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A Reply to Lataster and Bilimoria's “Panentheism(S): What It Is and Is Journal of World Philosophies Responses/201 A Reply to Lataster and Bilimoria’s “Panentheism(s): What It Is and Is Not” _________________________________________ BENEDIKT PAUL GÖCKE University of Oxford, UK ([email protected]) I summarize and critically respond to Raphael Lataster and Purushottama Bilimoria’s paper on panentheism. I show that their suggested concept of panentheism is useless for academic discourse because it refers to contradictory positions. Key words: panentheism; pantheism; classical theism; Karl Christian Friedrich Krause; concepts of God Raphael Lataster and Purushottama Bilimoria’s paper “Panentheism(s): What It Is and Is Not”1 is problematic because of its tone and style, because of the lack of scholarly rigor, and because it contains false claims. The tone and style of the paper are polemical. The paper contains pejorative sentences like, “And unlike the poor theists, who are told that they are imperfect and must take action to get closer to the deity, we need do nothing, and we need feel no guilt” (52). The paper contains dubious historical claims like, “At the height of its power, the Roman Catholic Church routinely [sic!] persecuted and killed such monistic ‘heretics’” (53). The paper contains personal musings like, “As a theist, Göcke could be forgiven for personally finding such ideas incongruous and even blasphemous” (55). This mix of personal musings, their naïve stance on Church history, and their belittlement of positions they disagree with fails the standards of professional philosophical discourse. Professional philosophical discourse should focus on the sober-minded analysis of philosophical questions and arguments that speak in favor of and against philosophical positions. Apart from the polemical nature of the paper, its biggest problem is that Lataster and Bilimoria do not deliver what they promise: a sound understanding of what panentheism is and what it is not. They say that panentheism has roots in Asian and Indian traditions. They add that panentheism is a type of pantheism (51) on which “the world is divine but there is more to the divine than the world” (52). Ultimately, they claim that the term “panentheism” is a term referring to a group of contradictory theses regarding the God-world relationship: “There are panentheisms where the world is necessary, where the world is contingent, where the universe is the deity’s body, where the universe is part of the deity’s body, where the world is created, where the world is not created, and so forth” (56). There is no denying that motifs associated with the modern discussion of panentheism have roots in Asian and Indian traditions—this is a well-known fact.2 However, it remains unclear why Lataster and Bilimoria first claim to tell the reader what panentheism is and what it is not, and then stipulate an understanding of the term “panentheism” on which this term becomes useless for academic discourse inasmuch as it would then refer to contradictory positions. In more detail, for purely logical reasons, either the world is created or the world is not created, either the world is necessary or the world is contingent, either the world is God’s body or the world is not God’s body. However, if, as Lataster and Bilimoria suggest, the concept of panentheism covers logically contradictory positions, it becomes useless for academic discourse precisely because the assertation “panentheism is true” would then fail to specify a clear-cut _______________ Journal of World Philosophies 4 (Summer 2019): 201-203 Copyright © 2019 Benedikt Paul Göcke. e-ISSN: 2474-1795 • http://sCholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp • doi: 10.2979/jourworlphil.4.1.14 Journal of World Philosophies Responses/202 philosophical thesis. To pick an analogy, it is a bit like stipulating that the term “bachelor” should from now on be used to cover both married and unmarried men, which would render the term “bachelor” useless. It also remains obscure why they complain that “Göcke’s panentheism is idiosyncratic, being at odds with the etymology of the term, as well as ancient religious and contemporary philosophical discussions” (54): they argue that there are many different and even contradictory positions referred to as panentheism. Because on my position, panentheism entails that the world is necessarily co-existing with God as its ultimate ground—that is on my account what it means to say that the world is “in” God—one would have expected that Bilimoria and Lataster classify my thesis of panentheism as another position covered by their use of this term. After all, on their understanding of what panentheism is, it already includes arbitrarily mixed positions. Finally, the paper contains false claims. Several times Lataster and Bilimoria claim that there is a “recent change in Göcke’s position” (60) and that “Göcke ostensibly so radically altered his views on panentheism that another section bearing his name is warranted” (59). They even wonder why Göcke “does not reference his erstwhile opponent Lataster” (60) and “why there is no mention of how Lataster may have helped him to adopt his new position” (60, FN 62). The reason is simple: Lataster did not contribute anything to the change of my position, simply because I never changed it. At the very least, one would have expected Lataster and Bilimoria to cross-check whether their claims about the change in my position can be confirmed by my publications. Even with a cursory look at my publications from 2009 onwards, it will not be too hard to discern that my position regarding the plausibility of panentheism and its relation to classical theism has remained unchanged. See, for instance, my article “Spirituality as a Rhetorical Precondition for Knowledge of God” (2010), or my paper “Wissenschaft ist Panentheismus. Karl Christian Friedrich Krause und die Grundschau: Gott” (2011), or my book A Theory of the Absolute (2014). 3 Unlike Lataster and Bilimoria, however, I find it difficult to demarcate panentheism from classical theism because the logic inherent to classical theism, on which God is supposed to be ipsum esse subsistens, naturally leads to models of the God-world relationship that are almost indistinguishable from panentheism. For those interested in, amongst other things, substantial analysis and criticism of my position I recommend Ayon Maharaj’s book, Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (2018).4 For those interested in the relation between classical theism, panentheism, and Indian thought, I recommend Annette Wilke’s excellent book: Ein Sein, ein Erkennen: Meister Eckharts Christologie und Śamkaras Lehre vom Ātman: zur (Un)Vergleichbarkeit zweier Einheitslehren (1995).5 For those interested further in my position, I recommend my latest book on panentheism: The Panentheism of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781-1832). From Transcendental Philosophy to Metaphysics (2018), which is an open-access publication.6 Benedikt Paul Göcke is a Research Fellow at the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and a Member of the Faculty of Theology at University of Oxford. He is also Professor for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophy of Science at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. Göcke is author of: A Theory of the Absolute (Macmillan, 2014), Alles in Gott? (Friedrich Pustet, 2012) and, together with Christian Tapp, editor of The Infinity of God (Notre Dame, 2018). He published articles in The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Zygon, Sophia, Faith and Philosophy, The European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, and Theologie und Philosophie, among others. 1 Raphael Lataster, Purushottama Bilimoria, “Panentheism(s): What It Is and Is Not,” Journal of World Philosophies 3, no. 2, (2018): 49-64. _______________ Journal of World Philosophies 4 (Summer 2019): 201-203 Copyright © 2019 Benedikt Paul Göcke. e-ISSN: 2474-1795 • http://sCholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp • doi: 10.2979/jourworlphil.4.1.14 Journal of World Philosophies Responses/203 2 See, for instance, ed. Loriliai Biernacki, Philip Clayton, Panentheism across the World’s Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 3 Benedikt Paul Göcke, “Spirituality as a Rhetorical Precondition for Knowledge of God,” The Heythrop Journal: A Bi-monthly Review of Philosophy and Theology 51, no. 6, (2010): 1011-16; “Wissenschaft ist Panentheismus. Karl Christian Friedrich Krause und die Grundschau: Gott,” in ed. B. Göcke, M. Wasmaier-Sailer, Idealismus und natürliche Theologie (Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 2011), 181-200; A Theory of the Absolute, Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 4 Ayon Maharaj, Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 5 Annette Wilke, Ein Sein, ein Erkennen: Meister Eckharts Christologie und Śamkaraṣ Lehre vom Ātman: zur (Un-)Vergleichbarkeit zweier Einheitslehren (New York: Peter Lang, 1995). 6 Benedikt Paul Göcke, The Panentheism of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781-1832). From Transcendental Philosophy to Metaphysics (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2018). _______________ Journal of World Philosophies 4 (Summer 2019): 201-203 Copyright © 2019 Benedikt Paul Göcke. e-ISSN: 2474-1795 • http://sCholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/jwp • doi: 10.2979/jourworlphil.4.1.14 .
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