The Emergence of Evolutionary Panentheism

The Emergence of Evolutionary Panentheism

Michael Murphy

If the entire universe is a play, revelation, or unfolding of divinity, creativity must be accessible to us all. Novel organizations of energy and matter, new creatures and consciousness have emerged on Earth in countless ways, and it can even be said that when life arose from matter and mind from life, evolution itself evolved. The recognition of novelty permeating and re-shaping the world contradicts the Solomonic doctrine that “there never was nor ever will be anything new under the sun.”8 From its inception, the universe has been in the habit-breaking (as well as habit-making) business in its relentless self-surpassing.

It gives us a compelling reason for the resonance between human volition, imagination, cognition, emotion, and physiological processes through which psychosomatic transformations (as well as the influence of mind over inanimate matter evident in psychokinesis) appear to be mediated. Our cells, feelings, and thoughts resonate with each other because they share the same omnipresent reality, responsive to the same indwelling spirit. Mind and matter, consciousness and flesh, inform each other because they have evolved from (and within) the same ever-present origin. Recognizing this, evolutionary panentheism helps us account for the transformative effect that awareness of our essential divinity can exert on all our parts, the synergetic effectiveness of practices that embrace the whole person, and the contagious inspirations of groups that are joined in creative endeavor.

One reason that evolutionary panentheism has attracted thinkers such as these, even though they’ve come from different cultures with disparate philosophic commitments, is that it is based on just a few fundamental principles, among them: first, that evolution is a fact (though its discovery has given rise to various theories about it); second, that our universe arises from and is constituted by a world-transcending supernature, call it the One, God, Brahman, the Absolute, Buddha-Nature, Allah, Geist, or the Tao; and third, that humans have a fundamental affinity or identity with that supernature, which can be known through immediate experience either spontaneously or by means of transformative practice. Because this worldview is so basic and so broad and because it can be embraced without superstitions, dogmas, or metaphysical abstractions one cannot accept, it has been adopted, implicitly or explicitly, by countless men and women who have recognized its power to illuminate our human nature and destiny. However, its development has had a complex and meandering history and remains on the margins of intellectual opinion today. While gathering support from the wisdom traditions, psychical research, depth psychology, and other disciplines that are giving us ever-greater understanding of our subliminal depths, its acceptance has been impeded by the reductive materialism that’s accompanied the advance of science.