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Single Idea 7580

[filed under theme 28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 2. Pantheism ]

Full Idea

So called pantheistic systems have often been characterised and challenged by the assertion that they abrogate the distinction between good and evil.

Gist of Idea

Pantheism destroys the distinction between good and evil

Source

Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Lessing')

Book Ref

Kierkegaard,Søren: 'A Kierkegaard Anthology', ed/tr. Bretall,Robert [Princeton 1946], p.204


A Reaction

He will have Spinoza in mind. Interesting. Obviously this criticism would come from someone who thought that the traditional deity was the only source of goodness. Good/evil isn't all-or-nothing. A monistic system could contain them.


The 12 ideas with the same theme [view that God and nature are identical]:

Earth, food, fire, sun are all forms of Brahman [Anon (Upan)]
Antisthenes says there is only one god, which is nature [Antisthenes (I), by Cicero]
The cosmos and heavens are the substance of god [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius]
Stoics say god is matter, or an inseparable quality of it, or is the power within it [Stoic school, by Chalcidius]
Everything existing proceeds from divinity, and is within divinity [Porphyry]
In Utopia, the Supreme Being is identical with Nature [More,T]
That God is the substance of all things is an ill-reputed doctrine [Leibniz on Spinoza]
Everything is in God, and nothing exists or is thinkable without God [Spinoza]
God is the efficient cause of essences, as well as of existences [Spinoza]
The human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God [Spinoza]
To say that nature or the one universal substance is God is a pernicious doctrine [Leibniz]
Pantheism destroys the distinction between good and evil [Kierkegaard]