What is this pantheism stuff, anyway?

Pantheism is a religious view which states that the universe and everything in it--from galaxies to guinea pigs--is part of what philosopher and author Michael P. Levine calls an "all-inclusive divine Unity."  I prefer to think of it as the universal Being, or God.  The God of pantheism has some major differences with the traditional theistic deity, though.

In classical theism the God or gods are divine Persons.  They exhibit traits commonly associated with humans: anger, jealousy, compassion, love, and forgiveness, among others.  The common Western view of God is that of a benevolent father figure who watches over the faithful, actively intervenes in human affairs, and promises everlasting life to believers.

The God of pantheism, however, is first and foremost not a Person.  Anthropocentrism is as much a sin for a pantheist as idolatry is for a Christian--and for similar reasons.  To view God as a Person is to invite the worship of one's own opinions and tastes; to imagine that the Universe operates at the orders of something like a human (only made grandiose and powerful) not only supports a destructive anthropocentric pride, it ignores the basic truth of a universal Being--that no one person, idea, or opinion could ever encompass the enormity and mystery of the Divine.  To make God a Person is to make God too small.

If the pantheist's God is not a Person, though, wouldn't that pantheist simply be a glorified atheist?  Atheists also feel reverence for the natural world, are filled with awe at life and existence, and often sense something sacred in everyday life.

But again, there is a difference.

The quick and easy answer to the question, "What does a pantheist believe?" is also a shallow one.  Pantheism is not simply the view that "nature is divine."  If reverence for nature were all it took to be a pantheist, then most Americans would define themselves so.  After all, it's easy to look at a sunset, or a quiet grove of trees, or a mountain view and be filled with religious awe.  It's quite another to see poverty, disease, natural disaster, and extinction as also belonging to a divine pattern.  Where the atheist sees order brought to a random universe through the laws of physics, a pantheist sees these "laws" themselves as something that could be described as the mind of God.  (I use the term "mind" reluctantly; but human reason and divine Logos have a long causal relationship together in pantheistic thought.)

Most of us are familiar with the classical pagan and Christian views of divine Persons.  Throughout Western theistic philosophy, though, pantheism remains a quiet shelter from angry, warring gods and fallen, sinful men.  The world was not made for us, but we for it; we are part of something greater than ourselves, and connected to each other and to the natural world we have reshaped for ourselves.  This ontological connection is deeper and more complex than most could ever have thought possible, but it is there at the heart of pantheism.

Scientific evidence points to the Universe being a cold, meaningless place.  But we are a part of it.  Despite what science describes as a random cosmos, we owe our deepest moral and spiritual impulses to our own evolutionary beginnings, which in turn are intimately tied to the laws of nature which exist within a universal Being of which we are a tiny, but hopeful, part.