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The Oversoul (Pantheism Renamed)

I. The Oversoul is a new name for an old idea: pantheism.

1. "The idea of the Oversoul is that every individual is eternally connected with every living thing in the universe. A person must recognize views of all parts of the world and transcend themselves to understand and accept these foreign views. Alone, a man can not go far, however, with a group he may go great distances to achieve a specific goal. It is only with unity, that the human race will ever accompish [sic] something. Recognizing that a person's individual feelings will never make a difference in the world, is part of understanding why that person must join a group with similar feelings to create a change. Collaboration with other people will allow their voice to be heard. Each separate person is not completely separate, because they are part of the oversoul. Even though separate physically, internally there is a stronger bond which is that of the oversoul. This bond is what brings the people and the nature of the universe together as one. Each person is still self-reliant, however, to be self-reliant, one must discover universal truth. This perpetual unity of all people, is what the oversoul brings to all things in this world." (The Oversoul)

2. "We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul." (Over-soul, from Essays: First Series, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841)

II. Pantheism - 1. The religious belief or philosophical theory that God and the universe are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God); the doctrine that God is everything and everything is God.

III. God created the universe and all things therein, and therefore cannot be the universe and all things therein.

1. God fills heaven and earth, but He is not heaven and earth.

A. Jer 23:24 - ...Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

2. The earth is God's footstool, not God Himself.

A. Mat 5:35 - ...the earth...is his footstool...

IV. Inanimate objects or animals are not God.

1. Rom 1:22 - Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

2. Rom 1:23 - And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

3. Rom 1:25 - 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.

V. God dwells in the elect through the Holy Spirit.

1. Rom 8:9 - But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

2. Rom 8:10 - And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

3. Rom 8:11 - But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

VI. God is not in all people, nor in the physical creation.

1. God is "in you all," which are the elect.

A. Eph 4:6 - One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

B. Eph 1:4 - According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

2. God is not "in all" and "in everything" as the Oversoul, Pantheism, and false perversions of the Bible teach.

A. "one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Eph 4:6, New International Version)

B. "one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Eph 4:6, English Standard Version)

C. "one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." (Eph 4:6, New American Standard Bible)

D. "one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all." (Eph 4:6, New Living Translation)

E. "You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness." (Eph 4:4-6, The Message)

F. "There is one God and Father of everything. He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything." (Eph 4:6, New Century Version)