Omnientheism

From Self Indulgence

Omnientheism is a conception of the divine most closely related to panentheism. Whereas panentheism asserts that God is both immanent in the universe and transcendent to it, and pantheism simply equates that God is the universe, omnientheism expands the concept further to include all possible universes, all dimensions, and even all possible multiverses. Thus, omnientheism can be considered a type of panentheism that embraces multi-dimensionality, many-worlds interpretation, and the omniverse.

As such, omnientheism embraces a modern conception of infinity which is orders of magnitude larger than many older conceptions of pan (all) and therefore deserves a separate term. Omnientheism differs from panentheism in the sense that the universe differs from the omniverse. This is primarily a matter of scale, but to ascribe to omnientheism, one must believe that existence is bigger than our universe. Even if one can not say for sure what that larger framework might be, it is implicit that the universe as we know it is not everything.

It is possible to have a truly infinite conception of both God and the omniverse, believe in a finite creation that is merely much bigger than the physical universe, embrace ideas of parallel or alternate realities, accept the notion of spiritual realms or dimensions, or any number of other divergent or sympathetic ideas, and still be basically omnientheistic. As such, the term refers not to a specific belief system as much as definition for expanded conceptions of a panentheistic nature.

There are some who feel the word pan encompasses everything--being defined as "all"--and, thus, would also include the omniverse, negating the need for this separate term. However, in common usage, panentheism (and certainly pantheism & pandeism) are nearly always spoken of in terms of the universe. Many people who ascribe to a purely materialist, physical universe based worldview are considered pantheists or pandeists. The notion of omnientheism implies that the known physical universe is not all there is.

It is possible to conceive of an omnitheism that rejects the transcendent intelligence, creator-god aspects but still embraces the omniverse as God part. In fact, many of today's pandeists who are nearly atheistic in their rejection of any sort of personal, knowable, or actively intelligent divinity, do, in fact, embrace a conception of existence that is larger than the universe. Physicists who accept M-Theory or the multiverse, but view the whole thing as mechanistic could fall into this category and might be called omnideists.

Contents 1 Omnientheogenic 2 The Omnientheism of Cristorly 3 See also 4 References

Omnientheogenic

There are mystics who practice a form of omnientheism which could be described as omnientheogenic. This would be an autotheistic form of the philosophy. These people are not only omnientheistic, but believe that they can manifest the presence of such a divinity within themselves using various practices, having direct communion or experience of divine, as well as other aspects of the omniversal creation. This term was coined by JahSun sometime in the early 1990s, but did not appear in print until relatively recently.^[1]

The Omnientheism of Cristorly

Cristorly (Orlando Alcántara Fernández) developed a "Theognosis" of Omnientheism, which integrates six concepts - theism, deism, panentheism, panendeism, pandeism, and pantheism - into a coherent corpus or canon. Cristorly describes his definitions as "discretional," meaning that each can only be understood in the context of all the rest. Cristorly asserts:

Within this grouping, the meanings of the terms hinge on their categorization of the "transcendence, immanence, and holism of God". With respect to pandeism, he notes, "we see that Energy or Cosmic Force in Pandeism is immanent and holistic, but it is not transcendent."^[2]

See also

• Panentheism
• Pandeism
• Mysticism
• Omniverse
• Many-Worlds Interpretation
• Astral Plane

References