Heraclitus - an inspiration to Pandeism
Channel: PanDeism
Date: 22/05/2010

Heraclitus of Ephesus, sometimes called the philosopher who weeps, is one of the earliest philosophers of record to provide, through is works, an inspiration toward modern pandeism. The philosophy of Heraclitus, known as it is only by snippets of his writing, quoted by later philosophers, can yet be summed up in two words: "Panta Rei." Everything flows. All things undergo the constant process of change.

He famously explains, quote,

"One does not step into the same river twice. waters disperse and come together again. they keep flowing on and flowing away. In the end, there is only flux. everything gives way."

Unquote. Heraclitus determined that there was but one substance underlying the whole of the Universe, an unconscious creative energy, and this substance was fire.  In equating all things to fire, he continued, quote, 

"There is exchange of all things for fire and of fire for all things, as there is of wares for gold and of gold for wares."

Unquote. Some have likened this equation to Einstein's theory of relativity. It understands the fundamental nature of all matter, as, in truth, merely energy temporarily bound up in an illusion of sustainable physicality.

Heraclitus observed, as well, that man is most creative in dreams, when sleep has detached us from our insistence upon our rational physical reality. Although he personally rejected the notion of a created Universe, believing our Universe to have existed eternally without beginning, he could not have known of the evidence upon which we now rely in understanding that our Universe indeed proceeded from a point of origin.

But Heraclitus is an inspiration to pandeism for his understanding of the  unconscious, underlying unity of substance, one fundamental kind of energy metamorphing into all which appears to us as order arising out of the chaos.