Pantheism is the false belief that everything is God, or more precisely, that God is incarnate in everything.
As an error, it is an absurdity. It arises in the East in the Indus Valley in the ages before Christ and it is the core principle of Hinduism.
But it is also the consequential philosophical position of German nominalism.
Nominalism is an error introduced into Europe in the high middle ages by the Arabic philosopher Averroes. It spread rapidly at the University of Paris and thence to all of Europe, especially to the faculty of Tubingen. It was popular among secular logicians who, following Peter Abelard, thought they could carve out a place in Catholic society where they were not obliged by the faith to live moral lives.
Nominalism was condemned by both Saint Thomas of Aquinas, whose feast is celebrated today, at Aquinas and Priverno, Italy, and by Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio.
Nominalism ends up in pantheism, because nominalists deny that any particular word names anything particular or idea in a definitive way. For the nominalist, another word can just as easily name what is named. (more...)
The problems are coming from Germany, so it is easy for German speakers to be unable to see them, because if they saw them, they would have stopped them in the German Speaking world. But as it is they are overflowing from German to the rest of the Church. I think part of this problem is that German is not a Latin tongue and so it's pick and chose how you like to translate words from Latin into German and they do not realize that you cannot play German word games with Latin words. That is what distinguishes the Roman Civilization from the German barbarism.
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