Christianity and Self-Love

I would like to respond to a concern that some people have regarding the Christian worldview.  Let me first try to articulate the concern:

Christianity is harmful to a healthy, positive self-image and self-esteem.  It tells us that God is everything and that we are nothing.  We are mere worms in comparison to God.  It tells us that we are all fallen sinners, that God is angry with us and always judging us, that we are so bad we deserve to go to hell for all eternity.  It tells us we are never good enough, that we can never be enough ourselves.  This attitude leads to an unhealthy, negative self-image that harms mental health and keeps people from seeing their true value.  It leads them to despair and depression.  It leads them to see themselves as ugly, as deserving of all the bad things that happen to them.  This hinders people from having the self-love that gives them what they need to be the best they can be.  It causes them to be endlessly introspective and self-doubting, and to feel endlessly and hopelessly defeated.  People with this attitude will be miserable with self-loathing, fearful, and inclined to accept abusive situations, believing they deserve what they get.  What we need instead is to be told that we are enough, that we do have what it takes, that we are doing great, that we are beautiful and valuable and worthy, that we don't have to put up with bad situations in our life because we deserve better.  We need to love ourselves and relax, feeling confident, freed from our neuroses of self-doubt, so we can live our life to the fullest and make the world a better place.

Going along with this, Christianity teaches people to be ashamed of central aspects of their humanity.  It encourages a sense of shame with regard to the body and human sexuality, for example.  It encourages people to see their physicality and their sexuality as shameful, harmful things that must be guarded against, that make them bad people.  Instead, we need to encourage body-positivity and sex-positivity.  We need people to feel, not shame, but pride for their bodies and for their feelings and their nature as human beings.

I want to respond to this concern with a two-pronged response.  I want to acknowledge, first of all, that there is a good deal of legitimacy and validity in the concern.  There is a true need to emphasize a positive attitude towards the self and towards human nature.  And it is true that Christianity has often been presented in a way that harms this positivity and encourages self-loathing, a constant sense of shame, and neurotic attitudes towards self, body, sexuality, etc.  But then I want to go on to claim that Christianity, rightly understood, actually promotes a very positive view of the self, and yet it also teaches that these truths about "positivity" need to be balanced with other truths about humanity and the human condition that rightly encourage within us a proper humility, a recognition of our creaturely finitude, our need for grace, etc.  Christianity, taught in a balanced and full-orbed way, captures both of these sides of the human condition in a way that tells us the full truth about ourselves and gives us the tools we need to understand who we are so we can live most effectively.

Humility and Affirmation

In the Christian view of human nature, both the "positivity" and the "humility" strands run through everything.

There is one God, one Supreme Being, who is the fullness and source of all reality.  God is the Creator of the finite universe.  There is a fundamental dichotomy at the heart of reality - there is the Creator, and there are creatures.  We human beings are creatures.  God is infinite being - unbounded, all-encompassing.  He is infinitely superior in being to all creatures.  Creatures are nothing in comparison to him.  A good way to get at this is to look at the difference between the divine and the creaturely point of view.  God's point of view is all-encompassing.  He sees all in one view.  His conscious experience includes reality as a whole.  Because of this, his consciousness transcends space and time.  On the other hand, as finite beings, our view and experience constitute a mere infinitesimal point in a universe that extends out from us with potential infinity in all directions of space and time.  We see/experience only from one limited vantage point among an infinite number of other possible vantage points.  We are bound within space and time.  God's consciousness and experience constitute the true, ultimate reality, while ours is nothing but an infinitesimal sliver of reality - and our sliver is derived from his fullness.  God is thus the center of reality, and we are infinitely far from it.

Tbis is a realization, of course, that leads to deep humility.  What Christianity teaches here has been recognized by many human philosophies and religions to varying degrees.  One great example is Buddhism.  The enlightenment of the Buddha came precisely when he recognized that it is an illusion to think of this world, or even of our own selves, as if they are a true, ultimate, substantial reality.  Buddhism goes so far as to view the world as an illusion.  "There is no self" is one of the key ideas of Buddhist philosophy.  As a Christian, I recognize that Buddhism is perceiving the very same thing that I perceive - the utter distance between ultimate, substantial reality and this comparative nothingness we tend to think of as reality.  (Christianity does not tend to refer to the world as an illusion, because, despite its finitude, it does exist in its own sphere - something I think Buddhism would not deny, though they would put it in other terms - but we agree with the truth that this language is pointing to - that, compared to Ultimate Reality, this world is nothing, and to treat it as ultimately substantial is to seek fullness in nothingness and therefore to be utterly miserable.)  Hinduism is another religion that recognizes these realities, as do all religions and philosophies, at least to a degree, that hold to a supreme state of reality beyond this one.

It is here that I would bring into the picture the Christian view of humanity as "fallen".  According to the Christian worldview, our first parents, who were created in a right relationship with God, turned away from that relationship in an effort to declare independence.  They wanted to be their own ultimate principle instead of trusting in God to fill that role.  But God is the fullness and source of all being, goodness, life, power, wisdom, knowledge, and happiness.  To declare independence from God, then, is to plunge oneself into a condition of emptiness, evil, death, weakness, foolishness, ignorance, and misery.  This is what our first parents brought upon themselves, and this condition has been passed on to the whole human race.  We are not blamed for what our first parents did, but we inherit the consequences - cut off from the life of God and experiencing the condition of alienation from him.  This is what Christians mean by speaking of humanity as being in a "fallen" state.  But we should not think that there is any injustice done to us in this situation.  We would have done the same thing had we been in the situation of our first parents, for we, like them, have nothing in our nature that, without God's special gift to us of his own divine life, would keep us from falling away from God.  We fall together as a human race because we all share the same fundamental nature and condition.  The final conclusion of the narrative begun by the Fall is the condition Christians call "hell".  Hell is nothing other than complete alienation from God and all that that entails.  That is the destiny of all of us, and justly and naturally so, unless God chooses to give to us something we cannot deserve - the gift of his divine life.  And that is the gospel - that God has come into the world in Jesus Christ and united himself to our fallen human nature, absorbing our weaknesses, sins, death, and misery, so that he can share with us the power, goodness, and ultimate blessedness and happiness of his divine life.  From him, and not from ourselves, we receive all that we need.

According to Christianity, this is who we really are.  We may react positively or negatively to this account of things.  But I think the first question should not be whether we find this view of things attractive or repulsive, but whether or not it is actually true.  Reality is reality whether we like it or not, and we have a duty to accept it as such.  That is yet another thing true humility teaches us.  Now, I believe that the Christian worldview is ultimately one of supreme beauty once we see it fully for what it is; but if we are used to thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, it can seem very bitter at first.  It is like the sabra fruit of Israel - prickly and off-putting on the outside, sweet and delightful on the inside.

Now, having addressed the humility required of us as creatures, let's address the other side of the equation - the side of "positivity."

We are creatures of God.  All that we are is derived from God.  And God is the fullness of all that is good, beautiful, and valuable.  Therefore we, too, in our intrinsic nature, are good, beautiful, and valuable, and we should see ourselves as such.  Yes, unlike God, our being comes to us from without.  We cannot be enough on our own.  But we are not on our own.  We are never on our own.  To the extent that we exist, we are like God.  We reflect the divine beauty.  Love of God entails love of creatures and love of ourselves - for our existence is a participation in God's.  In a sense, I can say that I am nothing and God is everything, and this is a central and crucial truth.  And yet, at the same time, I can say that because God is everything, I am something too, and that is also a central and crucial truth.

Yes, I am nothing without God.  But God has created me, and so I am not nothing.  Yes, without God's grace in Christ, I am a sinner bound for hell.  But I am not without God's grace in Christ.  He has come into the world to give grace to us all.  "Grace" is nothing other than the gift of the divine life.  So what we are given through the redemption of Christ is the gift of sharing truly in the beauty and glory of that life.  This is true even in this current life we live, and it will be infinitely more true when we grow up into the fullness of our redemption and come to partake fully in the glory of God.  This is our destiny.  No, it is not something we have of ourselves apart from God.  But we are not apart from God.  In God, we are legitimate heirs of infinite glory and beauty.  This, also, is who we truly are, and we should see ourselves accordingly.  (We do have free will.  If we choose to reject the divine life offered to us, we are still valued and loved beings participating in God's life, but we will have cut ourselves off from the eternal fruition of this reality and sentenced ourselves to lose it all in the end.  But if we receive what God offers us, we will grow up fully into the glorious identity God has planned for us.)  In the words of C.S. Lewis:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory [HarperOne, 2001], 45-46).

We must recognize that we are creatures and not God - but having recognized that, we should value ourselves as icons of the divine.  We should have great and humble self-love, positivity, and self-esteem.  If we recognize who we really are, we should know that we are enough, by the gift and grace of God.  And we should bask and delight in our beauty and value and in the beauty and value of all our fellow creatures.

A More Balanced Christian View

OK, so having laid this foundation, let's tie up some loose ends.  There are better and worse ways of living out Christianity, just as there are better and worse ways of living out any religion or philosophy.  And Christians haven't always lived and taught in ways that have encouraged the best that Christianity can be.  Let's address some of these areas.

Shame - We should not have an attitude towards ourselves centrally characterized by shame.  Yet there are things it is proper to be ashamed of.  When we fail to live in love towards God, our neighbors, or ourselves, that is something we should not view positively.  And yet these failures don't characterize us.  We are not perfect, but if, by God's grace, we are choosing to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be, even if there are areas where we are not that great at it yet, then our lives are characterized fundamentally not by shame but by beauty.  If we are trying to be good people in this world, that is something we should be proud of!  Sure, it is a gift of grace.  We could not do it on our own.  But that doesn't make it any less ours.  Christianity, rightly applied, encourages a kind of paradoxical "humble pride."  We do not see ourselves as superior to everyone else or as existing independently.  And yet, recognizing our limits and our dependence on God and others, we see the beauty of what God is making out of our lives and we are proud to be that sort of person!  Catholic theology has always emphasized (against those who would advocate an overly pessimistic view of human nature and goodness) that while our merits are pure grace, yet they are, at the same time, our merits.  With God's help, we are not shameful but beautiful beings.  Our sins, failures, mistakes, and weaknesses are things we struggle with, but they do not fundamentally define us.  It is true that Christians have sometimes failed to keep this balance.  But Christianity, properly defined, teaches us to do so.

Scrupulosity - It is true that many Christians live a life full of what Catholics call "scrupulosity" - a neurotic, obsessive focus on fearing to do the wrong thing, feeling guilty, feeling ashamed, wondering if we are in a right relationship with God or if God is angry with us, feeling useless, ugly, and defeated.  There is a sense in which Christianity, as such, can even be "blamed" for this tendency.  Christianity teaches us to take goodness very seriously, and whenever we take something seriously some of us are going to be prone to excessive introspection, obsessive doubt, a sense of shame and despair for failures, etc.  I would say that this is one of many examples of a case where a true and good thing naturally brings along with it unique, specific dangers.  (For another example, notice that conflicts and wars happen because people care about things.  A society full of completely apathetic people who value nothing would never fight, but would that be a good thing?  It is better to care and therefore to have to take extra precaution to control our immoderate tendency towards conflict.)  But Christianity does not truly recommend this excessive scrupulosity.  In fact, the Catholic tradition warns us away from it, giving it a label ("scrupulosity") and addressing it explicitly as a problem for our spiritual lives.  God is not following us around, looking for minor infractions so that he can zap us!  Remember, as God's creatures, we bear his image and divine beauty.  He loves and delights in us.  He wants to give us good gifts and make us happy, and to help us in every way.  He is looking out for our good.  As I said earlier, we do have free will, and we can fundamentally reject him and turn away from him and persist in this to the end of our lives.  But if we do so, we have to do it "against the wind," as it were, of all of God's pleadings, warnings, encouragements, helps, graces, and opportunities to turn around.  And if we do choose, fundamentally, to pursue the path of goodness, that is what matters in the end.  Sure, we are not perfect, but our imperfections do not characterize us.  God does not look on us with shame and disgust, but with love and delight.  If we don't do something perfectly, if we mess something up - well, we recognize the fact, acknowledge it, ask for forgiveness if necessary, try to fix our mistakes, and move on.  We do not, we should not, continue to dwell on our mistakes.  This is something many Catholics find delightful about the Sacrament of Confession.  If you've committed a sin, you don't go into despair and fear.  You go to Confession, admit your mistake, receive forgiveness, and leave it behind.  All God asks of us is that we pursue goodness.  Sure, that takes effort and diligence.  But obsessiveness does not further our goal but rather hinders it, for it stops us from seeing clearly and objectively.  Rather, we should approach our pursuit of goodness and efforts towards personal growth and improvement with common sense.  Don't be lazy and apathetic about doing the right thing, but don't be neurotic and obsessive either.  (And, of course, if you struggle with neurosis, or scrupulosity, or any other such thing, don't obsess about that either!  It's not something to feel shame over.  These things are a part of our human condition in this life.  We do the best we can in our own particular circumstances.  None of us, in this life, have arrived at our destination.  We're on the journey, struggling with our own peculiar trials and difficulties.  There's nothing wrong with that - it's the way it should be.  We should give ourselves a break, and make sure to give each other a break as well!)

I addressed the problem of scrupulosity in an earlier article, and I'd like to copy here some of what I said there:

As Aristotle famously pointed out, a lot of times error and vice are found in the extremes, and virtue is found in the mean between the extremes.  One set of extremes that is often a pitfall for those seeking to live a holy life involves, one the one hand, laziness and carelessness with regard to sin and bad habits, and, on the other hand, an excessive fear, obsession, or even paranoia about these things.  Those inclined towards the former extreme need to be reminded that sin is a serious matter.  The fundamental nature of sin is opposition to God and the moral law, and this attitude is the essence of all wickedness and the fount of all misery (because God is the Supreme Good).  We need to take God with the utmost seriousness, and therefore sin needs to be our mortal enemy.  This is why the Bible is always telling us to "fear" God--that is, to have a proper recognition of the gravity of who God is and to fear being against him as the greatest of all calamities.  To be righteous is to love God above all things, so our ultimate goal in life should be to please him and enjoy him perfectly and eliminate all sin and all tendencies to wickedness in our life.  The more virtuous a person becomes, the less such a person will come to tolerate even venial sin, for the clearer our vision is of the greatness and beauty of God, the more repulsive all sin will seem to us.  This should be the chief aim of our entire life.

But the other extreme--obsessive fear and obsession about sin--can also be a serious problem, especially for those particularly inclined towards it.  Such people need to be reminded that what really matters is the fundamental choice of our life--are we choosing God as our chief good, or are we ejecting him out of that place in order to put something else there?  Is God the one we choose above all else?  This is not a matter of feelings or the strength of feelings, but of the will.  What do we choose to put supreme value on?  If we choose to follow God as our chief goal, and we orient our lives towards seeking him as our greatest value and ultimate end, then we can be sure that we are in a right relationship with him, a state of grace, and everything will come out fundamentally right in the end.  The only thing that can put us out of the reach of God's salvation is mortal sin--and mortal sin doesn't mean all sin; it doesn't even mean all serious sin (objectively speaking).  Mortal sin involves a deliberate, fully-informed, fully-aware, intentional choice to adopt an attitude or pursue a course of action which involves rejecting God as our supreme value and end in life, choosing instead to break from him fundamentally and go our own way.  Mortal sin is defined by being incompatible with "charity"--that is, with supreme love to God as the choice of our will.  Mortal sin is not the ways in which we regularly slip up and act inconsistently with our chief goal, the bad habits we have that tend to draw us into foolish and sinful actions, the difficulties we face in developing virtuous habits, how many times we tend to slide back into sinful tendencies, etc.  These are all natural and ordinary parts of life in a state of grace as we pursue holiness in this fallen world.  When we understand this, it will help us to relax a bit, to let go of obsessive fear.  We will remember that "there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18).  To "fear" God in the biblical sense is not to be obsessively afraid of him, but to recognize his supreme value and importance and therefore to take holiness with the utmost seriousness.  If we love God, and trust God, we need not live in obsessive fear, but can rest confidently in the help of his grace as we grow in holiness.  If we fall into sin from time to time, well, that is to be expected of fallen creatures struggling to be holy.  The Council of Trent actually condemns as false doctrine the idea that people can avoid all sins throughout their entire life.  "If any one saith . . . that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial,-except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema" (Sixth Session, Canon 23).  When we sin, we don't need to dwell on it.  We can learn what we need to learn from it, get back up, repent, go to confession if appropriate, and then move on--like a gymnast who doesn't fall into despair every time she falls onto the mat, but just keeps getting back up and resuming her practice.  (In fact, overly obsessing about sin often has the effect of making it worse rather than better.  There's hardly a better way to ensure that something will have a strong presence in one's mind than to continually be worrying about how strong a presence it has.)

Another practical tip to make our path to holiness smoother is to recognize the difference between concupiscence and sin.  Concupiscence is the Catholic theological term for our fallen, disordered desires that have a tendency to lead us into sin.  But concupiscence, while it tends towards sin, is not itself personal sin.  Acts of sin involve the consent of the will.  Insofar as our desires happen to us without such consent, they are not sin.  So stop feeling guilty for having such desires.  You can't just banish them away with some strong act of the will.  We will all struggle against concupiscence throughout our entire lives, for that struggle is the pathway to holiness.  Holiness isn't only about avoiding sinful acts of will; it is also about developing virtuous habits and unlearning vicious (that is, un-virtuous) ones.  We are trying to learn not only to avoid individual sinful acts of will in particular cases, but also to develop habits such that we will become more and more naturally inclined towards virtuous attitudes and actions in general and away from vicious or sinful ones.  So even when you are avoiding particular acts of sin, you will still have plenty to work on in terms of building habits of virtue.  Don't be paranoid about that, but just go forward, like the gymnast I mentioned in the previous paragraph.  Keep practicing.  Don't worry if you mess up, or you haven't got a particular skill down yet very well.  Just keep going forward.  You'll keep getting better (but don't get paranoid about your rate of progress!).  You won't get fully where you want to be until after this life, though, so don't be impatient.  Be diligent, but also be tolerant of yourself and where you are.

Just briefly, before moving on, I want to mention for the sake of non-Christian readers that, in the Catholic view, being in a right relationship with God is not a matter of passing a theology exam.  It is about the fundamental orientation of our will towards the Supreme Good.  A person can have proper theology but be, in spirit, very far from God and even against him, while another person might have very bad (from the Catholic point of view) theology and yet, in spirit, in terms of the orientation of the will, that person might be very close to God and in a right relationship with him.  This is not to say that correct doctrine is not important.  It is just to say that there is a complex interplay in our lives between the intellectual, volitional, emotional, and spiritual components of our souls.  God is the Supreme Good, but the Catholic Church recognizes (see, for example, Lumen Gentium #16) that people are in different places in terms of how well (from a Catholic point of view) they consciously realize or can articulate this reality.  It is the orientation of the will towards the Good, as that is understood with greater or lesser clarity, that is of central importance in terms of a person's moral character.

The Body and Sex

Now let's look a bit at the Christian view of the body and sex.

Body Positivity - Remember, we are creatures of God.  Our bodies come from God as well.  Therefore they are intrinsically good.  They are to be celebrated and delighted in!  We should not be ashamed of our bodies.  We can recognize their weaknesses and oddities in an affectionate way (we remember St. Francis, who called his body "Brother Ass"), but we should acknowledge the body's intrinsic goodness and beauty.  And that means all bodies.  Our culture tends to put forward such unrealistic standards of beauty, and so many people are ashamed of their bodies because they don't match up with these standards.  But it's all fake.  Real human bodies come in lots of shapes and sizes.  They all have their unique beauty.  Just as each of us should celebrate the uniqueness of our individual personalities (quirkiness and all!), so each of us should celebrate the uniqueness of our individual bodies.

In some circles, body positivity is expressed in an openness to public nudity.  The Christian virtue of modesty is sometimes characterized as a kind of shameful embarrassment we are supposed to feel towards our bodies, and that is why we are supposed to keep them covered up.  And it must be said that, particularly in some circles, Christians have sometimes twisted modesty into this kind of attitude of shame.  But this is not what Christianity, properly understood, truly points us to.  Modesty is about recognizing and valuing the dignity of a human person as a human person.  The body is not to be treated as an object for another's use or personal pleasure, detached from respect for the entire person.  Before the Fall, humanity is portrayed in Scripture as naked.  This is because, in that unfallen condition, when the grace of God was still ruling human attitudes and behavior, the human body could be expressed in all its beauty without being reduced to an impersonal object (objectified).  After the Fall, the parts of the body most prone to abuse and objectification should ordinarily be covered as an expression of respect for the dignity of the body and for the safeguarding of that dignity - just as a person's private thoughts should ordinarily not be expressed entirely without any guard, as that also tends to lead to abuse and objectification.  The body is so worthy of value and respect that it should not be promiscuously exposed without guard in a fallen world.  That is the moral reason for clothing - not because the body is shameful, but actually quite the opposite!  There are particular circumstances, however, where nudity can be appropriate - when there is a situation established where the body can be seen with a proper understanding of its dignity as part of a person who deserves our respect as a person.  In marriage, for example, assuming the marriage relationship is healthy, there is a mutual giving and sharing of selves in a uniquely deep and profound way, and that involves the sharing of bodies.  That sharing is recognized as the gift of something of great dignity and value and is received in that attitude, and the body is not divorced from the person and made an object for another person's personal use or pleasure.  There is a special relationship of trust established there.  Another context would be the arts, when they are governed by proper values - where the body is appreciated in an artistic fashion and there is a recognition of its dignity and value and its context as part of a whole person, where objectification is absent by agreed consent and understanding.  In the Catholic view, then, nudity is normally avoided but occasionally allowed, not because the body is shameful, but precisely because it is recognized as something that deserves special protection and respect.

Sex Positivity - Some people believe that the Christian view of sex is that it is a bad thing, or at least a shameful and negative thing, and that is why there are so many sexual taboos in Christian teaching.  But, as with the body, the truth is very different.  However, it is true that many Christians have indeed twisted Christian teaching into this kind of overly-negative attitude, and that has done a lot of harm.  As with the body, sex is part of God's creation from the beginning and is essentially good.  In the Catholic view, sex was created by God for the enjoyment and bonding of spouses and for the procreation of children.

Everything I said above about scrupulosity applies here in particular.  It is true that Christians, at some times and places in history, have tended to promote or model a kind of morbid, overly introspective and obsessive, and fearful attitude towards sex.  Sex is a powerful thing.  It is easy for human beings to become enslaved to sexual desires or to fall into immoderate and overly-indulgent sexual habits.  Aware of this, Christians have often approached sex with great wariness, warning of the dangers that accompany sex.  As I said above, when people take something very seriously or are acutely aware of its dangers, an inevitable side effect is that some, at least, will tend to fall into an overly scrupulous attitude.  Such an imbalanced attitude has definitely been a real issue at various times and places in Christian history.  And yet the Church has never fundamentally lost sight of the essential goodness of sex.  She even recognizes marriage (with its ordinarily essential component of sexuality) as one of the seven sacraments - a high status that is pretty hard to beat!  A well-adjusted Christian moral approach, true to a balanced appreciation of the whole of the Christian worldview, opposes scrupulosity in sexual matters as much as it does in any other matter.  As in all things, so in sex:  We must guard against the extreme of over-indulgence and moral laziness on the one hand, and the extreme of obsessive fear and "puritanism" (in the worst sense, unfair to historic Puritans by the way!) on the other.

For example, I mentioned above that Catholic moral teaching cautions against a promiscuous public nudity that does not adequately guard the precious gift of the human body.  OK, there is a value here that needs to be protected, from the Catholic view.  We do well to challenge forms of "naturism" that would make public nudity a near-universal and unguarded norm.  However, we do not need to go to the other extreme of being obsessive or fearful about nudity.  Obsessive fear of something is not only an imbalanced attitude in itself, but it actually tends to strengthen the very thing it is fearful of!  There's hardly a better way to ensure that something will have a strong presence in one's mind than to continually be worrying about how strong a presence it has.  We need to avoid a kind of over-mystification of the nude human body that is a result of an obsessive attitude towards nudity and sex.  There is a kind of "taboo" mentality we can fall into.  We need to remember that, in a sense, nudity is really not a big deal!  What I mean is that we all know what the human body looks like.  Why, then, put so much mystique into seeing it like it's some astonishing or fearful thing?  Why do we need to be so obsessively fearful of being naked?  Why do we need to feel like we've been polluted or damaged somehow if we should see nudity?  Making such a big deal out of nudity actually tends to inflame immoderate desire  We all know that there is hardly anything more appealing to our human nature than something that has been forbidden to us and that has been placed in the special category of "taboo" and "off limits."  Pandora just had to open her box.  If we are going to follow Christian moral teaching more holistically, we need a more balanced attitude.  The human body is not some mysterious and forbidden object.  Experiencing nudity is not, in itself, a big deal.  Modesty in clothing is not the upholding of a "taboo" but merely a practice that is born of an attempt to protect something that is of great dignity and value that we don't want to be treated less respectfully than it deserves to be treated.  The naturist movement and the body-positivity movement have done a great service in challenging the "taboo" approach to nudity and encouraging a more healthy and less neurotic acceptance of our physical nature.

We can say the same thing about sex.  It should not be approached as if we are in the realm of some mysterious and forbidden taboo subject.  It should be approached with openness and realism and accepted as a normal part of human life.  It does have to be protected, because it exists for a particular purpose and belongs in a particular context and should not be taken out of that context.  In the Catholic view, sex is for spousal enjoyment and bonding and for procreation.  If it's used outside of that context, it's misused (though see here for some further nuances).  So we need to preserve the ethical use of sex, but there is no need for this to lead us to an obsessive attitude towards it.  Again, the more "sexually liberal" components of our modern society deserve our gratitude for challenging the unhealthy neuroticism about sex that, unfortunately, has been common in a lot of "conservative" and Christian circles in recent times.

Another concern/objection some people will have which I should deal with while we're on the subject is that there is an inherent problem with the actual Catholic teaching with regard to sex, even interpreted in the best and most balanced way possible, because it still forbids sex outside of the marriage of a man and a woman.  The concern is that this is contrary to basic human nature which is "designed" to allow sex to happen in a broader context.  Since the Christian position is out of accord with human nature, it naturally leads to frustration, guilt, despair, and mental health issues.  This is a big topic, and I can't do it justice in this brief context.  I will say two things, though, for now:

1. The first question we have to ask when we come across any idea, whether we like it or not, is Is this idea really true or not?  Just because something is very hard for us, contrary to our deep desires, and leads to all sorts of practical problems, that doesn't in itself necessarily prove that it is not real.  Reality has no obligation to make things easy for us, and, as we all know, it all too often cashes in on that lack of obligation.  In the Christian view, we live in a fallen world and are in a fallen state.  Instead of being the harmonious and peaceful world God made in the beginning, the world is now chaotic and divided.  Everything is at odds with everything else.  Unfortunately, it is often the case that ethics is in conflict with the tendencies of human nature.  That's why ethics is notoriously hard.  We are all often called to do very difficult and painful things.  Some of us are called to extreme forms of this - like being ethically bound to stand up for justice even to the point of enduring the physical or psychological torture of persecutors.  Some are called to be martyrs.  In this fallen state of the world, our desires are often at odds (and deeply and seriously so) with the values we should seek and how we should live.  This is a very unfortunate state of affairs, but does that prove it is not the actual state of affairs?  Personally, I find the evidence for the truth of Catholic Christianity compelling, and that gives me a reason to embrace Catholic moral teaching.  As much as I empathize with those who feel the weight of difficulty Catholic moral teaching can bring sometimes - and as much as I myself often feel that burden personally in various ways - I do not find in this a convincing argument against the truth of the Catholic worldview.  So I must follow where I think the evidence leads, as we all must.

2. Sometimes, we simply can't do it.  There are those who break down - physically, mentally, emotionally - under the weight of what happens to them in life, whether that comes to them unavoidably or through their own choice to do the right thing.  This is not a failure; it is simply a reality.  We are only expected to do the best we can.  But, oftentimes, we find that we are more resilient than we previously thought.  People can find ways to survive and even thrive under seriously adverse circumstances and while pursuing extremely difficult and painful courses of action.  Perhaps sometimes we paint certain conditions as impossible when they are not always so.  Once we accept reality and decide to learn how to live within it, sometimes - sometimes - we find that things are brighter than we thought they could be.  Sometimes there are compensations for our pain that we didn't anticipate.  This also is something important to bear in mind.

As I mentioned earlier, Christianity can sometimes be like the sabra fruit.  It can be very, very prickly on the outside, but it is full of great sweetness on the inside.  Following Christian morality can be very hard.  But it also brings with it much reward in this life.  And, at the end of our lives, when we finish the race, Christianity tells us that we shall reap a fruit that is beautiful, glorious, and satisfying beyond our wildest ability to imagine.  If we follow the Good, we will reap it in full in the end.  We will find God, the fullness and source of all Being and all Good, and in him all creaturely goods fulfilled and summed up and embraced.  Once again, I find myself wanting to quote C.S. Lewis:

Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity [New York: Touchstone, 1996], 190-191).

There is that fundamental paradox again.  Because of who we are and who God is, the only way to truly find and affirm ourselves is to give up our lives conceived of as our own apart from God, to give ourselves wholly to God, and to find ourselves restored and grounded in him.  But at any rate, this topic moves us into fundamental questions about the nature of reality and therefore goes beyond the scope of what can be done in this article.  However, whether we agree with Christian sexual morality or not - understood in its best form - we can at least distinguish it from the obsessive, scrupulous, fearful attitude that has often been associated with it but which is actually contrary to its best practice.

For more on the topics of sex and the human body, I will refer you to Pope St. John Paul II's famous Theology of the Body, which sums up modern Catholic moral teaching in these areas to a great degree.  You can read a (very) long summary of John Paul's teaching here (it's summarizing a very long collection of lectures given over a series of five years by the Pope).  Despairing of finding a reasonably short summary of the teaching, I once again took up exploring the potentialities of AI (ChatGPT) and asked it to summarize the Pope's teaching overall and in a few specific areas.  I think it did a pretty good job, though it didn't capture every aspect or every nuance.  You can read those (much shorter) summaries here.  And here is an article I wrote up on this subject a couple of years ago.  You can also read more from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this topic here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, then, Christian morality, rightly understood and in its best form, promotes a nuanced view of the self and of human nature.  It critiques both those who would idolize the self and those who would denigrate it.  It challenges those who believe we are good enough by ourselves without God's grace and also those who would say we are not good enough even with God's grace.  It warns us against licentiousness and moral laziness, but also cautions us against excessive scrupulosity.  It promotes a positive and celebratory view of the human body and sex but also reminds us to be wary of how both of these can be abused without proper protections and safeguards.

The Relationship between Pantheism and Theism

I wrote the following paper back in 2008 as an attempt to explore with greater metaphysical precision the relationship between theism and "pantheism." A careful, metaphysical look at the nature of God in classical theism raises the issue of how classical theism relates to pantheism and to religions that have often been labeled “pantheistic,” such as eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The paper was written with a philosophical audience in mind.

The relationship between pantheism and theism is of immense importance philosophically and religiously, and the two are often compared and contrasted with each other. However, in my experience, these comparisons and contrasts typically tend to leave the definitions and analyses on a metaphysically superficial and imprecise level. I would like to attempt to help remedy this situation by providing a metaphysically deeper analysis of the similarities and differences between theism and pantheism. I will then show how this deeper analysis helps to elucidate the nature of theism in such a way as to help theists respond to certain philosophical objections to theism that have frequently been proposed by pantheist and atheist thinkers and to articulate a better critique of the pantheistic worldview.

Where Pantheism and Theism Agree

The form of theism I will be discussing is classical theism, which is the form that has been articulated and defended (with more or less consistency) by all the major branches of historic Christianity--Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and most Protestant traditions. This is the form of theism that has given rise to the classical arguments for the existence of God (such as the cosmological and ontological arguments).

The word “pantheism” has been applied to more than simply one monolithic philosophical perspective. For the purposes of this paper, “pantheism” can be defined as “the belief that all reality is one metaphysically simple unified being and that all distinctions between particulars are ultimately illusory.” This definition accords well with central strands of prominent Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, which are usually considered to be “pantheistic.” “Theism,” on the other hand, as I am using it in this paper, can be defined as “the belief that there is one metaphysically simple unified being (God) who is the source and ground of all created reality but that the created particulars are not identical with but are truly distinct from the simple divine being.” So the question is, “Where do these two philosophical/religious perspectives agree, and where do they disagree?” My contention is that classical theism, when examined with metaphysical strictness and developed to its full logical conclusion, will be found to agree with the first half of the definition of pantheism but to disagree with the second half. Thus, classical theism agrees that “all reality is one metaphysically simple unified being” but disagrees with the claim that “all distinctions between particulars are ultimately illusory.”

I suspect that the way I have gone about delineating the line of agreement/disagreement between theism and pantheism will seem very strange to many theists, many of whom might wonder how I can say that theism agrees that “all reality is one metaphysically simple unified being.” But the fact of the matter is that classical theism requires such a view in light of its assumptions, beliefs, and arguments. Classical theism has always taught that God is an absolutely unified, simple being who is the foundation and source and explanation for all of reality and who is outside of all space and time, not subject to change, not affected by anything ultimately distinct from him or independent from him. One of the most comprehensive statements on the nature of God in classical theism (from a Christian perspective) can be found in John the Damascene’s book, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, written in the eighth century AD:

We believe, then, in One God, one beginning, having no beginning, uncreate, unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, without flux, passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure, measurable only by His own will alone (for all things that He wills He can ), creator of all created things, seen or unseen, of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and lord and king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no contrary, filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the encompasser and maintainer and original possessor of the universe, occupying all essences intact and extending beyond all things, and being separate from all essence as being super-essential and above all things and absolute God, absolute goodness, and absolute fulness : determining all sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and goodness and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another, that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself the fountain of being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those that have reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even before they have become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three perfect subsistences and adored with one adoration, believed in and ministered to by all rational creation , united without confusion and divided without separation (which indeed transcends thought). (1)

The logic of the classical theistic view of the universe and the nature of God implies that all things exist in God, by participation in the being of God. This has frequently been recognized by classical theologians. Once again, John of Damascus makes this quite explicitly clear:

That which is comprehended in place or time or apprehension is circumscribed: while that which is contained by none of these is uncircumscribed. Wherefore the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, being without beginning and without end, and containing all things, and in no wise apprehended. (2)

Thomas Aquinas provides us with another example of this way of thinking:

It must be said that every being in any way existing is from God. For whatever is found in anything by participation, must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially, as iron becomes ignited by fire. Now it has been shown above (Question 3, Article 4) when treating of the divine simplicity that God is the essentially self-subsisting Being; and also it was shown (11, 3,4) that subsisting being must be one; as, if whiteness were self-subsisting, it would be one, since whiteness is multiplied by its recipients. Therefore all beings apart from God are not their own being, but are beings by participation. Therefore it must be that all things which are diversified by the diverse participation of being, so as to be more or less perfect, are caused by one First Being, Who possesses being most perfectly. (3)

Since in classical theism there is only one God, who is the fullness and source of all of reality and who explains all of reality, there can never be any more being added to reality than there is to begin with. To suggest that created beings, by being created, add more being to reality than there was before is to make God a finite being, circumscribed by a greater common reality that contains both him and the created beings. If the “stuff” we are made of is truly separate from God and in addition to his substance, then it cannot ultimately be explained as having come from God and been created by him. God can only give what he has; he cannot give what he has not. The concept of creation ex nihilo is not the idea that new being can come from absolutely nothing, which is logically absurd. To describe creation as God increasing the overall “substance content” of reality is to make it an irrational, magical concept. It is a principle of logic that one cannot get more than one has to begin with without adding something in from outside, but when we are talking about God and ultimate reality, there is no outside, nothing to add from. Rather, creation ex nihilo is the idea that created beings are not made from a preexisting substance, which would make them to some degree independent from God, but are entirely derived from God, so that they are entirely and utterly dependent on God for the beginning and the continuation of their being.

If we were to think of created beings as adding to the substance of the universe and actually existing “outside” of God, rather than existing in him and by means of a participation in his being, then we would be turning God into one particular among other particulars in a greater common reality. One of the most compelling arguments for God is the need for a common, unifying reality to explain the diversity of the universe. To put it another way, what is it that puts the “uni” in “universe”? Theists have often argued that the existence of a universe implies that there must be a simple, uncompounded being who is the source of all reality. If there were no common source or ground for the particulars in the universe, they would be utterly independent of each other and could share no common reality at all, which would be impossible and logically meaningless. If their common source and ground was a compounded being, a being with parts, that common ground would itself be made up of particulars that would need a common unifying reality to explain them. So we need a simple being as the foundation of all reality. But if created beings are truly, ultimately distinct from God, so that, in metaphysical strictness of language, they exist as an entirely distinct and additional substance (or substances), then God can no longer be the simple, common reality that unifies all things. If created things are not rooted in participation in the being of God, then they are independent entities, and the common reality that includes both God and his creatures would not be an uncompounded, simple reality. This would leave us either with no simple, common reality at all, which would be logically absurd, or we would have to look back further for another simple being that could explain both God and created beings, and that would be the real God.

Also, if we are truly, ultimately, metaphysically separate from God and are additions to the basic substance content of reality, then it seems that we must inevitably bring into our conception of our relationship with God the concept of space. If we are not in God, nor exist by participation in his being, how can we be distinguished from God except by being in a separate location, not taking up the same space? We must inevitably picture God and created beings as existing side by side, both having to move over, so to speak, to make room for the other. But it is absurd to think of God as existing in space, as classical theologians have always recognized, because a spatial object cannot be the common reality that explains all the particulars. A spatial object is inherently a finite being, divisible into parts.

If we are created by God and derive our being from him, as all classical theists believe, then this implies that we must exist “in God,” as in some sense an aspect of his being. If God is a simple entity, then it is impossible to participate in him without somehow being an aspect of his simple being. The only alternative would be to have some spatial picture involving created beings taking some of God’s being and then moving off with it to some alternate location where God is not, as if God could give us pieces of himself, or as if God were like an extended flow of electricity that we could somehow feed on as an appliance feeds on electricity through an electrical outlet, or as if God’s being were like sap flowing through a tree which we as branches could “suck out” and live on. These analogies are not necessarily bad in every respect--indeed, the latter is biblical--but we are interested in developing a metaphysically strict account of things, and we need to be precise. Therefore, we are left with no other conclusion but that classical theism requires that created entities derive their being from God, exist in him and by participation in his being, and thus in a very real sense exist as aspects of God’s being.

While describing created entities as “aspects of God’s being” is very odd-sounding in a theistic context, I want to stress that it does not really add anything to the notion that we exist “in God” and “by participation in God.” As I am going to argue below, saying that we are aspects of God’s being is very different from claiming that we are God, or claiming that God and created beings are identical, or any such thing. This is where the fundamental difference between theism and pantheism comes into the picture. But what I have said so far, though in the interests of being metaphysically precise I have opted to use somewhat daring language to express it, is no more than has always been at least implicit, and sometimes explicit, in classical theistic thought. It is expressed in the very language of the Bible, as well as being implied in everything it says on the nature of God. (4)  Speaking of God to the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill (and quoting, approvingly, their own poets) in Acts 17:27-28, Paul says that God “is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being.” In Colossians 1:16-17, Paul says of Christ (as God the Son), “All things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and in him all things consist.” I have already quoted John of Damascus, who could be said to represent Eastern Orthodoxy, and Thomas Aquinas, who could be said to represent Roman Catholicism. Let me add to these quotations a couple from Jonathan Edwards, who, as a prominent Reformed theologian, will suffice (at least for the purposes of this paper) to show the presence of these ideas in historic Protestantism as well. In The Nature of True Virtue, Edwards argues that there can be no true virtue without love to God:

Therefore, he that has true virtue, consisting in benevolence to being in general, and in benevolence to virtuous being, must necessarily have a supreme love to God, both of benevolence and complacence. And all true virtue must radically and essentially, and, as it were, summarily, consist in this. Because God is not only infinitely greater and more excellent than all other being, but he is the head of the universal system of existence; the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty; from whom all is perfectly derived, and on whom all is most absolutely and perfectly dependent; of whom, and through whom, and to whom is all being and all perfection; and whose being and beauty are, as it were, the sum and comprehension of all existence and excellence: much more than the sun is the fountain and summary comprehension of all the light and brightness of the day. (5)

Edwards explicitly acknowledges, in the same book, that “God himself is in effect being in general.” (6)

Where Pantheism and Theism Disagree

Now, having shown that classical theistic doctrine entails the conclusion that all created entities are aspects of God’s being, rather than something strictly metaphysically separated from him--which is the claim of the first half of the definition of pantheism--I will now show that this fact does not at all imply the second half of the definition, namely, that “all distinctions between particulars are ultimately illusory.” In other words, I am going to argue that the fact that all created beings exist in God and are aspects of his being does not imply at all that human beings are God, that God is human beings, that flowers and rocks are God, that flowers and rocks are human beings, that God is flowers and rocks, etc. There is a true distinction between God and the creation, and there are true distinctions between the various created entities. Furthermore, these distinctions are crucial for understanding the nature of God, the nature of created entities, and the relationships between God and the creation and between created entities and each other.

First of all, we can observe the simple, obvious fact of these distinctions. I can reason to the existence of God, and I can reason from the existence of God to the fact that I must exist in God as an aspect of his being; but it is equally evident to my reason that I am not God. God and I have very different characteristics that distinguish us quite conclusively. For example, God is omnipotent; I am not. God knows all things; I do not. I stubbed my toe a few days ago; God has never stubbed his toe, not having a toe to stub. I am guilty of sin; God is not. I have a body which physically limits me; God does not. And so on.

It is also evident to my reason that I am different from, say, a rock. A rock has no consciousness (at least as far as I can see); I do have consciousness. A rock does not feel pain; I do (as I was reminded of when I stubbed my toe, not God’s toe, the other day). Rocks and I are made up of different substances combined in different ways. And so on. I could go on to show that God is different from rocks, but I suspect this is not necessary.

So reason leads me to believe both that I am an aspect of God’s being and that I am emphatically not God. How can this be? Let’s consider an analogy: Let’s say I were to write a novel. In writing this novel, I invent an entire fictional world. This world is real enough in its own sphere, and my thinking of it gives it some reality, but not a reality external to myself. In creating this fictional world, I invent various characters with different personalities who engage in various activities within the flow of the novel. Let’s look at one of these characters--we can call him Bob. Now, what is the relationship between Bob and myself? Well, Bob is a very dependent being. He is entirely derived from me, from my thinking, and is entirely dependent on me for his initial as well as his continued existence. Bob exists “in me,” in my thoughts. He exists by participation in me and my thoughts. We could say that “in me Bob lives and moves and has his being” and that “in me all things in Bob’s universe consist.” Bob is not metaphysically separate from me. His thoughts and feelings exist as participations in my thoughts and feelings. Bob therefore could accurately be described as an aspect of my being. And yet it would be absurd to equate Bob with myself. Bob and I are very different. Bob is a character; I am the author. Bob is dependent upon me for existence; I am not dependent upon Bob for existence. Bob likes cauliflower; I hate cauliflower. Bob is an accountant; I am a philosopher. And of course I could go on and on. In fact, not only are Bob and I truly distinct, and our distinctions are very important with regard to understanding the two of us, but I can even enter into a relationship with Bob. I could write into my novel a section in which I, the author, speak to Bob and strike up a conversation with him. Bob, upon learning about me, might wonder how we are related. He might reason that he is in some sense an aspect of my being. However, if he concluded from this that therefore he was the author, or that he was not dependent on anyone else but himself for his existence, Bob would be very seriously mistaken.

Classical theists of all stripes have commonly understood God’s purpose for creating the world to have been God’s desire to express and manifest his glorious perfections. Thomas Aquinas had this to say about God’s goal in creating the world:

Every agent acts for an end: otherwise one thing would not follow more than another from the action of the agent, unless it were by chance. Now the end of the agent and of the patient considered as such is the same, but in a different way respectively. For the impression which the agent intends to produce, and which the patient intends to receive, are one and the same. Some things, however, are both agent and patient at the same time: these are imperfect agents, and to these it belongs to intend, even while acting, the acquisition of something. But it does not belong to the First Agent, Who is agent only, to act for the acquisition of some end; He intends only to communicate His perfection, which is His goodness; while every creature intends to acquire its own perfection, which is the likeness of the divine perfection and goodness. Therefore the divine goodness is the end of all things. (7)

With this doctrine traditional Eastern Orthodoxy and most historic Protestants would agree. Calvin, for example, called the world a theater for God’s glory. The Westminster Confession, a classic Reformed statement of faith, has this to say about God’s end in creation and providence:

It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good. (8)

God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. (9)

This doctrine leads us to a very natural understanding as to why the created world, and the created entities in it, exist as aspects of God’s being. The created world is an aspect of God’s knowledge of himself. God delights in the manifestations of his own perfections as he exercises them in his works of creation, providence, and redemption. In the Westminster Confession’s language, “the glory of [God’s] wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy” are displayed in the creation and history of the created universe. Part of God’s display of his glory to himself and his delight in that glory takes the form of God’s authoring a world, a world dependent on him and existing by participation in him, and yet not identified with him. In this world, he displays his attributes. He displays his power in creating, upholding and sustaining this world. He displays his wisdom in its vast and incomprehensible coherence. He displays his justice as a response to the evil rebellions of his creations. He displays his wisdom in his using their evil for his own good purposes. He displays his mercy in the salvation of his chosen people. He displays his power, wisdom, and goodness, by contrasting it with man’s weakness, foolishness, and wickedness, and by causing his creatures to go to him and to him alone as the ultimate supplier of power, wisdom, and goodness. Those who cut themselves off from the all-sufficient source of life die. Those who, by his grace, come to him live through him and through him alone. So we can see that it is crucial to understanding the very purpose for our existence that we understand both our participation in God and also our distinction from him. In fact, these two are inseparable and merge together to describe our true character as creatures--beings who are utterly dependent on God. The concept of “dependence” includes both the idea of our participation in God and of our distinction from God.

One possible misconception needs to be addressed before we move on. If we are aspects of God’s being in some sense, does that make us “part” of God, and therefore in some sense partly divine? No, it does not. We have already seen that created beings are not God. Nor is it possible that they should be “part” of God in the sense that they could be 10% of God, 1%, .0001%, or any other percentage. The God of classical theism is a simple, uncompounded being; he has no “parts” or “pieces.” He is inherently indivisible. Therefore it makes no sense to speak of anything as constituting a certain percentage of him. If I were to say that I am, say, .0000000001% of God, that would imply that if one keeps on adding more and more beings like me to the equation, enough of us would eventually add up to 100% God. But this is absurd. God is not the sum of all the particulars in the universe. No amount of addition of particular entities can even begin to add up to a simple, infinite being. God is the undivided being who is the foundation of the being of the particulars, but he is not the particulars themselves. The particulars exist in him and by participation in him, but he must be considered distinct from them all, even as a group. Therefore, not only are we not God, but we are not even partly divine. In God we live and move and have our being, but that being that we have must be considered to be nothing in comparison to the being of God (much as Bob in my novel, while adding up to something in his own sphere--the world of the novel--yet is nothing in comparison to me, and you can never even begin to add up to me simply by adding more and more Bobs). One could continue to add more and more Mark Hausams together forever and one would never come any closer to adding up to God than with only one of me or none of me. This makes sense in the context of God’s goal of displaying his glory in the creation. God displays his all-sufficiency by virtue of the entire dependence of the created beings on him, which involves the understanding that the created beings are in themselves nothing and therefore must look outside of themselves to God for all their needs. The role we play in God’s display of his glory, which is an aspect of his knowledge of himself and love of himself, is that of those whose lack contrasts with God’s fullness--we are the backdrop, so to speak, for God’s fullness--and also those whose inherent nothingness is filled up by God’s inherent fullness by his grace alone, and therefore to his glory alone. We provide the emptiness which allows God’s all-sufficient fullness to be seen in all its glory and power. Therefore, although our being is in God, our identity as creatures is characterized by our nothingness in comparison to God’s fullness. (10)

Analysis of Buddhism from a Metaphysically-Sophisticated Classical Theistic Point of View

Having now established that classical theism agrees with the first half but disagrees with the second half of the definition of pantheism, and having shown to some degree the importance of this for understanding our identity in relationship to God, I now want to show how a proper and precise understanding of theistic metaphysics in this area helps theists to launch a successful criticism of the pantheistic worldview, and also to respond to some common philosophical objections to theism coming from both pantheists and atheists.

Most theistic arguments against pantheism are on the right track, I believe, but having a more precise understanding of theistic metaphysics and how they relate to pantheistic metaphysics can significantly boost the theist’s articulation of his case. As we have seen, pantheists are in a way half right. Significant portions of their belief system are quite true and accurate. When theists can recognize where pantheism goes right, they can use this as a platform for making a convincing argument as to where pantheism goes wrong. Let me give a concrete example of this. In Buddhism, there is a strong emphasis on “getting away from one’s self.” The big problem human beings have, according to Buddhism, is that we don’t recognize the reality of the Undying, Unborn, Unchanging behind the flux and flow of our spatio-temporal universe, and so we come to identify ourselves with ourselves alone and to become attached to our selves and to the objects of the self’s desires. But the reality is that the self is ultimately only an illusion, and so are all the particular objects we become attached to, and therefore they cannot satisfy--this is the cause of human suffering. The reality behind the illusion is the Unchanging Infinite. What we need to do is to come to see things in the right way and to learn to think and live accordingly. We need to see that the Unborn, Undying is the reality and attach ourselves to that, recognizing ourselves and the particulars as illusions and giving up our attachments to these. If we can identify not just with ourselves but with Infinite Being, we can find that which is truly real, permanent and satisfying, and therefore find true happiness. Theists ought to recognize a lot of truth in this--that God is the ultimate reality, and that we should look outside of ourselves to him for our happiness. We should learn to get beyond ourselves and our petty desires and try to adopt an “eternal perspective.” However, in calling the self and the spatio-temporal universe an “illusion,” and in talking about “identifying oneself with the Infinite,” Buddhism lets in some fundamental ambiguity that clouds Buddhists’ understanding of the truths that they have in their system. Although there is some truth in calling this world an illusion, in the sense that it is nothing compared to God and does not represent the ultimate level of reality (or anything remotely close to it), yet it is a misleading term. The world is not unreal--it may not be ultimate reality, but it is real in its own right. And we are real as well, although we are infinitesimal when compared to God. I do indeed need to learn to “identify with God” in the sense of seeing things from his eternal, objective perspective, but I must never forget that I am not myself God. Buddhism (and other Eastern religions) tend to get confused here, thinking that since I am not ultimate reality while the Infinite Being is, and since I am an illusion, therefore I should think of myself as the Infinite Being. But this contradicts the good start these religions have when they begin with telling us to move beyond ourselves. If I am really nothing and must move beyond myself towards God, this realization and goal are contradicted by subsequently telling me that in fact I am God and I must look within. Here is an example of how the murkiness of Buddhism in this area leads to some erroneous conclusions, from an introductory book on Buddhism written by a Zen Buddhist monk and teacher, Rev. Daizui MacPhillamy:

The principle of there being no soul is actually so fundamental to Buddhism that it is given a name (‘anatta’), and placed on the same level of importance as the principle of universal change (‘anicca’). It is regarded, in other words, as a basic property of how the universe works. Although the first thing that we tend to think of when confronted with the concept of there being no soul is its implications for death and the afterlife, it actually has consequences that are more far-reaching than that.

One of these consequences has to do with just how much ‘at one’ we really are with the flow. A soul, being inherently a separate sort of a thing, would actually place a limit upon that oneness. No soul and no self, no limit. If neither self nor soul is ultimately real, then in truth we are, right at this very moment, completely one with the unborn, undying, unformed nature of reality, whether we recognize and experience this or not. Now, various schools of Buddhism do different things with this fact of absolute oneness. Some simply observe that it exists, while others give it a name and a prominent place in their teaching, using words such as, “we are all Buddha”, or “all people have Buddha Nature.” . . .

As a guide to practice, the understanding that we all have Buddha Nature influences practice away from trying to get something (to achieve a goal of nirvana, for instance) and towards removing the obstacles to realizing what we already have. This is an important but subtle shift. So long as one is doing Buddhist practice as a means to a goal, the effort is inevitably tainted with some degree of desire: a very noble desire, but a desire nonetheless. . . . When an individual adopts the view that he or she is already innately Buddha, all of this can be dropped and practice can be done simply for the sake of practice. . . . This gets back to the ‘goal of goallessness’ that was mentioned in the section on right effort.

Another consequence of the principle of no soul is that where there is no soul there can be no sin. Many religions define sin as the deliberate turning of the soul away from God, but if there is no soul, that can’t happen. And if we are inherently one with everything and we are Buddha by nature, what can be turned away from? The absence of a sense of sin is another major difference between Buddhism and most other great religions of the world, and it has many implications. If there is no sin and no soul, there can be no guilt, no judgement, no atonement, no absolution, no damnation, no salvation. There really can’t even be any such thing as evil, in the way it is normally thought of. (11) 

We can see a number of problematic conclusions in this selection from Rev. MacPhillamy’s book. First, it does not follow from the fact that there is an ultimate reality that is infinitely greater than the soul, in which the soul lives, and compared to which the soul is nothing, that there is no soul or self at all. Whatever I may be in relation to God, I still exist. Otherwise, there would be no “I” to be involved in this conversation. Rev. MacPhillamy’s erroneous conclusion here, which is common in pantheistic systems, leads him to other false conclusions. He concludes that because the self is an illusion, therefore the real “me” is the Buddha Nature itself (a Buddhist term for the Infinite Reality). Therefore, since I am myself already Buddha, I need really have no goals at all. I already have all that I seek. Of course, despite Rev. MacPhillamy’s attempt to salvage it, this concept makes nonsense out of Buddhist practice, since nothing at all can be done, including Buddhist practice, without some goal in mind. If I truly have all that I seek, why am I still seeking? More importantly, Rev. MacPhillamy’s reasoning leads to the conclusion that there really are no goals whatsoever we should have. If everything is an illusion except the present reality of the Buddha Nature, then as Rev. MacPhillamy himself points out, there is really no such thing as evil. Everything is ultimately as it should be. Calling one’s self and all the spatio-temporal world an illusion undercuts the importance of the reality of this world and the particulars in it. It clouds our recognition of the reality of evil and suffering in this world, and therefore guts our motivation for service in trying to do good. Yes, everything exists by participation in God, but everything is not God. Yes, everything is ultimately under the control of God and a part of his plan, but everything is not in itself pleasing to him, and therefore there are things we should fight against and ideals we should strive after. It is because the biblical worldview recognizes both our participation in God and also our distinction from God that it is able to recognize evil in the world and exhort us to do good.

Related to this issue is Rev. MacPhillamy’s reasoning that since the soul or self is an illusion, therefore there can be no sin. If sin is turning away from God, and I am God, obviously there can be no sin. But the problem here is that I am not God. Yes, I exist “in God,” and am an aspect of his being in some sense, but my identity and characteristics are fundamentally distinct from his. Therefore, there can be real relationship between myself and God (and between myself and other people), and that relationship can go wrong in the sense that I can turn against God and make him my enemy. In fact, Christianity recognizes that this is exactly what has happened, and therefore my salvation does not consist in my realizing that I am God and don’t need to be saved; it consists in my recognizing my sin, looking outside of myself to God for my salvation, and being saved by his grace through the redemption of Christ. If the soul is real, there can be sin; and if there is sin, there is wrath and justice, a need for an atonement and forgiveness, a need for cleansing, a need for reconciliation, etc. By confusing our metaphysical participation in God with the idea that we are God in our identity, Buddhism makes itself unable to recognize and deal with certain fundamental truths about God, about ourselves and our relationship with God, and about the universe in general.

A theist who understands the metaphysical implications of theism can say to a Buddhist, “You are right about a number of things--about the reality of an Infinite realm of Ultimate Reality behind the spatio-temporal world we inhabit, about the fact that we all exist by participation in that Reality, about the fact that I am nothing compared to that Reality and that I must move beyond myself to relate rightly to it. But you then forget all this and identify yourself with the Infinite and turn your focus back into yourself for your happiness. This makes no sense upon your own principles. If I am nothing, how can I be identified with the Infinite? If my basic problem is that I am ultimately attached to myself and not to the Infinite--I worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, to put it in Christian terms--and my hope is in getting beyond myself, why do you then move away from the solution and compound the problem by telling me I have the Buddha Nature within and therefore causing me to think that the source of my happiness can be found within myself?” The theist can agree with the arguments for a metaphysical unity grounding all things, and yet point out that this fact does not lead to an ignoring of the reality of the distinctions that exist. Thus the theist, by recognizing the truths in the Buddhist pantheistic system, is able, on the very basis of those truths, to expose the errors in Buddhist thinking, errors that not only put Buddhism out of touch with reality but out of touch with many of its own accurate observations as well. The theist therefore has a point of contact from which he/she can offer a critique of Buddhist pantheistic thought from within, in a sense, and therefore better understand and be better understood. (12)

A Metaphysically-Sophisticated Classical Theism Responds to Objections

A clearer understanding of the relationship between theism and pantheism can also help to answer certain criticisms and objections against theism raised by pantheists and atheists. Pantheists have often accused theism of being metaphysically naïve. Theism is pictured as belief in some super-entity sitting in the sky somewhere who may be more powerful than human beings but who is still a particular within the spatio-temporal universe, and this deity is thus seen by pantheists as something that needs to be transcended just like every other particular. Since theists never transcend their God or seem aware of the need to do so, they strike many pantheists as being metaphysically naïve, not recognizing the reality of an Infinite behind the particular entities of the universe. Theists fuel this objection when they convey the impression that they perceive God as entirely metaphysically distinct from the creation and fail to acknowledge the metaphysical unity that binds all things together in the being of God (without obliterating the importance of the distinctions). To the extent that theists do not recognize this metaphysical unity, they are indeed metaphysically naïve, and although their naiveté is not warranted by the classical theistic tradition or by biblical revelation, they bring both into disrepute through their associating them with such naiveté. Being more metaphysically precise can help avoid this criticism and reason for rejection of theism among pantheists or those attracted to pantheism.

Some philosophers have criticized the doctrine of creation ex nihilo as logically absurd. It seems to violate the principle of the conservation of matter/energy/substance. This is not merely a scientific principle but a logical one as well. If one starts out with a certain amount of something, one cannot increase that amount without adding to the system from without. If this is so, how can God increase the amount of substance in reality? Also, theists say that God is infinite and unbounded. How can an infinite and unbounded being be bounded by the existence of other entities/substances in reality? If God is not all there is, then he is not infinite. Theists say that God fills all things, being omnipresent; and yet if there are other substances, they can only be conceived to exist by imagining that God is not where they are--in other words, God does not fill them and therefore does not fill all things. And where would the additional substance come from, if there were other substances? It couldn’t have come from God, contrary to the idea of creation, since it is in addition to all that God is and has. There is nowhere it can have come from. All of these very rational objections can be answered only by pointing out that, according to a metaphysically sophisticated theism, created entities do not add to the overall substance of reality because they exist in God and are an aspect of his being, without themselves being identified with God. The very real and very important Creator-creature distinction does not require a naïve, disunified metaphysical view of reality.

In this paper I have tried to develop a more coherent, precise and thorough understanding of the metaphysics of classical theism in the context of its relation to pantheism. While I have therefore adopted some language that is a little unusual for typical theistic articulation and have made explicit certain metaphysical implications of classical theism that have often been left hazy, I want to stress again the fact that all that I have said is really nothing new; these elements have always been inherent in classical theism. I think that one of the reasons the development of some of these points has been a bit hazy in theistic thought is a fear common among theists of getting too close to pantheism. Theists have always recognized something wrong with pantheism, and have often defined themselves and their views in the context of a strong motivation to make sure they are adequately distanced from pantheism. There has been some fear that developing certain lines of thought tends to lead in pantheistic-sounding directions, and so those lines of thought have been under-emphasized. Another reason for this metaphysical haziness has been simply a lack of awareness on the part of some theistic theologians of the need for more metaphysical precision in these areas. Yet another reason is that there has been a strong movement among many theistic theologians over the past couple of centuries away from classical theism and towards non-classical forms of theism that advocate entirely different metaphysical views of reality. Some of these non-classical theologians have accused classical theism of being pantheistic or at least of tending towards pantheism, and this in turn has helped to fuel the fear of getting too close to pantheism among classical theologians. But this fear is unjustified. In becoming more metaphysically precise in these areas, classical theists can indeed avoid pantheism; and they are able to advocate a more consistent philosophical theistic perspective, understand pantheistic systems better, and better show why theism, and not pantheism (or atheism), is rational and true.

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1    John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chapter VIII (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/33041.htm - accessed on 6/3/08).

2   Ibid., Book I, Chapter XIII.

3     Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 44, Article 1 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1044.htm - accessed on 6/3/08).

4    I am assuming here that the correct interpretation of the Bible is the classical theist interpretation.  I am, of course, aware that this is a controversial assumption, but it is beyond my scope to argue for it here.

5    Jonathan Edwards, from “The Nature of True Virtue,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume One, revised and corrected by Edward Hickman (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 125.

6    Ibid., 141.

7    Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 44, Article 4 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1044.htm - accessed on 6/4/08).

8    Westminster Confession, Chapter 4, Section 1 (http://opc.org/wcf.html - accessed 6/4/08).

9    Ibid., Chapter 5, Section 1.

10    Besides the terms “pantheism” and “theism,” the term “panentheism” has been used to describe views that do not want to equate God and the created universe but want to affirm that the created universe exists “in God” in some way.  Is the view that I am advocating here a form of panentheism?  If we take the word itself, in its bare etymological meaning--”everything in God”--my view could be seen as a form of panentheism.  However, this word is usually used in much more specific ways; it is usually associated with non-classical forms of theism such as process theism which are diametrically opposed to my classical metaphysical views.  So while the word itself might not be a bad description of what I am advocating, the word in its actual common usage I reject as referring to ideas that are fundamentally different from and fundamentally opposed to my own.  My views do not involve a rejection of classical theism but rather a following through of certain logical implications of classical theism.

11    Rev. Dazui MacPhillamy, Buddhism From Within: An Intuitive Introduction to Buddhism (Mount Shasta, CA: Shasta Abbey Press, 2003), 79-80.

12   I should note that although I have characterized Buddhism as pantheistic, it would be more precise to say that Buddhism and other Eastern “pantheistic” religions, such as Hinduism, often vacillate between pantheism and theism.  They are not always consistently pantheistic.  The extent to which the Eastern religions really differ from theism and are truly pantheistic is a complicated subject that is very much worthy of more thorough study.  I think that this issue should be a focus in dialogues between theists and practitioners of Eastern religions.  For an example of this vacillating, see “Zen is a Religion,” by Zen Master Rev. Jiyu-Kennett.  It can be found online at https://berkeleybuddhistpriory.org/2020/02/26/zen-is-a-religion/.  The essay is from a collection of oral teachings published as Roar of the Tigress by Shasta Abbey Press.  Here is a sample from the essay:  “And do not suffer from the notion that Zen training will make you anything other than a human being.  Accepting our own humanity is one of the hardest tests of all-acceptance.  There is a great difference, you know, between thinking you are God and knowing that what is in you is of God.  ‘I am not God, and there is nothing in me that is not of God,’ is the way in which one has to think about it.  The reason for Zen practice is to find the Eternal.  On finding the Eternal, we call it ‘enlightenment’.   To know the Eternal (and you really do know It once you have had this experience) is to know how infinitesimal you are in the scheme of things: to know that you are ‘no-thing’: even a grain of sand is miles too big.  When you forsake self in this way, then you are the universe, and, if you’ve done it right, you might behave like it.”