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

Dr. Geisler is absolutely correct in this particular criticism of
panentheism. One writer assessed the situation as follows:
The incontestable fact is that if God moves necessarily
in time he is limited to some rate of velocity that is
finite (say, the speed of light, if not the faster rate of
some hypothetical tachyon). This means, unfortunately
for process theism, that it is impossible for such
a finite deity to have a simultaneous God’s-eye view
of the whole universe at once, since it would take him
millions of light years or more to receive requisite
data from distant points and places (Gruenler, 1983,
p. 58, parenthetical comment in orig).
Thus, panentheism finds itself in the untenable status of
positing a finite, non-omnipotent, non-omniscient God Who
is best described in the following illogical manner. (1) He has
the entire Universe as His body. (b) By definition, however,
He is limited (because He is finite) by the physical laws of that
Universe. (c) Therefore, He cannot even know His own body
because it extends over the entire Universe, yet He cannot
extend Himself over the entire Universe because He is restrained
by its physical laws. Corduan could not have been
more correct when he wrote: “Thus the arbitrary denial of
any one attribute does not yield a finite God but yields nothing
at all.”
Second, panentheism suggests that God is in the “process”
of changing, yet the crucial element of change—causality—is
conspicuously missing. While it is correct to say that every
change is the actualization of some potential, such change
does not occur by itself. There must be a cause involved in
the process. Remember the cake analogy above?
Try actualizing a bowl of batter’s potential to become
a cake without putting it into an oven. A coffee cup
has the potential to be filled with coffee, so let us see if
it will fill itself. Of course it won’t. Cakes cannot bake
themselves; coffee cups cannot fill themselves; potentials
cannot actualize themselves. Where a change
occurs, there must be a cause to bring about that
change.... Panentheism attempts to circumvent the
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