Welcome to a question-answering node of the Pandeism index!!
Brent Price, D. Min. (which I presume refers to a
Doctorate in
Ministry, and not a
Democrat from
Minnesota), has written a book. Specifically:
What to Say Evangelism: The Personal Evangelism Game Changer. Firstly,
kudos to you. Brent, for being the one to finally figure out "what to say" when doing
Evanglism, and so, being the "
Game Changer".... Congratulations, somebody finally did it!!
But more to the point, he addressed
Pandeism, and finds it.... (
slowly putting on sunglasses while "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who blasts in the background).... "very
contemporary."
But to give the whole of the quote, it is:
A very contemporary deceptive religious concept that targets uninformed and unsaved people is a type of religious belief called Pandeism. This word is a combination of Pantheism and Deism. Pantheism promotes that God is in everything. Deism means that God is somehow no longer involved with His creation. This false religious view is why many have come to believe that God, the Creator of the universe, no longer exists, because He became the universe and is now the universe. Many unsaved people believe that the universe makes decisions about people.
Okay, so how to break this down.... it's going to have to be line-by-line, and in some places practically word-by-word. We already covered the "very contemporary" part, which again is super-cool for a theological
theory coined 235 years ago and sporadically written about in clustered periods since (the 1830s, the 1890s-1910s,
the 60s and
the 70s, leading to increasingly popular and consistent usage
from the mid-1990s on.
But the next word is "deceptive" -- I suppose if you're the sort of person who thinks you know the answer, whatever deviates therefrom you will mark as a
deception, especially if part of your process of
thinking you know is
thinking you know the world to be twisted towards deceiving you.
"Religious concept" -- yes, this is indeed what
class of thing Pandeism is, alright.
But "targets uninformed and unsaved people." Hm, this not so much. Pandeism in fact doesn't really "target" anybody, since Pandeists are typically (with a
very few exceptions) not an
evangelical lot at all. Anti-evangelizing, even. Preferring to let the world turn upon its own motion without engaging the futility of seeking to sway people towards belief in a
Creator which explicitly doesn't seek such
busywork as human
worship of it. Indeed, the most popular going theory of Pandeism is that the Creator became the Creation to some extent to experience all the diversity within it, so that it benefits this end for people to have many religions contesting their correctness, which is just what we have. But though most Pandeists find it unnecessary to 'spread the word,' obviously there is that exceptional one or two whose mission is to let the people know that this theology, at least, exists.
So back to Price's paragraph: "This word is a combination of Pantheism and Deism." Correct!!
"Pantheism promotes that God is in
everything." Eh, I mean,
close enough. Really this would better describe
Panpsychism. Naturally, there are different schools of thought within Pantheism, but the general thrust is that the Universe
is God.
"Deism means that God is somehow no longer involved with His creation." Hmmmm. No, not really, Deism is historically primarily about how our Creator can be discerned to exist through
reason alone, requiring no
Scripture or
Revelation, though there are Deists who nonetheless believe that such entity is active through subtle
Providence.
"This false religious view" -- same as calling it "deceptive" above.
"is why many have come to believe" -- sounds nice. In
truth there are a great many more Pandeists (or Pantheists, or other sorts of Deists) out there in terms of fundamental belief than there are people who know that these are the terms describing such beliefs. So much so that Deist author Chuck Clendenen wrote a book titled
Deist: So That's What I Am! for the unknowing to discover this connection.
"that God," -- in any event, many eschew the baggage bogging down the G-word....
"the Creator of the universe," -- now that's more like it, but capitalize
Universe please; it's earned it.
"no longer exists, because He became the universe and is now the universe." Well if it
became the Universe then it still
exists because
the Universe exists. It simply no longer exists in the way which would best serve the narrow and demanding purposes of the human
ego.
"Many unsaved people believe" -- well this is true insofar as
Universalism, which deems everybody equally 'saved' could readily be interpreted as meaning nobody is 'saved' in the relative sense of their being 'saved' distinct from 'unsaved'; simply put, if there's no separate self-serving category for the 'saved' then
everybody is 'unsaved,' and so anything many people believe is something many unsaved people believe, as is whatever its
contrapositive is.
"that the universe makes decisions about people." Actually not exactly sure how this relates to Pandeism. It's more like the Universe provides
options and
people make
decisions about people, by which options they choose to pursue, whether for example they feed their hopes or fears.
But that bring us to the end of our paragraph of
analysis, so
bye.