Abstract
"Jewish Nothing-elsism" is the school of thought according to which there is nothing else besides God. This school is sometimes and erroneously interpreted as pantheistic or acosmic. In this paper I argue that Jewish Nothing-elsism is better interpreted as a form of "panentheistic priority holism", and still better interpreted as a form of "idealistic priority monism". On this final interpretation, Jewish Nothing-elsism is neither pantheist, panentheist, nor acosmic. Jewish Nothing-elsism is Hassidic idealism, and nothing else. Moreover, I argue that Jewish Nothing-elsism follows from some very basic assumptions common to almost every theist. All theists should be Nothing-elsers.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 91-110 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | European Journal for Philosophy of Religion |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:37 A draft of this paper was presented at a workshop at the Univ. of Birmingham, hosted by the Royal Institute of Philosophy (Birmingham Branch), and the John Templeton Foundation-funded ‘Pantheism and Panentheism Project’, at the Univ. of Birmingham. My thanks to the organisers of that workshop, Nick Jones and Yujin Nagasawa. Thanks also to all those who attended, for a very fruitful discussion. It directly impacted the evolution of this paper. As ever, my thanks to Tyron Goldschmidt — the co-author of the manuscript upon which the third part of this paper stands. He was also characteristically generous with his time in looking over an earlier draft of this paper with a keen and critical eye. This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. The opinions
Publisher Copyright:
© European Journal for Philosophy of Religion.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Religious studies
- Philosophy