Concept of PANTHEISM in philosophy and its CHARACTERISTICS

In this lesson from a TEACHER we explain the concept of pantheism in philosophy and its characteristics main. According to this doctrine, God and nature they are one and the same thing, the universe is identified with divinity. This means that pantheists do not believe in an entity called god, but that everything that exists comes to represent what is traditionally known as "God”.

The term was used for the first time in Latin by Joseph Raphsonobra, in the year 1697, in his work By Spatio Reali seu Ente Infinito.

Pantheism is a philosophical doctrine that identifies nature with divinity and as a result a monotheism, but in which you can see a polytheistic background. In general, a pantheistic approach can be found in religions non-creationists, while serving as a unifying element between all of them.

Forms of pantheism

It is necessary to differentiate between a monistic pantheism and a pluralistic pantheism.

• Monistic pantheism: Its main representative is Baruch spinozaundoubtedly one of the most radical pantheistic philosophers. But it is also represented in the
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  Hindu pantheism, according to which, change and plurality are nothing more than an illusion, mere appearance. During Romanticism, in the 19th century, this doctrine had a great repercussion, mainly in England and America during the 19th century.
• Plural pantheismista: This is the type of pantheism advocated in the work of William James, A pluralistic universe published in 1908. According to the theses presented in this book, he holds On the religious plane, pluralist pantheism holds that the wrong it is original, identifying the divinity with what finite. The issue of salvation thus remains unanswered.

Pantheistic ideas of James Lovelock and his Gaia hypothesis, which ensures that the universe Act like a single entity. Also included in this doctrine are movements such as New Age and the Feminist Spirituality Movement.

To finish this lesson on pantheism in philosophy, we will discover you the main managers of pantheism so that you know his contributions.

Thales of Miletus

Thales of Miletus, founder of the Ionian school and the first philosopher of Western history, he stated that “everything is full of gods”And that water is the original principle of everything there is.

Heraclitus

Heraclitus of Ephesus He affirmed that the divine exists in all things, identifying it with the world and with all beings. The universe moves cyclically, in a constant becoming that he is both creator and destroyer. Therefore, this thinker will say that war (As the fire) is the mother of all things.

Plotinus

Although a pantheistic conception can be appreciated in his thought, the truth is that he defends the immanent and transcendent character of the divinity, even affirming that the One, "as the beginning of the whole, it is not the whole".

Giordano Bruno

It can be said that this thinker defends an "atheistic pantheism", close to "pan-psychism". In his work De the cause, the beginning and the One is where his fundamental ideas about reality are found natural. Bruno talks about "soul of the world", a kind of entelechy that fills everything and illuminates everything.

Spinoza's pantheism

He defends the existence of a single substance and a single mode: "tAll that is, is in God, and without God nothing can be or be conceived”(God sive natura). However, his radical pantheism constitutes rather a panentheism, distinguishing between the natura naturans (God as substance) and the natura naturata (God as mode).

For Schelling that Spinoza “nullifies the freedom and personality of God reducing him to a mere object incapable of relating to the world”.

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