just quit already! No matter how hard we try to shift everything into neat equations of chemicals and molecules we still don't answer the greatest questions that are ours to live through, ponder, savour, experience -- we haven't shifted anything but the locus of The Question(s) from outside those things to inside and through them.

Feelings are a part of EXPERIENCE and EXPERIENCE is a wholistic blend of all kinds of elements, not just those which can be accounted for in the most banal Newtonian sense.

 

[Adammi]

This is why, as much as I love science, love to learn about it, read about it, etc. I simply cannot go for that particular strain within science that is fixated upon reductionism.

For example, just because someone can dissect the biochemical processes that cause the feelings we associate with "love" (not necessarily romantic/sexual but that can be included if you like) does NOT mean the mystery of LOVE ITSELF has been penetrated.

I'm a bit annoyed with those who are looking to pinpoint -- and therefore reduce -- consciousness itself in a similar vein. Just quit already! No matter how hard we try to shift everything into neat equations of chemicals and molecules we still don't answer the greatest questions that are ours to live through, ponder, savour, experience -- we haven't shifted anything but the locus of The Question(s) from outside those things to inside and through them.

Feelings are a part of EXPERIENCE and EXPERIENCE is a wholistic blend of all kinds of elements, not just those which can be accounted for in the most banal Newtonian sense.

Reza Aslan said that science does not disprove spirituality, but rather it gives new language with which to describe the spiritual.