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Draft:Pandeism in Europe

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Pandeism (or pan-deism), a theological doctrine which combines aspects of pantheism into deism, and holds that the creator deity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity,[1][2][3] has a history particularly associated with the work of certain philosophers in Germany.

Formal origins in Germany

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The earliest use of the term pandeism appears to have been by German author Gottfried Große in 1787,[4] The first appearance in a dictionary was in 1849 (again in German, as 'Pandeismus' and 'Pandeistisch'),[5] One of the earliest unequivocal uses of the word "pandeism" expressly in contrast to both pantheism and deism was by German philosophers and frequent collaborators Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal.[6]

In his 1910 work Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature"), Berlin-based physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein presented the broadest and most far-reaching examination of pandeism written up to that point.[7] Weinstein noted the distinction between pantheism and pandeism, stating "even if only by a letter (d in place of th), we fundamentally differ Pandeism from Pantheism" - indicating that the words, though spelled similarly, have very different implications.[8]

Opposition in Italy

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In Italy, Pandeism was among the beliefs condemned by Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (also known as il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano; 1759–1829) in volumes of his sermons published posthumously in the 1830s.[9] Nannetti specifically criticized pandeism, declaring, "To you, fatal Pandeist! the laws that create nature are contingent and mutable, not another being in substance with forces driven by motions and developments."[10] In 1838, an anonymous treatise, Il legato di un vecchio ai giovani della sua patria ("The Legacy of an Old Man to the Young People of his Country"), was published, in which the author, discussing the theory of religion presented by Giambattista Vico a century earlier, speculated that when man first saw meteor showers, "his robust imagination recognized the effects as a cause, then deifying natural phenomena, he became a Pandeist, an instructor of Mythology, a priest, an Augur."[11] In the same year, phrenologist Luigi Ferrarese in Memorie Riguardanti la Dottrina Frenologica ("Thoughts Regarding the Doctrine of Phrenology") critically described Victor Cousin's philosophy as a doctrine which "locates reason outside the human person, declaring man a fragment of God, introducing a sort of spiritual pandeism, absurd for us, and injurious to the Supreme Being."1838,[12]

Progression

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Lutheran theologian Otto Kirn criticized as overbroad Weinstein's assertions that such historical philosophers as John Scotus Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Nicholas of Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Mendelssohn, and Lessing all were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism.[13]


Friedrich Engels has also been described by historian Tristram Hunt as having pandeistic views.[14]

Post-Enlightenment philosophy

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German political philosopher Jürgen Hartmann argued that Hindu pandeism contributed to friction with monotheistic Islam.[15]

A critique of Pandeism as an 'unsightly' combination of Greek and Latin, was made in fellow German Otto Kirn's review of Weinstein's discussion of Pandeism.[13] In 1905, a few years before Weinstein's extensive review was published, Ottmar Hegemann described the "New Catholicism" of Franz Mach as a form of pandeism.[16] A 1906 editorial by a Unitarian minister in the Chattanooga Daily Times stated that Jesus, "who in exultant faith said 'I and the Father are one,' was a Pandeist, a believer in the identification of the universe and all things contained therein with Deity."[17] Early 19th-century German philosopher Paul Friedrich Köhler wrote that Pantheism, Pandeism, Monism and Dualism all refer to the same God illuminated in different ways, and that whatever the label, the human soul emanates from this God. [18]

German literary critic Martin Lüdke wrote that early Twentieth-Century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa expressed a pandeistic philosophy, especially in the writings made under the pseudonym of Alberto Caeiro.[19]

Twenty-first-century developments

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The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger notes that German-born Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope, was in particular "critical of… [Giordano Bruno's] pandeism".[20]

Author William C. Lane contends that pandeism is a logical derivation of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's proposition that ours is the best of all possible worlds.[21] In 2010, Lane wrote:

If divine becoming were complete, God's kenosis--God's self-emptying for the sake of love--would be total. In this pandeistic view, nothing of God would remain separate and apart from what God would become. Any separate divine existence would be inconsistent with God's unreserved participation in the lives and fortunes of the actualized phenomena."[21]: 67 

In 2010 German astrophysicist and popular scientist Harald Lesch observed in a debate on the role of faith in science:

Suppose we would find the all-encompassing law of nature, we are looking for so that finally we could assure proudly, the world is built up this way and no differently -- immediately it would create a new question: What is behind this law, why is the world set up just so? This leads us beyond the limits of science in the field of religion. As an expert, a physicist should respond: We do not know, we'll never know. Others would say that God authored this law, that created the universe. A Pandeist might say that the all-encompassing law is God."[22]

In 2011, in a study of Germany's Hesse region, German sociologist of religion and theologian Michael N. Ebertz and German television presenter and author Meinhard Schmidt-Degenhard concluded that "Six religious orientation types can be distinguished: "Christians" – "non-Christian theists" – "Cosmotheists" – "Deists, Pandeists and Polytheists" – "Atheists" – "Others"."[23]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Sean F. Johnston (2009). The History of Science: A Beginner's Guide. Oneworld Publications. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-85168-681-0. In its most abstract form, deism may not attempt to describe the characteristics of such a non-interventionist creator, or even that the universe is identical with God (a variant known as pandeism).
  2. ^ Paul Bradley (2011). This Strange Eventful History: A Philosophy of Meaning. Algora Publishing. p. 156. ISBN 978-0875868769. Pandeism combines the concepts of Deism and Pantheism with a god who creates the universe and then becomes it.
  3. ^ Alan H. Dawe (2011). The God Franchise: A Theory of Everything. Life Magic Publishing (self-published). p. 48. ISBN 978-0473201142. Pandeism: This is the belief that God created the universe, is now one with it, and so, is no longer a separate conscious entity. This is a combination of pantheism (God is identical to the universe) and deism (God created the universe and then withdrew Himself).
  4. ^ Gottfried Große (1787). Gaius Plinius Secundus: Naturgeschichte: mit erläuternden Anmerkungen. Johann Christian Hermann. p. 165. Beym Plinius, den man, wo nicht Spinozisten, doch einen Pandeisten nennen konnte, ist Natur oder Gott kein von der Welt getrenntes oder abgesondertes Wesen. Seine Natur ist die ganze Schöpfung im Konkreto, und eben so scheint es mit seiner Gottheit beschaffen zu seyn." Translation: "In Pliny, whom one could call, if not a Spinozist, then perhaps a Pandeist, Nature is not a being divided off or separated from the world. His nature is the whole of creation, in concrete, and the same appears to be true also of his divinity.
  5. ^ Christian Ferdinand Fleissbach (1849). Heilmittel gegen einen Krebsschaden der Deutschen Literatur: Erläuternde Bemerkungen. p. 31. Pantheismus, Pantheistisch, n. Pandeismus, Pandeistisch. Gebildet aus dem Griech. πᾶν und θεός.)
  6. ^ Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal (1859). Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft [Journal of Social Psychology and Linguistics]. p. 262.
  7. ^ Mapson, Knujon; Perry, Amy, eds. (2019). Pandeism: An Anthology of the Creative Mind. John Hunt Publishing/Iff Books. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-78904-103-3.
  8. ^ Max Bernhard Weinstein, Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") (1910), page 227: "Wenn auch nur durch einen Buchstaben (d statt th), unterscheiden wir grundsätzlich Pandeismus vom Pantheismus."
  9. ^ Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in Sermons and Panegyrics of the Father Filippo Nani of Lojana, Giovanni Silvestri, publisher, 1834, p. 284, Sermon XVIII: Miracles: "Ma questa religione predestinta col taumaturgo segnale si trova ella nel mondo i' Dove? in qual gente? in qual lido? Nelle sinagoghe giudaiche, o nelle meschìte dell l'Asia? Nelle pagoda cinesi, o nella società di Ginevra? Giudei, Maomettani, Gentili, Scismatici, Eretici, Pandeisti, Deisti, geni torbidi, e inquieti." ("But this religion predestined by the thaumaturgist signal, where in the world is she? in which people? on which shores? In Jewish synagogues, or mosques of Asia? Pagoda in Chinese, or in society in Geneva? Jews, Muslims, Gentiles, Schismatics, Heretics, Pandeists, Deists, and troubled, restless spirits.")
  10. ^ Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in Sermons and Panegyrics of the Father Filippo Nani of Lojana, Giovanni Silvestri, publisher, 1834, p. 286, Sermon XVIII: Miracles
  11. ^ Il legato di un vecchio ai giovani della sua patria (1838) ("The Legacy of an Old Man to the Young People of his Country"): "Il selvaggio Nomado ex lege arrestato nelle spelonche dallo spavento, e dall'ammirazione con l'imponente spettacolo delle meteore, per la prima volta rivolse sopra se stesso lo sguardo della debole ragione, conobbe un potere fuori di lui più colossale della sua erculea brutalità, e per la prima volta concepì un culto. La robusta immaginazione gli fe ravvisare gli effetti come causa, quindi deificando i fenomeni naturali divenne un Pandeista, un istitutore della Mitologia, un sacerdote, un Augure." ("The wild nomad (who lived outside the law) stopped in the caves with fear and admiration at the impressive meteor shower, for the first time saw that reason was powerless, experienced a most colossal power outside himself of his Herculean brutality, and for the first time he understood worship (or conceived of a cult). His robust imagination recognized the effects as a cause, then deifying natural phenomena, he became a Pandeist, an instructor of Mythology, a priest, an Augur.").
  12. ^ Luigi Ferrarese (1838). Memorie risguardanti la dottrina frenologica. p. 15. Dottrina, che pel suo idealismo poco circospetto, non solo la fede, ma la stessa ragione offende (il sistema di Kant): farebbe mestieri far aperto gli errori pericolosi, così alla Religione, come alla Morale, di quel psicologo franzese, il quale ha sedotte le menti (Cousin), con far osservare come la di lui filosofia intraprendente ed audace sforza le barriere della sacra Teologia, ponendo innanzi ad ogn'altra autorità la propria: profana i misteri, dichiarandoli in parte vacui di senso, ed in parte riducendoli a volgari allusioni, ed a prette metafore; costringe, come faceva osservare un dotto Critico, la rivelazione a cambiare il suo posto con quello del pensiero istintivo e dell' affermazione senza riflessione e colloca la ragione fuori della persona dell'uomo dichiarandolo un frammento di Dio, una spezie di pandeismo spirituale introducendo, assurdo per noi, ed al Supremo Ente ingiurioso, il quale reca onda grave alla libertà del medesimo, ec, ec.
  13. ^ a b Review of Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") in Emil Schürer, Adolf von Harnack, editors, Theologische Literaturzeitung ("Theological Literature Journal"), Volume 35, column 827 (1910): "Dem Verfasser hat anscheinend die Einteilung: religiöse, rationale und naturwissenschaftlich fundierte Weltanschauungen vorgeschwebt; er hat sie dann aber seinem Material gegenüber schwer durchführbar gefunden und durch die mitgeteilte ersetzt, die das Prinzip der Einteilung nur noch dunkel durchschimmern läßt. Damit hängt wohl auch das vom Verfasser gebildete unschöne griechisch-lateinische Mischwort des ,Pandeismus' zusammen. Nach S. 228 versteht er darunter im Unterschied von dem mehr metaphysisch gearteten Pantheismus einen ,gesteigerten und vereinheitlichten Animismus', also eine populäre Art religiöser Weltdeutung. Prhagt man lieh dies ein, so erstaunt man über die weite Ausdehnung, die dem Begriff in der Folge gegeben wird. Nach S. 284 ist Scotus Erigena ein ganzer, nach S. 300 Anselm von Canterbury ein ,halber Pandeist'; aber auch bei Nikolaus Cusanus und Giordano Bruno, ja selbst bei Mendelssohn und Lessing wird eine Art von Pandeismus gefunden (S. 306. 321. 346.)." Translation: "The author apparently intended to divide up religious, rational and scientifically based philosophies, but found his material overwhelming, resulting in an effort that can shine through the principle of classification only darkly. This probably is also the source of the unsightly Greek-Latin compound word, 'Pandeism.' At page 228, he understands the difference from the more metaphysical kind of pantheism, an enhanced unified animism that is a popular religious worldview. In remembering this borrowing, we were struck by the vast expanse given the term. According to page 284, Scotus Erigena is one entirely, at p. 300 Anselm of Canterbury is 'half Pandeist'; but also Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno, and even in Mendelssohn and Lessing a kind of Pandeism is found (p. 306 321 346.)".
  14. ^ Tristram Hunt, Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, Page 43, 2010, ISBN 0-8050-9248-X.
  15. ^ Jürgen Hartmann (2014). Religion in der Politik: Judentum, Christentum, Islam [Religion in politics: Judaism, Christianity, Islam]. Springer. p. 237. ISBN 978-3-658-04731-3. Mochten die Muslime in der großen Stadt auch ihre geschlossenen kleinen Welten aufbauen, kam es doch immer wieder zu Reibungen mit der hinduistischen Mehrheitsgesellschaft: Kastensystem vs. Egalität der Muslime, Fleischverzehr der Muslime vs. Vegetarismus der Hindus, Monotheismus der Muslime vs. Pandeismus und Heiligenverehrung unter den Hindus." Translation: "They want to build up their closed little worlds in the great city of the Muslims, but they came again and again into friction with the Hindu majority society: caste system vs. egalitarianism of the Muslims, meat consumption of the Muslims vs. vegetarianism of Hindus, monotheism of the Muslims vs. Pandeism and veneration of saints among the Hindus.
  16. ^ Franz Mach und sein Altkatholizismus. Bon Dr. Ottmar Hegemann, Evangelische Kirchen-Zeitung für Oesterreich (1905), Volume 22, Page 283.
  17. ^ "Man of Sorrows: Place of Jesus in the Religion of Today", Chattanooga Daily Times, Chattanooga, Tennessee (September 24, 1906), page 5, column 5, paragraph 4.
  18. ^ Paul Friedrich Köhler (1916). Kulturwege und Erkenntnisse: Eine kritische Umschau in den Problemen des religiösen und geistigen Lebens. p. 193.
  19. ^ Martin Lüdke, "Ein moderner Hüter der Dinge; Die Entdeckung des großen Portugiesen geht weiter: Fernando Pessoa hat in der Poesielberto Caeiros seinen Meister gesehen", ("A modern guardian of things; The discovery of the great Portuguese continues: Fernando Pessoa saw its master in the poetry of Alberto Caeiros"), Frankfurter Rundschau, August 18, 2004. "Caeiro unterläuft die Unterscheidung zwischen dem Schein und dem, was etwa "Denkerge-danken" hinter ihm ausmachen wollen. Die Dinge, wie er sie sieht, sind als was sie scheinen. Sein Pan-Deismus basiert auf einer Ding-Metaphysik, die in der modernen Dichtung des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts noch Schule machen sollte." Translation: "Caeiro interposes the distinction between the light and what "philosopher thoughts" want to constitute behind him. The things, as he sees them, are as they seem. His pandeism is based on a metaphysical thing, which should still become a school of thought under the modern seal of the twentieth century."
  20. ^ Daniel Cardó, Uwe Michael Lang, Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger (2023), p. 266.
  21. ^ a b Lane, William C. (January 2010). "Leibniz's Best World Claim Restructured". American Philosophical Journal. 47 (1): 57–84. Archived from the original on 26 September 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  22. ^ Southwest Broadcasting SWR2 Aula – Manuscript service (Transcript of a conversation) "God plus Big Bang = X; Astrophysics and faith" Discussants: Professor Hans Küng and Professor Harald Lesch, Editor: Ralf Caspary, broadcast: Sunday, 16th May 2010 at 8.30 clock, SWR2 (Harald Lesch referencing 1970 Nobel Prize laureate Hannes Alfvén); Quote in the show "Gott plus Urknall" ("God plus Big Bang") (SWR2 Hall of 16/05/2010), at 1:32 seconds Archived 2015-01-03 at the Wayback Machine: "Nehmen wir einmal an, wir würden das allumfassende Gesetz der Natur finden, nach dem wir suchen, so dass wir schließlich voller Stolz versichern könnten, so und nicht anders ist die Welt aufgebaut – sofort entstünde eine neue Frage: Was steht hinter diesem Gesetz, warum ist die Welt gerade so aufgebaut? Dieses Warum führt uns über die Grenzen der Naturwissenschaft in den Bereich der Religion. Als Fachmann sollte ein Physiker antworten: Wir wissen es nicht, wir werden es niemals wissen. Andere würden sagen, dass Gott dieses Gesetz aufstellte, also das Universum schuf. Ein Pandeist würde vielleicht sagen, dass das allumfassende Gesetz eben Gott sei."
  23. ^ Michael N. Ebertz and Meinhard Schmidt-Degenhard, Was glauben die Hessen?: Horizonte religiösen Lebens (2011; republished 2014), p. 82.
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