Pantheism: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

God is not in the universe. God is the universe.

The position that there is one substance and the world is it — that God and Nature are two words for the same thing, with nothing outside and no one listening. It is old and scattered, it has been held inside Hinduism, Taoism and Sufism as well as against Christianity, and since 1999 a naturalistic wing has organised itself, certifies celebrants for weddings and funerals, and asks members to sign a pledge to the Earth.

Why it is filed this way

A position rather than a body for most of its history, and one that people have arrived at from inside half a dozen religions rather than by joining anything. It is filed as a philosophy on that basis, though the World Pantheist Movement, founded in 1999, is an organisation with members and celebrants and would arguably qualify as a movement in its own right. Whether pantheism is religion or an elegantly worded atheism is the argument that has followed it since Toland.

Never organised until the twentieth century and still barely organised now. The World Pantheist Movement has run since 1999 and issues certified celebrants; most pantheists belong to nothing.

DeitiesNot a being within the universe and not a person outside it. God is the totality, considered as one thing — Spinoza's Deus sive Natura, God or Nature. It has no will, no preferences and no plans, so it cannot answer prayer; what pantheists report instead is that the appropriate response is awe. Whether this counts as theism at all has been disputed since the word was coined.

FounderNone — no founding moment

AfterlifeNone for the individual, generally. Matter and energy persist and are reused; the person does not.

TextsSpinoza, Ethics (1677) · The Principles of Scientific Pantheism (World Pantheist Movement) · Passages in the Upanishads and the Tao Te Ching, claimed retrospectively

The map

Pantheism’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

Deus sive Natura — God, or Nature. One substance, infinite, self-caused, of which every rock and thought is a mode. There is no outside for a creator to stand in. Go deeper — context →

Whether this is religion or atheism with better manners. Spinoza's contemporaries called him an atheist; he denied it, and so do modern pantheists. The word has been an accusation for as long as it has existed. ⚖ contested within Go deeper — context →

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Enter →

T The one substance. Not a person, not a mind, not a maker — and therefore not something that can want anything from you. Spinoza still called it God, and meant it. Domain Everything there isStanding The one substance; everything else is a mode of it Meet them — context →

B Baruch Spinoza — the lens grinder. He turned down a chair at Heidelberg to keep his freedom to write, published almost nothing under his own name in his lifetime, and died at forty-four in rented rooms in The Hague. Domain The single-substance argumentStanding Not worshipped and not a founder — pantheism predates him — but the person who made the argument watertight Meet them — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

Attention, and a celebrant at the turns of a life. There is no liturgy and no holy day. What the organised wing supplies is trained celebrants for weddings, namings and funerals, and an encouragement to go outside. When Ongoing, and at the lifetime passages — namings, weddings, funeralsWho Anyone; celebrants are certified for the life passages Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Dave Stevism — Dave Steves is the physical manifestation of the Universe. Islam — 11 shared ideas, a different faith Judaism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Sikhism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Hinduism — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Branch Pantheism — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what Pantheism shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been

Sources

1 cited texts

The World Pantheist Movement, pantheism.net where it is cited →

These citations identify texts used in the linked passages. Follow each passage to read its quotation and context. A tradition’s own texts explain its teachings; historical claims may also require independent scholarship. Translations marked (rendered) are our own plain-English wording, not a standard edition; where a passage matters, read it in a full translation.