The teaching that the world stands in God and God is more than the world: all things in God, and God exceeding all things.
Panentheism, all in God, was named in the nineteenth century and given systems by process philosophy in the twentieth. It refuses both the distant God of classical theism, untouched by the world, and the identity of pantheism, in which God and world are simply the same. In Whitehead's version, God feels the world's becoming and lures it toward richness, and the relation runs both ways: the world contributes to the life of God.
Sources
Primary
- Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (1929).
Secondary
- John B. Cobb Jr. and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (1976).
How this compares to Christianity
How does this branch relate to the historic Christian faith?
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What this assessment cannot settle
This assessment determines what this entity teaches and how that teaching relates to the historic Christian creeds. It does not determine whether any person is saved, whether God accepts their worship, whether they are sincere, or whether the criteria applied here are correct.
This assessment is made from the standpoint described in our editorial statement and our criteria page. It reports classifications; it does not rank sincerity, spiritual standing, or the eternal state of any person.