Theopanism

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Theopanism (from Greek: Θεός Theos, "God" and πᾶν pan, "all") was first used as a technical term by the Jesuits in elucidating Hinduism.[citation needed]

[O]ne may distinguish pantheism, which imagines the world as an absolute being ("everything is God"), from theopanism, which conceives of God as the true spiritual reality from which everything emanates: "God becomes everything", necessarily, incessantly, without beginning and without end. Theopanism is (with only a few other dualistic systems) the most common way in which Hindu philosophy conceives God and the world.[1]

Theopanism has also been more broadly stated as inclusive of any theological theory by which God is held equivalent to the Universe.[citation needed] As one author puts it: "In theopanism the meaning given the word God is of an entity that is not separate from the universe. Theopanism includes among its major concepts pantheism and panentheism."[2] The broader statement would also include pandeism.[citation needed]

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  1. ^ Civita Cattolica, 5, July, 1930, pp. 17-8, in Antonio Gramsci, "The Prison Notebooks", p. 121.
  2. ^ Alvin Jay Reines, Polydoxy: explorations in a philosophy of liberal religion, 1987, p. 77.

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