I haven't completed reading this entire thread, but I thought I'd interject some thoughts here.
I noticed one person mistakenly read panENtheism as pantheism. They aren't the same thing. Pantheism says all is god (pan "all" + theos "god"), panENtheism says God is present in all things (pan "all" + en "in" theos "god"); the former is blasphemous, the latter is (arguably) biblical -->
"one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:6)
"For 'In him we live and move and have our being,' as even some of your poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'" (Acts 17:28)
That is we exist "in" God insofar as God is omnipresent, everywhere, and maintaining the entire created order. God is not like a ba'al, nor a Zeus or an Odin; of Him, says Solomon, not even the highest heavens can contain Him (2 Chronicles 6:18).
The emphasis is on proclaiming the vastness, the bigness, and the magnitude of God, as the Psalmist says, "Where can I go to hide from Your presence?" and "Even if I make my bed in Death, You are there."
Additionally...
To properly understand Theosis and what Christianity has historically meant with phrases such as "He became flesh so that we might become god," it is crucial to understand the essential distinction between God's Ousia and God's Energia, God's Essence and God's Activity. Theosis never says that we become, ontologically or substantially god. Only the Holy Trinity is God. Only the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share, consubstantially, in the one, undivided, indivisible Divine Nature. What Theosis says is that, we, in our being united to God through Christ, are becoming sharers, partakers, inhabitants in the Divine Life. The perfect, ineffable, and glorious friendship and love which the Three Persons of the Trinity have in and with one another is shared with us creatures, we are united to God by Grace, not Essence. We are not ontologically united to God--never, that is blasphemous--but we are being, by Grace, united to Him. As we have been baptized, clothed with Jesus, put on Christ, made members of Him and His Body; as sharers in the Eucharistic Table, being filled with the Holy Spirit, made joint-heirs with Christ, having been crucified with Jesus and raised up with Him; in being transformed and conformed to the Image of Christ, being made like Him--in all this we are being partakers in the indescribable life of God. By Grace.
Nothing created can know the ineffable Nature and Being of God, but by God's grace we can know Him in His acts, His works, His activity; and He is working that gracious work in us, to make us more like Him, "Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2).
-CryptoLutheran
Thank you for posting this. The essence of God is like the sun while the energies of God are like its rays. We can't touch God's essence without getting burned, yet we can bask in his energies.
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