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In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being

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In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being IN WHOM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING Pønentheistic Reflections on God's Presence in a Scientific World Edited by Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke 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 Theology 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 process theology. 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 transcendence oter and God's immanence ir the world. This vol- ume is offered as a substantial contribution to that enterprise. [The three-decker universe] has been discarded by nearly all. What are we to put in its place? Panentheism 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- theism" 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 University of Birmingham, 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 Charles Hartshorne,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, Philosophers 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, Classical theism, pantheism, 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 Charles Birch,3s Schubert Ogden,36 John Cobb,37 James Will,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 Matthew Fox,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 Martin Buber,7l Sergei Bulgakov,T2 Rudolf Bultmann,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 Paul Tillich,s2 Ernst Troeltsch,s3 Alan Watts,sa Paul Weiss,ss and ter of the revolution is therefore like that of the twentieth century's secret rev- Alfred North Whitehead;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 Neoplatonism,loT Orthodox Chris- Some Common Panentheistic Themes tianity,tos mysticism,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 cosmos.
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