Abstract

Though reputed to be one of the most feared heresies of the Christian tradition, due to its deconstruction of the dichotomies of the sacred and the profane, pantheism is well-represented across world traditions, and has remained the religious position of some of the greatest minds of the Western tradition. From the Advanta Vedanta tradition in India to Taoism in China, and from the Stoics of ancient Greece to Spinoza, Hegel and Einstein, understanding the cosmos itself to be divine constitutes one of the most longstanding religious traditions of human history. Indeed, the reversal of values that pantheism enacts has led it to thrive in the Anthropocene Age, precisely because it re-enchants the material world and the mortal and fragile bodies that inhabit it. Instead of a transcendent deity interpreted as existing somehow outside the cosmos, Pantheism renders the immanent divine, thereby re-enchanting the immanent world of nature and of material kinship and inter-dependent unity. This article will differentiate pantheism from atheism and theism, clarify the meaning of monism that it pre-supposes, explain its different typologies (dual-aspect, ontological and teleological) and explain how the reversal of values intrinsic to pantheism can contribute toward the creation of a new paradigm that can respond to the Anthropocene Age.