Immanence and Transcendence vs. Pantheism

First, some definitions:

Immanence: This isn't a misspelling of "imminence," though the two words are related. "Imminent" means close by or about to happen. "Immanent" refers to the idea that God is always nearby. An immanent God is one that inhabits the world, intervenes in history and human life, and is always with us. The theological system that most often includes immanence is "panentheism" (two doors down from pantheism). Most versions of traditional theism, including some flavors of paganism, are panentheistic and talk about an immanent God/gods, deity which is somehow part of the universe.

Transcendence: This idea talks about God being partly or wholly separate from the universe, human life, and history. Most traditional theistic systems also include an aspect of transcendence. Deism* is one of the only common theistic traditions to view God as entirely transcendent: God created the world--wound the clock, so to speak--and then left it to run on its own.

Most versions of traditional theism operate under a combination of immanence and transcendence. God exists outside the universe, but he also moves and acts within it.

And now, the catch:

These terms don't apply the same way--if at all--in pantheism.

Oddly enough, you really can't say that God is immanent in the world, in a pantheistic system. Being present in something implies that the presence is not the same as the thing. I occupy my house, but my being and the house's being aren't the same thing. God also does not intervene in events, for the same reason. God is history, God is the world, God is everything and everyone living. The existence of God and the existence of the universe are one and the same thing.

Nor can you say, in pantheism, that God transcends the universe (or else your system is no longer pantheistic!). But you can't say that God doesn't intervene in the world, either, since the pantheistic God is existence. That would be like saying I have nothing to do with my little toe.

On the surface, these two terms would seem to apply perfectly to pantheism. God is fully immanent, of course!--except that implies that God is substantially different from the universe. And there is that feeling of religious awe that "transcendence" often means, though this is a transcendence (of sorts) of human emotion, rather than of divine Being. Both ideas are originally based around the biblical God of Western belief. Trying to fit them into pantheism is rather like expecting a python to wear a football jersey.

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* This is where I go on a short American history spiel and say that both Jefferson and Franklin were deists, and that although both were theists, neither believed in the divinity of Jesus. They fell under the "deism" umbrella, not just in their belief that Jesus was simply a very good man, but in denying that God intervened in human history (other than by inspiring prophets like Jesus). Jefferson, in fact, rewrote the Gospels in a way, by cutting out all the references to miracles, including the virgin birth and the resurrection. He published it as The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, though these days it's often simply called The Jefferson Bible.

Washington may have also been a deist, though he never came out about specific beliefs. (Some of his presidential speeches were written by Alexander Hamilton, a thoroughgoing Christian, which only confuses things more.) The one thing we can say about Washington was that, when pressed about giving props to Christ, he would deftly change the subject; and when the priest of his family church told him he was setting a bad example by coming to church yet not taking communion, he simply quit coming to church.

Eschatology vs. Free Will

There's a problem here, like the old saying in math class about apples and oranges. Eschatology is one of those ridiculously complicated words that mean something fairly simple: the belief in and philosophy around the end of the world, or where history is headed. (Okay, so maybe not so simple.)

Something about the human psyche demands an end-of-the-world story. Most major civilizations around the world had stories about what would happen, how the world would end, and what kind of world would come after. A lot of them held that the world was destroyed and recreated, over and over again, in a timeless cycle, based on how degraded or evil humanity had become; a new Earth would then be created, with a shiny new humanity ready to inhabit it.

Christianity's no different. From the hardest fundamentalist to the loosest liberal, many if not most Christians have a religious expectation of a Second Coming, a New Jerusalem. It might be literal, as in the Left Behind series; or it might be a metaphoric story about the hope that history is tending towards the perfection of humanity. Either way, history is being guided by a divine hand to some distinct future goal.

That means that every choice we make, for good or for ill, must lead to that final heavenly goal. There is no way around it. There is no possibility of escaping the last days, whether they come next week or two million years from now. History will play out in such a way that everything winds up for the best. The end of the story has already been written.

But if we already know (approximately) how history will turn out, where does that leave free will?

Here, have some time travel:

Suppose you want to go back in time and assassinate Hitler. Unfortunately, even time travel must follow physics. Once you've gone back in time, you must have always gone back in time, which means that the situation that caused you to go back in time has just become a done deal. In other words, when you go back in time, you've predetermined the future. (Maybe someone tried to go back in time to assassinate Hitler, which is why no one was ever able to assassinate him...)

This also goes into the "omniscience" of a personal God. If God knows everything that's going to happen, therefore the future is predetermined. There's a little wiggle room here, since this predestination is only from God's point of view; from our puny human point of view, we still have yet to make the choices God knows we're going to make. (So the apples become oranges in another dimension?)

Either way, though, if history has a set ending, then our free will is either an illusion, or a farce. If God influences our choices to lead to history's happy ending, then free will is a lie. If, on the other hand, God influences nature and physics (all those miracles in the Exodus story, for example) to shape history around our choices, then free will is useless.

[There's an entire subtopic about the horror of "miracles," but that can wait.]

All this is tied up, in most traditional versions of theism, with the idea that God will come swooping in to save the day. (And if you know why "swooping is bad," you get a cookie!) Or the millennium. Or all of human history. It's out of our hands. Which is nice, because now we don't have to take responsibility for each other or for the rest of the planet. God will do it for us--probably by inspiring us to do his holy work, but hey--we just have to wait for that inspiration to strike.

Do away with the eschatology. There is no set ending. It's entirely possible that we will be responsible for our own extinction. It's also entirely possible that we will learn to manage our resources and get along with each other and with the natural world around us. Either way, it's our responsibility now, because there is no promised land except the one we make for ourselves.

Problems in Personal Theism

Traditional Western theism rests on a couple distinct principles: First, God is a Person; in other words, God is something like you and me, but infinitely greater. Second, God is external to the universe/the world/creation. This varies, as some strains have God both within and outside of, a sort of one-foot-in-each-existence sort of thing; but all traditional forms of personal theism have a God which transcends the universe.

These two basic ideas create a whole mess of problems. The problem of evil is fairly easy to tackle, especially since it's so popular these days. God as defined as a Person has the qualities of Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnibenevolence--God is viewed as all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. So how can evil exist? All kind of theodicies have been created to solve this unsolvable problem, the most distasteful of which implies that the terrible things which happen to us are for our own good. Another argument is that God, being good, created the best possible universe in which free will could be found. I've never found any adequate explanation for the paradoxes of human nature, within personal theism. (Original sin, or "it's our fault" is not adequate!) Evil exists because of a basic flaw in the universe, which can be traced to human nature, which was created by--oh, wait.

A more palatable explanation for evil is that it's an intrinsic part of the universe--there's no getting around it--but that God is part of the universe, and therefore suffers with us. This comes from process theology, a type of panentheism, which is a close cousin of pantheism. (The major difference between pantheism and panentheism is that the latter still views God as personal, and in some way transcendent.)

Now bring in that "personal" part. A person has moral views, has aesthetic tastes, has emotions like love or anger. Therefore a personal God would have infinitely greater views, tastes, emotions. And we, his creations, had better figure them out.

The argument against a personal God is, very simply, a moral one. Socrates was quoted as questioning whether something was good because God declared it to be so, or if God declared something good because it always had been.

If the former is correct--something is good because God declares it to be so--then absolutism is the ultimate form of relativism. There is nothing truly good or evil, only what God's opinion, God's culture (if you will) declares to be true. God could always change his mind, and then where would we be?

But if the latter is true--God declares something good because it is good, from all eternity--then God is an abomination. Any God worth the name should be willing and able to prevent torture, murder, rape. The fact that he could prevent these things but doesn't--or might save some and leave others to their fates--means that God (if he's not a divine weakling) is both capricious, and complicit in these evil acts. If goodness is absolute, then even God must obey. But he obviously doesn't.

No matter which of these is taken as true, we're left hanging on divine whim.

The second principle--that God is external--is simpler to deal with, from a metaphysical standpoint. Oddly enough (being the basis of the majority of personal theism) a perfect pantheistic ontology is found in Exodus: "I am that I am." Spinoza rephrased this with his arguments concerning God and Substance. The pantheistic view simply says that God is existence. Everything which exists is a part of God. Nothing can exist outside of existence--because then it wouldn't be "existence." The very concept of "existence" denies the possibility of anything external to it. Even if a heaven is postulated, it must still be part of existence. Bring in alternate "planes of existence" or "modes of being," it's still all part of a single, unified Existence.

The philosophy of pantheism is, quite simply, based on the essence and nature of existence. There is and can be nothing but existence. There is and can be nothing but God.

This also avoids the two major problems with personal theism. Because evil is part of existence, it's also part of God. Once we acknowledge God as amoral (not immoral), and once we acknowledge God as impersonal, we are released from the fear and threat of suffering being the commandment or whimsy of a divine father. Because evil and suffering take place naturally, we're free to deal with them ourselves, to the best of our ability.

We must not wait for a second coming or divine rescue from what we've made of the world. This is our responsibility.