Questions 14 to 16 - Pantheism
Spirits's replies to Allan Kardec
14. Is God a distinct being, or as some believe, the result of all the combined forces and intelligences of the universe?
"If the latter were the case, God per se would not exist because God would be an effect and not a cause. God cannot be both cause and effect at the same time.
"You cannot doubt that God exists and that is the point that matters. Believe me and do not try to go any farther. Do not get lost in a maze from which you will not be able to exit. Trying to go farther will not make you any better; instead, it will probably just add to your pride by leading you to imagine that you understand something when you actually understand nothing at all. Therefore, put all theories aside regarding the matter. You have much more important things to be concerned about, beginning with yourselves. Study your own imperfections in order to get rid of them; that will be far more useful to you than trying to penetrate the impenetrable."
15. What should we think of the opinion holding that all the bodies in nature, all the beings and globes in the universe are components of the Divinity, and taken all together comprise the Divinity itself; i.e. the pantheistic doctrine?
"Since humans are unable to make themselves God, they would like to at least be a part of God."
16. Adherents of this theory claim that it demonstrates some of God’s attributes: since there are an infinite number of worlds, then God is infinite; since a void or absolute nothingness is nowhere, then God is everywhere. God being everywhere, because everything is an integral component of God, God infuses all the phenomena of nature with God’s intelligence. What can refute this viewpoint?
"Reason. Reflect on it carefully and you will have no difficulty in seeing how absurd it is."
KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits’ Book. 3.ed. International Spiritist Council, 2011.
Allan Kardec's remarks:
The pantheistic doctrine views God as a material being, who, even though possessed of supreme intelligence, is nevertheless only a larger version of us. Furthermore, since matter is continually changing, then God would have no stability and would be subject to all the changes and all the needs of humanity. God would thus lack one of the essential attributes of the Divinity: immutability. The properties of matter cannot be linked to the idea of God without impairing how we think about God, and all the subtleties of sophistry will never be able to solve the issue of God’s innermost nature. We do not know all that God is, but we do know what God cannot fail to be. Pantheism contradicts the most essential divine properties by confusing the Creator with the creature. It is like regarding an ingenious machine as being an integral component of the machinist who invented it.
God’s intelligence is revealed in God’s works, just like an artist’s is revealed in his or her paintings; but God’s works are no more actually God than the painting is the artist who conceived and painted it.