Panatheism Unrealistic?

[username1]

Alot of Muslims call sufism, sikhism and hinduism false on the grounds of their panatheistic belief system. Which is god is everywhere. But the argument is that this is unrealistic because the universe will end and god can not end. The universe had a beginning and will have an end. God however is eternal and did not have a beginning and nor will have an end. Hence allah sits in the 7th heaven on his throne and not in this universe. He observes all deeds and his majestic knowledge exists in the universe but his majestic presence isn't in the universe. How do we address this?

How about with this:

Conservation of energy

In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system cannot change—it is said to be conserved over time. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but can change form, for instance chemical energy can be converted to kinetic energy in the explosion of a stick of dynamite.

Mass–energy equivalence

In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the concept that the mass of an object or system is a measure of its energycontent. For instance, adding 25 kilowatt-hours (90 megajoules) of any form(s) of energy to any object increases its mass by 1 microgram. If you had a sensitive enough mass balance or scale, this mass increase of the object could be verified.

[TheFancyBanana]

This Universe is just one of his reflections.

Have you ever been in a house of mirrors at the funfair? You stand in the middle of the room and your reflections are everywhere. There are many different types of mirrors that all reflect you in different ways. The reflections are distorted. Some make you look short, some make you look long, others make you look skinny.

But there is still only one of you. All those mirrors reflect you but there is only one "real" thing that is causing the reflections. If I went up to one of those mirrors and smashed it, it would get rid of one of your reflections. But you will remain unaffected, me smashing the mirror has not harmed you.

In the same way, Waheguru is seperate from creation, but infused within it. We are those mirrors, the universe, galaxies, planets, humans, dogs, etc. are all just those mirrors that are reflecting Wahguru's light. If they are destroyed it won't affect waheguru will it?

[username1]

So like Bhai Gurdas Ji Vaaran say

Vaar 2 Pauri 1 Line 6 Invocation

ਆਪੇ ਆਪਿ ਵਰਤਦਾ ਸਤਿਸੰਗਿ ਵਿਸੇਖੈ ॥੧॥

Aapay Aapi Varatadaa Satisangi Visaykhai ॥1॥

आपे आपि वरੴतदा सतिसंगि विसेखै ॥१॥

The Lord Himself is prevading this world-mirror but He is specifically preceivable in and through the holy congregation.

Vaar 34 Pauri 1 Line 4 Praise of the true Guru, Guru-oriented and fate of the renegade

ਜਿਉ ਕਰਿ ਨਿਰਮਲੁ ਆਰਸੀ ਜਗੁ ਵੇਖਣਿ ਵਾਲਾ।

Jiu Kari Niramalu Aarasee Jagu Vaykhani Vaalaa.

जिउ करि निरमलु आरसी जगु वेखणि वाला ।

He (the Lord) is the mirror in which the world can see its face reflected.

So from the analogy you gave light causes the reflection and the packets of photons being omitted as a form of energy are separate from the matter they bounce on and off into the mirror back to the eyes to allow the reflected image to enter the retina and then be translated into a bio-chemical signal the brain processes.

In that reflection process everything the observer, the mirror, the environment and us are separate from god but the light is god? But if everything is gone then what is the direct source of that light? In the mirror analogy we would have a lamp, tube light, lightbulb, sunlight coming from the nuclear reaction taking place in the star present in our galaxy that we call suraj or sun. But when this earth is gone, the sun is gone, many stars are gone and everything is gone the light we understand will be gone. If god is a self-sustaining form of light why hasn't science detected his empirical observable existence? He sure does an excellent job of hiding himself from us all then.

[sunnyji]

I've always described Sikhi as monotheistic (as do the majority of scholars, books etc), partly due to "Ik" in "Ik Onkar", the stress of "One" God. I can see why it may be viewed as pantheistic, due to the qualities of Waheguru as being the Universe itself and all matter within it, but I still think Sikhi being described as monotheistic is more accurate, since Waheguru is EVERYTHING we can and can't comprehend, everything that does and doesn't exist - ultimate Oneness. Whether or not the Universe ends, therefore, doesn't even matter, since Waheguru is beyond even this.

[username1]

I've always described Sikhi as monotheistic (as do the majority of scholars, books etc), partly due to "Ik" in "Ik Onkar", the stress of "One" God. I can see why it may be viewed as pantheistic, due to the qualities of Waheguru as being the Universe itself and all matter within it, but I still think Sikhi being described as monotheistic is more accurate, since Waheguru is EVERYTHING we can and can't comprehend, everything that does and doesn't exist - ultimate Oneness. Whether or not the Universe ends, therefore, doesn't even matter, since Waheguru is beyond even this.

I used to think of Sikhi as a monotheistic faith rapped around omnipresence abit like christianity but I realized from reading gurbani god's mere knowledge isn't in the universe his actual roop, sargun roop and he himself exists within it. The whole monotheistic definition came about due to Christian writers on Sikhism and their limited viewpoint.

From Wikipedia:

Monotheism is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as belief in the existence of one god or in the oneness of God.^[1] The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church gives a more restricted definition: "belief in one personal and transcendent God", as opposed to polytheism and pantheism.^[2] A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, and both inclusive monotheism and pluriform monotheism which, while recognising many distinct gods, postulate some underlying unity.^[3] Monotheism characterizes the traditions of Atenism, the Bahá'í Faith, Cao Dai (Caodaiism), Cheondoism (Cheondogyo), Christianity, Deism, Eckankar, Islam, Judaism, Rastafarianism, Sikhism, Tenrikyo (Tenriism) and Zoroastrianism and elements of the belief are discernible in numerous other religions.^[4]

Now from the above see this " "belief in one personal and transcendent God" "

In religion, transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature and power which is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all physical laws. This is contrasted with immanence, where God is fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways. In religious experience transcendence is a state of being that has overcome the limitations of physical existence and by some definitions has also become independent of it. This is typically manifested in prayer, séance, meditation, psychedelics and paranormal "visions".

In Islam God himself is not in this universe his knowledge is and his powers are within it but he isn't physically in it. He exists on the 7th heaven on his throne. Similar tone in Christianity although there is more of a panatheistic tone taking place.

Immanence refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence in which the divine is seen to be manifested in or encompassing the material world. It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world. Immanence is usually applied in monotheistic, pantheistic, pandeistic, or panentheistic faiths to suggest that the spiritual world permeates the mundane.

Major faiths commonly devote significant philosophical efforts to explaining the relationship between immanence and transcendence, but these efforts run the gamut from casting immanence as a characteristic of a transcendent God (common in Abrahamic faiths) to subsuming transcendent personal gods in a greater immanent being (Hindu Brahman) to approaching the question of transcendence as something which can only be answered through an appraisal of immanence.

Omnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present everywhere. This characteristic is most commonly used in a religious context, as most doctrines bestow the trait of omnipresence onto a superior, usually a deity commonly referred to as God by monotheists, as with God in Christianity. This idea differs from Pantheism, which identifies the universe and divinity; in divine omnipresence, the divine and universe are separate, but the divine is present everywhere; see panentheism for a third variant.

Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system which posits that the divine (be it amonotheistic God, polytheistic gods, or an eternal cosmic animating force^[1]) interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it. Panentheism differentiates itself from pantheism, which holds that the divine is synonymous with the universe.^[2]

In panentheism, the universe in the first formulation is practically the whole itself. In the second formulation, the universe and the divine are not ontologicallyequivalent. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that 'All is God', panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God,^[2] like in the concept of Tzimtzum. Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism.^[3][4]Hasidic Judaism merges the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical transcendent Divine Panentheism, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of Kabbalah, with the populist emphasis on the panentheistic Divine immanence in everything and deeds of kindness.

Pantheism is the belief that the universe (or nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity,^[1] or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God.^[2] Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god.^[3]

Pantheism was popularized in the modern era as both a theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza,^[4].7whose Ethics was an answer to Descartes' famous dualist theory that the body and spirit are separate.^[5] Spinoza held the monist view that the two are the same, and monism is a fundamental part of his philosophy. He was described as a "God-intoxicated man," and used the word God to describe the unity of all substance.^[5] Although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate.^[6]

Transtheistic is a term coined by philosopher Paul Tillich or Indologist Heinrich Zimmer, referring to a system of thought or religious philosophy which is neither theistic, nor atheistic,^[1] but is beyond them.

Zimmer applies the term to the theological system of Jainism, which is theistic in the limited sense that the gods exist, but become irrelevant as they are transcended by moksha (that is, a system which is not non-theistic, but in which the gods are not the highest spiritual instance). Zimmer (1953, p. 182) uses the term to describe the position of theTirthankaras having passed "beyond the godly governors of the natural order".

The term has more recently also been applied to Buddhism,^[2]Advaita Vedanta^[3] and the Bhakti movement.^[4]

Nathan Katz in Buddhist and Western Philosophy (1981, p. 446) points out that the term "transpolytheistic" would be more accurate, since it entails that the polytheistic gods are not denied or rejected even after the development of a notion of the Absolute that transcends them, but criticizes the classification as characterizing the mainstream by the periphery: "like categorizing Roman Catholicism as a good example of non-Nestorianism". The term is indeed informed by the fact that the corresponding development in the West, the development of monotheism, did not "transcend" polytheism, but abolish it, while in the mainstream of the Indian religions, the notion of "gods" (deva) was never elevated to the status of "God" or Ishwara, or the impersonal Absolute Brahman, but adopted roles comparable to Western angels. "Transtheism", according to the criticism of Katz, is then an artifact of comparative religion.

Pandeism (or pan-deism) is a theological doctrine which combines aspects of pantheism and deism.^[1] It holds that the creator of the universe actuallybecame the universe, and so ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity.^[2][3][4][5] Pandeism is proposed to explain as to deism why God would create a universe and then abandon it,^[6] and as to pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe.^[6][7]

The word pandeism is a hybrid blend of the root words pantheism and deism, combining Ancient Greek: πᾶν pan “all” with Latin: deus which means "god". It was perhaps first coined in the present meaning in 1859 by Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal.^[8]

Deism (ⁱ/ˈdiː.ɪzəm/^[1][2] or /ˈdeɪ.ɪzəm/) is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a Creator, accompanied with the rejection of revelation and authority as a source of religious knowledge.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Deism gained prominence in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Age of Enlightenment—especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States—among intellectuals raised as Christians who believed in one god, but found fault with organized religion and did not believe in supernatural events such as miracles, the inerrancy of scriptures, or theTrinity.^[8]

Deism is derived from deus, the Latin word for god. The earliest known usage in print of the English term deist is 1621,^[9] and deism is first found in a 1675 dictionary.^[10][11] Deistic ideas influenced several leaders of the American and French Revolutions.^[12] Two main forms of deism currently exist: classical deism and modern deism.^[13]

[sunnyji]

I used to think of Sikhi as a monotheistic faith rapped around omnipresence abit like christianity but I realized from reading gurbani god's mere knowledge isn't in the universe his actual roop, sargun roop and he himself exists within it. The whole monotheistic definition came about due to Christian writers on Sikhism and their limited viewpoint.

I wouldn't say so, I've mostly seen it called monotheistic by Sikh authors. I can see why panentheism does describe it well; however, the point about "transcendence" is merely a Christian viewpoint of monotheism. According to wikipedia, there's a subdivision of monotheism called "monism" which is the view that everything is part of a single reality/substance/truth - I think this describes Sikhi quite well, monistic monotheism: the Ik Onkar, Akaal, Waheguru, whatever you want to call him. In fact, again according to Wikipedia, pantheism and panentheism are branches of monism (which itself is a branch of monotheism). I shall have to read into this stuff more, it's all very interesting

[username1]

I wouldn't say so, I've mostly seen it called monotheistic by Sikh authors. I can see why panentheism does describe it well; however, the point about "transcendence" is merely a Christian viewpoint of monotheism. According to wikipedia, there's a subdivision of monotheism called "monism" which is the view that everything is part of a single reality/substance/truth - I think this describes Sikhi quite well, monistic monotheism: the Ik Onkar, Akaal, Waheguru, whatever you want to call him. In fact, again according to Wikipedia, pantheism and panentheism are branches of monism (which itself is a branch of monotheism). I shall have to read into this stuff more, it's all very interesting

Some of the very founders of the Singh Sabha who went on to form the early rehat marayada inscribed in english that Sikhi was a monotheistic religion. Much of this has been inherited by the great writer Max Arthur Macauliffe.

Max has done alot of scholarly work which is still applicable today for Sikhs but this topic needs more insight and many Sikhs today are starting to disagree with this notion. Especially when many western figures are upset with the christian narrative and want to get away from it with eastern faiths like buddhism which seems additionally to be panentheism but calls itself atheism.

It's strange to note that under all these Wikipedia pages every religion has given their opinon on the matter but few have sikh philisophy stated to denote the mater.

Monism^[1] is the philosophical view that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance.^[2] The wide definition states that all existing things go back to a source which is distinct from them.^[3] A commonly-used, restricted definition of monism asserts the presence of a unifying substance or essence.^[3]

In contrast to monism, are metaphysical dualism^{[3][note 1]} and metaphysical pluralism.^{[3][note 2]}

The term monism originated from western philosophy,^[4] and has often been applied to various religions.

[username1]

ਫਰੀਦਾ ਖਾਲਕੁ ਖਲਕ ਮਹਿ ਖਲਕ ਵਸੈ ਰਬ ਮਾਹਿ ॥

Farīḏā kẖālak kẖalak mėh kẖalak vasai rab māhi.

Fareed, the Creator is in the Creation, and the Creation abides in God.

ਮੰਦਾ ਕਿਸ ਨੋ ਆਖੀਐ ਜਾਂ ਤਿਸੁ ਬਿਨੁ ਕੋਈ ਨਾਹਿ ॥੭੫॥

Manḏā kis no ākẖī▫ai jāʼn ṯis bin ko▫ī nāhi. ||75||

Whom can we call bad? There is none without Him. ||75||

SGGS M5 ANG 1381

This shows us how god doesn't transcend us but is among us perhaps in an interpersonal form. So we don't meet the traditional definition of monotheism.

Additionally many muslims argue panentheism is so ridiculous because if god is everywhere he is on the floor and we are stepping on him aswell, if he is on the left you can step on him, he is also then on toilet paper aswell as urine and excretion and this in itself is blasphemous to god's majesty from the islamic viewpoint.

[sunnyji]

Some of the very founders of the Singh Sabha who went on to form the early rehat marayada inscribed in english that Sikhi was a monotheistic religion. Much of this has been inherited by the great writer Max Arthur Macauliffe.

Max has done alot of scholarly work which is still applicable today for Sikhs but this topic needs more insight and many Sikhs today are starting to disagree with this notion. Especially when many western figures are upset with the christian narrative and want to get away from it with eastern faiths like buddhism which seems additionally to be panentheism but calls itself atheism.

It's strange to note that under all these Wikipedia pages every religion has given their opinon on the matter but few have sikh philisophy stated to denote the mater.

Monism^[1] is the philosophical view that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance.^[2] The wide definition states that all existing things go back to a source which is distinct from them.^[3] A commonly-used, restricted definition of monism asserts the presence of a unifying substance or essence.^[3]

In contrast to monism, are metaphysical dualism^{[3][note 1]} and metaphysical pluralism.^{[3][note 2]}

The term monism originated from western philosophy,^[4] and has often been applied to various religions.

True, although I guess it can equally be called panentheism as it can monotheism - panentheism due to the immanent nature of Waheguru existing as the Universe and beyond; monotheistic due to the singular nature of Waheguru. Not sure if the two terms are mutually exclusive in any way.