Q&A: More on Panentheism
More on Panentheism
Question
In the post about morality you hinted that panentheism is something problematic.
It is known that you hold that one cannot learn anything from the Bible (where a monotheistic view is indeed presented), and therefore the way God is presented there is not relevant.
Likewise, you say that the sages teach Jewish law, and there they have authority, but if they say philosophy, that is their own view; it has no halakhic / legal significance or authority, and it is not intellectually binding either. That is, even if the leading Lithuanian Haredi rabbi defines panentheism as heresy in his opinion, that has no significance.
So we are left with Jewish law. Can you be more precise about the Jewish law from which it is inferred that someone who holds that everything is one infinite unity is a heretic?
Answer
Your logic is mistaken. You assume that this must be based on a precise inference from Jewish law, and that is not so. Your assumption is preceded by the premise that this is an argument from authority, and there you are mistaken.
There is no need to derive this precisely from Jewish law, because I did not say that the panentheist is a heretic. I said that his position is vague and not well defined, or at least lacks a logical basis and lacks a source. For that one does not need authoritative sources, only logical analysis. I will explain briefly, because I have already done so.
The claim that everything is in God comes to deal with the opposing view that everything exists on its own, detached from God. The question is: what exactly is the difference between these two claims? Where is the dispute, and what practical difference follows from it—not practical in action, but in thought?
One could say that He gives life to all reality and that without Him it has no existence. But that is a statement that long predates panentheism. Perhaps it is true and perhaps not.
Therefore it seems that this claim refers to the ontic plane, that is, to the mode of existence of the world and of us. What does the claim that we all exist within God mean? Do you mean to say that I am one of His limbs? That is a strange statement, and its meaning is unclear to me.
The claim that beyond our world there are things that are not understood is also fairly clear and contains no novelty. That is not panentheism.
Discussion on Answer
All that remains for you is to set this to music. Remarkably poetic.
Do you really think there is nothing vague here whatsoever?
At first I wanted to go through every sentence and show how vague it is, but I realized it would take too long and be exhausting. But there is no doubt that almost every sentence here raises questions.
You can claim about anything that it is vague; you can start asking questions about what "chair" means. And not to mention the blog owner's articles as well.
Michi and Yishai, you are welcome to provide something that seems vague to you, and I will try to explain.
But before that, I assume you are people who like things to be well defined.
The three of us bless several times a day, "Who hears prayer."
Can you explain to me what that means for the "average monotheist"?
Is there some "spiritual being" sitting in heaven detached from us and hearing our prayers?
What does "hears" mean?
How does one listen in a spiritual way?
Of course I expect a quality answer from people who made clear that for them things have to be clear and well defined—certainly something we say several times a day.
The response is split into 2 because I couldn’t write everything in one box without the "Reply" button disappearing.
We both know the meaning of a chair even if it is hard to conceptualize in words. By contrast, what you quoted—I’m not sure even you understand it.
I’ll raise a few questions about the text you quoted.
First of all, ostensibly only a subjective experience is being described here, but that is not a serious objection because I assume the intention is a subjective experience of arriving at the truth—meaning, what one recognizes here is the truth. Now for the questions.
"To know with an inner awareness"—what does that mean? To understand? To experience?
"That the entire world is a garment and covering for one divine manifestation"—meaning we are a limb within God? Are brothels also God, then? And does "divine manifestation" mean that this is actually God Himself, or is this a manifestation of a transcendent God within the world? If the answer is the second option, then how is panentheism different from any other ordinary monotheistic belief?
So far those are just questions on the first sentence; I don’t have the energy to continue.
For some reason you set up the concept of panentheism as though it contradicts monotheism, which is very puzzling. In your belief that everything is included in divinity, are there several divinities?
And now regarding "Who hears prayer":
First of all, I don’t see why panentheism clarifies the concept of hearing prayer.
Second, average monotheist = a person who believes in one God? Someone who believes that God is transcendent?
Third, why do you think He cannot hear? Because He has no ear? The fact that our way of hearing things goes through the ear does not mean that is the only way. I have no ability to say anything about the Holy One, blessed be He—that is, about the essence of His attributes—from a philosophical standpoint, but from the Torah it implies that He really does hear and listen, and that is my assumption when I pray. I do not know how the hearing system works; that does not negate its existence.
Vague or not, panentheism is what is called in Kabbalah that the Holy One, blessed be He, "surrounds all worlds and fills all worlds," which parallels the saying, "No thought can grasp Him, and there is no place devoid of Him," which is connected to the intuition that the Holy One, blessed be He, is everywhere, and yet there is something in Him that transcends reality. More precisely, He transcends reality—He is transcendent and not only immanent. Or in biblical language: "For the Lord is exalted, yet He sees the lowly"—meaning that although He is high and exalted, He is present in the small details of what happens in the world to ordinary people. In the ancient world this was a kind of contradiction between greatness and caring about small things.
To write long comments and still see the reply button, when you get to the last line, press ENTER many times so that you go down a lot of blank lines.
After that, press BACKSPACE to delete the blank lines.
"To know with an inner awareness"—for you, that means to experience. Subjective. Exactly like hearing a sound or seeing an image. Some people neither see nor hear at all and will never understand you.
"That the entire world is a garment and covering for one divine manifestation"—we are a divine thought, which means that in a certain sense we are part of Him. But we are not the essence of the Creator.
I am not referring to the essence of the Creator; that is irrelevant anyway.
I do not know exactly whether monotheism directly contradicts panentheism.
I do know that when I pray or perform a commandment with intention, I expose within myself a deeper divine layer. Then everything becomes more divine.
Prayer is first and foremost the revelation of divinity within the person, and everything is influenced by that.
An average monotheist, for me, is someone who speaks only about the transcendent God.
Usually I do not deal with the hearing—or non-hearing—of the transcendent God. I was simply interested to know how the average monotheist thinks this works.
For me, as a panentheist, it is very clear what "Who hears prayer" means. You are welcome to see this (about a quarter of an hour):
What would stop the terrible war in Eastern Europe the fastest?
If every person in the world prayed to God and revealed within himself the essence of peace, then the war would stop that very moment (I hope you agree with me on this). Of course that peace is infinite, and there is always room to strive toward intensifying peace.
Even without prayer, if everyone in the world wanted peace and acted for it and stopped fighting, then the war would stop miraculously. It’s a time-tested and proven remedy.
You also wrote that in the Bible one sees that there is a monotheistic view. You can’t learn anything from the Bible, not even that, because teachers of biblical criticism learn exactly the opposite. You come with your own assumptions and beliefs (on this issue I think you are right too, but not because it is written in the Bible, but because it is philosophically correct) and interpret the Bible.
To Dvir,
But that is exactly why prayer is needed: so that every person in the world will want peace… that is, that God will soften their hard hearts—both the cruel and the stupid—and put some sense into them as well. I have not found a formula for turning stupid people (people who cling stubbornly to willful blindness and obtuseness) into people who are not like that. Except by using force. But then we are back at war again….
Hi Dvir, as Emanuel wrote—the way to attain the greatest peace (to reveal it within ourselves) is through prayer—the strongest form of will.
This is another nice question for classical monotheists 🙂 🙂 🙂
What do they mean when they ask some "external and powerful being" in the blessing "Grant peace" to do some kind of "hocus-pocus" so that everyone will suddenly love one another?
In medicine I can still understand such a request. But what is there to ask from an "external being" that he should grant peace?
We are walking divinity, and we need to find the God within us, and that is how we will continue to increase peace, and thus bring more and more divinity into the world.
How do we do that? Through the wording that our sages instituted in prayer, which imitates a request to an "external being."
Here too, it would be nice to hear how a monotheist thinks some external entity is going to make peace here.
I am not speaking about the essence of the Creator. That is beyond comprehension.
If you do not see panentheism as heresy, but only as something vague, then that is perfectly fine.
I see countless vague things in monotheism.
Here is panentheism in a nutshell. I do not see anything vague here at all (from the website Da'at Elohim):
"To know with an inner awareness that the entire world is a garment and covering for one divine manifestation, harmonious and infinite, which is revealed to us in a limited way according to our capacity to receive it.
Faith is to recognize that all of reality is a system of influences and ideals projected to us from that incomprehensible divinity. The whole complex of life, desires, objects, and thoughts that we experience are divine influences enveloping us at every moment. We experience God with every breath and every desire. Faith is to experience that every detail in the world is connected to a divine power and perfection that steadily intensifies in reality; there is an inner order that keeps unfolding out of life itself and the events of reality; there is unity and a process of completion and intensification of those divine forces throughout history.
The meaning of faith is not that we understand with scientific intellect that there is a God outside reality, but that we live מתוך an inner recognition that all reality is a divine being that envelops us, even if we do not understand its source. Faith is not cold talk about an infinite entity, but the way a person lives: in the very fact that a person wants, lives, and develops in a positive and harmonious way with the rest of reality, he gradually reveals the divine essence within him."