Immortal Beloved, Bernard Rose’s 1994 film on the secret romantic life of Ludwig van Beethoven, possesses what is arguably one of the most creative depictions of the religious experience in cinema. It is expressed through a flashback, a train of memories flowing through the mind of the great German musician as he conducts his illustrious ninth symphony. Fused with what is perhaps the most magnificent piece in the history of composition, the images proceed as follows:

Young Ludwig, in flight from his abusive father, climbs out of his bedroom window and flees his home. The symphony builds as he races through a thick forest. As the score reaches a lull -the quiet before the storm- Ludwig arrives at a sizable pond and carefully immerses himself in the water. Innumerable stars from the night sky reflect calmly off the rest of the pond’s surface, and we, watching from above, are left with the impression that Ludwig is actually floating upon the heavens. As the music soars to a climax, the camera ascends and pans outward. Growing smaller and smaller against this celestial backdrop, Beethoven is gradually absorbed inside the Milky Way- until he vanishes entirely. A mood of blissful transcendence is suggested, a sense of unity with the cosmos.

How might one describe the meaning of this visual accompaniment to the famous Ode to Joy? We might say that Beethoven, in his moment of inspiration, recalls a time when he felt one with the universe. However, some would also claim: He felt one with God. To accept the second of these explanations is to equate the divine being with the totality of things. In a word: Pantheism (literally, “God is all”). Or perhaps Beethoven can be said to have joined part of God, since the Holy One both subsumes and yet stretches beyond all created existence. This more complex picture is called pan-en-theism (“All is in God”).

The first part of this essay is devoted to surveying a host of traditional and contemporary arguments against identifying the universe with God (or as within God). These range from the postmodern and existentialist polemic against “totalization” to the more classic problem of evil.  I argue that the panentheism espoused by process theology constitutes an effective defense against many of these problems.

Second, I present my own critique. It is this: The doctrines of Pantheism and panentheism are not the only interpretation of the experiences to which they have often appealed. They are not thereby proved wrong, just presumptuous. The two concepts are wholly unneeded for a naturalistic spirituality. And more: We would do better to deepen our living relationship to the environment rather than reifying our experiences of it into a single, if all-encompassing object of worship. I will argue that the latter simply retards rather than promotes the much-needed quest to unify and/or corroborate our aesthetic, scientific, and spiritual visions of the cosmos.