The Pantheistic Worldview

Is It a Nature-based Religion or a Philosophy?

Pantheism is the belief that God and nature are inextricably entwined. Unfortunately, any simple definition of it ends there. Some pantheists wouldn’t even use the word “God” to denote the fundamental force that organizes the universe because that implies a Creator — a concept they emphatically reject. Some pantheists wouldn’t use the word “entwined” because that suggests that God and nature are separate entities, which undercuts their holistic way of seeing things. Indeed, the only thing all pantheists would agree on is that the divine is found innature, not beyond it.

The pantheistic worldview is not easy to understand. In some ways it is a new belief system, loaded with many of the subtle and complex notions typical of our time. Part of the problem is that there is no founding father of pantheism, no prophet or guru, no sacred texts to which a self-proclaimed pantheist can turn. It is, in a sense, a worldview derivative of other worldviews. It is worldview that has slipped in and out of other more established worldviews, both religious and philosophical, for thousands of years. It is a belief system so vague, so incredibly abstract that one wonders if it is a belief system at all.

In contrast to the vagueness that is implicit in pantheism, two so-called pantheistic…