Storia del panteismo* da Paul Harrison.

 Edizione del 16 dicembre 1996.

 Sei un Panteista? Scoprilo al sito Panteismo Scientifico.

La natura non è altro che Dio 
che si manifesta in tutte le cose. 
Immagina così il sole presente nel croco, nel narciso, 
nel girasole, nel gallo, nel leone.

Corteccia di pino di Scozia, Caingorms, photo © Paul Harrison.

Filosofia di Bruno

Giordano Bruno fu uno dei primi scrittori a far rivivere le idee del materialismo antico. Dal grande poeta Romano Lucrezio, Bruno, prese due delle sue idee principali: un infinito universo con infiniti mondi; la materia è costituita da atomi discreti che combinandosi in differenti modi formano la realtà così come ci appare. Copernico fu di cruciale importanza. Da lui Bruno ebbe la prova che la terra non è al centro dell’universo.

Ma bruno andò molto più in là di quanto si erano avventurati i suoi maestri. Copernico immaginava ancora il sole al centro dell’universo avendo quindi una visione molto simile a quella Tolemaica. I pianeti ruotavano in orbite circolari in sfere concentriche attorno al sole, mentre le stelle stavano immobili su un’altra sfera. Bruno fu uno fra i primi moderni ad asserire che ci dovevano essere infiniti mondi, la maggior parte di questi abitati come il nostro pianeta e che un universo infinito non poteva avere un centro. Egli anche anticipò la teoria della relatività : asserì infatti che in un infinito universo non ci potevano essere luoghi privilegiati e che direzione, moto e peso erano relativi all’osservatore.

Lucrezio immaginava un universo di atomi in moto continuo attraverso il Vuoto. Bruno accettò il fatto di un eterno moto e cambiamento, ma oltre a questi egli immaginò un’unità più coesiva nella quale la materia eterna e lo spirito eterno erano ambedue espressioni di una sostanza sottostante e pervasiva di origine divina.

Per Bruno l’universo era Dio e Dio era l’universo. La Divinità rivelava se stessa attraverso la realtà e tutta la realtà era pervasa dalla Divinità: “Tutto è in tutte le cose” Peraltro ogni singolo aspetto del reale possiede qualcosa del tutto all’interno di sè, il tutto è compenetrato da un tutto che ne comprende altri: “Ogni cosa è contenuta all’interno di ogni altra”. Da questo punto di vista Bruno è stato un precursore di Leibniz(che può aver conosciuto le sue opere) e anche della interpretazione della meccanica quantistica da parte degli adepti della New Age.

Bruno fu un panpsichico piuttosto che non un Panteista materialista. Egli riconosceva materia e spirito (o sostanze corporee e incorporee)come sostanze separate, sebbene ambedue fossero aspetti diversi di una sola sostanza. Il tutto era pervaso dallo spirito. Lo spirito di Dio animava e si infondeva in ogni cosa e armonizzava il tutto in una singola unità.

L’influenza di Bruno sui Panteisti delle epoche successive è stata immensa. Non ci sono documenti che dimostrino che Spinoza era a conoscenza dei lavori di Bruno; in effetti il Panteismo di Spinoza era completamente differente e molto più astratto. Ma John Toland l’inventore del termine Panteismo conobbe le opere di Bruno, fu profondamente attratto da esse, e ne diffuse il contenuto in tutti i luoghi ove viaggiò. Bruno fu anche ben conosciuto da Coleridge, da Goethe (egli lo rappresenta in Faust) e al grande Panteista tedesco, Schelling.

Sources of translations: 
Dorothea Waley Singer, Giordano Bruno, Henry Schuman, New York 1950. 
Ramon Mendoza, The Acentric Labyrinth, Element Books, Shaftesbury, 1995. 
Giordano Bruno, Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, trs Arthur Imerti, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1964, 

Brani scelti

[Scusate, amici italiani! Cerchiamo i luoghi originali di questi brani. Fra poco li metteremo qui. Frattanto, ecco le traduzioni inglesi!]

L’Unità Definitiva: l’universo è uno, eterno, incorruttibile.

The one infinite is perfect, in simplicity, of itself, absolutely, nor can aught be greater or better, This is the one Whole, God, universal Nature, occupying all space, of whom naught but infinity can give the perfect image or semblance. [De Immenso ii. 12, Singer p61].

The Universe is one, infinite, immobile. The absolute potential is one, the act is one, the form or soul is one, the material or body is one, the thing is one, the being in one, one is the maximum and the best . . It is not generated, because there is no other being it could desire or hope for. since it comprises all being. It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things. It cannot diminish or grow, since it is infinite. [De la Causa, Principio e Uno, v, trs Harrison]

Dio è in tutte le cose.

There is one simple Divinity found in all things, once fecund nature, preserving mother of the universe in so far as she diversely communicates herself, casts her light into diverse subjects, and assumes various names. [Expulsion p 238]

Divinity reveals herself in all things . . everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings, and from the smallest beings, according to their capacity. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being. [Expulsion p 242]

For nature is not merely present, but is implanted within things, distant from none . And while the outer face of things changeth so greatly, there flourisheth the origin of being more intimately within all things that they themselves. The fount of all kinds, Mind, God, Being, One, Truth, Destiny, Reason, Order. [De Immenso viii. 10, c. Singer p 90]

La Natura è Dio nelle cose.

Animals and plants are living effects of Nature; this Nature . . is none other than God in things . . Whence all of God is in all things . . Think thus, of the sun in the crocus, in the narcissus, in the heliotrope, in the rooster, in the lion. . To the extent that one communicates with Nature, so one ascends to Divinity through Nature. [Expulsion pp 235-6]

Those wise men knew God to be in things, and Divinity to be latent in Nature, working and glowing differently in different subjects and succeeding through diverse physical forms, in certain arrangements, in making them participants in her, I say, in her being, in her life and intellect. [Expulsion p 237]

La Diversità è semplicemente un aspetto dell’Unità permeante

This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colours and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance – a changeable, mobile, face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being. [De la Causa. v, trs Harrison]

Everything that makes diversity of kinds, of species. differences, properties, everything that consists in generation, decay, alteration and change, is not an entity, but condition and circumstances of entity and being, which is one, infinite, immobile, subject, matter, life, soul, truth and good. [De la Causa, v trs Harrison]

Interpenetrazione: tutte le cose sono in tutto

Ultimately it is divinely true that contraries are within contraries, wherefore it is not difficult to understand that each thing is within every other. [De Infinito Universo e Mondi, v, Singer p 84]

All things are in all. [De Immenso, v. 9, Singer p 85]

All things are in the universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us: and in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity. (Cause v 218)

It is manifest . . that every soul and spirit hath a certain continuity with the spirit of the universe, so that it must be understood to exist and to be included not only there where it liveth and feeleth, but it is also by its essence and substance diffused throughout immensity. . The power of each soul is itself somehow present afar in the universe . Naught is mixed, yet is there some presence.

Anything we take in the universe, because it has in itself that which is All in All, includes in its own way the entire soul of the world, which is entirely in any part of it. [De la Causa, v trs Harrison]

Dio è lo Spirito o intelletto del mondo che tutto armonizza.

Thus the single spirit doth simultaneously temper the whole together; this is the single soul of all things; all are filled with God. [De Immenso iv. 9, Singer p90]

If he is not Nature herself, he is certainly the nature of Nature, and is the soul of the Soul of the world, if he is not the soul herself. [Expulsion p 240]

The universal Intellect is the intimate, most real, peculiar and powerful part of the soul of the world. This is the single whole which filleth the whole, illumineth the universe and directeth nature to the production of natural things, as our intellect with the congruous production of natural kinds. [De la Causa, Principio e Uno, ii, Singer p 89]

Bruno era un panenteista?

Before anything else the One must exist eternally; from his power derives everything that always is or will ever be. He is the Eternal and embraces all times. He knows profoundly all events and He himself is everything. He creates everything beyond any beginning of time and beyond any limit of place and space. He is not subject to any numerical law, or to any law of measure or order. He himself is law, number, measure, limit without limit, end without end, act without form. 
[De Immenso viii. 2, cited in Mendoza p 148]

Mondi infiniti e relatività.

It is then unnecessary to investigate whether there be beyond the heaven Space, Void or Time. For there is a single general space, a single vast immensity which we may freely call Void; in it are innumerable globes like this one on which we live and grow. This space we declare to be infinite, since neither reason, convenience, possibility, sense-perception nor nature assign to it a limit. In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as out own. [De Infinito Universo e Mondi, v, Singer p 59]

To a body of infinite size there can be ascribed neither centre nor boundary . . Thus the Earth no more than any other world is at the centre. [De Infinito Universo e Mondi, ii 40-41 Singer p 58. ]

Esiste una sostanza materiale che sottende a ogni cambiamento delle forme individuali .

Of the eternal corporeal substance (which is not producible ex nihilo, nor reducible ad nihilum, but rarefiable, condensable, formable, arrangeable, and “fashionable”) the composition is dissolved, the complexion is changed, the figure is modified, the being is altered, the fortune is varied, only the elements remaining what they are in substance, that same principle persevering which was always the one material principle, which is the true substance of things. eternal, ingenerable and incorruptible. [Expulsion p 75. ]

Movimento eterno e cambiamento

Thus is the infinity of All every bringing forth anew, and even as infinite space is around us, so is infinite potentiality, capacity, reception, malleability, matter. Immenso i. 1 (Singer 75)

We find that everything that makes up difference and number is pure accident, pure show, pure constitution. Every production, of whatever kind, is an alteration, but the substance remains always the same, because it is only one, one divine immortal being. (Cause v (218)

La morte è semplicemente un cambiamento nell’aspetto esteriore.

When we consider the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death. for nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things, wandering through infinite space, undergo change of aspect. [De Infinito, Introductory Epistle, Singer p 72]

Of the eternal incorporeal substance nothing is changed, is formed or deformed, but there always remains only that thing which cannot be a subject of dissolution, since it is not possible that it be a subject of composition, and therefore, either of itself or by accident, it cannot be said to die. [Expulsion p 76]

Scientific Pantheism: index.

Traduzione Italiana di: Claudio Scaroni. 
Queste pagine con immagini sono state consultate  volte dal 13 Febbraio 1998.

Copyright © Paul Harrison 1998. 
Ultimo aggiornamento: 13 Febbraio 1998. 1A