How high is Monism in the list of worst heresies?

How high is Monism in the list of worst heresies?

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Isn't it basically gnostic?

They believe in it (Sethians) yea

gnostics were strong dualists, so no.

Absolutely nothing. From God being infinite and immanent and upholding all, and being described as ''all in all," I (like many others, especially emphasized in Eastern traditions) am a Christian panentheist, currently working on evil/goodness in theology. It is not a heresy, I'd say some form of monism (panentheism tbh) at least is the default Christian position.


The Gnostics had monism and panentheism (paradoxically with radical dualism, but not really), but you must remember they did consider themselves to be "Christians" and had Greek philosophy. It's a logical position they hold to, even among their many other heresies.

God created the world out of nothing, not out of Himself. God is spirit, and created other spirits out of nothing, not out of Himself. The heresies of Monism and Pantheism and similar heresies teach that God created the world out of Himself or part of Himself, or that the world is God. God created both matter and spirits as good. The heresy of Gnosticism is teaching that matter was created as evil, not in teaching that matter was created.

We have three fundamental categories:

1) uncreated God who is spirit (the Father, the Holy Spirit, and preincarnate Jesus)

2) created spirit that is not God and is not matter (angels and human souls)

3) created matter that is not God and is not spirit (the physical universe including our bodies)

These three fundamental categories can exist in combination:

1) created spirit and created matter or spirit (living human beings, infested objects, the possessed)

2) uncreated spirit and created spirit (indwelling of the Holy Spirit)

3) uncreated spirit and created matter (incarnate Jesus)

Christianity is dualistic in that you can group uncreated spirit and created spirit together as spirit and distinguish them from matter, arriving at a dualistic system of spirit and matter.

Whether he created them out of himself or out of nothing makes no difference to monism; all things revolve around God and are related to God and he permeates all with no bias. The infinite is not bound by anything.

All in all. Monism =/= pantheism always (which is bad).

Literal idolatry.

Where is the idolatry? What is being placed above God? This is just a necessary truth for Him being infinite, undefined, and unbound. I dare say we barely know Him, except that He revealed some things to us, and these small bits we can't even properly comprehend, let alone being literally infinite and eternal, and all this contains.

so Christ was a ghost

You're saying that all idols are God. You're saying that the substance of the idol of Moloch was the substance of God. You're an idolater.


You're bearing false witnesses against me. In my first post I testified to the incarnation.

Immanence is not incarnation. You don't understand what immanence is if you reduce it to substance. God can be immanent in something without actually being that thing.

I am not saying things are built of God, simply that God is immanent in all things. Not sure where you get this from, it's literally just panentheism.

nothing can exist apart from God, all things get their beingness from the ultimate being.
the fact that they were made out of nothing makes this dependency even stronger, there is nothing apart from God.

Can you both clarify your position by answering a simple yes or no question:

In substance, was this statue God?

Yes or no will do.

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A circle cannot exist apart from it's center, but that doesn't imply that the center is the same as the circle. In order to prove that two things are equivalent with regards to some relationship, you need to prove that this relationship is valid both ways. Do you have any reason to believe that God's existence is somehow dependent on yours?

no finite phenomena is fully God itself, but no phenomena is apart from God or exists independent of God. That statue is a wave in the ocean, the totality of the ocean is God. The wave is not the ocean, but it is not apart or independent from the ocean.

Thanks. That's all I needed.

No, because panentheist aren't pantheist, you just aren't getting what was said.

All things that are part of His act of being.

There are different kinds of panentheists. I'm just trying to find out how wrong you are.

If you want to know if this is gnostic
“I am control and the uncontrollable.
I am the union and the dissolution.
I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.
I am the one below,
and they come up to me.
I am the judgment and the acquittal.
I, I am sinless,
and the root of sin derives from me.”
Whatever that means doesn’t sound Christian fam

the implication is No. hence "no finite phenomena is fully God" the statue is a finite phenomena. But it is not apart or independent of God.
Simple reading skills are good.

God is all in all, and the upholder of all that is, and immanent in all (for some reason you think panentheist believe that He is substance, and actually things themselves, like idols). That's the entire position. And it's not wrong. What makes you think it is?

Does panentheism mean the root of sin comes from god? That’s heresy

did the root of sin exist prior to creation, independent of God? Is it another eternal being? Or did it appear within creation, part of creation?

Of course all dichotomies come from God, Isaiah 45:7 KJV.

The root of sin is logically free will, knowledge of good and evil, but paradoxically, it is nothing. It’s void. Saying sin can be a part of god, bro that’s definitely heresy

The root of sin is your own free will. You (a created one) alone did that, God didn't make you do it. Sin is a deviation from God (and/or blindness to Him from the God of this world). But God being eternally love and mercy as art of His act of being necessitates a dichotomy. Not the root of sin being Him.

Also never forget that God being what He is, shows good by what is not Him. I became a Christian after seeing the results of the emptiness (really sin is nothing) of not-good, good is shown by not-good, light by not-light, etc. And the opposites are true, God by His being shows instantly what is not Him (you'd not know sin is utterly sinful if not for the Law).

If you actually believed it isn't God then you would have just said a simple "no." Instead you equivocate by saying it "isn't fully God." I've already heard everything I need to hear from you. I no longer wish to speak to you. Thank you for the conversation.


Then you're defining panentheism more narrowly than how it's actually defined, restricting the word to describe your personal belief and disregarding the wider definition in use by other panentheists which includes belief in the substantive divinity of the material universe (yet also transcendent), while claiming that I don't understand how the word is distinguished from pantheism, which is tiresome. There are better words to describe a view of God as being immanent and transcendent but not substantive of the material universe than panentheism, if that is your actual position.

That makes up the colossal but seemingly unimportant divide between the two ways. Christianity teaches the reason we do things is, really, void. The purpose of life is void. Only God was and is, we are the paradox.

and God created that root.

I never said that its part of God. I take the view that sin is a deprivation of the good. But its not apart or independent of God either.

That’s what I’m saying. If you do not have light you see darkness. What is darkness? Nothing - it does not exist.

if I just said "no" without any qualification you would've twisted it to contradict what I said earlier. You don't want honest discussion or honesty, you want rhetoric.

darkness is not nothing. darkness is blackness. you can see blackness, you can't see 'nothingness'.

Did he? Did he create “nothing”? How can that be created. Because the choice of good and bad presupposes the “existence” of “no”-“thing”

You cannot in fact
Your eyes can. If you cut that connection to the brain, you will see literally nothing, not even blackness technically

Free-will is the root of sin. God created the root. Man grew it and watered it into sin. Free-will is not nothing, free-will is a power of decision making, it requires a mind and moral compass of some sort.

eyes don't see anything, the person/subject sees.
eyes are just mediums that transport data to the being. they don't know or perceive anything themselves.

Unnecessary post

We are talking about what the choice to sin is. The knowledge of good and evil does not produce evil, nor good. Logical fallacy.

From now looking up definitions of it, on the Stanford site, and an overview of how it is used in the Eastern Orthodox tradition (though I am not a part of it, I love how they define God most of the time), that is not so, and maybe this will help what I'm trying to explain:

This is how I'm using it, and it's not uncommon, neither my own beliefs taking a word and using it.

Does the eastern tradition teach god created nothingness?

Oh right it says creation was created ex nihilism iirc sorry I’m a new christian

Ex nihilo*

My hand hurts from typing

free-will is the root of sin. God created free-will
People can't create sins ex nihilo or via magic. They can only do what God allows them to do and what God has given them the power and understanding to do.

Choice requires intention and some understanding of what is being chosen and its ramifications. A person devoid of all understanding like a full-retard or a baby doesn't sin.
So free-will has to be supported by other conditions to even function.

Sin isn't a creation. Sin isn't even a thing. That is dualism heresy. Sin means to miss the mark. Sin is the act of embracing nothing over something for there is only one mark that is divine perfection and nothing exists outside of perfection.

For an arrow to miss the mark it must actually miss the mark and hit something else. Sin does exist, even if it's a deprivation of the good. Just like darkness and silence are existent things even if they depend on deprivations of other things.

Is that the boss fight from Kirby?

You argue from bad faith.

This poster is right

Wrong. God created the tree of >knowledge< Of good and evil and Adam ate from it. Nothing more is said in the Bible. He didn’t create the choice just as he didn’t create “existing” those are logical constructs used by the mind. Mind is limited, God is not.

Bad faith would be believing that a statue of Moloch is God (but not *fully* God teehee).

My faith is fine thanks, and I love truth and honesty, which is why I don't worship Moloch, you liar, false accuser, and idolater.

The term "panentheism" was developed in Hegelian philosophy in response to Spinoza's metaphysics. The concept has been applied to all sorts of ancient Greek philosophies, Hinduism, Buddhism, and New Age stuff. The word didn't originate in Christian discourse, nor is it only used in Christian discourse. I'm actually surprised to learn that it is used at all in Christian discourse considering its origin. Thanks for clarifying your definition. If you want to use it that way that's fine.

St Thomas already explained that it makes no difference whether you say God created everything ex nihilo or via emanation out of himself, they two are functionally equivalent, I don't have the quote handy though or his argument. But I get the intuition behind it.
"Nothing" isn't actually something, it's not a real source, the actual source is always God himself, since before creation the only thing that existed was God.