IN WHOM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING

Pønentheistic Reflections on 's Presence in a Scientific

Edited by

Philip Clayton and

Wrrri¡.¡tr B. Eenpue¡¡s Pu¡rrsnINc Coup¡.r¡v Gn¡Np R¡prps, MrcHtceN / C¿,røanrpc¡, U.K, ARTHUR PEACOCKE

God experiences the negative events of that world from its inside. A Naming a Quiet Revolution: panentheist couid reasonably affirm that such proposals generate a strong The Panentheistic pressure to assert that the events of the world are suffìcientiy "in" God for Turn in Modern in wlrat sense "in"? It is noteworthy God to be affected by them - but again, that a wide range of theological terms in Judeo-Christian discourse has been MICHAEL W. BRIERLEY used in various implicitl¡ and sometimes explicitl¡ panentheistic proposals to respond to this question, and not only in the context of the affìrmation of divine passibility. As we shall see in the contributions that follow these in- clude reference to God conceived as Holy Wisdom' to the world as sacrament, to the uncreated energies of God, as well as trinitarian interpretations and the whole project of . The very use by many contemporary authors of what Philip Clayton has called the "panentheistic analogy"7 indicates the pressing need for a reconsid- eration in depth of the perennial issue of the dialectic invoived in affirming both God's oter and God's ir the world. This vol- ume is offered as a substantial contribution to that enterprise. [The three-decker ] has been discarded by nearly all. What are we to put in its place? appears to supply the answer.l

Via the constructive employment of the panentheistic model, Christian thought and lífe are in the process of being

revitali I zl ed.2

Panentheism is desperatell' needed bf individuals and religious institutions today.3

This volume of essays attempts to revierv to n'hat extent the u'ord "panetr- " should be given a prominent place in contemporar)'theologl'. Theolo- gians, scientists, and scientist-theologians each offer their own understanding ofthe word, or their response to the challenges it represents. lvlany of them be- lieve, as do i and the authors ofthe quotations above, that panentheism holds great promise as a doctrinal and spiritual ¡esource in the third millennium. They are conscious of what Philip Clayton has called "the panentheistic turn"

This paper is drawn from ongoing Ph.D. research at the , and I am grateful to Professor Gareth Jones for his supervision.

xxlr MICHAEL W. BRIERLEY Naming a Quiet Revolution: The Panentheistic Turn in Modern Theology in theology of the twentieth centur¡a but they are aware that the word itself acknowledges the word's origin in Krause.le George Tyrrell and Friedrich von needs to be better known, better defined, and better understood if it is to be Hrigel, the Catholic modernists, both used the word approvingly,20 and it rvas taken as a serious part of the world's future theological agenda.s taken from Inge by another writer on mysticisrn, Brigid Herman.2r The word Donald Neil, who wrote a doctoral dissertation on panentheism in the was made widely known in America through ,22 ',the r97os,6 realized that "the time is ripe for a close stud¡ historical and analyti- leading twentieth-century advocate of panentheism,"23 in particular through cal, of the doctrine of panentheism";7 the published version of his thesis, God his reader in the doctrine of God, Speak of God.2a The word was in Everything represents the first voiume devoted to the word. The present es- reintroduced to Britain by Iohn Robinson,2s whose book Exploratio,t into say seeks to provide a historical and anal¡ical perspective for the present vol- God þ967) developed the doctrinal suggestions of his cont¡oversial best-seller ume, the first collection of essays around "panentheism," by surveying the use Honest to God 09û);tu and its chief exponent in Britain,2T though he does of the word in theological literature: it gives, first, an account of the dramatis not like the term itself,28 is |ohn Macquarrie.2e Macquarrie's panentheisn.r de- personae of the panentheistic turn; second, an account of the patterns into rived from the "existential-ontological" position of the first edition of his which the use of the term seems to have fallen; and third, some suggestions as Principles of chrístian Theology,3' which itself evolvecl from his ontological to why the "turn" might have occurred. In this way it sets the stage for the va- critique of the existentialists Heidegger and Bultmann.3r riety of responses to the word in the chapters which follow, whether or not At every stage of its entry into modern theolog¡ panentheism has rep- they hold that the word is necessary or welcome. resented a middle path between two extremes, and so it has explicitly becorne one of the three essential types of the most fundamental of doctrines, the doctrine of God, , , and panentheism are recog- Dramatis Personae of the Panentheistic Turn nized as the basic patterns through which the doctrine of God can be ana- Iyzed.3z To be sure, not every doctrine of God can easily be assigned to one of The word "panentheism" is less well known than "pantheism," which was these three,33 but even in these cases the ambiguity which the categories re- coined early in the eighteenth century8 and came to be used by traditionalists veal in theologians'doctrines of God demonstrates the categories'validity as as a term of abuse for any hint of departure from classical theism,e especialiy illuminating tools for theological understanding. when the immanence of God came to the fore of theology from the late nine- Today a whole host of theologians identifo themselves as panentheists teenth century to the end of the First World War.10 "Panentheism," as all tÌ¡e (in listing some of them here, no claim is made to be exhaustive). Some sub- standard dictionary articles testify,lr was coined by Karl Christian Friedrich scribe to process theism, a subset of panentheism: Hartshorne, Norman (r78r-r832),12 the philosopherr3 a Krause German idealist and contemporary Pittenger,3a ,3s Schubert Ogden,36 John Cobb,37 James ,3s of Hegel.la Translating Krause in r9oo, William Hastie commented, "His en- Jim Garrison,3e David Pailin,a0 |oseph Bracken,al David Griffin ,42 Jay thusiastic disciples claim for him that his system is the truest outcome of McDaniel,a3 Daniel Dombrowski,aa and Anna Case-Winters.as Others who modern speculation; that it brings all contemporary knowledge and science identi$' themselves as panentheists include Alan Anderson,a6 Leonardo into completest harmony; and that the Twentieth Centur¡ understanding Boff,aT Marcus Borg,as Philip Clayton,ae Scott Cowdell,so Denis Edwards,sr and appreciating Krause better than the Nineteenth Century has done, will Paul Fiddes,s2 ,s3 Donald Gelpi,sa Peter Hodgson,ss Christopher find the certainty, securit¡ and unity we long for in his profound rational Knight,só John Macquarrie, Paul Matthews,sT Sallie McFague,ss Jürgen 'Panentheism."'15 Philip Clayton suggests that idealist theologians of the Moitmann,se Hugh Montefiore,6o Helen Oppenheimer,6r Arthur peacocke,62 early nineteenth century such as Krause developed a basic set of intuitions Piet Schoonenberg,63 Claude Stewart,6a and Kallistos Ware.ós bequeathed by the eighteenth centur¡r6 and that these intuitions themselves Furthermore, a number of other theologians have been identified as :creation derived from Nicholas of Cusa's understanding of occurring panentheists.66 These include the twentieth-century figures Nicolay "within" GodrT and Descartes's replacement of the scholastic notion of infìni- Berdyayev,6T Peter Berger,ó8 James Bethune-Baker,6e Dietrich Bonhoeffer,To tude with a participatory one.rg ,7l ,T2 ,T3 Martin Heidegger,Ta The first use of the word in English theology appears io be on the eve of Karl Heim,Ts Wiiliam Hocking,Tó Geddes MacGregor,TT Charles peirce,78 Dean Inge, Christian Mysticisnt (1899), the twentieth century, by in where he Rosemary Radford Ruether,Te Albert Schweitzer,so pierre Teilhard de

2 3 MICrlÀEL W. BRIERLEY Naming a Quiet Revolutio,: The panentheistic Tunt in Modern Theorogy

Chardin,sr ,s2 ,s3 ,sa Paul Weiss,ss and ter of the revolution is therefore like that of the twentieth century's secret rev- ;86 British idealists and Edward John CairdsT and An- olution in passibilit¡ or the sulfering of God, described by Ronald Goetz,t26 drew Seth Pringle-Pattison;88 nineteenth-century Germans Schleiermacher,se and the rise of panentheism as a contemporary force to reckon with classical Fichte,eo Hegel,er Schelling,e2 Baur,e3 Fechner,ea and Pfieiderer;e5 as well as theism is thus one of the untold stories of twentieth-century theologl,. , the medieval theologians Nicholas of Cusae6 and Eckhart;e7 the mystics Now that we are seeing the explicit emergence of panentheism as a Mechtild of Magdeburge8 and of Norwich;ee and even Luther.r00 Julian In ad- broad doctrinal categor¡ and the revolution is coming to attention, the ques- dition, good cases could be made for very many others, not least R. J. Camp- tions arise: What is panentheism? What are its distinguishing features? be.ll,r0r John Oman,ro2 Iohn V. Taylor,r03 and classic Anglican liberals such as Peter Baeb,toa GeofÍiey Lampe, and Maurice Wiles.l0s Whole movements have been claimed for panentheism:106 ,loT Orthodox Chris- Some Common Panentheistic Themes tianity,tos ,roe and English modernism,rl0 panentheism cannot the¡efore be dismissed as "a somewhat suspect 'fudge'wo¡d."ttt The essays in this volume demonstrate that "panentheism" covers a multitude It would be going too far to suggest that "we are panentheists all of descriptions of the relationship between God and . There is, for ex- nowD'r12 this cannot be sustained in the face of neo-, the contem- ample, Ware's patristic panentheism, Bracken's ',fìeld panentheism,,' and porary credence given to such Barthianism as propounded that by Colin Philip ciayton's isolation of the distinctiveness of panentheism in the config- Gunton and Webster,r13 and postmodern "radical John orthodoxy,"rra Never- uration of finitude and infinitude.r27 similarl¡ panentheists outside this vol- theless, the list of some adherents demonstrates panentheism that "exerts a ume hold different versions of the doctrine: Charles Hartshorne, for example, substantial influence on contemporary theology."trs It is claimed the ,.ETCKW,' that gave an early and detailed exposition of the concept as (God as concept has biblicai roots,lró and indeed is the "orthodoxy,"I17 true and it has "Eternal-Tþmporal , Knowing and Including the Worlcl,,); r:a been deemed to respond more flexibly than varieties of classical theism to the and David Nikkel has identified Tillich as a panenrheist rhrough Tillich's dis- concerns of feminist,rrs lesbian and ga¡r!e ecological,r20 and "economic" lib- tinctive language of "being''tzs Despite authors' individuar idiosyncrasies, it eration ;r2r the demands of dialogue between science and reli- is possible to establish common ground shared by the varióus panentheisms, gion;122 and the demands of dialogue between panen- different .l23 not least from the vocabulary which recurs in the doctrines of the small num- theisnr is thus successful "in addressing a nunrber of issues that have become ber of theologians ("key panentheists") who give the word itself sustained of considerable importance for twenty-first century theology."r2a treatment: Clayton, Griffìn, Hartshorne, Macquarrie, McDaniel, paiìin, ancl The most adequate way to describe the adoption of panentheism in the Peacocke. This common ground falls into eight different themes. past two centuries, and particularly at the current time, is in terms of a doc- The classic defìnition of "panentheism" is that provideci by the oxforrl trinal revolution. Michael Drummy uses this (though word the wrong adjec- Dictionary of the christian church: "the that the Being of God includes tive) when he posits that "particularly in the area of the doctrine of God, the and penetrates the whole universe, so that everypart of it exists in Him."r30 It accommodation by n.rany serious christian scholars a 'panentheistic' to is a weak defìnition, because it goes very little beyond the riterai meaning of ¡nodel of the God-world relationship has amounted to a small-scale revolu- the word. The statement that God "includes" the unive¡se .,small- merely states the tion i¡r contemporary theological circles."r2s The "revolution" is not ,.penetration" literal meaning, "all in God," with God as subject, leaving as the scale," because panentheism subverts the priorities of classical theism, and only gloss on what God's "inclusion" of the universe, or the universe,s exis_ thereby undercuts its edifice and structure. It challenges classical theism's im- tence "in" God, might actually mean, The question therefore remains: In rvhat perium, and places the doctrine of God in ferment. The peculiar character of sense does the universe exist in God? It may be that this lack of precision in this revolution concerns not so much its far-reaching extent as its recogni- the meaning of the term "all in God" is responsible for some of the "tantalis- tion. The revolution has been quiet, partly because panentheism has until re- ing ambiguities" which "seem to plague panentheistic discussion,,,r3r cently been used by its chief exponents under "dialectical other names: the- certainly the ambiguity of "in" has caused some theologians to distin- ism" (Macquarrie), "neoclassical theism" (Hartshorne), "naturalistic theism,' guish between different types of panentheism.t32 Thus McDaniel differenti- (Griffin), or the more narrow "process category theism." The "quiet" charac- ates between "emanationist" and "relational" panentheism: in "emanationist"

4 5 MICHAEL 14/. BRIERLEY Naming a Quiet Revolution: The panentheistic Turn in Modern Theology panentheism is a direct expression of God's own the cosmos being, so that the whoie, unlike parts of the cosmos and God.r3e Again, whereas it is held that cosmosi creative action is at the same time the creative action of God. "Rela- God has perfect knowledge of the cosmos, beings do not have perlect tional" panentheism, for McDaniel, allows the cosmos creative independence knowledge oftheir bodies, These caveats, however, are to be expected, since the from God, so that humanity has its own creative power. Similarl¡ Peterson model is an analogy: clayton has rightly styied the modeÌ the "panentheistic tallis of "weak" and "strong" panentheism, where the weak version refers analogy" (and has indeed shown that the model and the concept lie at the very (only) to the presence of God in the cosmos and the strong version involves root ofthe principle ofanalogy),1a0 and it is inherent in analogy that there are These options, howeve¡ turn some between them. out to be superfi- points where the fit between human and divine cannot be made. The original eight facets of panentheist cial choices, in the light of the language which are concept may be held, so long as the disanalogies are borne in . (largely) common to the key panentheists, and which effectively explicate the Arthur Peacocke (inD'r33 in the end comes out against divine embodiment,r.rl the cosmos as God's body; language of "in and through"; the cosmos because he that conceiving of the cosmos as a "part" of God makes it as sacrament; language "inextricable intertwining"; the dependence of of of the same ontological order as God.r42 philip clayton's work, however, the int¡insic, positive value of the cosmos; God on the cosmos; passibility; shows how the ontologicaÌ difference between God and cosmos is preserved and degree .t3a These features can be applied as a test to theolo- in terms of infìnitude and fìnitude, and perfection and imperfection,ra3 and gians to see whether or not they can be described as panentheist. therefore it seems right to assert with other key panentheists,raa as part of the definition of the concept, that the cosmos is to be regarded as God's bod_v.

The Cosmos as God's Body Language of"In and Throttgh" The fìrst facet is the question of divine embodiment.l3s Some key panen- theists are content to describe the cosmos as God's bod¡tre while others are certain language is characteristic of the relation between person and boc1,v', cautious,¡37 and some come out against the idea,r38 The concept more has and this language, through the analogy with the rciationship between God the relation of mind and bod¡ and correspondingly some attraction: of God and cosmos, comes to be characteristic of panentheism. Foi example, people and cosmos, safeguards the distinction of each yet does not (on a psychoso- are said to express themseìves, or act, "in and through" their bodies: I express anthropology) allow their separation; part God can ,,in" matic of be seen and myself "in" my smile, or "through" the embrace of my arms. The simplv touched (leading to concern for the environment), while part nevertheless repeats the "in" of panentheism which needs to be explicated, but the exists "beyond"; and the model also appropriately expresses a relationship of "through" implies both the immanence of the actor and also the actor's tran- asymmetrical interdependerlce, God and mind each being dependent .'through,, on cos- scendence, since for something to come, work, or act something mos and bod¡ but not in the same way that cosmos and body are in turn de- else, it needs to come from beyond it. Hence talk of God working or acting pendent on them. "in and through" the cosmos is language characteristic of panentheism. Crude objections can be easily dealt with: the ciaim that the cosmos is ofconfessed panentheists, Peacocke and pittenger nrosr notice this cris- said to exist within God, or be a "part" of God, yet the body does not exist tinctive language. Peacocke draws the connection between panentheist use of "within," nor is it a "part" of, mind, is a reminder that the comparison shouid this language and its use by Luther: "hence my continued need to apply the always be made with body and the whole pørsor?, not body and mind; and the phrase 'in, with, and under,' which Luther used to ¡efer to the model of the claim that divine embodiment involves the identity of God with all aspects of Real Presence of christ in the Eucharist, to the presence of God in the pro- the world, good and bad, is simply a non sequitur, assuming with Augustine ,,in cesses of the world)'r4s "ln, with, and under" is only a variation on and privative. that evil is through": it expresses connection between agent and instrument, without There are, however, points where the model breaks down. For example, their identity. Pittenger also noticed these "celebrated Luthe¡an preposi- there are things beyond human bodies, but it is not clear what, if an¡hing, can tionsJ'ra6 claiming that "the basic question which we must face is whether the be said to be "beyond" .the cosmos.'Another weak point is that the parts of hu- way in which God is in fact found in that realm of creaturely occasions is of nran bodies do not,have conscio¡r,s,relations with the person who is their the order which may be described as 'with, in and under' (to use again the ap-

6 MICHAEL \^¡. BRIERLEY Naming panentheistic a Quiet Revorutio,: The Turn in N[otrern Theorogl,

propriate words derived from Lutheran eucharistic theology) his creation, or is a case of certain language being characteristic of the panentheistic position: whether it is of the order which can only be described as the entrance, 'from the presence of terms such as "distinct but not separate,; or.,inextricabll, inter_ outside,' of the divine into the ireation.,,taT Again, the use of these twined," is evidence that the position which underlies them is panentheistic. prepositions by prominent panentheists indicates their role as a defining So, for exampie, Macquarrie .,sepa_ tas makes clear that the cosmos is not ,characteristic of the position. rate" from ,,dialectics,', God.r52 His whole scheme of as Hartshorn.,s do.trìn. of "dipolarity," is an attempt to express the necessary link (o¡, in Hartshorne,s word, "correlativeness") between sets of distinct pole5.rsr ciayton talks of the The Cosmos as Sacrament identifìcation and the distinction, the inclusion and the separation, of God and cosmos.lsa Boff says God and cosmos are "arways intertwined.',r5s Peacocket connection of his prepositions with Luther's use of them in dis- Pittenger was sufficiently aware of "the difference between distinction and cussing the Eucharist is not coincidental, for the prepositions themselves be- separation, a difference often overlooked by theologians and philosophers,,, Iong to the definition of a "sacrament": a sacrament is a physical thing "un- to apply "inextricable intertwining" to a whole range of subjects, incìuding der,""in," or "through" which God comes. The prepositions are thus inirinsic object and subject, event and reception, and fact and to sac¡amentalism (the interpietation.rs6 The idea that the cosmos and what is in it are sacraments), use of such language, once again, becomes one of the halimarks rvhich as well as to panentheism. by Panentheism and sacramentalism refer to different panentheism is identified. aspects of the same realit¡ and sacramentalism becomes another defining characteristic of the panentheist position. In panentheism, by contrast to classical theism, the "sacraments" are not restricted to certain rites of the God's Dependence on the Cosmos church: the whole cosmos, for panentheism, is sacramentai, for it is some- thing under, in, and through which God comes; and the specifìc sacraments If embodiment is indeed an intrinsic feature of divinit¡ ancl if indeed the in- of the church are simply particular intensifications of the general "sacramen- terconnections between God and cosmos cannot be completely tal principle," unclone, then signs, symbols, and reminders that any and every thing has the this leads to the unorthodox assertion that Gocl is dependent on the cos potential to become a full vehicle of the divine.rae mos.r57 God needs the cosmos ,.in, for the furfillment of Goà's nature of rove. The sacramental principle, like the prepositions with, and under,,,is Some panentheists (notably those under the process influence) rrave recognized by Peacocke among those panentheists who defìne the term in urged a carefui distinction here: they have suggested depth.tso that if divine embodi- It is also noted in passing by others, including Fiddes, Fox, ment is indispensable, God needs a cosmos but not necessarily rrle cosmos, in McFague, Pittenger, and Ware.rsl It may be taken as another defìning feature the sense of this particular one.rss In other rvords, God needs,,somebodv of to the term "panentheism." ," "somebody" but the could conceivably have been a very different uni- verse' Paul Fiddes is right to be uneasy about this proposal, arguing that par- ticularityis intrinsic to the desire and need of love.rse coct, iicouJ¿ be Language of Inextricable said, Intertttining needs and is dependent on the particurar cosmos that is in the process of be- coming. This can be accepted, as long as it is recognized thai this cosmos If embodied things are the instruments or vehicles through which and only could have been a very different one. through which God comes and can be expressed, if enbodiment, that is to sa¡ Panentheists who are less ready than process theists to jettison chris- is an intrinsic feature of divinit¡ as clayton's panentheistic analogy suggesti, tradition express a certain hesitancy over the dependency then the of God on the two, God and cosmos, while distinct from one another, cannot be cosmos. Macquarrie, ,,it for example, claims is a misuse of language to sav separate. subject and object are distinct entities but can never entirely be di- that it is necessary for [God] to create," because he feers that thiariguuge of vorced, one from the other, since they are interdependent. This means not only "necessity" implies a coercive force external to God. He prefers ,o ,iuriho, tlrat they are "inextricably intertwined," but that this inextricable intertwining God freely creates, because on the Augustinian view of fr..do- to is also intrinsic act freeìy is an and therefore defining feature of their reality. once again it to act within the constraints of perfect love, and so to act within one,s ulti- o

9 MICHAEL W. BRIERLEY Naming a panentheistic Quiet Revorution: The Turn in Nlodern Theorogl, mare nature: in God's relationship wjth the cosmos, freedom and necessit¡ mentally positive. That which is a part of Gocì shares will and love, coincide. 160 the same basic value as creation and emanation, By lVlacquarrie's own ad- God's self. In this, panentheism breaks the long suspicion of ch¡istian t¡arli- missïon, however, the language of "freedom" is susceptible to the misinter- tion, under the influence of classical theism, ol ull ihings phvsical. pretation that God could have acted otherwise, Given, therefore, that the lan- is possible for panentheism not to go this rar. õt"yton, for guage of ."freedom" and the .language of "necessi ty" are both open to example, implies that the world created by God is neutral, and that there does not seem to be any reason nå;udg-ents about why the language of its intrinsic value can be made.r66 similarl¡ panentheisms r"ii.ñ ao not hord not be used, with the proviso that this does not mean that God evìl to be privative might understand the evil of the cosmos ,,in,,God kind of external compuision.r6r to be an

Another corollary of panentheism is that as God is good, so God,s body is good: the physical material "in and through" which God operates is funda_

10

11 I

MTc'l{ÄEL W. BRIERLEY Namíng a panentheistic euiet Revorution: The Turn í, Modern Theorogy

Degree Christology fers. The doctrine involves-a degree christoiogy.lea It is necessary to empha- size again that nor of arr these features will be explicit in the wårk of eue¡v make natural "degree christologians." That is to sa¡ those who panentheist, but the presence of a goocr proportion rvill indicate to rvhich of model of God tend ro think of Christ as different from the three basic doctrines of God a given trreologian's icleas can be assigne<ì. by degree rather than kind. This is because if God is somehow Why, then, has the docrrine emergecl? What historically are generall¡ the pres_ then God's work in Christ needs to be related with sures which have led to its adoption? It cannot be coincidence that the earliest to that cosnric work, and not isolated from it; else there is an conceptions of the doctrine, both irnplicit and explicit, came dichotomy from the idear- between God in Christ and the rest of the cos- ists of the nineteenth century. t83 The rise of panentheism mirrors the rise Because such a Christology of issues from a panentheistic position, the passibilit¡ in that both were developed in Britain and the states under the in_ of a person's Christology as a "degree Christology" is good evi- fluence of the German idealists.re5 Moreove¡ the panentheist revolution mir_ dence that the person holds to a panentheistic doctrine of God.rsa rors the passibilist revolution in being driven fo^vard by experiences Not manypanentheists of suf_ have made this connection. Degree Christology fering: just as the First and second world wars gave adcritionar imperus to is, however, explicitìy claimed by lohn Robinsonrss and Macquarrie,rs6 and passibilism, so it can be-no coincidence that panentheism gained the work popularity of Griffin strongly implies a christology where rhe mode of divine in. a century which sought to reinterpret the rove of God in it,. ru.. oi rvorrd- presence or agency in christ does not differ metaphysically from its operation wide suffering,ts6 in others.rsT Sinilarl¡ Peacocke gives a Christology that while not named as Insofar as ideaiism represented theorogy's assimilation of evorutionarl, such, "degree" ..)esus is clearly in the -old,ttt and McFague argues that is not values, it is possible to see panentheism as the theological response to science ontologically different from other paradigmatic fìgures either in our tradition and the Enlightenment. It might be rash, however, to deduce ihat science was or in other religious traditions who manifest in word and deed the the ultimate historical pressure fór the panentheist revolution. For rational_ for the world."rse The panentheist who subscribes most explicitly to a degree ism itself, like mysticism, is,a way of ordering human experience, and mysti- christology is Norman PittengeS who advocated the doctrine early in his ca- cism testifies to the panentheistic character of the deepest human rerigious ree¡leo gave it sustained treatment in an essay of r956,rer and maintained the experience' This suggests that the outrvorking of panentheióm in docäinar position in his two works on christolog¡ the first of which was one of the ear- t;rms, like evolutionary science, was a reaction against the static resonances, liest applications of process thought to Christolog¡ and widely respected.re2 either inherent or perceived, which emanated from the prevailing classical, 'tubstance" ways of thinking, in line with the relationaiity of hîma'ity,s deepest experience. That is to sa¡ the changes both scientifìcutty Conclusion rna theolog- ically may have ,,sub- resulted from a fundamental shift in , from a stance ontolog¡" to "relational a ontology,"reT crassical theism tendecr to con_ What is needed, perhaps, is not an abandonment of panentheism but the ceive of God and the world as substances, which reconsideration would always make it of existing metaphors as well as the deveiopment of new diffìcult to relate the two, since substances are essentially spatiar and cannot ones-193 overlap. Panentheism is the resurt of conceiving "being,' in i.r*, of relation- ship or relatedness.res This is whyprocess theism is u typ. of panentheism, The eight features above, largely common to key panentheists, yierd a defìni- for "process" asserts "entities" that are inseparably interrelated, and thus that tion of panentheism which can be taken not only as a summary of the doc- ,,ol relationship, rather than substance, is the .',res trine as it has emerged thus far but aiso as a yardstick for measuring individ- This is not to say that classicar theism is not capable ual varieties - of refining itserf in and strains of the doctrine, not least those espoused by the subtle and sophisticated ways which make dynamism more centrar å ir, ,1.- contributors to this volume. That is to say, panentheism can be defined as the ,:..'oo The ultimate question is whether it is better to state doctrine of the cosmos ,,body', with qualifica- being the good (against Clayton) (against tions that the cosmos is in God or with qualifications that the cosmos is nor Peacocke), or"sacrament," needed by God (against Clayton), with which God in God, It has been argued that the former option is to be is inextricably intertwined, prererred on three and "in and through" which God works and suf- grounds: first, that even though classical theism has on occasion been macle

12 ì3 MICt{AEL Naming a Quiet Revolution: Tlrc panentheistíc Turn ín Modern Theology

into a has been by clas- guage and tradition to the world is what the church distinctively has to offer; sical theism does tend to rep- hence the concept of the church as that which "names,', in its distinctive lan- resent popuiar mind, and there- guage, what is going on in the world. to have believed;2o3 The naming activity is a vital one, because consciousness and awareness that seems to have been of something can aid its delivery and furtherance; the implicit needs the ex- fact more accurately exprèsses plicit as much as the explicit needs the implicit.2¡' If panentheism, being than of humanity;2oa and third, based on genuine reciprocity or love, is able to bring moral benefits to the has greater moral potential for cosmos' then, on the basis of its own ecclesiolog¡ its identífication and nam- ing as a doctrine can aid the world's . In other words, the identifica- seen in its affinity with libera- tion and naming of panentheism which this volume attempts is not simply an of domination with exercise in historical theolog¡ or even philosophical theolog¡ if the laìter is oneS result of process, mutualit¡ simply the enterprise of establishing a viable concept of cod: it is part of the to "being." This is why "love," as ecclesiological, or churchl¡ task: to name the things of God in order that love concept for process theolo- justice and in the cosmos might be more fulfilled. The naming of panen- cause of much doctrinal revi- theism assists the world's redemption. between God and cos- the finite in the same way that the mutualify in the Again, classical theism would doctrine of God. Yet this love is in return - whereas panen- mu of agapè and eros, as the the difference between classi- difference of human experience,

agap e or agap ë.- erõ s, is this confirms human experience

has received no recognition is that holds the clue to revolution. The ecclesiology the church as lhatwhich names the church is the "ark ofsal- the evil world will arrive at God's maintains, God's goodness is the church can have no monopoly church distinctive, therefore, is its evil to be found throughout both more goodness through its own sa¡ its tradition and language are Thus the application of its lan-

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