Tuesday
Aug122014
Theological Term of the Week
Tuesday, August 12, 2014 at 6:51PM 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.
