Pandeism

Pandeism (or a Pandæan religion) was a term originally used by Godfrey Higgins, a historian of religions, [1] to describe a religious society that he purported had existed from ancient times, and at one time had been known throughout the entire world. Higgins believed this practice continued in secret until the time of his writing, in the 1830s in an area stretching from Greece to India. The term was used in this context in the posthumous release of Higgens' 1833 treatise titled Anacalypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis: Or an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions. [2] Today, a known small number of people continue to use "pandeism" to communicate and contrast ideas regarding the nature of God.

Contents

1 Higgins' choice of the term 2 Recent usage 2.1 Usage as a restatement of another concept 2.2 Usage as a distinct concept 2.3 Notes

Higgins' choice of the term

Higgins' usage is related to pantheism, yet distinctly different. While pantheism normally refers to one universal god, pandeism, as described by Higgins, refers to the worship of a family, a union, or a pantheon of gods which are collectively universal.

Higgins was a follower of Irish writer John Toland who coined "pantheist" in his 1705 work, Socinianism Truly Stated, by a pantheist; although Toland lived in an era when "deism" and "theism" were interchangeable, Higgins wrote during the 1820s and 1830s, a period several generations later when Deism was popular and became distinct from theism. When coining "pandeism", Higgins was aware of the similarity between pandeism and pantheism, and of the similarity between pandeism and deism. While pandeism evokes both pantheism and deism and suggests their combination, Higgins' usage is removed from both.

Whereas Toland's construction of pantheism was based on the Greek root words pan, meaning all and Theos, meaning God, Higgins flips the construction around, stating:

When I consider all the circumstances detailed above respecting the Pans, I cannot help believing that, under the mythos, a doctrine or history of a sect is concealed. Cunti, the wife of Pandu (du or God, Pan), wife of the generative power, mother of the Pandavas or devas, daughter of Sura or Syra the Sun—Pandæa only daughter of Cristna or the Sun—Pandion,^{Medea a son called Medus, the king of the Medes, who had a cousin, the famous Perseus — surely all this is very mythological — an historical parable!}

I think Pandeism was system; — We have seen that though Cristna was said to have left many sons, he left his immense empire, which extended from the sources of the Indus to Cape Comorin, (for we find a Regio Pandionis near this point,) to his daughter Pandæa; but, from finding the icon of Buddha so constantly shaded with the nine Cobras, &c., I am induced to think that this Pandeism was a doctrine, which had been received both by Buddhists and Brahmins.Greece (the home of Medea and Perseus) to India (where the Buddhists and the Brahmins coexist). Higgins concludes that his observations:

...confirm the very close connexion which there must have been in some former time, between Siam, Afghanistan, Western Syria, and Ireland. Indeed I cannot doubt that there has been really one grand empire, or one Universal, one Pandæan, or one Catholic religion, with one language, which has extended over the whole of the world; uniting or governing at the same time... ^{Masonic friends, but which my engagements prevent me explaining to the world at large.}

Recent usage

Today, very few continue to use this term in essays, blogs and internet forums to describe various belief systems. Some of these uses are etymologically disjunctive, as they ascribe a meaning to the term that does not reflect the roots of what is an obvious portmanteau within a well defined family of similar terms. The term most closely resembles a splicing together of the Latin root 'pan' (meaning 'all'), as it is used in pantheism fused to the word deism, itself originally derived from the Latin deus, meaning God, but which was later adopted by the Deist movement, and came to have the meaning ascribed by its members. Such a term would describe a pantheistic deism (or a deistic pantheism) — a system in which a Creator God designed the universe and initiated its creation, but is now one with the universe, and therefore nonresponsive.

Usage as a restatement of another concept

The term has been used in some instances as a restatement of pantheism (the concept that God and the universe are one) or panendeism (the concept that God both is the universe, and transcends the universe). For example, in 1997, Pastor Bob Burridge[6] of the Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies[7] wrote in the following essay titled God Is Not the Author of Sin, apparently identifying pandeism as either a refinement of or a subset of pantheism:

All the actions of created intelligences are not merely the actions of God. He has created a universe of beings which are said to act freely and responsibly as the proximate causes of their own moral actions. When individuals do evil things it is not God the Creator and Preserver acting. If God was the proximate cause of every act it would make all events to be "God in motion". That is nothing less than pantheism, "or more exactly, pandeism." The Creator is distinct from his creation. The reality of secondary causes is what separates Christian theism from pandeism.[8]

Similarly, a 1995 news article quotes Jim Garvin a Vietnam vet who became a Trappist monk in the Holy Cross Abbey[9] of Berryville, Virginia who describes his current spiritual position as "'pandeism' or 'pan-en-deism,' something very close to the Native American concept of the all- pervading Great Spirit..."^{panentheism, but with some minor variations with respect to the relationship between God and the individual.}

Usage as a distinct concept

Others have specified that it is a concept distinct from pantheism, and have used it instead to describe a universe which combines elements of pantheism (for example, that God and the universe are one) and deism (for example, that a creator God created a self-regulating universe, but subsequently ceased to actively intervene in its operations).

The closest notable ideology to the latter usage was authored by Baruch Spinoza, who envisioned a universe that was one with God, and in which the course of the universe had nevertheless been predetermined by God. A point of critique in a piece discussing the Christian Origins of U.S.<I have emailed this group in an effort to contact the author of this piece to determine where he learned of pandeism> states:

The labeling of Spinoza's philosophy as "pantheism" by the Church was meant more as an invective and indictment than a true analysis of his writings. It was really a variant of Deism -- a "pandeism," if I may. Theism, however, posits something very different. Theism believes that nature was not God, but created BY God. That God is a completely independent sentient and cognitive Being, and that God interacts with his "children" on a personal level (e.g., The Bible).

This assertion is echoed by "Cristorly" (the pseudonym of Orlando Alcántara, a Dominican poet and theologian), who characterizes the pantheistic God as transcendent, while the pandeistic God is merely continuous with Creation:

God is inmanent, trascendent and holistic. That is Pantheism, not Pandeism. Pantheism is right, because we are speaking about a personal, individual, trascendent God. Pandeism (like Spinoza's) is not right, due to the fact that is not a trascendent God, a God beyond Creation. [13]

Cristorly has developed what he calls a Theognosis which integrates six concepts - Theism, Deism, Panentheism, Panendeism, Pandeism, and Pantheism - into a coherent corpus or canon. Fernández describes his definitions as "discretional," meaning that each can only be understood in the context of all the rest.

The following excerpt from a discussion of a painting by Spanish artist Orlando Cordero offers the same conceptual distinction between pantheism and pandeism. The author used the words "pandeísta" and "pandeísmo" in the Spanish version, which were translated by the author into "pandeist" and "pandeism", respectively. The comparison suggests that pandeism is a system with a cold, impersonal God, while pantheism presents a warm and experiential God:

His vision is pandeist, and it had to be pantheist. In order to get a pantheist painting, it is necessary to have Christ as pennant, footpath, and lighthouse. Pandeism is impersonal like in the present canvas, in which man, nature and word integrate themselves; whereas pantheism is a personal Christ-like experience of every day. Here there is signal-like materiality for the making of other paintings. [14]

Notes

1. ^  The person Higgins refers to as "Pandion" here is more commonly known as Aegeas - the husband of Medea and father of Medus; Aegeas was himself the son of Pandion II, and Higgins reference clearly equated Aegeas with the lineage of his father.
2. ^  Anacalypsis, pg. 439.
3. ^  Anacalypsis, pg. 443.
4. ^  Albuquerque Journal, Saturday, November 11, 1995, B-10.

See also: Pandeism, 1705, 1820s, 1830s, 1833, 1995, 1997