Deploying panpsychism for the demarcation of panentheism

Abstract

Joanna Leidenhag addresses the problem that if panentheism cannot be clearly defined and demarcated from neighbouring theological positions, then it is in danger of becoming a vacuous term, devoid of any purpose or promise within theological discourse. Leidenhag helps panentheists avoid this dismal fate in two ways. First, she provides a model of the kind of definition and demarcation necessary, by outlining the family of positions known as panpsychism in philosophy of mind. Second, she tests the correspondence of specific versions of panpsychism to panentheism’s two central claims; that the world is the body of God, and that the world is in God. She concludes that a cosmopsychism that posits a non-constitutive relation between the one cosmic subject and the many individual subjects, may be a useful, even necessary, ontology for panentheists to adopt if they are to deliver on the promise of a middle path between classical theism and pantheism.