Are We Here To Learn Nothing?

Wat, in his comment on As The Man Thinketh, So Is He, Revised, threw in the word 'pandeism':

"Hi Dan, That's the best explanation I heard about Jacob wrestling with the angel! For me it kind of also explains the word 'indeed' of the Jabaz prayer (I will not move/accept anything unless you bless me), but I also can't help but think about pandeism and providence. . . . "

(The Jabaz Prayer: "And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested." 1 Chronicles 4:10 KJV.)

I agree with Wat, but I was not sure how pandeism might fit in. I read most of the Wikipedia article on Pandeism, and saw in its introduction that I must say something to the absurd notion of Deism.

Deism is the silly notion that we are left alone by God, that He created the universe and then walked away from it--the original Absentee Landlord. It isn't that there isn't a God; it is that whatever Creator there is is not here. No one is listening, there is no one to intervene, so you are going to have to do everything yourself. Supposedly, many of the Founding Fathers of United States of America were Deists.

Says the Wikipedia introduction: "Pandeism (or pan-deism) is a theological doctrine first delineated in the 18th century which combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. It holds that the creator deity became the universe (pantheism) and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity (deism holding that God does not interfere with the universe after its creation). Pandeism is proposed to explain, as it relates to deism, why God would create a universe and then abandon it, and as to pantheism, the origin and purpose of the universe.

"The word pandeism is a hybrid blend of the root words pantheism and deism, combining Ancient Greek: πᾶν, translit. pan, lit. 'all' with Latin: deus which means "god". It was perhaps first coined in the present meaning in 1859 by Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal."

NB: How is this possible?: "It holds that the creator deity became the universe (pantheism) and ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity." If the Creator BECAME the universe, it could not ever exist as a separate entity. If the Creator BECAME the universe, it could not ever abandon it. If you become something, how do you leave it?

I got one really good and worthwhile insight in the article: "Eriugena's vision of God was one which does not know what it is, and learns this through the process of existing as its creation." THAT is what we, the imagination of the Ineffable, are doing!!

Also noteworthy in the bibliography:

Allan R. Fuller (2010). Thought: The Only Reality. p. 79. ISBN 1608445909. Pandeism is another belief that states that God is identical to the universe, but God no longer exists in a way where He can be contacted; therefore, this theory can only be proven to exist by reason (italics mine). God is the imagination, and converses there. This is hardly abandonment. Not finding It there to converse with is ignorance on our part.

Gottfried Große (1787). Naturgeschichte: mit erläuternden Anmerkungen. p. 165. Beym Plinius, den man, wo nicht Spinozisten, doch einen Pandeisten nennen konnte, ist Natur oder Gott kein von der Welt getrenntes oder abgesondertes Wesen. Seine Natur ist die ganze Schöpfung im Konkreto, und eben so scheint es mit seiner Gottheit beschaffen zu seyn." Translation: "In Pliny, whom one could call, if not a Spinozist, then perhaps a Pandeist, Nature is not a being divided off or separated from the world. His nature is the whole of creation, in concrete, and the same appears to be true also of his divinity (italics mine). Amen, Pliny, amen.

Alex Ciurana, M.T.S., "The Superiority of a Christian Worldview", ACTS Magazine, Churches of God Seventh Day, December 2007, Volume 57, Number 10, page 11: "Sometimes pantheists will use the term "pandeism" to underscore that they share with the deists the idea that God is not a personal God who desires to be worshipped (italics mine)." God is our Source, our Father. It isn't that he wants to be worshipped; it's that honoring and respecting one's source is RIGHT, and we need to be right because It is right.

The entire universe is following Providence, is being directed by Providence, for its Creator is YHWH--Jesus Christ. Do not let your God be too small.