Pantheism: Greek for "everything is God," the belief that God and the universe are essentially identical. More specifically, pantheism is the designation for the understanding of the close connection between the world and the divine reality found in certain religions, including Hinduism. One variety of pantheism speaks of God as the "soul" of the universe, which is thought to be God's "body." Pantheistic religions often suggest that our experience of being disconnected from each other and from the divine is merely an illusion.1
1. Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki & Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p. 88.
