pantheism
(ˈpænθiːɪz(ə)m)
[mod. f. Gr. παν- all + θε-ός God + -ism; app. after pantheist.
Panthéiste and panthéisme were used in French in 1712 (E. Benoist Mélanges 252, 265) the former app. taken from Toland's English use (see next), the latter formed after it on the ordinary analogy of pairs in -ist and -ism. Toland does not appear to have used pantheism.]
1. The religious belief or philosophical theory that God and the universe are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God); the doctrine that God is everything and everything is God.
| 1732 Waterland Chr. Vind. Charge 76 Pantheism..and Hobbism are scandalously bad, scarce differing from the broadest Atheism. a 1766 J. Brown Honour 176 note, That species of atheism commonly called Pantheism. 1823 Coleridge Table-t. 30 Apr., Pantheism and idolatry naturally end in each other: for all extremes meet. 1848 R. I. Wilberforce Doct. Incarnation v. (1852) 121 Pantheism, the principle of which is to merge the personality of the moral Governor in the circle of His works. |
2. The heathen worship of all the gods.
| 1837 Sir F. Palgrave Merch. & Friar i. (1844) 21 The greater portion of the Tartar tribes professed a singular species of Pantheism, respecting all creeds, attached to none. 1861 Pearson Early & Mid. Ages Eng. (1867) I. 18 The spirit of Roman pantheism, which erected a temple to the divinities of all nations. |