Panentheism and an Evolving Universe

Modern science has slowly unveiled a picture of the world that is radically different to conceptions derived from ancient Western cosmologies that generally have depicted a relatively static universe. Instead, the world as conceived by science reflects its evolutionary nature marked by a dynamic combination of indeterminate potentiality and causal laws that leads to a remarkable diversity of phenomena. This reconceptualisation of the universe has had enormous implications for theology and the philosophy of God, the greatest of which is perhaps the abandonment of God in its entirety by many if not most scientists. Nevertheless, there has been a sustained effort to reconcile the discoveries of an evolutionary universe within the framework of classical theism and other conceptions of God. Specifically, this essay will focus on a minority position, namely panentheism, and explore how this approach is compatible with the scientific concept of an evolving universe. Simply put, panentheism describes the view that the entirety of the universe is contained “within” God, yet God still remains more than the totality of the universe.[1] This perspective has been found throughout the Western metaphysical tradition but also in a number of philosophical schools of the East such as Advaita Vedanta. Certain advocates of this position such as Philip Clayton have argued that panentheism offers a model of God that more adequately accounts for evolution than classical theism or pantheism.[2] This essay will therefore assess the notion that panentheism provides a metaphysical model that successfully incorporates evolution into its understanding of God and the universe.

Firstly, this piece will provide a working definition and analogy of panentheism, but also discuss some problematic aspects with the concept for describing God’s relationship with the world. It will then proceed to examine several features of the evolutionary universe and demonstrate how a panentheistic model accounts for these. In particular, the essay will look at God’s relation with and action in the world in regards to the concepts of emergence, unpredictability and the costliness of evolution. Finally, there will be some concluding remarks on the prospects of panentheism in the philosophy of science and religion.

 

Definition and the Panentheistic Analogy

Panentheism is a conceptualisation of God that, according to Willem Drees, is a mixture of pantheism and classical theism, a middle way position.[3] The entire universe is within God’s being and God is within all of creation. However, to distinguish the position from pantheism which equates God with the universe, God is also transcendent and ontologically distinct from creation. In the Book of Acts, Paul sums up this position when addressing the Athenians, ‘in him we live and move and have our being’ (NSRV Acts 17:28).[4] Beyond this general position, there is little agreement on the specifics such as the definition of “in”.[5] Indeed, Philip Clayton has found thirteen different types of panentheism, which, according to Owen Thomas, may suggests a vagueness and incoherence to the position.[6] To help bring greater clarity to the concept, a common analogy employed is that God’s relationship with the universe is something akin to the mind and soul’s relationship with the body: different entities that are intimately interwoven into each other’s being. In this sense, God is the mind and soul of the world and the world is the body of God.[7] Clayton has labelled this the Panentheistic Analogy.[8] Some panentheists have criticised this analogy as insufficient, largely because of the finitude of the human being and issues that then arise in relation to the mind-body problem.[9] Despite this, the analogy provides a visualisation that can be used as a starting point. Given the diversity of perspectives and disagreement over the central metaphor, this piece will use the generic definition of panentheism described above and in the subsequent sections, develop a conception drawn from the work of a number of panentheist thinkers. However, it will use three fundamental principles as noted by Michael Murphy to provide a framework for the evolutionary panentheism discussed below.[10] Firstly, evolution is a fact. Secondly, the universe arises from and is part of a transcendent super-nature (God). Thirdly, humans have an identity with this super-nature which can be experienced.

Emergence

It is almost unequivocally accepted among scientists that due to the inherent structure of the natural universe, everything contained within it emerged over billions of years.[11] A dynamic combination of set physical laws and the indeterminism found in quantum mechanics and biology, which Freeman Dyson labels the “principle of maximum diversity”, creates the conditions that make possible an almost limitless variation of phenomena in the natural universe.[12] According to a panentheistic conception of divinity, this dynamism reflects the means by which God acts in the world. Paul Davies suggests the mixture of order and unpredictability found in the universe reflects, in a sense, a choice by God to establish governing laws that will maximise diversity because of their ‘inherent self-organising and self-complexifying properties’.[13] These properties generally tend towards creating (or emanating) increasingly complex material entities, which, after billions of years, eventually led to the emergence of life and consciousness. A hierarchy of complex being emerges, from the subatomic, to the cellular, to the cosmological, each influencing the other in both a bottom-up and top-down manner. Accordingly, the universe can be considered an interconnected unity and General Systems Theory of holons supports this perspective.[14] Holons are connected to a whole-part understanding of the organisation of nature. A holon is a “relational unity”, an entity that is a whole (a cell, a human, a planet) that forms a part of a larger whole, and is constituted of smaller wholes. Holons evolve by expanding and incorporating smaller holons within it which then create new entities that are greater than the parts it contains, such as consciousness. In this sense, a panentheist interpretation of God can suggest that these increasingly higher forms of Being reflects a process of the successive divinisation of the universe.

With these properties along with a factor of chance, God remains ontologically distinct from creation insofar as it grants a level of autonomy to creation within God’s sustaining being. Yet, as suggested by General Systems Theory, the universe and God share an intimate relationship where through evolutionary processes, the becoming of the universe is divine. Panentheists differ on the details relating to the teleology of the universe and the panentheist will likely be influenced significantly by the religious and cultural background from which he or she comes. However, a common thread is often that the universe evolved in order to become conscious through which it could then know and experience God. Early panentheists from the German idealist movement such as Hegel, Fichte and Schelling suggested that God’s spirit gradually manifests throughout emergent evolutionary processes leading to the unfolding of the hidden divinity within.[15] Without eliminating the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, humanity is the only known life form that appears to have this potential. Nineteenth century philosopher Henry Bergson claims that mysticism, the path that seeks experiential union with God, is the pinnacle of evolution.[16] An aspect of human nature is that it attempts to be self-surpassing to higher levels, continually seeking to go beyond itself (communally, nationally, religiously). This is also reflected in the behaviour of the universe that is marked by gradations of orders and new forms of complexity.

This perspective of God’s immanent involvement in the universe has been criticised for essentially equating natural processes with God’s action. From a physicalist perspective, if everything can be understood without invoking the notion of God, then it is simpler to retain a purely naturalist explanation.[17] A similar critique has come from classical theists who retain an interventionist conception of God’s action in the world which suggests that God has the capacity to suspend the laws of nature. Essentially, if God’s behaviour is equated with natural processes, the world would not be different with or without divine action in the world. Through the mind/soul-body analogy, Clayton argues that divine action is a regular occurrence and works similarly to how the mind influences the body.[18] There are countless automatic processes within the body, yet the mind continually uses it when any range of actions are desired. Moreover, despite appearances of self-development, a panentheist view suggests that God is intimately involved by gently guiding free and natural processes to eventually rise towards self-conscious beings.[19] Overall, despite a vagueness of the precise relation between God and the world, a panentheistic conception of God fits well with a dynamic universe distinguished by gradual emergence.

 

Death and Suffering in an Evolving Universe

Since life emerged around four billion years ago, the evolutionary process has been characterised by incomprehensible suffering, pain and death for its creatures. During the last five hundred million years, the earth underwent five mass extinctions before homo sapiens eventually emerged.[20] For any theology that affirms the goodness of God and creation, this poses a significant problem. Certain panentheists (as well as classical theists) such as Arthur Peacocke and Caresse Cranwell have highlighted that suffering, pain and death play a fundamental role in the process of evolutionary creation.[21] For life to develop into new forms, it needs to consume other life. The death of creatures provides nourishment to beget more and diversified life. Applying influential theologian Paul Tillich’s ideas of being and nonbeing, Paul Carr suggests that the nonbeing of the dinosaurs, for example, gave way for mammals and ultimately humans to arise and highlights that ‘Tillich saw the evolution of life as the actualisation of potential being’.[22] Gloria Schaab notes that for novel emergent forms to occur, in a finite universe, the death of prior forms is required to help provide the conditions for life to continue.[23] Peacocke concurs, suggesting that the ‘immense variety of developing, biological, structural complexity’ can only appear by ‘utilising structures already existing’ such as through the genetic process or by consumption.[24] Furthermore, Cranwell has highlighted the fact that the destructive tendencies of the universe, using the label Thanatos, is at the service of the creative dynamic, Eros.[25] She considers Eros to be the divine energy of the universe that unites, creates and loves and that Thanatos is a secondary principle, distinct from God, but that is nevertheless used in order to serve the purposes of Eros. To illustrate, a volcanic eruption causes considerable death, but it provides a basis for new life to emerge. Without this dynamic tension of creation and destruction, there would be no need for evolution. Ultimately, what makes Thanatos at the service of Eros is that the universe leans toward creation. If otherwise, even if creative and destructive tendencies were balanced, nothing would come into existence and would be destroyed the moment it was created.[26]

Despite an ultimately benign purpose, classical theism, which emphasises the perfection and immutability of God, has difficultly accommodating such immense suffering as part of the evolutionary process, especially when love is also considered a central characteristic.[27] It seems that God, regardless of the model, could have chosen a less harmful method by which to bring about diversity in life and ultimately, consciousness. Atheism, on the other hand, can assert that this is due to an inherently random and unguided process of evolution.  Many variants of panentheism have similar difficulties to classical theism, and some have offered a potential solution, albeit one that has been challenged due to the limitations it places on God. By asserting that God is ‘in, with and under’ the universe, panentheistic thinkers have claimed that part of God’s nature needs to be temporal if Godself is truly part of creation.[28] Unlike classical theism which asserts the eternal nature of God, a panentheistic God contains both an atemporal and temporal aspect and is reflected in the being and becoming of the created order. By a free act of self-emptying and overflowing love, as some Christian panentheists like Peacocke assert, God has given the universe the ability to unfold ‘the inherent potentialities of the universe through convention, spontaneity, and surprise’.[29] The universe is contingent on the Being of God, and God’s temporal aspect is contained within creation. The Becoming of the universe is fundamental to the Becoming of God. In this self-limiting continual process of becoming, God is affected by the suffering of creation and directly participates in it. Likening this to the paschal mystery, Teilhard de Chardin suggests that the cross is ‘the symbol of progress and victory won through mistakes, disappointments, and hard work’, which is the process of evolution.[30]

This conception of God is problematic, however, since it weakens God by entangling God in time as well as makes God subject to creation.[31] According to John Cooper, ‘the panentheist tradition is inadequate on God’s aseity (self-existence) and sovereignty in comparison with classical theism’.[32] By identifying the cosmos with the divine, this significantly limits God, whereas a classical theist position that sustains the ontological distinction between creation and Creator has no such issue. By asserting that at least part of God is changeable, this raises a range of metaphysical issues, not least of which are exactly how does God change, and is God consequently subject to time? However, for theists who hold onto the intrinsic goodness of God, a temporal aspect of the divine that can experience suffering is perhaps necessary to explain the immense pain and death that has occurred over the past five hundred million years of evolution.

 

Conclusion

As suggested by Denis Edwards, it should be noted that panentheism is a metaphysic that can be reconciled and even augmented by a material foundation of an evolving universe as described by science.[33] It is not an empirical theory designed to fill explanatory gaps in the understanding of the natural universe. Instead, panentheism affirms the natural purposes of the universe without need of intervention and instead provides a metaphysical and teleological account for the universe. This essay has thereby assessed the compatibility between a panentheist conception of God and the evolutionary nature of the universe. Despite some issues related to the precise nature in which God relates to the world as well as the problem of the costliness of the evolution of life, panentheism provides an adequate model of God. An emergent universe appears in accordance with panentheist conceptions that creation emanates out of the being of God, a process marked by the potentialities of a dynamic mixture of order and unpredictability. Furthermore, by conceptualising the universe as both being and becoming, this reflects panentheist notions of God’s transcendent, eternal being that the universe is contingent on, as well as the immanent, temporal aspect which intimately involves God in the processes of the universe, even to the point that God suffers with creation. Although philosopher Willem Drees suggests that the findings of science do not lend definitive support to any particular conception of God over others (be it classical theist, pantheist or panentheist), the compatibility between panentheism and evolutionary theories of the universe suggests that it is a worthy model of God. Despite some issues, panentheism has the potential to offer a significant alternative, albeit one that is currently less developed, to classical theism. The Western philosophical tradition of God is heavily influenced by Christianity’s traditional conception of God. However, a shift may be necessary as Western philosophy increasingly engages with Eastern traditions such as Advaita Vedanta and philosophical Taoism which have a heavier emphasis on panentheistic notions of deity. As this essay has demonstrated, panentheism can have a fruitful dialogue with science and therefore can help bridge a gap between worldviews that have oftentimes been hostile to spiritual ideas.

 

References

[1] Mikael Stenmark, “Panentheism and its Neighbors”, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 85:1 (February 2019): 26.

[2] Philip Clayton, “Panentheism in Metaphysical and Scientific Perspective”, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World, eds. Philip Clayton and Arthur R. Peacocke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004), 73.

[3] Willem B. Drees, “Panentheism and Natural Science: A Good Match?”, Zygon 52:4 (December 2017): 1061.

[4] Arthur R. Peacocke, “Biology and Theology of Evolution”, Zygon 34:4 (December 1999): 708.

[5] Owen C. Thomas, “Problems in Panentheism”, in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, ed. Philip Clayton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 653.

[6] Ibid, 652.

[7] Robert L. Herrmann, “Emergence of Humans and the Neurobiology of Consciousness”, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World, eds. Philip Clayton and Arthur R. Peacocke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004), 125.

[8] Philip Clayton, “On the Value of the Panentheistic Analogy: A Response to Willem Drees”, Zygon 35:3 (September 2000): 702-703.

[9] John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers (Nottingham: Apollos, 2007), 338.

[10] Michael Murphy, “The Emergence of Evolutionary Panentheism”, in Panentheism across the World’s Traditions, eds. Loriliai Biernacki and Philip Clayton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 186.

[11] Paul H. Carr, “A Theology for Evolution: Haught, Teilhard, and Tillich”, Zygon 40:3 (September 2005): 735.

[12] Paul Davies, “Teleology without Teleology: Purpose through Emergent Complexity”, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World, eds. Philip Clayton and Arthur R. Peacocke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004), 104-105.

[13] Ibid, 99.

[14] Caresse Cranwell, “Embracing Thanatos-in-Eros: Evolutionary Ecology and Panentheism”, Sophia 49:2 (June 2010): 273.

[15] Murphy, “The Emergence of Evolutionary Panentheism”, 179.

[16] Cooper, Panentheism, 146.

[17] Thomas, “Problems in Panentheism”, 659.

[18] Clayton, “Panentheism in Metaphysical and Scientific Perspective”, 83.

[19] Herrmann, “Emergence of Humans and the Neurobiology of Consciousness”, 121-122.

[20] Carr, “A Theology for Evolution”, 734.

[21] Gloria L. Schaab, “The Creative Suffering of the Triune God: An Evolutionary Panentheistic Paradigm”, Theology and Science 5:3 (2007): 292; Arthur R. Peacocke, Science and the Christian Experiment (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 137.

[22] Carr, “A Theology for Evolution”, 734-735.

[23] Schaab, “The Creative Suffering of the Triune God: An Evolutionary Panentheistic Paradigm”, 292.

[24] Arthur R. Peacocke, “The Challenge and Stimulus of the Epic of Evolution to Theology”, in Many Worlds, ed. Stephen Dick (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation, 2000), 106.

[25] Cranwell, “Embracing Thanatos-in-Eros”, 271.

[26] Ibid, 273.

[27] Schaab, “The Creative Suffering of the Triune God”, 289.

[28] Peacocke, “Biology and Theology of Evolution”, 705.

[29] Arthur R. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming: Natural, Divine and Human (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 174-175.

[30] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution, trans. Rene Hague (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 217.

[31] Schaab, “The Creative Suffering of the Triune God”, 290-291.

[32] Cooper, Panentheism, 326.

[33] Denis Edwards, “A Relational and Evolving Universe Unfolding within the Dynamism of the Divine Communion”, in In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World, eds. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004), 208.

 

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https:// update.gci.org/2017/10/primer-on-panentheism/