Why Pantheism Has No Personal God | Michael Levine — Transcript

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1. 0:00Michael, if I'm trying to weigh the
2. 0:03different
3. 0:04ways of looking at the world,
4. 0:07theism and atheism are always the two
5. 0:10uh
6. 0:11tension parts of this of this barbell of
7. 0:15existence. Um yet pantheism
8. 0:19is uh
9. 0:21is a completely different outlook. Um I
10. 0:23I'd like to understand how you
11. 0:26differentiate pantheism from theism.
12. 0:29Okay. I'm glad by the way that you said
13. 0:31that
14. 0:32that you distinguish pantheism from
15. 0:34atheism because it was
16. 0:36Schopenhauer said that to describe the
17. 0:38world as God or God is the world is just
18. 0:40to utter a superfluous synonym and that
19. 0:43pantheism really is a form of atheism.
20. 0:45It's not a form of atheism as I
21. 0:47understand it.
22. 0:48Um
23. 0:49but to distinguish it from theism it it
24. 0:52it is the pantheism is the classic
25. 0:55alternative to theism and I think it it
26. 0:57defines itself and understands itself
27. 0:59vis-a-vis the theism. And the the two
28. 1:02really crucial points at which it
29. 1:03distinguishes itself is first of all
30. 1:07theism is of course belief in a personal
31. 1:09God
32. 1:10a God that's conscious conscious in some
33. 1:12sense. Various interpretations but
34. 1:15that's crucial. There is no personal
35. 1:17God. There is no person.
36. 1:19And this is going to be very very
37. 1:20important in terms of religious practice
38. 1:22in terms of how one practices things. If
39. 1:24there is no person
40. 1:25there is going to be no object of prayer
41. 1:27as such no object of worship as such. So
42. 1:30first of all no personal God. That's
43. 1:32that's crucial. The other one I think is
44. 1:34is interestingly less important.
45. 1:37Perhaps it's it's it's interesting from
46. 1:39an effective and emotional side. And
47. 1:41that is it denies not just the
48. 1:42personality of God. It denies the
49. 1:43transcendence utter transcendence of
50. 1:45God. For
51. 1:47the theist it's crucial and why it's
52. 1:50crucial is is interesting I think one
53. 1:53could talk about this in psychoanalytic
54. 1:54terms but it's crucial that God is
55. 1:57utterly transcendent
56. 2:00ontologically distinct.
57. 2:02The being God's being is utterly
58. 2:04distinct from the being of the world as
59. 2:07such. So leaving aside um
60. 2:11the question of why theism insists on
61. 2:14transcendence and a radical ontological
62. 2:16distinction between God and the world.
63. 2:18Pantheism insists on imminence divine
64. 2:21imminence and takes it to the nth
65. 2:23degree. So that God is as it were
66. 2:25everywhere and not everywhere in the way
67. 2:27in which theists talk about God being
68. 2:30omnipresent which I've always thought
69. 2:31kind of spooky. There are some things I
70. 2:33don't want God to see me doing but
71. 2:36pantheism believes I'm thinking now of
72. 2:38Whitman's well
73. 2:40part of Song of Myself where he talks
74. 2:42about God being in the blade of grass
75. 2:44everywhere and everything and uh
76. 2:49So it it insists it denies God's
77. 2:51transcendence and makes God eminent. The
78. 2:54other way in which it's important to
79. 2:55distinguish
80. 2:56in the way in which pantheism
81. 2:58distinguishes itself from theism is the
82. 2:59way in which which it addresses certain
83. 3:01kinds of
84. 3:02theistic problems. Now fundamental
85. 3:05problem one fundamental problem for
86. 3:06theism there's a variety of them but one
87. 3:08would be for example the problem of
88. 3:09evil. That's the big one.
89. 3:11>> yes and very often you've had people
90. 3:13H.P. Owen suggests um
91. 3:15he says
92. 3:16evil has to be a great embarrassment to
93. 3:18pantheists. It's a great embarrassment.
94. 3:20Why is it a great embarrassment? Because
95. 3:22uh
96. 3:22here we have an all-inclusive unity. The
97. 3:24unity is divine and yet there's evil in
98. 3:26it. But of course um
99. 3:29I think a moment's reflection would
100. 3:30suggest not only isn't evil an
101. 3:31embarrassment for the pantheist it
102. 3:33couldn't possibly be an embarrassment.
103. 3:35Uh
104. 3:36Well because the problem of evil is a
105. 3:38theistic problem theistically conceived.
106. 3:40So the problem of evil is how how how
107. 3:43could one account for the for the the
108. 3:45scope and the nature of the miseries in
109. 3:48this world given the existence of a God
110. 3:51who's perfectly good all-knowing
111. 3:54and all-powerful. Now I understand that
112. 3:56problem but why is it less so for the
113. 3:58pantheist?
114. 3:58>> Well because the pantheist doesn't have
115. 3:59to account for a personal deity
116. 4:02the everything that generates the
117. 4:04problem is absent. So you have to think
118. 4:06that the force the unifying force is is
119. 4:09at best morally neutral and
120. 4:12and potentially morally You could still
121. 4:15think of it as good. Look it's not that
122. 4:17there may not be a problem of evil for a
123. 4:19pantheist. There is indeed a problem of
124. 4:21evil and there is probably a variety of
125. 4:24other kinds of
126. 4:25problems
127. 4:26but they're not they they can't be
128. 4:28theistically conceived because at the
129. 4:30heart of every theistic problem is going
130. 4:31to be a personal deity etc. Sure sure.
131. 4:33>> So
132. 4:34how would a how would a person how how
133. 4:36might a pantheist address the problem of
134. 4:38evil?
135. 4:39They might address it by suggesting that
136. 4:42um
137. 4:42uh that
138. 4:45the unifying force
139. 4:47isn't being attended to. It has to be
140. 4:49enhanced in certain kinds of ways that
141. 4:50one has to bring one one's
142. 4:53mode of living into line with the nature
143. 4:56of things as such which is precisely
144. 4:58what it is that Taoism
145. 5:00and the Tao Te Ching is trying to tell
146. 5:01you to do. What does it tell you to do?
147. 5:03Well it So we must be a co-creator with
148. 5:05the force to make to make it happen. The
149. 5:07force is not coercive.
150. 5:08>> That's right. And that's the way in
151. 5:09which we address it.
152. 5:11>> morally positive or morally neutral?
153. 5:14>> Well I think one would hope that I mean
154. 5:16what for most pantheists undeniably
155. 5:19it would it would be a positive force.
156. 5:21They would eschew something like
157. 5:22Manichaeism which suggests that there
158. 5:23are these opposing opposing um
159. 5:27uh
160. 5:28naturally opposing kinds of forces.
161. 5:31It might suggest something like
162. 5:32>> and the force is this unity that that
163. 5:34that can that is everything
164. 5:37the fact that there is evil is because
165. 5:40we have to participate with the force.
166. 5:41There there's some missing pieces here
167. 5:43because uh
168. 5:44uh you would think if God literally is
169. 5:47the universe and is this force or
170. 5:49that they would be less evil just
171. 5:51because in theism you have God one step
172. 5:54removed. God is not part of the universe
173. 5:56and you can come up with different
174. 5:58explanations called theodicies at why
175. 6:00God is doing this. Forgetting whether
176. 6:02those work or not
177. 6:04the the distance between God and the
178. 6:06universe at least gives you playing room
179. 6:09with the problem of evil. Whereas in
180. 6:10pantheism you have no playing room
181. 6:12because the force is the universe.
182. 6:14>> Well part part the force isn't the
183. 6:16universe but it it it's part of what
184. 6:17constitutes the unity.
185. 6:19It's the way in which unity might be
186. 6:21described. But for example the fact that
187. 6:24that you may do something bad I may do
188. 6:26something bad that other people do
189. 6:27certain kind of things bad.
190. 6:29That's not anything that's antithetical
191. 6:32to necessarily the nature of the unity.
192. 6:35It's something that
193. 6:36might be adjusted.
194. 6:38>> Absolutely. Would that means that the
195. 6:39unity has no proactive
196. 6:42moral
197. 6:45positiveness to it. It's neutral. I mean
198. 6:47Well that may that may or may not be
199. 6:48true. I would tend to think for example
200. 6:50that people are um
201. 6:52uh not always but very often inclined
202. 6:55and naturally inclined to uh
203. 6:58um
204. 6:59um to goodness rather than um badness to
205. 7:03to something that enhance that's
206. 7:04enhancing in life enhancing rather than
207. 7:07a drawback. It Look I I have to I have
208. 7:10to tell you that uh
209. 7:12I don't want to say I don't want to say
210. 7:13that I'm making this up as I go but you
211. 7:14must you have to remember that there is
212. 7:17no that pantheist scripture is
213. 7:20literature. It's poetry. It's it's these
214. 7:22people who have taken up these themes in
215. 7:24in these kinds of ways and there's going
216. 7:26to be various kinds of interpretations
217. 7:27and various kinds of takes on it. So
218. 7:30there's not going to be a definitive
219. 7:31answer. For example an unsatisfactory
220. 7:34definitive answer that it's going to be
221. 7:36um
222. 7:38some of the terrible answers that one
223. 7:39gets from theism
224. 7:41that it's going to serve a greater good
225. 7:43in the end.
226. 7:44That just doesn't wash uh
227. 7:47the kinds of
228. 7:48obscenities that we've seen in this
229. 7:49century alone. It just doesn't
230. 7:52it it doesn't resonate. It doesn't and
231. 7:54this is this is one of the reasons
232. 7:56people move from they find it
233. 8:00emotionally and effectively and
234. 8:02intellectually unsatisfying. Now another
235. 8:04another problem
236. 8:05would be something like creation. Um um
237. 8:08if you're a theist you have a response
238. 8:10to creation. Some theists do. Other
239. 8:13theists are willing to recognize for
240. 8:15example a creation is is a mystery. Why
241. 8:17would God create anything? People will
242. 8:20give you an account of well God had to
243. 8:22do it out of his good I'm sorry God
244. 8:23didn't necessarily but he might have
245. 8:25done it out of the goodness to achieve
246. 8:27maximum goodness etc.
247. 8:29But
248. 8:30you know a pantheist might just rest
249. 8:31content.
250. 8:33You know and and by the way if you're
251. 8:35even if you're an atheist it sure is a
252. 8:36problem creation. I mean that is a
253. 8:38mystery.
254. 8:39Um
255. 8:40one doesn't have to be religious at all
256. 8:41to to think now why is there something
257. 8:44rather than nothing? Uh
258. 8:45you can pretend it's a question that
259. 8:47doesn't make sense. I think it makes
260. 8:48perfect sense.
261. 8:50Uh
262. 8:50and
263. 8:52it's a mystery all right.
264. 8:54But again the pantheist doesn't have to
265. 8:57have
266. 8:58a kind of
267. 8:59solution that's rooted in the nature of
268. 9:02of a divine personality to address the
269. 9:04problem or to to address the question
270. 9:07for example. So again salvation another
271. 9:10issue another another role another way
272. 9:12in which one is going to
273. 9:15distinguish
274. 9:16pantheism and theism. Salvation uh
275. 9:19for the theist it's a um
276. 9:22uh
277. 9:23it's a coming closer if you will
278. 9:26even if we
279. 9:28get rid of the the notion of a a literal
280. 9:30kind of heaven.
281. 9:31It's a coming closer to God. It's a
282. 9:34communion with God. It's the beatitude.
283. 9:36It's coming face to face with one's
284. 9:38maker as it were. That's the
285. 9:40and somehow that's supposed to overcome
286. 9:42certain uh
287. 9:44uh
288. 9:45difficulties that we've experienced in
289. 9:46life etc. Salvation for theist has to do
290. 9:48with personal immortality. Although some
291. 9:50theists have moved away from that as
292. 9:52well.
293. 9:52Uh but for the pantheist uh
294. 9:56pantheists often talk about impersonal
295. 9:58immortality. So, Robinson Jeffers is
296. 10:00Robinson Jeffers, the Californian poet,
297. 10:02has a beautiful passage uh that I quote
298. 10:04in my book about impersonal immortality.
299. 10:05He says, "To be part and particle of of
300. 10:08everything that exists, uh what can
301. 10:10possibly be better than that?" And uh
302. 10:12impersonal immortality is is is what uh
303. 10:16is what's most satisfying, to know that
304. 10:17there is a kind of continuous, not a an
305. 10:19im- a a personality, which is really a a
306. 10:22uh
307. 10:23a form of supreme egoism, if you will.
308. 10:26Um
309. 10:26but this notion of impersonal
310. 10:28immortality. And impersonal immortality
311. 10:30is something that's achieved uh not
312. 10:33postmortem, if you will, but uh it's
313. 10:36something that
314. 10:37in so far as one
315. 10:39lives in accordance with
316. 10:41um
317. 10:42one's pantheistic precepts, one lives in
318. 10:44accordance with the Tao,
319. 10:46you achieve this
320. 10:47impersonal immortality at every moment
321. 10:50uh
322. 10:51in which one lives.
323. 10:53Uh and that's again an an im- important
324. 10:55distinction with atheism with uh theism.
325. 10:57And it's an important distinction uh
326. 10:59something that distinguishes
327. 11:02pantheism from the atheist perspective
328. 11:04as well.
329. 11:06Uh
330. 11:06an atheist is generally not going to
331. 11:08believe will excuse not only personal
332. 11:10immortality, but impersonal immortality
333. 11:12as well and think it important to do so.
334. 11:15So, it has to do with
335. 11:17um
336. 11:18uh
337. 11:20one's one's attitude toward toward life
338. 11:23itself, if you will, and toward the way
339. 11:24in which one should live.