Theological Term of the Week

panentheism
“[T]he view that God encompasses everything that exists, including the universe we inhabit, yet there is more to God than just the universe,” so that “the universe is part of God.”1

• Scriptural evidence against panentheism:

… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God … (Romans 3:23 ESV) (If God encompasses everything that exists including all of us, then he encompasses evil, since we have all sinned.)

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17 ESV) (This verse says God doesn’t change, but a panentheistic god would change as the universe changes.)

• From the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 2, Section 2. (A biblical Christian view of the relationship between God and the universe.)

  God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them: he is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth. In his sight all things are open and manifest; his knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature; so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain.

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Theological Term of the Week

pantheism
“[T]he view that there is a God, and God is everything. … God isn’t beyond the universe or greater than the universe. Rather, God is the universe.”1

• Scripture disproving pantheism by teaching that God is distinct from creation:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 ESV)

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:18-25 ESV)

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Theological Term of the Week

Pelagianism
A kind of theism that claims to be Christian but has been condemned as heretical throughout Christian history. In this view, human beings are not born sinful, but are able to live good moral lives and thus receive eternal life as a reward.

• Scripture disproving Pelagianism: 

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)

…as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12 ESV)

• From the Belgic Confession: 

Article 15: The Doctrine of Original Sin 

We believe that by the disobedience of Adam original sin has been spread through the whole human race. 

It is a corruption of all nature—an inherited depravity which even infects small infants in their mother’s womb, and the root which produces in man every sort of sin. It is therefore so vile and enormous in God’s sight that it is enough to condemn the human race, and it is not abolished or wholly uprooted even by baptism, seeing that sin constantly boils forth as though from a contaminated spring.

Nevertheless, it is not imputed to God’s children for their condemnation but is forgiven by his grace and mercy—not to put them to sleep but so that the awareness of this corruption might often make believers groan as they long to be set free from the “body of this death.”

Therefore we reject the error of the Pelagians who say that this sin is nothing else than a matter of imitation.

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