In the field of Theology, (study of the Divine) we must address certain ontological (study of the nature of being) questions, the foremost of which are “What is the nature of the Divine?” followed in close second by “In what way are we aware of the Divine?” – with all other questions depending on our answers to these first two. Answers to these questions and, in fact, the questions themselves are not simply academic. They are important to our very experience of spirituality. Here is the beating heart of religion and spirituality, the pulse of connection between something that surrounds and something that is within.  In this paper, we will examine these two questions and I will propose answers to them; not absolute answers, merely those answers that have worked for me. In this examination, I will quote at length from several classical sources dating to times when the authors lived in a world where Cosmic Religion was the culturally institutionalized spiritual practice. Also, I will refer to philosophers who pursued theological issues during a period when Universal Religion was the culturally institutionalized spirituality. I would like to show that theological discourse was very highly developed during the classical period and that we can easily make use of this high level of early development in dealing with these same issues today.
 “The sun is my father, the earth my mother, the world is my country and all men are my family.” These words by John Tolland describe his view which he called pantheism, and it was he who brought this term into modern religious discussion. Mr. Tolland was a writer in philosophy and religion during the very late 17th century and early 18th century, and he had grasped onto a concept that classical writers, such as Aurelius, had called “World Nature,” which he took as a monistic principle in which the entirety of the world  was sacred. Tolland helped to found at least one pantheistic group and spent the last several years of his life writing liturgies for Pantheists. The importance of the introduction of this term into modern discourse is that it reintroduced a classical theological concept in which the Divine was considered to be immanent within the world, rather than transcendent and outside of the world. In this pantheistic view, the Divine and the world are interlaced into one system, with no separation between them.
 Today, we see that pantheism has gone in two very differing directions, with one being commonly called Scientific Pantheism and espousing that only that which can be measured by science exists. Scientific Pantheism denies the existence of spirit and has become something very rare, a religion without spirituality. It is with the other developmental direction – that of Spiritual Pantheism – with which we are more concerned in this essay. Spiritual Pantheism acknowledges the existence of spirit and believes that spirit pervades the world and that, the world is a single system of existance with a spiritual component; in essence, it is a universal animism.
  “…and for any one of nature’s parts, that which is assigned to it by the World-Nature or helps to keep it in being is good.”  In these words, Marcus Aurelius gives us a glimpse of an ancient concept. In writing to himself, Aurelius counsels “Remembering always what the World-Nature is, and what my own nature is, and how one stands in respect to the other, so small a fraction of so vast a Whole…” to remind himself of the world as a whole and himself as a part. In reading Aurelius, we see a man who had the finest education available in the human world at that time, and he shows himself to be a wise and pious man believing the World to be a system and that the Divine was present throughout the system. A perfect specimen of his time and the beliefs of his culture, he demonstrates an easy monistic spiritual pantheism present in his life as he served Providence and honored the Gods.
 Also, in a 2nd century book on divination through dreams, Artemidoras of Daldus included some discussion of the Gods. Here, I quote the translation by Robert J. White (Park Ridge NJ: Noyes Press 1975).
  Some gods can be apprehended only by the intellect while others can be perceived by the senses. The majority of gods can be grasped by the intellect whereas only a few can be perceived by the senses. The following section will make this clearer.
  We divide the gods into the Olympians, whom we call the aetherial gods, the celestial gods, the terrestrial gods, the sea and river gods, the chthonic gods <and those in their circle>. The aetherial gods are called, reasonably enough, Zues, Hera, Aphrodite Urania, Artemis, Apollo, Aetherial Fire, and Athena. The celestial deities are Helius [the Sun], Selene [the Moon], the stars, the clouds, the winds, the mock suns that come under them, the meteors, the “shooting star” and Iris [the Rainbow]. All of these can be perceived by the senses.
  Among the terrestrial gods, those that can be perceived by the senses are Hecate, Pan, Ephialtes, and Asclepius (who is said to be intelligible at the same time). The intelligible gods are the Dioscuri, Heracles, Dionysus, Hermes, Nemesis, Aphrodite Pandemus, <Hephaestus>, Tyche [chance], Pethio [Persuasion], the Graces, the Hours, the Nymphs, and Hestia.
  The sea gods who are intelligible are Poseidon, Amphitrite, Nereus, the Nereids, Leucothea, and Phorcys. Those that can be perceived by the senses are the Sea itself, the Waves, the Seashores, the Rivers, the Marshes, the Nymphs, and Achleos.
  The chthonic gods are Pluto, Persephone, Demeter, Core, Iacchus, Serapis, Isis, Anubis, Harpocrates, chthonic Hecate, the Furies, the demons who attend them, Fear and Panic, who are called the sons of Ares by some men. One must count Ares himself as much among the terrestrial gods as among the chthonic. The gods in their circle are Ocean, Tethys, Cronus, the Titans, and Universal Nature.
 From reading this section, one gets the impression that Artemidoras and his culture considered every aspect of existence to have some Divine association with everything being assigned to the purview of some god or spirit, and these assignments being made through a Nature of order. Here is a clear look at a time and place when people held a belief that the entire world has interconnected spiritual qualities. This belief would resurface fifteen centuries later as pantheism. We also see that within this holistic  spiritual worldview, there are many deities and spirits which live and work within the system and each with its own, role to play in the syestem of existance.
 While the above has in some way addressed the question of how the Divine is perceived, I would like to examine what allows us to be aware of the Divine. I start with Rudolf Otto (1869-1937), a philosopher, theologian and historian of religions, who taught that we have some type of “faculty of divination” which allowed us to perceive the numinous (from Latin numen meaning divine power). Otto recognized that the numinous could not be demonstrated in rational terms, but he suggested that it could be understood in terms of how it is experienced. “The nature of the numinous can only be suggested by means of the special way in which it is reflected in the mind in terms of feelings.” Aurelius had, in his writing, referred to “the divinity within” as a guide to complying with Providence, while Artemidoras maintained that, while some deities could be perceived by the senses, most could only be understood through the virtue of intellect.
 “If you have ever come on a dense wood of ancient trees that have risen to an exceptional height, shutting out all sight of the sky with one thick screen of branches upon another, the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the spot, your sense of wonderment at finding so deep and unbroken gloom out of doors will persuade you of the presence of a deity. Any cave in which the rocks have been eroded deep into the mountain resting on it, its hollowing out into a cavern of impressive extent not produced by the labors of men but the result of processes of nature will strike into your soul some inkling of the divine.” These words of Seneca as translated by Robin Campbell (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1969) come simply from a letter to a friend, but in it, he speaks of a sense of wonderment.
 Recent studies have shown that specific areas of the brain activate with spiritual and religious experiences. Some areas of the brain seem to disengage or stop working while other areas seem to show increased activity. Dr. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania led and has published a study in which Buddhists in meditation and Nuns in prayer have been tested and have shown similar neurological events in conjunction with religious experience. To quote Dr. Newberg about religious experience “They reflect real, biologically based events in the brain.” Some have argued that this evidence shows that religious experience is created in the brain and so is a set of complicated illusions.  Yet Dr. Newberg points out “The fact that spiritual experiences can be associated with distinct neural activity does not necessarily mean that such experiences are mere neurological illusion.” He goes on to say “It’s no safer to say that spiritual urges and sensations are caused by brain activity than it is to say that the neurological changes through which we experience the pleasure of eating an apple cause the apple to exist.” Dr Newberg also goes on to point out that there is no way to scientifically determine if the brain is causing spiritual experiences or if the brain is responding to a spiritual reality.  Simply put the brain has a documentable neurological response with every experience and religious experiences are no different.
 I would now like to summarize my own views as to the nature of the Divine and how we are able to perceive the Divine. I ascribe to a holistic view of the world in which all things are components of a single interconected system of existance. One aspect of the world is spiritual and so I hold a type of world animistic belief which recognizes spiritual identities in connection with all of existance. Within the world there are divisions and subdivisions giving different levels of organization from the immense whole of all of existance to the tiniest divisions which contain no consciousness as we understand it. Among those different levels of organization are the deities and humankind. The Divine and humanity are conceptual catagories made of of individuals with their own identities each with its own personal intergrity as an individual withinn the system of existance. We are ourselves spiritual as well as physical creatures and so, just as we have senses able to perceive the reality of the physical world, we have a sense that allows us to experience spiritual reality. We are creatures that respond to physical, mental and spiritual realities around us and within us. Just as our bodies are of the same physical material as the planets, stars and subatomic particles, our spirits are of the same stuff as the Gods, the differences being organizationally quantitative and qualitative.

Works Cited

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. Peguin Classics: New York. 1964

Begley, Sharon. “Religion and the Brain”. Newsweek. 7 May 2001.

Cunninghm, Graham. Religion and Magic: Approaches and Theories. NYU Press: New York. 1999.

MacMullen, Ramsay and Lane, Eugene N. eds. Paganism and Christianity 100-425 C. E.: A Source Book. Fortress Press: Minneapolis. 1992. 

Reese, William L. ed., Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion. Promethueus Books: Amherst. 1998.