## 1. Terminology



Because modern "panentheism" developed under the influence
of German Idealism, Whiteheadian process philosophy, and current
scientific thought, panentheists employ a variety of terms with
meanings that have specialized content.



Theological terms as understood by panentheists:



1. Classical Theism
Classical theism as a specific form of theism understands God as
transcendent, immutable, impassible, timeless (Mullins 2020, 393).
Ultimate reality is a reality which is distinct from the world (J.
Cooper, 2008, 11; Stenmark, 2019, 30). This distinction at times
develops into an ontological separation between God and the world that
makes any interaction between God and the world problematic. Classical
Christian theism bases God's immanence and presence in the world
on God's transcendence. This priority of transcendence implies
that God's presence is always partial. God's difference
from the world is crucial. Even if God's relationship to the
world is dynamic rather than static, developing rather than fixed,
divine transcendence does not allow the world to affect God.
2. Pantheism
A type of theism that stresses the identity of God and the world
ontologically. This identity is expressed in different manifestations
so distinctions can be made, but the distinctions are temporary. There
is often a strong sense of necessity in God's creation of the
world so that God as God must express deity in creation.
3. Transcendence
Generally, God's externality to the world so that God is
unlimited by any other being or reality. Hegel and then Hartshorne,
however, understand transcendence as including all the parts that make
up the world in order to avoid any reality external to God that limits
God (Whittemore 1960, 141; Davis 2019, 8 [Other Internet
Resources]).
4. Immanence
God's presence and activity within the world. Panentheists
assert that classical theism limits its affirmation of God's
immanence by deriving God's immanence from God's
transcendence. God is present in every situation because God is
unlimited by any reality external to God.
5. Kenosis
Divine self-emptying, or withdrawal, of divine attributes.
Traditionally, the limitation of the exercise of the divine attributes
resulted from the divine will whether in the case of Jesus'
human life or in God's relation to the creation.
6. Essential Kenosis
God's nature is self-giving and other-empowering. Thomas J.
Oord's concept of essential kenosis bases the emptying of divine
attributes on the divine nature rather than the divine will (Oord
2015, 158-166).


Terms influenced by the German Idealism of Hegel and Schelling:



1. Dialectic
The presence of contradictory realities where the contradiction is
overcome by including elements from each of the contradictory elements
in a synthesis that is more than the combination of each member of the
contradiction. Whitehead's understanding of God's
redemption of evil by placing an evil event in a contrast to a good
event expresses a similar understanding although he is not as explicit
as Hegel in understanding all of reality as a dialectical
development.
2. Infinite
The obvious understanding of the infinite is as a negation of any
limits such as a bounded space or time. However, many panentheists,
and other thinkers (Williams 2010, 143), understand the infinite in a
positive sense as the inclusion of all that is and that might be
(Clayton 2008a, 152). Panentheists influenced by process philosophy
emphasize that divine infinity deals with possibility not actuality
(Dombrowski 2013, 253; Keller 2014, 80). In process thought, God
contains all possibilities and presents every possible response that
an actual event might make to any events from the past that influence
what that event becomes.
3. Perichoresis
The ontological intermingling of Christ's divine and human
natures and the ontological intermingling of the members of the
Trinity (Otto 2001). This concept of intermingling has also been
utilized to describe the Incarnation and the relationship between God
and individuals/creation. Moltmann generalizes perichoresis to the
cosmic realm by affirming the presence of God in the world and the
world in God (J. Cooper 2006, 252 citing Moltmann 1985, 17).


Terms influenced by Whiteheadian process philosophy:



1. Internal and External Relations
Internal relations are relations that affect the being of the
related beings. External relations do not change the basic nature or
essence of a being. For panentheism, the relationship between God and
the world is an internal relationship in that God affects the world
and the world affects God.
2. Dipolar
Refers especially to God as having two basic aspects. Schelling
identified these aspects as necessary and contingent. Whitehead
referred to God's primordial and consequent natures meaning that
God has an eternal nature and a responsive nature. Whitehead
understood all reality to be dipolar in that each event includes both
physical and mental aspects in opposition to a mind-body dualism.
Hartshorne identified these aspects as abstract and concrete.
3. Panpsychism
In the most general description, panpsychism assumes that
fundamental entities possess mental and physical properties
(Gocke 2018, 208). Process panentheism and panpsychism are
frequently connected although neither entails the other. The basis for
the connection between panentheism and panpsychism is
Whitehead's concept that every actual occasion consists of a
mental and physical pole. Whitehead understood this mental pole as
always present, but Philip Clayton understands mentality as emergent
(Clayton 2020b).


Terms related to current scientific thought:



1. Research Program
Drawing on scientific practice, a research program in philosophy
involves central affirmations and auxiliary hypotheses which are
consistent with available data. Consistency with data, rather than
being either true or false, characterizes research programs (Clayton
2019).
2. Dualism
While dualism may refer to a variety of pairs of opposites, in
scientific thought and process philosophy dualism refers to the
position that consciousness and matter are fundamentally different
substances, or types of reality. Panentheists generally reject the
dualism of consciousness and matter (Clayton 2004c, 3). As an
alternative, panentheists tend to affirm that consciousness and matter
are different manifestations of a basic ontological unity. This basic
ontological unity may take the form of panpsychism, in which all
actualities include an element of mentality. Griffin prefers the term
"panexperientialism" because all actualities have an
experiential component (2004, 44-45). Clayton takes an
alternative approach to overcome the consciousness-material dualism by
advocating strong emergence in which ontologically different types of
existence develop out of the basic ontological unity (2004c,
3-6). J. Leidenhag identifies difficulties with each of these
approaches (2016).
3. Reductionism
The properties of one scientific domain consists of properties of
a more elementary scientific domain (Kim 2005, 164). Modern
reductionism primarily holds that all of reality can be explained by
using only physical, sub-atomic, entities and denies the existence of
mental realities as a separate kind of existence. Any reference to a
higher type of existence results from a lack of information about the
physical entities that are involved. Causation always moves from the
bottom-up, from the basic physical entities to higher forms of
organization. For example, thought is caused by the physical
components of the brain. Reductionism allows for weak emergence but
not strong emergence and top-down causation (Davies 2006, 37).
Panentheism critiques reductionism as an oversimplification of reality
and the experience of reality.
4. Supervenience
Generally refers to a relation between properties. Popular usage
refers to one property depending on another property such as mind
being a quality that supervenes on physical structures. Analytic
philosophy instead emphasizes a logical relation between classes of
properties with a variety of understandings of the nature of the
relationship (Leuenberger 2008; McLaughlin and Bennett 2014).
5. Emergence
A. Meaning:
Emergence is a process that occurs when a new property arises out
of a combination of elements. The traditional example is that water
emerges out of the combination of oxygen and hydrogen atoms in certain
proportions. The concept of emergence arose in a scientific response
to reductionistic explanations of reality that failed to recognize the
importance of a system as a whole as well as the parts of that whole
(Clayton 2004a, 85). Four characteristics are involved in emergence:
1) ontological monism but not physicalism, 2) emergence of properties
that are potential in complex objects, but absent from any of the
object's parts, and distinct from any structural property of the
object, 3) recognizing distinct levels of causal relations, and 4)
downward causation that cannot be reduced to the structural
macro-properties (Clayton 2006a, 2-4). Emergence may be either
strong or weak. Strong emergence understands evolution to produce new
and distinct levels characterized by their own laws, regularities, or
causal forces. Weak emergence holds that the new level follows the
fundamental causal process of physics (Clayton 2004c, 9). Strong
emergence is also known as ontological emergence and weak as
epistemological emergence (Clayton 2006b, 67). Strong emergence holds
that genuinely new causal agents or processes come into existence over
the course of evolutionary history. Weak emergence insists that as new
patterns emerge, the fundamental processes remain ultimately
physical.
B. Role in panentheism:
Emergence as a scientific concept helps explain the
"in" of panentheism (Clayton 2004a, 84). The scientific
recognition of the limitations of reductionistic understandings of
reality led to an interest in emergence as recognition of the
importance of the system as a whole as well as the parts of the whole
(Clayton 2004a, 85). Further, the scientific understanding of matter
as having a propensity to self-organization leading to a more and more
complex system makes possible an internalist understanding of
God's action and creativity (Clayton 2001, 209). Emergence
provides the best current way to understand the immanence of God in
the world (Clayton 2004a, 87) by exemplifying the radically different
sorts of inclusion relations found in the natural world (Clayton
2008a, 132).
6. Top-Down Causation
More complex levels of objects or events affect less complex
elements. A common example of top-down causation is the effect of
thought upon a person's body. This contrasts with bottom-up
causation where the simple is the cause of the more complex. In
bottom-up causation, physical elements cause other, more complex,
objects or events. Scientists debate the possibility of top-down
causation (Davies 2006).
7. Entanglement
In quantum theory, the correlation of two particles that originate
in a single event even though separated from each other by significant
distance. Entangled objects behave in ways that cannot be predicted on
the basis of their individual properties. The impossibility of
prediction can be understood epistemically if behavior is considered
the result of an average of many similar measurements or ontologically
if behavior results from the existence of the world in an indefinite
state prior to measurement. Both Bohr's indeterministic and
Bohm's deterministic understandings of quantum theory accept
this relational understanding of physical processes. Understanding the
world as composed of persistent relationships among particles that are
physically separated provides a model based in science for
understanding God's relation to the world. God's influence
can be present at the level of individual events although this
entanglement would remain hidden from a local perspective. However,
the implications of entanglement for concepts of causality become even
more complex when considering the relation between God and the world.
Polkinghorne suggests that causality may be active information,
"pattern-forming operations" of what might be called
"the causal principle", rather than an exchange of energy
(2010, 9).


Although numerous meanings have been attributed to the
"in" in panentheism (Clayton 2004b, 253), the more
significant meanings are:



1. Locative
Location that is included in a broader location. For example,
something may be located in a certain part of a room. Such a meaning
is problematic in reference to God because of the common understanding
that God is not limited by spatial categories. If spatial categories
do not apply to God in ordinary usage, to say something is located in
God becomes problematic. "In" then takes on metaphysical
meanings.
2. Metaphysical basis for being
Beings come into existence and continue to exist due to the
presence of divine Being. The concept of participation in both
classical theism and panentheism often includes the understanding that
the world comes into being and continues to exist through taking part
in God's Being (Clayton 2008a, 118-119).
3. Metaphysical-Epistemological basis for being
Presence in God provides both identity and being. Karl
Krause's panentheism asserted a metaphysical structure that
involved both how an entity differs from other entities
(epistemological identity) and what it is in itself (ontological
status) (Gocke 2013a).
4. Metaphysical interactive potential
Neither God's actions nor the world is completely
determined. This lack of complete determination leads to an
unpredictable self-organizing relation of both God and the world based
on prior actualizations of each. "The '*en*'
designates an active indeterminacy, a commingling of unpredictable,
and yet recapitulatory, self-organizing relations" (Keller 2003,
219).
5. Emergence metaphor
A more complex entity comes from at least a partial source.
6. Mind/Body analogy
The mind provides structure and direction to the organization of
the organism of the body. The world is God's body in the sense
that the world actualizes God as specifically who God is and manifests
God while different from God.
7. Part/Whole analogy
A particular exists in relation to something that is greater and
different from any of its parts and the total sum of the parts. The
world is in God because the world shares in the greater unity of
God's being and action.

## 2. History



In 1821, Karl Krause (1781-1832) used the explicit label of
"panentheism" for apparently the first time. (See Pfeifer
2020, 123, especially n. 1 for a brief discussion about the first
explicit use of the term "panentheism".) However, various
advocates and critics of panentheism find evidence of incipient or
implicit forms of panentheism present in religious thought as early as
1300 BCE. Hartshorne discovers the first indication of panentheistic
themes in Ikhnaton (1375-1358 BCE), the Egyptian pharaoh often
considered the first monotheist. In his poetic description of the sun
god, Ikhnaton avoids both the separation of God from the world that
will characterize theism and the identification of God with the world
that will characterize pantheism (Hartshorne 1953, 29-30). Early
Vedantic thought implies panentheism in non-Advaita forms that
understand non-dualism as inclusive of differences. Although there are
texts referring to Brahman as contracted and identical to Brahman,
other texts speak of Brahman as expanded. In these texts, the perfect
includes and surpasses the total of imperfect things as an
appropriation of the imperfect. Although not the dominant
interpretation of the *Upanishads*, multiple intimations of
panentheism are present in the *Upanishads* (Whittemore 1988,
33, 41-44). Hartshorne finds additional religious concepts of
God that hold the unchanging and the changing together in a way that
allows for the development and significance of the non-divine in
Lao-Tse (fourth century BCE) and in the Judeo-Christian scriptures
(1953, 32-38).



In philosophical reflection, Plato (427/428-348/347 BCE) plays a
role in the development of implicit panentheism although there is
disagreement about the nature of that role. Hartshorne drew a dipolar
understanding of God that includes both immutability and mutability
from Plato. Hartshorne understood Plato's concept of the divine
to include the Forms as pure and unchanging being and the World soul
as changing and in motion. Although he concluded that Plato never
reconciled these two elements in his understanding of the divine, both
aspects were present (1953, 54). J. Cooper maintains that Plato
retained an essential distinction between the Good and the other
beings that Plato called gods. According to J. Cooper, Plotinus
(204-270 CE) rather than Plato provided the basis for
panentheism with his description of the physical world as an emanation
of being from the One making the world part of the Ultimate (2006,
35-39). However, Baltzly finds evidence in the *Timaeus*
of a polytheistic view that can be identified as panentheistic
(2010).



From Plato to Schelling (1775-1854 CE), various theologians and
philosophers developed ideas that are similar to themes in
contemporary panentheism. These ideas developed as expressions of
theism. Proclus (412-485 CE) and Pseudo-Dionysus (late Fifth to
early Sixth century) drawing upon Plotinus developed perspectives in
which the world came from God and understood the relationship between
God and the world as a dialectical relationship in which the world
came from God and returned to God (J. Cooper 2006, 42-46). In
the Middle Ages, the influence of Neoplatonism continued in the
thought of Eriugena (815-877 CE), Eckhart (1260-1328 CE),
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464 CE), and Boehme (1575-1624
CE). Although accused of pantheism by their contemporaries, their
systems can be identified as panentheistic because they understood God
in various ways as including the world rather than being the world and
because they used a dialectical method. The dialectical method
involved the generation of opposites and then the reconciliation of
the opposition in God. This retained the distinct identity of God in
God's influence of the world (J. Cooper 2006, 47-62).
During the early modern period, Bruno (1548-1600 CE) and Spinoza
(1631-1677 CE) responded to the dualism of classical theism by
emphasizing the relationship between God and the world to the point
that the nature of any ontological distinction between God and the
world became problematic. Later thinkers such as the Cambridge
Platonists (Seventeenth century), Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758
CE) (Crisp 2009), and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834 CE)
thought of the world as in some way in God or a development from God.
Although they did not stress the ontological distinction between God
and the world, they did emphasize the responsive relationship that
humans have to God. Human responsiveness assumed some degree of human
initiative if not freedom, which indicates some distinction between
God and humans. The assumption of some degree of human initiative was
a reaction against the loss of freedom due to Spinoza's close
identification between God and the world (J. Cooper 2006,
64-90).



The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the development of
panentheism as a specific position regarding God's relationship
to the world. The awareness of panentheism as an alternative to
classical theism and pantheism developed out of a complex of
approaches. Philosophical idealism and philosophical adaptation of the
scientific concept of evolution provided the basic sources of the
explicit position of panentheism. Philosophical approaches applying
the concept of development to God reached their most complete
expression in process philosophy's understanding of God being
affected by the events of the world.



Hegel (1770-1831) and Schelling (1775-1854) sought to
retain the close relationship between God and the world that Spinoza
proposed without identifying God with the world. Their concept of God
as developing in and through the world provided the means for
accomplishing this. Prior to this time, God had been understood as
unchanging and the world as changing while existing in God (J. Cooper
2006, 90). Schelling's understanding of God as personal provided
the basis for the unity of the diversity in the world in a manner that
was more open than Hegel's understanding. Schelling emphasized
the freedom of the creatures in relation to the necessity of
God's nature as love. For Schelling, God's free unfolding
of God's internal subjective necessity did not result in an
external empirical necessity determining the world (Clayton 2000,
474). This relationship resulted in vitality and on-going development.
Hartshorne classified this as a dipolar understanding of God in that
God is both necessary and developing (1953, 234). J. Cooper describes
Schelling's thought as dynamic cooperative panentheism (2006,
95). Hegel found Schelling inadequate and sought a greater unity for
the diversity. He united Fichte's subjective idealism and
Schelling's objective idealism to provide a metaphysics of
subjectivity rather than substance (Clayton 2008a, 125). Hegel's
unification of Fichte and Schelling resulted in a more comprehensive
and consistent system still based upon change in God. God as well as
nature is characterized by dialectical development. In his rejection
of pantheism, Hegel understood the infinite as including the finite by
absorbing the finite into its own fuller nature. This retained divine
transcendence in the sense of the divine surpassing its parts although
not separate from the parts (Whittemore 1960, 141-142). The
divine transcendence provided unity through the development of the
Absolute through history. Karl Krause (1781-1832) in 1828
labeled Schelling's and Hegel's positions as
"panentheism" in order to emphasize their differences from
Spinoza's identification of God with the world (Atmanspacher and
von Sas 2017, 1032). J. Cooper describes Hegel's panentheism as
dialectical historical panentheism (2006, 107).



As Darwin's theory of evolution introduced history into the
conceptualization of biology, Samuel Alexander (1859-1938),
Henri Bergson (1859-1941), and C. Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936)
introduced development into the ways in which all of physical reality
was conceptualized. They then worked out positions that in a variety
of ways understood God and the world as growing in relationship to
each other. Although Hartshorne's classification of
"panentheism" did not include Alexander in the category of
"panentheism," only occasionally mentioned Bergson, and
made no reference to Morgan, Whitehead referred to all three of these
thinkers positively. It may be too strong to claim that they
influenced Whitehead (Emmett 1992), but they did provide the
background for Whitehead's and then Hartshorne's
systematic development of process philosophy as an expression of
panentheism. Hartshorne popularized the modern use of the term
"panentheism" and considered Whitehead to be the
outstanding panentheist (Hartshorne 1953, 273). Although Hartshorne
made several modifications to Whitehead's understanding of God,
the basic structures of Whitehead's thought were continued in
Hartshorne's further development of Whitehead's philosophy
(Ford 1973, Cobb 1965). God, for process philosophy, is necessary for
any actual world. Without God, the world would be nothing more than an
unchanging existence radically different from the actual world of
experience. God as both eternal and temporal provides possibilities
that call the world to change and develop. God as eternal provides an
actual source of those possibilities. However, if God is only eternal,
the possibilities would be unrelated to the actual world as it
presently exists. Thus, Whitehead and Hartshorne understand the world
to be present in God in order for the possibilities that lead to
development to be related to the world (Hartshorne 1953, 273). The
implication of God's inclusion of the world is that God is
present to the world and the world influences God. Although the
presence of the world in God could be understood as a form of
pantheism, process philosophy avoids collapsing the world into God or
God into the world by maintaining a distinction between God and the
world. This distinction is manifest in the eternality of God and the
temporality of the world. It is also apparent in the freedom of the
events in the world. Although God presents possibilities to the events
in the world, each event "decides" how it will actualize
those possibilities. The freedom of each event, the absence of divine
determination, provides a way for process thought to avoid God being
the cause of evil. Since God includes the events of the world, God
will include the evil as well as the good that occurs in the world and
this evil will affect God since the world affects God's
actualization. But, because God does not determine the response of
each event to the possibilities that God presents, any event may
reject God's purpose of good through the intensification of
experience and actualize a less intense experience. God does take this
less intense, evil, experience into God's self, but redeems that
evil by means of relating it to the ways in which good has been
actualized. Thus, God saves what can be saved from the world rather
than simply including each event in isolation from other events (J.
Cooper 2006, 174, 180).


## 3. Contemporary Expressions



Although recent developments of panentheism tend to continue the
German Idealist tradition or the tradition of process philosophy,
contemporary panentheism demonstrates great diversity (see Michael
Brierley 2004, 3). Many of these contemporary expressions of
panentheism involve scientists and protestant theologians or
philosophers. But, articulations of forms of panentheism have also
developed among feminists, in the Roman Catholic tradition, in the
Orthodox tradition, and in religions other than Christianity.



Utilizing resources from the tradition of German Idealism, Jurgen
Moltmann developed a form of panentheism in his early work, *The
Crucified God* in 1974 (1972 for the German original), where he
said that the suffering and renewal of all humanity are taken into the
life of the Triune God. He explicated his understanding of panentheism
more fully in *The Trinity and the Kingdom* in 1981.
Theological concerns motivate Moltmann's concept of panentheism.
Panentheism avoids the arbitrary concept of creation held by classical
theism and the loss of creaturely freedom that occurs in Christian
pantheism (J. Cooper 2006, 248). The relationship between God and the
world is like the relationship among the members of the Trinity in
that it involves relationships and communities (Molnar 1990, 674).
Moltmann uses the concept of perichoresis to describe this
relationship of mutual interpenetration. By using the concept of
perichoresis, Moltmann moves away from a Hegelian understanding of the
trinity as a dialectical development in history (J. Cooper 2006, 251).
The relationship between God and the world develops because of
God's nature as love that seeks the other and the free response
of the other (Molnar 1990, 677). Moltmann does not consider creation
necessary for God nor the result of any inner divine compulsion.
Instead, creation is the result of God's essential activity as
love rather than the result of God's self-determination (Molnar
1990, 679). This creation occurs in a process of interaction between
nothingness and creativity, contraction and expansion, in God. Because
there is no "outside" of God due to God's infinity,
God must withdraw in order for creation to exist. Kenosis, or
God's self-emptying, occurs in creation as well as in the
incarnation. The nothing in the doctrine of "creation from
nothing" is the primordial result of God's contraction of
God's essential infinity (J. Cooper 2006, 247). Moltmann finds
that panentheism as mutual interpenetration preserves unity and
difference in a variety of differences in kind such as God and human
being, person and nature, and the spiritual and the sensuous (Moltmann
1996, 307).



In his process panentheism, David Ray Griffin assumes that scientific
understandings of the world are crucial and recognizes the
implications of scientific understanding for theology. However, his
concept of panentheism builds on the principles of process philosophy
rather than scientific concepts directly. Griffin traces modern
atheism to the combination of understanding perception as exclusively
based on physical sensations, accepting a naturalistic explanation of
reality, and identifying matter as the only reality. But, the
emergence of mind challenges the adequacy of this contemporary
worldview (2004, 40-41). He claims that the supernaturalistic
form of theism with its emphasis upon the divine will does not provide
an adequate alternative to the atheism of the late modern worldview
because God becomes the source of evil. Griffin argues that
supernaturalistic theism makes God the source of evil because
God's will establishes the general principles of the universe
(2004, 37). Process panentheism provides a way to avoid the problems
of both materialistic naturalism and classical theism (2004, 42).
Griffin's panexperientialism bases sensory perception on a
non-sensory mode of perception in order to explain both the mind-body
interaction and the God-world interaction. God and the world are
different entities but both are actual. They are numerically distinct
but ontologically the same, in Griffin's terms, avoiding dualism
and supernaturalism. God and events in the world interact through
non-sensory perception (2004, 44-45). Through this interaction,
God can influence but not determine the world, and the world can
influence God's concrete states without changing God's
essence. Process panentheism recognizes two aspects of the divine, an
abstract and unchanging essence and a concrete state that involves
change. Through this dipolar concept, God both influences and is
influenced by the world (2004, 43-44). Griffin understands God
as essentially the soul of the universe although distinct from the
world. The idea of God as the soul of the world stresses the intimacy
and direct nature of God's relationship to the world, not the
emergence of the soul from the world (2004, 44). Relationality is part
of the divine essence, but this does not mean that this specific world
is necessary to God. This world came into existence from relative
nothingness. This relative nothingness was a chaos that lacked any
individual that sustained specific characteristics over time. However,
even in the chaos prior to the creation of this world, events had some
degree of self-determination and causal influence upon subsequent
events. These fundamental causal principles along with God exist
naturally since these causal principles are inherent in things that
exist including the nature of God. The principles cannot be broken
because such an interruption would be a violation of God's
nature. An important implication of the two basic causal principles, a
degree of self-determination and causal influence, is that God
influences but does not determine other events (2004, 43).
Griffin's understanding of naturalism allows for divine action
that is formally the same in all events. But this divine action can
occur in a variable manner so that some acts are especially revelatory
of the divine character and purpose (2004, 45).



The context of the science and religion discussion responds to the
early modern concept of an unchanging natural order which posed a
challenge to understandings of divine action in the world. The current
discussion draws on the development of scientific information about
the natural world that can contribute to religious efforts to explain
how God acts in the world. Arthur Peacocke and Paul Davies have made
important contributions as scientists. Peacocke developed his
understanding of panentheism beginning in 1979 and continuing through
works in 2001, 2004, and 2006. Peacocke starts with the shift in the
scientific understanding of the world from a mechanism to the current
understandings of the world as a unity composed of complex systems in
a hierarchy of different levels. These emergent levels do not become
different types of reality but instead compose a unity that can be
understood naturally as an emergentist monism. At the same time, the
different levels of complexity cannot be reduced to an explanation of
one type or level of complexity. The creative dynamic of the emergence
of complexity in hierarchies is immanent in the world rather than
external to the world (Peacocke 2004, 137-142). Similarly, Paul
Davies describes the universe by talking about complexity and higher
levels of organization in which participant observers bring about a
more precise order (2007). An important scientific aspect of this
concept of complexity and organization is the notion of entanglement
especially conceptual level entanglement (Davies 2006, 45-48).
Again, the organization, which makes life possible, is an internal, or
natural, order rather than an order imposed from outside of the
universe (Davies 2004). Peacocke draws upon this contemporary
scientific understanding of the universe to think about the
relationship between God and the natural world. He rejects any
understanding of God as external to nature whether it is a theistic
understanding where God intervenes in the natural world or a deistic
understanding where God initiates the natural world but does not
continue to be active in the world. For Peacocke, God continuously
creates through the processes of the natural order. God's active
involvement is not an additional, external influence upon events.
However, God is not identified with the natural processes, which are
the action of God as Creator (Peacocke 2004, 143-144). Peacocke
identifies his understanding of God's relation to the world as
panentheism because of its rejection of external interactions by God
in favor of God always working from inside the universe. At the same
time, God transcends the universe because God is more than the
universe in the sense of God being unlimited by the world. This
panentheistic model combines a stronger emphasis upon God's
immanence with God's ultimate transcendence over the universe by
using a model of personal agency (Peacocke 2004, 147-151).
Davies also refers to his understanding of the role of laws in nature
as panentheism rather than deism because God chose laws that give a
co-creative role to nature (2004, 104).



Philip Clayton begins with contemporary scientific understandings of
the world and combines them with theological concepts drawn from a
variety of sources including process theology. He describes
God's relationship with the world as an internal rather than an
external relationship. Understanding God's relationship as
internal to the world recognizes the validity of modern scientific
understandings that do not require any external source in order to
account for the order in the world. At the same time, God's
internal presence provides the order and regularity that the world
manifests (2001, 208-210). Clayton agrees that the world is in
God and God is in the world. Panentheism, according to him, affirms
the interdependence of God and the world (2004a, 83). This affirmation
became possible as a result of the rejection of substantialistic
language in favor of personal language in thinking of God.
Substantialistic language excludes all other actualities from any one
actuality. Rejection of substantialistic language thus allows for the
interaction of beings. Clayton cites Hegel's recognition that
the logic of the infinite requires the inclusion of the finite in the
infinite and points towards the presence of the world in God (Clayton
2004a, 78-79). Clayton, along with Joseph Bracken (1995),
identifies panentheism as Trinitarian and kenotic (Clayton 2005, 255).
It is Trinitarian because the world participates in God in a manner
analogous to the way that members of the Trinity participate in each
other although the world is not and does not become God. God freely
decides to limit God's infinite power in an act of kenosis in
order to allow for the existence of non-divine reality. The divine
kenotic decision results in the actuality of the world that is taken
into God. But, for Clayton, God's inclusion of finite being as
actual is contingent upon God's decision rather than necessary
to God's essence (2003, 214). Clayton affirms creation from
nothing as a description of creaturely existence prior to God's
decision. The involvement of the world in an internal relationship
with God does not completely constitute the divine being for Clayton.
Instead, God is both primordial, or eternal, and responsive to the
world. The world does constitute God's relational aspect but not
the totality of God (2005, 250-254). The best way to describe
the interdependence between God and the world for Clayton is through
the concept of emergence. Emergence may be explanatory,
epistemological, or ontological. Ontological understandings of
emergence, which Clayton supports, hold (1) monism but not
physicalism, (2) properties emerge in objects from the potentiality of
an object that cannot be previously identified in the object's
parts or structure, (3) the emergence of new properties giving rise to
distinct levels of causal relations, and (4) downward causation of the
emergent level upon prior levels (2006a, 2-4). Emergence
recognizes that change is important to the nature of the world and
challenges views of God as unchanging (Clayton 2006b, 320).



A number of feminists advocate panentheism by critiquing traditional
understandings of transcendence for continuing dualistic ways of
thinking. Feminist panentheists conceive of the divine as continuous
with the world rather than being ontologically transcendent over the
world (Frankenberry 2011). Sallie McFague's use of metaphors in
both theology and science led her to describe the world as God's
body. McFague bases the metaphorical nature of all statements about
God upon panentheism (2001, 30). Furthermore, for McFague, panentheism
sees the world as in God which gives priority to God's name but
includes each person's name and preserves their distinctiveness
in the divine reality (2001, 5). God's glory becomes manifest in
God's total self-giving to the world so that transcendence
becomes immanence rather than being understood as God's power
manifest in distant control of the world. Grace Jantzen also uses the
metaphor of the world as God's body. Additionally, Jantzen
(1998) and Gloria Schaab (2007) have proposed metaphors about the womb
and midwifery to describe God's relation to the world. Anna
Case-Winters challenges McFague's metaphor of the world as
God's body. Case-Winters acknowledges that this metaphor
maintains God's personal nature, offers a coherent way to talk
about God's knowledge of and action in the world, recognizes
God's vulnerable suffering love, and revalues nature and
embodiment. But at least McFague's early use of the
world-as-God's-body metaphor tended towards pantheism and even
her later introduction of an agential role for the divine still
retains the possibility of the loss of the identity of the world.
Case-Winters uses Jay McDaniel's (1989) distinction between
emanational, arising out of the being of the One, and relational,
present through relationship, understandings of God's immanence
in the world to establish a form of panentheism with a clearer
distinction between God and the world. The world is an
"other" in relation to God rather than being a direct
expression of God's own being through emanation for Case-Winters
(30-32). Nancy Frankenberry contrasts McFague's and
Case-Winter's two concepts of transcendence to the traditional
hierarchical concept of transcendence. McFague's concept is one
of total immanence while Case-Winters holds a dialectic between
individual transcendence and immanence (2011).



Although much of the development of panentheism takes place in the
context of the Christian tradition, connections between other world
religions and panentheism have been identified. These connections
range from explicitly panentheistic traditions, to similarities to
specific beliefs and practices of a tradition, to beliefs and
practices that could be developed into panentheistic positions.
Hartshorne in his discussion of panentheism included a section on
Hinduism (1953). Lorilai Biernacki considers Hinduism to be one of the
most panentheistic traditions (Biernacki 2014b). The concept of the
world as the body of the divine offers a strong similarity to Western
panentheism. The *Gita* identifies the whole world, including
all the gods and living creatures, as the Divine body. But the Divine
Being has its own body that contains the world while being more than
the world. While the Upanishads acknowledge the body of the Divine at
times, the body of the divine is never identified as the cosmos. Most
of the Tantrics hold a pantheistic view in which the practitioner is a
manifestation of the divine. Abhinavagupta, in the tenth century,
provided the first panentheistic understanding of the world as
God's body. For him, differentiation is Shiva concealing his
wholeness. Abhinavagupta also insisted that Shiva transcends the
cosmos (Bilimoria and Stansell 2010, 244-258; Clayton 2010,
187-189; and Barua 2010, 1-30. See also Hardy 2016;
Silberstein 2017; and Stavig 2017). Other traditions where connections
to panentheism have been found include Judaism (Artson 2014 and
Langton 2016), Jainism (Chapple 2014), Confucianism (Lee 2014),
Buddhism (Samuel 2014), and Sufism (Sharify-Funk and Dickson 2014).
While these connections might imply a universalistic theology,
panentheism affirms the importance of all religions and supports
inter-religions dialogue (Biernacki 2014a, 6, 10).


## 4. The Nature of the God/world Relation



The God/world relation plays a crucial role in the variety of
expressions of panentheism. Using metaphors to describe the
relationship between God and the world has been controversial. McFague
argues that any attempt to do theology requires the use of metaphor
(2001, 30) and for Peacocke the limitation of language requires the
use of models and metaphors in describing both God and the cosmos
(Schaab 2008, 13). The primary objection to the dominant metaphor in
panentheism of the world as God's body is the substantialistic
implications of the term "body" that lead either to an
ontological separation between the world and God or to a loss of
identity for God or the world. Bracken finds that the soul-body
metaphor lacks clarity about the freedom and self-identity of the
creatures in relations to God (1992, 211). Case-Winters faults the
soul-body metaphor for tending to see the soul as dominating the
body and failing to recognize the world as a unified organism (1995,
251, 254). Clayton proposes different levels of metaphor as the most
adequate way to reconcile the conflict between divine action and the
integrity of the created realm (2003, 208).



Describing the God-world relation by use of the term
"in" lacks precision in understanding the ontological
nature of the relation due to the variety of meanings of
"in". Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling used the phrase
"Pan+en+theism" in his "Essay on Freedom" in
1809 where the "en" meant inherence as strong ontological
dependence and referred to participation as a relation to the divine
(Clayton 2008a, 169). Karl Krause (1781-1832) created the German
term translated as "panentheism" seeking to overcome the
split between humanity and nature that was expressed both in the
supernaturalist theism epitomized by Leibniz and the naturalism of
Spinoza's pantheism (Gregersen 2004, 28). Metaphysical
understandings of God's relation to the world have been proposed
that are more precise than metaphors or "in".
Schelling's German idealism understood God as freely unfolding
emanation by introducing subjectivity. Emanation avoids ontological
separation between God and the world because the world participates in
the infinite as its source (Clayton 2000, 477-481). Krause
understood the world's participation in God both ontologically
and epistemically. The particularity of each existent being depends
upon the Absolute for its existence as what it is (Gocke 2013a,
372). Keller offers another metaphysical understanding by arguing for
creation out of chaos. She rejects substance metaphysics and describes
the relation between God and the world as a complex relationality
involving an active indeterminacy and past realities (2003, 219).
Finally, the science and religion discussion provides another
metaphysical understanding by drawing upon scientific concepts of
supervenience, emergence, downward causation, and entanglement to
provide a ground for theological concepts of God's relation to
the world.



The nature of this mutual relationship between the infinite and the
finite basically depends upon the understanding of the ontology of
each member of the relationship. The issue is the nature of being for
God and for the world as the basis for mutual influence between God
and the world. A variety of attempts have sought to describe the
nature of God's being and the world's being in their
relationship. Thomistic thought utilizes a concept of analogy as it
wrestles with the nature of the being of God and the being of the
world (Malloy 2014). Others in considering God's action in the
world posit the necessity of ontological difference between God and
finite reality (M. Leidenhag 2014, 219). Process thought directly
addresses the issue of ontology by calling for an ontology that does
not consider substance as the basic type of existence because
substance does not allow for internal relations (Bracken 2014, 10).
According to Wesley Wildman the relations between entities are
ontologically more fundamental than the entities themselves for
relational ontology in contrast to substantivist ontology where
entities are ontologically primary and relations derivative (2010,
55).



Historically, participation, Hegelian dynamic ontology, and process
dynamic ontology have been utilized to describe the ontological basis
for the relations between God and the world. Participation has
philosophical antecedents in Plato and Aristotle and was utilized in
Augustinian and Orthodox Christian traditions. In participation, the
existence of the world somehow takes part in God's being. Early
modern usage of the concept of participation appears in the thought of
Krause (1781-1832) and Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944). Krause
identifies the character of each thing as the result of its
participation in the original unity of the Absolute. But the Absolute
is still different from its parts in its internal constitution
(Gocke 2013a, 372). Bulgakov describes participation as the
inclusion of the finite by the Absolute (Gavrilyuk 2015, 453).
Hegelian dynamic ontology describes an Infinite which gives rise to
the finite through a dialectical process of negation. The finite
through a second reciprocal negation of its finitude brings about
union and return in transformation to both the Infinite and the finite
(Williams 2010, 143). Process dynamic ontology understands God as
dipolar with a primordial nature that is eternal and a consequent
nature that includes the actualizations achieved by the world. God
presents possibilities to the events of the world which then make
decisions bringing about actualities that are then included in
God.



Bracken and Cazalis seek to make the ontological nature of the
relation more precise. Bracken proposes a Trinitarian field theory to
explain the world's presence in God. The world is a large but
finite field of activity within the all-comprehensive field of
activity constituted by the three divine persons in ongoing relations
with each other and with all the creation (2009, 159). Bracken's
Trinitarian field theory draws on systems theory from science,
Whitehead's concept of society, and Christian Trinitarian
doctrine. A society as a type of system is a group of entities with an
organizing principle. Basically, reality is an all-encompassing
society in which subsocieties operate in their own ways as distinct.
God functions as the regnant subsociety and receives the richness of
the information from the world of creation (Bracken 2014, 80). Bracken
summarizes this system understanding of panentheism in three
conclusions: (1) systems are social rather than individual, can be
combined horizontally and vertically, change over time due to changes
in constituents, and do not make decisions; (2) the three divine
persons and all their creatures are together constituent members of an
expanded divine life-system; and (3) the relationships of the various
levels of societies involve both bottom-up causation and an objective
formal top-down causation of the constraints of higher order systems
on lower order systems (2015a, 223). Although not as fully developed
as Bracken's society explanation, Cazalis uses category theory
and the concept of adjunction in order to offer an internal law that
gives specificity to panentheism. In this approach relations go both
ways between two categories and the link carries the universal
property from one element of a given category to another category
(Cazalis 2016, 210).


## 5. Criticisms and Responses



Panentheism continues to develop. This growth has led to diverse forms
of panentheism such as soteriological, revelational or expressivist,
and dipolar (Gregersen 2004, 21). The variety of forms of panentheism
has also resulted in different degrees of panentheism ranging from
explicit fully developed panentheism to vague and underdeveloped forms
of panentheism and to expressions of theism that share certain
concepts with fully developed forms of panentheism. Michael Brierley
lists three premises as distinctive to panentheism: God is not
separate from the cosmos, God is affected by the cosmos, and God is
more than the cosmos (2006, 639-640). Fully developed
panentheism includes thinkers such as Charles Hartshorne, Phillip
Clayton, Leonardo Boff, Peter Hodgson, John Macquarrie, Sallie
McFague, Jurgen Moltmann, and Arthur Peacocke who have identified
themselves as panentheists. Other thinkers such as Paul Tillich have
rarely self-identified as panentheists but share concepts with
panentheism (Burch 1998, 251). And finally, especially through world
religions and early theologies various forms of theism offer diversity
sharing certain concepts with panentheism.



Another impetus for development has been criticisms of panentheism.
These criticisms have taken two forms. One form, by major alternatives
to panentheistic understandings of the God-world relation, has
criticized the adequacy of panentheism. Panentheism faces challenges
both from those who resist any lessening of the emphasis upon divine
transcendence and from those who find pantheism more adequate than any
system distinguishing between God and the world. Recently, an
important criticism, especially from Analytic theology, has been that
panentheism lacks the distinctiveness needed to identify it precisely
enough to distinguish it from other forms of theism, critique it, and
further its development. Finally, the variety of the versions of
panentheism has led to an active internal discussion among the various
versions.



Criticisms of panentheism from major alternatives such as pantheists
and scientists working with naturalist assumptions criticize
panentheism for its metaphysical claim that there is a being above or
other than the natural world. At times, this criticism has been made
by claiming that a thorough-going naturalism does not need a
transcendent, individualized reality. Robert Corrington describes the
development of his thought as a growing awareness that panentheism
unnecessarily introduces a being above nature as well as in nature
(2002, 49). William Drees expresses a similar criticism by arguing
that all contemporary explanations of human agency, including
non-reductionist explanations, are naturalistic and do not require any
reference to a higher being. For panentheists to claim that divine
agency is analogous to human agency fails both to recognize that human
agency requires no additional source or cause and to explain how a
divine source of being could act in the realm of physical and mental
processes (1999). Frankenberry makes this objection more specific.
Panentheism offers a more complex relationship between God and the
world than is necessary. This unnecessary complexity is revealed by
the problems that panentheism has with the logic of the freedom of
parts in wholistic relations, the possibility of the body-soul analogy
relapsing into gender inflected ideas of the soul as the male
principle, the problem with simultaneity of events in the divine
experience in relation to the principle of the relativity of time, the
necessity of the everlasting nature of value, and finally the use of
the ontological argument to establish the necessity of the abstract
pole of the divine nature (1993, 36-39). Carl Gillett points out
that panentheism lacks an explanation for a causal efficacy higher
than the causal efficacy realized by microphysical causation (2003,
19). Generally, panentheists respond to these criticisms by claiming
the inadequacy both scientifically and metaphysically of any type of
reductionistic naturalism. Such a naturalism whether articulated in
scientific categories or religious categories fails to recognize the
emergence of levels of complexity in nature. The emergence of higher
levels of organization that cannot be completely explained in terms of
lower levels renders non-differentiated accounts of being inadequate.
Panentheists often argue that the emergence of higher levels of order
makes possible downward causation. Davies describes the difficulties
in coming to a clear description of downward causation and concludes
that the complexity of systems open to the environment makes room for
downward causation but has not yet provided an explanation of how
downward causation works (2006, 48). The concepts of entanglement and
divine entanglement may offer a new perspective on causation and
especially the role of the divine in natural causation (Wegter-McNelly
2011).



The basic theological criticism of panentheism is that its concept of
God is inadequate. J. Cooper concludes that panentheists reduce the
scope and power of God's immanence (J. Cooper, 2006, 330). M.
Leidenhag criticizes the panentheist rejection of ontological
difference between divine influence and natural causes for making the
notion of divine influence ontologically superfluous (M. Leidenhag
2014, 209-210). Similarly, Mariusz Tabaczek requires that the
difference between God and the world hold that God is distinct and
utterly different from all created entities (Tabaczek 2022, 631). The
panentheistic God changes because God needs the world and thus is
changed by changes in the world (Tabaczek 2022, 633). Because God
changes, God is not essentially identical to God, God's aseity
is compromised by including potential rather than being fully actual
(Tabaczek 2022, 634). God loses metaphysical independence from
creatures, and has only a relative transcendence, transcendence of
difference rather than transcendence of being (Tabaczek 2022, 634).
Efforts to justify a mutual relation fail to recognize that relation
is posterior to substance, things need to be what they are in order to
relate (Tabaczek 2022, 638). If God is not ontologically different
from the world, God lacks the omni characteristics and an adequate
type of transcendence. According to J. Cooper, if God's
transcendence does not infinitely exceed God's immanence,
God's presence, knowledge, and power are limited rather than
complete, immediate, and unconditioned (J. Cooper 2006,
322-328). Whitehead's understanding of God's
transcendence is limited because God only influences events before or
after the decisions of the events. Likewise, Hegel's denial of
divine simplicity makes ontological difference between God and the
world impossible thus limiting God's transcendence (Tabaczek
2013, 151, 154).



The panentheistic response to the foundational issue of the
ontological distance between God and world is that the essential
differences between God and the world adequately distinguish God from
the world. Clayton argues that the differences in essence and function
between God and creation preserve the divinity of God (Clayton 2001,
10). Humans are constituted by free and finite relatedness but God has
a primordial and essential nature (Clayton 2005, 254). Real change
does occur in the divine experience, but not in the divine nature
(Clayton 2019, 9). God is prior to the evolution of the natural world
because creation is contingent (Macallan, 376). The divine act of
creation exceeds the individual identities and their transcendence
over other created beings. Divine transcendence is not mere
self-transcendence of created beings because the actions of all finite
agents participate in the divine act (Clayton 2008a, 216). God's
transcendence is found in God's awareness of all that occurs
within the world but this transcendence is much more intimate than an
externalist or substantialist model can account for (Clayton 2008a,
148).



Top-down causation indicating God's vertical transcendence is a
further response that Clayton and others have made to critiques about
the absence ontological difference. But Jensen finds this inadequate
because they are unable to verify clearly God's presence in the
causal nexus of the world (2014, 131). However, Bracken rejects the
necessity of a causal joint when both top-down and bottom-up causation
takes place (2014, 10). Also, Clayton counters that few process
panentheists accept a full equality between finite actual occasions
and the divine actual occasion or occasions. While God and finite
realities are equal in having existence, God being the chief
exemplification of creativity indicates a difference between God and
actual occasions and thus a vertical transcendence (Clayton 2015b,
27). Finally, Bracken's field understanding of panentheism gives
priority to God as the regent subsociety that communicates a unifying
patter of operation just as mind does in human existence (2014,
79-80).



Several challenges to panentheism claim that the absence of an
ontological difference between God and the world means that
panentheism cannot account for God's causal influence on the
world. J. Leidenhag concludes that salvation through emergence as the
means of divine action cannot explain how an individual can accelerate
evolutionary development to significant change rather than gradual
development (J. Leidenhag 2016, 872). M. Leidenhag thinks that the
absence of ontological difference runs the risk of making the notion
of divine influence ontologically superfluous (M. Leidenhag 2014,
209-210). Panentheistic explanations of divine causation argue
that the differences between God and the world allow for divine
causation without control of creation. Clayton argues that differences
in essence and function between God and the world preserve the
divinity of God so that it is not necessary to locate creation outside
of God (2001, 210). Bringing emergence together with transcendence
recognizes that the physical is not closed and in downward causation
can be influenced by the non-physical. Science is coming to understand
matter as having a propensity to self-organization leading to more and
more complex systems that display new qualities that are not present
at simpler stages (Clayton 2001, 209). "Just as the
neurophysiological structure of the higher primates is 'upwardly
open' to the emergence and causal power of the mental, so the
mental or cultural world is upwardly open to the influence of the
Creator Spirit." (Clayton 2003, 211). This makes possible an
internalist understanding of God's action and creativity.
Concepts of emergence and system levels avoid the dilemma between
upward and downward causation by understanding causation as circular,
involving interacting effects between different levels of organization
(Clayton 2008a, 68). Bringing emergence together with transcendence
recognizes that a divine source entails divine involvement with the
world (Clayton 2004c, 185). Divine causality is best understood as a
form of causal influence that prepares and persuades. History in this
sense is the result of divine persuasion and is open (Clayton 2008a,
198).



However, a concept of divine causation risks raising the problem of
evil if divine causation is the sole source of reality. J. Leidenhag
points out that if God generates the world with all its inequality and
injustice God becomes responsible for evil with all the issues of
theodicy (J. Leidenhag 2016, 879). Thomas J. Oord illustrates a
typical panentheist response to the critique that a panentheist
concept of God makes God responsible for evil. For Oord, God's
love is inherently uncontrolling (Oord 2019, 30). God's love
empowers others giving them the possibility of choosing to do evil.
God does not create or cause evil. Clayton describes all the actions
of finite agents as participating in the divine act in a way that
their partial autonomy of action is preserved (Clayton 2008a, 216).
The autonomy of finite actions makes possible the existence of
evil.



But if God does not control all that happens, the question of if God
can guarantee the defeat of evil arises. If God cannot finally
overcome evil, God is not worthy of worship. A closely related
critique is that the panentheistic God is unable to guarantee a future
good. While panentheists agree that human freedom logically precludes
God's prevention of future evil that results from human choice,
many affirm that God's response to unpreventable evil is that
God suffers with the person suffering evil. However, God's
suffering with a person does not offer any guarantee that evil will be
overcome. But the support of a relationship with God does offer a
basis for the hope of overcoming evil. Clayton and Bracken maintain
that the world does influence God but God's will, expressed
through the decisions that God makes, protects God's ability to
save (Clayton 2005). Moltmann's description of God's
essence as directing God's activity in order to maintain the
reliability of God as love acting on behalf of creation provides an
explanation of how God acts to overcome evil. Moltmann does not find
it necessary to protect divine freedom by giving it priority over
divine love but rather understands freedom as acting according to the
divine nature of love (Moltmann 1981, 98, 99). Even more specifically,
Griffin's discussion of divine variable action allows for
specific and distinctive manifestations of divine love (2004, 45).
But, Alexander Jensen criticizes the ability of the panentheist
concept to save by distinguishing between salvation by God and
salvation through agents of their own salvation (2014, 12-13).
For him a process panentheist's God can only draw and persuade
rather than save (Jensen 2014, 128). Kenneth Pak concludes that an
open future makes any ultimate victory over evil impossible (2014,
223-224). In response, B. Cooper lists five ways in which a
process theology supports God's power over other realities and
evil: 1) ontological priority in providing definition, God's
existence establishes the nature of all that exists, 2) universality
to all actuality, actual existence occurs due to divine actuality, 3)
as the ground of novelty, God makes possible new realities, 4) as the
ground and preserver of all value, God preserves all value, and 5) as
the unconditioned character of God's integrity seeking to
increase value in the world and love towards the world, God's
increase of value and love depends only upon God (1974, 102). Palmyre
Oomen finds three similar elements in Whitehead's thought that
relate to God's governing and sustaining the world: 1) God
originates all occasions by presenting the initial aim which provides
some direction against evil, 2) God preserves all that can be
preserved, and 3) God as everlasting means that no occasion can
overcome God forever (2015, 287-288).



Analytic theology (Jeanine Diller and Asa Kasher, eds. 2013; Andrei A.
Buckareff and Yujin Nagasawa, eds. 2016) offers a different type of
critique of panentheism. Analytical approaches to panentheism critique
panentheism as lacking a distinctive identity making careful
identification, research, and development of a distinctive position
impossible. Two responses to this challenge to identify the
distinctiveness of panentheism have developed. One response seeks to
identify a defining characteristic. The second response affirms the
richness of diversity and suggests certain commonalities distinguish
panentheism from other forms of theism.



Benedikt Gocke's effort to identify a specific
characteristic of panentheism notes the similarities of classical
theism and panentheism and concludes that the crucial difference is a
modal difference in that the world is not necessary for God in
classical theism while the world is necessary for God in panentheism
(2013b). Raphael Lataster challenges Gocke's limitation of
the distinction between classical theism and panentheism by claiming
that panentheism's rejection of divine immutability
distinguishes panentheism from classical theism (2014). Gocke
rejects this distinction as failing to recognize that spatial
references are not adequate in dealing with metaphysical rather than
physical or logical necessity (2014). Gocke makes the
requirements for the distinction between classical theism and
panentheism more specific by calling for a consistent definition of
"in" by panentheists and by noting the presence of
logically contradictory but self-consistent interpretations of key
notions by various panentheists (2015). Yujin Nagasawa develops the
concept of modal panentheism by describing modal panentheism as
holding that God is the totality of all possible worlds and that all
possible worlds exist to the same extent that the actual world exists.
Thus, God includes all possible worlds and any actual worlds. But
Nagasawa also notes that modal panentheism has some similarities to
classical theism which limits any modal distinction between classical
theism and panentheism (2016). R. T. Mullins provides further evidence
and refinement in identifying the distinctiveness of panentheism by
pointing out similarities among panentheism, open theism, and
neo-classical theism and by critiquing Gocke's modal
distinction as failing to say anything unique about God. Both modal
distinctions and considering the world as God's body fail
because they do not say anything unique about the nature of God
(2016). Mullins offers an analytic response to the challenge regarding
the distinctiveness of panentheism by suggesting that panentheism can
distinguish itself from classical theism by making absolute space and
time attributes of God and by recognizing the distinction between
absolute time and space and physical and temporal realities contained
within absolute time and space. Such a distinction offers a literal
understanding of "in" in contrast to classical theism
(2016). Oliver Crisp critiques Mullins's identification of
absolute space and time as attributes of God because that appears to
make God spatial and temporal (2019, 30-31). Pfeifer finds that
Mullins's identification of absolute time and space is helpful
but lacks clarity as to whether absolute time and space are attributes
of God or the substance of God (2020, 130).



A different response to the challenge that panentheism lacks a
distinctive characteristic suggests a symmetrical, mutual relation
between God and the universe as the crucial characteristic of
panentheism (Griffin 2004, 43-44; Keller 2008, 73; Clayton 215a,
189; Gregersen 2004, 20, 22, 23; J. Cooper 2006, 29; Olson 2013, 330;
Meister 2017, 5; Henriksen 2017, 1084; Stenmark 2019, 27; Gasser 2019,
50).



A variety of terms have been used to describe a mutual relation
between God and the universe. Daniel Dombrowski (2013a, 32) described
God's relation to the universe as an organic relation in that
God and the universe influence each other. Niels Gregersen (2004, 20),
cited by Stenmark (2019, 29), uses the phrase "bilateral
relations". Stenmark calls God's relation to the world an
"ontological symmetrical" relation in comparison to
classical theism's "asymmetrical" ontological
dependence. The basic nature of a mutual relation between God and the
universe involves an influence of each member of the relationship on
the other member and assumes some degree of independence or freedom of
each member.



A mutual relation differs from the understanding of the God/world
relation in classical Christian theism. Panentheism and classical
Christian theism both distinguish between God and the world. Classical
theism identifies this as an ontological difference. God's being
differs from the being of the world. Gocke calls this a model
difference in which God's existence is necessary while the
world's existence is contingent (2013b). Stenmark describes this
as God being ontologically distinct from the world in classical theism
and contrasts that with panentheism as holding that God ontologically
includes the world (2019, 19, 27; Gocke 2017, 5-6). At
times, classical Christian theism maintains the ontological difference
between God and the world while allowing for the influence of the
world upon God by distinguishing between God's ontological
nature and God's conceptual knowledge of the world or
God's compassion for the world (Gocke 2017, 3). God's
knowledge may change as the world changes and God's care may
respond to different events in the world, but God's existence or
essence is not changed (Stenmark 2019, 30). While God is immanent and
active in the world as well as transcendent for classical Christian
theism, the relationship between God and the universe is asymmetrical
in that God influences the universe, but the universe does not affect
God (J. Cooper, 2006, 18, 22 and Stenmark 2019, 30). The world changes
because of God's presence in the world, but this dynamic
relationship does not indicate any change in God's nature or
will.



The balance between God's transcendence and God's
immanence further refines the distinctiveness of panentheism's
mutual relation between God and the universe in distinction from both
classical Christian theism and pantheism. By deriving divine immanence
from divine transcendence, classical Christian theism prioritizes
God's transcendence (J. Cooper 2006, 328; Coman 2016, 82). In
contrast, Gregersen (2004, 19) balances transcendence and immanence.
Thus, panentheism affirms the basic role of divine immanence.
Likewise, in contrast to pantheism's derivation of divine
transcendence from divine immanence, panentheism affirms God's
transcendence from the world. David Nikkel recognizes the importance
of this balance even within panentheism. He warns against an
overemphasis upon transcendence leading to the loss of the
indeterminacy needed for growth that occurs in panentheism overly
influenced by German idealism and an overemphasis on immanence leading
to the loss of God as the source of existence that occurs in
panentheism overly influenced by process thought (2016). The classical
Christian tradition due to a variety of influences such as Platonic
influence that stressed the reality of the forms in contrast to matter
shaped by the forms (see Straus 2010) has tended to understand God as
an unrelated Other to ordinary existence. Prioritizing divine
transcendence by calling for a deity unlimited by events in the world
as seen in the doctrine of creation from nothing limits
creation's freedom to impact divine actions. While divine
immanence is not denied by the classical Christian tradition,
transcendence over all specific relations enables the immanence of the
divine relation to all of reality. God is present to all of reality
because God exists independently from all other reality and is
uninfluenced by other reality. This separation of divine reality from
ordinary, created reality makes the relationship of the divine to all
of created reality an external relationship. The external nature of
this relationship becomes apparent in deviations from the classical
Christian tradition such as deism. Because of the assumed external
nature of God's relation to creation, God cannot logically be
conceived of as being affected by created reality. God then does not
respond in any way to the created order but acts without consideration
of the events of the world. Understanding God's transcendence in
balance with God's immanence enables a positive relation between
science and theology (Clayton 2020a) and provides a basis for morality
and ethics (Ciocan 2016, 175).



The panentheistic mutual relation also differs from pantheism which
prioritizes divine immanence by identifying the infinite with the
finite. The emphasis upon divine immanence seeks to affirm the
presence of God in the world. In contrast to pantheism's
derivation of divine transcendence from divine immanence, panentheism
affirms God's transcendence from the world. If divine immanence
rather than transcendence is stressed, even when that includes the
influence of other realities, it fails to retain a robust concept of
divine transcendence. While some forms of this interest lead to
pantheism and the identity of God with the creation, the emphasis upon
immanence can acknowledge the need for a source of newness and novelty
that is not limited by, or to, the past. For panentheism the basis for
this novelty is internal to created reality rather than an external
reality providing novelty. However, the question about the adequacy of
the novelty for the present situation must be considered. The
transcendence involved in the emphasis upon immanence is a horizontal
rather than a vertical transcendence. A horizontal transcendence
involves beings of the same ontological status. For example, a person
differs from other persons and thus in a sense transcends the
limitation of other peoples' experiences just as they are not
limited to the first person's experiences. Newness and novelty
then arise from the unrealized potentials in the original situation.
However, this limitation risks making radical novelty impossible
because the context always limits the possibilities.



Another response to the challenge that panentheism lacks a distinctive
characteristic recognizes the diversity of types of panentheism and
similarities between some other forms of theism and panentheism (Olson
2020 [Other Internet Resources]; Burch 1998; Gustafson 2011). This
diversity of panentheism and the similarities to other forms of theism
requires identifying panentheism by means of more than single
characteristic (Lataster and Bilimoria 2018, 57-58). Several
suggestions about ways to identify the commonality among the diverse
expressions of panentheism and similar forms of theism have been made.
Michael Brierley finds eight common themes in panentheism although all
eight themes may not be present in each expression of panentheism
(2004, 6-8). Gregersen identifies a core common to all forms of
panentheism, God contains the world so that the world belongs to God
and there is a feeding back from the world into divine life (2017,
582). This common core then is expressed in a variety of forms of
panentheism as particular theologies (Gregersen 2017, 583). Stenmark
describes panentheism as having core doctrines and extension claims
(2019, 23). Panentheism and classical theism share extension claims
that God is the creator of the world and that continued existence of
the world depends upon God's ongoing creative activity. Both
panentheism and classical theism maintain the immanence of God, but
they differ in that panentheism holds that God ontologically includes
the world while classical theism maintains an ontological distinction
between God and creation. For Stenmark, the core claims of panentheism
are that God ontologically includes the world and that God depends on
the world for God's own existence (2019, 25-26). Clayton
suggests that panentheism be considered a philosophical research
program which may include sub-research programs. The panentheistic
research program affirms the pervasiveness of change with real change
taking place in the divine experience but not in the divine nature.
Since panentheists differ on whether creation is from nothing or is
necessary this is a sub-research program within panentheism (Clayton
2019, 9-10).



While the idea of panentheism may not be a philosophically stable
concept in itself, that instability makes possible respecification in
light of particular theologies (Gregersen 2017, 583). Thus the term
"panentheism" pointed to a balance between classical
theism and pantheism in the early twentieth century with its use of
"in". The growth of the influence of scientific thought
upon theology leads to a more specific understanding of the balance in
the relation between God and the world that emphasizes the mutual
interaction of God and the world and moves on from the usefulness of
"in".



The varieties of panentheism participate in internal criticism.
Clayton (2008a, 127) and Steven Crain (2006) emphasize the dependence
of the world upon God rather than the dependence of God upon the world
although they maintain that God is influenced, and changed, by the
world. They criticize understandings of God that limit God by making
God subject to metaphysical principles. Griffin emphasizes the
regularity provided by metaphysical principles. This regularity
recognizes the order in reality that the reliability of God's
love provides. Panentheists also caution that the emphasis upon the
ontological nature of the relation between God and the world can lead
to a loss of the integrity of the world. Richardson warns against
losing the discrete identity of finite beings in God (2010, 345).
Case-Winters calls for maintaining a balance between the distinction
between God and the world and God's involvement with the world.
Over-emphasis upon either side of the balance leads to positions that
are philosophically and theologically inadequate (Case-Winters 2007,
125).