Resources for refuting Pantheism?

[Willem van Oranje]

I was talking with a co-worker today, who is a mild-mannered guy that everyone likes. His wife died recently after a long illness. He had a background as a Unitarian Universalist, but had not been active in a long time. Since his wife's funeral he has been attending a liberal UCC congregation. His favorite past-time is to sing hymns with a recreational type of choir.

He told me today something that smacked of Pantheism. He said that we are all, God. That God existed prior to everything, and that everything is a part of God. I asked whether this god is a personal god or unpersonalized essence. He said he was not sure.

The conversation made me think that I should study more about the most effective apologetic against pantheism. Does anyone have an example or link? How do you go about proving that God is not everything that exists, and that everything is not a part of God, to an unbeliever?

 

[jwright82]

I don't really know of any resources but I can give you some areas of criticism that I would employ.

Ethics- if all is god than good and evil are both god. Which means that all the evil in the world is both good and evil in the same sense. If this true than why be moral at all?

Metaphysics (theory of reality)- since pantheism or panantheism is a religious-metaphysical theory than this is a nice place to start. He probelly beleives that the universe is eternal because it is or is inhabited by god, but all evidence points to the fact that the universe had a beggining in fact the 2nd law of thermodynamics rules out an eternal universe, hence his views in this area don't match up with reality.

 

[Covenant Joel]

Check out TruthXChange, an organization run by Peter Jones (of "The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back). I believe he has some helpful things on this.

Also, Bavinck discusses pantheism quite a bit in Reformed Dogmatics. He regularly shows how people want to either go the way of atheism or the way of pantheism.

 

[ValiantforTruth]

pantheism

I have valued Vishal Mangalwadi's work on Eastern religions and pantheism, if you can get your hands on any of it. Some of his lectures are online at the McLaren Institute, although I'm not sure if any of those deal directly with pantheism.

 

[Willem van Oranje]

Check out TruthXChange, an organization run by Peter Jones (of "The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back). I believe he has some helpful things on this.

Also, Bavinck discusses pantheism quite a bit in Reformed Dogmatics. He regularly shows how people want to either go the way of atheism or the way of pantheism.

Thanks, Joel. Hey, your church was the first reformed church that I ever attended!!

 

[Covenant Joel]

Thanks, Joel. Hey, your church was the first reformed church that I ever attended!!

No problem. Very cool, I've only been here since August, but like it quite well.

 

[MMasztal]

James made some especially good points. Your friend has almost a Hindu-type of belief system. I'd ask him to provide an account for good and evil, sin and forgiveness and why/if any of that matters.

This kind of psychobabble cracks me up and I deal with it occasionally. I teach at a Christian school and you'd be amazed at some of the beliefs some of the parents have. Getting back to your friend. For example, "He said that we are all, God. That God existed prior to everything, and that everything is a part of God." I'd ask, how does he know that. Unless he has a conscious memory of always existing, he had to learn about that somewhere. Where did he learn this? You can also challenge whatever authority he might cite.