Regarding the ultimate origin of the universe, there are only a few basic alternatives: a) the universe was created by a transcendent God; b) the universe has always existed; or c) the universe came from absolutely nothing. The latter alternative is rarely argued since it is absurd. If creation is rejected, the universe must be eternal, and usually this entails the view that "God" and the universe are one and the same.
Pantheism means "all is God". Since pantheists usually do not consider the whole universe to be personal, pantheism is equivalent to "pan-everything-ism". This view thus tends toward Monism. This is a prevalent theme in Eastern religions. But if God is everything, then God is nothing, because there is nothing that is not God. For example, one of the major problems with any Monism is that it loses the ability to distinguish moral categories. Evil and good become indistinguishable. How well could you accept this if you were a victim of crime?
Panpsychism attributes consciousness to all matter. A modern example of this view is the process theology of A. N. Whitehead. This view recognizes a distinction between the world and God, but God is not sovereign over the world. "God can only hope to influence its self-creative process by being the reservoir of past experiences, the presenter of present possibility and the persuader of future development." (Polkinghorne, 1978). Process theology "has been described as a sophisticated form of animism" (Gunton, 1978), so greatly does it locate initiative in panpsychic matter.... "the God of Whitehead is a curiously passive deity" (Polkinghorne, 1978).
Genesis teaches instead that the creatures have life in themselves -- they are not simply a front for God (Gen. 1:30). Biblical reality is vivid with self-existent creatures in abundance.
Polkinghorne, Science and Providence, God's
Interaction with the World (1989).
Gunton, C.E., Being and
Becoming, Oxford University Press (1978).
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