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{{Roman Catholicism}}
{{Deism sidebar}}
Relations between the '''Catholic Church and Pandeism''' have historically largely been critical, with the Church having an openly hostile view on Deism (one aspect of Pandeism), and condemning the early pandeistic thought of [[John Scotus Eriugena]] as [[Heresy|heretical]], and finding the similar elements of [[Giordano Bruno]] grounds for his execution.


A number of Christian writers have examined the concept of [[pandeism]] (a belief that God created and then became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity<ref name="Eventful">{{cite book|author=Paul Bradley|title=This Strange Eventful History: A Philosophy of Meaning|year=2011|pages=156|isbn=9780875868769|publisher=Algora Publishing|quote = Pandeism combines the concepts of Deism and Pantheism with a god who creates the universe and then becomes it.}}</ref>), and these have generally found it to be inconsistent with core principles of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, condemned the ''Periphyseon'' of [[John Scotus Eriugena]], later identified by physicist and philosopher [[Max Bernhard Weinstein]] as presenting a pandeistic theology, as appearing to obscure the separation of God and creation. The Church similarly condemned elements of the thought of [[Giordano Bruno]] which Weinstein and others determined to be pandeistic.
Various Catholic thinkers have since generally disputed the theological premises of [[Pandeism]], and its component elements of [[Pantheism]] and [[Deism]], but some within the Church have also attempted to use Pandeism as an umbrella under which to bring other religions closer to Catholicism. More recently, [[Pope Francis]] has been accused by some Conservative Catholics of leading the Church towards a more pandeistic theology.


==From ancient times to the Enlightenment==
==Early on==
===Eriugena===
===Eriugena===
⚫
[[File:Johannes-Scotus-Erigena.jpg|thumb|left|Johannes Scotus Eriugena]]
German [[Max Bernhard Weinstein]] examined the philosophy of 9th century Irish theologian [[Johannes Scotus Eriugena]], who proposed that "God has created the world out of his own being", and identifies this as a form of pandeism, noting in particular that Eriugena's vision of God was one which does not know what it is, and learns this through the process of existing as its creation.<ref>Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature") (1910), page 283-84: "[[Johannes Scotus Eriugena|Johannes Scotus Erigena]] (um das 9. Jahrhundert in Irland geboren) läßt in einer seiner mehreren Ansichten alles von Gott emaniert sein. Gottes Klarheit, welche mit Recht auch Dunkelheit genannt wird, breite sich über alles aus. Die ungeformte Materie soll nur das Unendliche bedeuten, welches, da es formlos sei, alle Formen in sich enthalte. Gott hat die Welt aus seinem eigenen Wesen gebildet. Jedes Geschöpf ist eine Theophanie, ein Sichoffenbarmachen Gottes. Gott sei an sich vorhanden wie ein Gedanke im Menschen bestehe; er manifestiere sich in der Welt durch sich selbst, wie ein Gedanke, der sich denkt, sich selbst zur Erkenntnis komme. So sei Gott ohne die Welt absolut negativ. Es klingt wie eine Blasphemie, wenn gesagt wird, Gott wisse nicht, was er sei, und er werde erst geschaffen mit der Schöpfung, indem er sich in seiner Schöpfung offenbart, die Schöpfung so aus Nichts hervorbringend. Das ist auch fast so abstrakt wie die indische Tad-Anschauung. Freilich bleibt es bei diesem absoluten, und ja auch nicht zu durchdringenden, Pandeismus nicht. Wie der Indier muß Scotus Gott doch etwas zuschreiben, Willen, und die Geschöpfe sind dann Willensakte. Der Wille ist persönlich als Emanation Gottes (als Christus) gedacht, wie wohl auch die Ursachen (zusammengefaßt als Heiliger Geist), die Scotus von Gott ausgehen läßt, Emanationen sind, und die Wirkungen, die wieder von ihnen ausgehen, Emanationen ihrer selbst darstellen."</ref> In his great work, ''[[De divisione naturae]]'' (also called ''Periphyseon'', probably completed around 867 AD), Eriugena proposed that the nature of the universe is divisible into four distinct classes:
The philosophy of 9th century theologian [[Johannes Scotus Eriugena]], who proposed that "God has created the world out of his own being", has been identified by various theologians as a form of pandeism.<ref>Guillermo Kerber, "Panentheism in Christian Ecotheology," Luca Valera, ed., ''Pantheism and Ecology: Cosmological, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives'' ([[Springer Publishing]], 2023), p. 219-220; ASIN: B0CJNC946L.</ref><ref name="Weinstein 283-84">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 283-84.</ref> [[Max Bernhard Weinstein]] notes that Eriugena's vision of God was one which does not know what it is, and learns this through the process of existing as its creation.<ref>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 283-84</ref> In his ''magnum opus'', ''[[De divisione naturae]]'' (also called ''Periphyseon'', probably completed around 867 AD), Eriugena viewed creation as the self-manifestation of God. "God knows that He is, but not what He is. God has existential knowledge, but no circumscribing knowledge of His essence, since, as infinite, He is uncircumscribable.".<ref name=Moran>[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottus-eriugena/ Moran, Dermot, "John Scottus Eriugena", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)]</ref> According to [[Dermot Moran]], "Eriugena's cosmological account has been criticized for collapsing the differences between God and creation, leading to a heresy later labeled as pantheism."<ref name=Moran/>


Eriugena himself denied explicitly that he was a pantheist. "God is all in all. All things that are in God, even are God, are eternal...the creature subsists in God, and God is created in the creature in a wonderful and ineffable way, making himself manifest, invisible making himself visible...But the divine nature, he finally insists, because it is above being, is different from what it create within itself."<ref>O'Meara, John J., "Introduction", ''The Mind of Eriugena'', (John J. O'Meara and Ludwig Bieler, eds.), Dublin: Irish University Press 1973.</ref> The system of thought outlined is a combination of neo-Platonic mysticism, emanationism, and pantheism which Eriugena strove in vain to reconcile with Aristotelean empiricism, Christian creationism, and theism. "The result is a body of doctrines loosely articulated, in which the mystic and idealistic elements predominate, and in which there is much that is irreconcilable with Catholic dogma."<ref name=Turner>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05519a.htm Turner, William. "John Scotus Eriugena." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 30 June 2019{{PD-notice}}</ref> ''De divisione naturae'' was condemned by a council at Sens by Honorius III (1225), for promoting the identity of God and creation.
:1 – that which creates and is not created;
:2 – that which is created and creates;
:3 – that which is created and does not create;
:4 – that which neither is created nor creates.


⚫
Weinstein also found that thirteenth century scholastic theologian and philosopher [[Bonaventure]], who accepted the neo-Platonic doctrine that "forms" do not exist as subsistent entities, but as ideals or archetypes in the mind of God, according to which actual things were formed, showed strong pandeistic inclinations.<ref>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 303: "Andere Ganz- oder Halbmystiker, wie den Alanus (gegen 1200), seinerzeit ein großes Kirchenlicht und für die unseligen Waldenser von verhängnisvoller Bedeutung, den Bonaventura (1221 im Kirchenstaate geboren), der eine Reise des Geistes zu Gott geschrieben hat und stark pandeistische Neigungen zeigt, den Franzosen Johann Gersan (zu Gersan bei Rheims 1363 geboren) usf., übergehen wir, es kommt Neues nicht zum Vorschein."</ref> Of [[Papal legate]] [[Nicholas of Cusa]], who wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and the unfolding of the divine human mind in creation, Weinstein wrote that he was, to a certain extent, a pandeist.<ref>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 306: "Er ist bis zu einem gewissen Grade Pandeist. Gott schafft die Welt nur aus sich (de nullo alio creat, sed ex se); indem er alles umfaßt, entfaltet er alles aus sich, ohne doch sich dabei irgend zu verändern."</ref>
⚫
[[File:Johannes-Scotus-Erigena.jpg|thumb|left|Irish theologian [[Johannes Scotus Eriugena]]'s writings were condemned as heretical by the Church.]]
The first stage is God as the ground or origin of all things; the second is the world of [[Platonic idealism|Platonic ideals]] or [[Theory of forms|forms]]; the third is the wholly physical manifestation of our Universe, which "does not create"; the last is God as the final end or goal of all things, that into which the world of created things ultimately returns to completeness with the additional knowledge of having experienced this world. A contemporary statement of this idea is that: "Since God is not a being, he is therefore not intelligible... This means not only that we cannot understand him, but also that he cannot understand himself. Creation is a kind of [[divine]] effort by God to understand himself, to see himself in a mirror."<ref>[[Jeremiah Genest]], ''[http://www.granta.demon.co.uk/arsm/jg/eriugena.html John Scottus Eriugena: Life and Works]'' (1998).</ref>

''De divisione naturae'' was condemned by a [[council at Sens]] by [[Honorius III]] (1225), who described it as "swarming with worms of [[heresy|heretical]] perversity," and by [[Pope]] [[Gregory XIII]] in 1585. In 1681, the long-lost work was found at [[Oxford University]], and was immediately placed on the '[[Index of Forbidden Books]]', a turn of events which likely actually spurred its popularity. Despite this result, the [[Catholic Encyclopedia]] noted of Eriugena that "there can be no doubt that he himself abhorred heresy, was disposed to treat the heretic with no small degree of harshness..., and all through his life believed himself an unswervingly loyal son of the Church."[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05519a.htm]

⚫
Weinstein also found that thirteenth century [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] thinker [[Bonaventure]]—who championed the [[Platonic idealism|Platonic]] doctrine that ideas do not exist in ''rerum natura'', but as ideals exemplified by the [[Divine being|Divine Being]], according to which actual things were formed—showed strong pandeistic inclinations.<ref>Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature") (1910), page 303: "Andere Ganz- oder Halbmystiker, wie den Alanus (gegen 1200), seinerzeit ein großes Kirchenlicht und für die unseligen Waldenser von verhängnisvoller Bedeutung, den Bonaventura (1221 im Kirchenstaate geboren), der eine Reise des Geistes zu Gott geschrieben hat und stark pandeistische Neigungen zeigt, den Franzosen Johann Gersan (zu Gersan bei Rheims 1363 geboren) usf., übergehen wir, es kommt Neues nicht zum Vorschein."</ref> Of [[Papal legate]] [[Nicholas of Cusa]], who wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and the unfolding of the divine human mind in creation, Weinstein wrote that he was, to a certain extent, a pandeist.<ref>Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature") (1910), page 306: "Er ist bis zu einem gewissen Grade Pandeist. Gott schafft die Welt nur aus sich (de nullo alio creat, sed ex se); indem er alles umfaßt, entfaltet er alles aus sich, ohne doch sich dabei irgend zu verändern."</ref>


===Giordano Bruno===
===Giordano Bruno===
Weinstein found that pandeism was strongly expressed in the teachings of [[Giordano Bruno]], who envisioned a deity which had no particular relation to one part of the infinite universe more than any other, and was [[Immanence|immanent]], as present on Earth as in the Heavens, subsuming in itself the multiplicity of existence.<ref>Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature") (1910), page 321: "Also darf man vielleicht glauben, daß das ganze System eine Erhebung des Physischen aus seiner Natur in das Göttliche ist oder eine Durchstrahlung des Physischen durch das Göttliche; beides eine Art Pandeismus. Und so zeigt sich auch der Begriff Gottes von dem des Universums nicht getrennt; Gott ist naturierende Natur, Weltseele, Weltkraft. Da Bruno durchaus ablehnt, gegen die Religion zu lehren, so hat man solche Angaben wohl umgekehrt zu verstehen: Weltkraft, Welt seele, naturierende Natur, Universum sind in Gott. Gott ist Kraft der Welt kraft, Seele der Weltseele, Natur der Natur, Eins des Universums. Bruno spricht ja auch von mehreren Teilen der universellen Vernunft, des Urvermögens und der Urwirklichkeit. Und damit hängt zu sammen, daß für ihn die Welt unendlich ist und ohne Anfang und Ende; sie ist in demselben Sinne allumfassend wie Gott. Aber nicht ganz wie Gott. Gott sei in allem und im einzelnen allumfassend, die Welt jedoch wohl in allem, aber nicht im einzelnen, da sie Ja Teile in sich zuläßt."</ref> This was reiterated by others including ''[[Discover (magazine)|Discover]]'' editor [[Corey S. Powell]], who wrote that Bruno's [[cosmology]] was "a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology."<ref>Corey S. Powell, "[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/03/13/cosmos-giordano-bruno-response-steven-soter/#.Uy-qafldUdl Defending Giordano Bruno: A Response from the Co-Writer of 'Cosmos']", ''[[Discover (magazine)|Discover]]'', March 13, 2014: "Bruno imagines all planets and stars having souls (part of what he means by them all having the same "composition"), and he uses his cosmology as a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology."</ref><ref>David Sessions, "[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/23/how-cosmos-bungles-the-history-of-religion-and-science.html How 'Cosmos' Bungles the History of Religion and Science]", ''[[The Daily Beast]]'', 03.23.14: "Bruno, for instance, was a 'pandeist', which is the belief that God had transformed himself into all matter and ceased to exist as a distinct entity in himself."</ref>
Weinstein found that pandeism was strongly expressed in the teachings of [[Giordano Bruno]], who envisioned a deity which had no particular relation to one part of the infinite universe more than any other, and was [[Immanence|immanent]], as present on Earth as in the Heavens, subsuming in itself the multiplicity of existence.<ref>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 321</ref> Lutheran theologian [[Otto Kirn]] criticized as overbroad Weinstein's assertions that figures including Eriugena, [[Anselm of Canterbury]], [[Nicholas of Cusa]], Bruno, and [[Moses Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]] all were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism.<ref name="Kirn">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).</ref> Weinstein was not alone in considering Bruno a pandeist. ''[[Discover (magazine)|Discover]]'' editor [[Corey S. Powell]] wrote that Bruno's [[cosmology]] was "a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology,"<ref>[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/03/13/cosmos-giordano-bruno-response-steven-soter/#.Uy-qafldUdl Powell, Corey S., "Defending Giordano Bruno: A Response from the Co-Writer of 'Cosmos'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191116095835/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/03/13/cosmos-giordano-bruno-response-steven-soter/#.Uy-qafldUdl |date=2019-11-16 }}, ''[[Discover (magazine)|Discover]]'', March 13, 2014: "Bruno imagines all planets and stars having souls (part of what he means by them all having the same "composition"), and he uses his cosmology as a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology."</ref> and this position was agreed with by science writer Michael Newton Keas,<ref name="UNbelievable">{{cite book|author=Michael Newton Keas|title=UNbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion|year=2019|pages=149–150}}</ref> and ''[[The Daily Beast]]'' writer David Sessions.<ref>David Sessions, "[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/23/how-cosmos-bungles-the-history-of-religion-and-science.html How 'Cosmos' Bungles the History of Religion and Science]", ''[[The Daily Beast]]'', 03.23.14: "Bruno, for instance, was a 'pandeist', which is the belief that God had transformed himself into all matter and ceased to exist as a distinct entity in himself."</ref> [[Tariq Goddard]] wrote that "Bruno was not quite an atheist or pantheist. He most likely followed an apophatic creed (''[[via negativa]]''), making him more of a pandeist."<ref>[[Tariq Goddard]], ''The Repeater Book of Heroism'' (2022), p. 25.</ref>


The Venetian Inquisition had Bruno arrested on 22 May 1592. Among the numerous charges of [[blasphemy]] and [[heresy]] brought against him in Venice, based on Mocenigo's denunciation, was his belief in the [[cosmic pluralism|plurality of worlds]], as well as accusations of personal misconduct. Bruno defended himself skillfully, stressing the philosophical character of some of his positions, denying others and admitting that he had had doubts on some matters of dogma. The Roman Inquisition, however, asked for his transfer to Rome. After several months of argument, the Venetian authorities reluctantly consented and Bruno was sent to Rome in February 1593. After a seven year trial there, he was put to death.
The Venetian Inquisition had Bruno arrested on 22 May 1592. Among the numerous charges of [[blasphemy]] and [[heresy]] brought against him in Venice, based on Mocenigo's denunciation, was his belief in the [[cosmic pluralism|plurality of worlds]], as well as accusations of personal misconduct. The Roman Inquisition, asked for his transfer to Rome, where he was sent in February 1593. The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. [[Luigi Firpo]] speculates the charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition were:<ref>Luigi Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, 1993.</ref> holding opinions contrary to the [[Catholicism|Catholic faith]] and speaking against it and its ministers; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the [[Trinity]], divinity of Christ, and [[Incarnation (Christianity)|Incarnation]]; the [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus]]; about both [[Transubstantiation]] and [[Mass (Catholic Church)|Mass]]; claiming the [[Eternity of the world]]; believing in [[metempsychosis]] and in the [[Transmigration of the soul|transmigration]] of the human soul into brutes; and dealing in magics and divination.


On 20 January 1600, [[Pope Clement VIII]] declared Bruno a heretic and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death.<ref>Discussed in Dorothea Waley Singer, ''Giordano Bruno, His Life and Thought'', New York, 1950, ch. 7.</ref> He was turned over to the secular authorities. On Ash Wednesday, 17 February 1600, in the [[Campo de' Fiori]] (a central Roman market square), and [[burned at the stake]].<ref name="Fitzgerald2007">{{cite book|last=Fitzgerald|first=Timothy|title=Discourse on Civility and Barbarity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b67p1VdF_OoC&pg=PA239|access-date=11 May 2017|date=4 December 2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-804103-0|page=239}}</ref> All of Bruno's works were placed on the ''[[Index Librorum Prohibitorum]]'' in 1603. After a seven year trial there, he was put to death. The ''Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger'' notes that [[Joseph Ratzinger]], who would later become [[Pope]], was in particular "critical of… [Bruno's] pandeism".<ref> Daniel Cardó, Uwe Michael Lang, ''Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger'' (2023), p. 266.</ref>
[[File:Giordano Bruno Campo dei Fiori.jpg|thumb|Italian theologian [[Giordano Bruno]] was charged with heresy and burned at the stake for propounding what has been deemed by some commentators to be a pandeistic ideology.]]


==Post-Enlightenment developments==
During the seven years of his trial in Rome, Bruno was held in confinement, lastly in the [[Tower of Nona]]. Some important documents about the trial are lost, but others have been preserved, among them a summary of the proceedings that was rediscovered in 1940.<ref>"II Sommario del Processo di Giordano Bruno, con appendice di Documenti sull'eresia e l'inquisizione a Modena nel secolo XVI", edited by Angelo Mercati, in ''Studi e Testi'', vol. 101.</ref> The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. [[Luigi Firpo]] speculates the charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition were:<ref>Luigi Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, 1993.</ref>
⚫
===In the 1800s===

⚫
In the 1820s to 1830s, pandeism received some mention in Italy. In 1832 and 1834, publishers Angelo Ajani and Giovanni Silvestri, respectively, each [[posthumous publication|posthumously published]] volumes of [[sermons]] of [[Italians|Italian]] Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano; 1759–1829), who named pandeism as being among beliefs he condemned, railing against "Jews, Muslims, [[Gentiles]], [[Schism]]atics, [[Heretics]], [[Pandeists]], [[Deists]], and troubled, restless spirits."<ref name="nannetti">Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=4kZjAAAAcAAJ&dq=pandeisti&pg=PA284 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.")</ref> Nannetti further 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."<ref>Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=QqV75cGMYsoC&dq=pandeista&pg=PA286 Sermons and Panegyrics of the Father Filippo Nani of Lojana]'', Giovanni Silvestri, publisher, 1834, p. 286, Sermon XVIII: Miracles: "A te, fatal Pandeista! le leggi della creata natura son contingenti e mutabili; non altro essendo in sostanza che moti e sviluppi di forze motrici."</ref> In 1838, another Catholic Italian, [[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 [[God|Supreme Being]]."<ref name="Ferrarese">{{cite book
*holding opinions contrary to the [[Catholicism|Catholic faith]] and speaking against it and its ministers;
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the [[Trinity]], divinity of Christ, and [[Incarnation (Christianity)|Incarnation]];
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ;
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus]];
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both [[Transubstantiation]] and [[Mass (Catholic Church)|Mass]];
*claiming the existence of a [[cosmic pluralism|plurality of worlds]] and [[Eternity of the world|their eternity]];
*believing in [[metempsychosis]] and in the [[Transmigration of the soul|transmigration]] of the human soul into brutes;
*dealing in magics and divination.

Bruno defended himself as he had in Venice, insisting that he accepted the Church's dogmatic teachings, but trying to preserve the basis of his philosophy. In particular, he held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it. His trial was overseen by the Inquisitor Cardinal [[Robert Bellarmine|Bellarmine]], who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually refused. On 20 January 1600, [[Pope Clement VIII]] declared Bruno a heretic and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death. According to the correspondence of [[Caspar Schoppe|Gaspar Schopp]] of [[Breslau]], he is said to have made a threatening gesture towards his judges and to have replied: ''Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam'' ("Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it").<ref>Discussed in Dorothea Waley Singer, ''Giordano Bruno, His Life and Thought'', New York, 1950, ch. 7.</ref>

He was turned over to the secular authorities. On Ash Wednesday, 17 February 1600, in the [[Campo de' Fiori]] (a central Roman market square), with his "tongue imprisoned because of his wicked words". He was hung upside down naked before he was finally [[burned at the stake]].<ref name="Fitzgerald2007">{{cite book|last=Fitzgerald|first=Timothy|title=Discourse on Civility and Barbarity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b67p1VdF_OoC&pg=PA239|accessdate=11 May 2017|date=4 December 2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-804103-0|page=239}}</ref><ref>"Il Sommario del Processo di Giordano Bruno, con appendice di Documenti sull'eresia e l'inquisizione a Modena nel secolo XVI", edited by Angelo Mercati, in ''Studi e Testi'', vol. 101; the precise terminology for the tool used to silence Bruno before burning is recorded as ''una morsa di legno'', or "a vise of wood", and not an iron spike as sometimes claimed by other sources.</ref> His ashes were thrown into the [[Tiber]] river. All of Bruno's works were placed on the ''[[Index Librorum Prohibitorum]]'' in 1603.

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==1800s==
⚫
In the 1820s to 1830s, pandeism received some mention among Catholics in Italy. In 1834, publisher Giovanni Silvestri [[posthumous publication|posthumously published]] a volume of [[sermons]] of [[Italians|Italian]] Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano; 1759–1829), who named pandeism as being among beliefs he condemned, railing against "Jews, Muslims, [[Gentiles]], [[Schism]]atics, [[Heretics]], [[Pandeists]], [[Deists]], and troubled, restless spirits."<ref>Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=4kZjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA284&dq=pandeisti&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG05yUs8vJAhWuuYMKHfawCsYQ6AEILTAC#v=onepage&q=pandeisti&f=false 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.")</ref> Nannetti further 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."<ref>Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano), in ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=QqV75cGMYsoC&pg=PA286&dq=pandeista&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9dfQUsTcMYvaoASCkoHYBw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pandeista&f=false Sermons and Panegyrics of the Father Filippo Nani of Lojana]'', Giovanni Silvestri, publisher, 1834, p. 286, Sermon XVIII: Miracles: "A te, fatal Pandeista! le leggi della creata natura son contingenti e mutabili; non altro essendo in sostanza che moti e sviluppi di forze motrici."</ref> Within a few years thereafter came the 1838 publication of 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"), whose author, discussing the theory of religion presented by [[Giambattista Vico]] a century earlier, mused that when man first saw [[meteor shower]]s, "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."<ref>''Il legato di un vecchio ai giovani della sua patria" ("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.").</ref> Neither Nannetti nor the 1838 author defines pandeism distinctly enough to cleanly distinguish it from pantheism, or possibly polytheism. But, again in 1838, another Catholic Italian, [[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]]."<ref name="Ferrarese">{{cite book
|author = [[Luigi Ferrarese]]
|author = [[Luigi Ferrarese]]
|title=Memorie risguardanti la dottrina frenologica
|title=Memorie risguardanti la dottrina frenologica
Line 50: Line 29:
|quote=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.}}</ref>
|quote=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.}}</ref>


Towards the end of the century, in 1897, Reverend [[Henry Grattan Guinness]] wrote critically that in [[India]], "God is everything, and everything is God, and, therefore, everything may be adored. ... Her pan-deism is a pandemonium."<ref>[[Henry Grattan Guinness]], "[[s:First Impressions of India|First Impressions of India]]", in [[John Harvey Kellogg]], and the International Health and Temperance Association's, ''The Medical Missionary'' (1897), pages 125-127.</ref>
The ''[[Catholic Encyclopedia]]'' (1913) recounts Catholic opposition in this period to both the deistic and pantheistic elements of Pandeism. Of Deism, it said:

===Twentieth century on===

A 1906 editorial by a [[Unitarianism|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."<ref>"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.</ref>

[[Christian reconstructionist]] [[Rousas John Rushdoony]] sharply criticized the Catholic Church in his 1971 ''The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy'', asserting, “The position of [[Pope Paul VI|Pope Paul]] came close to being a pan-Deism, and pan-Deism is the logical development of the virus of Hellenic thought."<ref>[[Rousas John Rushdoony]], [https://chalcedon.edu/store/39991-the-one-and-the-many-studies-in-the-philosophy-of-order-and-ultimacy The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy] (1971 [2007]), Ch. VIII-7, p. 142-143.</ref> [[Seventh-day Adventist Church|Adventist]] theologian [[Bert B. Beach]] wrote in 1974 that "during the Vatican Council there was criticism from [[World Council of Churches|WCC]] Circles" to the effect that "ecumenism was being contaminated by “pan-Deist” and syncretistic tendencies."<ref>[[Bert Beverly Beach]], ''Ecumenism: Boon Or Bane?'' (1974), p. 259 (quoting George H. Williams, ''Dimensions of Roman Catholic Ecumenism'' (1965), p. 31-32).</ref>

In 1996, [[Pastor]] Bob Burridge of the Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies wrote in his ''Survey Studies in Reformed Theology'' an essay on "The Decrees of God,"<ref name="Burridge">Bob Burridge, "[http://www.genevaninstitute.org/syllabus/unit-two-theology-proper/lesson-4-the-decrees-of-god/ Theology Proper: Lesson 4 – The Decrees of God]", ''Survey Studies in Reformed Theology'', Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies (1996); quoted in {{Cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPyiDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT37 |title=Pandeism: An Anthology |publisher=[[John Hunt Publishing]]/Iff Books (with author subsidy via Kickstarter) |year=2017 |isbn=978-1785354120 |editor-last=Mapson |editor-first=Knujon |page=30 |chapter=A Brief History of Pandeism}}</ref> also identifying the notion of God becoming the universe as incompatible with Christianity:, writing, "All the actions of created intelligences are not merely the actions of God. He has created a universe of beings which are said to act freely and responsibly as the proximate causes of their own moral actions. When individuals do evil things it is not God the Creator and Preserver acting. If God was the proximate cause of every act it would make all events to be "God in motion". That is nothing less than pantheism, or more exactly, pandeism."


Burridge disagreed that such is the case, decrying that "The Creator is distinct from his creation. The reality of secondary causes is what separates Christian theism from pandeism."<ref name="Burridge"/> Burridge concludes by challenging his reader to determine why "calling God the author of sin demand[s] a pandeistic understanding of the universe effectively removing the reality of sin and moral law."<ref name="Burridge"/>
{{quote|The deistical tendency passed through several more or less clearly defined phases. All the forces possible were mustered against its advance. Parliaments took cognizance of it. Some of the productions of the deists were publicly burnt. The bishops and clergy of the Establishment were strenuous in resisting it. For every pamphlet or book that a deist wrote, several "answers" were at once put before the public as antidotes. Bishops addressed pastoral letters to their dioceses warning the faithful of the danger. Woolston's "Moderator" provoked no less than five such pastorals from the Bishop of London. All that was ecclesiastically official and respectable was ranged in opposition to the movement, and the deists were held up to general detestation in the strongest terms.<ref>"[[s:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Deism|Deism]]", ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' (1913).</ref>}}


Ronny Miron, writing of [[Alan M. Olson]]'s explanation of the views of [[Karl Jaspers]], noted his opinion that "the fear that pandeism or the tendency to reduce faith into the external means by which it is obtained would eventually lead to the viewing of these means as having purely subjective, and also mutable, validity, was behind the Catholic church's emphasis on the objective truth of the symbols themselves in relation to the individual religious experience".<ref>Ronny Miron, ''Karl Jaspers: From Selfhood to Being'' (Rodopi 2012), p. 249, ISBN 9042035315.</ref>
Of Pantheism, it said:


Christian apologist [[John Oakes (apologist)|John Oakes]] has described pandeism as an "ad hoc and a weak marriage" of pantheism and deism.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://evidenceforchristianity.org/what-is-your-response-to-pandeism/|title=What is your response to pandeism?|website=evidenceforchristianity.org|date=May 25, 2013|author=[[John Oakes (apologist)|John Oakes]]}}</ref> English theologian and Anglican priest, [[Graham Ward (theologian)|Graham Ward]], insists that "Attention to Christ and the Spirit delivers us from pantheism, pandeism, and process theology,"<ref>{{cite book
{{quote|The Church has repeatedly condemned the errors of pantheism. Among the propositions censured in the Syllabus of Pius IX is that which declares: "There is no supreme, all-wise and all-provident Divine Being distinct from the universe; God is one with nature and therefore subject to change; He becomes God in man and the world; all things are God and have His substance; God is identical with the world, spirit with matter, necessity with freedom, truth with falsity, good with evil, justice with injustice" (Denzinger-Bannwart, "Ench.", 1701). And the Vatican Council anathematizes those who assert that the substance or essence of God and of all things is one and the same, or that all things evolve from God's essence (ibid., 1803 sqq.).<ref>"[[s:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Pantheism|Pantheism]]", ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' (1913).</ref>}}
|author = Graham Ward
|author-link = Graham Ward (theologian)
|title = How the Light Gets In: Ethical Life I
|year = 2016
|isbn = 978-0199297658
|page = 313
|quote = Attention to Christ and the Spirit delivers us from pantheism, pandeism, and process theology.}}</ref> Consistent with a broader [[New Age#Christian perspectives|Catholic rejection of the New Age]] movement, in 2013, Catholic author [[Al Kresta]] observes that: "New Age" cosmologies reject materialism, naturalism and physicalism. They are commonly pantheistic or pandeistic. They frequently try to commandeer quantum physics and consciousness studies to illustrate their conception of the cosmos."<ref name="kresta">[[Al Kresta]], ''Dangers to the Faith: Recognizing Catholicism's 21st-Century Opponents'', "Science and Warfare With Religion" (2013), p. 255-256, n. 30, {{ISBN|1592767257}}.</ref> In 2022 minister Brent Price described pandeism as "a very contemporary deceptive religious concept that targets uninformed and [[Salvation in Christianity|unsaved]] people," explaining his view that "this false religious view is why many have come to believe that God, the Creator of the universe, no longer exists, because He became the universe and is now the universe."<ref>Brent Price, D.Min., ''Be Prepared Evangelism: The Personal Evangelism Game Changer'', 2022, page 137.</ref>


==Later on==
==See also==
*[[Catholic Church and deism]]
[[Charles Anselm Bolton]] states in a 1963 article, ''Beyond the Ecumenical: Pan-deism?''<ref name="Bolton">[[Charles Anselm Bolton]], "[https://archive.org/details/BeyondTheEcumenical?q=%22pan-deism%22 Beyond the Ecumenical: Pan-deism?]", ''Christianity Today'', 1963, page 21.</ref> that he "first came upon this extension of [[ecumenism]] into pan-deism among some [[Roman Catholic]] [[scholar]]s interested primarily in the 'reunion of the churches,' [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman]], [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]], [[Anglican]]", and wondered, "what is the ultimate aim of the Curia in promoting the pan-deist movement."<ref name="Bolton"/> Bolton noted the usefulness of this path in connection to the tendency toward [[Pandeism in Asia]], stating that "to unite with Hindus and Buddhists, Christians should explore the hidden reality—the “ultimate reality,” the infinite, the absolute, the everlasting, the all-pervading spirit that marks the religious experience of the Orient."<ref name="Bolton"/> The impact of this line of thought on Christianity was examined by [[Rousas John Rushdoony]], who wrote in his 1971 ''The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy'' that “The position of [[Pope Paul VI|Pope Paul]] came close to being a pan-Deism, and pan-Deism is the logical development of the virus of Hellenic thought,” and further that “a sincere idealist, implicitly pan-Deist in faith, deeply concerned with the problems of the world and of time, can be a [[Ghibelline]] pope, and Dante's Ghibellines have at last triumphed."<ref>[[Rousas John Rushdoony]], [https://chalcedon.edu/store/39991-the-one-and-the-many-studies-in-the-philosophy-of-order-and-ultimacy The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy] (1971 [2007]), Ch. VIII-7, p. 142-143.</ref> Theologian [[Bert B. Beach]] wrote in 1974 that "during the Vatican Council there was criticism from WCC Circles" to the effect that "ecumenism was being contaminated by “pan-Deist” and syncretistic tendencies."<ref>[[Bert Beverly Beach]], ''Ecumenism: Boon Or Bane?'' (1974), p. 259 (quoting George H. Williams, ''Dimensions of Roman Catholic Ecumenism'' (1965), p. 31-32).</ref> In 2013, Catholic author [[Al Kresta]] observes that:
*[[Criticism of pandeism]]
{{quote|"New Age" cosmologies reject materialism, naturalism and physicalisma. They are commonly pantheistic or pandeistic. They frequently try to commandeer quantum physics and consciousness studies to illustrate their conception of the cosmos.<ref>[[Al Kresta]], ''Dangers to the Faith: Recognizing Catholicism's 21st-Century Opponents'', "Science and Warfare With Religion" (2013), p. 255-256, n. 30, {{ISBN|1592767257}}.</ref>}} Renegade priest Paul Kramer has deemed [[Pope Francis]] "a pandeist who does not believe in the transcendent God and Creator of Catholicism, but in the immanent ‘divine principle’ of Paganism, the life giving world soul (anima mundi) within the Universe", describing this as a creed "remarkably like a synthesis of the belief systems of Lord Shaftsbury (sic), [[Friedrich Schleiermacher]], [[Benedict Spinoza]], [[Auguste Compte]], and [[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin]]."<ref>Father Paul Kramer, "[http://biblefalseprophet.com/2016/09/06/jorge-bergoglios-religion-freemasonry-naturalism-rationalism-pandeism/ Jorge Bergoglio’s Religion — Freemasonry (Naturalism, Rationalism, Pandeism)]", ''Biblical False Prophet'' (6 September 2016).</ref>


==References==
==References==
Line 67: Line 61:
''Attribution'': contains material from the articles ''[[De divisione naturae]], [[Giordano Bruno]], and [[Pandeism]].
''Attribution'': contains material from the articles ''[[De divisione naturae]], [[Giordano Bruno]], and [[Pandeism]].


[[Category:Interfaith dialogue|Pandeism]]
[[category:Catholic ecumenical and interfaith relations]]
[[Category:Deism]]
[[Category:Christianity and other religions|Pandeism]]
[[Category:Pantheism]]

Latest revision as of 06:32, 28 March 2024

Deism
Origins
Movements
Notable figures
False equivalencies
Opposition

A number of Christian writers have examined the concept of pandeism (a belief that God created and then became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity[1]), and these have generally found it to be inconsistent with core principles of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, condemned the Periphyseon of John Scotus Eriugena, later identified by physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein as presenting a pandeistic theology, as appearing to obscure the separation of God and creation. The Church similarly condemned elements of the thought of Giordano Bruno which Weinstein and others determined to be pandeistic.

From ancient times to the Enlightenment

[edit]

Eriugena

[edit]
Johannes Scotus Eriugena

The philosophy of 9th century theologian Johannes Scotus Eriugena, who proposed that "God has created the world out of his own being", has been identified by various theologians as a form of pandeism.[2][3] Max Bernhard Weinstein notes that Eriugena's vision of God was one which does not know what it is, and learns this through the process of existing as its creation.[4] In his magnum opus, De divisione naturae (also called Periphyseon, probably completed around 867 AD), Eriugena viewed creation as the self-manifestation of God. "God knows that He is, but not what He is. God has existential knowledge, but no circumscribing knowledge of His essence, since, as infinite, He is uncircumscribable.".[5] According to Dermot Moran, "Eriugena's cosmological account has been criticized for collapsing the differences between God and creation, leading to a heresy later labeled as pantheism."[5]

Eriugena himself denied explicitly that he was a pantheist. "God is all in all. All things that are in God, even are God, are eternal...the creature subsists in God, and God is created in the creature in a wonderful and ineffable way, making himself manifest, invisible making himself visible...But the divine nature, he finally insists, because it is above being, is different from what it create within itself."[6] The system of thought outlined is a combination of neo-Platonic mysticism, emanationism, and pantheism which Eriugena strove in vain to reconcile with Aristotelean empiricism, Christian creationism, and theism. "The result is a body of doctrines loosely articulated, in which the mystic and idealistic elements predominate, and in which there is much that is irreconcilable with Catholic dogma."[7] De divisione naturae was condemned by a council at Sens by Honorius III (1225), for promoting the identity of God and creation.

Weinstein also found that thirteenth century scholastic theologian and philosopher Bonaventure, who accepted the neo-Platonic doctrine that "forms" do not exist as subsistent entities, but as ideals or archetypes in the mind of God, according to which actual things were formed, showed strong pandeistic inclinations.[8] Of Papal legate Nicholas of Cusa, who wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and the unfolding of the divine human mind in creation, Weinstein wrote that he was, to a certain extent, a pandeist.[9]

Giordano Bruno

[edit]

Weinstein found that pandeism was strongly expressed in the teachings of Giordano Bruno, who envisioned a deity which had no particular relation to one part of the infinite universe more than any other, and was immanent, as present on Earth as in the Heavens, subsuming in itself the multiplicity of existence.[10] Lutheran theologian Otto Kirn criticized as overbroad Weinstein's assertions that figures including Eriugena, Anselm of Canterbury, Nicholas of Cusa, Bruno, and Mendelssohn all were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism.[11] Weinstein was not alone in considering Bruno a pandeist. Discover editor Corey S. Powell wrote that Bruno's cosmology was "a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology,"[12] and this position was agreed with by science writer Michael Newton Keas,[13] and The Daily Beast writer David Sessions.[14] Tariq Goddard wrote that "Bruno was not quite an atheist or pantheist. He most likely followed an apophatic creed (via negativa), making him more of a pandeist."[15]

The Venetian Inquisition had Bruno arrested on 22 May 1592. Among the numerous charges of blasphemy and heresy brought against him in Venice, based on Mocenigo's denunciation, was his belief in the plurality of worlds, as well as accusations of personal misconduct. The Roman Inquisition, asked for his transfer to Rome, where he was sent in February 1593. The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. Luigi Firpo speculates the charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition were:[16] holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation; the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus; about both Transubstantiation and Mass; claiming the Eternity of the world; believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes; and dealing in magics and divination.

On 20 January 1600, Pope Clement VIII declared Bruno a heretic and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death.[17] He was turned over to the secular authorities. On Ash Wednesday, 17 February 1600, in the Campo de' Fiori (a central Roman market square), and burned at the stake.[18] All of Bruno's works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1603. After a seven year trial there, he was put to death. The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger notes that Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope, was in particular "critical of… [Bruno's] pandeism".[19]

Post-Enlightenment developments

[edit]

In the 1800s

[edit]

In the 1820s to 1830s, pandeism received some mention in Italy. In 1832 and 1834, publishers Angelo Ajani and Giovanni Silvestri, respectively, each posthumously published volumes of sermons of Italian Padre Filippo Nannetti di Bibulano (aka il Filippo Nani, Padre da Lojano; 1759–1829), who named pandeism as being among beliefs he condemned, railing against "Jews, Muslims, Gentiles, Schismatics, Heretics, Pandeists, Deists, and troubled, restless spirits."[20] Nannetti further 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."[21] In 1838, another Catholic Italian, 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."[22]

Towards the end of the century, in 1897, Reverend Henry Grattan Guinness wrote critically that in India, "God is everything, and everything is God, and, therefore, everything may be adored. ... Her pan-deism is a pandemonium."[23]

Twentieth century on

[edit]

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."[24]

Christian reconstructionist Rousas John Rushdoony sharply criticized the Catholic Church in his 1971 The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy, asserting, “The position of Pope Paul came close to being a pan-Deism, and pan-Deism is the logical development of the virus of Hellenic thought."[25] Adventist theologian Bert B. Beach wrote in 1974 that "during the Vatican Council there was criticism from WCC Circles" to the effect that "ecumenism was being contaminated by “pan-Deist” and syncretistic tendencies."[26]

In 1996, Pastor Bob Burridge of the Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies wrote in his Survey Studies in Reformed Theology an essay on "The Decrees of God,"[27] also identifying the notion of God becoming the universe as incompatible with Christianity:, writing, "All the actions of created intelligences are not merely the actions of God. He has created a universe of beings which are said to act freely and responsibly as the proximate causes of their own moral actions. When individuals do evil things it is not God the Creator and Preserver acting. If God was the proximate cause of every act it would make all events to be "God in motion". That is nothing less than pantheism, or more exactly, pandeism."

Burridge disagreed that such is the case, decrying that "The Creator is distinct from his creation. The reality of secondary causes is what separates Christian theism from pandeism."[27] Burridge concludes by challenging his reader to determine why "calling God the author of sin demand[s] a pandeistic understanding of the universe effectively removing the reality of sin and moral law."[27]

Ronny Miron, writing of Alan M. Olson's explanation of the views of Karl Jaspers, noted his opinion that "the fear that pandeism or the tendency to reduce faith into the external means by which it is obtained would eventually lead to the viewing of these means as having purely subjective, and also mutable, validity, was behind the Catholic church's emphasis on the objective truth of the symbols themselves in relation to the individual religious experience".[28]

Christian apologist John Oakes has described pandeism as an "ad hoc and a weak marriage" of pantheism and deism.[29] English theologian and Anglican priest, Graham Ward, insists that "Attention to Christ and the Spirit delivers us from pantheism, pandeism, and process theology,"[30] Consistent with a broader Catholic rejection of the New Age movement, in 2013, Catholic author Al Kresta observes that: "New Age" cosmologies reject materialism, naturalism and physicalism. They are commonly pantheistic or pandeistic. They frequently try to commandeer quantum physics and consciousness studies to illustrate their conception of the cosmos."[31] In 2022 minister Brent Price described pandeism as "a very contemporary deceptive religious concept that targets uninformed and unsaved people," explaining his view that "this false religious view is why many have come to believe that God, the Creator of the universe, no longer exists, because He became the universe and is now the universe."[32]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Paul Bradley (2011). This Strange Eventful History: A Philosophy of Meaning. Algora Publishing. p. 156. ISBN 9780875868769. Pandeism combines the concepts of Deism and Pantheism with a god who creates the universe and then becomes it.
  2. ^ Guillermo Kerber, "Panentheism in Christian Ecotheology," Luca Valera, ed., Pantheism and Ecology: Cosmological, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives (Springer Publishing, 2023), p. 219-220; ASIN: B0CJNC946L.
  3. ^ 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 283-84.
  4. ^ 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 283-84
  5. ^ a b Moran, Dermot, "John Scottus Eriugena", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
  6. ^ O'Meara, John J., "Introduction", The Mind of Eriugena, (John J. O'Meara and Ludwig Bieler, eds.), Dublin: Irish University Press 1973.
  7. ^ Turner, William. "John Scotus Eriugena." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 30 June 2019Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  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 303: "Andere Ganz- oder Halbmystiker, wie den Alanus (gegen 1200), seinerzeit ein großes Kirchenlicht und für die unseligen Waldenser von verhängnisvoller Bedeutung, den Bonaventura (1221 im Kirchenstaate geboren), der eine Reise des Geistes zu Gott geschrieben hat und stark pandeistische Neigungen zeigt, den Franzosen Johann Gersan (zu Gersan bei Rheims 1363 geboren) usf., übergehen wir, es kommt Neues nicht zum Vorschein."
  9. ^ 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 306: "Er ist bis zu einem gewissen Grade Pandeist. Gott schafft die Welt nur aus sich (de nullo alio creat, sed ex se); indem er alles umfaßt, entfaltet er alles aus sich, ohne doch sich dabei irgend zu verändern."
  10. ^ 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 321
  11. ^ 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).
  12. ^ Powell, Corey S., "Defending Giordano Bruno: A Response from the Co-Writer of 'Cosmos' Archived 2019-11-16 at the Wayback Machine, Discover, March 13, 2014: "Bruno imagines all planets and stars having souls (part of what he means by them all having the same "composition"), and he uses his cosmology as a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology."
  13. ^ Michael Newton Keas (2019). UNbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion. pp. 149–150.
  14. ^ David Sessions, "How 'Cosmos' Bungles the History of Religion and Science", The Daily Beast, 03.23.14: "Bruno, for instance, was a 'pandeist', which is the belief that God had transformed himself into all matter and ceased to exist as a distinct entity in himself."
  15. ^ Tariq Goddard, The Repeater Book of Heroism (2022), p. 25.
  16. ^ Luigi Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, 1993.
  17. ^ Discussed in Dorothea Waley Singer, Giordano Bruno, His Life and Thought, New York, 1950, ch. 7.
  18. ^ Fitzgerald, Timothy (4 December 2007). Discourse on Civility and Barbarity. Oxford University Press. p. 239. ISBN 978-0-19-804103-0. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
  19. ^ Daniel Cardó, Uwe Michael Lang, Cambridge Companion to Joseph Ratzinger (2023), p. 266.
  20. ^ 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.")
  21. ^ 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: "A te, fatal Pandeista! le leggi della creata natura son contingenti e mutabili; non altro essendo in sostanza che moti e sviluppi di forze motrici."
  22. ^ Luigi Ferrarese (1838). Memorie risguardanti la dottrina frenologica (in Italian). 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.
  23. ^ Henry Grattan Guinness, "First Impressions of India", in John Harvey Kellogg, and the International Health and Temperance Association's, The Medical Missionary (1897), pages 125-127.
  24. ^ "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.
  25. ^ Rousas John Rushdoony, The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy (1971 [2007]), Ch. VIII-7, p. 142-143.
  26. ^ Bert Beverly Beach, Ecumenism: Boon Or Bane? (1974), p. 259 (quoting George H. Williams, Dimensions of Roman Catholic Ecumenism (1965), p. 31-32).
  27. ^ a b c Bob Burridge, "Theology Proper: Lesson 4 – The Decrees of God", Survey Studies in Reformed Theology, Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies (1996); quoted in Mapson, Knujon, ed. (2017). "A Brief History of Pandeism". Pandeism: An Anthology. John Hunt Publishing/Iff Books (with author subsidy via Kickstarter). p. 30. ISBN 978-1785354120.
  28. ^ Ronny Miron, Karl Jaspers: From Selfhood to Being (Rodopi 2012), p. 249, ISBN 9042035315.
  29. ^ John Oakes (May 25, 2013). "What is your response to pandeism?". evidenceforchristianity.org.
  30. ^ Graham Ward (2016). How the Light Gets In: Ethical Life I. p. 313. ISBN 978-0199297658. Attention to Christ and the Spirit delivers us from pantheism, pandeism, and process theology.
  31. ^ Al Kresta, Dangers to the Faith: Recognizing Catholicism's 21st-Century Opponents, "Science and Warfare With Religion" (2013), p. 255-256, n. 30, ISBN 1592767257.
  32. ^ Brent Price, D.Min., Be Prepared Evangelism: The Personal Evangelism Game Changer, 2022, page 137.

Attribution: contains material from the articles De divisione naturae, Giordano Bruno, and Pandeism.

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