“Pantheism,” coined in 1697, comes from Greek. pan means “everything” and theos means “god.”
Pantheism is the belief that everything is divine… that everything that exists is god, or part of god. This belief is held by many, but not all, Hindus and Buddhists. Elements of pantheism also exist in other religions, including Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and more.
Pantheism, of course, is not a belief compatible with monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In these religions, a strong distinction is made between creator and creation. The creator is divine, but the creation is only a reflection of divinity, and not itself divine.
Certain cults of Christianity blur this distinction. Many Word of Faith teachers, for example, suggest that we are not simply made in God’s image. We are, they claim, essentially copies or duplicates of God… and, as a result, they teach that we share the ability to create in exactly the ways that God did. Obviously, this belief is unbiblical and cannot be reconciled with Christianity.
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