THE BIBLE'S Description of God differs greatly from the pantheistic view. Among the differences are at the very least: the God of the Bible is a personal God, He is the only God, He is eternal, He created all, and He is not one with His Creation. Consider the following Bible passages:

 

God is an eternal God, who has always existed:

 

 - (Gen 21:33) And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.

 

- (Isa 40:28) Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

 

God has created all and is not one with His Creation:

 

- (Rev 4:11) You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created.

 

- (Rev 10:5-6) And the angel which I saw stand on the sea and on the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,

6 And swore by him that lives for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

 

- (Mark 13:19 ) For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created to this time, neither shall be.

 

- (Acts 17:16 ,22-27,29-30) Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

22 Then Paul stood in the middle of Mars’ hill, and said, You men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.

23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I to you.

24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands;

25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things;

26 And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

29 For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like to gold, or silver, or stone, graven by are and man’s device.

30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent:

 

There is only one God:

 

 - (1 Tim 1:17) Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

 

- (Isa 45:21) Tell you, and bring them near; yes, let them take counsel together: who has declared this from ancient time? who has told it from that time?  have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.

 

- (Isa 46:9) Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

 

Other verses concerning the same issue:

 

 - (Ex 20:2-3) I am the LORD your God, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3  You shall have no other gods before me.

 

- (Isa 14:13-14) For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also on the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

 

- (Eze 28:2) Son of man, say to the prince of Tyrus, Thus said the Lord GOD; Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the middle of the seas; yet you are a man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God

 

- (Rom 1:22-23,25) Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things.

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

 

- (Acts 12:21-24) And on a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne, and made an oration to them.

22 And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.

23 And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.

24 But the word of God grew and multiplied.

 

Trivial worship of false image of gods and false gods

 

- (Ps 115:3-8) But our God is in the heavens: he has done whatever he has pleased.

4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

5 They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:

6 They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:

7 They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.

8 They that make them are like to them; so is every one that trusts in them.

- (Isaiah 44:9-20) They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.

10 Who has formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing?

11 Behold, all his fellows shall be ashamed: and the workmen, they are of men: let them all be gathered together, let them stand up; yet they shall fear, and they shall be ashamed together.

12 The smith with the tongs both works in the coals, and fashions it with hammers, and works it with the strength of his arms: yes, he is hungry, and his strength fails: he drinks no water, and is faint.

13 The carpenter stretches out his rule; he marks it out with a line; he fits it with planes, and he marks it out with the compass, and makes it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house.

14 He hews him down cedars, and takes the cypress and the oak, which he strengthens for himself among the trees of the forest: he plants an ash, and the rain does nourish it.

15 Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yes, he kindles it, and bakes bread; yes, he makes a god, and worships it; he makes it a graven image, and falls down thereto.

16 He burns part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eats flesh; he roasts roast, and is satisfied: yes, he warms himself, and said, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:

17 And the residue thereof he makes a god, even his graven image: he falls down to it, and worships it, and prays to it, and said, Deliver me; for you are my god.

18 They have not known nor understood: for he has shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.

19 And none considers in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yes, also I have baked bread on the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?

20 He feeds on ashes: a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

- (Jer 10:3-5) For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

- (Jer 10:8-15) But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.

9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men.

10 But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.

11 Thus shall you say to them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.

12 He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens by his discretion.

13 When he utters his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightning with rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasures.

14 Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

15 They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

- (Gal 5:19-21) Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, jealousies, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

21 Contentions, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

- (Rev 21:8) But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

- (Rev 22:14,15) Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoever loves and makes a lie.

The Idea of One God. We should understand that the idea of pantheism and the idea that there are many gods are not part of the original legacy of the human race. Instead, these are distortions that have been caused by the fact that people stopped worshipping the one God and abandoned their original legacy.             

   By comparison, the worship of the one almighty God is a much older idea; it is our legacy, left to us by our earliest forefathers. This is not a Western idea; it is a concept that originates from the earliest history of the human race. In the book of Genesis we find an apt reference to this:

 

- (Gen 4:26) And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call on the name of the LORD.

 

We can find several pieces of evidence of the worship of one God in the history of peoples. One good example is that Wilhelm Schmid (1868–1954) compiled 4,500 pages of evidence on the monotheistic view of God among "primitive" tribes. At least 1,000 similar examples have been found after Schmid published his books.

   This means that many primitive tribes have retained original information about the Sky God and the highest, true God as part of their tradition.  In many cases, the more primitive the culture, the better this information has been retained. This is not a rare phenomenon: almost all peoples have had an idea of a single God but have rejected His worship and started to worship other gods instead. The general direction has been from one God to several gods.

 

There is another fact – a more powerful one and in our opinion also a more conclusive one – that proves that the current fetishism and polytheism are deteriorations of a more pure form of religion. Any form of fetishism or polytheism is based on monotheism. This is why monotheism (belief in one God) was not achieved by the human race after centuries of development. Instead, monotheism used to be the religion of all peoples. This is not a guess: it is a fact and the scientific truth. There is plenty of evidence in global history of the original religion becoming corrupted. It can be seen even in the major religions of the world that their original purity has been destroyed.

   (...) The works of learned people and serious researchers include even more pieces of evidence proving that the ancient religions of Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, Babylon, India, Persia and China, as well as the current oriental philosophies, all started out as a monotheistic religion but degraded to polytheism and in some cases fetishism. We have plenty of evidence about this by professional scientists, people who have studied ancient documents such as the cuneiforms of the Sumerian, Agade and other peoples, and the hieroglyphs of Egypt. (7) 

 

Furthermore, many peoples living in the east who currently worship many gods -- such as the people of India, Thailand and Burma (in Burma the Karen, Kachin, Lahut, the Wa tribe and the tribe Kayan) -- have retained traditional stories about a single God, the Fall, the Flood and the mixing of languages. All these are contained in the Holy Bible. Similarly, in China the worship of Sang Thi, who is the Lord of the Heaven, was common for hundreds of years before the practice of Confucianism, Taoism or Buddhism. Sang Thi was the primary belief system:

 

The Chinese call Him Sang Thi – the Lord of Heaven.

   Some researchers believe that Sang Thi may be linguistically related to the Hebrew word Shaddai – El Shaddai, the Almighty.

   In Korea He is known as Hanamin – the Great.

   The belief in Sang Thi/Hanamin existed for who knows how many centuries before the birth of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. In fact, in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics we learn that the first mention of religion in Chinese history states that Sang Thi is the sole object of religious activity. This reference has been dated to around 2,600 B.C. – almost 3,000 years prior to the rise of Confucianism or any other form of organised religion in China. (8)

 

Let's study a quote about beliefs in India. A significant thing in this quote is that it shows that the people of India also used to believe in a single God but slowly abandoned Him. They gradually drifted from monotheism to polytheism:

 

But old Veda books and Veda songs give us the decisive evidence. It is true that already in the earliest period of Veda there are references to many gods, such as the god of rain Indra, the god of wind Vayu, the god of storm Marut, the god of sun Surya, the goddess of dawn Ushas and the god of fire Agni. But these were regarded as different appearances of the one and only highest being.

  Professor Max Muller describes phenomena of this early Veda religion with the following words: "The polytheism of Veda is preceded by monotheism; and even while praying to these countless gods, in the mist of godless statements there looms a memory of one, great, infinite God, like the blue sky behind wisps of cloud." During the early times of the Veda religion, Hinduism was religiously and morally uncorrupted. There was no system of caste or any ideas concerning reincarnation, image worshipping, legal child murders, burning of widows, devil worshipping, or any absurd philosophic meditation. Instead, there are several sublime points in the early Veda-songs; from many of them echoes a well-known tradition of creation, the Fall of Man and the Flood, which belong to the very first concepts of the mankind.

   (...) This is what the Indo-Aryan original monotheistic belief was like. Polytheism and fetishism were not known at the time. If we were to study the road down from this original belief of God – like we can study the road that took centuries in India – we would have a book of several hundred pages on our hands. Many people in India now worship spirits and objects, even the Aryan Hindu. This is a result of the same kind of development that occurred in Egypt, among the Semitic tribes and other peoples: not upwards but downwards. (9)

 

 

 

REFERENCES:

 

1. Rabindranath R. Maharaj, Gurun kuolema (Death of a Guru), p. 21

2. Same, p. 59        

3. Same, p. 81

4. Vivekananda in Swami Nikhilanda, (translation program), Viveekananda the yogas and other works (New York: Ramabrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1953) published., p. 530

5. Same

6. Rajneesh, The Book of Secrets, part 1, p. 399. Rajneesh explains spiritual wisdom to Arjuna, warrior of Bhagavad Gita.

7. Arno C. Gaebelein: Kristillisyys vaiko uskonto?, p. 19,22

8. Don Richardson: Iankaikkisuus heidän sydämissään (Eternity in their Hearts), p. 78

9. Arno C. Gaebelein, Kristillisyys vaiko uskonto?, p. 26,27 / quote from History of Sanskrit Literature by Max Muller, p. 559