The Many Faces, and Causes, of Unbelief - Apologetics Press

ook, Apologetics in the New Age: A Critique of Pantheism, Clark
and Geisler succinctly wrote of what they called the “false
hope” of pantheism, and then went on to say: “It lacks substance.
The evidence that such a transformation will take place
is sadly lacking. Hope without realism is cruel”(1990,p.
235, emp. added).
Pantheism is cruel indeed. In the truest tradition of Satan’s
temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden, it convinces man to
set himself up as God. The results then were tragic for the entire
human race. The results of accepting pantheism in our
day and age will prove to be no less so.
PANENTHEISM
Although the names may sound somewhat familiar, pantheism
and panentheism actually are quite different. Whereas
pantheism teaches that God is the world, panentheism teaches
that God is in the world. In panentheism, God is neither beyond
the world nor identical with it. Rather, the world is God’s
body. “Further, unlike the God of theism, the panentheistic
god does not create the world out of nothing (ex nihilo) but out
of his own eternal sources (ex Deo)” [Geisler, 1997, p. 19].
Kreeft and Tacelli, in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics,
suggested that panentheism is
...a kind of compromise between theism and pantheism.
It does not identify God with the material universe
(as pantheism does), but neither does it hold
that there actually exists an eternal God, transcendent
to creation (as theism does). Panentheists believe
that the material universe constitutes God, but
that God is more than the material universe.... Thus
panentheism is one way of making God temporal
(1994, p. 94, parenthetical items in orig.).
Another way of expressing God’s temporal nature is to say
that He is “finite” (as opposed to infinite). In fact, panentheism
often is referred to by the synonym, “finite Godism.” Another
phrase used to describe panentheism is “process theology”—
a concept that needs to be explained here.
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