By Steve K.

As a teenager and young adult, I had very little engagement with religious ideas and lived a hedonistic lifestyle characterised by alcohol and other drug misuse. This lifestyle resulted in me turning to a 12-Step fellowship for help to stop drinking. The 12 Steps suggest belief in a power greater than oneself as a method of recovery from addiction and of spiritual growth. A philosophy significantly influenced by Christian ideas and principles.

Early in recovery, I accepted the Christian notion of God, but then difficulties with depression led to me developing atheistic beliefs in my early 40’s. Approaching my late 40’s, I adopted what I would describe as a humanistic or natural sense of spirituality. My focus was on the practice of virtue as a positive way of being in the world. The Unitarian aphorism ‘deed not creed’ comes to mind – a spirituality of action rather than one of dogmatic belief.

Around this period, I started to attend my local Unitarian chapel where they held a weekly Taoist meditation and discussion group. The Tao is commonly interpreted as ‘the way’, the fundamental wisdom and balance underlying the natural world. It’s a non-dualistic philosophy suggesting that everything is part of a whole and that separation is illusory. The Taoist Yin-Yang symbol representing that opposites are part of a unified whole and interrelated. This idea of a unified reality that permeates all things (Tao) can be interpreted in a secular, spiritual, or religious sense.

Taoist ideas have helped in my relationship with 12 Step philosophy. The belief in balance, peace, wisdom, and harmony as the essence of things, and to which one aligns oneself through meditation and mindful or effortless action, relates well to a non-dual concept of God. It eliminates for me the anthropomorphic idea of a dualistic God, which many suggest is a projection of the human imagination and promulgated via the monotheistic religions.

This brings me to the belief in a divine cosmos or unity. There are several belief systems that lend themselves to this concept. I would like to briefly outline just three philosophies:  Pantheism, Panentheism, and Panpsychism. 

Pantheism

Pantheism literally translates as ‘all, or everything, is God.’ It’s an idea that can be traced back to the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, as well as the Hindu texts the Upanishads, and early Taoism.

Pantheism is the belief that nature and God are one and the same thing. That nature is sacred and should be thought of and treated as such by human beings. In this sense, God is immanent throughout the world and present within everything, including human beings who are inherently part of nature. There are various versions of pantheism along a spectrum ranging from religious versions to purely secular, modern pantheism that aligns strongly with a scientific view of the world. Generally, pantheism views the universe as a creative force, positive in its direction and that combines both matter and mind. Mind or consciousness in pantheism is not a separate entity, but part of the whole. The pantheist view of God/nature is non-personal towards human beings.

Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza, an early enlightenment period philosopher, is considered by many to be the “prophet” of Western pantheism in the modern era. He was born in 1632 in the Jewish area of Amsterdam. He was excommunicated for his radical views about the nature of God, and mistakenly accused of being an atheist. To the contrary, he was deeply conscious of God, but not in the anthropomorphic sense preached by the Judaeo-Christian religion. Spinoza thought there was only one substance from which everything manifested and with which everything was unified. God is not transcendent or separate – God is nature and is the world.

Panpsychism

Often closely associated with pantheism, panpsychism literally translates ‘all is mind’. It is the radical idea that consciousness is an inherent property of the universe. That all matter is conscious or contains varying degrees of consciousness. This ranges from the smallest sub-atomic particles that contain very simple properties of consciousness, to more complex formations of matter that have more developed consciousness, such as in animals and humans.

This idea is contrary to mainstream scientific materialism, which suggests that consciousness somehow emerges from complex formations of unconscious or inert matter (i.e. nervous systems) – a theory often referred to as the ‘hard problem of consciousness’. How is consciousness produced by unconscious matter? Science can only speculate. Panpsychism is also speculative, but many credible philosophers and scientists view it as more plausible than the current mechanistic model offered by materialism.

Belief in panpsychism goes back thousands of years to the start of philosophical thought. As with pantheism, there are various forms of panpsychism, ranging from the atheistic to more spiritual or religiously minded. However, they all take the view that consciousness is the fundamental reality from which the material world emanates.

Panentheism

Panentheism describes a midpoint between pantheism and classical theism. The term translates ‘all [is] in God’. Meaning that the world is in God and God is immanent in the world. It doesn’t mean that the two are the same – it suggests that the world is a manifestation of God, who is also transcendent of it. God is more than the cosmos, but intimately related to it. It’s an idea that brings God closer to us – a power that lies within and beyond us. This removes the anthropomorphism and separateness found within theism.

Panentheism has different forms and can be found throughout the history of philosophy and religion. As it bridges the space between pantheism and monotheism, it’s commonly found within various religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Christian mysticism.

Non-duality

All three belief systems I’ve outlined have helped in my search for spiritual meaning and understanding. They’ve helped me move away from the traditional idea of God as a separate being towards faith in something greater but also inherently part of me and the world. Pantheism and panpsychism are compatible with science but give more meaning to life than the rather dark, nihilistic materialism that portrays the cosmos as a large unconscious mechanism. Panentheism may go beyond the current scientific view, but that doesn’t make it implausible. It’s more compatible than traditional theism as God and nature are more intimately related.

Science doesn’t have all the answers and it’s arrogant to assume that it will in future. For me, open-mindedness towards a sacred, alive, conscious, and ultimately divine world gives more meaning and purpose to my life than belief in a purely mechanistic, unconscious world that we can exploit for short-term pleasure. Scientific materialism encourages self-importance and selfishness, and tends to detach us from nature and God, which are the very source of our being and happiness.

The three philosophies offer a picture of a unity between nature, humans, and something greater, whether that is a sacred world, consciousness that exists beyond ourselves, or a transcendent creative force that is also present within us.

Listen to the Radio 4 programme ‘In Our Time’ on the subject of Panpsychism.

Further Reading:

Universal consciousness as foundational field: A theoretical bridge between quantum physics and non-dual philosophy