1.0 integralism
1.1) Affirmation of panentheism: that god is in all and that all is in god.
1.2) Integral: a) Essential or necessary for completeness; constituent: b) Possessing everything essential; entire. c) A complete unit; a whole. (dictionary.com)
2.0 god-talk
2.1) Denial of god’s omnipotence; affirmation of god’s total grace (that is, universalism).
2.2) Denial of monotheism, of a transcendent “the-one-god.”
2.3) Affirmation of Taoist teachings of the inherent co-incidence of “yin” and “yang.”
2.4) Affirmation of Buddhist teachings of the “interdependent co-arising” of all.
2.5) Denial of atheism as a violation of panentheism.
2.6) Affirmation (in principle) of the third person of the Christian trinity: the holy spirit.
2.7) Affinity with nontheism.
3.0 universe-talk
3.1) Denial of the following bifurcations: matter/mind, flesh/spirit, saved/lost.
3.2) Suspicion of the following bifurcations: Creator/creation, human/divine.
3.3) Suspicion of pantheism, monism, animism.
4.0 humanity-talk
4.1) Denial of Christian teachings of “original sin.”
4.2) Affirmation of Christian teaching of “incarnation” as model for cooperation with god; denial of Christian teaching of “incarnation” insofar as a “scandal of particularity.”
4.3) Affirmation of the following as first order priorities in human relations: shalom, hesed, Jubilee, blessing.
4.4) Affirmation of the following as second order priorities in human relations: eudaimonia, justice, ekklesia, oikonomia, koinania.
4.5) Recognition of crises as moments of primary moral import
4.6) Affirmation of habitus as primary vehicle for moral action
5.0 cultus-talk
5.1) Denial of clergy as mediators between god and humanity.
5.2) Affirmation of community as a primary site of human cooperation with god
6.0 eschaton-talk
6.1) Affirmation of the intrusion of kairoi into the present moment.
6.1) Affirmation of final justice and the redemption of the past.
I’d be very interested to see you expand on panentheism relation to your points 4.5 and 4.6 in particular. What does a panentheistic ethics look like? Are we “beyond good and evil”? If so, how?
Is this also from Walter Wink or are you beginning to synthesize his work with your own. It’s highly intriguing.
It’s all me, baby.
I am quite interested in developing a god-talk of sin and evil. I wish that we were beyond good and evil, but it seems wishful thinking, which is to say, human, all too human. (I do think we are –or should be– beyond good and bad.)
4.2 through 4.6 are coming from virtue theory and my hunch that any truly global religious culture (which isn’t to say a single culture) will have to draw on actual religious traditions and not on abstractions about them (however helpful those may be).
A panentheistic anthropology lends itself to talk of participation with god (to twist Platonic language) and to joint heirs and co-workers with god (to twist biblical language). Panentheistic virtues should be of this cooperative nature, and vices should be a violation somehow of the underlying order.
I guess I’m just confused about how this appropriation of virtue theory would be implied from panentheistic premises. Why exactly do you suppose that panentheistic premises would privilege cooperative living and communitarian values/practices?
On integralist ethics
(Responding to Daniel’s comments.) One of the things that panentheism implies is that the processes of life, the universe and everything (somehow) mirror (darkly) the processes of god. Under panentheism, to approach the ways of god you should approach …