Thic Nhat Hahn’s View of God - Panentheism?

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A Buddhist friend of mine shared this quote with me the other day. I’m no philosopher but am interested in whether or not this is panentheism, and therefore if people like Richard Rohr or Ilia Delio would agree with this. And, more importantly, how does this agree with/deviate from church teaching.

I’d be grateful for any help
“TO CREATE”
“To create seems to mean that from nothing you suddenly have something. I prefer the use of the expression “manifestation” to the word “creation.” Look deeply, and you can understand creation in terms of manifestation. Just as we can understand a cloud as a manifestation of something that has always been there, and rain as the end of the cloud manifestation, we can understand human beings, and even everything around us, as a manifestation that has come from somewhere and will go nowhere. Manifestation is not the opposite of destruction. It simply changes form. Understanding our lives and the cosmos as a manifestation can bring us tremendous peace. If you are grieving over the loss of a loved one, this is an invitation to look deeply and to heal your pain. There are theologians who have said that God is the ground of being, but what being? It is not the being that is opposed to non-being. If it is the notion of being as opposed to non-being, then that is not God. God transcends all notions, including the notions of creation and destruction. If you look deeply at the notion of creation with the insight of manifestation in mind, you will discover the depth of the teaching on creation. You will discover that nothing is born and nothing dies. There is only manifestation."

~ Thich Nhat Hanh
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It doesn’t seem like pantheism to me. In fact, it seems consistent with the way the Bible describes creation.

We are taught by Moses,
And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he them; male and female created he them. – Genesis 1:27
In describing the creation of man in God’s own image, the verse explicitly says, “male and female.” So the act of creation performed by man mirrors the act of creation performed by God, with three causes, not one, as described here:
And the earth was formless and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. – Genesis 1:2-3
So just like in the act of creation performed by man, there is the egg (the waters, the void), the sperm (the Spirit), and the act of fertilization (the Spirit fecundating the waters, and calling forth the light).

As Moses describes, the Earth and the Spirit are both there, present, in the beginning, but the Earth is in a formless state. It is nothingness, emptiness, void. It is the act of fecundation by the Spirit that causes this nothingness to manifest into what we would consider form.

This also mirrors the human act of creation. The sperm and the egg contain all of the forms of the future human being, but in a potential , unmanifested state, which we refer to as DNA. These archetypes appear to be “nothing,” but they manifest and become forms (a person) through the act of fertilization. But they were there, present, in a formless state, in the beginning.

Moses does not say the earth wasn’t there; he says it was formless and void. That is, the earth appeared to be “nothing” (or at least, what we would perceive or understand to be nothing), but in reality it was merely formless, unmanifested archetypes brought into a state of manifestation by an act of the Spirit.
 
A Buddhist friend of mine shared this quote with me the other day. I’m no philosopher but am interested in whether or not this is panentheism, …
You will discover that nothing is born and nothing dies. There is only manifestation."
Buddhism has no place for the Creator. Buddha thought that gods were like men, subject to decay and rebirth.

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Panentheism
The theory that the world is part of God, though not the whole of his being. It differs from pantheism, which identifies the world as God, by saying that a part of God is the universe and a part is simply God.
 
Yes, even I was confused as to why a Buddhist would use the word God, especially as a proper noun.

I sometimes feel that he uses teaching like this to ‘muddy the waters’ in an attempt to recruit unsuspecting Christians to his worldview.
 
I’m sorry — I’m sitting here chuckling right now.

It’s spelled “Thich Nhat Hanh”, pronounced “tick-naught-haan”.

He is definitely not “thic” (or, as some spell it, “thicc”), and he is not related to Scott Hahn. Not so far as I’m aware, anyway. Interesting thought. 😄
 
A couple of thoughts:
It is not the being that is opposed to non-being. If it is the notion of being as opposed to non-being, then that is not God.
He’s bringing in a distinct notion here, which has traction in Buddhist thought, but not in Judeo-Christian thought: “non-being”. To a casual reader outside the Buddhist tradition, these are words to just gloss over: “oh, yeah… being / non-being. Right. Whatever.” However, the notion of “non-being” is critical to Buddhist thought, and deserves careful consideration.
You will discover that nothing is born and nothing dies. There is only manifestation
This deviates greatly from Judeo-Christian thought. He’s asserting that there’s no creation ex nihilo, but rather, only “manifestation of something that has always been there.”

To your other question: no, this doesn’t appear to be panentheism.
 
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