Panentheism: World as God’s Body-Part I

This essay is a continuation of two prior posts on the subject of panentheism:
The Revival
God in the World 

World as God’s Body
All of the essayists in In Whom We Live Move and Have Our Being espouse some sort of personal metaphor for envisioning the God-world relationship. The most common analogy is the world as God’s body.

Philip Clayton emphasizes that God’s immanence must be thought of strictly in metaphorical terms and not literally or locatively. This is particularly true because panentheists use “in” to refer to a reciprocal relationship between God and world (Clayton, 83). In trying to describe this dialectic of “unity-in-difference,” Clayton argues that “univocal language breaks down,” and concrete metaphors (such as Arthur Peacocke’s image of the world existing in the “womb of God”) are too specific to describe the God-world dialectic (Clayton 83, Peacocke 147). 

Both Clayton and Peacocke subscribe to a form of panentheism known as emergent monism. Emergent monism refers to the biological concept of emergence in which natural systems and organisms spontaneously give rise to higher levels of complexity that transcend subsequent levels (140).

Emergent monists holds that the notion of God as a static substance does not correspond with the way nature really works. God must be reconceived as, according to T.W. Deacon, ‘the creative dynamic,’ immanent in natural processes. God unfolds the possibilities that systems and creatures may actualize within God’s circumambient reality, the highest level of emergence (143). This, in Peacocke’s words, is a “naturalistic theism,” in which no new entity is inserted at any level through which God might intervene in the natural order. The world is strictly composed of “basic physical entities,” and is “causally closed” (147).1 Peacocke compares God’s creative presence to that of a composer present in his or her music (144).

Clayton argues that the most scientifically rigorous metaphor for the God-world relationship is the human mind/body combination. The natural sciences have taught us about the psychosomatic unity of the human person. For this reason, he believes that this metaphor, which he calls the “panentheistic analogy,” (PA) best expresses (albeit, in a very loose way) the interdependent relationship between God and world (83).

Clayton justifies the metaphor in this way: “Apparently, no natural law is broken when you form the (mental) intention to raise your hand and then you cause that particular object in the world, your hand, to rise” (84). He is careful to point out that this analogy is a useful way of thinking about divinity in relation to evolution, but recognizes that it can lead to the view that God is no more than the universe deified. Clayton cautions that it is better thought of as a point of departure for postulating a larger, metaphysical framework (91).

Peacocke defends his “womb of God” metaphor by arguing that it is a naturalist, mammalian, non-masculinist model in which God nurtures life from within (147). But, both he and Clayton agree that human personhood represents a special place in the “ontological relation of, and the interactions between, God and the world” (although God is also present to other levels of reality [Peacocke, 148, 150]).

Notes
1. Not all emergent theorists believe that the basic components of reality are physical. For example, Christian Process theologian, Joseph Bracken, believes that the smallest units of reality are spiritual.

Works Cited
In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being: Panentheistic Reflections on God’s Presence in a Scientific World. Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke, eds. William B. Eerdsman Publishing Company (Grand Rapids: 2004). 

Painting: “Hands that Hold Us,” Pamela Yates, copyright Pamela Yates (www.pamelayates.com)